Too Hot to Touch and Exposed

by LETO, JULIE

  She scooted off the seat long enough to turn around and sling one leg over his thigh, her slit flashing open. “Sure there is. God, Max. I’m so close and we’re both still dressed.”

  He inched through the opening of her skirt. “How close?”

  His cat-in-the-cream smile and bold touch made her suck in her breath. She’d made a tactical error if she’d thought that admission would slow him down. Instead, he blazed a trail straight to the center of her need where his wind-chilled fingers met the wet desire he had stirred. She remained standing, half straddling him while he probed and parted her sensitive flesh.

  “You feel so slick,” he told her.

  She braced her hands on his shoulders. “Max…” She could say only his name. Couldn’t he see what he was doing to her? Did she really have to expend the energy to form a response?

  “Mmm,” he answered for her. “Feels good, doesn’t it? So soft. So silky. So wet.”

  When he eased a finger inside her, she bit down a gasp. He played her with deep thrusts, rhythmic and round, rotating his touch until her knees started to buckle. He bunched up her skirt, exposing her to the elements in one cold flash, then yanked her fully onto his lap and pulled down the sweatshirt’s hem.

  Not once did he stop touching her, stroking her. The sweet pressure built. She couldn’t wait.

  “Come on, honey. Let me see you lose control. Here. With the city behind you. And me inside.”

  She shook her head, fighting the flashes of color, raging against the orgasm that was only moments away.

  “You’re not inside,” she protested.

  “I will be, sweetheart. Later. But right now I’m not stopping long enough to put on a condom. Not unless you want me to stop. Do you want me to stop?”

  With a second finger, he stretched her, prepared her, forcing her over the edge. “No, Max. Don’t…stop. Don’t…”

  She bit down hard as the convulsions began.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere, Ari. Let me hear you. Let me hear you come—just from my touch.”

  She shook her head, but it was useless. Useless to deny Max anything he wanted. Anything at all. She gasped and shouted, unintelligible sounds, sounds she’d never heard spill from her own lips.

  Yet judging by the look on Max’s face as she collapsed into his arms, the payoff for her surrender would be worth the price.

  10

  HE DONNED PROTECTION in the time it took for her to catch her breath, then he was inside her, sex to sex, warm and wet and as wild as the bay rocking the boat.

  She folded her knees up on the padded bench, drawing her closer; him, deeper. She set the tempo, but he gauged the depth. Splaying his hands on her cheeks, he pulled her mouth to his for a long, tongue-clashing kiss.

  “Again. Please.” She tossed her head back, crying his name. The sound tugged at him, sexually. Spiritually. She wanted him. Here and now and for no other reason than because they sought and gave pleasure, together. No ulterior motives. No hidden agendas or looming financial payoffs. Hard to the point of pain, he throbbed for release. He could think of nothing else, feel nothing else.

  She sat up fully, nearly breaking their intimate link. The cold air stabbed at his bare skin. He clutched her bottom and pressed her down, sighing as heat enveloped him again.

  He blinked, realizing he’d closed his eyes in preparation of the rapture. When he glanced up, she was watching him intently, her hands still bracing his face.

  She rode him to her own primitive beat, her smile growing as passion stole his sight. But when he felt the end looming, he stole back the driver’s seat.

  “My turn, honey. Let me hear you again.” He twisted, adjusting their position until he could go no deeper. She gasped and cried when he touched just the right spot.

  Her shudders pushed him over the edge, into a place where only heat existed. Where the air was hot and thick and nearly impossible to breathe. He came with a mighty roar, his voice echoing across the water. He pulled her down for one last thrust, then held her steady, capturing her mouth as their orgasm ebbed and the cold air returned.

  This time, she quaked from the cold, so he bundled her as best he could and carried her downstairs.

  In minutes they were nude and nestled beneath the covers of the feathery, queen-size bed. With the cabin lights dimmed, only the stars and the shine from the city through the windows lit their gentle embrace. Shivers came in one strong wave along with chattering teeth that made them both laugh, which led to tickling, which led to touching, which led to one long, soft kiss that eventually drew them into a comfortable quiet.

