Wild on the Rocks

by Kiersten Hallie Krum

  “Smack me again, babe, and I’ll tan your ass red before I let you come next time.”

  “Promises, promises,” she taunted, which rushed blood to his rising dick and made his fingers convulse on the globes of her rear.

  She grabbed his face and caught his gaze with hers. “You listen to me, Jasper. Listen, for a change,” and she took his lack of response for permission to continue. “‘Queen’ suits you perfectly, but if I was in charge of your call sign, you’d be Mister Responsibility.”

  “Gotta say, not as catchy.”

  Her eyes squinted with annoyance. “You have claimed responsibility that isn’t yours since you were fifteen. Giving up your brothers, carrying the guilt for that poor girl who died in your race. You lost a man back when we were married, remember?”

  Like he could forget. It’d been a training accident that’d claimed a man who’d only been six months post-graduation. He hadn’t even been cleared yet for deployment.

  “You couldn’t tell me much,” Quinn admitted. “But you did say you weren’t even in the vicinity of the accident but you took it on as yours.”

  “He was under my command. That makes him mine. They’re all mine.”

  “I get that, honey, but even badasses in training have some pretty badass raw talent to begin with. Especially, if they were assigned to you.”

  He blinked down at her, arrested by the simplicity of her logic.

  Her thumb smoothed across his bottom lip. “You have such a big heart in that massive chest of yours. I love that. I love that you care so much about your men. And honey, you loved Maverick in your manly man way. And he abandoned you. Worse, he betrayed what you most treasure: your team. You and your brothers depended on Maverick to have your backs and he took that from you. It’s cutting you up that you’re so angry at a man who was in so much pain, he took his own life and the life of an innocent with it and that he did it while you were standing beside him instead of asking for your help with his demons.”

  She brushed his cheekbone. It was only then that Jasper realized his face was wet. “I didn’t know your Maverick,” she admitted. “But I think he did that deliberately. I think, maybe, he believed you were helping him the only way he’d accept it. That he knew you were strong enough to handle how he ended it, almost as though he couldn’t have otherwise done it.”

  His hands shot up to grab her wrists hard. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he snarled, pushing her back to perch precariously on his knees. “Am I supposed to thank him for spraying his brains and blood all over my chest? For leaving me to fill out the report explaining how a man under my command discharged a weapon when off-duty? For hours spent in the police station reliving it over and over again every time someone new came for answers? For making sure every single time I clean my weapon, I remember how my friend used one to kill himself and a civilian?”

  “No, baby,” she crooned. “Of course not.”

  “So why Quinn?” he bit out. “Tell me why he would do that to me? To himself?”

  “I can’t. I don’t have any answers. And people who do such things don’t either. They hurt, so much, sweetheart, they can’t think beyond their pain. And when Maverick was caught up in his pain, you were there for him, the only way he believed you could be. He wasn’t thinking of reports or cleaning guns or any of that. There’s no way he was capable of anything that logical. He only wanted peace and, in a truly terrible way, love, no question, you gave it to him.”

  He hauled her up, so fast she slammed into him with a cry. He grabbed the back of her skull and took her mouth in a brutal kiss. He meant to punish her for her words, words that seared his soul, scouring the gaping wound Maverick had gouged in him.

  She whimpered in her throat, but took his tongue, opening herself as a deposit for his pain and rage. Locking her ankles behind his back, her arms circled his shoulders to hold him close as he kept on taking until he feared he’d use her up.

  But Quinn had more surprises in store for him.

  Wriggling even closer, something he would’ve thought impossible at that point, she leveraged her position to push him back flat on the bed. His hold on her loosened enough for her mouth to slip free. He’d left it red and swollen, and when she licked lingering moisture from her bottom lip, a growl rumbled through his chest.

