Worth the Risk: A Contemporary Romance Bundle, page 60
But only here for a week. After that, another week at home before she went back to work, and what would happen the next time they faced each other over a spray of bullets? She couldn’t afford that distraction. And that’s all it would be, wasn’t it? All it could be? A pleasant distraction. She might no longer blame him for the death of her partner, but looking at Vincent would always remind her what tragedy a moment’s hesitation could create.
“What the—” Vincent suddenly bent over in the water. “Shit! Ouch!”
Even at this distance and in the dim light, she could see his face contort into a grimace of pain. “Vincent!”
Her mind filled with dorsal fins and sharp, gnashing teeth, Kendall ran toward the water. Vincent had begun splashing out of the waves, grunting in pain. She didn’t hesitate, but ran directly into the ocean toward him.
“Get out!” she cried and grabbed his arm. She expected resistance, but got none. He leaned toward her so suddenly, she lost her balance and fell, floundering, into the salt water.
It closed over her head briefly before she managed to get to her feet, and all she could think of was that she’d feel the sharp bite of fangs into her flesh in a minute. But she didn’t. As she surfaced, sputtering, she heard the low, deep burble of Vincent’s laughter.
“I stepped on a shell,” he said, and held up the offending item.
“What?” Kendall slapped her wet hair away from her face. “A shell? I thought—”
Vincent hummed the theme from Jaws. He let the shell drop back into the water with a plop. He cocked his head to look her over. “You were really scared.”
Her heart had been pounding so hard that bright sparks had flashed in front of her eyes. She forced her breath to slow, but she couldn’t keep her fists from clenching. Suddenly, she realized her teeth were chattering. She couldn’t speak.
Vincent looked at her in concern and reached to touch her shoulder. “Hey, Kendall, I’m sorry…”
She shrugged off his touch and began to push her way through the water back to the sand. Her foot caught on something, probably the same damn shell, and she let out a yell that echoed across the dark beach. Then she began to limp toward the beach.
Vincent caught her arm, and she couldn’t keep going without a struggle. Frankly, Kendall wasn’t sure she had a struggle in her. Adrenaline had fled, leaving behind a vague nausea in her stomach. Her dress was sopping wet, her foot hurt, and embarrassment bloomed its heat into her cheeks.
He moved closer to her. Close enough she could feel the heat of his body on hers. It made her shudder and shiver all the more, in a way that had nothing to do with any chill. Kendall gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering, but she couldn’t stop herself from shaking.
“You’re shaking.” He put his arm around her, and all at once Kendall became intensely aware of his nakedness. The water cloaked them both from the waist down, but his arms and chest were still tantalizingly, agonizingly bare.
“That was a mean thing to do,” she managed to spit out between chatters.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
His fingers splayed gently on the bare skin of her arm. Kendall looked up at him. She couldn’t recall ever being so affected by the feeling of a man’s fingers on her arm.
“I’m going back.”
“Wait, I’ll—”
She pulled away hard enough to make him lose his grip. “I’m not waiting. Stay out here all night, if you want. Let a shark come and bite you right on your bare ass. I’m going to bed.”
Behind her, she heard him splashing out of the water, but she didn’t turn to see him. She didn’t trust herself. Dry and clothed he was nearly irresistible. Naked and wet…she wouldn’t stand a chance.
Chapter 6
The next day, she avoided him by attending every single activity listed in her packet. Shuffleboard—endless hours of it. A lecture by Dr. Marge about the reasons why society often viewed cops as villains rather than heroes, and how national tragedies turned those opinions around. More shuffleboard, and a limbo contest she won by default since nobody else bothered to show up. She avoided the beach and snuck out of dinner early. By nightfall, she was exhausted.
She’d just gotten into bed when the noises began. What the hell is he doing in there? Kendall turned over and pondered putting the pillow over her head, but the noises coming through the wall were simply too tempting to ignore. She got on her knees and pressed her ear to the wall above her headboard.
Vincent was grunting. And thrusting? He was doing something, anyway, in an unmistakable rhythm. She heard the squeak of the mattress, punctuated with the low, breathy sounds of a man getting quite a workout.
Heat flooded her again. An image rose, unbidden, of Vincent sitting on his bed, his back pressed to the wall mere inches from where her fingers now rested. His long legs spread, and his cock a thick, hard rod jutting from between his thighs. His fingers on it, moving up and down.
She licked her lips. He couldn’t be, could he? She thought of her solo expedition in the shower. He could. And probably was.
She ought to just lie down and go to sleep, but she couldn’t. Not when the sounds coming from the other side were putting her into an erotic trance. As if by their own will, her hands found the peaks of her breasts. Her nipples jutted through the thin cotton tank top she’d put on to sleep. She rolled them between her fingers.
She could picture him so perfectly, it was as though she was in the room with him. Watching him stroke himself. Watching his face as he began to come.
She slipped a hand between her legs as she imagined. The head of his cock glistened with the slick drops of pre-come. His hand pumped up and down, up and down, while her finger swirled a tight, close pattern on her swelled clitoris. In a few minutes, she’d joined him on the verge of climax. Her hips pumped close to the wall.
