Tempt (Take It Off) (11 page)

As his fingers worked, stretching out my entrance, his tongue began to lick at my folds, delving around, looking for something. Something I really wanted him to find.

My hips started to move, pumping up against him, moving with his rhythm. And then his mouth closed over
the hardened bud deep at my center. He tugged and gently sucked at it. I cried out.

His fingers slid out of me,
skimming up my center and leaving behind a trail of moisture. I was trembling, my skin was vibrating, and I couldn’t lie still. I had to move. I had to get there.

“What do you want,
bella
?” he drawled from between my thighs.

I couldn’t tell him because I didn’t know. I was floating around in unchartered territory and I was solely dependent on him to show me the way. I whimpered.

He flattened his palms, one on each thigh, and pushed my legs wide, completely opening me up to him. And then he came forward, delving his tongue into my opening, his mouth connecting with my most secret place.

I bucked up
. The feeling was so intense. He clamped down on my hips, pinning them into the sand, refusing to let me move. And then he licked up, one long, firm stroke, and my entire world shattered.

He held me down as I cried out, blinding white light exploding behind my eyes, completely decimating thought and knowledge of everything and anything. I wanted to squirm around so badly
, but he wouldn’t let me. I had to lie there beneath him, next to the fire and the sand at my back, and do nothing but let the orgasm roll over my body relentlessly.

When at last my body quieted and the sound of the crashing waves filled my ears
, I lay back, completely boneless and breathing heavily.

Nash came over me once more, his curls falling over his forehead. “You,
mi bella,
are not broken. You are fucking perfect. So hot I almost came in my shorts.”

“I want to see you
.”

One eyebrow lifted. “Do you now?”

I nodded.

I’d never felt so relaxed in my entire life. He rocked back between my legs and reached for the button on his shorts. I pushed up onto my elbows to
watch.

He
gazed at me, tenderness filling his eyes. “We can stop right here. We don’t have to go any further. Your pleasure is my pleasure. It’s more than enough for me.”

I believed him. He would stop and he wouldn’t get angry and he wouldn’t tell me I was cold. “I don’t want to stop.”

I sat up the rest of the way and reached for his button, fully intending on experiencing everything I possibly could with him.

In that moment
, a sound cut through the darkness.

It was the kind of sound that completely
obliterated the passion surrounding us, the kind of sound that had Nash diving on top of me to shield my body from any harm.

We
lay there silently until all went still and I was wondering if maybe we had imagined it. But then it pierced the night again.

We weren’t hearing things.

We were hearing gunshots.

Nothing like the fear of being shot in your slumber to ruin a perfectly good night. After we heard those two shots
penetrate the night, we gathered our clothes (okay, so they were my clothes) and hurried back to the plane.

Nash shielded me the entire way.

Once inside, I slipped on an oversized T-shirt I had in my suitcase and a pair of panties. Nash stood in the back of the plane, staring out into the darkness for a long time. After a long while of hearing nothing, we laid out all the blankets we could find on the floor against the wall and then lay down with a pillow and used the remaining blanket to cover us.

It was the first night I slept with him.

Well, in his arms.

It was the first time I
lay all night with a warm body pressed against mine and an arm draped over my waist. Whenever I moved, he moved. Whenever I shifted, his body would follow. It’s like we were two giant human magnets that couldn’t be separated.

Yes, we were stranded and alone. We had very little food, very little water. We had no TV, no cell phone, and our choices for sleeping were limited to uncomfortable chairs or the floor of a plane. And yet…

I’d never been more comfortable.

It was a little unsettling to realize that just the mere presence of one person could make up for every comfort and convenience you thought you could never live without.

*    *    *

The sun was up when I stretched against him, my first thought being
that we made it through another night without being attacked by weirdoes with machetes. The weight of being stranded on this island threatened to crush me, and I had to take a deep breath. How many more days would we be here? We needed a plan, some kind of hope that we wouldn’t end up trapped here forever.

Or worse.

As I worried, a hand stroked over my hip. My shirt had ridden up during the night and Nash caressed my bare skin. “Good morning,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

“Hi.” I tried not to notice his morning “wood
,” as he put it, but it was kind of hard to miss. I had to admit, it
was
a good distraction from my mental state of chaos.

“Did you get any sleep last night
?”

