Stormchaser

by Cherry Adair

  “I think it’s obvious what I want, Jonah. I thought I made my desire for you clear at dinner.”

  “You noticed I didn’t respond favorably to your advances. Don’t embarrass us both any more. Grab your clothes.” Dropped on the floor between door and bed. “And f—leave.”

  “I’m not in the least little bit embarrassed, εραστής,” she assured him, stretching like a cat. For such a petite woman her breasts were large, and a bit too firm. Implants, Jonah figured. Her nipples were large, dark brown, and flat. No arousal there, thank God.

  She held out a hand, wiggling her fingers. “Come to me, I can give you pleasure like you’ve never known.”

  Jonah stayed right where he was. “I saw your boat leave.”

  “Christos will have circled back when he saw the outside lights go off. He will wait for me.”

  “The guy’s eighty years old, for God’s sake! The last thing he should be doing is ferrying a spoiled brat where she isn’t wanted in the middle of the night. You need to leave now, Miss Spanos. I’m tired, and my patience is wearing incredibly thin. I don’t want to have sex with you. Not interested. I can’t be any plainer than that.”

  As she slithered off the bed, Jonah figured she’d hang her head, blush, and get the hell out of Dodge, but instead of bending to pick up her jettisoned clothes, she lunged at him, kissing him full on the mouth. As if that would change his mind. If anything, it sealed the deal, disgusting and turning him off, even more if possible.

  Jonah felt like an adolescent virgin as he clamped his mouth shut against her invading tongue, and at the same time, clamped his hand over her slippery hips to keep her from grinding against him.

  She was like a fucking Venus flytrap. He wrenched out of her hold as her fingers wrapped around his dick, holding on tightly through the thin layers of his shorts. “Enough!”

  Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her hand off his dick. Shoving her aside, he raked his fingers through his hair, at a loss. “Lady. Take a hint. Not. Interested. You wanna spend the night? You’re welcome to bed down in the lounge. You want sex, you’re in the wrong place.”

  “I could make you want me.” She circled him like a cat around catnip, her long-nailed fingers scoring his chest, her lips brushing his arm, almost as if she were tasting him.

  Goose bumps of revulsion sandpapered his skin. “No, you absolutely cannot make me want you.” He grabbed a trailing hand and gave her a not-so-gentle shove. “Not today or any other day. Sorry, Miss Spanos, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  Not just no, but hell no. “Not particularly.”

  Throwing herself back on his bed, she stroked a slow hand up the inside of her thigh. “A man doesn’t have to like a woman to have sex with her.”

  “This man does.” The others had just returned to their cabins. Hauling her over his shoulder, naked, and probably screaming like a banshee was going to cause all sorts of shit to fly. Okay. He had to admit, that would be embarrassing enough. But Callie was right across the hall, not four feet away from his door. Jonah could only imagine what she’d think if she saw him carrying a naked Anndra through his ship.

  “Are you αρσενοκοίτης?”

  “I have no idea what that is.” Although he suspected he did. Shit, he didn’t give a rat’s ass if she impugned his masculinity as long as she got the hell off his bed, and off the ship.

  She played with her nipple as she watched him from beneath heavy lids. “Queer.”

  She was no more aroused, even by her own touch, than he was watching her. “No, I’m not. I don’t know how I can be plainer than showing you that I’m not attracted to you. In any way. At all. You’re making a fool of yourself.” He walked over to the bed, intending to yank her to her feet. If she wanted to leave naked, so be it. “Have some dignity and get out before I carry you bodily through my ship and toss you overboard. There. Is that clear enough fo—”

  The door cracked open, and Callie slipped inside, turning slightly to close it behind her. About facing, she gave him a delicious smile which, even under the ridiculous, farcical circumstances, made his heart skip several beats.

  “Jonah, I was thinki—” Her eyes narrowed like laser sights as she realized they were not alone.

  Hard to miss a very naked, sparkly Anndra, sprawled on her back, one knee cocked. Open and ready for business.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Both Jonah and Callie took aggressive steps forward.

  Him to intercept, her to—God only knew what.