  She held his eyes and slithered down his torso, slowly dragging her breasts, followed by her palms, over every inch. He propped up on his forearms to watch. That wicked tongue of hers shot out to lick the notch under his pecs and then across his ribs to the groove where leg met torso. She stayed there a while, lapping through the indent and biting down on the defined muscle so that his groin thrust up from the bed in search of the same again, before she wriggled off the edge of the bed to her knees to nestle his dick between her tits.

  And then she began to move.

  Jasper’s neck dropped back between his shoulders. “Holy fuck,” he hissed when she licked the head of his cock, swirling around the sensitive tip and that first bead of moisture that told her exactly how hot she got him. She undulated again, clasping a breast in each hand to keep him in her intimate canyon. He lifted his head in time to see her nails scrape her own nipples and when she moaned, the sound teased his sensitive flesh seconds before her mouth engulfed him.

  His throat worked, but no sound came out given all the spit had dried up in his mouth. He struggled to sit, spreading his legs wide, and she scooted back on her knees to give him room without releasing him. He pulled her hair back from her face to watch her take him and saw she’d dropped a hand between her thighs to work her clit. “Put two fingers in,” he ordered in a dry croak. She moaned again but instantly obeyed, breath puffing on his dick as she spun them both higher. Her free hand left her breast to grip the base of his cock, jacking him while she sucked him off, mimicking the rhythm he’d used on himself the night before.

  He fell into it then, letting her take control of their pleasure as he watched her swollen mouth take him deep, sucking and jacking him to the edge until he called her name in warning. She released him with a moue of regret, but held onto his dick as she climbed back onto the bed—onto him—positioning so when she straddled his thighs, he was already notched into her entrance.

  He held her steady as she sank down, bending back onto his thighs, treating him to the erotic image of her breasts and belly and pussy on full display. He lifted her breast to his mouth and sucked the nipple deep, biting down until she hissed, “Yessssss,” and worked herself on him till she had it all. “Jasp, I can feel you everywhere.”

  “Move, baby,” he demanded, curt in his need. “Fuck me.”

  She undulated on him before he’d finished the words, rocking back and forth so every stroke went only deeper. Her hands latched onto his knees to brace so she could go faster. “Get there,” he ordered, teeth clenched to hold it back when she was bound and determined to blow his head off.

  “Honey,” she moaned, and he was done.

  Jasper spread her folds and found her clit with his thumb. He’d barely touched it when she started keening, clamping down on his dick, bathing him in her wet as she came harder than he’d ever felt before.

  The second she tripped over, he lifted her, flinging her onto her back, still connected with him, and shoving her knees up to her shoulders. He took over, plunging deep, his thumb working her, dragging out her orgasm until he planted deep and lost it inside her.

  Breathing heavily, he gave her his weight, and she wrapped him up again in her arms and her legs and the unfathomable depths of her heart. He buried his face in her neck and gasped, “I love you,” against her pounding heart. She kissed his temple, and the words that followed filled to brimming the empty hole that’d been aching in him for a whole year.

  “I love you too.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Alcohol is necessary for a man so that he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed by the facts.

  —Finley Peter Dunne

  Quinn leaned b
ack on her forearms and lifted her face into the light.

  This was heaven.

  The sailboat sliced through the water as Jasper caught the wind and sent them flying. Her neck tilted further back until she could see an upside-down Jasper at the rudder. He had aviator shades on again, but was beautifully bare-chested, wearing only the snug swim trunks he called his UDTs. She’d bitten her lip to keep from asking if that stood for “unintentional dick trap.” Jasper—as she’d learned quickly in the early days of their marriage—took the trappings and symbols of his military allegiance very, very seriously. She’d held her tongue for a change and that left her wondering if maybe she should write the Navy a thank-you note on behalf of all heterosexual womankind for not changing the uniform in the last eighty or so years.

  Being the exceptional example of the male form that he was, Jasper made those UDTs look hawt. For once, his strong legs were on display, bulging with muscle like the rest of him, a strength that belied the grace of motion he employed rather than clomping around like some Neanderthal. She’d caught more than one Lady Who Lunched sizing him up and down when they’d walked past the yachts tied up at Mimosa Harbor. Jasper hadn’t missed them either. She knew that for sure when he laughed at her smug smile as she’d possessively snuggled into place under his arm.

