“I seem to remember us having a conversation very similar to this when I separated from Dan,” Sophie said, referring to her childhood sweetheart and ex-husband. It seemed bizarre to imagine that she’d ever truly loved him now, because her feelings for Lucien were so much bigger. All-encompassing.
“Yeah, but you had the delectable Lucien to pick up the pieces. There aren’t enough Viking sex gods out there to go around for the rest of us.”
“Or American surf dudes?”
“Whichever. My point is that after being left standing at the fucking altar in a wedding dress I didn’t even fucking like all that much, I’m not about to jump into fucking bed with Dylan-yankee-doodle-diddle-Day!”
Sophie put her hand over her mouth, but the laugh came out just the same. Kara swiped her on the shoulder then burst out laughing too.
“You ladies sound hard at it.”
They both looked up as Lucien appeared in the doorway with yet another box in his arms, his eyes taking in the two laughing women surrounded by handcuffs and chocolate erections. Handcuffs. Erections. Sometimes, it just wasn’t possible to keep work and pleasure totally separate. Lucien placed the delivery down next to Sophie, and pocketed a set of handcuffs at the same time. She caught his eye fleetingly and then dropped her gaze with a discreet smile.
“Sophie, could I see you in my office in five minutes, please?”
She caught the emphasis absolutely clearly, and entered Lucien’s office seven minutes later, deliberately missing his deadline.
“You’re late.”
“I was busy.”
“Not just one minute late. Two.” He lounged against the edge of his desk and touched the back of the swivel chair beside him, turning it slowly to face her. “Sit down.”
Sophie closed the door behind her with a click and crossed the room. Lucien watched her closely, his eyes all over her. She’d dressed for him that morning, knowing full well that her feminine, not-quite demure, lace-trimmed sundress played to his cave-man instincts, and that the almost indecent underwear she’d chosen to team it with turned him hard on sight.
His hands moved warm and heavy to rest on her shoulders. Kind of loving, kind of clamped. Only the slow stroke of his thumbs on her neck beneath her ponytail betrayed him.
“Put your hands behind the chair, Sophie.”
A shiver ran from Sophie’s scalp to the base of her back. She swallowed, and slowly obeyed his demand. Lucien clipped the cuffs around her wrists, taking care to shackle her in place by threading the chain behind the post of the chair.
“A lot can happen in two minutes, Princess,” Lucien said, letting her hair free from its band before swinging the chair around to face him. He knelt before her, checked his watch, and spread her knees.
Sophie held her breath, never sure with Lucien what would happen next.
She gasped when he rucked her dress up her thighs, his hands firm as he yanked her hips forwards on the seat. Once she was exposed from the waist down, Lucien stopped for a second.
“These are some of my favourites,” he murmured, massaging a firm hand over the scrap of white lace between her legs.
“I wore them for you.”
He nodded briefly, his eyes hot on hers. “I know.” He gripped the edge of the delicate lace and pulled it aside, parting her thighs even wider with his shoulders as he dipped his head. He paused, his lips a whisper away from her skin. Both hands buried between her thighs, he opened her with his fingers and blew lightly over her flesh, a cool breeze to heighten the heat of his tongue.
Sophie watched him, her hands desperate to be tangled in his hair rather than behind the chair. He raised his eyes to hers and kissed her clitoris, and her body arched in response. He lifted one eyebrow, and kissed her there again. Slower, longer, with tongues, the most erotic of French kisses.
“Not just one minute late, Princess,” he said, stroking one finger along her thigh. “Two.”
He pushed two fingers inside her at once and fastened his beautiful mouth over her sex, his hot, wet tongue making her cry out. He mouthed her, delicate and then not so, teasing and then sensationally not so. He knew her body so well now. How to build her, how to hold her right on the edge, and how to plunge her all the way over whenever he wanted to. He wanted to. Her hips jerked and he followed her movements with his mouth, not letting her miss a thing.
