It was empty. He’d already left.
Again, she hesitated. She couldn’t very well chase him up the street. Could she? He’d issued his invitation, she’d rejected it. It was over. She’d missed her chance.
The disappointment and frustration she felt was so great that she was pushing through the double doors and out into the warm night before she could really consider what she was doing. There was no sign of Nathan on the street in either direction. Then she looked across the road toward the beach and saw a dark figure walking down the path toward the sand.
She crossed the road and strode to the top of the path. The moon was covered by clouds and the beach was dark, the water a glinting inky blackness in the distance. She set one foot on the sandy path, then stopped.
What was she doing, racing after a virtual stranger because he’d looked at her a certain way and said certain things? He was obviously going home for the evening. Whatever fleeting notion he’d had where she was concerned was long gone. She needed to turn around and go back to her room before this became embarrassing.
She turned away.
“Betty?”
She glanced over her shoulder. She could see Nathan silhouetted at the bottom of the path, a tall, broad shape.
Her heart kicked against her chest. She wiped her damp palms down the sides of her skirt. Then she walked down the path, into the darkness.
She stopped when she was standing in front of him. They were both silent for a beat.
“Were you going home?” she asked when the silence became excruciating.
“Getting some fresh air. Pretty warm in there.”
Which meant she’d chased him out here like some sort of teenage desperado for nothing.
“I just thought… You asked me to dance before,” she said lamely. “Maybe when you come back in we could…?”
His eyes glinted in the dim light. “You want to dance, Betty?”
She felt incredibly foolish and transparent. This was too, too humiliating. There was a reason why her first instinct had been to shy away from having anything to do with this man and this situation. She’d never done anything like this in her life before and she had no idea how to handle herself or him. For all she knew, she’d misread everything entirely and he really had been simply asking her to dance before.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
She turned away but his warm hand slid down her forearm and circled her wrist, stopping her from leaving.
“Come here,” he said, very softly.
He tugged her gently toward him. For a moment she resisted, her last doubts digging their heels in. Then his other hand slid around to cup the nape of her neck and she lifted her face as his head lowered toward her.
His lips were very soft as they found hers. She was surprised by how gentle he was, how sweet he tasted. His tongue flicked along the closed seam of her mouth, demanding entrance, and she found herself opening to him. And then he was inside her mouth, stroking, tasting, teasing. Sensation swamped her—her breasts flattened against his chest, the hard muscles of his arms pulling her closer, the avid hunger of his mouth. She made a needy sound and he pushed her head back farther as he delved more deeply, more greedily.
His hand left her nape to slide down her neck, across her shoulder and onto her breast. Liquid heat surged between her legs. She was so turned on it almost hurt. She pressed her knees together and dug her hands into the strong muscles of his shoulders and matched him kiss for kiss.
His thumb grazed her nipple through the fabric of her dress, then his warm hand slid beneath the halter top, making her gasp as he pinched and rolled her nipple between his fingers.
She had never felt like this in her life. So hot. So wet. So damned desperate to have a man’s weight on top of her, inside her.
Nathan pressed his hips against her and she felt his erection against her belly. She slid a hand between them and traced him through the soft fabric of his well-worn jeans. So big, so thick.
He muttered something against her lips, then he ducked his head and kissed and licked a trail down her chest into her cleavage. He turned his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth, fabric and all, as both his hands found her ass. He squeezed her, hauling her closer, rubbing himself against her. His fingers curved beneath her butt cheeks, delving into the dark warmth between her legs. Teasing. Taunting. She shuddered and groaned.
“Please,” she groaned, her head dropping back. “Please.”
He lifted his head from her breasts and she heard him pull in a ragged breath. “Come on, Betty,” he said, taking her hand.
He led her down to the beach. Her feet sank into the sand, and grit slipped between her feet and her sandals. She struggled to keep up with his long, urgent stride as he drew her away from the bright lights of Main Street and into darkness.
When the lights were a distant glow, he stopped and pulled her close again.
“Betty.” He kissed her, and she could feel the smile on his lips.
Probably she should correct him—her name was Elizabeth, after all, and it looked as though they were about to have sex. But she didn’t care. All her thoughts, all her focus were on one thing—the needy, desperate throb between her legs.
She slid her hands down the muscles of his belly to the waistband of his jeans. He wasn’t wearing a belt and the denim gave easily as she tugged at one stud, then another, then another. She slid her hand inside his jeans and found the heat and hardness of him. She wrapped her fingers around him and stroked.
He started kissing her neck and she felt a tug behind her neck, closely followed by the coolness of the night air on her bare breasts as the untied halter of her dress dropped to her waist. He made an approving sound and cupped her breasts in both hands, his thumbs grazing her nipples over and over.
She started pulling at the waistband of his jeans, peeling them down over his hips.
“Easy, Betty,” he whispered against her skin. “Easy.”
“I want you,” she said, the boldest words she’d ever spoken. “Inside me. Now.”
He squeezed her breasts tightly in response. “What the lady wants.”
