by Joanne Rock
“You could donate the proceeds from any endeavor you chose.” She wondered if she was losing her touch that he could still be talking about business when her senses were so keenly attuned to him. Dipping into the nearly empty bowl of fruit, she pulled out a small berry and brushed the skin lightly across his lower lip, rolling it beneath her fingers.
“If you ask me,” she told him, leaning closer, “you simply need to explore your passions.”
He seemed to remember her then, judging by the dark look in his eyes. A flame seemed to light his pupils from within now, the night narrowing to just the two of them on her balcony in the moonlight.
With surprising quickness he pulled the berry into his mouth, swallowing it before he gently clamped her finger between his teeth. The bowl he’d held clattered to rest on a deck lounger as he turned toward her. Into her.
The feel of his teeth sinking softly into her skin tantalized her, making her think about all the ways they could please each other. When a small moan escaped her lips, he released her finger and reached for her hips.
“Guess which passion is first on my list?”
She was too delirious with the feel of his hands on her hips to speak. The heat of his palms penetrated her dress and the decadent silk lingerie she’d slipped on after her trip to the hot tub.
Adam curled his fingers into her flesh with gentle, insistent pressure, pinning her body against his until she felt every square inch of him. His lips grazed her ear, his words soft but distinct.
“If you guess fruit-flavored French women, you’d be right.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ADAM MIGHT PREFER beer to any of the high-brow vintages offered on board the ship, but he had to admit champagne tasted better than anything when tasted on Danielle’s lips.
He held her tight against him, shifting her whole body to find the right angle for the kiss. The fabric of her dress was thin and gauzy, allowing him to feel the outline of her underwear just below her waist. His hands were attracted to that line with all the power of a magnet, keeping his touch confined to that narrow pathway.
“Someone will see.” Her words drifted through his consciousness as she pulled back to look at him.
His breath heaved in and out of his lungs and he tried to process her words.
“We could move inside,” she offered, giving him a clue by nodding toward the door.
“Done.” He spun her around in his arms so that she was in front of him and let her lead the way into the suite.
Her dark hair swung against her back as she moved, the lights from the deck above catching in the dark strands. Everything about her was feminine and graceful.
He didn’t let her get all the way to the bedroom, even though he was in a hurry for that. He wanted to take time to appreciate every last inch of her. Now, spinning her in the middle of the suite, he looped his arms around her shoulders, toying with the straps tied at her neck.
“You smell like jasmine,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Her kick-ass accent seduced him as much as her passion for life. For him.
“Your perfume. I realized tonight when I found you in the spa that jasmine is one of the notes in the scent you wear.” Walking into the spa had practically made his knees buckle, the scent reminding him of his night with Danielle. He’d never be able to walk into a florist shop without getting turned on again.
“Magnifique. Your skills as a perfumer improve every day.” She flicked open a button on his shirt, her fingers cool and light against his skin, which was growing hotter by the second.
“I’ve been taking workshops. Besides, I’m on a mission to solve the riddle of your perfume.” He leaned in closer, brushing his lips over her bare shoulder as he breathed in the scent of her. “But I think I’m going to need some extra time with you to let the notes really sink in.”
“You could cheat and look at the bottle on my bathroom counter.” She popped another button and splayed her hand on his chest.
“My method is going to be a hell of a lot more fun.” He tugged the tie at the back of her neck. “Especially when the places you put perfume are all so tempting.”
The halter top slipped down to reveal a strapless lacy white bra…eyelet, maybe? All he knew was that she looked hot. Hints of skin showed through the fabric, teasing him.
“You couldn’t possibly know all the places I wear fragrance.” She arched back to push the rest of her dress down her hips, but he stopped her, wanting to save that task for himself.
“No?”
“No. I don’t even wear a full-fledged perfume. Instead I mix a blend of light essential oils into a lotion that goes…well, everywhere.” Her fingers went back to his shirt buttons, and she lingered with the last one above his belt. “This sounds like more fun than I could have hoped.” He backed her against the open balcony door, illuminating her from behind with a white moon glow.
“But you’ll never find scent concentrated in any one place.” She tugged his shirt from his pants, and the cotton sliding over his abs felt like a prelude to sex.
“Then you have failed your body chemistry test, since the heat of your pulse points ratchets up any fragrance you put there.” He bent to her neck to test the theory and inhaled the sweet, sexy scent that was Danielle.
“Clever man. Or perhaps you have just spent more time exploring your lovers’ bodies than me.”
He licked her neck with a quick swipe of his tongue and her breath caught. Held.
“I promise you’ll benefit from the experience.” He planted his hands on either side of her, bracketing her with his arms.
“You men are full of promises.” She rose up on her toes, forcing his tongue to swipe lower beneath her collarbone. “What I am interested in is the fulfillment of these promises. I believe you call this the ‘action’ portion?”
Danielle waited for him to see her point, to tumble her into bed and…well, tumble her.
But the man had a will of steel. And, lucky for her, all the rest of him was quite steely, too. She just needed to make him appreciate the urgency of the matter.
