Taking the Heat (32 page)

‘No, let's just get this over with,' I said. ‘I'm gonna take a shower, Mama Ruby wants to do my hair and then I'll head for the cabin.' I eyed him carefully and asked for the hundredth time since that morning, ‘Are you sure you'll still love me tomorrow?'

‘I will still love you, full stop. Every action in this world is based on either love or fear. I always choose love.' Chris crossed the room back to me. ‘Am I crazy about you possibly sleeping with another guy? No. But I have faith that it's going to be okay. Even if you can't tell me what names were inside the envelope.'

‘The note was pretty specific.
Reveal these names to anyone and face immediate disqualification.
' I sighed, then last-minute nerves gripped me. ‘What about you? You don't need the money! Maybe you're enlightened enough to pick love and let me sleep with someone else, but I don't know if I'm that comfortable with it.'

‘I still have to go in. If I don't, I'll be ruining someone else's chance at winning their prize. And after everything we've been through, that would be wrong. Besides …' he smiled at me sensuously, ‘… if it is you and I in there together, it might just be the best night of our lives.'

‘But what if I don't know it's you?' I pleaded.

He pinned me with his aqua gaze. ‘You'll know.'

***

My hair was loose and scented with frangipani oil, and it wafted around my shoulders as I followed the trail to my fantasy cabin door. The night breezes caught the hem of my red wrap dress, the thin cotton only attached by a few simple ties on the side.

Without a bra to dull their sensitivity, my nipples rubbed against the material, already hard and eager to be touched. I was simultaneously the most nervous and the most turned on I've ever been. After weeks of sexual frustration, I was finally about to have my needs fulfilled and my body couldn't have been more excited.

When I reached the first light-lock door, I turned and smiled nervously at Greg. ‘Okay. This is it!'

He gave me the thumbs up. ‘Good luck, sweetheart. It's going to be okay, I promise.'

‘Thanks, Greg. And thanks again for raising the alarm on the beach last night.'

He shrugged. ‘I'm only pissed I wasn't there to capture you kicking Dante's arse in person.'

Rolling my eyes, I stepped towards him and gave him a hug. After a moment of surprise, he hugged me back, his camera forgotten. ‘Alright, you better get to it! Hey, can you give me a sound bite before you go in?'

‘For you? My constant companion/obsessive stalker?' I smiled angelically. ‘No.'

‘Hey!'

‘Fine.' Moving back to the door, I opened it wide and looked down at the little card I'd brought along with me as a security blanket. Only the two names printed on the paper made it possible for me to even consider going inside.

I rubbed my fingertip fondly along the etched script reading,
Henry
, and then raised the card to my lips and pressed them against the word
Chris.

With my eyes closed, I raised my face up and said, ‘I'm doing this out of love, not fear. I love my sister and I love Chris. There is love, and everything else is just background noise.'

Then, with my heart strong and full of love, I closed the door behind me.

Chapter 29

The second I opened the inner door, I knew someone was there already there. Although the room was as pitch black as the first time, there was a sense of another presence with me, a tingling in the air.

Sure enough, as I closed the door softly and splayed myself against the wall for safety, someone took a nervous breath, and the sound of the ragged hiss made my insides clench. He sounded as though he was sitting on the bed on my side of the room, the sheets making a soft rustle as he shifted his weight.

For a few minutes I stayed pinned against the wall. Despite my grandiose sound bite to Greg, I was definitely feeling the fear. The thumping of blood in my ears made it almost impossible to hear, and my mouth had dried out and made weird clicking noises when I swallowed. If he was straining to hear me as much as I listened for him, I must have sounded like a like a giant cockroach, with thrumming wings and scuttling feet.

It's Henry or Chris—for god's sake, you can do this! Walk over to that bed immediately!
the stern voice in my head commanded me. I tried to obey.

Pushing reluctantly off the wall, I put my arms in front of me, zombie-style, and took the bravest step of my life. Lifting my bare foot, I moved forward, adrift in the dark harbour of the room. I made the steps as small as possible, my feet dragging along the soft carpet, as I inched my way towards the bed.

