Desire and the Deep Blue Sea Page 9

  Okay, so maybe she raised her voice a bit. Again, justifiable.

  Against her knuckles, the rapid tattoo of his heartbeat told her everything. And even if it hadn’t, the way he stopped breathing would have.

  He gazed down at her, the grief in his eyes turning to shock. Tentative hope.

  “How—” He gulped. “How do you feel about me? How do you want our future to look?”

  The words were wisps of noise, vibrating with emotion.

  “I like you.” She loosened her fingers and smoothed the wrinkled cotton of his tee, then spread her hand flat against his chest. “Given more time, I think I could love you. I already love your curiosity and intelligence. I already love your sincerity. I already love how you focus on me so completely and listen with such wholehearted attention. I already love your good intentions and your willingness to admit when you’re wrong. I already love your protectiveness and your wry sense of humor. And despite its drawbacks, I even love your ability to accept who you are.” She smiled up at him. “Which, as you know, is not my forte.”

  “You don’t want me to be”—he cringed a bit—“different?”

  “Only in the ways we’ve already discussed.” She stroked her hand up to his shoulder and watched him shiver beneath her touch. “And it’s not as if I don’t have things to work on too. If I’m angry or frustrated or disappointed, I need to make myself talk about it, not just stew in silence for months at a time. Even if it’s awkward and causes hives. If you’d known my concerns earlier, would you have done something about them? Would you have changed the way you work?”

  He covered her hand with his. “I would have done my damnedest, Callie. I swear.”

  “So what happened wasn’t all your fault.” Her head fit perfectly into the crook of his neck, and he smelled grassy and delicious. “Especially since, as I told Tess, I think part of my rage and anxiety had nothing to do with you. I spent three years working a full-time job and taking classes at the same time, so my levels of stress coming into the library were already off the charts. And for someone like me, changing jobs is destabilizing. When you add a failing relationship to that mix, I had a lot of emotions looking for a convenient home, and there you were. Happily working away at the microfilm machine while I helped three dozen impatient colonial people.”

  He gently tipped up her chin to look her in the eye. “You were right to be angry at me, Callie.”

  She ducked her head to kiss his hand. “Yes, I was. But maybe not quite as angry as I actually was. And this afternoon, something else occurred to me.”

  With his thumb, he stroked her jaw. “What’s that?”

  “We got so close so fast when I started working at CMRL. Maybe too close, for someone dating another man.” When he pursed his lips in understanding, she nodded. “Yeah. I think all that anger was a good way to keep you at a distance while my relationship with Andre played out and reached its inevitable, dismal conclusion.”

  “That makes sense.” He pressed a bit closer, his thighs brushing against the folds of her skirt. “Although like I said, I deserved your anger. And I want to make sure you understand something else.”

  Oh, that glide of his leg against hers felt like fire. “What’s that?”

  “You’re not—and never have been—a pain in my ass.” His voice was as steely as she’d ever heard it. Entirely unamused. “Yes, you have needs, but that doesn’t make you needy. And I’ve always, always wanted more of you, so I don’t see you how you could possibly consider yourself too much for me.”

  “With my anxiety, I’m not…” She shifted her weight. “I’m not always easy.”

  To her shock, he laughed. “Sweetheart, when did I ever give you the impression I wanted easy?”

  He hadn’t.

  He’d always wanted her for who she was, not who she expected herself to be.

  “Never.” Her nose tingled, and she blinked away the spangled haze in her vision. “Never, Thomas.”

  His lean frame radiated heat, and the muscles of his arm tensed beneath her trailing fingers. The thumb at her jaw shifted, drifting down her neck and to her shoulder in a gentle, heated path. Then it halted, and he swallowed hard.

  “Callie, I need to do this right, so let me be clear.” He cupped her face, his fingers light and careful. “I want you. In my life, in my bed, in my heart. Do you want me?”

  She beamed a smile. “Yup.”