Hoping the removal of her clothes would help him see matters her way, she slipped a finger into the waist of her half-fallen dress.
“Danielle.” His reaction time was lightning fast. His hands pinned hers to her sides, preventing her from moving. “Wait.”
She would rather have been naked, but she definitely didn’t mind being pinned by this man. Her skin tingled with pleasure, a warm glow suffusing her whole body.
“Make me.” Her challenge tightened his grip, and his pupils dilated ever so slightly in response.
Oh, she liked this.
“I don’t want to regret not taking the time to appreciate what’s happening between us.” His words were harsh. Serious. “I spent all today knowing I’d regret it if I didn’t try to see you again in spite of what you wanted. And I kept thinking about how much I wanted to find out where you like to be touched best. I want to know what it will do to you if I touch your thigh under a table full of people or what would happen if I undressed you with my teeth. And I’m going to hate it if I go back to New York next week and still don’t know.”
Her heart slowed, her pulse slamming with a devastating beat when it finally kicked in. She could get lost in this moment and never resurface. The air between them crackled with sexual energy and keen awareness.
“I—” Her voice was so breathless it barely had a sound. She tried again. “I want things, too. And since there’s not a chance I’m testing the theory of what might happen between us if we were in a room full of people right now, I think we’d better explore one of my ideas or else you ought to get those teeth ready to disrobe me.”
His grin seemed fierce. Feral. But maybe that was because she only had eyes for the glint of his pearly whites. Her breasts ached as she imagined him peeling off more layers.
“I can give you what you want,” he promised. “I just want to make us both aware of what’s happening here so that we can recal
l every last heartbeat in vivid detail when we’re back on separate sides of the ocean.”
A fleeting vision of herself alone in her Nice shop brought a pang to her heart before she chased it easily away with the presence of here and now. Both of which tantalized her.
“I’m aware,” she assured him, breathing him in as she tipped her head back against the door. “I’m very, very present to the moment and the feel of you against me. But I don’t want to be present any longer. I want to lose myself totally. Sacrifice my thoughts to an inferno of feeling until there is nothing left but sensation.”
He held her there for a moment that seemed eternal, his breath syncing up to hers to create a oneness between them. And then he lifted her off her feet, picking her up right off her shoes to carry her in his arms through the suite to the bedroom. The mental gratification of having made him see her point didn’t come close to the physical satisfaction she knew awaited them in this room. The scent of lavender on the sheets drifted up as he tossed her in the middle of her bed. He didn’t join her right away and she enjoyed the simmering expectation ignited by watching him unfasten his shirt cuffs.
“I have swayed you from your good intentions.” She flexed her leg to wrap around his calf, holding on to him while he undressed.
“I’m a reasonable man.” He shucked his shirt and stretched out over her, putting his weight on his forearms. “Besides that, you make a damn persuasive argument.”
His mouth covered hers, silencing any response she might have made. Her words turned to sighs and then a low, needy moan in her throat. She met each swipe of his tongue with a stroke of her own, matching his movements until the warm heat in her womb became something sharper. Something she couldn’t ignore.
Her fingers raked helplessly down his sides as she reached for his belt, but he distracted her by slipping a hand behind her back and unfastening the frivolous white cotton eyelet bra she’d bought more for show than function. Her fingers paused at his waist while he lowered the garment, unveiling her breasts.
The night breeze off the water was less noticeable in the bedroom, but she felt it most keenly in the sensitive peaks of her curves as he cupped them each in turn. He drew one taut bud into his mouth and her hips arched in immediate response, the link between pleasure points keen.
Her thighs twitched restlessly until he moved his own leg between hers, providing delicious counter pressure to an ache too sweet to bear.
A wildness took hold of her, making her twist her head back and forth along with her hips. She wanted more. Much more. And she didn’t know how long she could wait to find it.
“Please.” She clutched his belt with an awkward grip, determination making up for what she lacked in finesse. “I am…” The words evaporated from her mind. “Urgent.”
He must have listened because he began to work his way down her body, lowering the skirt of her dress with his teeth. The feel of his breath so close to her skin made her edgy. Excited. Frantic.
When he pulled the fabric over her hip she nearly came undone and he hadn’t even touched her. The dress wound around her knees, binding her in place while he slid back up her legs to retrieve her panties.
Merde.
She battled the urge to close her eyes and let sensation carry her away because she did not want to miss anything. Her fingers twined in the sheets as he hovered over her, teeth clamping on the elastic at her waist. Fire raged over her skin, the heat concentrated at the juncture of her thighs. When he unwound her dress from her legs and planted an intimate kiss there, she cried out with the pleasure of it. The sweet sensation rained over her, quenching the fire on her skin and bathing her nerve endings in undiluted bliss. She quaked with the force of her release, her whole body shaking from lush spasms.
Caught up in her own fulfillment, she must have missed Adam taking off the rest of his clothes and making sure they were protected. She regretted her sexual selfishness as he stretched out over her, naked and ready, while she floated on a cloud of ecstatic aftershocks.
