With Every Breath (Sea Swept #2)

by Chase, Valerie

  “What?” he says, then blinks. “Oh. Right.”

  “Distracted?” I ask. He shrugs. Maybe he was thinking about the sea turtles. Sigh.

  “He’s probably imagining us making out,” Elise teases. West’s cheeks turn red, making Elise laugh, and my mouth drops.

  “Oh my God, you totally were!” I squeal.

  “I wasn’t, but now it’s hard not to,” he mutters, which only makes Elise laugh harder.

  We pose for a few minutes, then leap into the ocean a couple times with great big splashes. Finally we wade back ashore and Elise checks her phone.

  “I better get these dresses back to the costume department,” she says while I grab my sarong.

  “So soon?” I say.

  “We’ve been out here for an hour and a half already.”

  I sigh. This photo shoot has been a ton of fun—even if West seemed somewhere else half the time—and I’m sad to see it end.

  “Let me help,” I say as I reach for the blue dress.

  West clears his throat. “Actually, Yasmin, I’ve been meaning to get some head shots of you, for the project.”

  “Oh?” I ask.

  “I think we should put some photos of you in the collage.”

  I hadn’t thought to do that, but it makes sense. “Sure, I can stay a little while longer.”

  “I should get going though,” says Elise, her arms full of dresses. “Meet you guys later at the bonfire barbecue?”

  After she heads back to the ship, I walk over to the waterline and lean against a tall boulder. It’s warm from the sun, and the dappled gray would probably make for a great background. Or maybe we should go for the palm trees just a few steps away. I glance at West. We’re all alone now in the cove, and I start feeling shy again without Elise to act as a buffer. West stares at me, hard, and I can’t read his expression at all.

  “Where do you want me?” I ask. “Is here okay?”

  West puts his camera down on his beach towel and stalks toward me. I think he’s going to pose me against the rock, but just before he reaches me I notice the look on his face: intent, hungry. My stomach tightens, pulse suddenly racing, and then West is gripping my shoulders with both hands.

  “I want you right here,” West says, just before his lips crush mine.

  Heat spears through me in an exhilarating wave. His mouth is hard, demanding, and I open to welcome his tongue. My limbs feel like the sun has melted my bones, and my fingers clutch the fabric of West’s t-shirt to keep me standing. He presses me backward, pillowing my head against the rock, and his hands pin mine against the stone above my shoulders. I whimper deep in my throat, because I want to be touching him.

  I arch my torso, and West abandons his grip on my hands to slide his fingers into my hair, holding my head steady so he can devour me. I eagerly slip my hands under his shirt, spreading my palms flat against his back to drive myself more firmly against him.

  He’s already hard, pushing against my stomach beneath his swim trunks, but then West is gone, shoving away from me.

  I feel the lack like a blow, and gasp air like a fish. West stalks toward the water, wades in, and dives as soon as he’s hip-deep.

  I’m left feeling like I’ve been through a hurricane, but the wind is still howling around me. Or maybe that’s my temper, because if West thinks he can abandon me after subjecting me to a kiss that scorching, he’s very badly mistaken.

  West swims out to the mouth of the cove with muscular strokes. Just as the water turns choppy, he turns and swims back toward the shore. I stalk over to the waterline and wait impatiently until he pauses, standing chest-deep in the water.

  “What the hell?” I say, my hands on my hips.

  “Don’t reach for your butter knife just yet,” West says, and has the gall to grin.

  “I was thinking I’d pick a sharp one this time,” I shoot back, but that only makes his smile widen.

  He walks forward, then grabs the hem of his drenched shirt and pulls it over his head. Suddenly I can’t remember what I was going to say, because water is sheeting off his bare torso and his tanned, defined abs are pretty damn glorious. It’s not like I haven’t seen him half-naked a dozen times in the past few weeks, since the photo team likes to hang out on the beach during our off times at the island, but the sight of West’s six-pack makes my mouth water. I could lick all over those abs. Among other areas.

  West wades out of the sea, and I try to regain my scowl.

