Million-Dollar Amnesia Scandal (8 page)

His eyes darkened; his voice became rough. “Tell me something else then. Something you do know.”

The slow burn she'd been trying to forget flared to life, demanding her attention and threatening to engulf her. “I know how I feel when you look at me that way.”

“How?” He was closer, his breath grazing her skin, his scent surrounding her, keeping her spellbound.

Throat parched, she swallowed hard before she could speak. “Like the world has melted away, and the only thing that's important is that you keep looking at me.”

“I'm not looking anywhere else.”

Pulse beating like a herd of stampeding elephants, her gaze flicked to his mouth, wanting it, wanting him. “And that I might die if you don't kiss me.”

“Well, I wouldn't want to have your death on my conscience, would I?” he said as he leaned closer.

W
hen Seth's mouth touched hers in the lightest of kisses, April didn't fight it—the time for resisting him had passed—her body's insistent yearning for this man was inescapable. As she lay in his arms, she accepted the tenderness he offered and parted her lips, asking for more. Yet he kept the kisses chaste, brushing gently, tracing the bow of her top lip.

He cupped her face in his palm, and a shiver broke out, low and deep inside. “Seth, make love to me,” she whispered.

For endless moments, he didn't reply, just stroked the hair back from her forehead and pressed his lips to the skin he revealed. “I can't.”

With the pulse of arousal strong through her body, she closed the inches that separated them, pressing herself along the length of him. “Yes you can.”

His hands gripped her shoulders tightly and he squeezed
his eyes closed, as if gathering himself. “You have reasons not to.”

Even rough with restraint, his voice stirred everything inside her, awoke every cell. “I've forgotten them,” she said.

“I had reasons.” He ground the words out, as if part of him would rather deny them.

She reached to stroke the stubbled surface of his cheek. “I don't think you remember them, either.”

“Jesse,” he said with haunted eyes.

Suddenly cold, she dropped her hand. He was right—neither of them knew if she'd been involved with his brother.

As she started to move away, he held her in place, his features taut, eyes squeezed shut. “Crazy thing is, I just don't care anymore if you were seeing Jesse. It means nothing.”

She stilled, then tucked the wisps of hair caught in the light breeze behind her ears and leaned back into him. “For what it's worth, I'm ninety-nine percent sure I wasn't. I feel, somewhere deep inside, that I wasn't involved with him.”

“Even better,” he said as he expelled a long breath, then kissed the line of her jaw.

A moan that began deep in her throat escaped. “Then make love to me.”

“No,” he said as he pulled the strap of her dress down her shoulder and kissed the exposed flesh.

“Is this about the hotel?” She reached to pull his shirt up, to touch his skin, but he laid a staying hand over hers.

“No, I've solved that.” Hand still holding down on hers, his lips seared at the hollow of her throat.

Every touch of his lips and hands evoked sensations that made her writhe in his arms. She should ask how
he'd resolved the hotel issue, but she was too far gone with sensation. Later—she'd ask later. “Then why?”

“Because you won't thank me for it in the morning.” His voice was a rough whisper, and deadly serious.

That was all? A corner of her mouth quirked in a smile. That was easily fixed—she just needed to prove she was onboard with this plan. She guided his face a little lower, in the direction of her aching breasts. “That's my problem.”

His heart hammered steadily against her stomach, yet he resisted her guidance, gently nipping the skin where the slope of her breast began. “You said no to the same suggestion earlier. I might be ruthless in business, but I'd like to think I'm a gentleman.”

“Seth,” she said, slowly going out of her mind, “if you weren't a gentleman you'd have taken me an hour ago.”

His cheek rested against her chest as it rose and fell with her breaths. “A big part of me wanted to seduce you into changing your mind an hour ago.”

“I've changed it now.” Craving his hands all over her, she curled a leg around his hard thigh, hoping he'd understand how close to the edge she already was.

He sucked a breath between his teeth. “That's just the moonlight,” he said, voice strained, “the water at night, the swaying of the boat.”

Snaking her hand down to his groin, she found him hot and pulsing. “It's wanting you.”

He groaned and took her mouth once more, pushing himself against her palm. “Ask me again,” he said, his breath mingling with hers.