  “I can’t believe we’ve made love this much in less than twenty-four hours,” she said, snuggling closer and laying her cheek on his chest. “I’m not usually this horny.”

  “Must be the company you’re keeping,” he said smugly.

  “No doubt.” She twisted her fingers into the patch of hair at the center of his chest. “We’re good together. I don’t think that happens very often.”

  Max bit the inside of his mouth. No, it didn’t happen very often. Not to him, anyway. Yeah, he’d had flings and affairs from time to time, but never like this, never with such an irreverent, carefree attitude. Never with pleasure and pleasing being his one and only agenda. Even in college, he’d chosen the girls who had the right connections, who could give him an edge in his classes with their knowledge or who could get him invited to the right parties with the right people. Not that he wasn’t attracted to them or didn’t like them individually, he just decided attraction and basic interest weren’t enough.

  Even when Maddie had pointed out the shallowness of his actions, he’d chosen to ignore her words. Ariana understood him, fully accepted what it was like for him to have to claw his way to success.

  And judging by the way she’d responded, she was okay with his past. And why wouldn’t she be? She’d worked her way up much as he had. But she’d also been married once. She hadn’t completely ignored her personal life as he had. He couldn’t help wondering how any man could have let this remarkable woman go.

  “What about your husband? You must have been good together or you wouldn’t have tied the knot.”

  She squirmed, but didn’t pull away. “We were very attracted to each other. Rick was a sexy man. Unfortunately, you can’t build a marriage on sex.”

  “Good thing for us,” he said, wincing at the callous sound.

  But she didn’t hesitate to agree, which increased the sting tremendously. “Exactly. And you know, as sexy as he was, he never paid attention to what I liked. I was a virgin when I married him. He barely had to touch me and I’d come. After a while, my orgasms weren’t so easy. But he wasn’t interested in working on anybody’s orgasms but his.”

  Max pulled her closer, amazed and pleased that she could speak with such candor. “The man was a fool.”

  She nodded, snuggling closer. “Yeah, that’s what I figured out. Recently.” Her mouth twisted into an ironic grin. “But by that time, I’d closed myself off to trying a relationship again. All I wanted was work, work, work. Success and more success. Now I’ve just about gotten what I want…and I’ve got you, to boot. For now.”

  Her gaze actually softened when she voiced yet again the temporary status of their affair. He expected something different—a touch of regret, a bit of melancholy. He swallowed a tiny taste of bitter disappointment.

  “Don’t worry, Max,” she reassured him, misinterpreting his frown. “When I make a deal, I stick to it. You and I, we’re great. But you have a whole life out there that I don’t fit into. Connections and cotillions and million-dollar deals. In a way, I’m sorry Maddie and you didn’t work out. She’d probably do that part real well.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Ariana. You’re a beautiful, charming, intelligent woman. The San Francisco elite would find you as breathtaking and fascinating as I do.”

  “Is that before or after my fourteen-hour day at the restaurant? When I come home smelling like a kitchen? O
r worse, a bar? How breathtaking and fascinating is the woman who just got done mixing your Absolut and Evian? Come on, Max. Let’s not weave some dream that won’t come true.”

  Max’s logical side conceded her point. They were from different worlds. Unfortunately, his ambitious side knew too well that clever, intelligent, determined people could successfully cross the chasm from one world to another. They only had to have the know-how. The desire.

  “You and I are living proof that all sorts of wild dreams can come true,” he pointed out. Moments ago, he’d subscribed to the same determination—to keep their affair temporary and brief. But the more he thought about it, the more he resented the emptiness in his personal life. Just this once, he wanted to try something new. Someone new. Ari.

  The flash of apprehension widening her gaze told him now wasn’t the time to make the suggestion. He’d bared his soul tonight and gained insight in the process. Insight into both of them.

