by Tawny Weber
She wanted him, more now than ever. But she couldn’t take him back to her room. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to leave.
“No, here,” she said adamantly. If she couldn’t have more, she’d enjoy the hell out of what she had now. She’d have one more wild fantasy to remember. “Here and now.”
His grin fell away and those enticing midnight eyes went even darker. This, she promised herself, was how she was going to remember him. A passionate sex god, looking at her as if she was the answer to every orgasmic dream he’d ever had.
And if that didn’t get her through the rest of her secure and successful life, she didn’t know what would.
ALEX TRIED to rein in his dick’s exultation at the idea and think straight. But he could barely remember his name, let alone pull in the rampant, sharp-edged desire that was driving through him like a runaway freight train.
He stared at Drucilla, appreciating all over again the sharp angles and soft textures of her face. The pure romance of her indigo eyes and pale fairy-princess hair. She was a work of art. A work of very sensual, erotic art.
A work of art who obviously wanted to make a few of his sexier beach fantasies come true.
He was sure she didn’t realize what she was asking.
“Drucilla,” he murmured as he leaned down to press a soft, teasing kiss over her full lips. “Someone could see us.”
“I’ve wanted to make love with you here, on the beach, since our first kiss,” she confessed in a low, husky tone as she trailed one finger over his mouth. Then she arched one brow and traced that same finger down his chin, over his chest to the strained elastic of his bathing trunks.
Alex was pretty sure this was what heaven felt like. Pure fantasy, wrapped in delicious female warmth, with an edge of forbidden sexual need.
Then her finger slipped under the elastic, teasing a soft design over the quivering tip of his erection. And Alex’s brain shut off. Fantasies, arguments, even finesse all went flying into the wind. Elbows digging into the sand, he tunneled his fingers through the sea-tangled strands of her hair and lifted her lips to his.
He took her mouth in wild need. Teeth, tongue, lips all melded into one intense, orgasmic crash. He had to have her. He needed to hear her cry out his name, feel her convulse around his body.
After a quick gasp of surprise at the intensity, Drucilla moaned her approval. Sliding her fingers into his swim trunks, she wrapped her long, slender hand over his straining dick. The effect of her night-chilled fingers against his heated flesh sent a zinging flash of need through him. Before he could think twice, he pulled a condom out of the tiny pocket in his swimsuit and let her sheathe him.
He growled in delight at the feel of her cool fingers, but before he could do more, Drucilla wiggled. Alex groaned, opening his eyes to look at her. Her rounded gaze stared back at him, a question in the indigo depths. Before Alex could figure out what she was asking, let alone answer it, she lifted her chin.
“I want on top,” she whispered. “I want to ride you like you ride the waves. Power, pleasure and complete control.”
He gave her a tight grin as he gripped her hips and flipped her over so fast she gasped out a laugh.
She didn’t bother to pull down her bikini bottoms. Instead, she tugged loose the bow on her hip and black fabric fell away. Alex groaned, reaching down to trace the soft curls she’d exposed.
Poised over him, she used both hands to tug the elastic down and free his throbbing dick, then with a wicked smile as her only warning, impaled herself in one smooth, wet thrust.
It took all Alex’s control not to come right then and there. The throbbing heat gathered, pulsed, intensified. He’d only last a few minutes.
Knowing he had to bring her up fast and furious, he slid the triangular panels of fabric off her breasts, swirling an index finger around each straining nipple, then flicking the hard nubs.
She gasped, then rotated her hips in a way that tested his control. He plucked at her nipples, then levered himself up to suck one deep into his mouth, teeth and tongue savoring the delicious treat. Her head fell back, soft strands of silken hair tickling his thigh as she moved up, then down. Up again.
He could feel her muscles quivering, tightening around him. Needing more, he lay back and wrapped his hands over her hips to set a faster, harder rhythm.
So close.