She held his face with her hands, waited till he met her eyes, wanting him to know she was serious, too, that this was what she wanted. “Seth, make love to me.”

“Heaven help me,” he rasped, and his mouth came crashing down on hers. Rocking his hips against her, he
dragged the top of her dress down, taking the edge of her bra with it, and his tongue swept over the beaded peak of her breast. Tugging her nipple with his lips, he molded the other with his hand and her back arched, her pulse chaotic.

She lifted her legs and wrapped them loosely around his hips, feeling the hard, erotic pressure of his erection against her stomach, reveling in it. Hungry for it. Hungry for him.

Abandoning the top of her dress, he lifted it off from the skirt instead, revealing her thighs and stomach to the night air. Then his hands were sliding over the powder-blue satin and lace of her bra. Her nipples budded tightly, wanting his mouth back there. She wriggled, trying to remove the dress completely, until Seth caught on and stripped it off over her head. In almost the same instant, his hot mouth traced her breast through the lace.

The sensations he was creating with his mouth, with his hands on her other breast, filled her entire body with a blissful turbulence and she was helpless to do more than bask. She looked up into the velvety night sky, sprinkled with thousands of pinpoints of light. It would be impossible to find a more majestic backdrop for the glory Seth was stirring within her, the fire and the frenzy.

“Look at me, star girl,” he said, his eyes brighter and more alluring than any of the stars above.

“Why?” she teased, though her ragged breath ruined the effect.

His hands skimmed around her waist, embracing her with his burning palms and fingers. “Because I can reward you better than anything out there can.”

“Really?” She threaded her trembling fingers through his hair. “Show me what you've got.”

His eyes flashed with challenge, even as his hand slid
down over her belly and feathered over the junction between her thighs, eliciting a gasp from her lips. Then again, lightly over the satin, and a third time. When his hand retreated, her hips lifted to follow, and his gaze sought hers, his eyes wickedly triumphant.

“Okay,” she rasped. “Another point made.”

“I thought you might see it that way,” he said, and then gently bit down into the soft flesh of her breast. She sucked in a breath and ran her hands up under his shirt until she found his bare skin, and scraped the tips of her nails over the warm, smooth flesh of his back, exhilarated when he shivered. The scent of his skin filled her head until her senses swam. He swiped his shirt over his head and she took her fingernails south, over the ridges of his abdomen, and he rolled to the side a fraction to accommodate her.

Letting her nails still trail their path, she leaned to whisper in his ear, “Tell me something.”

“At this moment—anything,” he said, his voice bordering on pained.

Her nerves were raw with wanting, making talking difficult, but she had to ask, “Is that your only trick?”

He raised an eyebrow as he drew a rasping breath. “Think you can handle more?”

“Try me.” Anticipation shimmered along her thighs, her arms, her body. His eyes were full of the devil as he slowly scraped the pads of his fingers along the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, so slowly that she had trouble catching her breath. When his fingers reached the top, eyes still locked on hers, he ran a knuckle down the front of her panties. A whimper escaped her throat.

“Okay,” she managed to whisper. “You have my attention.”

“I'll keep it, too,” he said as he edged his fingers under the fabric and repeated the stroke, this time with a fingertip,
and this time, flesh touching flesh. She melted into the rug below her, limp and wretched. Why had she denied herself this—him—for so long?

After slipping off her sandals, his shoes followed. Then he tugged his trousers off. Freed of the restraints, she pressed close, only the thin fabric barrier of her panties and his boxers separated them. Her mouth closed over the naked skin of his shoulder, tasting the masculine blend of saltiness and musk.

Keeping most of his weight on his forearms on either side of her, he lowered his head to her throat, nuzzling and sucking the sensitive skin he found there. She couldn't restrain a gasp—his mouth was hot and wet and exerting exactly the right pressure. She'd
never
get enough of him.

Her hands roamed to his biceps, gently squeezed their firmness, and desire for him made her light-headed. “Seth,” she said, not even able to form the words to tell him how much she needed him.

“I know,” he said, seeming to understand. With a growl, he lowered his weight to her. She allowed herself long moments to wallow in the feel of his heaviness bearing down on her, the crisp hair of his chest rasping against her sensitized breasts, before she wriggled out from under him. She wanted
everything.
She pulled his boxer shorts down and threw them aside with a little too much effort. They both watched the underwear go over the side and fall into the water.