  “What the hell?” Callie said, clearly outraged.

  And Fuck.

  As if the situation couldn’t get any goddamn worse.

  Jonah stayed where he was until he could ascertain if she had any sharp implements on her. He put both hands up as Callie walked farther into the cabin. Dark hair hanging loose down her back, she wore the T-shirt she slept in, and he suspected nothing else. Her legs looked silky and a mile long.

  “Believe me,” he said, with utmost sincerity, not moving from his spot at the foot of the bed. The timing couldn’t be worse. Their truce, while hot enough to burn the sheets, was still at the embryo stage. “This is not what it looks like.”

  “Oh, I think it’s exactly what it looks like.” She looked from Anndra to him and back again. “I think a skanky, opportunistic slut slipped into your cabin and lost all her clothes, then waited for you like a spider.”

  Okay, so far, almost so good. He couldn’t quite tell from her closed expression exactly what she thought, but he could most certainly imagine. He took a tentative step in her direction.

  Anndra in the meantime made absolutely no move to cover herself. Wearing nothing but a smug smile and some sort of slick oil that made her body gleam like a fish about to be fried, she was as fucking relaxed as a cat sunning itself. Jonah would like to strangle her, but that would require him touching her.

  “I was in the process of kicking her out. I’ll do just that, and we’ll—”

  “Oh, no,” Callie kept her gaze firmly fixed on Anndra. Anndra smiled like a Cheshire cat and stroked the inside of her thigh with black fingernails.

  Callie smiled back. The temperature in the room kicked up by several degrees.

  Holy crap. Jonah took a step back.

  “Please.” Callie’s voice sounded silky and menacing at the same time, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “Let me do the honors. I’ll enjoy it.”

  Fifteen

  Close enough to throw his body between them if Anndra got aggressive with Callie, Jonah retreated to lean against the dresser, arms folded to watch the show. “Have at it. Let me know if you want me to jump in.”

  Callie shot him an unfathomable glance before bending to pick up Anndra’s scattered clothing off the floor, where she’d left a—short-trail. There wasn’t much. Two items to be exact.

  “I suspect her plan to eat you before, during, or after sex had nothing to do with your sexual satisfaction.” Callie tossed the clothes on top of the other woman. “Just an FYI, Cutter. This one doesn’t consider sex recreational. Do you?” she asked Anndra as she walked over and stood closer to the bed.

  With one finger she shoved the other woman’s bent knee. “Close these. He’s not interested, nor is he your gynecologist.”

  Anndra slapped her legs together and dropped her hand from her breast. Then glared at Callie as if she were the devil incarnate. “I have as much right to be here as you.”

  Callie’s smile was scary. “Not in a million years.”

  Turning to Jonah, she picked some flimsy piece of clothing off Anndra’s belly, forced the fingers of Anndra’s left hand open, then shoved the fabric into her palm. Anndra squeaked with pain as Callie rather forcibly closed the other woman’s hand around her clothing. “Lady, get yourself dressed or suffer the consequences if I have to do it for you. I’m very generously giving you thirty seconds before I jump right in and see just how fast I can do it for you.”

 
She turned to Jonah. “Just an FYI. I’m saving your ass. This one is a particularly nasty Phoneutria.”

  Jesus. She was magnificent. Cheeks flushed, pale eyes glinting with annoyance, she was a volcano under an ice cap. Fascinating to watch. Deadly as hell. Sexy—man, her sex appeal was off the charts. He grinned. “I’m guessing that’s something extremely unpleasant.”

  “What is this?” Anndra shouted, swinging her legs off the bed, holding her clothing to her chest. She made no effort to fully cover herself; nor did she seem in any hurry to get dressed and run for her life. “I am no murderess!”

  “A Brazilian wandering spider,” Callie informed him, yanking something out of the other woman’s hand, holding it up for inspection, and then pulling the skimpy tank top over Anndra’s head. “Wow. The size of your clothing is in direct correlation to your intelligence. Who would’ve thunk it? Stick your arms through, or be trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and sent home to your brother just like this. I don’t give a shit.”

