Carnal in Cannes (13 page)

He hooted, a loud booming sound that filled the stateroom, his arms jerked out from under his head, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and hugged her against his heaving chest. His laughter rumbled from his belly to hers, and she relaxed in his embrace. When his chuckles subsided, he rolled them over so they faced each other and said, “St. Pete"s my dick. My cock. My penis. My pecker.”

She had no control whatsoever over her wayward eyebrows; they climbed to her hairline. “You named your…” Her gaze swept between their bodies to the bulge at his crotch. “St. Pete?
Pourquoi
St. Pete?”

“Long story. Later. St. Pete"s on fast forward, sugar.” He lifted her into a sitting position. “It"s your show. Go for it.”

It’s my show. I can do or not do whatever I want.

Harrison had given her control.

A surge of emotion raced through her veins. She had control. Eager fingers pushed his T-shirt up to bare his nipples.

He grabbed her wrists. “Uh-uh, no hands.”

Entranced, Martine stared at the man lying on the bed. Studying the cutting ridges that delineated his ribs and extended past his navel, she took a deep breath, hoping oxygen would stop the giddiness invading her brain.

He"d used the hotel"s fancy soap. His belly smelled of sandalwood and almonds, the aroma contrasting with the musk emanating from the hairs peeping from his unbuttoned fly. A faint dusting of hair more gold than dark molasses circled his belly button. Acting on some prehistoric instinct, Martine scooted back on his thighs and rested her elbows on either side of his hips. Bending so her nose skimmed his stomach, she sipped the tempting strands, captured the fine hairs between her lips, and pulled lightly.

A ripple ran across his waist, and his stomach hollowed, and he hissed.

“Lower.”

Martine drew back to savor the dampness glistening from the curls.

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“Am I to call him St. Pete too?” She nuzzled his abdomen and her tongue discovered a sticky splotch before her mouth connected with the zipper"s metal tab.

His cock jutted her nose as she snagged the brass zipper slider between her teeth and slowly opened the jeans" closure.

Harry growled, “You can call it anything you want. Do anything you want.”

Curiosity conquered any remnants of her fear. His organ proved fascinating.

Veins pulsed around his long cock, and as she stared, his penis jerked and thickened. The crown had a mesmerizing slit; she licked her lips when a clear substance oozed through the opening and dripped along the reddening head. Unable to resist the glistening drop, she lapped at the liquid. A waft of musk and spice and soap curled around her nose. She licked again, testing his taste and texture. Tacky, a hint of salt and shellfish, somewhere between the clams and oysters they"d served at the bistro where she"d worked.

“I should like to hold St. Pete,” she mumbled, lifting her face to peek at Harry.

“But you said no—”

“Ah to hell with any fricking thing I said.” He hauled her up his body, and when their noses bumped, he kissed the tip of hers. “Are you sore?”

His pupils expanded, and the warm honey of his irises vanished. His bronze skin flushed a rose hue, and his harsh pants echoed in the silent room. A faint hint of the beer he"d consumed in the hotel suite remained on his breath.

“Martine?” He shook her shoulders. “Sore?”

“Non.” She couldn"t stop the heat blazing between her legs, the painful need to have him fill her, spread her, claim her. “Please. Harry.”

“Please what, sugar?” His lips skated across her face, brushing damp kisses on her cheeks and temples. “Please do this.” His fingers slid two buttons of her shirt open.

A silent alarm pierced the chaos tumbling her thoughts. Martine grasped for the remnants of the control that had saved her life time and time again. She pushed away his hands and tore the blouse open to reveal the under-the-breast teddy that bared all.

His mouth captured one peak, and he suckled with teeth and tongue.

Her fingers kneaded his skin, and she rubbed her toes over the arch of his feet.

“Or please do this?” he asked as his thumb and index finger rolled her other nipple, and she sucked in her cheeks when he pinched lightly.

“Oui. Yes. Yes.” Both hands crept to his nape, and sounds she didn"t recognize filled the air, gasped yeses, noes, and mores as his tongue and teeth tormented the moistened, fiery tip. His fingers toyed with her unattended nipple, pulling up the aching bud, squeezing the tip. Her belly contracted as a bolt of delicious sensation shot straight to her sex, and she begged, “Si"l vous plait, Harry.”