I nodded.
I wasn’t about to admit how freaked out I really was. It wouldn’t make anything better. And besides that, I might not have gotten a ton of sleep, but lying here, crushed up against him, was better than sleep. My brain might be in desperate need of a chill pill, but my body was more relaxed that it had ever been—even after we heard the somber firing of a gun.

Just the mere memory of what Nash and I did last night had heat wrapping around my insides, a slow burn igniting somewhere within me.

He didn’t seem to notice the way he affected me. His hand slid up to rest at the dip in my waist as his thumb slid back and forth over my skin. I shivered. He pressed a kissed to my forehead.

“Are you hungry?”

I nodded. I was
so
hungry.

He moved away, leaving me lying there all alone
, and my eyes popped open. He came back seconds later and sat down, Indian style, in front of me. I rolled onto my back and looked up as he dangled the Luna bar in the air.

He had one in each hand.

I gasped. “We’re going to eat them?”

He gave a little shrug. “We have
all the fruit and avocado now. I think it would be okay if we indulged this one time and each ate one.”

I groaned. An entire bar all to myself? Heaven.

I reached for it and he snatched it away.

“Hey!” I demanded.

“You didn’t tell me good morning yet.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Hi, does not count.”

I pursed my lips while watching him. He had this little twinkle in his eye
, and scorching heat swept me anew. I sat up, the blanket falling around my lap, and scooted so our knees bumped. Then I leaned forward and kissed the underside of his jaw.

He hadn’t been able to shave since we crashed and the short beard he was sporting tickled my lips. I kissed him again, going down his neck.

“Wrong direction,” he whispered, his voice husky.

My, he was demanding in the morning.

I changed course, kissing back up his neck, across his jaw, and then rubbing my cheek against his, enjoying the scruffy feel on my face. Then I turned my head and grazed his lips with mine. Before I pulled back, my hand went into his lap and grabbed at the bar he was holding.

He dropped the bar
, but his newly free hand came up to wrap around the back of my head and hold me firmly at his mouth.

He deepened our kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, sliding it over my teeth and then nipping at my lip. Instead of pulling my bottom lip between his, he pulled my top lip in, gently tugging it down and into his all
-too-willing mouth. I groaned and let go of the bar. My hand grazed something else in his lap. Something that would probably fill me up a lot better than any type of food.

He pulled back, a smile playing on his lips. Then he reached between us, unwrapped one of the chocolate good
ies, and held it up to my lips. I stared at him when I took a bite. I couldn’t help the little groan that erupted when the chocolate hit my tongue and melted.

“Your little noises drive me insane,” he murmured.

After I chewed and swallowed, he gestured for me to take another bite. “You have a thing for feeding me,” I said as I chewed.

“A strong man always makes sure his woman is provided for. That she has everything she needs.”

I paused in chewing, the food no longer holding my interest. “That sounds very possessive,” I observed.

He smiled again. “I am a very possessive man,
bella
.”

My stomach did a full three
-sixty inside my body. I may not always know what direction I’m going, but I always make my own way. I’m not the type of girl who likes to be told what to do, who wants to be dictated to.

But Nash… he made being possessed sound like the most satisfying thing ever.

I grabbed the other bar and unwrapped. Then I held it up to his lips. “Eat.”

He opened his mouth and bit into the food, his lips pulling away like it was a lollipop. We didn’t say anything else.
We just sat there and fed each other until the bars were gone.

And then he kissed me again, a lingering kiss that tasted like chocolate.

When I finally stood, I noticed that I had sand in places that weren’t entirely comfortable. In fact, if I wasn’t careful, it might turn painful. As I walked toward the water bottles, I moved a little funny, trying not to rub the sand farther into my, ummm… lady parts.

“Bella
…”
The little nickname he used more than my name sounded like an angry command. Then he was standing behind me, spinning me around, and drilling his stare into mine. “Did I hurt you last night?”

“What? No!”

“You’re walking funny. I tried to be gentle.” His forehead creased.

I reached up and traced the cute lines.

“You were.” I whispered. “It was… it was seriously the best experience of my life.”

He relaxed
, but the creases still didn’t go away.

“I have sand in uncomfortable places
,” I admitted sheepishly.

He chuckled, the little lines disappearing. Before I knew what he was doing
, he had my shower items in my messenger bag and he hoisted me up onto his back—piggyback style.