Sliding his fingers slowly out of her, he dropped a kiss on her thigh as he straightened her clothes and checked his watch.
“One minute fifty five.”
Sophie stretched when he unlocked the cuffs, and Lucien caught hold of her wrist and massaged it.
“Next time, be more punctual.”
Sophie ran a hand over his crotch. “Maybe,” she massaged his erection and stretched up to lick her tongue over his lower lip. “Maybe not.”
She stepped away and skipped to the door, laughing when someone tapped the other side of it.
“Dylan,” she smiled in welcome, straightening the skirt of her dress, opening the door wide. “I hope you’re not late too. Lucien’s feeling quite the slave driver today.”
Chapter Eight
“Working late, Sailor?”
Dylan was behind the bar, bent forward over it with a look of concentration on his face and a pen in his hand. He looked up when Kara spoke and it took a second for his expression to clear into a smile. The switch from pensive to unguarded pleasure set off an unexpected sizzle of appreciation low in her gut. She pushed it resolutely aside and slid her backside onto the nearest bar stool, dropping her oversized leather bag on the floor at her feet.
“You got me,” he said, rolling his shoulders back as if he’d been bent for quite a while. Kara flicked her eyes up to the ceiling to avoid staring at the strip of flesh that appeared beneath the hemline of his faded grey T-shirt. Not that the T-shirt did much of a job of disguising his body. Just the opposite, if anything; it clung to his body like lichen on a rock, reminding her all too clearly about the lean, tanned beach body barely hidden beneath the cotton.
“All work and no play will make you a dull boy,” she said, wishing instantly that she had chosen a different wisecrack.
Dylan tapped his pen on the bar, looking at her for a long second. “I don’t have anyone to play with tonight.”
Kara shrugged. “I’d offer, but I’d probably have a drink and then start that whole ‘I wanna rip your shirt off,’ shizzle again, and that would be bad.”
Dylan laughed softly. “I’ve never met anyone like you, English. Are you always this honest?”
“Yup. I told you. What you see is what you get.”
“Okaaaay.” He drew the word out, as if he were thinking how best to phrase something. “Well how about I be honest with you too?”
Was that the sound of a warning bell? Kara heard it chime loud and clear, yet she just raised inquisitive eyebrows at him.
“I like bourbon," he said. "And Mustangs. And sexy girls in cowboy boots.”
The sides of Kara’s mouth twitched. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
“Yeah, but that’s where old Meatloaf got it wrong. Two out of three is bad. It’s frustrating, and leaves you wanting. Three out of three is much, much better.”
“Or gluttony, depending on how you look at it.”
“So shoot me, I’m a sinner. Come by the boat later?” His clear, green gaze was direct. “I’ll cook for you.”
“You cook?”
“Sure I do.”
“This is the point where I should say I’m washing my hair.”
Dylan walked slowly around to Kara’s side of the bar and smoothed her hair behind her ear, casual yet deliberate at the same time.
“Your hair already looks pretty good to me.”
Kara found herself uncharacteristically out of smart comebacks, mostly because he’d touched her and she wanted him to do it again.
He picked up her bag and placed it in her lap.
“Come around at eight.”
Dylan watched her w
alk out, his hand on the bar stool still warm with her body heat.
Messing around with that girl was a mistake in just about every way possible. He was risking Lucien’s trust, his job, and his new found peace. But he knew what was worse than all of that.
He was risking Kara Brookes.
It was that goddamn honesty thing that did it. Why couldn’t she act coy, play stupid games like most other women?
Being around her was like drinking water from the clearest mountain spring. She was purity; vital, clean, life affirming. He lost his head when she came within ten feet of him. He didn’t just want to drink the spring water. He wanted to bathe in it.
Kara stamped her foot down on the Mustang’s accelerator, letting the wind blow her hair and praying it would blow away her stupidity along with it.
Dinner with Dylan Day? On The Love Tug? The fucking Love Tug?