With a depraved glint in his eye, Seth turned back, pulled down her panties and sent them over the side to join his. All she cared about was that the barriers were finally gone—she couldn't waste a precious second's thought for her underwear, with him naked and ready above her. She
arched her hips up to him, her muscles convulsing with need. “Now, Seth.”

He reached for his trousers and within less than a minute he was above her again, fully sheathed. And then he entered her with a firm, fluid stroke and she gasped his name, consumed by the intensity of having him inside her, where she'd wanted him so long. He stroked once, experimentally, then whispered, “April,” on a ragged breath, and thrust again.

The beauty of his lovemaking, the sheer rawness of it, enslaved her, bound her both to him and the thrusting rhythm they created together. She wound her ankles behind his buttocks, wanting as much as she could take from him, arching up and pressing close.

He moved faster, harder, and the volatility of her need rose, microspasms of ecstasy only whetting her appetite for what else he could bring.

Beyond speech, her hands stroked over his back, his shoulders, feeling the flex and release of his muscles, wanting more, everything he had to offer, praying the moment would never end, desperate for release. And then the moon and the constellations above converged into one exploding sun behind her eyes, sending pulsations of light and pleasure to every cell in her body, and Seth convulsed in her arms, following her, and she was in outer space with Seth and the stars, weightless, grasping his shoulders as her anchor, trying to catch her breath.

Secure in his arms, she lay beside him for what seemed like hours, feeling the gentle roll of the yacht with the water's motion. She could have stayed all night, but as her body cooled, the air on her skin became cold and a shiver rippled across her arms. Seth grabbed the corner of the rug they lay on and tugged it across them, creating a cocoon.

He nuzzled her cheek, leaving a kiss on her cheekbone but then pulled back, looking at her with a quizzical expression.

“What is it?” she asked.

He leaned up on an elbow to look down on her, his eyes sparkling. “I've just thought of something.”

“Tell me.” She smiled dreamily up at him.

He cocked his head to the side, taking his time. “You don't remember anything before the day you met me.”

“True,” she acknowledged, trying to see where he was taking this.

“So—” he placed a kiss on the tip of her nose “—you don't remember being with any other man.”

“No.” Not that she wanted to be thinking of any other man when she had this prime specimen stretched out beside her.

“In many ways, this is your first time.” He arched an eyebrow, looking like the cat with the cream. “I'm your first lover.”

She stilled as she took his meaning. He
was
the only man she remembered making love with. “Is that a problem?”

“I like it,” he said with a wicked grin. “If you don't regain your memory, I'll always be your first.”

She chuckled. “I don't think tonight will fade, no matter what.”

“I hope not.” He leaned down and kissed her again, long and slow; then when they pulled apart, he asked lazily, “Can you reach the picnic basket?”

Popping a hand from beneath the rug, she reached out experimentally. “Yes.”

“Did we leave any of those strawberries with the chocolate?”

“There were a few I didn't put out in the dish.” She lifted
the lid and felt inside for the container they'd been in, and pulled it out. “Four.”

Seth stretched, feeling very content with the world. He smiled at April as she handed him the strawberries and thought he'd rather have her again than the food. But they still hadn't gotten down to discussing the reason for coming tonight, so he'd wait. There would be time to love her body again. Something that spectacular deserved an encore. Or seven.

He took the container, took out one ripe, red berry with a thick chocolate coating over its bottom half, and fed it to her, before eating one himself.

“I'm so glad I came to Queensport—thank you for making it possible,” she said dreamily. “I love it here.”

Rubbing his fingertips up and down her arm, he placed a kiss on her shoulder and smiled. She'd like his plan, they could resolve this matter of the hotel and then make love again before returning. “I know. That's why I worked out a solution to our situation with the hotel.”

“I'm listening.” Large eyes that reflected the moonlight gazed at him and he felt the pull to lean into her again, but stopped himself.

He cleared his throat. “The Lighthouse Hotel has personal significance for you—it's where you first sang in public with your father. I understand that.” And he did understand, especially after seeing her reaction to the video. “But I need the hotel back before the board members find out and decide I don't have secure enough hands to control all of Bramson Holdings.”