“Or this?” His fingers trailed the center of her torso, dipping into the hollow of her navel, snaking under the thong"s lace to toy with her curls. Of their own accord her thighs went slack, and she opened for his searching thumb. “So wet for me, 62

Jianne Carlo

sugar, so hot and so tight.” He cupped her sex, two fingers parting her folds, the heel of his palm abrading that precious nub. “That"s it, sugar. Come for me, Martine.” He bit the lobe of her ear and at the same moment pinched her throbbing button, and her walls clenched and tightened when he finger-fucked her sheath.

“I can"t,” she moaned, her head lolling on the pillow.

“You can,” he crooned. “You will.” He flipped their positions, slid down her front, his hungry lips licking and sipping her skin to where the teddy met in a U, and skipped over the silk and lace to slither his tongue over her convulsing belly.

When his mouth closed over her pulsing nub, the flames ignited. Dancing, burning blue and orange flares glazed her vision, her neck went taut, both shoulders dug grooves in the down, every rib threatened to break out of her skin, and her hips jerked off the mattress. When he covered her clit with his mouth, her body bowed, and his lapping tongue and plunging fingers triggered combustion after combustion.

He brought her down gently, petting her damp pubic curls, murmuring,

“Beauty. You taste like paradise. You smell like nectar. “

Vaguely she registered the sounds of Harry divesting his jeans and shirt as she struggled to stop panting and ease the burning in her chest.

Martine"s blurred eyesight focused when he sipped at her upper lip and his knees coaxed her legs wider apart. A damp lock of hair touched one of his perfect eyebrows, and his forehead glistened with sweat.

The hard crown of his cock parted her internal walls, the intense pressure the sweetest combination of ecstasy and pain she"d ever felt. “You"re so fricking hot and tight. I can"t hold back.”

His fingers curled around her hips and slid to the crook of her ass cheeks to lift her off the mattress. He plunged deeper, and his testicles slapped her folds, and her pussy spasmed. His cock pistoned in and out of her contracting muscles, his pelvis impacting her nub on each thrust. Martine"s senses fractured when Harry threw his head back and roared. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he went slack in her embrace, his full weight bearing down on her breasts, her hips. A bead of perspiration dripped from his forehead to her cheek and rolled to the corner of her mouth. Martine licked his briny taste and nuzzled the soft stubble coating his jaw.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and his lips tickled her neck, his warm breath skating a shiver to the tiny hairs at her nape. Lifting onto his forearms he touched his mouth to the bridge of her nose. “I didn"t mean to collapse on you like that.”

Martine stifled a sigh and lifted her eyelids. He had the oddest look on his face, a sort of wry surprise. “I don"t think St. Pete"s willing to leave yet.”

“I don"t want him to,” Martine confessed, lacing her hands together in the center of his back. Even up close, his tanned complexion held no flaws.

At that moment the
Glory’s
engines fired, and the yacht shuddered and rolled from side to side. Martine glanced to the sliding glass doors opposite the bed.

“We are leaving Cannes?” she asked.

“Yeah. We"re heading to Marseille.”

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63

“Why are we going to Marseille?” Martine prayed her terror didn"t show in her voice. She studied the pulse throbbing in the hollow of his clavicle and schooled her features into the relaxed pose she"d perfected so long ago.

“Curiosity,” he said, “is my abiding mortal sin. I"ve a hankering to see where you lived, sugar.”

Terror sucked all the oxygen out of Martine"s lungs.

I’m doomed.

64

Jianne Carlo

Chapter Seven

Martine"s honeyed complexion paled, and Harry heard her breathing hitch as St. Pete went flaccid and slipped from her warmth.

What lie are you conjuring up now, wife?

She shuttered her eyes entirely, and only the imperceptible working of her throat muscles gave a hint of her nervousness.

“Where I lived was not pleasant.”

“Where did you live?”

“In a room.”

“Where?”

“Marseille.”

