Sea Kissed, A Crane Series Romance: Crane Series (5 page)

“Let’s get out of here.”

His urgency fed hers, but still she hesitated. “We should get a receipt. This is a deductible expense.” He raised their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “Oh, the hell with it,” she said cheerfully, confident that they’d grossly overpaid for dinner, would deduct not a cent, and that she didn’t care in the slightest.

It had seemed as though they’d walked quickly to get to the wharf, but that pace was a snail with a limp compared to the way they sprinted to get back to the hotel. Sprinted uphill. She gasped along, knowing the exercise was good for her, thinking maybe all her cellulite would turn to hard, trim muscle in the time it took to get back to his place, before her lungs gave out. As happy as she was that he was in such a hurry to be alone with her, she really needed to breathe. But not to slow the pace. There was only one solution.

“Taxi,” she managed to gasp. Luckily it was Friday and the place crawled with cabs. Soon they were bundled in one and sliding smoothly uphill.

Still she felt the tension in the man beside her, was certain she heard him mumble, “Come on, come on,” under his breath.

She knew exactly how he felt. She half-expected him to grab her in the taxi, but whether from shyness or manners or maybe men just didn’t do that sort of thing in Australia, she was unmauled and anxiously wanting when they got to the hotel. This time she was ready with her company credit card, which meant an instant receipt and no wasted time or money. She started to pass the card forward, caught the urgent expression in Steve’s eyes, and thought,
What am I doing?
It was her turn to grab a twenty dollar bill for a seven dollar cab ride and toss it into the front, with a hurried thanks.

“Evening, Mr. Jackson.”

“Hi, Ralph.”

The doorman nodded to Lise.

“There’s a good crowd up on top tonight,” he said. Steve stopped and stared at the doorman.

“He means in the bar on top of your hotel,” she explained. “It’s usually busy on Fridays.”

“That’s right, miss. Wonderful view of the city from up there.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Good night.”

“There’s only one view I want tonight,” Steve said in an urgent undertone.

“Shh,” she said as they broke Olympic speed records racing to the elevator. Once the silver doors shut them in and they were fortunately alone, she wondered if he’d lunge for her the way she’d half-suspected he might in the cab. He didn’t. But the way he looked at her had the clothes damn near melting off her body. Maybe his hands didn’t touch her, or his lips, but his gaze touched her everywhere, igniting tiny flames across her skin. Anticipation, she decided, was the most potent aphrodisiac of all. He was staring at her body blatantly, and she felt all her womanly bits do their best to flirt with him. Her nipples fluttered to coy attention, her pulse thrummed to some ancient jungle beat, and her belly was growing heavy and warm with excitement.

“I’ve wanted you since the minute I saw your breast pop out of your dress,” he said softly.

And darned if both of her breasts didn’t do their level best to toss themselves out for him a second time. She heard a soft sigh and realized that it was hers.

“It’s been driving me crazy that I saw only one. I want to see them both.” He stopped to drag in a hungry breath. “I want to touch them.”

“Mmm.”

“And taste them.” Oh, this was more foreplay than she’d had in her entire last relationship. She was so hot it was all going to be over before they hit his suite. She should have booked him on a lower floor.

“I wanted you before we even met, when I first saw your picture,” she admitted, finally recognizing that had been the source of her dissatisfaction at first seeing the eight-by-tens.

She’d felt not so much like Cinderella looking into the face of Prince Charming, but like one of the ugly stepsisters knowing that her foot would never fit the dainty glass slipper and that there could never be a chance for her. But even as she’d wanted him so much, she’d felt twitchy and restless.

“Then I saw you in person.”

“And?”

“And I only wanted you more.”

“That’s good.”

“I guess.”

“I’ve never had sex with anyone who wasn’t Australian before,” he said, looking momentarily shocked.

“I’ve never had sex with anyone who wasn’t American,” she realized.

“Christ, I hope I get it right.”