Now he began to stroke faster. His face creased with pleasure, his eyes closed, his white teeth closed down on the fullness of his lower lip, then on the tip of his tongue. He used one hand to cup his balls, lifting them for her pleasure while his other hand kept up the pace she was now matching with her own.
He gave a low moan…a sexy moan that had her breath catching in her throat. She could see his head drop back against the headboard. His feet pressed against the mattress to lift his hips farther into the embrace of his clasping fingers. Kendall slipped a finger inside herself, imagining it as Vincent’s cock. Her thumb beat a rapid pattern on her clit while she slid her finger as deep as it would go.
His cock would stretch her, fill her. She shuddered in the first wave of convulsions. Her clit pulsed and throbbed. On the other side of the wall, the sounds increased. She matched his pace.
He’d fuck her hard, wouldn’t he? A big man like that would engulf her. But she could ride him, grind her clit into that muscled stomach while his cock filled her tunnel and his big hands grabbed her hips. Now Kendall pressed her palm to her clit, pushing in time to the rhythm she heard on the other side of the wall.
She was close. She was coming, and he was, too. She could hear him. Hear the low, gentle moans and the harsh breath. She pressed herself to the wall and let the climax wash over her.
It hit her in four or five short, sharp bursts then faded into a series of languorous contractions that had her hips jerking with each one. She rested her forehead on the wall for a minute, spent, while the last waves of pleasure flowed through her. Then, with a sigh, she slid down with her back to the headboard.
Kendall couldn’t believe what she’d just done. Getting herself off in the shower was one thing, but masturbating while eavesdropping on someone doing the same thing? She should have felt dirty, but all she felt was ready for sleep. Her vagina was warm with satisfaction, though her mind wasn’t satisfied. It would take more than her imagination and right hand to rid her of the sexual ache.
She yawned around a smile. What would he do if he knew what had just happened? Had he been thinking of her while he stroked himself to orgasm? It wasn’t likely that she’d ever find out.
Then, from the spot on the wall just where his hand would reach if he lifted it above his head, Kendall heard a firm knock. Shave and a haircut.
She thought for a minute, then reached up and knocked her reply.
Two bits.
Chapter 7
By unspoken agreement, they spent the next day together. Breakfast. The beach. Lunch by the pool, where she trounced him soundly at checkers and he kicked her ass at backgammon. After lunch they each had more sessions with Dr. Marge, and after that, they stopped at the front desk to pick up the white envelopes that had their physical results.
“I got an A,” Vincent told her while she scanned her test.
Kendall rolled her eyes. “That’s your blood type.”
He flicked the paper at her. “I passed everything else, too, Frasier. Clean as a whistle.”
“Me, too.”
They stared at each other for a long, intense minute, pondering the implications of each knowing the other was clean. Vincent broke the spell. He tucked his paper into the pocket of his loose-fitting beach pants and then took hers. He folded it and put it in the pocket of her shirt. His fingers brushed her breast; her nipple sprang instantly to life.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I think that deserves a drink.”
She took him up on the offer, knowing there was more at stake here than just a clean-health slate for the job. But what did it mean? Could she do this? Fuck a man she might at some point have to work with?
“Want to take it back to the patio?” he asked her, and again she knew her answer meant more than just the location where they’d quench their thirst.
When they’d settled themselves into the battered rattan chairs around the sturdier table, Vincent didn’t waste any time.
“Frasier, are you the type of woman who likes one-night stands?”
She let her tongue taste the salt on the rim of her glass before answering. “They don’t generally interest me.”
“Good.” Her answer seemed to please him.
“What about you?” she asked. No sense in being coy, and besides, she was interested. Just because he didn’t have any STDs didn’t mean there wasn’t a sexual past.
“I’ve never slept with a woman only once.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “They always come back for seconds.”
She laughed at his good-natured self-assurance. “I never said I didn’t have one-night stands. I just said they didn’t interest me.”
He took a long pull on his beer bottle. “Why have them then?”
She shrugged and savored the sweet margarita while she took her time answering. “Well, if I go to bed with a man and he’s lousy, sometimes it’s not worth the effort to try again.”
That answer didn’t please him as much. “You give a guy only one chance?”
“Depends on the guy.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. The conversation was getting interesting, but more so because it didn’t feel awkward to be discussing these things with a man she didn’t really know. “If it’s a guy I like, even if I don’t come right away, I give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“You’re saying you don’t like to come?” His incredulous look made her laugh. “Or are you saying if you like the guy, you fake it?”
“Who doesn’t like to come? But I’ve never faked it, and I don’t ever plan on faking it. I’m just saying that if you love someone—hell, even if you just like someone a whole lot, sex doesn’t have to be all about the orgasm. Not for women. And if I make love with a man, and he doesn’t make me come, that doesn’t mean the sex wasn’t good.”
“You’ve been making love to the wrong men then.” He gave her a knowing grin. “A man who can’t give his woman an orgasm just isn’t trying hard enough.”
She scoffed. “Whatever you say. Like I said, if a man can’t get me off, even if I do like him, I’m not going to fake it just to soothe his ego. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sure I would. I’ve been with women who couldn’t make me come.”
