A Thousand Kisses Deep (20 page)

He let her go. "Take it easy. There's nowhere to run. No reason to. I'm not going to force myself on you."

He expected his words to make a difference. Expected that she would turn around and go below. But she tossed him a curve and bolted past him instead. Thrown off guard, she was already past him by the time he reached for her. He came away with no more than the soft green shawl she'd tied around her waist.

He roared in anger as she slipped through his fingers and dived into the water. He tossed the shawl to the deck and followed after her. His anger immediately turned to concern when he popped up and she was nowhere in sight. He dived again. Circled the
Hector.
Surfaced.

The moonlight cast a glow over the calm surface and he could see a long distance. Nothing moved.

Once more he dived, this time going deep, trying to read Eva's thoughts. She knew she couldn't outswim him, so she would try to outsmart him.

He spent the next fifteen minutes diving and resurfacing, and cussing himself for coming on to her too damn hard and fast.

His concern was replaced by cold fear as more minutes ticked by. What if she had tried to swim out to sea instead of into shore? What if at that very minute she was out there somewhere struggling in the deep? The thought refortified his efforts, and he called out to her. Dived, then resurfaced breathing hard, his heart hammering. He called to her again, then again.

He was about to dive another time when he glanced toward shore and saw her standing with her back to him, squeezing the water out of her hair. His first thought was that she was alive. His second was that he was going to kill her for scaring the living hell out of him.

He swam beneath the water toward shore, anxious to get his hands around her neck. She must have heard him as he surfaced, because suddenly she was running toward the rocky trail that led to the shadowy ruins of the monastery.

She was barefoot, half naked. Like an animal on the hunt, Sly started after her, his powerful legs eating up the distance between them. She glanced back once and saw that he'd shortened the distance between them by half. She screamed, turned away from the path, making a wide arch around him as she started back to the water.

It was the mistake that would ultimately get her caught.

Sly changed directions in a flash and cut her off, tackling her three feet from the water's edge. He made sure he was on top straddling her when they stopped rolling.

"No! Let me go."

She tried to fight him, but he easily pinned her arms. "Dammit, Eva, stop it."

"You stop it," she cried out. "Stop it!"

He understood what she was saying. They had been on the same wavelength since he'd opened his eyes and saw her sitting there on deck watching him.

He shook his head. "I can't stop it, and you know why. What's between us isn't going to go away. Not any time soon. Running from me isn't going to put out the fire, Evy."

"There's no fire. Nothing between us!"

"We'll see."

"No! No, we won't."

"You want me to walk away, is that it? And then what?"

When she didn't answer, Sly released her hands and started to get off her.

She made a desperate noise in the back of her throat. Sly hesitated, stared down at her. Then, quietly, slowly, he slid back, flattening out to bring their lower bodies into alignment.

The contact drove a moan from her. She arched her hips. He angled his head and covered her mouth with his. When he felt her body relax, he kneed her legs open, then settled himself there as he deepened the kiss.

Her heart was hammering against his chest. He raised himself up, locking eyes with her. He unhooked the clasp between her breasts. Sweeping the bikini out of his way, he fastened his gaze on her beautiful breasts. Her nipples were still covered with the black star pasties. He removed one of the stars, sent his lips over the rosy nipple. Once, twice. On the third pass, she released a desperate moan of sheer pleasure.

The other star gone, he laved her second nipple until the areola turned dark red with arousal.

She was smooth as satin, and he loved touching her, tasting her. She arched beneath his mouth, her hands wrapped around his back and tugged at the waistband of his pants.

He rolled off her, shoved the tight zebra pants down his hips and past his thighs. Naked, all he could think about was settling back between her legs when she sat up.

"Stay there."

Sly stretched out on the sand, watching her come to her knees. The sight of her beautiful bare breasts in the moonlight sent more blood into his phallus. He reached out to touch her but she brushed his hand away.

"In your dream I was in your bed on the
Hector.
You never asked me about mine. We're on a sandy beach like this one."

She slid one of her legs across his hips to straddle him.

He groaned low in his throat. "Am I hurting you? Your side?"

"No…"

She leaned over him. "Then you like me here?"

"I like you," Sly agreed.

"Did I put my mouth on you in your dream? On …
it?"

He didn't feel like lying to her, but he was reluctant to admit she had. "If you say no—"

"Yes."

"In my dream your hands were here." She took his arms and pushed them level with his head. "Pretend you're helpless. That you're staked out and you can't move."

The idea was ridiculous and he was tempted to laugh.

He could reverse their positions in a heartbeat. But why would he? Her soft lips were moving down his chest now, and her beautiful breasts were rubbing over his belly. She shifted, slid herself farther down his body.

He groaned, felt her cup his sac and squeeze gently. He thought about moving then, about rolling her onto her back and driving into her.