  His eyes flared, and he leaned down until his forehead rested against hers. “So what do you want to do now?”

  “Dinner. Beach. Bed.” She arched her back until her lower body pressed to his, and that little sound from the back of his throat shot through her in a bolt. “Are you with me?”

  He rubbed her nose with his so softly, despite the heated hardness she felt against her belly. “Always.”

  Nine

  “This is our spot.” Callie laid her towel on an empty two-person lounger and smiled at Thomas. “What do you think?”

  He had his hands on his hips, his eyes to the endless waters on the horizon. “It’s beautiful here. Just like your friend said.”

  In fact, Tess had said more. “Almost no one goes there,” she’d told Callie before the trip. “It’s a secluded spot, kids aren’t allowed, and most adults don’t want to walk so far from the hotel. If you want time to yourself, that’s the place.”

  Tess hadn’t lied. This section of the beach was deserted. Especially late at night.

  No kids burying their parents in sand. No other couples wading hand-in-hand through the surf. No one floating on the ubiquitous sunshine-yellow rafts supplied by the resort. No producers or camera operators or boom mic guys. Not even a single hair-and-makeup woman lamenting the shiny state of Callie’s T-zone.

  She and Thomas had finally, finally found a spot where they could be completely alone. A miraculous, adults-only stretch of moonlit sand, cushioned loungers, and dark, lazy waves, the rustling palm fronds above the flawless accompaniment to a spectacular, humid evening.

  Perfect for her purposes.

  A little bit more foreplay. One last tease of a taste before the feast.

  “Do you want to sit in the water?” Thomas smoothed a stray strand of hair back from her temple, then cupped the nape of her neck with his long, warm fingers. “Or lie down for a while under the palms?”

  He’d listened. Listened and remembered. And as always, no one could mistake the adoration and gentleness in his hands.

  He was totally getting lucky that night.

  “Let’s share this lounger.” She sat on its low edge, sliding away from his touch. “I think we could both use a little rest.”

  His mouth opened, but he pressed it shut again. And his eyes were now glued to the wide chair, roaming from corner to corner as if he were doing some mental math.

  He could save himself the effort. She’d already run the calculations, and there was no way they could both fit on that thing without entwining their bodies in a hot tangle.

  His fingers curled into his palms.

  She patted the cushion invitingly.

  “Callie, is this really the place you want to—”

  His voice choked into silence. Probably because he’d finally looked down at her and noticed her face’s proximity to a very specific part of his plaid swim trunks.

  When she rose to her feet again, she deliberately brushed up against him, and he staggered way more than necessary in response to such light contact. Then she moved a few steps away—to offer him a better view—grasped the hem of her gauzy sundress with both hands, tugged it over her head, and dropped it on the sand.

  After dinner, she’d changed into a one-piece swimsuit the color of whipped cream, with thin shoulder straps dropping into a deep vee in front. The design—her favorite among the suits she’d brought—left her back almost completely bare, down to the incipient swells of her ass. And a good chunk of that ass was exposed by high-leg cut.

  It was a death blow to his control, delivered in swimsuit form. Or so she hoped.<
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  Thomas gaped at her for a moment, then squeezed his eyes shut, the flush on his handsome face evident even in near-darkness, his toes curling in the sand.

  Some women her size wouldn’t dare wear a suit like that, no matter how much it flattered them. Wouldn’t leave themselves unprotected from the judgment of people who might whisper to their friends that big girls like her should know better than to reveal so much flesh in public; that big girls like her should be ashamed and hidden, always.

  She knew what it felt like to feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. God, did she know.

  But while countless things made Callie nervous, her body wasn’t one of them.

  She loved how she looked. Always had, always would. And Thomas felt the same way. He’d never tried to hide that. He couldn’t even if he did try.

  He was breathing so hard through his nose that his nostrils flared. Those long fingers had formed full-on fists at his sides. And not to be indelicate, but his swim trunks didn’t exactly hide his reaction to her.