Something nagged in the back of his head, a faint warning. Alex shifted, digging his heels into the sand and raising his hips. Drucilla gave a satisfying gasp of pleasure, her head falling back so her hair rained like glistening moonlight over his hands.
His body climbing higher with every slide of hers, he skimmed his palms along the smooth, bare flesh of her belly to cup her breasts.
The nagging grew stronger. Alex frowned, his passion-glazed eyes narrowing as he struggled to identify the source.
Laughter. He turned his head and squinted. The other end of the beach, about a mile down, at the water’s edge. He could just make out a couple strolling along. The wind carried the faint sound of their merriment over the pounding of the surf.
The bonfire blazed between that couple and the glorious sight of Drucilla poised over his body like a sea goddess. But that didn’t mean the gigglers wouldn’t get an eyeful if they came closer.
“Drucilla,” he whispered urgently, knowing how easily sound carried on the beach. “We’re not alone.”
She slowed her undulating ride, but didn’t stop. With a shuddering breath she shook her head as if to clear passion’s fog, then met his eyes. It took a few seconds, glorious seconds since her undulations were now tighter, deeper, as she moved in tiny incremental swirls, before his words sunk in.
He gestured with his chin toward their company. She followed his gaze. He pressed his hands onto the sides of her hips, preparing to help her slide free of the pony ride. But she tightened her thighs, gripping his like a vise.
“I don’t care,” she whispered back. “They’re all the way at the end of the resort. They can’t see us.”
Maybe not in detail, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the silhouette of a woman riding a guy in the firelight meant. Alex didn’t care if they didn’t know exactly who they were, he didn’t want anyone getting off on the idea of Drucilla doing sexy times in public.
Filled with a surge of what Alex vaguely recognized as some latent protective instinct, he did the only thing he could. Never one to refuse a lady, especially one who was doing such delicious things to his body, he scooped his hands under her shoulders and in a quick roll switched their positions.
Now she was under him, her legs wrapped around his hips and those glorious blue eyes laughing as she caught her breath.
Her smile was as exciting as the wet heat of her body as it gripped him. He’d never been as turned on by a woman’s laughter, by her sweetness, as he was with Drucilla.
He shifted, sliding his still-throbbing erection almost all the way out, then slowly—oh, God, so slowly—back in.
Her amusement quickly faded, passion clouding her gaze as he moved. Alex reveled in the feel of her wet heat gripping him as he slid in, then out. In, then out. His movements in time with the sea’s song, he gradually increased the tempo. Her breath quickened, the movement pressing her breasts tighter to his chest. He could feel the fiery prickle of heat where her nipples, still bared from earlier, stabbed into his skin.
Urging him, enticing him. Testing his control.
Control Alex was determined to hold on to. Not only to keep their pleasure private, but to drive Drucilla crazy. To give her the most incredible experience. One that she’d never forget. Just as he never wanted her to forget him, he realized as he shifted, sinking deeper with every thrust.
He pressed his elbows into the towel, the sand beneath it shifting, settling. Supporting his weight as he angled his body, intensified his thrusts. Gave over to the demanding power of his need.
Her movements edgier, Drucilla’s eyes closed, her chin lifting to leave her
pale throat bare for his lips. Little cries, low and breathy, escaped. Alex’s brain shut off. His body took over. He thrust, deeper, faster, harder. His own breath quickened, a guttural cry lodged in his throat.
Drucilla’s fingers dug into his hips, her nails a sharp counterpoint to the brain-fogging power of his building climax. He slammed into her now, finesse, observers, hell, everything except Drucilla herself, forgotten as he pounded his way to heaven.
Her body tightened. He felt her orgasm before he heard her cry of ecstasy, the walls of heaven clenching, grasping, pulling him deeper. Drucilla arched. Alex drove deeper. Her nails scraped the bare flesh of his ass as she tried to milk every ounce of delight from his body.
Growling, Alex exploded. Stars flashed behind his closed eyes.