He turned onto his side, rose on one elbow, and studied her half-mast eyelids.

Her nipple puckered when he traced the mouthwatering chocolate richness of her areola. “There"s such a thing as a lie of omission. By not pleasant, do you mean the dock slums?”

She worried her lower lip between two teeth, and when he rested his thumb on the center of her clavicle, her pulse danced an erratic jig.

“I quit my room. The landlord will have already rented it.”

“So all of your worldly possessions are in that suitcase?” He threw his gaze to the spit and polished Samsonite case. “There are a lot of things that don"t add up about you, Mrs. Martine Ford. Expensive clothes, shoes, and luggage. No jewelry, except for your pink conch earrings, although the detail on those shouts one-of-a-kind dollars. Calloused fingers.” He picked up her hand and ran his tongue over the pad of her forefinger. “Not to mention the scars on your back.”

She snatched her hand out of his hold and worried her lower lip between her teeth. Her whole body shuddered, and she balled her fingers and dug fists into the comforter. “You said all you needed was my virginity. I have given that to you.”

Her brows took flight, eyes widening to dominate her face as her mouth opened, and she froze like a child playing Red Light, Green Light when the stoplight spins around. She recovered within his five-second count, lips pinching to almost invisible as she swallowed and shot a glance at the teddy, the torn blouse.

“I kept my clothes on the whole time,” she croaked.

“Look at me,” he said, then added, “please, Martine.”

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For the first time, her lips trembled, and those black eyes brimmed, her pupils not pinpricks but not normal either. Turning her face into the pillow, she shook her head.

Knowing she"d reject his need to hold and comfort her, Harry splayed his fingers wide to prevent them from fisting and knew he had to change the subject before he pummeled the nearest object. Who the fuck had whipped her? His fingers had encountered several raised ridges, and his hands had only reached her midback.

“Who did that to your back?” She tried to stifle her gasp with a fist but kept her eyes hooded and didn"t budge a fraction. “I"ll find him.”

The
Glory
must have cleared the point, because one long horn shrieked over the low humming of the yacht"s engines. The boat"s rhythmic cresting and dipping motion smoothed.

“One other thing you should know about me, Martine. Once a notion gets ahold of my brain, I worry it like a dog with his last bone.”

Martine slanted him a quick peep, and her mouth canted into a tight, flat line, though her breasts no longer rose and fell as if she"d run a four-minute mile.

“Not going to answer?” He lifted a brow. “Then let"s go shower, sugar. I want to get you all clean and shiny so I can get you messy again.”

“What?” She shoved onto her elbows and shifted to face him, her lips turning down, evening out, then tugging down again. Out of the corner of one eye, he checked her feet and caught her big toes wrestling.

“We all have scars, Martine—some visible, most not.” He leaned closer, captured her nipple between thumb and forefinger, and pinched. “I"m going to kill the asshole who whipped you. Those scars don"t matter a frick to St. Pete. Take a look. He"s more than ready for round two.”

Harry couldn"t suppress a chuckle when Martine gawked at his rigid tumescence, and St. Pete reacted by preening for her and weeping desire. He rubbed the worry lines forming on her forehead. “Yep. Grub first, and then we"ll play Blind Man"s Bluff nekkid.”

Martine"s mouth gaped, her eyes grew as round and big as flying saucers, and the thick fringes of lashes curling above them fluttered as she blinked rapidly.

“Cat got your tongue, Martine?” He winked at her.

“Harry.” Austen"s voice came from a square black intercom on the far wall.

“You"re needed on the bridge.”

Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, he blew out an exasperated sigh. A quick cut to Martine revealed she had taken advantage of his momentary distraction and not only disappeared into the head but shut the connecting door. The
click
of the lock reached his ears.

Enjoy your temporary reprieve, Mrs. Ford.

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Jianne Carlo

Harry shrugged on his jeans and a T-shirt before strolling barefoot over the carpet to knock on the bathroom door. “I"m heading to the bridge. When you"re done come up on deck. We should be docking soon.”

“As you wish, Harry.” Martine must have her ears to the door, he realized, since she answered immediately, and he couldn"t hear water running.