  This was their time together, away from Twist and Casa Blanca, away from any bar or the lingering cloud of the Navy suspension. For a few hours, they were simply a couple in love out on a beautiful sailboat.

  In love, again.

  Righting her head, she took in the beauty surrounding them and let her thoughts ramble. She’d followed his lead that morning, not making reference to their professions of the night before while keeping a close eye to see how his purge of the Maverick situation had left him. Jasper seemed easier than before—easier for him, at least. His smile came more readily, even more than when she’d first met him and he was actively—and successfully—charming her. She wondered if he’d taken anything she’d said last night to heart. Maybe someday, he’d even let himself off the hook for his friend’s death.

  She hoped so. She couldn’t bear to think of him carrying that burden. He had plenty of others already weighing down those stout shoulders.

  Which was why she still hadn’t told him about the Russian mob who was looking for her. Maybe. Probably.

  Jasper would go ballistic when he found out and, she had to admit, at this point, he’d be right to. He’d been open with her, far more than she ever expected him capable of, and while she’d rattled some skeletons from her closet as well, this last and perhaps most important tidbit she’d kept a secret.

  There was a persistent itch at the back of her neck warning of something awful headed her way. The ball of dread that’d taken root in her belly warned that her time was running out. She had to clue in Jasper, now, today, before it was too late and bad guys descended to do the job for her and burst the hell outta the Casa Blanca bubble to which she’d allowed herself to succumb.

  But not yet. Not while the sun was bright and the water crisp and cool and her hot man was sailing them through paradise.

  “Where are we going?” she called back over her shoulder when he angled the boat down the island.

  “Got a map from the resort and saw there’s a smaller beach off the south end of the island called Pleasure Pointe,” he answered with a lewd leer that made her laugh. “It’s got running trails, so I hit it yesterday morning. Bit rocky but there’s a small harbor. More privacy than Barefoot Bay. Thought we’d anchor off it and swim in.”

  “You can swim in after you drop me off near the beach. That picnic hamper you loaded on isn’t going to swim itself to shore, and I don’t do soggy food.”

  “Babe, I can’t get that basket to shore without it getting wet, I don’t deserve my trident.”

  “What happened to ‘SEALs don’t look for recognition and never brag’?”

  “It’s not bragging if it’s true.”

  She snorted and brought her head back around to face the sun. She’d been laying out on the prow of the small cruiser once he’d finished with whatever sailing things were needed to get them out of the harbor and onto the water proper. Jasper had managed to rent the adorable two-sail, yellow boat in record time. Soon as the marina manager learned he was Navy, he couldn’t set Jasper up fast enough, chattering away like an old woman at a gossip club while he took down information from Jasper’s driver’s license and ran him through the compact boat’s equipment, equipment she suspected Jasper could manage in his sleep. Nevertheless, he indulged the manager with the patience of a man used to training other men, much, Quinn thought, like a teacher was never not instructing students.

  Today’s bikini was white, a twin to the red one but for the blue and red anchor stamped on the fabric at the top of her bum. Rather than a full cover-up, the white bikini came with a blue sarong that reached Quinn’s ankles, but had a slit all the way up to the top of her thigh. When she’d walked out of Junonia to meet Jasper in Casa Blanca’s lobby after brunch had finished and both Clancy and Willow had cut her loose for the day, he’d taken one look at her and stumbled to a stop mid-step so that Twist, walking behind him, slammed into Jasper’s back.

  She couldn’t wait for him to find the anchor.