This revelation thoroughly stunned her…so much she had to sit back in amazement. “What?”
He seemed pleased to have shocked her. “Yeah. Girls with big tits and tiny brains. The pretty ones who think that looking good and lying there ought to be enough. Like they don’t actually have to make any effort. It’s just enough that their tits are big. They get me hard, but without that connection…”
“You’re saying you need a connection?” She hadn’t meant to sound so disbelieving.
He looked hurt. “Hell, yeah, sure. Even if it’s only a one-night stand, you have to have the connection. Something that draws you to the other person for some reason other than their body.”
She shook her head. “You’re full of surprises.”
“Ain’t I, though?”
“So what happened with them? You just didn’t finish?”
“You’re making it sound like it’s happened a lot of times. It hasn’t. I don’t usually make that mistake.”
“But what happened when you did?” she persisted.
Vincent ran a hand over his head, scruffing his close-cropped hair. “I faked it.”
“You faked it!” She laughed. “Get the hell out.”
Again, the hurt look, tempered this time with an edge of pride. “Sure, I faked it. They never knew.”
“How on earth could they not know?”
“When you’re wearing a condom,” Vincent said patiently, “it’s as easy for a man to fake as it is for a woman. A few moans, some groans, some heavy breathing. You stop pumping, they stop humping.” He paused, then seemed determined to convince her of something. “But only after they have their orgasm, of course.”
“Of course. How do you know they haven’t faked it, too?”
“I know,” he boasted.
“You’ve seen that movie When Harry Met Sally, haven’t you? How can you be so sure? And how can you be positive they don’t know you faked it?”
“I told you. It’s easy.”
“Show me.”
“What?”
She leaned back in her chair. “Show me.”
Vincent looked around, but their patio was secluded. The tropical foliage gave them a measure of privacy from the other cabins. He put a look of deep concentration on his face. Bit his lip. Wrinkled his forehead and moaned. Kendall couldn’t deny the moan sounded real enough to send a shiver down her spine, but the rest of it…
“That’s terrible.”
“What?”
“You heard me. That’s awful. A woman would have to be pretty stupid to believe that’s your come face.”
“My what?”
“Your come face. You know. The face you make when you come. Everyone has one.”
He looked disconcerted. “You didn’t believe me?”
She laughed, feeling almost but not quite sorry for him. “No. Too much like watching a porno movie. Most guys don’t look like that. It’s too much work. They lose themselves in the moment and get a faraway look in their eyes if they’re open.”
“Shit.” But he sat back anyway and crossed his muscled arms over his chest. “I still think they didn’t know.”
She shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t. But I would.”
Now he eyed her carefully. “You’ll never find out.”
He might have meant the comment as an insult, but Kendall didn’t rise to his bait. “Of course not, Vincent. There’d be no faking it with me. I’d get you off.”
Her blunt words seemed to have stolen his thunder for a moment, but only a moment. His tongue snaked out over his lips, and again he ran his hand over his head. “How would you do that?”
Something came over Kendall like a shadow across the sun. Some naughty impulse she didn’t understand, but couldn’t deny. She looked him up and down, and knew there was no turning back.
She leaned over in her chair to look at his bare feet, then followed his legs, clad in loose cotton trousers to his waist. Farther up, across his chest beneath the tight white T-shirt, then his shoulders, neck and, finally, to his face. She felt a small, slow smile cross her face, and she pressed her lips together to restrain it.
“I’d start with your feet,” she said.
“Damn.”
“I’d kneel at your feet.” Even the sound of her voice had changed, gone deeper, slower, like molasses or liquid smoke. “I’d take your foot in my hands and I’d kiss your ankle. I’d stroke your toes, one by one, and massage the curve of your arch.
“I’d move my mouth along the line of your calf to your knee. To the soft spot behind your knee. I’d lick you there and maybe nibble a little bit. Then up your thigh, a little higher, on the inside, where the hair isn’t so thick. Where the sun doesn’t reach, and you’re paler there.”
“How do you…” He wiped a hand across his face. “Never mind.”
“Then I’d concentrate on your chest because I know that’s what all the women go crazy for…those big muscles and that flat, toned stomach. But I’d kiss you there, slowly, until I got to your nipples. Nobody bothers much with them, do they?”
As she spoke, his nipples poked like twin spikes through the soft cotton of his shirt. “Uh…no.”
“I’d kiss each one, lightly, then swirl my tongue around the dark circles. I’d take you in my mouth and suck, soft then hard, until I heard you moan.”
Kendall heard him moan a little now, though he bit it back. She leaned back in her chair, her legs spread slightly to allow him a glimpse of bare thigh beneath her skirt. Her own nipples pushed at the front of her lightweight camp shirt. Though the sun had already sunk low enough to leave a red haze in the sky, she felt languid and lazy from heat.
“I’d make tiny little bites all around your nipples, maybe even one hard enough to leave a red mark. And you know what you’d be doing this whole time?”
“No.”
“Nothing.” She smiled. “Not one damn thing because this is my show, Vincent.”
He didn’t rise to her challenge, but let her continue.