  She crossed her arms as she waited, giving the other woman a don’t-fuck-with-me look, until Anndra shoved each arm into an armhole with all the cooperation of a fractious three-year-old.

  Not that it made a damn bit of difference. The skimpy bit of clothing barely covered her naked breasts and didn’t reach her belly button. The rest of her was still naked.

  Callie wrestled the shorts from Anndra’s grasp, dropped them on her lap, then gave the woman’s ankle a sharp kick until she complied and pulled the shorts up to her knees.

  Callie told her with utmost calm, “I’m quite sure you’re practiced at getting undressed and dressed while prone, but get your greasy, skanky ass off Jonah’s bed and finish this process. Hurry up, my patience is wearing extremely thin. Although, I must confess, I’m actually looking forward to you resisting so I can throw your half-naked ass into the boat and send you back to the loving arms of your brother.”

  With a spate of unintelligible Greek, mixed, Jonah suspected, with some Turkish and possibly Arabic, Anndra slipped off the bed and yanked up her shorts, spitting invectives. He straightened in case he needed to intervene, but didn’t get any closer. If Callie made a move indicating she needed his assistance in any way, he’d be right there between them. So far she was more than holding her own.

  If looks could kill, Callie would be lying in a smoking heap on the floor writhing in agony.

  The two women were only a foot apart, because when Anndra stood up, Callie didn’t give so much as an inch. Inside, Jonah applauded. Yeah, he suspected he’d pay later, but right now it was a show not to be missed.

  “Vicious,” Callie continued to him as if they were having a private conversation. “And sometimes hard to identify. Not that I had any trouble. One of the most toxic spiders in the world. Do you need help with that?” she asked politely as the other woman fumbled with the zipper and button on her shorts.

  “Min m ‘angízeis, skýla!”

  Ah, don’t touch me, bitch. Jonah understood that much. Anndra finally got everything zipped and buttoned. “You have no right to burst in here and interrupt us with your petty accusations.”

  Callie laughed. “Seriously? You can say that with a straight face? Up and at ’em, Stheno. Hope there’s a boat waiting for you, because it’s a long haul swimming back to your island.”

  “This is an outrage!” Anndra screeched, struggling in Callie’s hold as she was dragged to the door.

  One hand clamped on Anndra’s upper arm, Callie pulled open the heavy door with the other. “It most certainly is.” With a firm shove, she pushed Anndra into the corridor. “Keep moving.”

  “My brother will slit your throat for this.”

  She was dead serious. Time to intervene? “Hey, that—”

  Callie held up a hand to shush him as she stopped Anndra in her tracks, spinning the other woman around to face her. She got right in her face. “You listen to me, Spider Woman. You were not invited into my man’s bed, καταλαβαίνετε?”

  Anndra gave her a black look, then swore at her in Greek. Jonah didn’t have to know what the words meant; their intent was clear.

  “You have a nasty, filthy mouth,” Callie told her, then after a pregnant pause continued evenly, “I just gave you two pertinent pieces of information, which you’d be wise to actually hear. Let me reiterate those for you: You weren’t invited. My man.”

  “I want my shoes!”

  My man. Silently, Jonah handed Anndra’s gold sandals to Callie.

  “Good Lord, you have enormous feet. To match your ego.”

  Anndra snatched the heels out of Callie’s hand.

  “You can put them on in the boat on the way home.” She gave the other woman’s arm a not-so-gentle shove to get her moving in the right direction. “I’ve had all the conversation with you I can stomach. Keep moving.”

  Callie didn’t break stride going up the stairs to the next level, nor when she almost threw the other woman down the ladder to the dive platform.

  Fortunately for Spanos’s sister, the small boat bobbed on the choppy water. The man/monk/accomplice woke from his nap with a jerk and raced over to assist her. Jonah untied their mooring as soon as her feet left Stormchaser.

  Anndra grabbed the rail of the small craft, pale face a rictus of fury in the moonlight. “I’m going to tell Kallistrate how you treated me. You’ll both be sorry.”

