All Hands Below (11 page)

It took another half-hour for the celebration to wind down. Liam dawdled. He needed to gather his thoughts before marching into a demolition derby with Evangeline.

It would take all his military training, his officer training, diplomacy, guts, and a cool head to deal with the lightning strikes he’d endure the second his eyes met hers.

He chatted with passengers and posed for pictures. He helped stack chairs—anything to hold him up before tossing her out and putting her out of his mind completely.

When he returned to his quarters, Liam didn’t see her at first, but he knew she was there. His sense of smell dialed in on the rosy trail of her perfume.

Muscles deep in his body strained and tic’d, at war with an excitement that pierced bone deep. Squaring his jaw, he resolved to be hard, even brutal with her.

He followed those delicate floral notes out to the balcony, bracing for battle, even as his miserable body reminded him he was already at her mercy.

And he had yet to lay eyes on her.

She lay sprawled on her stomach on the massage table set up on the balcony. Her face was turned to him, and her eyelids drooped shut. Beyond the edges of the thick white towel tucked around her body, her skin gleamed like satin after being rubbed and scented with exotic oils.

Something tugged at his heart to see her so vulnerable lying there. Harmless.

“Hey there,” he greeted softly. So much for leading the charge against the enemy.

Her eyes flew open. “Hi,” she said, and arranged herself on her side, clutching the towel close to her body.

“How are you?” Liam pulled up a chair and sat down. The shape of her mouth, her misty blue eyes and the radiance of her skin didn’t do wonders for keeping his cock well behaved at the moment.

She covered her pink lips and yawned. “I’ve had better days. But what a day you’ve had, hmm? Congratulations on your speedy promotion from ship’s engine guy to Action Man.”

His cheeks warmed beneath his skin. “I tried to tell you this morning. It wasn’t a good time, obviously, but in retrospect, I should have introduced myself properly from day one, Evangeline. This cruise is one of several phases of my new role as captain, but I don’t take command until we reach Miami. I’m sorry I allowed you to think that I served in a different capacity.”

“It’s not all your fault. I drew my own conclusions, Liam. I mean
Captain
Rossi.”

“You’re free to call me Liam. You’re also free to leave.”

“Wait, what about the stolen purse? Don’t I deserve some form of punishment?”

“Like what?”

“Like a spanking?” she asked, hopeful.

Liam smiled. “We know who the culprit is, and it’s not you.”

“Will Maisy be punished?”

“I can’t discuss that with you, but I promise you everything is going to be all right.” He dragged in a breath. “Time for you to go.”

She rested her head in the palm of her hand, tucked a corner of her lower lip between her teeth, and stared at him. God help him…how he loved her blue eyes.

“You’d throw me to the crazies waiting at my door?”

If you stay, you’re asking for trouble.
“One of those crazies thinks he’s your fiancé,” he said.

She lowered her lashes. “Eli had a memory lapse about that last night. But it’s all good. He’s on the verge of something special. Just,” she sighed and swung upright to sit, “not with me.”

The towel shifted. Her high-voltage curves moved around in all sorts of compromising, peekable positions. “And I’m not going to be the one who keeps him from the woman he spent the night with. Your ex-whatever.”

“Kerri and I lived together for a couple of years, but it’s been over between us for a long time.” Liam focused on her toenails, painted a glossy nutmeg color today. “So, everyone else gets what you came on board for.”

“It doesn’t mean I’m giving up,” she declared.

Liam shot up and out of the chair. Aggravated, he stalked to the mini-fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and drank deeply.

“Evangeline,” he swung around. She now sat back on the massage table with her legs crossed, swinging them lightly. Her palms lay flat on either side of her thighs. “
Why
are you doing this?”

“Because I want a man in my life.”

His snort mocked such neediness. Her eyes widened, then slitted, reading the thoughts behind his reaction. Her legs stopped swinging.

“If I may add my truth to what you’ve heard about me, Liam…I was married to my second husband for a year. I was his caregiver, the executor of his will, and his friend. He married me to make sure his family didn’t rip him off during his illness. And FYI? By year’s end, I’ll have been alone five years. I’m
done
with alone.” Her eyes glinted with frustration. “I’m ready for more.”

