Poppy’s heart pounded erratically and her breath gasped between her parted lips when he finished. She was both thrilled and frightened by what she felt. She moaned softly. “Cay!”
His fingers traced the line of the peach juice, tickling her neck until they paused at the hollow of her throat.
“Bell.” His voice was an agonized whisper of sound in the dark stillness of the cove.
Poppy breathed so quickly now she was afraid she would pass out. Would this finally be the time when he took things farther? Did she really even want him to?
He kissed her and rubbed her shoulders with his broad palms. Slowly, shyly, she touched his chest with fingers that trembled. Her heart pounded so hard she knew he must hear. “There’s plenty of time, Bell,” he murmured against her mouth. “We have all the time in the world. I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
But in the first flush of sexual arousal, slowly was not what she wanted.
“Don’t you want to?” she asked, afraid that he hesitated because he didn’t feel that way.
Cayden chuckled and rolled onto his back. “It’s practically all I think about, Bell.” He heaved a sigh. “But I don’t want to feel like your dad was right about me. Like the only reason I want to be around you is for that.” He rolled toward her again and stared down at her in the darkness. “It’s so much more.”
Poppy touched his cheek. “For me too. While Daddy and I were arguing, I told him I love you, and he told me I was too young, and I didn’t know what love meant. But I do Cayden.”
Back in the present, Annabel closed her eyes against the powerful memory. She had wanted so much more. As she’d gotten older and realized how much she’d lost, she had fantasized how differently the night might have been. How differently she wished it had been?
In her dreams, the grown up Cayden would lean down and kiss her. “Let me at least do something for you. Okay? I won’t hurt you, I promise, and you can tell me to stop any time you want.”
He would slowly remove her bikini. When he’d bared her breasts, he would lower his head to kiss and suckle them until she moaned softly, her hands fisting in his hair. While he continued to caress her, his hands would move lower, sliding her bottoms down. He would slip them from her. When she started to cover her mound with her hands, he would shake his head.
“No, Bell. You’re beautiful.”
He’d hold her wrists to her sides as he lowered his head and kiss down over her belly. He would pause for a moment at her navel to tease it with the tip of his tongue. Her trembling legs would fall apart and his hands would part them farther. He’d look up and they’d simply stare at one another for a long moment before he would lower his face between her thighs…
It wasn’t what had really happened. As always, Cayden had been the perfect gentleman. A few kisses, some tender touches and then he had gruffly insisted they go swimming because after all they had all the time in the world. And what a cruel joke that had turned out to be.
They had lost so much since that night. She wanted it back. Was it too much to ask?
Cayden reduced sail as they entered the cove, guiding them as close to shore as he dared before dropping anchor.
“Do you want to swim first, or would you like to just sit and talk for a while?”
She looked up into his face, seeing the steady warmth in his brown eyes. “Talk,” she murmured softly. They had to start somewhere.
He took off his lifejacket and helped her with hers. “Are you comfortable enough?”
“Yes.”
“I remember the last time we were here. I asked you that same thing…if you wanted to swim or talk. You picked swim. Do you remember that night?”
She blushed and nodded. Oh she remembered it all right, in fact had relived it and built it to such a fantasy that she knew her sex would be dripping wet.
“You had a picnic basket your mom packed with the juiciest peaches.”
“Mmm.” Cayden closed his eyes, a smile playing around the corners of his firm mouth. “I also remember licking the peach juice off your chin, and wishing I could lick a few other things as well.” He opened his eyes and looked straight into her face, grinning wickedly as he saw her blush. His expression turned abruptly serious again. “I loved you then, Bell. I told you so that night. Nothing has changed. I still love you.”
She stared down at her hands. “Everything has changed, Cayden. I’m not the same person I was then. I was young and thought I had the whole world at my feet, but the accident changed that. As much as I might want it, I…I don’t think I can be the woman you need. Look at you! You’re so vital and I am…”
“Still the woman I love.” He sat at her feet and took her hands in his own. “Nothing changed that, Bell. Nothing. Please don’t try to save me from myself. Too many people have already tried.” He pressed her hands to his face and then turned them over to press kisses in each of her palms. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. All I ever will want.”
She yanked her hands away and covered her face. “Then why didn’t you come back?” she demanded in a choked voice. She was afraid that pain would shatter her into pieces. “I needed you so much after the accident. I hated what happened to me! I hated that I drove you away.”
“No! You never drove me away.” He was beside her in an instant, pulling her into his arms, and onto his lap, cradling her, rocking her. “Oh Annabel, don’t ever think you drove me away. If I could have been there, I would have been.”
Sincerity shone from his dark eyes. She clutched at his shirtfront. “Then why weren’t you?”
He held her and she heard the uneven thud of his heart, the harsh, shaky sound of his breathing. She took some comfort in the fact that he was as torn up as she was at the moment. He buried his face in her hair while one of his hands cupped the back of her head.
“There are things… things about my family that I can’t tell you right now. I had to go with them. I didn’t have a choice.” He held her away from him and stared into her face. “I had broken rules, traditions that our family—our extended family—takes very seriously. I was punished.”
