“That was an excellent speech on my part.”
“It was.” He kissed me again, harder, found my zipper and drew it down in one slow pull. The air hit my bare stomach and I gasped, and he swallowed the sound, his lips on mine, pushing the neoprene off my shoulders.
I yanked at his wetsuit with significantly less finesse. He helped, shrugging out of it while I ran my hands over his chest. The scars under my fingers, raised and rough. The dense muscle beneath them. The heat of his skin after hours in the sun. I traced the SEAL trident tattooed on his ribcage and felt his stomach tighten under my touch.
He cupped my breasts through my bikini top, thumbs tracing circles over my nipples, and my head dropped back. He unclipped the top and let it fall. Rough palms on bare skin, and when he bent his head and took my nipple into his mouth I grabbed the counter edge behind me because my knees had stopped being reliable.
His tongue drew lazy circles. His teeth grazed, gentle, then he sucked, and I arched into him with a moan I didn’t bother muffling. He moved to the other breast and gave it the same thorough attention, rolling my nipple between his fingers. His free hand slid down my ribs, over my hip, fingers curving along the waistband of my bikini bottoms before pressing flat on my stomach, and I inhaled sharply at the anticipation of where those fingers were headed.
He straightened and looked at me, and the expression on his face stopped my breath. Not just desire. Recognition. As if he’d been waiting for this exact moment with this exact woman and now that it was here he planned to take his time with every second of it.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” His voice was rough. His thumb followed my collarbone, down between my breasts, over the compass necklace warm at my sternum. “Since the first morning. I’ve been losing my mind.”
“Good.” I tugged him closer by his waistband. “Suffer.”
He smiled into my throat. “Yes ma’am.”
“Wait.” I pulled back. “I’m on the pill. And I’m clean.”
“Clean.” His forehead dropped to mine. “Good.”
“Very romantic.”
“Come here.” He pulled me back in.
He lifted me onto the counter, granite cool on my bare thighs, and stepped between my legs. The height put us eye to eye. He held the look while he explored me, unhurried, palms running up my sides, over my ribs, fingers learning the curve of my waist, the dip of my spine. He touched me as if he intended to memorize every inch, and the patience of it cracked something open.
“Beau.” His name in my mouth felt different than Rutledge. Closer. More dangerous.
“Tell me what you want.” Low, rough, his breath warm on my throat.
“Your mouth. Everywhere. Don’t skip anything.”
He didn’t. He kissed down my sternum, my stomach, dropped to his knees on the heart pine floor and pressed his lips to my inner thigh, and I stopped thinking in sentences. His stubble dragged on skin still sensitive from the ocean. He held my thighs open, thumbs pressing into the soft skin there, andwhen he finally reached my pussy I made a sound that probably carried across the creek.
He gave me the same focused attention he gave a dive check. No rushing, no teasing for teasing’s sake. Just his tongue flat and hot on my clit, reading my body the way he read a current, adjusting pressure and speed based on how I moved, how I sounded. He slid two fingers inside me and curled them. My vision whited out. I came with his name in my mouth and my thighs shaking and the counter edge biting into my palms.
He didn’t stop. He gentled but he didn’t stop, his tongue soft now, easing me down, and before I’d caught my breath his fingers were moving again, patient, building the next one underneath the aftershocks of the first.
“I can’t—” I could barely get the words out. “Again, already—”
“You can.” Absolute certainty. He closed over my clit again, and he was right. I came a second time on a broken cry that was half his name and half profanity, my hips rolling while he held me steady.
He stood. Wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Looked at me sitting wrecked on his kitchen counter with my hair falling out of its braid and my chest heaving. The expression on his face, dark, satisfied, barely leashed, was a dare. I wanted to take him apart.
“My turn.” I slid off the counter on unsteady legs, pushed him toward the table, and sank down.
He was gorgeous above me. Tan skin, scattered scars, the muscles in his stomach taut with wanting. I pressed my lips to the V of muscle at his hip and heard him hiss through his teeth. Kissed along the line of his obliques, feeling them contract under my lips. Took my time, because he’d taken his, and turnabout was fair.
His cock was hard and thick in my grip, and I heard his breath catch when I took him in: a sharp inhale, then a groanfrom deep in his chest. I worked him with tongue and pressure and the edge of suction, learning what made his fists clench at his sides, what made his fingers find my hair, gentle, threading through the loose curls while I took him deeper.
“Fuck.” His voice cracked on it. “Marley. Your mouth—” He couldn’t finish.
I took him to the back of my throat and his hips jerked forward once before he caught himself, thighs rigid with the effort of staying still. I eased off, swirled my tongue over the head, tasted skin and heat, and took him deep again. His fingers curled tight in my hair. Not guiding. Holding on.
“You need to stop.” His voice was raw. “Keep doing that and I’m going to come and I’m not done with you.”
His jaw was clenched, his chest rising hard, and his eyes were ruined. Pupils blown wide, the gray barely a ring at the edges.