They’d hit his floor, but the ding of the arriving elevator didn’t come close to blocking out her snort of laughter. She’d been petrified of disappointing him, and even his half-joking admission of his own fears had her relaxing. Maybe it was the way he’d kissed her earlier. Maybe it was the way he’d talked so sensibly at dinner, but somehow, she knew this was going to be okay. They left the elevator together but the hurry had dispersed. It was as though something momentous were about to happen and they wanted to savor every minute. Or the anticipation was so strong they wanted to draw it out. Or they were so scared they’d mess it up that they were in no hurry to dive between the sheets.

He pulled out his key card and they entered the room. He flipped on a lamp and in the pool of golden light he appeared mysterious, his eyes dark and serious but oh, how they pulled her to him.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked.

“No. I just want to get the first time over with.” She gasped when she realized she’d said those words aloud, feeling herself blush scarlet. “I mean—” Oh, he might as well know the truth. He was going to find out soon enough. “I’m just so awkward at this.”

“What, sex? Of course you’re not.”

“Excuse me, but I think I’d know better than you.”

Steve shook his head at her. “It’s all those flipping magazines you women read. I went through a load of them on the flight over, and I’ve never seen so much rubbish.”

“What are you talking about?” She did a lot of advertising in those magazines.

“Those articles,” he rolled his gaze. “How to look better naked, what men really mean when they say I love you, thirty-seven-and-a-half tricks to drive him wild in bed.” He dropped his voice back to its normal register. “No wonder everyone in America thinks they need an analyst. How can a magazine article tell them how to have better sex or more orgasms?”

Oh, she wished he hadn’t mentioned orgasms. Her stomach gave its first twinge of the evening. What if she didn’t have one? She was so nervous she wasn’t sure she had it in her. In fact, this whole thing was a terrible idea.

“I think maybe—”

“I’ll tell you what I think; if people spent less time worrying about what they look like naked and keeping scorecards on how many tricks they pulled in bed, they might actually enjoy sex more.”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?”

Never mind the antacid, she was heading into Valium territory. And frankly, she wished she could have a time-out and read up on how to look slimmer when naked, have more orgasms, and hell, if there were thirty-seven-and-a-half sex tricks, she was short about thirty-five. But he was grinning at her in a totally appealing way, and despite the fact that she was feeling insecure, she was also feeling that if she walked away from this now, she’d always regret it.

“I don’t know thirty-seven-and-a-half tricks,” she said. “I don’t think I know any.”

He took a step closer. “Darlin’, tricks are for magic shows.”

He reached forward and touched her face, skimming the leathery workingman pads of his fingers down her cheek and over the ledge of her jaw, and down the soft, sensitive skin of her throat. It felt so good she let her head fall back, offering him the full length of her throat. She felt the increasing warmth as he neared, and then the soft brush of his lips against the hollow beneath her jaw.

“That’s a trick,” she murmured.

“What is?” His words rumbled against her skin in a way that made her shiver.

“You kiss my throat and it makes my heart pound.”

“Does it?” A lazy note of amusement curled through his words and she felt herself smile along with him as his hand traveled down the left side of her chest, settling just above her breast where her heart was knocking itself out.

“It’s happening to me, too,” he told her and, running a hand down her arm, picked up her wrist and placed her palm against his own chest. And he was right. His heart was beating out a nice tattoo of its own. “I think you’re beautiful,” he said, his lips cruising slowly back up her throat to her mouth.

“I’m not.” She always thought she was sort of funny-looking. Her chin was too square, her nose a little more defined than was seemly, her eyes were pretty, but they belonged in a softer face.

“That’s part of your charm. You don’t even see how pretty you are.”

She’d have to find that magazine. He seemed to be pulling out the whole bag of tricks and dropping them at her feet. Not that she really cared; she liked flattery. God knows she got little enough of it. Then his mouth closed over hers and the running commentary in her head seemed to shut down. Zap. Like her brain had been shocked into a coma. This was all about feeling. The warmth of his lips against hers, the feel of his strong, bridge-building arms around her, the way he eased her up against him so smoothly she was pressed chest to groin before she noticed they’d moved closer.

And everywhere they touched something was happening. Little jolts and surges of electricity zapping back and forth, his body hardening, hers softening, his continuing to harden until she felt the bulge of him so far up her belly she wondered if men were built different in Australia. Maybe all that sun and football and beer did something to their development. And maybe all those months without sex had closed her up like a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. With a tiny groan, she wondered if it was too late to back out of this.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, raising his head to look down at her.