  “If you expect me to forget that happened, you—”

  “I don’t,” he says. “I just had to take a break for a sec.”

  “Why?”

  Instead of answering, West reaches for me. His wet hand on my skin makes me shiver in anticipation, my muscles tensing. West slides his fingers up my waist, then down to the knot of my sarong, which is still slung around my hips. He pulls at the tie, and the whole thing falls away. I’m still wearing my bikini, but with West’s hungry expression I feel naked. He looks me up and down, and I expect him to grab me again, but instead he meets my gaze. His smolders mesmerizingly, reaching inside to heat my very core.

  “Because this time,” he says, his voice deep and rough, “we go slow.”

  For a moment the words don’t make sense, because I’ve forgotten what I asked, but then I realize what he’s saying and thank God he’s not going to walk away from this, because if I don’t get to touch him soon I’m going to explode.

  West crouches to spread my sarong across the sand, then pulls me down onto it with him. I sink onto the thin fabric; the damp sand beneath gives slightly under my knees. West loops an arm around my waist and spins us, a deft maneuver that leaves me breathless and looking up at the sky.

  Then West’s face and shoulders fill my vision, and I pull him down to cover me and claim his mouth again. His hands slide over my hips and waist and shoulders, and I curl my arms around him.

  He reaches behind my neck for my bikini ties, and I arch upward so he can get to them, plus the ones behind my back. When he pulls the fabric away I shiver, feeling the warm Caribbean breeze on my bare skin.

  West covers one breast with his hand, and his mouth leaves mine to close over the other. His tongue makes hot, wet circles around the nipple until I gasp aloud.

  Dimly, I feel him untie my bikini bottoms and toss them aside. He pauses, rising up a little to look down at me, all of me. I’m suddenly acutely conscious of being totally nude on a beach in the daytime. What if someone came across us?

  “If I’m naked, you have to be naked too,” I tell him. West flicks a thumb across my nipple, and grins when I shiver.

  “If you insist,” he says, and quickly divests himself of his swim trunks.

  Laying next to me on his side, West turns my head toward him and kisses me slowly, deeply, until I can’t see straight. When his mouth leaves mine, he kisses down the underside of my breast, then keeps going across my belly, and lower still. I moan and try to pull him back up, because I don’t usually let guys get that intimate with me, but West spreads one strong hand over my ribs to hold me in place and nudges my legs open. I resist for a moment longer, then relax.

  My legs part, and then West’s mouth is there, his tongue sliding into my folds. It touches my clit and I think I actually mutter a curse, but I’m not sure because I’m no longer aware of anything except what West is doing to me. His hand on my stomach slides up to my breasts, and the other caresses from the inside of my knee up the sensitive flesh of my inner thigh. I feel a finger probing, and then it slides inside, and all the while his mouth never leaves me.

  I arch up, my hands making fists in the sarong underneath me. “West, please,” I say, though I don’t know what I’m asking. The tip of his tongue slips up and down my folds, and teases around my clit, stirring a delicious tension inside me. His strokes move faster and faster, and it’s all too much, his tongue and his finger hurling me closer to a precipice—and then, before I’m ready, I’m there.

  My limbs go rigid and I come, pleasure washin
g over me in a buffeting wave that takes my breath and leaves me gasping.

  West withdraws his hand as he moves over me, his weight welcome because I feel like I might float away. He pauses to grab a condom from his camera bag and roll it on, then draws my legs farther apart and settles between them. I sigh in bliss as he enters me, inch by slow inch. Wrapping my arms around his shoulders, I push my hips up as he bears down, filling me completely.

  Soon we’re moving together, our breathing fast and heavy, and I’m so sensitive that it doesn’t take long before the tightness builds inside me again. I dig my fingers into West’s muscled back, curve a leg around his hips, and he crushes me against him.

  I moan again, and his whole body tenses. He’s almost there, I can feel how hard he is within me, and it makes me wild.

  “Yasmin,” West shouts hoarsely in my ear he plunges into me one last time.

  As we fly over the edge together, with every breath I call his name.

