Exposed (Tropical Nights) (15 page)

They
sipped champagne and dined on exquisitely prepared cuisine. Each course served to them was more than just mere food—it was like a work of art that engaged every one of the senses. Mouthwatering aromas wafted from all the dishes. Each plate was beautifully presented like a colorful, edible sculpture. Every bite contained tastes and textures married together in ways Rachel had ever experienced. If Leo truly meant this to be a hint of the sensual delights to come, she wasn’t sure she would survive the night. Surely there was such a thing as sensory overload, an overabundance of pleasure from which she would never recover.

The conversation was as engaging as the meal.
Leo asked Rachel a myriad of random questions and got her talking about everything from childhood memories to her experiences in college and journalism school. He told her everything he knew about the island and related hilarious stories of his and Laine’s less-than-stellar first year of figuring out resort ownership. He expressed regret that they had so little time for exploring on this trip and promised to return with her so he could bring her sailing and snorkeling and kayaking. Rachel laughed at his stories and blushed at his compliments and shivered at his promises for the night to come. She never wanted the meal to end.

Finally, after five courses
, a bottle of champagne, and almost three hours of talking and laughing amid stolen glances and touches, Leo stood and offered her his hand. He helped her stand and then pulled her against him so he could speak to her and not be overheard. “Remember all those things I promised to do to you? It’s time to make good on every last word.”

Rachel suddenly felt wobbly on her feet. She nodded and bit her lip
without thinking, and Leo responded with a rumbling noise deep in his chest, a predatory growl that signaled his loose grasp on self-control. Then Rachel watched as he almost visibly tamped down in his inner caveman and led her back to her suite, everything about his outward appearance as they strode through the resort suggesting he was the calm, confident, and self-possessed man he always appeared.

But Rachel
knew him well enough now to look beneath his cool exterior. She saw how his eyes flashed with desire and anticipation, saw the tension in his shoulders as he worked to keep himself restrained until they were alone in her room. His hand on hers was hot and she could feel his pulse in his wrist, strong and hard and growing faster. To any one else, he may look completely controlled on the outside, but Rachel knew his primal beast was roaring on the inside.

They
reached her suite and Leo stood at her back with his hands on her hips as Rachel fumbled with her key card. She inserted it several times but couldn’t get the door to unlock. Behind her, she heard Leo exhale impatiently, like he couldn’t wait another second to be alone with her, and then he whipped her around and pressed her back into the door. His motions were firm and possessive without being overly rough, and it made Rachel unbelievably hot. He kissed her hard and she was only dimly aware of him taking the key card from her hand and opening the door. He propelled her into the suite and let the door close behind them, never taking his lips from hers.

She tugged at his shirt and he helped her unbutton it and push it to the floor, but he stopped her when she went to the waistband of his pants.

“We have a long way to go before we get to that,” he said.

He lifted her into his arms, carried her through the suite, and then tossed her
on the bed—gently for the most part but still letting her see just a hint of his primitive caveman strength. It excited her when he gave her glimpses of his more primal nature, when she got a taste of his dangerous and oh-so-sexy beastly side. She trusted him completely and knew he would never take it further than she wanted to go, that if she became at all uncomfortable he would rein it in completely and come to her only in gentle tenderness. That trust allowed her to let down her defenses, to enjoy his rougher edges and fiercer impulses, to tap into her confidence and explore her own hidden wildness.

She reached for him, wanting to pull him down onto the bed with her, but he shook his head. “Just let me look at you. God, you are so perfect.”

Rachel’s embarrassment at his words threatened to overtake her newly found self-possession. Her first instinct was to curl up in a self-conscious attempt to hide from him, but something in Leo’s gaze made her stop her retreat. She knew he truly did see the best in her and it made her look inside and take notice of what he saw there. His confidence in her, his desire and need for her—it made her feel strong and powerful, and when mixed with the wanting she had for him, it made her feel invincible.

After drinking his fill of the sight of her,
Leo knelt beside her on the bed and drew her up until she was kneeling too. He kissed her passionately while his hands went to the hem of her top and he let his fingertips graze her bare skin as he lifted her clothing. He tore his lips from hers reluctantly as he pulled her shirt over her head, bringing his mouth back to hers as soon as it was off, like her lips were the only thing keeping him alive and he would die if he went too long without them.