He must have heard me coming, my scuffing and sighing about as subtle as a hippo in a bag of Doritos. The bed creaked as he leant forward and stood up. The sound panicked me and I lost my balance—something new for me, I know.

Flailing and falling forward, I pitched right into his waiting arms. He caught me masterfully, wrapping me in a warm cuddle.

For a moment, I relaxed against his chest, allowing the smell of clean male to soothe my rattled nerves. He lifted a hand and stroked my hair, holding me tight. I love having my hair played with, and after being deprived of human contact for so long, the simple gesture made me melt.

While he hugged and patted me, I tried my hardest to work out who he was. Both Chris and Henry are so very similar in height and build, so that didn't help. They'd smelled different every time I'd been close to them: sunscreen, soap, salt water. Neither of them had a distinguishing body feature—and I'd seen Chris buck naked, so I knew that for a fact.

If it's Chris, when he touches your skin, you'll tingle.

But I'm tingling anyway! What if it doesn't work?

We don't really have a choice, do we?

My inner crazy talk wrapped up. Steeling myself for a brief burst of bravery, I pulled back from him, preparing myself for a kiss.

He let his hands drop to the small of my back, drawing small circles just above my butt. The movement was so wonderful and intimate and I wanted to give in and enjoy it.

But Chris' face appeared in my head
. I can't do this!
I thought frantically.
How can I sleep with someone who might not be the man I love! Get out! NOW!

A dry sob heaved up my throat and my chest hitched with emotion. I pulled backwards, trying to loose myself from his embrace, terror bursting through my thinly veiled repose.

He didn't let me go. Finding my hand in the darkness, he brought it to his chest …

… and used his finger to draw a T over his heart.

Chris!

And just like that, the universe was perfect. My tears of terror turned to tears of joy and the shaking which had gripped me faded. Chris was here.
It was him!

Chris lowered his mouth to mine and I met it passionately. As his lips landed on me, I felt that familiar dizzy sensation, the one that had connected us since that first brush in his coffee shop and had leaped between us ever since. I opened my soul wide to him, intending to never close it off again.

Chris kissed me tenderly, his lips sending sparks cracking along my skin. I raised my hands and threaded them in his hair, pulling him closer to me. In response, he wrapped an arm under my legs and swept me up, holding me tight without breaking the kiss.

Pressed against him, I darted my tongue inside his mouth, forcing my way inside him, the way he'd forced his way into my world. His breath hitched and his fingers tightened on me.

Turning, he placed me on the bed, then lowered himself beside me. I reached for his face again, wanting more of him, more of the kiss. As our lips joined, he roamed his hands along my arms, the skin dancing happily under his fingers.

He rubbed my arms in heavy strokes, then teased the inside of my elbows. With my mouth still pressed to him, he could feel me shudder, loving the attention. I'd never thought of arms as being an erogenous zone, but Chris was an expert. He probably could have made the inside of my nostril feel sexy.

Heat and damp began to gather between my thighs as other parts of my body cried out for his ministrations. Wanting his skin on me, I grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head.

Throwing the shirt away, I had full access to Chris' gorgeous chest. My fingers did some exploring of their own, trailing over his hard pecs. When I found his small nipples, I ran the flat of my palm over them, teasing them until they hardened.

His breath grew ragged and he pulled away, breaking our kiss. I had to fight the urge to whimper; I needed him on me, why was he leaving?

As Chris settled at my feet, I soon had the answer. He began the same languid strokes on my legs as he had on my arms. My calves seared as he dragged his fingertips over them, and when he tugged gently on my toes, the sharp sensation travelled all the way up to my nipples. Bucking off the bed, I writhed in the pleasure and pure love of his touch.

Chris moved his hands higher. He rubbed the back of my knees, then scraped his fingers up my inner thighs. Gasping, I let my legs fall open, helpless under his touch. He ran his fingers in patterns across my skin, as if he was writing a love letter only I could read.

His lips joined his hands. As Chris placed a gentle kiss on my thigh, electricity hummed down my legs, the current warming me all over. More kisses landed to join the first, working their way up my torso, over my belly and onto my neck.