It sounded, and looked, like the set for some cheap seventies porn flick. Who did he think he was, Hugh fucking Hefner? A disturbing image of Dylan wearing a red silk smoking jacket surrounded by topless Barbie girls came to mind. The Love Tug. The clue was in the name, and she should steer well away. She pulled along the driveway and turned the car in next to Lucien’s Ferrari.
Only a few hours back she’d assured Sophie that she wasn’t about to tumble into bed with Dylan Day, and here she was about to walk through the door and tell her the complete opposite.
‘I’ll cook for you,’ turned out to be an ambitious plan. Cooking on a boat was an entirely different prospect to rustling up dinner in a conventional kitchen. Dylan was no master chef, but he’d taken care of himself long enough to be able to sizzle a decent steak. Except there was no sizzle to be had on the Love Tug – not of the culinary kind anyway - just a tiny camping-style grill and one gas ring was all he had at his disposal. It was almost half past seven. Unless they wanted to dine at midnight, he needed a plan B.
He cast a glance out at the restaurants dotted around the beach, their evening lights starting to glow as early diners and families sat down to eat. The scent of garlic and fresh seafood reached his nose and plan B quickly assembled itself in his mind.
Ramming the uncooked steaks back inside the unfeasibly small fridge, Dylan glanced down at what he was wearing. Did he look okay?
Why the hell did he feel like a teenager on a first date? He was no kid, and Kara was very far from being his first date. She was different though; she had him on the emotional ropes in a way that he couldn’t recall being for a long time. But then life hadn’t dealt him the easiest card when it came to romance, he’d been out of the dating scene for a while.
Twenty minutes later and he was back on board after a dash, empty pan in hand, to the nearest restaurant for paella, thanking his lucky stars for the laid back attitude of the chef, who’d whipped up the meal in short order with a good-humoured wink. It wasn’t a moment too soon, because a flash of distinctive metallic red had already caught his eye winding down the hill towards the bay. She hadn’t changed her mind. He’d half expected her not to come, but then in a strange way he’d known full well that she’d show up. It didn’t fit well with her ‘what you see is what you get’ ethos not to do something she’d said that she would.
Dylan raised a hand in greeting as she made her way along the rocky path down to the boat. As she drew nearer, he had the strange sensation of regretting having asked her to come. Not because he didn’t want to see her, but because he feared that he wanted to see her too much. She was stepping into his world tonight, and he knew from bleak experience that it wasn’t always a good or safe place to be.
“Hey Sailor,” she said, reaching out her hand for him to steady her as she stepped aboard. For a second, he fought the urge to tell her to go back. Go back to shore. Back to safety. And then she stepped close, and any sensible intention left his head, because she looked and smelled like heaven.
“I bought pudding.” She hooked the handles of a paper bag over his fingers.
“This is the bit where you say thank you, and then tell me I look lovely,” she supplied, when he didn’t speak.
He hadn’t spoken because she’d taken his breath away. The girl had her own style and she sure knew how to work it. She’d somehow managed to make those cowboy boots look sexy as hell with a deep green lace dress that outlined every curve and contour of her body. With her sun-kissed skin, she looked as if someone had dipped her in gold, and hell, there was much of it on show to admire. Her dress finished mid thigh, and the curves of her breasts jiggled in greeting from her scooped neckline as she shrugged out of her tiny denim jacket. With her hair tumbling around her shoulders, the overall effect reeled him in like a fish on a line in the harbour below.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You unnerve me.”
He snapped out of it and looked inside the paper bag. “Chocolate bars?”
“It was all I could get. Short notice.” She shrugged, dropping her jacket on a stool just inside the cabin door as she moved inside. “Something smells good.”
Dylan dropped on his haunches and moved the steaks in the fridge up to make way for the chocolate.
“Yeah. About dinner…”
“You didn’t cook it, did you?”
“I wanted to,” he said, casting a hand around the paltry kitchen. “The boat let me down, man.”