“Nothing.”

“I could have sworn you were right with me and then you went somewhere. What’s going on in that busy brain of yours? What were you just thinking about?”

“Toothpaste.”

“Toothpaste?” He pulled back to stare down his nose at her. “Is this some California sex thing I’ve never heard of?”

“No. It’s just me being an idiot.”

“Well, stop it. You stay with me, got it?” He squeezed her shoulders. “No thinking.”

“I can’t help it,” she wailed. “I warned you. I’m hopeless at sex. I can’t turn my mind off.”

“Well, don’t turn it off then. But channel it into a better direction than oral hygiene, or you’ll put me off.”

“I don’t know how,” she admitted miserably.

He sighed. “I can see I’m going to have to get brutal with you.”

She gulped. “You are?”

“Yes. Very brutal.”

He sounded fierce, but those crazy lights were dancing in his eyes again, the kind that turned her blood to fizzy soda. While she was focusing on those eyes, she felt his hands at her chest and realized with a spurt of shock liberally mixed with excitement that he’d bared her right breast. Without any finesse or buildup, he’d simply pulled up her T-shirt and popped the thing out of her bra cup. Now that it was free, she felt the air against her nipple and the warm, rough heaviness of his hand where she was so sensitive.

“Now what are you thinking about?” he asked her.

She swallowed. “Not toothpaste.”

“Come on.” He feathered his fingertips over her nipple and her whole body responded. “What are you thinking about when I do this?”

“Not thinking,” she murmured. “Feeling.”

“Good,” he whispered. “That’s very good. Now, every time you want to go off on another toothpaste tangent, bring yourself back and concentrate on what your body is feeling at that very moment.”

“Where did you learn—? Oh,” she gasped as a thumb and finger pinched her nipple.

“What does that feel like?”

“A pinch of fire.” She stopped to pant in a breath. “Spreading heat.”

“Good. Stop thinking. Stay focused.”

“Don’t do that again.”

“Don’t make me.” He kept playing with that one breast, driving her semi-crazy, and making the other one feel frustrated and left out.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the sight of this one breast at the airport that day. There was something about just the glimpse of that one that’s kept me wondering what the rest of you looks like.”

“Nothing special, believe m—” Her word ended on a tiny squeak as he squeezed her nipple again.

“Would you stop that?” she ordered, but her protest was wimpy at best. She found she liked the radiating warmth that followed the quick pinch.

“When you stop putting yourself down.”

He kept touching and toying with that one breast, but she didn’t think he was doing it any longer to keep her mind on the proceedings; he was doing it because he was enjoying himself. She didn’t need any more reminders to stay in the moment. She was so far in the moment she might never get out.

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve thought about this one breast. I’ve wanted to touch it, and taste it.”

“I have two breasts, you know,” she informed him, since the other one was starting to act like a jealous sibling and demand attention.

“Do you?” he said, half-laughing, and dropping his hands to the hem of her T-shirt, pulled it slowly up and over her head.

When she’d dressed in her sexy dress she’d imagined a seduction scene of whispering silk and perhaps a little champagne, not that she’d be stripping out of T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes. Still, at least her underwear was the sexiest she’d ever owned. With her arms raised above her head for the T-shirt to slide off, her breasts were going to look their best. Perky and uplifted. Of course, since he’d left the right one exposed and the left still covered by her coffee- colored silk bra cup, she was going to look a little odd, but she was in the moment and beyond caring.

And the little growling sound he made when he glanced down at her had her feeling pretty damn good about her less-than-perfect body. He tossed the T-shirt aside and stood looking at her, then with one quick move, he scooped the second cup beneath her left breast and smiled as though one of the universe’s great secrets had been revealed. Her breasts felt cantilevered and thrust forward against the underwire that provided most of her cleavage, but it made her feel wanton and daring.