  “You’re right.” She eased her hand down his chest and explored until she found his sex. “We can create wild dreams.” She encircled his shaft with her fingers, teasing below with her nails as she disappeared farther beneath the covers, trailing a path of openmouthed kisses over his nipples, down his abs, across his hips. “And they’ll come true, all right.”

  “Ari…”

  “Shh…” She let the elongated syllable tease his moistened tip with her hot breath. “No more talk, Max. No more talk.”

  He couldn’t deny his desire any longer. They’d have time for conversation later. Much, much later.

  FORD RETURNED TO THE BOAT after 10:00 a.m. By then, Ari had changed into a complete sweat suit and Max had served her a breakfast feast of cheese and canned fruit from a blanket spread on the bow. Ari guessed they’d slept two hours, maybe three. But she’d managed to make sure that each waking moment was filled with either sex talk or sex play and no more discussion of her marriage, her goals or her plans for the future.

  Especially any future that included Max, enticing notion that it was. Even Ariana, a consummate dreamer, knew that some things were out of her realm. She couldn’t stand to set herself up for something so pie-in-the-sky as a serious relationship with Max only to be crushed when his schedule, her schedule, his obligations, her obligations, his career, her career, clashed and warred and destroyed the special connection they’d formed in the past two days. She was too close to having everything she wanted to let love get in the way. Again.

  She guessed that Max’s canceled marriage was forcing him to take a long hard look at his life. She respected and admired him for latching on to the opportunity to take stock and consider changes, but dammit, she couldn’t afford to let his self-assessments alter her own decisions.

  When Ford docked and began his washing and gassing and whatever else seamen did to ready their vessels for the next cruise, Ariana considered saying goodbye to Max and grabbing a cab home. Despite spending an entire glorious night on the open sea, she had a strong urge for space. For just an hour or two.

  Max beat her to the punch. “Why don’t I drop you off at your place to pick up a change of clothes and take a nap? Then I’ll take you out for dinner. Somewhere I’ll have to pay some obscene amount of money to get us in since we have no reservations.”

  “Like a date?” she asked, tamping down a sigh of relief.

  “Not like a date—a date. Flowers. Small talk. Good wine. No plan. No expectations. Just…fun.”

  The man was a master of true romance and he had absolutely no idea. Good. Because if he had any inkling of the power he wielded and he decided to seriously train his sights on her beyond this week, she’d be a goner for sure.

  “Sounds wonderful. What do you feel like? Italian? French?”

  He shook his head, taking her hand as he helped her off the boat and they said goodbye and thanks to Ford. “Let me surprise you.”

  She hooked her arm around his waist as they walked, suddenly regretting that she’d entertained the idea, even for a minute, that her decision to be with Max might be wrong. When he concentrated his decision-making powers on her, the results were always incredible.

  “It’s worked quite well so far,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah. That it has.”

  MAX DROPPED HER OFF at the front of the tea shop, kissing her sweetly on the knuckles before she bundled her red sweater and silky skirt into her leather coat and watched him drive away. She hesitated, smoothing her hand against her cheek, imagining his scent still lingered on her skin.

  “You’re in trouble, girl,” Mrs. Li announced the moment Ariana entered, engaging the jangling brass bell her landlady had strung along the top of the door.

  “Excuse me?”

  Ariana couldn’t imagine what she could have done to offend Mrs. Li. They had no standing rules against having a lover stay over and, technically, Max hadn’t slept in her apartment anyway. Glancing around the shop, she realized that, except for the three women sitting in the back sipping tea out of earshot, she and Mrs. Li were speaking privately.

  “That look on your face. Trouble. Good trouble, but trouble anyway.”

  Ariana bit her lip and started to walk toward the stairwell in the back until she realized she’d have to pass by Mrs. Li’s friends who were clucking over some article in the newspaper. In her experience, that trio was just as intuitive and nosy as the woman who collected her rent. They imparted advice at absolutely no charge, and until today, she hadn’t minded hearing their perspectives.

  She really didn’t mind so much now, either. But she’d rather deal with one matron of experience than with four.