Rachel reached for him
, letting her fingers slide over his chest, but Leo caught her hand and brought her arm behind her back. “You don’t get to move yet,” he told her gruffly. “There is so much I need to do to you first.”

He placed kisses on her arms and neck and stomach, making Rachel shudder with every touch of his mouth on her body.
He hooked a finger under her bra strap and eased it down her arm slowly—so torturously slow—and then did the same with the other strap. Rachel’s breasts tightened and her nipples went hard, and suddenly the lace of her bra was too constricting, too tight and chafing. She wanted it off, wanted to feel the cool air on her naked breasts and then Leo’s warm hands on them, but he seemed in no hurry to bare her completely yet.

He nipped at her arm where the bra strap rested, then
blazed a trail up to her shoulder, along her collarbone, and down to the swell of her breasts, running his tongue along the edge of her bra. He rubbed his thumb over the fabric, tracing a circle around her nipple, varying the speed and pressure from slow and feather-light to franticly hard. Rachel moaned and arched her back, wanting his touch to be harder, wanting him to move faster, wanting
more
. He pinched her nipple lightly and then paused, as if to gauge her reaction. Her cry of pleasure seemed to give him the answer he needed and he did it again, harder. She sucked in her breath and clawed at him, begging him without words to give her more, always more.

Leo teased her then, withdrawing his hand from her breast and moving his lips back to her collarbone. Rachel whimpered
, keenly feeling the abandonment of his hands and mouth. Just when she thought she would go mad from needing his touch, he unclasped her bra and threw it to the floor.

He leaned back to look at her, not touching her at all, his eyes stormy. “So perfect,” he said
, the words barely a breath.

He brought his hand back to her
and slowly traced the outline of each breast, his fingers just barely touching her.

“Please, Leo,” Rachel begged, not even sure what she wanted.

Leo smiled and cupped her fullness, so very gently at first, and then harder. He slid one hand behind her back to steady her while the other pressed and lifted and teased her breast. He bent her back over his arm and brought his mouth to one nipple and then the other, sucking and licking and nipping until Rachel thought she would melt in orgasm right then.

He ea
sed her back into the pillows and followed her down into the bed, his mouth still on her nipple. He pulled back and Rachel reached for him, but again he caught her hand and pressed her arm into the bed. “Not done with you yet,” he said. “Lie still.” The sternness of his command was undermined by the slight waver in his voice.

His hands went to her hip where her wrap skirt was knotted and he loosened the fabric. He peeled
the layers back slowly, taking his time, until finally the skirt was gone and Rachel was panting. His own breathing was heavy and irregular as he stared at her, only the thin fabric of her panties shielding her from him. Leo ran a single finger over the lace, tracing along the top edge and then down, drawing it between her legs. Rachel gasped and shuddered at the overwhelming heat that exploded there. “Oh, God, Leo,” she said mindlessly as she clutched the sheets. “Leo, please.”

“Not yet,” he said
again.

He knelt between her legs and eased her panties dow
n, slowly sliding them off her. He stared at her naked body for a moment, his wondrous and awed expression making Rachel go weak with wanting him.

A
nd then he made good on his promise to explore every inch of her.

His hands touched her everywhere
—the hollow of her neck, behind her knees, the length of her arm and the small of her back. His mouth heated her most hidden spots—behind her ear, across her hipbones, the sensitive skin of her wrists, all along her inner thighs.

Rachel shivered and moaned and strained beneath him. She wanted to touch him, to do to him what he was doing to her, but he wouldn’t let her. The frustration stoked her desire, made the sensations of her body that much more intense, until Rachel couldn’t think, could barely breathe.

“I can’t wait anymore,” Leo said hoarsely. He pulled away from her and stood up, leaving Rachel feeling cold and alone.

He stripped off his pants
, grabbed a condom from the pocket and put it on, and sank back into the bed, heating her again with his body on hers. He hooked an arm under her leg and she bent it over his shoulder. He moved up the bed to kiss her lips, bringing her leg up as he went, opening her to him. He pressed his hips to her and Rachel thrilled at his hardness, though it was not yet inside her. He rocked against her with each kiss and Rachel matched his rhythm as they moved harder and faster until Rachel was everything Leo said she would be: hot and quivering and begging for more.

“Now, Leo,” she pleaded.

“Do you want me inside you?”

“Oh, yes, Leo. Please, yes.”

