T is for Temptation (4 page)

“Damn. Jake, nab the boat hook and grab the rings at the end of the jetty.”

She whirled the wheel around and pointed.

“Sorry, I misjudged the angle.”

Tee maneuvered the sea craft into position, hopped off the deck, and secured it to the pier. Disheveled and disoriented, she managed a weak smile and offered, “We’re here. Two choices, either we can take our time and swim a little and then head up to Port of Spain, or I can grab what Tricia wants, and we can leave right away.”

She followed his lithe, athletic leap off the boat, admiring his tanned, muscular thighs. Tee made a vain attempt to stem the tide of poignant need weakening her limbs and capitulated to the odd fever he ignited somewhere deep in her soul.

Five months ago she’d met him, on the eve of her wedding, and she knew, knew in the instant their eyes met. Knew she invited disaster by going ahead and marrying Tony. Knew she was damned to eternity by her lies and secrets.

For the last four long, hope-filled months, Jake had visited
Trinidad
. A part of her she refused to acknowledge hoped and prayed he came for her. Too superstitious to say the words aloud, instead she yearned and fantasized and dreamed. His earlier words haunted and tempted, but inside she froze, too scared to take the brass ring, as the Americans called it.

Have some courage, Tallulah Inglefield—dream the dream.

Without allowing her brain to interfere, Tee did the impossible. She shucked off her shoes and slipped the cotton halter dress off her shoulders.

“Or you can have me,” she whispered, shrugging the textile off her body.

Naked, standing in front of a jaw-dropped Jake and under an approaching
noon
sun, which highlighted every flaw in the exotic landscape, she raised her arms over her head and dove off the end of the pier.

Salty ocean flowed across her shoulders, molding cool water down her nude body. Joy wrought from mingling hysteria and frenetic hope erupted and translated energy into powerful breaststrokes. Instinct and buried memories sent her in the direction of the triangle-shaped raft anchored in the middle of the bay.

Seagulls swooped and danced with every gasped inhale, and their cries emphasized the primitive despair she endured daily. Tony’s last accusing refrain hammered away each time she neared acceptance, some semblance of serenity.
“You’re a freak, nothing but a circus freak.”

Hard plastic impacted on her downstroke. Tee grasped the raft’s edge and leveraged upwards. Panting, she flopped onto her back and refused to think about the implications of her invitation, refused to look in his direction, refused to contemplate the impact of his disdain. She flung an elbow over her eyes as if shutting out vision would prevent misery if he rejected her blatant offering. Her ears rang with the effort of her furious swim, drowning all sound.

“I’ll have you.”

Her eyes flew open, and she jerked up onto her forearms to meet Jake’s strong, harsh charcoal gaze mere inches away from hers.

His hot, wet palm cupped her breast, and one thumb strolled over the taut tip, brushing it in a slow, hypnotic motion, which went straight to her center.

“Look at me, Tee.”

It took considerable effort to move her eyes from his delicious, calloused thumb to those blazing obsidian orbs. Breathing reflexes once internalized, evaporated, and her lungs strained.

“I’ll have you.”

He lay on his side, one palm cradling his head, and his focus never wavered. His finger never stopped its languid caressing, thumbing her nipple, wreaking havoc, vanquishing all thought, and spurring desire and need so intent it focused on him, only him, only this epitome of man.

“You’ve no idea, do you?”

His tongue traced the line of her ear, and she leaned into his soft nip of her lobe, gasping.

“You’ve no idea of what you do to me. I lie awake at night and dream about touching you, like this.”

He drew in the whole tip of her breast, and Tee followed his mouth, levering up to accommodate his every action. He laved the point, and she thumped onto the raft, boneless erotic pleasure rolling over every inch of exposed flesh.

“Oh my,” she whispered, and the seagulls snatched her moan away with their cries.

“Jesus, Tee. You’re so beautiful, so perfect. I can’t think.”

Wonderful moaning words rumbled against her neck, his groaned phrases and praises arching her spine, blasting off primordial reactions. Tee pressed her hand on the back of Jake’s head, urging more pressure, and he complied, sawing her nipple between his teeth, the slight pressure a heightened pain-pleasure.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, and pure feminine instinct controlled her legs. She wrapped one across his lean, bare hip and drove up, grinding over large, long throbbing flesh. “Oh my.”

“Jesus, babe. Oh God, don’t. Oh hell.”

He bent down and slanted his mouth over hers, and his tongue swept inside her mouth, the sensation unbearable, inflaming, touching off a roaring inferno.

Tee sunk her fingers into his silken black curls and returned his fervor, driven by a yearning so potent it threatened explosion, implosion. She touched her tongue to his, and the contact made her dizzy, giddy with focused licentiousness.

The sun beat down on them.

Hot.

Intense rays of tropic hunger, pulsing, skittering sweat, and frenetic, frantic need.

Birds called, water cuffed the raft’s edges, skin slapped against damp skin. Jake’s hands and his mouth reached everywhere all at once. Tee’s craving surged with every suck, every lick, every nip. Every female instinct plugged in, and she ground her pelvis across his, rubbing slick folds up and down, her very writhing a begging plea for penetration, possession.