“They say a bad workman blames his tools.”
He held the raw steak in its packet out as evidence. “This was dinner.”
Kara huffed. “Maybe it’s just as well then. I’m a vegetarian.”
Shit, he’d ordered mixed paella, and knew for a fact that it included chicken and chorizo.
“First rule of dating, Sailor. Check your facts.”
Dylan frowned, remembering back to the dinner party at the villa. His expression relaxed.
“So. You’re a vegetarian who eats ham?”
Kara’s face cracked into a grin. “I had you there for a second though, didn’t I?”
“Funny girl.” He pushed the steaks back into the fridge and stood up. “We’re eating up on deck. Go on, I’ll be up there in a minute.”
He handed Kara a bottle of wine, then stood back to allow her out. The Love Tug definitely encouraged close proximity, there wasn’t room to swing a kitten, let alone a cat. Did she sniff him as she squeezed by? The overwhelming urge to drop a kiss on the curve of her neck had him clenching his teeth. He wouldn’t make the first move. If his conscience was going to survive this girl, the ball had to stay entirely in Kara’s court. He badly wanted her to decide to play, but she had to be the one to make a move.
She turned to him as he leaned against the open doorway.
“You know the drill. Don’t look up my dress.”
Chapter Nine
“Paella,” Dylan said, placing the cooking pot down on the floor by his chair because the table was so small. He’d laid it earlier in the evening, or at least he’d gone as far as putting plates and cutlery out.
Kara watched him. Barefoot and beautiful in jeans and a soft, fitted white shirt with tiny, faded blue flowers on it, he was a good fit with his laid back, hippy-cool boat. To his credit he did seem at ease with the food, as he ladled delicious-looking paella onto their plates. Before he sat down to eat, he skipped down the steps again. A second later, fairy lights winked on all around the boat’s railings. The effect was impossibly pretty, adding a soft haze of romance to the evening air.
Kara said, as usual, the first thing that came to mind when Dylan reappeared.
“Ah, shoot. I’m allergic to shell-fish.”
She touched the shell of a mussel with her fork with a pained look.
“No you’re fucking not,” he said, pouring wine into their glasses. He wasn’t falling for it for a second this time.
“You’re right, I’m not,” she said, conceding with good grace as she tested the paella. “Wow, this is gorgeous. You must give me the recipe some time.”
“No can do, English. It’s top secret.”
&
nbsp; Dylan only wished his cooking skills ran to such knowledge, because Kara was right, it was delicious. They ate the entire pot, and their relaxed conversation meandered lightly around topics loosely linked to work. When he opened a second bottle of wine she looked at him steadily.
“Are you plying me with wine in the hope that I’ll ask you to take your shirt off again?”
Dylan cleared the plates and his throat.
“I’m fast learning not to try and guess what’s going to come out of your mouth next.”
Kara knew that feeling. She dearly wished she could master the art of engaging her brain before her mouth.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No. It’s a very good thing.”
When he poured the wine, she sighed and raised a deliberate glance to his.
“I can’t drive if I have another glass of wine.”
He relaxed back and picked up his own glass. “Me neither.”
Kara reached down and rummaged in her handbag, then laid her toothbrush carefully down on the table between them. She watched Dylan’s face, scrutinising his expression. His lowered lashes hid it from her as he seemed to study the toothbrush for a few seconds, but when he lifted his eyes again, there was no mistaking the understanding that passed between them.
He reached into his jeans pocket and did a little rummaging of his own, then laid a silver-foiled condom packet down next to her toothbrush.
It was Kara’s turn to study the table for a second before she spoke.
“Just the one?”
He settled back in his chair, then shook his head and sipped his wine.
“Whole box.”
She weighed this up, then moved to kneel in front of him. Dylan was aware that a line was probably being crossed.
“I think it’s probably time I took your shirt off.”
A line had definitely been crossed.
Knight and Day (The Knight Erotic Trilogy, book 3 of 3) Page 5