He battled the urge to take her in his arms, to tell her he understood her desires more so now, but touching her would weaken him. Undermine his ambition. His heart.

Yet he burned like wildfire for her. Still.

“I hear what you’re saying, Evangeline. But is it possible you’ve set your expectations so high for this cruise that they’re…unattainable, while other things are,” Liam pointed out reasonably.

Her eyes darkened. “I’m aware of your
other
things, Liam. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have been out of touch, hoping to meet a nice guy on a singles’ cruise. What was I thinking?”

“But it’s not that simple, is it?”

Her cheeks paled. “Okay. So I want the white picket fence, too. And a man with a job where he’ll stay put. A man who’ll be there to share in our child’s milestones—a man who’ll be around to make love to every night, if I want. To know he’ll be around for me and not in another part of the world. Or an ocean away. I guess that rules you out, hmmm?”

He winced. She shrugged, letting him know that she accepted her presence in his life wasn’t in the cards. He should kick up his heels, but there was no joy in knowing that once she left this room, he might never see her again.

“Why is a man who travels out of the question, for you?” he demanded, perversely curious in spite of his resolve not to get involved with her.

“My first husband had already served six years in the army when that car crash took his life. For much of the time we were dating, then married, he was deployed overseas. Been there, done that, and I’m not going there again.” She clamped her hand over the twist of her towel. “I wouldn’t expect to be joined at the hip with my next husband, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just together when it matters.”

“Like you and your one-day fiancé?” he taunted.

“There’s a man out there who will want me and want the things I have to offer. Like you.” Her gaze swept over him, and settled on the erection that chuted his pants.

Liam’s jaw knotted. Despite her marriages and that she was so wrong for him, he lusted after her like a crazed bull in a meadow.

“You want me. You just don’t want me forever.” She shrugged and slid off the massage table with surprising ease, given her bum ankle. “I can live with that.” She landed on her good foot.

His gaze scraped hotly over her lips, the points of her collarbones, the intriguing dips and swells of her body’s outline beneath the towel. He met her eyes. “You have no clue how easily I could take you. Use you. Forget about you.”

“So I’m just a blip on your radar?”

He wasn’t going to lie. “I play for the pleasure of the game. Not the prize.”

There—he’d delivered her a last and final warning. One more minute of her limping around in nothing but that towel and he wasn’t going to be responsible for his actions.

“May I have a sip?”

Liam walked over to where she stood and handed over the bottle.

Evangeline closed her lips over the rounded tip. Water poured into her mouth, and her throat convulsed as she swallowed.

She linked her gaze with his, handed back the bottle, then took his free hand in hers. She brought it up to where the corner of the towel had been tucked inside the hollow between her breasts.

“Not a good idea,” he said roughly, his hand going still. “I’ll want more than a sip.”

“Take as much as you want.”

“You won’t get your baby this way.” Sharply, he alerted her to the weapons he had at his disposal. “I’ve got condoms.”

Her brows knitted together. “I’m on the pill, too, for now. Please…just don’t change the course we’re on.”

“And afterward? You’ll go find some other man to have a life with. Someone to give you that baby, right?” He demanded that she’d commit her future to someone else.

“I want a family. But right now? I need you. So make up your mind.” She unwound the towel from her body and stood before him. “Now.”

Liam’s breath squashed out of his lungs. He stared, awestruck, at the sight before him: Evangeline naked. No longer the subject of his dreams, but a warm-blooded beauty.

Need kindled in her eyes. She held the towel to her side, prepared to bring it up again if he denied her. Her uncertainty gave her a fragile air that held him hostage to what she wanted.

His gaze swept down her throat to her nipples. Those dusky morsels budded in reaction as he drank in the sight of her breasts. A toned tummy curved along shapely hips. Below her cute innie belly button, a waxed and shaped wisp of hair fluffed around her lush-lipped slit.

His gaze roamed down her legs and paused to study her injured ankle. He winced to see it—bulging, black and blue. He’d have to be gentle with her.

Liam’s gaze swept back up and paused once again at the vee of her thighs. A flash of dew glinted through the curls.