  Chapter 16

  West

  It takes me a few seconds before I can think clearly. Blinking slowly, I open my eyes and drink everything in. The sand at my fingers. The cool surf beyond my feet. And Yasmin beneath me, a relaxed smile on her soft lips, looking satiated and sexy as hell.

  I pull out and lean on my side next to her. It won’t take long until I’m hard again—especially with her gorgeous body at my fingertips—and I start thinking about all of the delicious things I want to do with her, here on the beach.

  A voice at the back of my head warns that this is dangerous. What about all my resolve to stay focused on work? But looking down at Yasmin, I’m ready to throw that resolve out the window. I’m done fighting this. I like the way she challenges me, her fiery pout when I tell her she has to wear the Kippy costume. I like the way she thinks I’m some kind of artist, even though I’m not. I like the look in her eyes when she talks about her sister, her family, and how she’s not afraid to let me see her cry. I like how she gets me talking about my mom, when I haven’t talked about her to anyone in years. Somehow, Yasmin’s gotten under my skin, and I’m betting she’s going to stay there.

  I thread my fingers through Yasmin’s hair. Her nipples are pink in the sun, her lips swollen from my kisses and utterly irresistible. I’m about to tell her how beautiful she looks when she wriggles an arm free and clamps her hand over my mouth.

  “Don’t,” she warns. Her tone is sharp but her eyes are teasing.

  “Don’t what?” I say, muffled.

  “Don’t say that was a mistake.”

  Gently, I take her hand away. “I wasn’t going to.”

  She furrows her brow a little suspiciously. “Then what were you going to say?”

  “I was about to mention how …” I dip my lips to her neck, tracing my tongue against her salty skin.

  “How what?”

  I lick her collarbone, and she lets out a little moan that makes me hard all over again. “How amazingly gorgeous you are.”

  “Oh, really?” she says breathily. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  I laugh into her throat before I trail my tongue down toward her breast, letting it circle around her nipple before I take the whole thing into my mouth. Soon, she’s writhing beneath me, and I grab another condom from my camera bag. As I slide into her, I groan with pleasure.

  I can’t get enough of this. Of her.

  When we both catch our breaths again, I roll off of Yasmin and prop myself onto my elbows, glancing at her. Her eyes are closed, her mouth half-smiling.

  “So,” she says with a sigh. “I guess I gave your sea turtles a run for their money.”

  “Sea turtles?” I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about.

  She opens her eyes. “Never mind.” Reaching up, she draws my head down for a long delicious kiss. Drinking in the floral scent of her hair and feeling the warmth of her soft skin, I wrap an arm around Yasmin’s waist and roll over, pulling her to rest on top of me. She lays her head on my chest, and for a long while we say nothing, just listen to the sound of the waves at our feet and the whoosh of the breeze.

  “What time is it?” she says after a while.

  I shrug. “Who cares?”

  “We told Elise we’d meet her at the barbecue. What if she comes looking for us and we’re …” She raises her head, a faint blush spreading over her cheeks. “Like this?”

  I tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “We could always go back to my cabin,” I say with a grin.

  She returns my smile, but it fades after a few seconds. I gaze up at her, puzzled. Did I say something wrong? Yasmin wriggles a few inches away from me, her gaze wandering down the beach, back toward the ship.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  She shrugs one shoulder. “West, what does this all mean? For us.”

  I wish Yasmin would look at me, because right now I have absolutely no clue what’s going on her head. My idiot mouth got me in trouble the last couple times we found ourselves in this kind of situation, so I sit up and consider my answer.

  Before I can speak, though, Yasmin continues, “I know you don’t want to date another crew member, thanks to whatever happened between you and Letta—”

  “The thing with Letta was nothing like what’s going on with us,” I interrupt firmly. “And as for what happened just now … I don’t think it’s a mistake, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  At that, Yasmin relaxes a little. “Good,” she mumbles, and looks my way again. She lies down her stomach at the edge of the sarong and props herself up on her elbows. Her knees bend to lift her feet into the air, tracing patterns in the sunlit Caribbean breeze, but she makes no move to cover herself. Though my hands ache to touch her tanned skin again, for now I’m content to simply gaze at my island nymph and be happy that I’ve chased the shadows from her eyes, at least for a little while.

