Sea Fever Read online

  “I thought you were older,” Regina said.

  He went very still in the moonlight. “You remember?”

  Regina snorted. “Hardly. Since I was, like, four at the time.” She plucked the wet silk from her breasts. She’d have to make a trip to the mainland now. There was no dry cleaners on the island.

  “Here.” A flash, like a white flag in the dark, as he pulled out his handkerchief. A real gentleman.

  And then his hand was on her chest, his fingers spanning the tiny gold cross that lay beneath her collarbone, the heel of his palm pressing the handkerchief right between her breasts. Warm. Intimate. Shocking.

  Regina sucked in her breath. Not a gentleman at all. Asshole.

  She knocked his wrist away. “I’ve got it.”

  Beneath the wet material, her nipples beaded. Could he see, in the dark? She mopped at her dress with his handkerchief. “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed you.”

  If he hadn’t just groped her breasts, she’d be flattered. “I meant, on the island.”

  “I wanted to see if they would actually go through with it.”

  “The wedding?”

  “Yes.” He refilled her flute, emptying the bottle, and handed it to her.

  The gesture reminded her sharply of his brother. Despite the breeze off the water, her face felt hot. She felt warm all over. She gulped her wine. “So, you just showed up? After twenty-five years?”

  “Not quite that long.”

  He folded his long body onto the rock beside her. His hip nudged her thigh. His hard, rounded shoulder brushed her shoulder. The warmth spread low in the pit of her stomach.

  She cleared her throat. “What about your mother?”

  “Dead.”

  Oops. Ouch. “Sorry.”

  Let it go, she told herself. She wasn’t getting anywhere swapping dysfunctional family stories. Not that she wanted this to go anywhere, but—

  “It’s pretty strange that you never came back before,” she said.

  “You only think so because you never left.”

  She was stung. “I did, too. Right out of high school. Got a job washing dishes at Perfetto’s in Boston until Puccini promoted me to prep cook.”

  “Perfetto’s.”

  “Alain Puccini’s restaurant. You know. Food Network?”

  “I take it I should be impressed.”

  “Damn straight.” Pride and annoyance simmered together like a thick sauce. She drained her glass. “He was going to make me his sous chef.”

  “But you came back. Why?”

  Because Alain— the son-of-a-bitch— had knocked her up. She couldn’t work kitchen hours with an infant, or pay a babysitter on a line cook’s salary. Even after she’d forced Alain to take a paternity test, his court-ordered child support barely covered day care. His assets were tied up— hidden— in the restaurant.

  But she didn’t say that. Her son and her life were none of Dylan’s business.

  His thigh pressed warm against her leg.

  Anyway, men looked at you differently when you had a kid. It had been a long time since she’d sat with a man in the moonlight.

  Longer still since she’d had sex with one.

  She looked at Dylan, lean and dark and dangerous and close, and felt attraction run along her veins like the spark on a detonator fuse.

  She shook her head to clear it.

  “Why did you?” She turned the question back on him.

  His shoulder moved against hers as he shrugged. “I came for the wedding. I’m not staying.”

  Regina quelled an unreasonable disappointment.

  So it didn’t matter how he looked at her, really. She leaned down to dig the bottom of her glass into the sand. It didn’t matter what he thought. After tonight, she’d never see him again. She could say anything she wanted. She could do . . .

  Her breath caught in her throat. Anything she wanted.

  She straightened, flushed and dizzy. Okay, that was the wine talking. Loneliness, and the wine. She wouldn’t ever really— she couldn’t actually be considering—

  She stumbled to her feet.

  “Easy.” He caught her hand, supporting her.

  “Not usually,” she muttered.

  His grip tightened as he stood. “What?”

  She shook her head again, heat crawling in her face. “Nothing. Let me go. I need to take a walk.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  She wet her lips. “Bad idea.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. He did it beautifully. She wondered if he practiced in the mirror. “Better than you turning an ankle on those rocks.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  To anyone watching from the tent, they must look like lovers, standing hand in hand at the surf’s edge. Her heart thumped. She tried to tug away.

  His gaze dropped to their clasped hands. His fingers tightened. “You are warded.”

  She scowled at him, aroused and confused. “What are you talking about?”

  He ran his thumb along the inside of her wrist, over her tattoo. Could he feel her pulse go wild? “This.”

  Regina swallowed, watching his thumb stroke over the dark lines, the pale skin. “My tatt? It’s the Celtic sign for the triple goddess. A female empowerment thing.”

  “It is a triskelion.” He traced the three flowing, connected spirals with his finger. “Earth, air, and sea, bound together in a circle. A powerful ward.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark and serious.