Mind blown, he collapsed against her, barely cognizant enough to shift his weight so he didn’t smash her. He buried his face in the silky curve of her throat, the flowery scent of her hair filling his senses. Sweet magic, he thought as his brain slowly reengaged. She was the sweetest of magic. And she needed him.
Her hands now smoothing soft, soothing circles over the small of his back, his shoulders, he sighed. Oh, yeah, she needed him. For sex, of course. Couldn’t get better sex than what they had going on here. But for balance. He remembered her crazy talk about success and security. No way was his fairy princess meant to waste herself, her fabulous sense of adventure, on something as uptight as safe success.
He’d have to show her what life was really all about, he realized.
His heart still jackhammering, Alex sucked in a breath, then let it out in a deep, satisfied sigh.
Oh, yeah, he promised himself. There was no way this was ending when Drucilla left. He’d spend tomorrow charming her into agreeing to continue their relationship back in the States.
Relationship, he repeated to himself, waiting, testing. But nope, no freaked-out urge to pat her on the ass and run. Apparently his nerves, along with his heart and his body, were in it for the long haul.
Crazy, he told himself as his brain still floated somewhere on climax cloud nine. It was crazy to think he could be falling in love with a woman he’d know less than a week.
A part of him wanted to tell her, now. To spit it out, take his chance with her reaction. Alex shifted so he could see Drucilla’s face, not sure if he was relieved or frustrated to see her lashes curved over her cheeks, her breathing moving from frantic to placid as she slipped into sleep.
Tomorrow was soon enough, he decided, feeling as if he’d just stepped back from a cliff’s edge. He’d romance her, charm her, then wow her with his plans.
She wouldn’t be able to resist.
“WHAT THE HELL do you mean, she’s checked out?” Alex growled, leaning threateningly across the concierge desk. “Don’t bullshit me, Juan. Where’s Drucilla?”
“She checked out early this morning, took the first flight out.”
That didn’t make sense. Maybe there was an emergency. Some problem at home.
“Then tell me how to reach her. Phone number, address, whatever,” he snapped, trying to regroup and revise his plans.
“I can’t, Alex.”
“Don’t give me that hotel-policy crap.”
“In this case, it’s not the hotel’s policy,” Juan said, apology shining in his dark eyes. “It’s the guest’s request. She asked that we keep it private.”
“She didn’t mean from me,” Alex said, laughing despite the nasty feeling curdling in his stomach.
“Actually—” Juan fumbled some papers, staring at the disordered pile instead of meeting Alex’s eyes “—she said specifically from you.”
Alex glared out the window, the pounding surf a pain-hazed blur.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this. He wasn’t ready to let her go. To let this go. Alex’s teeth clenched against the unfamiliar pain ripping at his gut. He’d thought he and Drucilla might actually have a chance. Oh, not forever. He wasn’t stupid. But for the next little while.
He had to force himself not to punch the wall as he stormed out the door.
So much for falling in fucking love.
7
“STAND UP STRAIGHT, Drucilla,” Olympia chided her only child. “Your shirt is bagging in the front, you don’t want to be flashing cleavage, now, do you? You work in a male-dominated field. You have to work harder to get ahead, to command respect. You don’t want them to start thinking you’re easy or something, do you?”
God forbid.
Nothing drove home vacation over like a nagging mother, Dru realized as she yanked another weed from her mother’s backyard.
Dru didn’t bother glancing down. Her crewneck tee was completely modest. After all, she was home. She spared a brief moment of regret for her silk halter dress. Now that’d shown some cleavage. But the dress, like her vacation, was a thing of the past. The real world and all its confining demands were firmly in place again.
Was it any wonder she’d had to leave the country to score decent sex?
Within two hours of getting off the plane, she’d laundered and stored her sassy, sexy vacation clothes. She’d put away her stash of romance novels and spent her first night home tucked into bed with three science journals and a notebook.
And if that wasn’t a mocking reminder of what her life was really like without all the incredible sex she’d left behind, Dru didn’t know what was.