  After a minute of quiet, Yasmin’s cheeks grow red.

  “What?” she asks. “You’re kind of staring, West.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” I say.

  “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she teases, then puts up a hand. “Never mind. You are so not taking naked pictures of me.”

  I grin.

  “Don’t need to. The images are seared onto my brain.”

  Yasmin blushes furiously, which makes me laugh and pull her atop of me again.

  “Look,” she says softly, “I don’t want to mess with your focus at work. I know that’s really important to you. I’m not asking for more than you want, and I don’t know what, if anything, that might be, but—”

  “I want everything,” I say, surprising her … and myself. Just this morning I was reminding myself that I shouldn’t date an employee, that I had to keep my distance, keep my cool. Not do exactly what we’ve done on this beach. But I wouldn’t trade this afternoon for all the promotions in the world.

  That scares the shit out of me, and for a moment I almost take back the words. But Yasmin is staring at me with such a radiant, trembling expression, one of hope and happiness and even a little fear of her own, like a hibiscus flower in my palm, and I’d rather die than do anything to make her wilt.

  So I pull her head down to mine. “Everything,” I repeat, and kiss her again.

  Chapter 17

  Yasmin

  The few days after the beach pass in a happy daze. West and I stay professional at work—mostly—and spend our free time together. I wind up all but moving into his cabin, since he has a single.

  I’d thought West would want to keep things casual, ramp up slow, but I’m learning that he’s an all or nothing kind of guy. There’s no middle ground for him, but that’s fine with me because I can’t get enough of him.

  He does, however, schedule me to wear the Kippy costume again at the start of the next cruise.

  “Why me?” I pout. We’re in the storeroom after the weekly meeting, and everyone else has departed for a break before the next onslaught of passengers.

  “Because it’s your turn, and
I can’t let anyone think I’m giving you preferential treatment.” He hesitates, as if he’s steeling himself, then adds. “I guess I could wear it, instead.”

  He’d wear the Kippy costume for me? My insides turn meltier than ice cream in the Caribbean sun, because offering to wear the sweaty, bulky Star Heart mascot is way sweeter of a gesture than roses or chocolates. I almost take him up on it, but honestly, I much prefer West working the camera. I love to see him behind the lens.

  “No thanks; I’ll take my preferential treatment later tonight.” I wink at him, and he puts a hand on each side of my hips. He walks me backward until my butt hits the edge of a table. There’s a wicked glint in his eye that has me melting even more.

  “You sure you don’t want any preferential treatment now?” West says, sliding one hand under my Star Heart polo.

  “Now?”

  He bends to whisper in my ear. “There’s nearly forty minutes before we have to be at the embarkation hallway.”

  “Whatever will we do with the time?” I ask innocently. West shoves a stack of paper out of the way, then lifts me up onto the table. His strong hands on my hips make my heart beat faster, and faster still when he slips off my shirt. His head bends down to mine, his lips devouring me, sending heat and electricity shooting all the way to my teal-polished toes.

  I wriggle out of my shorts and panties, then undo his belt and zipper so that West’s shorts fall to the floor. Wrapping my legs around West’s hips, I pull him close, settle him against me. He lifts me up slightly, and moans deep in his throat as he lowers me onto him. He fills me completely, and I can’t help a soft exclamation myself.

  “God, you feel so good,” West murmurs in my ear, and I arch against him, loving the sensation.

  “Back at’cha,” I whisper, and feel West’s chuckle all the way through me. He starts to move, capturing my mouth with his. Paper slides off the table, bumped by my hips, and the white sheets spread across the floor. It reminds me of how we met and I pause, worried West’s profit margins will be eroded by the destroyed supplies, but he only glances at the mess before dipping his head to kiss my neck. His fingers unclasp my bra, and then his lips are on my nipple, and I’m gasping for breath. He moves within me like waves in a storm, fast, strong, devastating, and for the rest of the break I hardly think at all.