  When she strutted back to him, his eyes opened, but not completely. They were heavy-lidded, as if he were ready for that rest she’d mentioned. But the eyes of a half-asleep man didn’t turn incandescent with heat and focus so fiercely on what stood in front of them.

  He lifted a single fingertip and laid it on the curve of her shoulder, where the strap bit into her skin. As he watched with rapt attention, that finger descended slowly, tracing the neckline of the suit. The edge of her collarbone leading to the swell of her breast and the shadow of her cleavage. Then up again, each inch of progress deliberate and unhurried as he turned her flesh to fire.

  At her other shoulder, he brushed his thumb in a lazy arc over her gooseflesh.

  Then he laid his palm over her heart. His hand lingered there without moving for several suspended seconds, and she swayed with her sudden understanding.

  He was feeling her heartbeat. Measuring it. Learning it.

  Her eyes flooded with happy, humbled tears, and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to touch him. And she knew exactly where to begin.

  She moved the final step forward, took hold of his hips, and tugged him until they were standing pressed together from chest to knees. Those dark curls at his neck had tempted her for way too long, so she buried her fingers in them. Tugged lightly and gloried in his harsh intake of air, the immediate response pressing into her belly.

  She rose on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “If you don’t think you can stop at a kiss or two, let’s go back to the room.”

  When he swallowed, she could see the agitated movement of his throat.

  “Yes.” That low, calm, amused voice had become a rasp. A hoarse gulp of sound.

  As soon as she scooped her clothing from the sand, he claimed her other hand and laced their fingers together. She didn’t bother donning the sundress again. She didn’t mind walking through the hotel in her swimsuit, and she was in a hurry. They both were.

  Thomas took the lead, and his long legs ate up the distance to the hotel. He guided her firmly toward the main elevator, heedless of any onlookers. But at the ding of the opening door, she took control, tugging him inside and backing him against one of those mirrored walls.

  At that, he smiled at her in an entirely unfamiliar way. Not kind and patient. Predatory. With fingers spread wide, he stroked her bare back from nape to hip, the sweep of his hand slow and deliberate as he watched her mouth.

  She yanked him down to her, and their lips met in a kiss that went nuclear within moments, devouring and hard and wet, as his fingers flexed into her ass, grinding her against him.

  Once the elevator arrived at their floor, they raced to their door, breathing harder than justified by the short journey. His fingers gripped hers with almost painful tightness, as if intent to prevent her escape.

  Then they’d reached their room. She opened the door and strode inside, impatient for the weight of his body above hers, the claiming stroke of his fingers between her legs, the delicious stretch as he pushed inside her.

  No turned backs tonight.

  No opposite sides of the bed.

  Nothing but her and Thomas, alone, drowning in desire and naked flesh.

  Thank God.

  Callie, naked and spread across the bed, struck the words from Thomas’s tongue.

  Which was unfortunate, because he wanted to tell her that the moon, milky-bright though it was, might have been a shadow compared to her bright glow. He needed to explain the glory of her dark nipples and curved stomach and splayed, velvety arms. He should expound on the profound temptation of rosy, glistening flesh between her ample thighs and praise her unabashed, confident sensuality.

  Instead, he stood by the bed, newly naked himself, and basked in her beauty.

  When she raised those soft, strong arms to him, though, he found words again. Not poetic ones, but the ones he needed. The right ones.

  He crawled to her on the bed, as befitted an acolyte to a goddess, and knelt between her legs. “Sweetheart, what do you want?”

  Her lips curved, and her bittersweet eyes melted into pure warmth. “You above me. Part of me. That’s all.”

  He could give her that. And in doing so, ease his own months of hunger.

  He descended into her arms and took her mouth, and her plush lips opened to him, all sweetness and bold need. She claimed his tongue, and he shuddered. Then sucked the tip of hers so he could feel the shift of her hips beneath him, could trace the arch of her neck with his fingertips.