God, she missed Alex.
“You don’t have to tidy the entire garden today,” her mother reproved from where she sat, flushed and perspiring on the concrete back step.
“I don’t mind.” It was a good distraction from pouting over the loss of that mind-blowing sex and missing Alex. And from freaking out that she missed the man even more than she missed the sex.
“I’m getting tired out just watching you, Drucilla. Please, take a break already.”
Still patting mulch around the edges of the large clay-potted rose, Dru glanced over, noting the dark circles under her mother’s eyes and the heavy droop of her shoulders. It wasn’t today’s yard work that’d worn her out. Gardening usually recharged Olympia.
And yet the yard had been a mess when Dru had arrived. Which meant her mother had been working overtime at her waitressing job instead of spending time on the one thing she indulged herself in—puttering with her plants.
Guilt made Dru wince, and she focused on getting the mulch just so. She knew her mother would prefer she live here. She knew it was insane to carry the expense of two houses.
But oh, God, she needed her own space.
“You go ahead and rest. I’m almost finished,” she replied in a cheery tone, crouching to scoop the deadheaded roses and lavender into the gardening bucket. “Besides, the cosmic string project I’m heading starts tomorrow. I’ll probably be swamped for the next few weeks and won’t have much time to stop by.”
As usual, at the mention of Dru’s job, her mother’s face grew gloomy. Dru ignored it, instead turning back to the happier sight of a pile of weeds and dead flowers.
It was pointless to wish her mom would be happy for her. Or hell, even fake being supportive. Nope, Olympia was all about the negatives. Lawrence Robichoux had passed on three things to his daughter. His eyes. His love of science. And, upon his unfortunate death six years back, the care of the woman he’d spent thirty years disappointing.
“You’d have done better to try to get a job with the government, Drucilla. This private lab can fire you at any time, you know. It’s hardly a secure position,” Olympia said as she came over to help Dru lift one of the large ceramic pots filled with freshly planted herbs to move it to its new sunny perch. “Remember, just because they gave you this project, it’s not a guarantee of success. So don’t get above yourself. No grandstanding.”
“Because there’s such an overabundance of grandstanding when it comes to cosmic strings?” Dru retorted, struggling to keep her tone on the joking side of snide.
“It’s always better to keep your feet on the ground,”
her mother chanted, a familiar refrain.
“I think that corner would be perfect for the hibiscus tree we were talking about,” Dru said, needing to change the subject. “I had a message waiting from the nursery, they said it’d be in tomorrow. I can borrow Nikki’s pickup and get it for you, if you’d like.”
“No, no,” her mother said as she scooped up the woody bits of jasmine vine they’d trimmed and shoved them into the bucket. “I’m thinking we’re just fine with what we have. I don’t know anything about caring for those fancy flowers.”
Dru frowned. Her mother had a thumb green enough to grow cactus in the snow. One hardy hibiscus tree was hardly a challenge.
She looked at her mom, ready to argue. Then she saw—really saw—her face. The tension. The worry. The familiar look of fear.
“What happened?”
Olympia pressed her lips white, then plastered on a bright smile. Dru knew that smile as well as she knew her own face. It was the we’re-off-for-a-new-adventure smile. The one that always preceded a middle-of-the-night flight. A new school and new friends.
Dru didn’t see the look as often now as she had when she was a child. After all, now that she was financially invested, the chances of her mother having to sneak off in the middle of the night to escape eviction was slim.
Her father hadn’t been a bad man. He’d absolutely adored his wife and daughter, and he’d been brilliant. When she was little he’d taught college physics. But then he’d lost that job. After a few years, he’d found a job teaching high school biology. But he’d lost that job, too. Eventually he’d had to resort to instructing the occasional science refresher course at the local adult school. He had been a fabulous teacher.
He’d just had a tiny little gambling problem.
One that’d cost his family everything they had. Over and over again.
“Mom? Is something wrong?”