He felt the heat of her mouth, then the wet of her tongue graze the tip of him. He knew she was going to go down on him. Felt her sweet mouth cover his mass.

He didn't move. Couldn't.

She had truly rendered him helpless.

She had the power to make him moan and lose control. The realization was as arousing as touching him, and she wondered if that was normal. If other women enjoyed a man
there
as much as she enjoyed tasting and touching Sly McEwen.

Eva couldn't explain what she had become. All she knew was that she wanted this time with him. She was almost twenty-four years old and she had never experienced anything like this feeling.

She refused to analyze what that meant. He had shaken her to the core when he'd put his mouth on her, and ever since she had been wondering if it was possible to do the same to him.

And now she knew it was.

She looked up and sent her gaze over his flat hard stomach, past his corded chest and over his square jaw. His eyes were closed, his breathing rapid. She sat back on her knees and looked him over, her lips wet from loving him.

He was beautifully put together, almost too beautiful. All male and very big. Her eyes locked on his thick penis and it reminded her suddenly of the
Hector.
Architecturally, Sly McEwen was a masterpiece, long and sturdy, built for endurance, with a silent guarantee that he would last and last, and … last.

"Are you wondering what to do with it now that I'm unable to move? Or was that the idea? You plan to sail off and leave me here to suffer?"

"Suffer?"

His eyes were now open and he was scowling at her. "I'm ready to burst. I believe
suffering
is the correct word?"

She glanced down at him …
it,
fascinated when she saw a pearl of moisture glistening on the tip of him. She leaned forward and sent her tongue over the tip, then sampled him with a bit more relish. She sat back, looked again. Watched. Waited.

Everything got bigger and harder.

His breathing had changed. His scowl was deeper.

Eva sent her tongue over the length of him again, licked, then covered him and found a rhythm.

He had done this to her days ago, and the memory of it still burned inside her. She would give him what he had given her, and she wouldn't stop until…

Like a sleeping giant, Sly suddenly sat up, reached for her and pulled her on top of him. One handed, he stripped the black bikini bottoms off her, then set her astride him.

Locking eyes with her, he said, "Normally I'd let you finish that, but I want to be inside you. Now."

It was in that moment that Eva understood how much it had cost him to lie there so still. She felt him pulsing hard against her and a moment of doubt darkened her eyes.

Again, as if he could read her mind, he said, "Don't lose faith, Evy. We'll fit."

Her heart started to pound, then suddenly a warning sounded in her ear like a sixth sense.
Don't do it. You'll
never be free of him if you let him inside you.

The warning evoked a sudden, very real fear. Eva tried to move away from him to give herself time to think, but he moved with her, sliding himself more intimately against her, parting her slightly.

She shuddered, shook her head, fighting the emotions that now seemed to cling to every move he made and every response her body willingly offered in return.

"Sly, wait." She felt his hot flesh start to push into her.

He didn't seem to hear, or if he did, he didn't care. "Relax your hips."

"Sly, no. I—"

"Come forward." When she didn't comply, he gripped her hips and slid her forward. The movement opened her, allowed him to slip into her tight sheath.

"Sly, please … stop."

"Relax your hips. Here, this will help. Let me…" Suddenly he was moving, rolling her beneath him and at the same time driving himself completely into her. Eva writhed beneath him, thrashed, but it didn't seem to alter anything but her torment.

She cried out as his massive cock sank deeper, stretching her beyond pleasure, making her fit
it.
Making her fit him.

You'll never be free of him if you let him inside.

She wanted him to stop before it was too late. Knew it was already too late.

He was making her fit him, making her want to fit him.

The pain was subsiding, leaving in its wake the beginning sensations of pleasure. And with the pleasure came an unexpected tenderness in his voice as he coaxed her hips into a rhythm, and his hands moved over her curves with loving adoration.

He was concerned with how he was making her feel, and it was that unselfish concern that was going to kill her, she decided. Not today, but later, once he was gone. And he would go; she wasn't fool enough to believe this could ever last.

The wanting, or maybe a better word now was,
craving,
continued to grow. It built on each wave of motion as he slid in and out of her over and over again, the pleasure now so deeply felt that it threatened to steal her breath. Her sanity.

"Wrap your legs around my waist. That's it," he whispered against her lips as he bucked his hips against her pelvis, tripling the sensations between her thighs.

Eva managed a strangled moan. It hung in the night air, a long languid note of desire that had Sly picking up the pace. His powerful body carried her with him toward some certainty that was bound to change who she was forever.

"That's it," he encouraged next to her ear, his hands sliding under her ass to steady her now as the pulsing beat went through her again and again.

She felt herself open more, accept more, need more. She arched up seeking an end to it. Sly responded with a guttural groan. Then she felt it, the agony suddenly turned sweet, and she gasped in reaction to the liquid heat that poured into her.

Several minutes passed before she blinked open her eyes. Sly was staring down at her, saying something about sleep.