As one they sank onto the sand, she on her back, him on top. Elizabeth opened her thighs and welcomed his weight as he pressed over her. He lowered his head and sucked first one nipple, then the other into his mouth. She arched her back and cried out. She was so close, so close. He hadn’t even taken her panties off yet and already this was the most fulfilling, exciting sex of her life.
His hand skimmed up the inside of one of her widespread thighs and she gave an excited little gasp as his fingers found the damp silk of her underwear.
“Mmm,” he said against her breast, clearly savoring her arousal. He stroked her through the damp silk before slipping his fingers beneath it to slide into her slick heat.
She closed her eyes and started to pant. His erection pulsed in her hand and she stroked her hand up and down more urgently, feeling the gentle velvet of the head, the silky steel of the shaft, the soft springiness of his hair.
He thrust a finger inside her. She bit her lip and lifted her hips, wanting more. A second finger slid inside her. She started to circle her hips.
So good. So good.
He pulled away from her for a moment and she felt him tugging at his jeans. She lifted her hips and pulled her panties down her legs, tossing them heedlessly to one side. She heard the faint crinkle of a foil packet and barely had time to register that he was using a condom before his weight was on her again and she was rising up to meet his penetration.
He slid inside her in one slick, powerful thrust, stretching her to the point of almost-pain. She sucked in a breath, her fingers clenching into his shoulders. She sucked in another as he started to move, pumping in and out of her, hot and hard and so good she couldn’t believe it. His mouth was on her breasts, biting and licking and sucking her nipples. She slid her hands down onto the round, firm muscles of his backside and held on for dear life.
This was
what she’d wanted. Mindless need. Heat. Slick wetness. This pressure building inside her. This wildness.
She could feel her orgasm approaching. She both craved it and feared it. She didn’t want this to end. This was all her fantasies rolled into one, everything she’d ever dreamed about in the dark quiet of her bedroom while she pleasured herself with her own hands—no gentle words and respectful, considerate, careful caresses, just his hard body slamming into hers, the suck of his mouth on her breasts, the rasp of his hairy, hard body against hers, the rise of her hips to meet his, her hands, urgent and demanding on his body. This was almost everything she’d ever wanted, except—
“Could we… Could you… Do you think we could do it on our knees. With you behind me?” she asked.
He stilled. For a moment she thought she’d ruined everything. Martin had been appalled when she’d asked him to take her from behind. As sexual fantasies went, she hadn’t thought it was too outrageous, but maybe nice girls didn’t ask to do it doggy style. There were so many things she didn’t know, after all. So many things she hadn’t done.
Then Nathan withdrew from her and his hands found her hips. Excitement throbbed deep inside her as she followed his urging to roll over, rising up onto her knees almost immediately. He flipped her skirt up and out of the way and instinctively she arched her back, offering herself flagrantly. He muttered something under his breath. She felt the probe of his cock at her entrance, then he was sliding inside her, deeper than ever, filling her utterly. “Oh. Yes! Yes!” she breathed.
It was better than she’d ever imagined. So deep. So full.
He started to move, stroking in and out of her. She heard the slap of his thighs against her own, felt the rasp of his skin against hers. Heat rolled through her in waves, pushing her higher and higher. He reached a hand around her torso to tease her nipples. She started to gasp, pressing back against him urgently, tilting her hips and clenching her inner muscles.
So close, so close.
His hand slid down her belly and into the wet curls at the apex of her thighs. Then his fingers were teasing her in divine counterpoint to his thrusts, and she was done for.
Her orgasm hit her like a wall, rolling through her body, tensing her muscles, arching her back. She hissed between her teeth, groaned his name. And still it kept coming, pulsing, wet, mind-blowing. She felt him shudder, felt him push himself inside her with a new urgency, and then he was buried inside her, his body hard as granite against hers as he shuddered through his own climax.
There was a small silence afterward, a moment of absolute stillness, then he withdrew from her. She let her head drop forward, resting it on her fisted hands.
Her belly muscles were still trembling with the aftermath of her orgasm. Her legs felt weak. She even felt a little dizzy, as though all her blood had rushed south to the party and left precious little to spare for her brain.
“I thought Englishwomen were supposed to be uptight,” Nathan said, his voice deep and amused.
“So did I.”
She started to laugh. She felt amazing. Released. Relaxed. Revealed.
Right at that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the fact that they hardly knew each other, or that she was thousands of miles from home, or that she had no idea what to do next. There was only right here and right now. And it was damned good.
4
NATHAN WOKE IN A TANGLE of sandy limbs. He pushed a strand of pale blond hair off his face and blinked in the early morning light. For the first time in a long time his first thoughts weren’t of Olivia. The reason for that was curled up against him on his bed, her backside snugged into the cradle of his hips, one of his arms draped around her body, his hand resting possessively on her breast.
Elizabeth Mason. Sam’s daughter. The not-so-uptight English princess.
He was already half-hard, but he grew to full hardness as memories from last night came flooding back. Her hands down his jeans on the beach. The first slide of his fingers into her slick, ready heat. The way she’d begged him to take her from behind and then offered herself to him so eagerly. Her fervent, needy, lusty response to his every lick, suck, stroke or caress. They’d had sex again when they got back to his place, her on top this time, her cries ringing out into the night.