We all know how sensitive my neck is. As Chris ravaged it with kisses, the dark room swirled into colours created by the whirl of pleasure inside me. My skin felt alive, crawling like a sentient being over my bones, while my nipples and core pleaded hopelessly for their turn.

I hooked a leg over Chris, drawing him tight against me. With one hand, I interlaced my fingers between his. With the other, I pulled at the tie holding my dress closed. The soft cotton fell away, leaving me open and almost naked. The only thing between my body and Chris was my skimpy French lace panties.

Chris hadn't noticed yet. His hand joined his mouth against my neck, and as the hand moved slightly lower, I felt him pause where the fabric should have been. Experimentally, he let his fingers roam over my collarbone, then slightly lower. Finding my dress gone, I heard him suck in a rapid breath. With shaking hands, he trailed his hand between my breasts, down to my belly button, where he kissed my navel while letting his fingers roam.

Everywhere he touched, my skin exploded in fractured pleasure. I twisted under him, desperate for more as my naked breasts lay in the dark, reaching for him.

Finally, Chris brought his hands up, gently brushing against my nipples. A choked noise guttered in my throat as the tender buds grew even firmer. He continued to dust them daintily, tormenting me with the feather-light touches. I thrust my chest out, begging him for more.

He gave it. Closing his thumb and forefinger around a nipple, he rolled and pinched it. The pressure was bliss, and a cord tugged between the nub there and the one within my increasingly wet core.

Chris lowered his head to my other nipple, kissing it softly, an excruciating contrast to the fierce treatment of the other one. His lips closed over the nub, his tongue caressing it as he pulled it deep into his mouth. Then, as I thrashed under him, my arms over my head, he bit down on the nipple and pleasure slammed through me.

While he continued to inflict sweet torture on my breasts, I slid my hands over his sculpted backside. Working quickly, before the feelings from my nipples carried me past the point of functioning, I ripped at the fastening on his shorts and slid them over his hips, finding him deliciously naked against me.

With Chris busy on my boobs, I slipped a hand between his thighs, to the magnificent manhood pushing towards me. A guttural sound came from the mouth latched onto my nipple, as I discovered a tiny bead of moisture on the head of his shaft. Using a single finger, I spread it around, loving the way the firm length twitched against my hand as I did so.

Bereft of pants, Chris decided mine had to go too. Releasing my nipples, he dragged the panties down and tossed them away. They made a soft fluttering sound as they sailed off.

We lay totally naked, panting, nerves zinging. I reached for him again, seeking his weight against me. We kissed again, slower and deeper, unhurried, knowing that the night belonged to us and us alone.

Chris' hand came to rest on my open thigh. Between my legs, my core pulsed with white-hot heat, needy and ready. As Chris' fingers crept up, I held my breath, and split my legs open further, inviting him in.

When he caressed my wet lips, I almost passed out from the intensity of it all. Dexterously, he slipped his fingers up and down the outside of my most sacred of places, as if seeking permission to enter. I lifted my hips, wanting him inside me, in every way.

Finally, with excruciating slowness, he pressed a single finger against my burning core. As every part of me went limp, Chris moved the finger up and down, teasing the hard nub, nestling under its hood. It swelled even more, almost painfully aroused.

He swirled his fingers over my clit, using the perfect amount of pressure to induce a sweet agony. My panting grew ragged as he increased the friction, bringing me close to the edge of bliss.

My fists scrunched in the sheets below me. I was beyond all logic, lost in the feeling of Chris playing my body like a master. Just as I felt my orgasm sweeping up, he pulled his hand away.

Broken, I felt a desperate sob escape me. I wanted to beg and plead for him not to stop, that I might just lose my mind if he didn't finish what he'd started.

The darkness meant I couldn't see what he was doing, so when the heat of his mouth covered my core, I started in shock and heaven. His tongue lapped against the swollen bud, then he sucked on it gently.

In the dark, my eyes rolled back and a shuddering grew inside me. A deep clench in my core triggered wave after wave of ecstasy, flooding my skin with goose bumps and fire while my limbs strained. I felt apart, Chris' mouth on my fluttering clit, my every cell responding to his touch.