She looked at him in confusion. What he said made no sense to her. “You mean like grounded? I don’t understand.”
Cayden looked away. “The heads of our family sent me away. You would call it being banished.”
Annabel pushed at him, straining away from him until he set her on the seat. “Don’t fuck with my head, Cayden! You sound like you just stepped out of some bad medieval movie!”
He raked a hand through his hair, his own temper rising. “That just about sums it up! You have no idea what my family is really like! I was sent away for seven years! Had I even attempted to contact you, I was afraid of what would happen to me and to you. I saw my family for the first time since then on the day of my birthday…your birthday. Yes, that’s right. We even share the same goddamn birthday! The night after you begged Taylor to get you away from me, I argued with my mother and father over you, and I haven’t seen them since then. They knew what had happened to you, and they never told me because they knew if they did, they would never get me away from you!”
Cayden stopped, his hand shielded his eyes from her view, but the muscles in his jaw and throat worked spasmodically. He was teetering on the edge every bit as much as she was. She still wasn’t sure how his family could wield such power, but she could see how upset he was.
“Don’t.” she whispered shakily. “Please don’t, Cayden! I…I’m not worth it.”
“Fuck that!” He slid down onto his knees in front of her, his eyes tortured. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. I loved you then, Bell and I love you now. I never stopped loving you. I need you, sweetheart.”
He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, his mouth searching and finding hers with a hunger that had only grown in the seven years since their separation. Her mouth opened to him and he plunged in, deepening their kiss as his hands roved over her restlessly.
“I dreamed of you. For seven years
, all I wanted was to touch you and kiss you again,” he declared.
His mouth covered hers once more, his fingers trailing down the column of her throat and brushing lightly, delicately against her breast. His body quivered with need.
“Cay.” Her fingers twined in his hair pulling him closer. She clung to him, molding herself to his body.
“I want to make love to you, Bell. Completely, so there’s no doubt that you’re mine. I’ve waited seven years for this moment.”
He had waited? She drew back to look at him, searching his passion-filled expression. “You’ve never?”
He shook his head. “Have you?”
She smiled at him. “Men haven’t exactly lined up at the door to take me out. A wheelchair and crutches have a rather ardor-dampening effect.”
He touched her cheek and swallowed. “Don’t belittle yourself, Bell. It’s certainly not dampening mine in the least.”
They stared at each other, face to face, their fingers stroking cheeks, touching lips, and caressing jaws.
“May I take you below?” he asked softly.
“Yes.”
His eyes traveled the length of her body. “Can you? I mean, is there any problem? I won’t hurt you, will I?”
His concern warmed her. She tilted her head and touched his cheek again. “It’s never really come up before. I don’t think it’s a problem, and I have feeling…there.”
She stopped and blushed. Cayden groaned and slid his arms behind her back and under her legs before he lifted her and carried her down into the small cabin. After setting her on the bed in the bow, he unzipped her sundress and slid it from her shoulders. His eyes darkened even more when he unveiled the curves of her breasts.
“Lie back,” he whispered. His hands tender and his eyes intense as he slid the dress from her and then gently loosened her sandals. He cupped her feet in his large hands, brushing his thumbs over the arches. She lay on the bed clad only in a wisp of white lace. Shyness overwhelmed her and she fought not to cover herself from his heated gaze because she could certainly see the effect she had on him.
“You’re so damn beautiful, Bell,” he breathed. Hunger burned in his dark eyes.
After laying her legs down carefully on the bed, he touched her breast with the tip of his fingertip and then let his fingers trail across her stomach to rest lightly against the lace covering her. She sucked in her breath and he smiled ever so slightly before he looked up into her eyes again. As she watched, he pulled his shirt over his head to reveal a chest lightly covered with dark hair that disappeared in a thin line beneath the waistband of his khakis. Seeing her intense stare, he smiled slowly and wickedly and smoothed his hand down over his rounded pecs and ripped stomach to the waistband of his pants.
Annabel swallowed as her eyes focused on the bulge in the front of his slacks. She vividly remembered how large he was from the peeking she’d done when they were teenagers. He slid his belt off, but as his hands went to the button at his waistband, she begged nervously, “Wait! Can we…could we just kiss for a while?”
He smiled and stretched out beside her, his hands cradling her. “Whatever you want. Whenever you’re ready.”
She kissed him again, moaning softly as the hair on his chest tickled her breasts. His leg eased between her thighs, rubbing gently against her until she felt her breath quicken at the sensations he created. When his fingers slid beneath the lace to play with her clitoris and stroke along the smooth wet folds of her sex, she whimpered at the exquisite sensation.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Oh, yes! More Cay.”
“Tell me if anything I do hurts you.”
Her head fell back against the pillows. “The only thing that would hurt right now is if you stopped.”