Not-so-uptight, indeed.
She stirred, her backside nudging against his stiff cock. He pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck, then nipped her skin gently. She tensed in his arms, fully awake.
Good.
He found her nipple with his thumb while he teased the sensitive skin of her nape with his tongue. Her nipples grew hard and she stirred again in his arms.
He eased her knee forward with his and reached behind himself to the bedside stand. Fifteen seconds later, he had a condom on and was pressing into her hot folds. She made an approving sound in the back of her throat as he slid inside her, the tight clench of her muscles closing around him.
She was incredible, so smooth and sweet-smelling and tight and wet. He rocked his hips, nudging just the head of his cock in and out, in and out. She moaned and he felt her inner muscles clutching around him. He’d meant to take it nice and slow—lazy, half-asleep morning sex—but she started to push against him and things quickly got urgent and sweaty and greedy. He grasped her hips and she rolled fully onto her belly, then up onto her knees.
He could feel how much she loved it like this, how much it excited her, which only made him harder and hotter. Then she arched her back and clenched her hands into the sheets as she came. He could feel her pulsing around him. Her inarticulate little sounds pushed him over the edge. He bent over her, panting his climax into her shoulder as he lost himself for a few precious seconds.
The ultimate forgetting. If only it lasted longer.
She collapsed on her belly afterward. He rolled to one side and took care of the condom. Then he flopped onto his back and for a moment they were both silent, the only sound their heavy breathing and the faint sound of the wind in the old liquid amber tree outside. The studio smelled of sex and clean sweat and her perfume and he let his gaze play over the perfect, fair skin of her back and her rounded, sweet-shaped behind.
That ass… That ass made him want to do a million bad, dirty things all at once.
“What time is it?” Her voice sounded husky and a little uncertain.
“Nearly seven.”
She braced her elbows on the bed and propped her forehead on her hands. After a long moment she shifted her head slightly so she could see him out of the corners of her eyes. He raised an eyebrow when their gazes met.
She looked deeply uncertain and more than a little embarrassed. Maybe his first assessment hadn’t been that far off. Maybe she was a little uptight, after all.
“Good morning,” she said. She sounded very stiff, as though she’d rehearsed those two words several times in her mind before uttering them.
“Pretty good way to start it, anyway.”
She rolled onto her back, carefully keeping the sheet over her breasts. Which struck him as being pretty amusing, considering he’d been inside her only a few minutes ago.
Her gaze slid toward the door and she frowned. He followed her eye line—her dress was crumpled on the floor just inside the doorway, a pool of red and yellow, her sandals kicked to one side.
He had a fair idea what she was frowning over, and his suspicions were confirmed when she reached for the T-shirt trailing off the end of the bed. He watched as she shrugged into it under the covers before sliding out of bed and collecting her dress. Her back turned, she stepped into the dress and didn’t abandon his T-shirt until she was decently covered. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her skirt was caught up at the back, exposing the back of one lovely thigh and half a rounded butt cheek. She’d feel the breeze once she stepped outside, he figured.
She pulled her hair into a ponytail, plaiting it and then tucking it in on itself until it formed a loose knot on the back of her head. She had slender, graceful arms and hands, like a dancer’s.
He liked watching her move, even if her misplaced modesty was pretty damn funny.
He’d been so busy being entertained, it wasn’t until she started to toe on her sandals that he realized she was about to race out the door.
While he hadn’t exactly been a hound dog over the past few months, he hadn’t lived like a monk, either, and he’d dealt with more than his fair share of morning-after coy looks and questions hinting at one night becoming more.
Clearly, there would be no such issues with his cool English lover.
“Is there a shoe sale on in town I don’t know about?” he asked.
He ought to be grateful she was making it so clean and easy, but for some reason her eagerness to bail offended him. Not that he wanted her clinging to his chest and begging for a lifelong commitment, God forbid. But a little show of reluctance to draw a line under some of the best sex of his adult life might not go astray.
“I beg your pardon?”
He shrugged, not about to explain. If she wanted to go, she should go. He wasn’t about to beg her to hang around.
He pushed back the covers and stood. She made a small, breathless sound as her gaze slid over his body. The hot, sticky look in her eyes went a long way to assuaging his ego. If he wanted to, he could have her in bed again within seconds.
The thought had barely registered before she reached for the door handle.
“I really have to go,” she said.
Then, before he could open his mouth to respond, she was gone.
He blinked. Bloody hell. Talk about wham, bam, thank you, Nate. He’d never seen a woman so keen to get the hell out of Dodge before.
He shook off his irritation as he reached for a pair of cargo pants. So what? They’d had sex, it had been good, she’d bailed. Big deal. He probably wouldn’t remember her name by the end of the week. Which was just the way he wanted it. No strings, no obligations, no guilt.
No possible way he could ever let anyone down ever again.
Pushing her from his mind, he went to make himself breakfast for one.
Hot Island Nights Page 5