But heaven help her, she couldn’t regret it for long as he slid inside her. Filling her completely. She wound her arms around him, her legs around him. He steadied her, adjusted her, and then found a way to slide still more deeply within her.
Tunneling her fingers through his hair, she kissed him. That simple, elemental joining was all she could contribute to their coming together since the rest of her body was completely in thrall to whatever he wanted and however he moved. Her fingernails scraped his shoulders as he withdrew from her and then pushed his way back again. Deeper. Sweeter.
The rhythm took her again, hot and fast. Finally she understood why Adam wanted to slow things down. She wasn’t ready for this to end, either. She tried to hold back, desperate to keep him deep inside her, desperate to put off her release, which was so close. So inevitable.
So—
The tide crashed over her, battering her with wave after wave of molten heat. The ship beneath her could have been sinking and she wouldn’t have known it, her whole world narrowed to the feel of Adam in and all around her. His completion followed hers by seconds, minutes maybe, but it seemed those heightened sensations went on and on. The thrill of each new sensual shudder traveled back and forth between them, multiplying.
She might have fallen asleep in that haze of sexual contentment if Adam hadn’t moved her, securing a pillow under her head and covering her with the sheet. She curled into him then, grateful she had not shut him out of her life this week.
“I will not regret this,” she murmured through sleepy contentment, determined she would find a way to pull her company together, with or without a public image the world approved.
“You’d better not.” He slid his arm underneath her pillow while his other hand fell into the crook of her waist. “Or I’ll hunt you down in France and remind you exactly why this was a good idea.”
She smiled for a moment before a pang shot through her heart. Not seeing him again after this cruise would be a higher price than she’d originally foreseen.
The thought troubled her as she recognized yet another problem in her life she didn’t know how to solve.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“HOW DO YOU feel about darts?”
Adam posed the question from Danielle’s bed two mornings later while he watched her hurry around the bedroom searching for a misplaced lipstick, a mate to a shoe and a hairbrush in quick succession. He liked seeing this side of her—the private side that was more whirlwind than sophisticated European. They had barely left her suite in thirty-six hours other than a quick jaunt into Portofino. Although the Italian Riviera had appeal, it couldn’t compete with dragging Danielle back to bed.
She paused long enough to peer strangely at him.
“Darts?” Her accent softened the d almost to a j, the game clearly unfamiliar to her.
“Yeah. A game where you throw, uh—they’re like miniature arrows—at a corkboard to score points. A bar game.”
Finding the missing shoe under her bed, she slipped into her high heels. She wore an olive-colored linen skirt and a gold camisole that showed off an abundance of skin. He wanted to haul her back into bed but she had her second formal meeting with Ahmed Ramnathan this morning and he didn’t want to do anything she might perceive as jeopardizing her chances of landing the account. He planned to give the retailer his best shot, too, and he wanted a clear conscience about how the business deals shook down when the cruise was over.
“I’m afraid I have missed the kinds of bars where arrows are slung about.” She reached for her jacket and Adam mourned the loss of a spectacular cleavage display. “But I am a woman of adventure, so perhaps you can show me later when we go ashore.”
Villefranche was the port closest to Danielle’s home city of Nice and the site of her satellite shop. He had to admit he was curious to see her on her home turf later today.
“You’d try darts for me?” He tried to picture her in her heels and designer clothes lining up in front of the dartboa
rd.
She shrugged as she swiped on a peachy-colored lipstick and assessed herself in the mirror.
“You sniffed flowers and ferns with me. Why would I not give miniature arrows a try for you?”
He had to grin at that.
“That might be the most romantic thing a woman has ever said to me.” He shoved off the covers and rose out of bed since she appeared close to leaving. He’d already showered—an event he’d never forget since he’d taken Danielle in with him—but he hadn’t bothered to dress yet since he didn’t want to miss a moment of watching her.
“Stick around.” She turned smoky eyes his way and looked at him through long lashes, her painted lips puckering in a full-on pout. “Romance is what a French woman does best.”
He skimmed his hands over her hips and up under her jacket to the delicate silk of her camisole and the soft skin beneath it. In deference to her newly painted lips, he planted a kiss beneath her ear, tasting his way down her neck.
Her fingers clutched at his shoulders and he had to stop himself from pulling her back into bed and messing her up all over again.
“Good luck with your pitch, Danielle.” He stared down into her eyes, until she blinked away the heated moment and stepped back.
“Thank you.” She smoothed her skirt and picked up her sketchbook.
“You must know I accidentally saw a few of your drawings the other night at the spa and they look fantastic. Ahmed would be an idiot to ignore that kind of tailor-made marketing effort for their UAE customers.” In the name of fair play, Adam thought he should at least admit that he’d gotten a peek at her work.
A frown pulled at her lips for a moment before she seemed to shake it off.
“I’m really excited about the potential for the line,” she admitted, sliding the spiral book into a leather bag with some other paperwork. “I based the ideas on Tales from the Thousand and One Nights.”