Deciding that fair was fair, she went to work on his shirt, pulling it up and over his head. Oh, she thought when she saw him naked from the waist up, no personal trainer in the world was that good. He had a long torso, wide at the chest and narrow at the waist, a nice triangle of dark hair at his chest, and just a sprinkle of freckles on his shoulders. Unable to stop herself, so very in the moment that the idea of holding back was impossible, she put her arms around him, pulled forward, and buried her face in his chest. The hair tickled but the skin beneath was silken leather. He smelled of warmth and sun and maybe a bit like steel. She put her tongue out and tasted him and just as she was thinking about a nibble or two, she felt big hands cup her butt and she rose into the air.

Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as he carried her into the bedroom and then tossed her backwards onto the bed. He leaned down and untied each of her shoes and pulled them and her socks off. Then, grasping the waist of her shorts and panties together slid them down and off. He put his hands to the snap of his jeans and she watched, mesmerized. He slid them and his underwear down with no ceremony and she decided there was definitely something to her theory about the Australian sunshine. Never had she seen a more spectacular male body. She wasn’t going to think about squeezed-out tubes of toothpaste; she was going to stay in the moment and trust her body. Which was sending urgent messages letting her know it was up for the challenge.

“You’re staring at me like you’ve never seen a naked man before,” he said, half-laughing but she thought a little embarrassed, too.

“I’ve never seen one as gorgeous as you before,” she told him.

“I like the look of you, too.”

He eased down beside her on the bed and kissed her as though he had all the time in the world and there was nothing he’d rather do for all eternity than kiss her. His fingers traced patterns on her chest and belly, inching slightly lower on each pass.

“Do you still want to get this first time over with?” he asked softly.

Had she said that? What had she been thinking? This wasn’t something to be rushed, but to be savored and enjoyed.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to rush.” She sighed as his fingers brushed just below her belly button. “I don’t have to be anywhere until Monday morning.”

Although, admittedly, there were parts of her body that did want to move right along. Certain anxious parts, too-long denied, were ready to celebrate in full force. But no. She wanted not only to stay in this moment, but to stretch it out and make it last.

“I don’t have to be anywhere until Monday morning either,” he said and began kissing her breasts.

He gave them his full attention for a minute or so and then abruptly reared up to gaze down at her with mild irritation. “Now what?”

“Pardon?” He held her gaze with eyes that seemed to see right into her.

“You’re thinking again.” Damn, this was getting spooky.

“How do you know?”

“I make my living working with my hands. When you start thinking, I dunno, your skin changes, and your muscles start to tense up.” He continued to gaze down at her and then smiled a little. “And you get a furrow right between your eyes,” he said and leaned forward to kiss a spot midway between her eyebrows that she didn’t think had ever been kissed before.

“Sorry.”

“What were you thinking about that made you turn into a plank?”

She threw her arm across her eyes. Now she was a plank. Great. “I’m such an idiot. I wish I hadn’t said I don’t have to be anywhere until Monday. It makes me sound like I have no social life. And maybe you don’t want me hanging around until Monday.” There. He’d asked, and she’d told him the truth. So she was pathetic and had no social life. Now he knew.

“That’s what you were thinking about?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all?”

Pause. “Ye-es . . . mostly.”

From behind her arm she couldn’t see anything, but she felt the shifting and then the lack of warmth and knew he’d moved away. She dropped her arm and found him getting right off the bed. She felt so miserable she wanted to curl into a ball and start wailing. While she watched, he grabbed one of the matching upholstered armchairs, dragged it to the bedside, and sat down.

“All right,” he said.

“Let’s have all of it. What else is going through that maddening head of yours?”

“Nothing. I—I . . .”

“You what?”

“I forgot to ask if you’re married.”

His brows flew up at that. “Do you think I’m the sort of bloke who’d be sitting here naked with you if I had a wife at home?”

She shook her head. “But my judgment isn’t always the best.”

“I’m not married.”

She released the breath she’d been holding, and then wondered how he could possibly be single? A man who looked that incredible in nothing but a hotel armchair had no business being unattached. But then he hadn’t actually said he was single. He’d said he wasn’t married.

“Girlfriend?” He shook his head.

“Broke up three months ago when she started looking at wedding rings.”

“Oh.”

