Caught in his own trap, Sean surrendered to the inevitable and pushed himself into Melinda’s welcoming heat. And with that first, intimate slide of their bodies, he was lost.
Watching her pleasure as he took her only fed his own. Looking into her eyes and seeing them glaze over with passion spiked something inside him he’d never known before. He couldn’t identify it—wouldn’t even try.
Her legs wrapped around his waist, she hooked her ankles at the small of his back, pulling him deeper, higher. He looked down at her and watched satisfaction, chased by hunger play across her features.
Something fisted around his heart, but he ignored it. This was about sex. Passion. Lust.
This he knew something about.
This was what he’d been urging Melinda toward for weeks. This moment when she released her past and roared back to life. And he wouldn’t waste a minute of it in self-reflection.
He sat back on his heels, drawing her up with him. Their bodies still locked tightly together, he held onto her h*ps and guided her as she began to move on him. Her breath came in short, hard gasps. Her eyes were fixed with his as she twisted atop him, making him feel so much more than he ever had before.
She threw her head back and laughed. “Sean. This. Is. So. Good.”
“Damn straight,” he muttered thickly, dipping his head to nip at one of her ni**les.
She groaned and moved faster, harder atop him.
“Take me, Melinda,” he urged through gritted teeth. “Take all of me.”
“Yes. Yes.” She increased the rhythm, and his grip on her h*ps tightened, helping her move, maintaining that synchronicity that was singing between them.
He felt the first shuddering explosion grab her, and, as she gave herself up to it, her body tightened around his, pushing him over the edge. His body erupted into hers, and the sound of her voice shouting his name was the best thing he’d ever heard.
Her h*ps moved reflexively and he went with her, riding that pleasure wave together until, finally, they clung to each other in the shattering aftermath.
Minutes later, they were still there, on the bench, bodies joined, each of them trying to even out their breathing. Melinda’s forehead rested on his shoulder, and Sean swiped his hands up and down her back. His heart was racing and he was pretty sure his brain had melted.
Wrapping his arms around her, he silently marveled at the fact that this one small, curvy woman had knocked him right off balance. She had completely blindsided him, and Sean couldn’t even make sense of the jumbled thoughts churning through his still-buzzing mind.
The sigh of her breath touched something inside him. As unprepared as he was for the sensation, he knew he had to say something, to break up this little tableau.
Finally, he blurted out, “I must have been a bastard in a previous life.”
“What?” She jerked her head up to look at him in confusion.
He shrugged. “It’s the only way to explain how I keep ending up on sofas and benches that are too short and too damn narrow.”
Melinda just stared at him for a long second or two, then a short laugh shot from her throat and he felt it all the way down to their joining. He gritted his teeth as his body leaped into life again, then narrowed his eyes on her. “What are you laughing at?”
“Sorry, sorry.” She shook her head and admitted, “It’s just that the first time I saw you on the couch in our suite, I felt so bad for you, but…”
“But?”
“Well,” she said, still smiling, “you looked so funny. Your legs hanging over the edge, your feet sticking out from under the blanket.”
Subtext, he told himself with an inner smile, she had watched him sleeping. That was excellent news that he would think more about later.
For now, he gave her a mocking glare. This was good. He had wanted her thinking only about him. There were no painful memories crowding around her. No thoughts of Steven encroaching on them. Here and now, it was just the two of them. So he did what he could to keep it that way.
“Thought I looked funny on that miserable excuse for furniture that you call a couch, huh?” He lifted her off of his lap, though he missed the feel of her body joined with his. “You know what I think is really funny?”
He stood up, swung her into his arms and she looked up at him with wide eyes. “Sean…”
He carried her to the edge of the boat. “I said something about a swim, didn’t I?”
“Come on, cut it out.” Her legs kicked, and she pushed ineffectually at his chest in a futile attempt to get free. She flashed a look at the crystal-clear water below her then back to him again. “Sean, you wouldn’t…”
“Sure I would.” He paid no attention to the way she was squirming in his arms. “Now, now, watch how you’re kicking,” he warned. “Don’t want to hurt anything we might need later.”
She laughed. “If you do what I think you’re going to do, we won’t be needing anything later.?…”
Sean gave her a wounded look. “Now see, that’s just mean.”
“You nut,” she said laughing, “put me down.”
“I don’t think so,” he continued, paying no attention to the way she was squirming in his arms, “we’ve got the ‘skinny’ part handled. Now all we need is the ‘dipping.’”
And he dropped her.
Her shriek was cut off when she hit the water and went below the surface. He was watching when she bobbed right back up, pushing her hair out of her eyes and sputtering up at him. “You rotten, no-good, sneaky—”
He jumped in right beside her. The water was cool and clear. He opened his eyes underwater and got a great view of Melinda’s amazing body before he kicked out and shot to the surface.
“You rat,” she shouted and slapped a small wall of water into his face with the flat of her hand.
He ignored that, reached for her and yanked her in close. Then he kissed her, cutting her rant off midstream. She didn’t seem to mind though, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kicked her legs in time with his to keep them afloat.
When he finally pulled back, he looked into her eyes and whispered, “The only thing better than dry sex? Wet sex.”
She leaned in, nipped at his bottom lip and whispered, “Prove it.”
Sean grinned. “I love convincing a skeptic.”
He headed close enough to shore that they could stand, but the clear, beautiful water was still deep enough to tease the tops of her br**sts. Then he slid his hands down her slick body, loving the sighs that slipped from her throat.