“Jesus, Tee. Babe, slow down. I want to make it good for you.”

“Now,” she exhorted, squirming and angling until she felt his hot flesh where she wept, aching, needy.

“Jesus.”

His moan and the feel of him there, hard and exciting, supplanted every defensive civilized barrier ever raised. Her hips rose of their own volition, and the apex of his cock sank inside. Her muscles contracted and spasmed, and Tee screamed, mindless as rationality exploded into oceanic, hedonistic delight. Wave after wave took her, and so wrapped up was she in her first experience of sexuality, that it took long moments for the pain to register.

When it did, she bucked, which intensified the burning, and she wriggled, trying to find a better angle.

“Tee?”

Jake’s shocked question stilled all movement, and panic froze her brain.

“Jesus.” He breathed, and his lips rumbled across her temple, the faint contact sending shivers down her spine. “I’m sorry, babe.”

He grasped her hips with both hands and exerted pressure. “Don’t move. Don’t move.”

All at once, insecurity and her shaky self-confidence reared, and Tee blinked away the moisture in the corners of her eyes. She shifted, trying to edge away from him.

“Do I stop, Tee?” He touched his mouth to her temple. “Tell me now. I can’t hang on any longer.”

“No, no. Don’t stop, don’t,” she growled and wriggled her hips, arching up, cupping his buttocks, pressing him closer.

“Thank God. I’ll make it up, I promise,” he groaned and eased out, a millimeter at a time.

All at once bereft, she urged him back and moaned at the sweetness, the tightness, the awareness of every inch of him. “Oh my. Oh, more, please, more.”

“Jesus, babe, I can’t hold back. Tell me if it hurts. Tell me.”

And he filled her again, a smooth sliding, yet an exquisite friction, another slow withdrawal, a quicker reentry. And her panting and gasps intensified as his pace escalated.

Soreness succumbed to the fierce, savage pleasure of his rhythmic plundering, the wonderful thrusts, in, out, the measured slapping of flesh. Every sensual aspect contributed: the whipping wind, the seagulls squawking, the aroma of musk and brine, the damp sheen on their skin, the sweet friction everywhere.

Her hips grappled and met his pounding flesh, returning pressure with slick invitation, intensity with frenzied greed, seeking absolution, eternal gratification, and finding it when he shouted, “Yes!”

His hands forced her to him, the joining so intimate, so engaged, so rapt, they both collapsed, unaware of their surroundings. Every sense magnified beneath her closed lids, the sun’s blazing rays sizzling over sensitive skin, the raft’s gentle rocking creating a saccharine chafing of flesh against flesh, fine-tuned to the exquisite joined juncture between her thighs. A bead of Jake’s sweat plopped onto her shoulder, his hard chest grazed hers, the fine hairs there tickling a sultry caress.

The low hum of an engine penetrated Tee’s delicious trance. She didn’t want to open her eyes, so she took a deep breath, and he smelled so wonderful, all male and sweaty with a faint hint of civilization, some musky aftershave. Temptation proved irresistible, and she licked his chest, tasting salt and sea and man, succumbing to his me-caveman-you-woman seduction.

“I can’t believe how much you turn me on,” he muttered and rose on his elbows, leveraging his weight off her.

Tee couldn’t believe how much disappointment the slight move caused. She reveled in his heaviness and relished the limpness in his body she’d spurred. She did that to him. A silly grin chased her mouth, and she touched her lips to his muscled chest, noticing the faint dusting of dark hairs, the way they swirled in the direction of his nipple.

Curiosity spiked, she tongued the hard point and marveled when he stiffened and moaned.

“Babe, don’t do that. We have to talk.”

She did not like the sound of that.

Jake cradled her face in warm, large palms that hinted of, she sniffed, cigars.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Huh?”

She tried for distraction, anything to prevent his inevitable questions. “Your fingers smell of smoke.”

He kissed the tip of her nose.

“Don’t try to distract me.”

Damn
. She pursed her mouth.

“This was your first time.”

He touched a finger to her chin.

“Look at me, Tee.”

Taking a deep inhale, she lifted her lids and dived into eyes so dark, so mysterious, they reminded her of the black water of Amazonian rivers in
Guyana
, fathomless pools, chasms teeming with microscopic life. Hypnotic and hooded, she couldn’t get a clue from them as to what he thought, how she should react.

It all felt so peculiar, him inside of her, large, and stretching her to the point of soreness. Aware of the slight shift of his hips as his weight slid to the left, she wriggled a little, trying to ease her discomfort.

Jake raked her face, searching, and a bleakness stole over his features. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered, the harshness in his voice making her wary and sponging away the very real necessity of deception. “I guess I was afraid you wouldn’t have done it if you’d known.”

“I’ve been coming to
Trinidad
once a week for the last four months. For you, Tee. Only you. I’ve wanted this,” he said and shot a rueful grimace down their joined bodies. “From the moment I met you. I just wished you’d told me. I could’ve made it better for you.”

Embarrassment flamed her cheeks, and she whispered, “I, um.” She took a deep breath and said, rushing the words, “Any better and I would have expired on the spot.”