  They didn’t bother with more conversation while they sailed. Contentment settled over Jasper like a cowl the moment he climbed on the boat. He hadn’t waited for her to clamor aboard on her own, game as she was, but in his excitement lifted her right off the marina’s metal dock and onto the boat, her hand flying up to keep the hat on her head. He’d held her steady as the boat rocked under them until she found her sea legs, and kissed her quick in approval when this took her less than a minute. She felt a warm glow at that, happy to be her man’s woman in something so simple that pleased him that much.

  He’d set up the main sail and prepped what he called the jib while she explored the boat’s small cabin and slathered on enough SPF to keep an iceberg from melting.

  Jasper’s satisfaction was palpable and reinforced Quinn’s certainty that she’d been right to agree to this short adventure. Not that she’d even thought of refusing, but it hadn’t taken her ten minutes to see how Jasper changed once he was on or near the water. The serenity that ebbed from him when they finally reached open water was a welcome change from the guilt and grief that’d torn him up last night. He needed this refuge. She could see it clearly. She couldn’t say he’d resolved all his pain or conquered the demons Maverick’s action had left in him, but he’d taken more than one step back in the right direction and that, for now, would do.

  “I know your affinity for convenience store fare. You’ll have to lower yourself to up-scale resort leftovers. The chef was happy not to see his food go to waste, so when I asked for a basket, he loaded us up with more than simple crudités.”

  “Fare? Crudités? Is this the rough and ready Navy man I married on a wild whim?”

  “You know I have the equivalent of a master’s degree in kicking ass, right?”

  “You’re funny when you speak adult.”

  Laughter threaded through his voice when he called out, “Coming about!” Quinn ducked, having already learned how that meant he was changing direction, which would bring the heavy pole on which the jib was strapped careening across the prow to catch the wind on the boat’s port side.

  She got majorly hepped up every time he got all sailor-y. But then, Jasper breathing alone was enough to turn her on.

  The boat’s shift put her in the sail’s shade, so Quinn carefully stood and made her way back to join Jasper where he lounged in the stern.

  “What’s that grin for?” he asked when she’d settled on a cushion beside him.

  “I was thinking about how you’ve expanded my vocabulary today. Do you think I could work ‘jib’ into regular bar conversation? Maybe I should make up a new drink for my gigs and call it ‘the Jib’ in your honor.”

  He shook his head at her antics. “She’s a simp
le twenty-two-footer, babe. You want, I’ll take you out on a proper ship someday that’ll give you all kinds of new ideas. Here, take the rudder. Hold her steady like this, yeah? I’m going to lower the jib so we can drift a bit and get a swim in before we hit Pleasure Pointe.”

  He transferred control of the long, angled piece of pine that constituted the rudder. Quinn did her best to keep the boat steady, but she had her doubts about the success of her efforts, especially when Jasper kept having to weave from foot to foot to keep balance.

  He certainly wasted no time reclaiming the rudder when he returned, setting it into a groove that looked made to hold it once he’d returned them to the direction he wanted.

  Quinn stretched her arm along the lip at the top of her bench seat, unbothered by her lack of sailing prowess. She noticed Jasper’s head turned to track it and then dip to admire her cleavage. “Does she meet your high standards, Lieutenant Commander?”

  “‘Commander’ will do, and yeah, she does too.”

  “Well, I like her, though why men insist on calling boats and cars and the like female pronouns and names will always escape me.”

  “If you want the boring answer,” he drawled, leaning over to kiss the dip between her breasts. She shivered when he slipped in a touch of his tongue. “It’s because European languages used feminine and masculine indicators in their words.”

  “Sure that master’s degree was only in ass-kicking?” She felt his smile on her skin before he nibbled his way down the curve of her breast. A thought suddenly occurred to her. “How many languages do you speak?”

  “Four. English, French, Spanish, and Pashto. The Spanish I learned on the street, the French, college. Good for picking up chicks.” His hand slid around her waist and under the waistband of her sarong and bikini briefs to grip a cheek. “I speak enough Arabic to get by, but there are too many dialects to know them all. Ditto Pashto.”

  “This conversation is a massive turn on.”

  “Is it?”