So he wasn’t a commitment kind of guy. Fair enough. She wasn’t looking to marry the man. So long as he wasn’t committing adultery in sleeping with her, did she really care that wedding rings freaked him out? No, she thought, giving him her best shot at a come-back-to-bed smile; wedding rings were the last thing on her mind. He seemed to get the message pretty loud and clear, tipping forward and out of the chair until he was a heartbeat away, his lips so near to kissing her that her own tingled.

“No more thinking,” he ordered.

“I’m all done.”

As she wrapped her arms around him she accepted that he was absolutely, exactly what she needed. When he kissed her she opened her mouth to him, wanting to give him everything she had. But even with the heat of their fused mouths, she felt the soft touch of his skin against hers, and the sliding of their limbs as they eased against each other, testing and finding the best ways to fit. She was aware of his strength, of the muscles that had so much in common with the metal he worked with, and beneath that the solid core of integrity she’d sensed.

He was a simple working man; nothing fancy or contrived about him. For a woman who made her living creating illusions, it was amazing to find a man who was exactly what he seemed. He was also frighteningly perceptive, and more sensitive to her body and its nuances than any man had ever been. He didn’t need to worry about her getting carried away with thinking; she was here and this was now and his body felt so very good moving against hers that thinking became impossible. She focused instead on enjoying this amazing night that might never be repeated. His mouth whispered secrets to her when they were kissing that went deeper than words.

For once in her sex life, she didn’t close off, or back off, or turn her mind on to shut her heart off. Instead she opened herself to everything. To the sensations of touch and smell and taste, and behind them the sneaky deeper feelings that filtered through her barriers. If, in the back of everything, she suspected there might be an inevitable hurt, she decided tomorrow’s pain was well worth tonight’s pleasure. And that was the last thought she allowed herself.

With a sigh of acceptance that any Buddhist would be proud of, she let herself open to the moment and only the moment. While he kissed her, his chest rubbed hers, sending warm waves of sensation eddying to every part of her. His belly crowding hers added to the warmth, and when his erection nudged at her softness, warmth spiked to heat. Heat so hot her insides were melting. She found she was moving mindlessly with him and against him in a kind of dance where she seemed to know every move. She discovered she was on her back with her legs wrapped around his waist and he was nudging her open, and she’d never felt so open or receptive.

With lazy assurance, he reached past her head to a canvas zippered pouch she’d noticed on the bedside table. He flipped it open and removed a condom. While continuing to kiss her, he sheathed himself with so little fuss and such easy grace that the moves felt like part of his foreplay. Indeed, just knowing that he was that close to entering her upped her heat quotient. He entered her with a long, smooth slide that felt so intimate she experienced a moment’s panic, and might have backed off except that he held her gaze, his own open and locked on hers. And because she’d already opened herself up too far to close off now, she left her eyes open and watched his pupils darken, certain her own were doing the same.

He thrust up and back, sliding faster, and she met him thrust for thrust until not only were her eyes open but her mouth as she gasped for breath. Every part of her was open and receiving: her lungs, dragging in the air she needed, her heart, pounding to keep up with her excitement, her legs, widespread to wrap around him snugly, and her very core, open to receive all of him. What she hadn’t opened, he did, pushing up inside her where she’d never been stretched before, open and opening farther and wider until the center wouldn’t hold and the circle burst upon her as every part of her— heart, lungs, eyes, mouth, core—seemed to blow apart.

And yet he didn’t stop, but drove still harder and higher, so she was hanging on for dear life, as a cascade of mini-explosions shook her and then with a great roar, she heard and felt his own explosion.

Even as he lay collapsed on top of her, his sweat dampening her body, she knew something momentous had happened. He lay on top of her, heavy but not, and she traced the muscles of his back, still warm and heaving a little. His hair was damp when she touched it, and when she kissed his neck where it joined his shoulder, his smell was as potent as any aphrodisiac. She felt him twitch inside her. This amazing, gorgeous, sexy man, come from the other side of the world to pleasure her, was hers until Monday. She smiled and kissed his neck again.

“You’re not thinking are you?” a low voice rumbled into the pillow beside her head.

“Nope,” she assured him. “I am completely in this moment.”

“It’s a bloody good moment.”

She smiled all over her body. “Yes. It is.”