Tempt (Take It Off)

by Hebert, Cambria

  He was larger than I expected. And it looked silky smooth, the skin pulled taut over a member that seemed to be reaching for me. Suddenly, I wanted all the fabric away. I didn’t want his shorts anywhere near his body. and I tugged at them, making a frustrated sound.

  He chuckled and reached beneath him, pulling something out and quickly dropping it beneath the hammock. I barely paid attention. My eyes never left his manhood. My hands begged to touch him.

  Nash helped me pull off his shorts and he kicked them out of the hammock, where they landed in the sand.

  Finally, he was completely bare. Finally, I could look at him the way I truly wanted.

  “Just your heated gaze is enough to make me come,” he murmured as he reached out and stroked my nipple.

  But I wasn’t only going to look.

  Tentatively, I reached out to touch him with a single finger, trailing down to the base. He shuddered.

  My eyes snapped up to his face, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were closed. Feeling a little bolder, I continued down, cupping his warm balls in my palm. The skin here felt a little different, a little less smooth, a little thinner, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. I kneaded the round globes that rested just between his thighs, rolling them around gently in my hand while the other came up and wrapped around the base of his erection.

  He groaned and I smiled. I moved my hand up and down along the length of him, enamored by the reactions I got whenever I touched him certain ways. His skin was utterly soft, almost like velvet, and I couldn’t get enough of exploring him.

  I encircled my thumb and forefinger around the tip, noting the way it got a little wider at the top, squeezing just a little. He jerked in my hand, his stomach muscles contracting at my touch. A small bead of moisture formed at the very top and I glanced up at him, a new desire forming in my mind.

  His head was tilted back and I couldn’t read his expression, so I scooted just a little closer, my face right in his pelvic area, my feet hanging off the hammock, and I wrapped my lips around his hardness. He tasted slightly salty and tangy. I licked at him like he was a giant lollipop and his hands grabbed the back of my head, his fingers digging into my scalp. His hips thrust forward, and I took him deep into my throat.

  He groaned. As I moved my head back and forth, I cupped his balls again and massaged them gently.

  Too soon, he reached down and pulled me away. I looked up, afraid I’d done something wrong, or maybe I’d been too overzealous and hurt him. “Nash,” I whispered, my voice deep and husky. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, baby, you definitely didn’t hurt me,” he replied, carefully moving us so he was on top of me. I loved the feel of him over me, like I was small and protected, caged in by him.

  His weight bore down as he brushed the hair away from my face. His lips grazed my cheek when he whispered, “Ava, I want to make love to you.”

  “I want that too,” I whispered back.

  Like he’d done it a hundred times before, he untied the strings on my bikini bottoms and tossed them away in the sand. He fitted himself between my legs, resting there. His long, hard length pressed against my core, resting right along my folds, the very tip of him sliding against my clitoris and making it hard for me to breathe.

  Just when I thought my desire couldn’t be any stronger, a new hunger swept through me.

  He kissed me, a fiery kiss that scorched my skin, scorched my insides. It scorched my heart.

  “I’ll stop,” he reminded me, pulling back just slightly. “You can change your mind.”

  “I know.” I reached up and ran the backs of my fingers down his incredible face. His eyes deepened and fluttered closed. “I want this. I want you.” He’d already made me feel so much that I wanted more; I wanted to see what else he could give me.

  “I don’t have any condoms. I didn’t exactly prepare for this,” he said, a hint of regret in his voice.

  “I’m on the pill,” I said as he kissed my nose, my cheek, and the corner of my lip.

  He took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. “I’ve never had sex without a condom before. I swear.”

  “I believe you.”

  He started kissing me again, deep, long kisses that had my hips searching for him as he moved against me but never slid inside.

  Just when I thought I was going to go mad with need, he plunged in, one long, quick stroke. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I felt my body stretch out around him, hugging him tightly and welcoming him inside.

  He cursed softly, burying his face in my neck and holding himself still. I wanted him to move. I rocked my hips, the movement sending shivers across his skin. He moaned in my ear and then rose up, pulling back and then plunging in again.

  The hammock began to rock. The rope he used to tie it to the trees made a groaning sound as it rubbed against the trunk. He didn’t seem to notice, but pulled out and plunged into me again. My body arched up as pleasure shot through me.

  We proved to be too much for the hammock and it tipped, dumping us out. In the fall, Nash managed to wrap me in his arms and turn so he landed first and broke my fall.

  I gasped and pushed off of him. “Are you okay?”

  He groaned and grabbed my hips. I noticed then that I was straddling him, that he was still rock hard and he was pressing against me. I rocked against him, sliding along his pubic area. He moaned.

  I rocked up, leaving some space between us, and his penis stood up, presenting the perfect opportunity for me to slide my body down over it.

  Tiny waves of ecstasy rolled over me. The angle of him was different; the feel of him was stunning. I bucked my hips slowly, like I was sitting on a mechanical bull. My entire core was against him; every inch of me was in contact with him.