“Where are we going?” I asked
, trying not to notice that when he walked, the muscles in his back moved and brushed against my crotch.

“To clean up
,” he said simply and then made his way deftly through the trees and plants while carrying me along.

Turns out ignoring any part of hi
m was impossible.

By the time the little lagoon with the waterfall came into sight
, I was practically panting with need.

Once again he seemed oblivious (really, are all men like this?) and sat me on my feet beside the water. “Take off your clothes,” he said while unpacking the little bottles of shampoo and the bar of soap.

“Excuse me?” I replied, lifting an eyebrow.

He straightened, pinning me with those
intense green eyes. He prowled—that’s right, he didn’t walk;
he prowled
—over in front of me and lifted the hem of the oversized shirt, his knuckles skimming the fronts of my thighs all the way up as he moved. “We need to get that sand off you,
bella
.”

“Okay,” I said dumbly as the shirt slid up over my arms and then fell to the ground, leaving me standing t
here in nothing but a little pair of panties. It wasn’t cool outside, but the air felt chilled when it brushed over my fiery skin.

When he reached for the wais
tband of my panties, I jerked back. “Turn around,” I ordered.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m serious.” Last night had been dark, with nothing but the dying embers of the fire. This was broad daylight. What if he didn’t like what he saw?

“I’ve seen every gorgeous inch of you.”

“Turn. Around.” If he said one more swoon-worthy thing, I was going to turn into his slave. I needed to reclaim some power.

He sighed and turned around
. I ignored the way his shoulders shook with silent laughter and quickly peeled away the panties and waded into the water. When it was just past my hips, I froze. “Are there alligators in here?”

“
Can I turn around now?” he asked.

“Yes!”

I glanced over my shoulder and around the curtain of hair that waved wildly about. “Alligators? Lochness Monster? Giant man-eating piranhas?” I said, suddenly about to panic.

He picked up something off the ground and walked into the water, shorts and all (how come I always end up naked and he
got to keep his pants?) and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “I’ll protect you.”

Okay. I was lame. That totally made me feel better.

Nash took a few more steps into the water, forcing me along until we were chest deep. The sound of the waterfall hitting the lagoon was loud, but I didn’t mind it. It was peaceful. And as it poured, little ripples played over the surface of the water to reach out and lap gently at us. The ends of my hair floated out, looking like a dark, golden halo.

Mist from the pouring falls drifted through the air, creating a translucent curtain around us and dampening all
our skin that wasn’t submerged in the water. I felt a moment’s worry about getting my stitches damp with all the mist, but I stopped thinking about that the minute Nash spoke.

He
wielded the bar of soap. “I’ll wash you.”

First he feeds me and then he washes me?

Sigh…

He lathered up his hands and started at the tops of my shoulders, smoothing the soap over my arms and neck and upper chest. Then he lifted my
hands one by one and soaped from my elbow down. His hands slipped over my skin like velvet, like he was made of silk, and the lavender scent of the soap rose up around us and caught in the mist like a fly in a spider web.

When my upper body was clean
, he used a hand to cup the water and pour it over my shoulders, rinsing away the bubbles.

And then there was nowhere to wash
but down.

He used both his hands at once, closing over my breasts, groping them skillfully with soap
-laden hands. Tiny tingles shot through me all the way down to my toes, and my head fell back because holding it up was just too much work.

The area between my legs began to throb, almost like it had a heartbeat of its own. His hands slid lower, over my abdomen, around my belly button, lower still.

“I’m getting closer to the sand, aren’t I?” he murmured.

I moaned. My knees threatened to buckle.

Instead of continuing straight down, his hands separated and traveled around my hips. He stepped forward, bringing our chests together, and held me close while he washed my back, reaching up beneath my hair and sudsing up my neck. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his shoulder, tempted to nip at his damp skin.

“Do it,” he growled like he could read my mind.

Or maybe he just read my body.

I hesitated and he shifted
, pressing closer. My lips opened automatically and my teeth sank lightly into his flesh. His hands spasmed and he pulled me roughly against him, my body—my very naked body—met with a very hard erection. It strained against the front of his shorts.

His hand slid over the round curve of my backside, slipping down lower… in between my legs, all from behind. He moved his fingers around like he was washing away the
sand.