Jinxed!
Page 22
A relieved breath escaped Wes, and he shook his head, tucking a strand of hair behind Erin’s ear. She leaned into his touch, craving more, startled to find she was unafraid to accept it.
“And here I was thinking it was about me,” he said. “I thought that you felt I wasn’t good enough.”
“It’s not that you weren’t ‘good enough.’ You were what I thought I needed. But what you really were scared the dickens out of me so I tried not to deal with that side of you.”
“So…” He swallowed. “It turns out that you made this curse, Erin. You and your psychological obstacle course.”
Whoa. She braced herself to withstand a flood of terror at this realization, but it never came. No, there was only a rise of soft heat consuming her from the toes upward, covering her skin, engulfing her.
“I was using the curse to keep myself from having to make any decisions about you…?” It made sense now: at first the curse had been built on coincidences, such as the emergency drill. And she’d been all too willing to embrace it, giving it new life from there, starting with her so-called seasickness.
He began guiding her into the corridor, where the early-morning quiet still hovered.
It didn’t take a genius to guess where he was taking her. But what if he was wrong? What if the curse wasn’t just her creation? What if-?
“Damn the curse,” he said, as if reading her mind. “It was nothing. Even if a tsunami turns this ship over, you’re mine.”
His determination shot a thrill through every extremity, tingling her skin as he shut their door behind them.
Before she could catch her next breath, he’d pressed her against the door, his penis already hard against her belly. Her insides went squiggly, and she latched her mouth to his, seeking to share the pleasure.
They devoured each other, desperate and hungry, tongues tangling as her skin flushed with wet heat. She tried to yank off his shirt; he tried to undo her jeans. Her head hit the wall, but she didn’t feel any pain, just adrenaline-fueled, deep-seeded delight.
Moment by beating moment, that delight melted down, over her flesh, into her belly, like the thaw of ice cream on a sweltering day.
Hadn’t the fortune-teller said that going with the flow would correct any warped karma? Was that happening now that she’d opened up?
Yes! Hallelujah-
That’s when the intercom sounded for an announcement.
10
AT THE INTERRUPTION, ERIN started banging her head against the wall.
“Hell, no,” Wes said as the purser began to ramble over the intercom.
But the moment he heard the phrase “shipboard games,” he carried on. Screw the curse-it was crap.
He lifted Erin up, and she squealed in surprise. It obviously turned her on, too, because she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him senseless.
Blood chopping and all systems “go,” he spun her toward the bed. But in their passion, he didn’t know his own strength, accidentally knocking her against the vanity counter. Her cosmetics went clanging off the surface, yet it didn’t matter as he set her down there, her legs wrapping around him and drawing his cock against the warm center of her.
Hot. Dammit, he could feel how much she wanted him, even through their clothes. His growing erection ticked against her as they grinded, kissed, lapped each other up in long, slow, demanding thrusts and sucks.
He was so starved for her that his penis was already wet at the tip. In reaction, he tugged off her sweatshirt, tossing it away. Then her bra. Her sneakers and pants.
All the while she panted, watching him with a smile.
Not just sex, he thought, gaze caressing her full breasts, her tiny waist, her white lace panties. This was going to be more than just physical. And the fact that he hungered for that excited him to amazing heights.
He shucked off his own clothes, leaving himself bare to her. More bare than with any other woman in his experience.
As she ran a gaze over his body, there was more than lust to her look. A profound craving-that’s what it was. An invitation to make her happy beyond just this, and he could give that to her. She made him believe it.
On a groan, he moved forward, dipping his fingers down the front of her panties. As he skimmed over her curls, down between the slick folds of her sex, she purred, shifting with satisfaction. It goaded him, sending a violent throb through his cock, making it go stiff.
He whispered in her ear, breath stirring her blond hair. “You’re so pretty down here…pretty everywhere.”
She mumbled something unintelligible into his neck, biting it. He flinched with the tickle-harsh contact, then smoothed two fingers inside of her. Circling, stirring, he worked her until she arched against his palm, her own hands bracing herself on the counter.
He found her face flushed pink, dewed with new sweat as she closed her eyes and bit her lip. Her intensity turned him on even more; it slivered his heart, making him feel wildly possessive for the first time in his life.
Ripping off her panties, he got to his knees, pulling her forward and adjusting her legs around his shoulders.
“Oh-” Her eyes shifted to gray for just an instant but then she relaxed, smiling again. The color turned silver, etched with encouragement.
He spread her open with his fingers. Damp blond curls surrounding pretty pink, just as he’d said. Voracious, he licked upward, reaching her clit. There, he laved, then spun his tongue around as if making cotton candy.
She dug her fingers into his hair, pressing, urging. He took one of her lips into his mouth, then angled his head to the side, kissing her, seeking entrance with his tongue. In, out, around…
Rocking against him, she groaned, becoming drenched. But just as she seemed about to fall over the edge, he sucked her other lip into his mouth, slowly drawing back at the same time until it slurped out-his own favorite candy to enjoy.
“Wes-”
Without pause, he rose up, sliding his hands up her hips, her waist and then to her breasts. Her distended nipples were dark and ripe: cherry decadence. Taking the fullness of them into his palms, he weighed their heft, eased his thumbs over their centers, then took one into his mouth to gnaw gently at it.
This time her cry was strangled. He guessed she was ultrasensitive there, so he doubled her delight by trailing his fingers down her belly, brushing over the soft skin, the hint of pubic curls.
Low sounds, like impatient winces, came from her throat. He laved her other breast, slipping his hands between her thighs again, working her clit until she scratched at his back.
“Now,” she insisted. “Do it now.”
His cock pounded, making it almost impossible for him to fumble out a condom from the vanity counter where he’d stuffed a string of packets earlier. He managed to sheath himself.