  The friction of the short, rough curls on both our bodies drove me wild as we moved together. Little sounds erupted from my throat and chest. It was like I couldn’t possibly get enough of him.

  Oh, I definitely wasn’t broken.

  This was unbelievable.

  This was more than I ever thought possible.

  It was like my body was no longer my own. But it was ours. We moved as one. We breathed as one. We rose to the very pinnacle of pleasure as one.

  I bent at the waist, bringing my chest up against his, and he wrapped his arms around me, anchoring me to him and then he started moving. Up until this point, I had set the pace; I had moved atop him with single-minded precision. But now he was taking control once more… He was holding me close and hammering into me, our hips banging together as pressure built inside me.

  “Come with me, bella,” he said and rocked upward, rubbing his pelvis against my super-sensitive clit while diving deep inside my body.

  We both exploded. Everything fell away, everything but the ecstasy. Everything else around us was completely lost.

  I don’t know how long we floated, how long we lay there joined together. Eventually, he lifted me up like a ragdoll, and I hung limply above his body. He chuckled and kissed my forehead. He kissed each of my eyelids, and then he sighed. “Mi adoro,” he spoke in Spanish.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, not bothering to lift my head off his chest.

  “That I adore you.”

  I smiled.

  17

  I felt my heartbeat against my chest. It was a slow and steady rhythm, kind of lethargic and lazy. But that was because I was barely breathing. I was holding my breath.

  He was touching me.

  His fingers drifted over my skin like a breeze on a summer day. It was a feather-light caress that never ended because he didn’t lift his hands.

  It started at my collarbone and drifted out across my shoulders and then descended downward until he hooked his fingers around my elbow, brushing against the sensitive spot on the inside of my arm. Downward he traveled until his fingers pulled away from mine to hover just barely over the tops of my thighs.

  Then his direction reversed, climbing upward so the slightly rough pads of his fin
gers traced the outline of my belly button and then dragged over my ribcage.

  Tiny shivers raced up and down my spine, creating goose bumps that scattered over my scalp and caused my eyes to flutter closed.

  His hands splayed my waist, gripping my flesh and pulling me closer, but he didn’t kiss me. He buried his face inside my neck and used his tongue to wet a circle of tender skin, then pulled back slightly to blow across the area. I shuddered.

  My body started to arch into him, but something caught my arm, something large and warm. It wrapped around my bicep in a possessive manner, causing my head to turn and cast a glance in the direction I was being pulled.

  My heartbeat accelerated instantly. The lethargic rhythm was chased away by a shot of adrenaline so pure that I could taste it on my tongue.

  He yanked me away from the teasing, gentle caresses and cupped my face in his palm, lowering his lips toward mine. Excitement crackled along my nerve endings and my tongue jutted out to moisten my lips.

  Just as he was about to claim my kiss, I was yanked away again, this time by the one who had me first.

  I cast a look to my left at green eyes flashing with possession and then once again to my right where chocolate eyes gleamed with jealousy.

  I was caught in the middle of two very enticing choices.

  A choice that I didn’t want to make.

  Brown eyes stepped closer, his body brushing against the entire length of my arm. He reached out and pushed the hair back over my shoulder, exposing the side of my face. He leaned down and captured my earlobe between his teeth and sucked it into his mouth. The gentle suckling sounds that whispered through my ear loosened something deep inside me.

  I turned my head toward him, not wanting him to stop.

  But green-eyes was not to be cast aside.

  His palm covered my breast, gently kneading the area and causing my hardening nipple to brush against the smooth fabric of my bikini top. And then his mouth was on my neck, pulling the skin into his mouth and massaging it with his tongue.

  Two mouths…

  Two sets of hands…

  And my single body.

  I wasn’t sure who to touch, who to grab, but I didn’t want either of them to stop. The sensation of being kissed in more than one place in a single moment made a moan escape from my lips.

  My fingers began to twitch, wanting to elicit shivers of their own.

  As my hands lifted away from my sides, I vaguely wondered who they would reach for first…

  My eyes shot open. I stared up at the dark summer sky and drew in a long, shaky breath.

  Holy crap.

  What the hell was that? A threesome… that’s what that was. Never had I ever imagined myself and two guys getting it on at the same time. I might have been embarrassed if my body wasn’t so incredibly turned on.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as images taunted me, teased my mind and my body. Nash in front of me, Duke behind.

  Neither wanted the other one there, but no one would walk away. The Ava man-wich had turned into the Ava buffet.

  Thoroughly disturbed, I turned my head and looked at Nash, who was lying right beside me, looking peaceful in his sleep. How could I have a dream like that? How could I betray him that way?

  And that’s what it felt like. A betrayal.

  I pushed up and walked quietly away, toward the water, where I stood, letting the surf rush over my feet and the wind tangle my hair. The moon was much higher now; the night seemed darker. But I didn’t mind. I felt like hiding. Hiding from myself, that dream… my desires.

  Maybe it was just stress. This wasn’t exactly an easy situation. Added to the fact I practically lost my virginity (well, the actual first time clearly didn’t count; I mean geesh, Nash made me feel more when he just looked at me) a few hours ago, well, maybe that dream wasn’t as unsettling as I thought it should be.