He chuckled softly as his lips slipped down her throat and over her chest until he took one of her nipples into his mouth, teasing it into a hard peak. The pull of his suckling tugged all the way down to her aching sex. He eased her panties down and away, standing briefly to strip his khakis and shorts off. She looked at him and swallowed. His cock was long and thick, so hard that it touched his stomach, a drop of fluid already leaking from the swollen red head of it.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, Bell,” he promised her.
They both lost themselves in sensations, touching and caressing each other as the boat rocked gently in the water, the sound of it lapping against the outside of the hull. His breathing roughened, but his hands were exquisitely gentle and careful as he parted her thighs and ran his fingers up the soft flesh on the insides. “Can you feel this?”
Oh God! She could and it nearly made her sob out loud with gratitude.
“Yes, Cay!” she cried softly as he touched her again. She saw the way he struggled to control himself, to go slowly. “I don’t want to wait any longer. Please.”
“I want to make sure you’re ready.” His expression was intense, his jaw hard and his nostrils flared. His dark eyes met hers for just an instant before he lowered his face between her legs and used the flat of his tongue to lick from the opening of her vagina up to her clit where he stopped to suck lightly. She arched against his mouth. “That’s it, baby,” he crooned and slipped two fingers into her tight passage. Her juices made a soft sucking noise as he teased her by flicking his fingers back and forth inside her. With his free hand he spread her legs apart in preparation for him.
His eyes searched hers hungrily as he positioned himself between her thighs. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” he whispered softly. “I can stand anything but that, Bell.”
“I won’t break.” She watched him take hold of his thick cock and he began to slowly rub the head of it up and down her slick lips. His big body shuddered.
“You’re so wet for me. Are you ready, darling?”
At her nod, he pushed forward, his breathing ragged, until he met resistance, and his breath went as still as his body.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her hungrily as he thrust forward. She cried out softly and he stilled once more.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. What did it matter if she had felt a momentary sting?
“I can feel you,” she said wonderingly. “I can feel you inside me!”
She closed her eyes and sobbed.
“Bell? What is it? What’s wrong?” He was instantly concerned that he had done something to hurt her, but even his concern was losing ground to the amazing sensation of feeling his cock so tightly sheathed inside her. She was like a hot, wet glove around his pulsing shaft, nothing at all like the hand he’d made do with when he thought about her.
She touched his cheek, tears running from her eyes into her hairline. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I can feel you moving inside me.”
He smiled at her in relief and then gasped as his balls tightened. He could feel the rush of his oncoming orgasm and knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Not this time.
“I’m sorry!” he muttered. “I wanted this first time to be so good, but I’ve imagined this for so long and I can’t. Wait. Any. Longer.”
He thrust in and out of her, his hands cupping her hips. It was so hard to hold back when she was wrapped so tightly around him. It was a sensation he’d only fantasized about. While the rest of the Silkie males might have been fucking since puberty, he’d always known Annabel Barton was the only woman he would love, but his fantasies never prepared him for the reality of what it was like to have his cock buried balls deep inside of her. His groan of completion mingled with her cry of pleasure. Cayden lowered his head next to hers and whispered in her ear. “I’m so sorry, Bell. I didn’t know how it would be, how it would feel once I was all the way in. I’ll make next time better for you, I promise.”
She turned her face to his and touched his cheek. “That you want a next time is enough.”
He smiled at her, pulling her on top of him as he rolled onto his back. �
��Oh, God! A next time and a next time and a time after that, until you tell me you don’t want me anymore.”
She smiled. “That will never happen.”
They slept, curled together on the wide bunk and rocked by the gentle waves. Cayden sheltered her with his big body, pulling her close, his arms twined protectively around her. Sometime later, he whispered, “Eat or Swim?”
“Swim.”
He grinned wickedly at her as he turned her to face him. “With suits or without?”
“Without.”
“Right answer.” He growled against her ear and then lifted her in his arms and carried her up top.
“Set me down on the stern,” she murmured. “I can get in from there.”
“I’m going to get our stuff to shore and I’ll join you.”
He had anchored shallow enough that he could stand. Holding the blanket and towels over his head in one arm, he used the other to float the cooler to shore. Annabel couldn’t help but watch as he emerged from the water, sleek and graceful with his powerful butt and thighs. He truly had the body of a swimmer, all long smoothly defined muscles. His calves were shapely, narrowing down to strong ankles. Her eyes widened as she noticed he still wore the same leather anklet he’d had all those years ago. After setting everything down, he turned and caught her staring at him. He grinned and ran back into the water, leaping into a smooth dive as he swam toward her.
She took a deep breath and dove below the surface, opening her eyes as she headed down to the bottom, gliding along, her fingers touching sand and rocks and shells. As he dove down, she used her stronger leg to push off and shoot toward the top, undulating her body in a dolphin kick that brought her laughingly back up into the sunlight. He surfaced next to her.
His expression was curious. “How do you have so much mobility in the water?”
She smiled. “It supports a lot of my weight for one thing, but I’ve also learned how to use other muscles in my body to make up for my legs. Most of my kick comes from my stomach and lower back.”
The Silkie's Call Page 9