  Too serious. She felt a jolt in her stomach that might have been nerves or desire.

  “So, I’m safe,” she said breathlessly.

  His beautiful mouth curved in the moonlight. “As safe as you want to be.”

  Goose bumps tingled along her arms. She shivered, as exposed as if she stood naked by a window.

  “Safe works for me,” she said. Or it had until recently. “I have responsibilities.”

  “Not any longer. Caleb told you not to work tonight.”

  Regina blinked. He’d heard that? He was watching her with his brother?

  Caution flickered. She hadn’t been aware of an audience. She hadn’t been aware of him at all except as Caleb’s brother, a tall, dark presence at the back of the wedding, on the edges of the celebration.

  Her toes curled into the sand.

  She was aware of him now. He was barely touching her, only that light grip on her wrist, and yet she felt the heat of him all along her body. His eyes glittered black in the moonlight, absorbing the light, absorbing the air, growing bigger, darker, enormous as he leaned close, closer, tempting her with that well-cut mouth, teasing her with the promise of his kiss. His breath skated across her lips. She tasted wine and something else— dark, salty, elusive— heard a rushing in her ears like the sea. She opened her mouth to breathe, and he bent over her and covered her mouth firmly, warmly, with his.

  2

  HE TASTED SO GOOD, HOT AND GOOD, LIKE salt and sex and brandy. Or maybe that was the wine she’d been drinking.

  Regina rose on tiptoe, straining for more of his taste, as his teeth scraped her lower lip, as his tongue plundered her mouth. Nerves and need danced together in her belly. Warning pulsed in her head.

  If she were smart— if she were sober— she would end this right now.

  Dylan’s hands stroked down her back and settled on her hips to draw her closer. His erection nudged between her thighs, and she lost her breath because he felt so good, hard and real against her, filling up the empty places, driving away the lonely thoughts.

  She wanted this. Needed it.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her tongue with his, grinding their hips together. His hands moved lower as he rocked against her. He was so hot, and she was burning up inside, everything inside her melting and flowing toward him. He kneaded her buttocks, pressing below, between, and when she spread her legs to give him better access, his fingers dug into her thighs, and he lifted her, positioned her against him.

  Sensation shu
ddered through her. She closed her eyes at the irresistible pressure, the unbearable temptation.

  Stupid, stupid.

  She tore her mouth away. Her heart slammed in her chest. Anyone could see them from the tent. Her mother, anyone.

  Okay, not her mother, Antonia had left with Nick. But—

  “No,” Regina gasped.

  Dylan’s arms tensed. His grip shifted. “No?”

  Her head spun. Her blood pounded. She was wet and open and aching as a wound, and if she didn’t get some relief, she would scream.

  “Not here,” she amended.

  His low chuckle vibrated through her belly. If she knew him better, she would have slugged him. Regina scowled, her brows drawing together. Of course, if she knew him better, she wouldn’t be groping him in full sight of a wedding reception.

  Before she could follow that line of thought, Dylan hitched her thighs higher around his waist and carried her down the beach, over the shale.

  Barefoot?

  He splashed through water. Slabs of granite lay like tumbled building blocks where the land plunged to the sea.

  Regina clutched his shoulders. “What are you—”

  Dylan rounded a tall outcrop of rock. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  “Not yet.”

  His smile gleamed in the twilight. He set her down on dry rock, smooth and warm with residual sun, and took her mouth in another deep, drowning kiss.

  His kiss swamped her thoughts. Dizzy with wine and lust, she staggered as if the tide dragged at her knees. Her heart pounded— hard, fast, reckless. She felt alight, alive, her mouth as hungry, as greedy, as his.

  His skin was hot, his body taut. She burrowed beneath his jacket, yanked at his shirt, desperate to grab as many sensations as possible to take back with her into the long, celibate nights. “Touch me,” she demanded.

  Anywhere. Everywhere.

  He did.

  His hands were strong and lean like the rest of him, rubbing her through her dress, cupping and caressing, until the fabric scraped her nerves and her knees trembled. He shaped her breast, weighed it in his palm, before tugging the neckline aside, freeing her to the cool, moist air.

  She sucked in her breath at the sight of her pale breast in his dark hand, his fingers working the tight nipple.

  His arm was a warm band at her back. He bent her over it and suckled her hard. And she went off— just like that— in a series of swift, light bursts, her orgasm rising through her like the bubbles in her wine.

  “Oh.” Oh, God.

  Her blood fizzed. Her face heated. She stared down at his dark head, her fingers still tangled in his hair, her mind a mess. She had never . . . She couldn’t possibly . . .