  A wave of homesickness swept over me, so strong that it hurt. I missed my family, my tiny apartment. I missed hunting for a new job, I missed worrying about paying the rent, and I even missed those annoying Friday night dinners when my family would ask me what I was going to do with my life.

  Being here with everything essentially taken away made things seem clearer. It opened my eyes to facts I might not have wanted to see before. I was living my life in limbo—suspended between living and drifting. And it was all because I was scared.

  What if I put myself out there like I did with my ex, like I did with my last job, only to have it blow up in my face again?

  For so long I felt like a complete failure. A quitter. I quit school. I flitted between one job and the next. I finally gave up my virginity only be dumped and ridiculed. I finally committed to a job I liked, and I was let go because the economy sucked.

  But I was still here.

  I was still standing.

  And now I was trapped on a deserted island with a guy I desperately wanted and a band of murdering pirates. To top it off, I was having dreams… dreams that were beginning to make sense.

  Well, sort of.

  What if those dreams were just one more way my mind was trying to get in the way of something I wanted? Trying to scare me away from getting too close to Nash?

  “Ava?” His voice drifted through the breeze and squeezed my heart. I looked over my shoulder at Nash, who was standing there with sleep-heavy features and messy hair. He’d pulled on his shorts but hadn’t bothered to button them or zip them up.

  He came forward, wincing a little when his feet hit the cold water, but he didn’t stop. He wrapped his arms around me from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You still having bad dreams?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” I said, avoiding the question. How did you tell a guy you had a sex dream about him… with another man?

  “You can wake me anytime.” He pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder. And then I realized…

  “I’m still naked.”

  “I know” His voice turned husky.

  “I miss home.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  “It’s been almost a week. Do you think they’ve given up?”

  “Would you have given up by now?” he asked.

  I searched deep within myself for the answer. For the truth. “No. If it was someone I loved, I would never give up.”

  “They’re going to find us, bella.”

  “I like when you call me that.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re a know-it-all.”

  I felt his chest vibrate with silent laughter. I brought up my hands to rest over his arms. I didn’t want to let go of him. Not ever.

  Conflicting thoughts swirled around my head. Finally, I sighed. Now wasn’t the time to think too deeply about the way I felt about Nash.

  Besides, my heart already made up its mind. It was just my head that was struggling. When I first met him, my body’s response had been undeniable. But my head… my head reminded me that all guys were the same. Nash showed me differently. He proved me wrong. Yet my head was still fighting against what my heart already knew.

  “What else is bothering you?” he whispered, reading me all too well. “Do you have regrets?”

  I turned in his arms, tipping my head back and gazing up into his face. “I could never regret any of my time spent with you.”

  He kissed the tip of my nose. “That’s good. I plan to take up a lot of your time.” He swung me up into his arms, cradling me against his torso and walking out of the water and back up the beach where he spread me out in the sand and came over me.

  For the rest of the night, I didn’t think at all.

  18

  I woke up to a strange yet familiar sound. It wasn’t the waves. It wasn’t the ocean breeze. It wasn’t gunshots or drums…

  It was a plane.

  Nash must have heard it too, and we both bolted up off the sand and rushed out by the water, staring at the sky and waving our arms frantically, trying to get the pilot’s attention.

  But the plane was nowhere
in sight.

  Yet we could both hear it. It had to be nearby.

  But where?

  “We need a flare,” Nash said, frenzied. “We need the flare gun on the plane!”

  We both took off running down the beach. He ran so fast he went out of sight as I struggled to push through the sand, thoroughly disgusted with myself.

  I kept glancing up at the sky, trying to catch just a glimpse of the aircraft, praying that it wouldn’t turn and fly off, leaving us stranded once more.

  When I finally reached the part of the beach where I could see our crashed plane, I rushed forward, wondering what on earth was taking Nash so long. As fast as he moved, I really expected to see the bright-red burn of a flare across the sky by now.

  Seconds dragged by.

  He never reappeared.

  The sound of the overhead aircraft faded away.

  Finally, Nash came running out of the trees, the big flare gun clasped in his hand. He had this wild look on his face. The minute his feet touched the sand, he looked up into the sky.

  “Fuck!” he screamed, frustrated. “Did you see the plane?” he asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “Grab up whatever you can find—wood, shells, whatever. We’re going to write out S.O.S. in the sand.”

  I ran off to grab some of the partially burned wood left in the bonfire and some large palm fronds and driftwood lying around. As I started to build the first S, Nash came over beside me and yanked something out of his back pocket.

  “What is that?” I asked as I worked.

  “Make it big,” he instructed, looking at my handiwork. Then he explained. “This is a smoke flare.”

  It was a long, red stick (probably would be better to call it a wand, but whatever), and I watched as he ripped the top off and jammed it in his pocket. Then he pulled the cap off the top and stuck it on his finger like an oversized thimble. He held the flare out and scrapped his covered finger over it once and it burst forward like the giant sparklers I used to play with on the Fourth of July.