The boat rocks gently under us as the sun burns warm across my shoulders. North’s mouth leaves mine only long enough for him to study my face, and whatever he sees there seems to settle and bring out his smile. His hand slides from the back of my neck to my waist, firm and possessive, and then he starts guiding me backward.
That’s what makes him so dangerous. He moves like a man who already knows I’m his focus, his only one, and has all the time in the world to prove it.
I go where he leads until the backs of my legs brush the space between the two helm chairs and the front dashboard presses cool against me. He steps in close, filling every inch of space, one hand braced beside me, the other closing around my wrists and drawing them up above my head.
“Give me your yes, Adelaide. I want it clear.”
Heat crashes through me. “Yes,” I breathe with excitement.
His mouth brushes my cheek, my jaw, beneath my ear with slow, devastating control. “Good,” he murmurs. “Now stay exactly where I put you.”
The words leave me shaking with arousal.
He keeps one hand around my wrists while the other traces the line of my throat, my shoulder, the edge of my bikini strap with maddening slowness.
“You’re trembling,” he says, voice low against my skin. “And I haven’t even started taking what I want.”
My breath stutters.
His mouth finds mine again, deeper this time, stealing the air from my lungs. When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests briefly against mine.
“I’ve wanted this for too long,” he says. “Wanted you pinned here, looking at me while trying to be brave, yet your whole body gives you away.”
I shiver.
His thumb drags once over my lower lip before he steps back just enough to look at me, still holding my wrists high, still keeping me exactly where he wants me.
“You can still stop this,” he says. “But if you don’t, don’t expect me to keep pretending I’m unaffected.”
“Don’t stop.”
The grin that answers me is slow and dark enough to make my knees weaken all over again. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
His hand leaves my wrists just long enough to trace the line of my shoulder, then the edge of my top, and around my back, where he unlatches my bikini top. I lower my arms to let it slide down them and tumble to my feet.
“There,” he says softly. “Now you’re being honest.” He stands there for a second, staring. His gaze travels over my breasts, taking in every inch with the kind of attention that makes me feel both exposed and wanted in the same breath. “You were made to ruin men,” he says, voice low. “Do you know that?”
Heat rushes through me so hard it feels like it might burn straight through my skin.
North’s mouth finds my throat, then my shoulder, each kiss sliding lower, reaching my breasts. He has a hand under each one, lifting them as if they’re jewels, squeezing them, his mouth and tongue lashing at my nipples, sucking, tugging. I’m moaning, trying to not fall over from his possessive attention.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs against my skin, “how beautiful you are when you stop pretending you don’t want this.”
I shiver and lean into him despite myself, wanting him to take me harder, to make it hurt… and that time, that’s exactly what his mouth does. I cry out, my hands on his shoulders, grasping, never wanting to be released.
His hands slide down my hips to find the ties of my bikini bottoms and pause there, waiting.
Checking.
Giving me every possible chance to stop this.
I nod. That’s all I can manage. He tugs once, and the fabric falls away. I step out of it without taking my eyes off his face. The cool air touches my bare skin.
He stands back and just takes all of me in, head to toe.
I’m completely naked on the deck of his boat in the middle of an impossibly blue ocean, and he’s staring at me, seeming to memorize every inch. “If the world was ending right now, there is nowhere I would rather be than standing in front of you, protecting you.”
My breath catches at his words, and my mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