Finally, he took her by the hips, their gazes meeting.
And the curse?
Screw it.
Tested beyond endurance, he tugged her forward, impaling her on his erection. She leaned back her head, grunting softly with the sudden act of taking him in. She was tight, wet and hot.
“Erin…?”
“Gone,” she said. “It’s gone…”
She began to churn against him, tightening her legs around him to bring him deeper.
Now it was his turn to groan, enveloped by her. And he welcomed it, finding freedom in the captivity-a heightened joy that’d escaped him until he’d accidentally found it.
Grinding, she brought him to the point of a primal yell. He pushed into her again and again, their rhythms syncopated as they eventually slowed down, rolling like waves under a ship, rocking it side to side.
Tenderly, he nuzzled her, and she responded in kind, embracing him as if she’d never let go.
But then the waves grew rougher, slapping against him, stripping him raw, rushing and invading until they tore at him from the inside out.
He came with a searing release, falling over her as she sank back against the mirror. His breath fogge
d the glass, blurring his image as he burrowed against her neck and held on to her with desperate fury.
She gently kissed his ear. “I could get used to this,” she said, voice quivering with emotion.
As he gathered her closer, skin plastered against skin, the mirror unfogged.
Revealing the Wes Ryan he’d been looking for.
Epilogue
Two months later
WHEN ERIN SAW WES come through the door of Yes, Sweetie, where she’d been tasting new candy for the inventory, she ran out from behind the burnt-oak counter, practically bowling over the barrels of bulk candy. She crashed against him in an exuberant embrace.
“Finally!” she said, digging her fingers into his wild hair and bringing him in for a kiss.
“Mmm? Mmmm.” His surprise turned into obvious pleasure as he soaked into her, fitting their mouths together and probably tasting the root beer candy she’d just been noshing on.
She tasted him, too, luxuriating. Then, with cheeky suggestion, she sucked at his lower lip, pulling away at the same time.
They laughed as she leaned her forehead to his cheek. “You know how to keep a girl waiting.”
“Isn’t that the secret to maintaining a spontaneous, exciting relationship?”
He led her over to “The Candy Bar,” a more popular hangout now that Constant Cravings, the business complex’s former coffee shop, had relocated. Another java house had taken its place, but had enjoyed little success. Here in the wood-planked room of The Candy Bar, amid the smells of saltwater taffy, licorice and bubblegum, patrons could partake of hot chocolate: white, dark, laced with vanilla-however they wanted it. Every drink came with candy, so it wasn’t odd to see both adults and children using the bar: even now, there was a crowd of preteens sharing an iPod, but there was also a customer with liver-spotted hands lingering behind a newspaper at the other end.
“Of course-” Wes said, removing a newspaper from a barstool and taking a seat “-I’m no expert at this relationship thing, so what do I know?”
“You’re a natural, so stop being coy.” Absently, Erin played with the leather bracelet Wes had given her after their first time together. When he’d tied the simple piece of jewelry around her wrist in the afterglow, it’d been the most priceless thing Erin could’ve asked for.
Wes pulled her onto his lap. She’d really missed him, even if they’d seen each other this morning when he’d tumbled out of bed early. In fact, it’d been the crack of dawn when he’d started east-coast business on his personal computer, where he’d remained trading even after Erin had gotten ready for work. She didn’t stop by her own place much now, had her own armoire at Wes’s condo, actually.
Who would’ve predicted that she would agree to her own closet space with him so soon? But he was her “definite man,” and it made sense to be halfway moved in with the guy she loved.
A chipper voice interrupted the canoodling. “Keep it PG, kids,” Cheryl said.
From Wes’s lap, Erin turned to her best friend and partner in the franchise they were creating. “Don’t you have some paperwork to go over for our franchise venture?”
Cheryl scrunched her nose at Wes. “Control your woman, please?” She shot a pseudo-mean look at Erin, grabbed some empty mugs, then took off toward the back room.
From the teeny bopper end of the bar, giggles sounded. The newspaper patron turned a page, ensconced behind the inked barrier.
That reminded Erin…
She tugged over the morning edition Wes had discarded on the bar’s surface. She’d been reading it earlier while taking a break.
“You’re not going to believe what I found today,” she said, opening to the Baxter Hills announcements page. “Look.”
Wes scanned the paragraph she’d indicated. “Evan Sawyer and Lacey Perkins announce their engagement…”
“Remember?” Erin just about bounced on Wes’s lap. “They’re the other couple that dissed Madame Karma’s prediction. They managed to beat the curse, too, just like Chloe and Ian.” The accountant and Erin had started talking more, ever since the fortune-teller crisis. They’d even bonded over their shared experience, Chloe inviting Erin to her own engagement party.
“‘Curse’? Did you say the word curse?” Wes asked. “I thought we were never going to mention the damned thing again.”
“Don’t call it damned!” Erin whispered. “Don’t curse the curse. You don’t know what can-”
Wes cut her off with a kiss-a deep, long, limb-melting press of his lips. At the end of it, he sucked her lower lip in a sexy promise of what would happen when they were finally alone again.
“I love you,” he said, “but stop fretting. You know what fretting brought on back when you were having those issues-”
Now she kissed him, shutting him up for good.
As they fused into each other, the preteens giggled even louder at the kissing adults and sprang from their stools, leaving the candy shop as if they had much better things to be doing.
And, at the other end of the bar, the shop’s newest customer, Isabelle Girard, aka The Legendary Madame Karma, peeked out from behind her newspaper at Wes and Erin.
She smiled, then went back to her horoscopes and hot chocolate, pleased at seeing yet another prediction come true.
Jacquie D’Alessandro
***
Jill Shalvis
***
Crystal Green
***
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Document version: 1
Document creation date: 02.07.2012
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