He pushed into her slowly at first, as though he wanted to take his time, but Rachel felt him tense with urgency, and she knew he was overwhelmed by her. His thrusts become more insistent, like it had taken every ounce of strength to hold back this long and he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. Rachel clutched at him, her fingers digging into his back as she pulled at him, wanting him closer, deeper. They moved together like they were one mind, one body; their bodies in perfect sync.

Rachel felt the pressure inside her build with such intensity it almost scared her. Leo touched her face and whispered, “I’ve got you, baby. Let go.”

She clung to him and let her orgasm overtake her, crying out as it burst from where their bodies joined and traveled in pulsing waves to every last part of her body, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes and out to the ends of her fingers. Leo groaned and sagged against her, his thrusts slower but deeper as he found his own release. They rode the waves together, bodies entwined, souls connected, until they were both sated and completely spent of energy. Leo panted hard and collapsed against her, like he didn’t have the smallest measure of strength left to support his weight. Then he rolled off her and onto his back, pulling her with him and tucking her into his side. He wrapped his arms around her, kissed the top of her head, and then nuzzled his cheek against her hair.

Rac
hel sighed and melted into him. She was exhausted, content, and utterly satisfied. She had given herself over to him, as completely as he had given himself to her, and she would never be the same. Being with Leo had helped her see what had been inside her all along, had given her the confidence to embrace her needs and wants and desires and made her decide to actually start living her life. He had awoken things in her she had long ago buried and now she was irrevocably changed.

She st
ill had pangs of self-doubt, but she had freed her self-confidence from where she’d chained it, and in the end, she knew she could do anything.

Chapter Eight

Rachel
snuggled closer to Leo and threw an arm over her eyes to block out the bright morning sunlight streaming into the room. She ignored the rumbling of her stomach reminding her she had burned too many calories since eating last. She didn’t care that it was late and she was starving; she wanted to stay in bed with Leo forever. Wasn’t this why room service was invented?

Leo’s yawn made Rachel reluctantly open her eyes and look up
at him. He blinked a few times, stretching lazily. He smiled when he looked down at her and saw she was awake. He hugged her tightly and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “What time is it?” he asked groggily.

“
After nine.”

Leo groaned and rubbed his face. “Wow. I haven’t slept this late since
…well, I’m not sure I’ve
ever
slept this late. I’m supposed to check in with Harry in less than half an hour so we can finalize everything before flying back to New York. I’m already running late and it’s all your fault, woman,” Leo teased.

Rachel
arched a brow. “Oh really?
My
fault?”

“Yeah. I would have called i
t an early night and been asleep in my own room if you weren’t such a tempting seductress.”

“So it’s my fault you
can’t resist me?”

“Oh, definitely.” Leo’s gaze raked down her body. “How could I say no this?” He moved his hand along her side and down her legs. “How could I deny you when you plead with me
to give you what you want?”

“Ha. I seem to recall I wasn’t the only one doing the pleading.” She poked him in the ribs and he jumped, laughing. “There were at least a few times last night when
you were the one begging me.”

Leo caught her hands and rolled until Rachel was on her back and he was above her. “True.” He studied her face, his gaze moving from her eyes to linger on her mouth. “And you could have me doing it again in a second.”

Rachel dropped her lashes and moved restlessly beneath him. “It wouldn’t even take me even that long,” she promised huskily.

Leo
kissed her, his mouth brushing sweetly against hers. He hardened as their kiss deepened and she whimpered, wanting him inside her again. He groaned as he pulled away. “I have to go meet with Harry.”

Rachel pouted. “Stay with me.” She curled her hand around his neck and pulled his mouth to hers.

Leo responded greedily at first, but just as Rachel felt his every muscle tighten in desire, he broke off the kiss and dropped his head onto her shoulder, breathing hard. “Have mercy on me, woman.”

Rachel knew
it would take hardly any effort to convince Leo to blow off the meeting with his lawyer and stay in bed with her. Her body warmed at the thought of spending the morning repeating last night’s pattern of hot sex followed by exhausted sleep that only lasted until one of them stirred and woke the other to repeat the cycle. She considered it briefly—running a finger slowly down his back, pressing her hips against his, kissing him along his jawline until he made that knee-weakening growling noise and forgot about anything else but her—but the Bondell deal was the entire reason they were on the island and she needed to let him go make sure it was done.