  She gulped. Obviously, she could. She had.

  “Well.” Her voice sounded insanely cheerful. “That was . . .” Embarrassing. “Quick.”

  He slid to his knees in front of her, his hands hard on her hips. “I’m not done with you.”

  Oh. Regina pressed her thighs together. Or tried to. He was in the way. She had to tell him, politely, she was done.

  Not that she wasn’t grateful. He’d just touched off her first male-induced orgasm in years. She owed him.

  He slid up her dress, making her shiver.

  Really, she should say something.

  His hair brushed her stomach as he pulled her panties down, his breath hot against her, and she flushed.

  “Uh, listen, you don’t need to—”

  He licked between her thighs and her mind went blank. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to do . . . anything. She was trapped between his warm, insistent hands and his urgent, clever mouth. He kept at her, on and on, while the stars wheeled and the sea whispered and the rocks shifted under her feet. She strained against him as the pressure built inside her, as the tension coiled tighter, until she couldn’t stand it, until she twitched and twisted to escape, until she came, over and over again, between his hands, against his mouth.

  She was limp and loose and reeling when he surged up between her thighs. He was breathing hard, his chest warm and damp. She spread her fingers against his shirt-front, against his pounding heart. Dimly, she registered the rasp of his zipper, and then he put himself where his mouth had been.

  She thought, Oh, yes.

  And then, Oh, no.

  And then, as he plunged thick and hot inside her, Oh, shit.

  She panted. “Stop.”

  He withdrew and thrust again. “No.”

  She bit her lip to keep from screaming. He felt so good, hard and good, filling her, stretching her. There.

  She whacked his shoulder in time with his thrusts. “I won’t . . . you’re not . . . I could get pregnant!” The last word was a wail.

  His head reared back. His black eyes glittered. “So?”

  She smacked him again. “Get out!”

  With mingled relief and frustration, she felt him pull out.

  He turned her, so that she faced the cliffs, and grabbed her hips.

  She braced her palms on the cold, rough rock face for balance. “What are you doing?”

  Stupid question. She could feel him, his erection, rubbing her, pressing her from behind, wet with her moisture, sliding and gliding along the cleft of her buttocks.

  She stiffened, her mouth dry with panic and excitement. “Uh . . . no. I don’t—”

  His arm was hard around her waist, his chest solid at her back. “Quiet.”

  She set her teeth. Okay, she owed him. But not—

  His hand worked between their bodies, pumping once, twice, before he gripped her hips with both hands. He ground himself against her, his fingers digging into her flesh. She felt him jerk, felt his hot exhalation in her ear, and then the warm stickiness at the small of her back.

  Oh. Thank God he had pulled out.

  He shuddered, his body warm and heavy against hers.

  An odd tenderness stirred under her heart. Peeling one hand from the cliff face, she stretched back her arm to pat his hip. His thigh. His leg was hard with muscle and rough with hair. He turned his head to nuzzle her hair, and the unexpected sweetness of the gesture made something turn over in her chest.

  She closed her eyes, willing away thought.

  Gradually, her body cooled. His breathing evened. She became aware of tiny, separate sensations: the gritty stone beneath her feet, the rising mist around her bare legs, the rich salt smells of sea and sex . . .

  And then he let her go.

  She heard him behind her, adjusting his clothing, and shivered, suddenly cold.

  “You lost something.” His voice was deep, polite. Caleb’s voice.

  Regina opened her eyes, leaning her forehead against the rock. “My self-respect?”

  He didn’t laugh.

  Okay, not funny. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat, sobriety creeping in like the tide. Not funny at all.

  “Your panties,” he said.

  “Right.” Flushing, she turned. There they were, dangling from his fingers. She snatched the scrap of nylon from him without quite meeting his eyes. “Thanks.”

  He inclined his head. “You are welcome.”

  If he smirked, she would kill him.

  But he continued to watch her with an unnerving lack of expression, as if he’d never been inside her, as if they’d never—

  Oh, God. Her insides contracted. Her knees wobbled. No way was she pulling on her panties under that flat black gaze.

  Regina balled the damp nylon in her fist. Now what?

  “Are you going back to the party?” she asked.

  “I have no reason to.”

  Right.

  Regina bit her lip, relieved and disappointed. “You could say good-bye.”

  Not to her. She didn’t care if she never saw him again. His shoulders shrugged under his well-cut jacket. “Margred will not notice my leaving.”

  “Your brother will.”

  Dylan’s black eyes glittered. “I did not come for my brother.”
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