His gaze lifted to hers. “You are beautiful, Evangeline.”

Relief shuddered from her and Liam welcomed her arms as she embraced him. He swept her up into a kiss of ownership. Possession. Her mouth parted in a warm welcome, and he delighted in the taste of mint, lime, and a touch of the sea on her lips.

The palms she pressed against the back of his neck reminded him that he’d drifted into her web. The sting of knowing there could only be one way out didn’t make him stop. No way did he have the strength to throw her out of his room, not when her luscious breasts prodded the front of his uniform.

Liam scooped her up into his arms and carried her to his bed. He lay her down on the mattress, and then stripped out of his clothes, staring at her all the while. Off slipped his briefs.

Her cheeks ripened with a rosy hue. She squeezed her thighs together as he revealed his muscle-bound limbs to her watchful eyes. “Liam, you’re…unreal.”

Liam’s mouth quirked with pride. He knew what her eyes saw—what he worked like a dog at to keep tight and fit. A smooth chest, hillocked abs, a taut, trim waist…

Her hot gaze flooded him with tingles of appreciation, but it wasn’t his washboard abs commanding her fascination. Her eyes drifted low and settled between his thighs.

“You shave your bush?”

He gripped the expanse of his cock in his hand and watched her eyes grow round as he fondled and stroked his lengthening penis. The bluish veins imbedded along its length charged up with lust, mapping out his cock’s desire. His hairless, manscaped balls hung heavy. Loaded with heat.

“Sometimes. When I’m bored. Having second thoughts?”

She made a half-gasping, half-laughing sound and her eyes sparkled up at him with humor and delight.

Her smile and the lusty thrill of all they were about to learn from each other made Liam’s dick jump inside the bold strokes of his fist.

Watching her watch him pump his cock while she lay naked in his bed made his balls burn. Her breasts bounced softly as she arranged herself on his sheets. His body shivered. To see her nipples, showcased by the dusky halo of her areolas, the slope of her abdomen and how it dipped down into the vee of her waxed mound fed the jerking aggression of his hand.

“You’re a wet dream come alive, d’you know that?” The helmet of his cock poked up and mushroomed past the clenched circle made by his thumb and forefinger.

“You have got the most gorgeous nipples,” he growled roughly, rubbing his growing rod and savoring the thrill of her stare as he pleasured himself. “I love their reaction to the sound of my voice. Show me how you make yourself
feel
, sweetheart. Rub your clit for me.”

He’d planned to shock her by his actions, his words. There could be no doubt. If she wanted him, she’d better know his cock was about to ravish her pussy in a bold, brazen fuck.

He didn’t expect that she’d wriggle her ass down on the bed and let her thighs fall wide open. Liam blinked, jolted when her tongue darted out. She licked two fingers, thoroughly moistening them, then brought them to down to her pussy.

She slipped them between her sex lips, rubbed at her juice-soaked knot, and sighed out her pleasure. Her breasts swayed with the motion of her hips as she rocked her lower body, pushing herself into sexual euphoria.

Liam watched, awed by the seduction she wove around them. She moaned and tipped her head back, her hair falling across his pillows as she opened her thighs wider for his viewing pleasure.

“Like this?”

His gaze slitted. “Fuckin’ A, honey. Just. Like. That.”

She reached up and rolled an engorged nipple with her finger. The finger pad she flicked along her clitoris dragged an earthy groan from her throat and, when she pinched her clit between her thumb and forefinger, wiggling and tugging at that tender bud, Liam moaned.

Gulping chunks of air into his lungs, his hand jerked up and down the length of his cock in lightning-fast strokes while they watched each other pleasuring themselves.

“You’re making me crazy,” he rasped. “I’ll need to plant my cock inside your sweet, tight hole in about ten seconds if you don’t quit.”

Splitting her pussy lips wide with both hands, she laid bare to his hungry eyes the rosy core of her. Her blue gaze lifted to his as she slowly dipped a finger inside her cunt.

Liam growled and pumped his cock hard as his desire flared.

She laughed softly. “Ooh, yes. That bad boy of yours will look quite nice in pink—”