“Fine,” she
said with a sigh. “I’ll let you go to your meeting.”

Leo
smiled. “Oh, you will, will you?” He kissed her forehead and then shifted his weight, about to get off the bed, but then he suddenly sank into her again like she was pulling on him with a magnetic force so strong he couldn’t escape. He slid an arm under her and hauled her against him until he was kneeling on the bed and she was straddling him. He slipped a hand into her hair and pulled her head back, exposing her neck, and bit her gently.

Rachel sucked in her breath and pulled at his hair, forgetting for a moment everything but Leo’s mouth against her skin.
When he began to ease her back into the bed, she put a hand on his chest and stopped him. “As much as I want to stay in bed with you all day—and believe me, I do—you need to go see Harry.”

“Harry can wait,
” Leo growled as he nipped at her.

Rachel was extremely tempted to agree with Leo on that, but one of them needed to be the responsible one or they would never get out of bed again. “Go to your meeting,” she ordered him with all the conviction she could muster.
“I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done.”

Leo paused. Rachel could see he was trying to gather the will to get out of her bed and walk out of her room, leaving her there naked and tousled and alone.

“Go,” she said, pushing against his chest, “before you make me change my mind.”

Leo gave her a wolfish grin, clearly ready to take the challenge. He reached for her, raking his gaze over her body, but Rachel swatted his hand away and yanked the sheet up to cover her.
“The sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back.”

Leo leaned back on his haunches and sighed like he was the most put upon man to ever exist. “Fine,” he said, sounding entirely like an adolescent boy asked to do a passionately loathed chore. “I’ll go see Harry. The meetin
g will take forty-five minutes tops, and then I’ll come back for you. When we’re done here,” Leo’s eyes flashed suggestively, “maybe we can do a little snorkeling or something before we fly back to New York.”

“Will we have time?”

“However much we need. Apparently, I have some influence over our departure time.”

Rachel laughed. “Yeah, I suppose the jet won’t leave until the guy whose name is plastered all over it is ready to go.”

Leo moved toward her to give her one last kiss, but Rachel stopped him. “Don’t even. You know you’ll never get out of here if you kiss me again.”

“You’re killing me,” h
e groaned as he dragged himself from the bed. He pulled his clothes on distractedly, never taking his eyes off Rachel, the expression on his face all but shouting how much he’d rather stay naked in bed with her. “I’ll be back soon.” He gave her one last reluctant look before walking out the door.

Rachel
flopped back into the pillows. She knew she had a huge, stupid grin on her face. The past two days had been like an amazing fantasy, almost too good to be real, and she was nearly overwhelmed by it all. She thought back to last night, replaying key moments in her mind, and her face heated in what she knew was a bright red blush.

“Get ahold of yourself, Hoffman,” she said out loud.

She threw the sheet off her and sat up, deciding to take a shower and get dressed.  Even though it was pointless—Leo was coming back soon and would promptly strip off any clothes she put on—she needed to do something so she would be distracted from her thoughts. Besides, watching Leo’s eyes darken with lust and his face register his appreciation as he slowly peeled her clothes from her was one of her favorite parts of their sexathon sessions.

She put her feet on the floor and stood up, wincing as she felt something sharp digging into her bare foot. She looked down and saw that her purse had fallen off the nightstand and its contents had spilled
out. As she knelt down to stuff everything back in her bag, she heard her phone ring. Actually, she realized there were two identical smartphones lying among the lip balm and pens and scattered change, and she wasn’t sure if the buzzing phone was hers or the one that must have fallen out of Leo’s pocket last night. She picked it up and opened the home screen, and when Allison’s name and cell number popped up, her heart slammed into her chest. She’d been so caught up in her little island fantasy world, she hadn’t given her real life a single thought and she wasn’t prepared for its sudden intrusion.

“
Hey, Allison,” she all but croaked.

“Oh, my God, Rachel! Are you okay?” Allison asked in a rush. “I’ve been calling and texting since Friday and haven’t heard a single thing from you. Karen’s convinced you’re dead.”

“Oh, uh, no, I’m fine. I just haven’t been paying any attention to my phone lately.”

“Obviously. Are you sure you’re okay? You sound kind of weird.”

“Everything’s fine,” Rachel said with forced brightness. “I’m just waking up and you caught me by surprise.” In reality, seeing Allison’s name flash across her phone had sent a bolt of anxiety shooting through her that she was still struggling to control. Her friend’s call sent the real world crashing down on her and Rachel could no longer avoid facing up to some hard choices and devastating truths.