  She moved to the counter where Mrs. Li was opening small wooden drawers filled with dried herbs, extracting some with a tiny metal spoon into a paper cup. “Is there such a thing as good trouble?” Ari asked.

  “You answer me.”

  Ariana replayed the past two days in her mind, then went back farther. She thought back to the minute Charlie had deceived her about Max and his wedding, to her discovery of the magazine. The sexually charged flirtation in the bar. The surprise in Max’s drink. Deception. Erotica. Illegal drugs. All trouble individually.

  All wonderful when meshed together to result in her union with Max.

  “Yeah, trouble can be good. Very good.”

  Mrs. Li nodded, pursing her lips sagely. “That’s why trouble is trouble. Can be very good or can be bad. You have to be smart to keep it good.” She tapped a finger to her temple and shook her head. “Not smart with your head.” She lowered her finger to her chest, still tapping. “With your heart.”

  Ariana rolled her eyes. She wanted to keep her heart out of this. Her heart usually got her in the bad sort of trouble. “My heart isn’t the organ I trust most.”

  Mrs. Li returned to scooping herbs into her cup. “If you don’t trust your heart, it’ll get broken for sure.”

  “It’s been broken once. It mended.”

  Shoving the last drawer closed, Mrs. Li poured the herbs into the center of a sheet of butcher paper, then folded and tucked until she’d created a perfect square packet of her medicinal mixture. “Was it really broken? Or just bruised?”

  “I loved Rick,” she insisted. Rick had been Mrs. Li’s boarder before Ariana came to live with him. Their landlady had baked the wedding cake they’d eaten after returning from the courthouse ceremony. She’d been there for Ariana after Rick left, nursed her with kind words and strong teas and sometimes-silent company until the pain of his abandonment subsided. How could she not know how devastated she’d been?

  “I didn’t say you didn’t love him. But Rick never loved you back, not the way he should have. It’s the man’s love that truly tears the woman’s heart apart, and vice versa.”

  After labeling the small square packet with a wax pencil, Mrs. Li tossed the order in an out basket and answered the summons from the back table to join them for tea. She invited Ariana, but Ari smiled and shook her head, too intrigued by Mrs. Li’s words, too distressed by what might be happening be
tween her and Max, to subject herself to chitchat with the ladies. She accepted the newspaper they were finished with and escaped upstairs as quickly as politeness would allow.

  She tore through her living room quickly, not wanting the throw pillows and windows and tea sets to remind her of the decadence she and Max had enjoyed. She removed her borrowed sweats and tossed them into the mountain of dirty laundry on top of the hamper in her closet and dashed into the shower.

  She was going to enjoy tonight. She was going to enjoy tonight without thinking about the damage Max could do to her—and she to him—if either of them succumbed to falling in love.

  MAX PARKED IN HIS GARAGE, but closed the door from the outside so he could collect his newspaper and Saturday’s mail from the boxes outside his front door. His brother, who’d stayed at his home the night before, had no interest in the goings-on of the world if they weren’t printed in San Francisco’s newest rag, The Bay Insider, so he wasn’t surprised to see two days’ of the more conservative Chronicle littering his porch.

  After unlocking the front door, Max flipped through his mail while lights flickered on and off as he made his way into the kitchen. As expected, Ford had left a mess. Normally, Max didn’t care. But he was all too aware that he’d given his housekeeper the week off, so he shoved his mail in the appropriate cubbyholes and collected the dirty dishes from the table, rinsed them then stacked them in the dishwasher.

  He found The Bay Insider spread out on the kitchen table that looked down on the rest of Russian Hill through a wall of crisp windows. In a vain attempt to compete with the more venerable, long-established competition from the Chronicle and the Examiner, recently merged, the upstart newspaper was rife with gossip, innuendo and downright lies. Max scanned headlines as he folded Castro Club Owner Hot for Young Customers. Cruising the Embarcadero for Rich Sex. Then, atop a hazy picture of two people doing something rather up close and personal outside in the fog, he read, Prewedding Jitters?