  “Please have him talk to me,” Jonah informed her coldly. “I’ll tell him exactly why you aren’t welcome on board my ship, and what you offered me—in detail—while you were here. I suspect your holiday will be cut short.”

  She threw one of her sandals at him. It bounced off the side of the boat, then made a small splash as it hit the water. The sound of the powerful engine muted her screams of fury.

  Callie padded over to a towel rack and pulled one down, wiping her hands vigorously. “I have skank glitter all over me.”

  Jonah wrapped both arms around her waist from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head as they watched the white wake of the small boat head toward the darkness of the distant island.

  “Holy crap.” Callie wrapped her arms over his. “That woman has no boundaries.”

  She’d been an Amazon for the last fifteen minutes, but now she trembled slightly in the aftermath. Jonah tightened his arms around her waist. “Thanks for saving me from a fate worse than death.” He was only half joking.

  “When I first met her, I dismissed her as a pleasure-seeking bimbo. But I think she has a whole other agenda. And sorry to crush your ego”—she twisted to look up at him—“but I don’t think it’s crazy lust for your admittedly scrumptious body. I think Miss Spanos has a different, more unsavory agenda.”

  He cupped her breasts through her T-shirt, loving the weight and silky glide of the fabric over her smooth skin. Her nipple peaked to greet him. He smiled against her hair. “You think I have a scrumptious body?”

  “Is that the only part of what I said that you heard, Cutter?”

  He turned her in his arms, tilting her face up. “No, I hear and compute, but right now she’s on her way home, and I have you, the moonlight, and an empty deck.”

  Dipping his head just as she stood on her toes to meet him, Jonah kissed her. A blast of sexual energy tore through them, like a forest fire, so that what he’d intended as a soft kiss instantly turned into a forest fire of need.

  He sucked in her gasp of surprise, wrapping his arms around her slender body, loving the feel of her, the taste of her—Hell, he was in deep, deep trouble here.

  “What’s a Stheno?” he murmured, lifting his head, sliding his hands down to cup the sweet curve of Callie’s butt through her shirt. He danced her back against the rail, keeping the press of her small, perfect breasts and the flat plane of her belly against him.

  Her legs parted enough for him to bring his erection tight against the juncture of her thighs. He felt her damp heat through his shorts, and got harder still as he wound his hand in her hair.

 
Annoying thoughts of Anndra faded as quickly as the wake of the rapidly retreating Astondoa. He wanted to take Callie right now, right there, on deck, under the stars.

  “A Gorgon, and Medusa’s nastier sister.” She ran both hands up his chest under his shirt, her fingers cool as she paused to circle his nipples with the pads of her fingers. He could’ve told her it didn’t work that way on him—but right now, having his nipples fondled by her turned him into a bundle of rampant nerve endings.

  Rock-hard, his dick pulsed as if it were a magnet zeroing on true north. Skimming her palms over his sides to his back, Callie ran her hands on either side of his spine in long, languid strokes in a far-from-soothing caress. The feel of her fingers on his body made his dick twitch, and his hair lifted as if electrified. Nipping at his jaw, she arched her throat when he went in to kiss her mouth.

  “A vi-vicious female monster with brass hands, sharp fangs, and hair of live venomous snakes … Oh—I like that.” She gave a full-body shudder as he used the edge of his teeth on the taut tendons of her throat, then followed with a slow stroke of his tongue. “She—I feel that all the way down to my—She killed more men than both her sisters combined.” Callie finished in a rush, clearly trying to remember how to breathe as he nibbled his way to the shell of her ear.

  Jonah slid the long skeins of her hair over her shoulder, loving the silky slip and slide of the dark, waist-length tresses. Having liberated her ear, he ran the tip of his tongue along the swirls, then nipped at her earlobe, pulling her harder into the cradle of his thighs. Her skin felt as soft as heated satin. “Then I’m very happy you burst in to save me.” He felt her smile as he explored her eyebrow with his lips.

  “I burst in to have wild monkey sex with you.”

  The skim of his lips felt the flutter of her heartbeat at her temple. “Didn’t we do that a few hours ago?”