“
Oh, I’m so glad I reached you finally! Karen’s been threatening to call the Acariguan authorities and demand they drag the bottom of the ocean for your bloated and fish-bitten body.”

“
Wow. Gross.”

“Hey, her words, not mine. You know how she gets.”

Rachel had to smile in spite of her anxiety. “Yes, I know exactly how she gets. I guess I should call her to check in.”

“And what are you going to tell her when you do?”
Allison asked in conspiratorial tones.

“What to you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve been cavorting around a remote tropical island for the past two days with the most incredibly gorgeous and obscenely rich bachelor in all of New York, doing who-knows-what with him and hopefully getting some crazy hot gossip for the story.” Allison’s voice was low and eager. “You
have
to fill me in on every last, juicy detail so I can live vicariously through you. Because, seriously, who just flies down to the Caribbean for the weekend on spur of the moment?”

Rachel’s heart pounded and she felt a hot flush creep up her neck.

This was it.

This was the moment
she had been dreading all week, when she would have to speak up and own the choice she’d been avoiding for too long. When she’d be forced to confront exactly what a mess she was in. “Yeah, about that. I’m not going to write the story.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, but Rachel could practically feel Allison’s shock traveling through the airwaves. “What? Why? What happened?” she sputtered finally.

Rachel gulped. “Two things. First, there really isn’t anything on Leo worth reporting.” She heard Allison snort. “No, really. He’s a great guy and an amazing businessman, and there are so many wonderful things about him. He—” Rachel stopped short when she realized she was about to gush over him like the smitten woman she was. She needed to keep her personal feelings out of this, and she certainly didn’t want Allison picking up on just how deep her involvement with Leo had become. “There just isn’t anything there that
New York Exposed
readers would find interesting. No drunken escapades or flare-ups of ego resulting in scandalous confrontations. No drug-fueled rampages or hidden vices he’s gone to great lengths to cover up. There isn’t even any minor girlfriend drama or idle gossip. He’s not dating a celebrity or out flashing his wealth or throwing his power around.”

“Oh, come on. There has to be
something
on this guy.”

Rachel was flooded with the images she’d collected of Leo during their time together. Of his cool assuredness while closing multi-million dollar deals with clients, of his confident intelligence
as he dealt with work issues or discussed any topic with her. How his smile lit up his face when he teased her and the way his laugh boomed out when she said something to amuse him. She recalled the way he had pulsed with barely restrained power when Kelley had been rude to her at the cocktail reception, how he’s thrown the drunken man out and refused to do any further business with him even though it meant alienating a fellow power-player.

She thought of his easy athleticism when they’d hiked up the river and he’d scaled the rocky waterfall like it had been as easy as climbing stairs. She shivered when she thought of the look in his eye when he’d told her she brought out the animal in him and he’s thrown her over his shoulder like she weighed no more than
the small pack he carried. She heated at the memories of him coming to her, naked and beautiful and alternating between heart-stopping gentleness and trembling power, at the raw hunger he had for her and how he let her see it in unguarded moments. She thought about what that made her feel, of the aching longing he stirred up in her.

Oh, Leo Hanlon was
much, much more than ‘something,’ but Rachel wasn’t about to expose the Leo she knew to the baying hounds of the gossiping public.

“Are you still there?” Allison asked.

Rachel snapped back to her present conversation. She tried to clear the images of Leo from her mind, but they lingered stubbornly, making it hard for her to concentrate. “I’m here. Look, there’s definitely a lot to Leo Hanlon, it just doesn’t come in the shallow, quick bites of gossip that makes a good tabloid story. Even if it did, I can’t write it. I never got the chance to tell him the story isn’t for
Economy Today
like Karen led him to believe, and I won’t betray his trust like that.”

“What? You
still
haven’t told him? What have you been doing this whole time?”

Guilt at
not telling Leo the full truth stabbed Rachel in the gut and mixed with the heat that hit her a little lower when she thought of what, exactly, she’d been doing ‘this whole time.’ “I…I’ve been distracted with…I mean…” She cleared her throat. “The bottom line is that I can’t—I won’t—write the story. There’s nothing the readers would be interested in, and even if there were, it was gathered under too big a lie.”