  Her hands glided down his flanks, his ass, with a hum of praise, but his body meant nothing, nothing, except in service to her. So he concentrated on her and her alone, rather than his own fierce arousal.

  He heard the rush of her exhalation when he nipped at the side of her neck, the muscle of her shoulder, the tender curve of her earlobe. Marked the widening welcome of her thighs as he teased those sensitive nipples to tightness with careful strokes of his thumb and the lightest, gentlest pinches. Inhaled her whimper when his hand coasted over her belly and down to the dark, fragrant center of her, where she was plump and unfurling for him like a bloom.

  Her clitoris pushed against his thumb as it grew stiff, and her slickness bathed his fingers as he breached her inner softness and found a slow, caressing rhythm that drew her knees tight against his sides.

  He wanted to taste her. Pull her atop him and drown in her scent, her response, her thighs around his ears a shelter from the outside world. But more than that, he wanted the sight of her mercurial, expressive face suffused with need, with ecstasy, with—finally—languid satisfaction.

  And she’d asked to have him above her, and he would deny her nothing.

  He’d buried his face in the curve of her neck to lick and suck as her breaths turned to pants and her flesh started to tremble beneath his touch. But when she began to rock against his thumb, spear herself on his fingers, her cries choked and keening, he raised his head to watch.

  She came in unselfconscious abandon, her mouth parted in a long moan, her eyes shut tightly. Her orgasm squeezed his fingers and pulsed through her sex as he gentled his strokes and saw her through the pleasure.

  Her neck was damp, vibrating with her heartbeat, when he returned his face there.

  She tasted like sweat and roses, and when he traced her face with his fingers, the curve of her mouth humbled him. He’d pleased her. Callie. His Callie.

  After a minute, the last traces of her climax faded, and he tenderly cupped her sex.

  He needed guidance. “What do you want now?”

  She answered immediately, and her whisper was a tickle that speared to his groin. “For you to lose control.”

  He lifted his head in a jerk and met her heavy-lidded eyes.

  “Show me everything in here.” She smoothed a hand over his chest, over his heart. “And here. I want all of you.”

  Her fingers slid down, down, down, and squeezed his cock tight.

  He reared to his knees and reached for the bedside ta
ble, where the condom package sat open and waiting. She brushed his hand aside and rolled it down his length with a pleased murmur, and then she opened her legs wide, her knees high.

  He took her invitation. He took her.

  With the first push of his body into hers, she moaned again and dug those shiny nails into his back, and he felt each one like a spur. He bucked against her, into her, his fingers digging into her hips, her ass, her shoulders in a search for more leverage, more depth.

  Dimly, he registered his own muffled, raspy grunts and groans, the rapid rhythm of penetration and withdrawal as he sank again and again into her sleek wetness. And while he hadn’t intended to abandon finesse in this way, to treat with her anything but gentleness, she’d asked him to show her his need, his love, and she was responding to its violence, meeting it with her own.

  With each impact of his hips against her spread thighs, she ground against him and exhaled a whimpering gasp, and the clutch of her body became tighter and tighter. She began to quiver around his cock, and he braced himself on an arm, his hand sinking deep into the mattress, lifting to watch the push of his body inside hers, the way she jerked and panted when his fingers found her clit and stroked.

  This time, she cried out his name as she came. He took that cry into his mouth, then pushed deep one, two, three more times and shouted out his gratitude. His adulation. His reverence, despite all the savagery of his need.

  Afterward, he laid in her arms, surrounded by her in every possible way, and he willed the sensation to soak into every molecule of his body, every synapse in his brain, so he’d never lose it.

  Those time-travelers would have to fight him for Callie, because he was never letting her go. They’d tumble through the centuries determined to claim her for their own, and rightfully so. But he’d fend them off, every one.

  He should probably learn a martial art of some sort.