No Take Backs

This is a work of fiction. All characters,
organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2012 Kelli
Maine

Smashwords Edition, License Note

All rights reserved. This book or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author, except for
the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition: August 9,
2012

To critique partners, early readers and
reviewers. Thank you.

C
hapter One

The sun beats down on us. It’s hot. Sauna
hot. The kind that makes the air heavy and saturates your skin with
a sheen of moisture.

I let my eyes roam over your tan, sculpted
chest down to where your fingers thread together resting on your
abs.

“Like what you see?” you ask. Smiling, you
reach out and trace your finger along my cheek. I wish I could see
your eyes behind your black sunglasses.

“You know I do.”

You chuckle and link your hands again,
relaxing on your lounge chair.

The pool water ripples in the breeze,
sunlight glinting off its surface. Pinkish-purple bougainvillea
twines up to the palm frond roof of the pool-side bar. How did we
get here? Us together? There were so many obstacles between us.

Over the past few months, Turtle Tear has
been transformed from ancient ruins to a luxury resort on a private
island in the Everglades. In the distance, the work crew bangs and
saws, finishing the last few rooms in the hotel.

“Let’s cancel tomorrow,” you say. “I don’t
want to share you.”

“We’ve waited too long for this.” Even
though it’s only been about six months for me, you’ve waited years
for this day to come. Tomorrow is the grand opening of Turtle Tear
Resort to our friends and family. After that…well, I haven’t
decided if I want to open it to the public, or keep it private. I
guess I’m not ready to share this place or you with anyone else
either. “After they’re all gone, you can become a hermit.”

You take my hand and kiss it. “At least you
promised me we could stay in the tree house

and not crowd in the hotel with everyone
else.”

I roll to my side and run a finger down your
arm. “I love our little hideaway.”

Footsteps sound from the covered walkway. I
sit up and turn to see Riley, your new assistant, step out from the
shade and into the pool courtyard. “Why are you wearing dress pants
and a tie?” I ask him. “Are you insane? It’s sweltering out
here.”

You sit up, and your knees bump against
mine. “Riley likes to look professional.” You grasp the left side
of my red bikini top and tug it closed. “And you’re a little too
casual. More like falling out.”

“No interest in sharing me with this
assistant then?” I whisper.

You clench your jaw, but don’t reply. I was
teasing, but struck a nerve bringing up the reason I left you last
time.

“Ms. DeSalvo,” Riley interjects, spots of
pink on his cheeks from either the heat or from overhearing my
comment, “your mother and aunt are scheduled to arrive at ten a.m..
tomorrow morning. Do you have a preference of which rooms are
reserved for them?”

I shade my eyes and glance up at him,
wishing I hadn’t forgotten my sunglasses back in the hotel. “No.
I’m sure you’ll pick very nice rooms for them. I trust your
judgment. But can you do me a favor?”

He nods, eager to please. “Of course.”

“Call me Rachael.”

A sheepish grin spreads across his face.
He’s young, twenty-two at most, not that I’m much older. But his
reserved manner and uncontrollable blushing make him seem a lot
younger. “Can I get you another drink from the bar, Rachael?”

I pick up my empty mimosa glass from the
small table beside my chair and hold it out to him. “That would be
amazing of you. Thanks.”

“Mr. Rocha?” he asks, taking my glass.

You pick up your half-full bottle of water
and shake it in Riley’s direction. “I’m good, thanks. But that
reminds me, when’s the domestic staff getting in?”

“Three this afternoon.”

Riley trots off toward the bar on the
opposite side of the pool and courtyard. “Someone has a crush,” you
say, squeezing my knees between yours.

The stubble on your face has grown to a soft
beard that covers your chin, not quite as full as it was when we
first met, but soft to the touch and sexy. I can’t resist running
my fingers over it. “You’re right,” I say. “But look at him. Those
pressed oxford shirts he wears, the flop of dusty blond hair over
his forehead and the way he always blushes when he looks at me. How
can I not be crushing hard?”

You lower your sunglasses to the end of your
nose and arch one brow over your blazing, dark eyes. “You’re full
of jabs today, aren’t you? You know what I meant.”

I stand between your legs and take your face
between my hands skimming my fingers through your dark, wavy hair.
“You know I’m kidding. Look at you.” I let my hands run down your
neck, across your broad shoulders, down over the bulging muscles of
each arm. “Why would I ever want anyone else?”

Your hands find my hips and pull me closer,
close enough to rest your cheek against my stomach. “I’ve already
done everything you’re just getting to do. I’ve reached my goals.
You could have someone like him—like you. Someone driven, making
his way up the ladder. I kicked my ladder down, Rachael.”

Why do you think I care that you’ve decided
to retire in your mid-thirties with billions in the bank? Somehow
in your head that’s a bad thing. “You told me your plan months ago.
When we went fishing, remember?”

“The storm that day.” You chuckle, sending
vibrations through my skin. “I swear, you wrapped your wet little
body around my back so tight when I carried you back to the hotel,
I had obscene images running wild in my head.”

“Every time lightning flashed, I thought we
were going to die.” I stroke the top of your head, twisting
sun-warmed locks of hair around my fingers. “The fish you caught
was good though.”

You turn your head and rest your chin in my
bellybutton. “Yeah? You hardly touched it.”

I bend and kiss the grin off your face.
Eating around you leads to kissing you and touching you and meals
are quickly shoved aside and forgotten. I’ve lost eight pounds
since I stepped foot on this island. “We need another chocolate
raspberry cake.”

You growl and lick my stomach sending
delicious flesh memories straight to my center. Memories of smeared
chocolate frosting devoured with your tongue. “Don’t worry. I’ve
got that covered.”

“Uh…” Riley stammers, standing at the end of
my lounge chair with a fresh mimosa in one hand. “I’ll just…” He
sets it on the wooden table and shuffles away.

“Thanks!” I call after him. “Think he’s a
virgin?”

You let out a derisive snort. “Can’t imagine
why you’d think that.”

“
I don’t know. Maybe he’s just
modest.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” With a flick of your fingers,
my bikini top falls open. “Glad you’re not.”

“Not with you.” I wrap my arms around your
neck and you pull me down on top of you on the lounge chair sucking
a nipple into your mouth.

“Ah,” I gasp. I’ll never get used to the
feel of your lips, your tongue. It’s too good, too drive-me-insane
overwhelming.

I press against your shoulders, releasing my
flesh with a drag of your teeth. I have to have your mouth on mine,
your tongue sliding over mine drawing moans from deep in my
throat.

I devour your lips. No holding back. I held
back so long waiting to trust you, but now I need to take and take
and never stop until there’s nothing left of you. Consume you
delicious bite by delicious bite.

Rewarded with a low groan when I nip your
bottom lip, I taste my way across your jaw to lap your earlobe and
take it in my mouth. Your hands squeeze my ass and slide down
between my inner thighs, pulling them apart so I’m straddling you.
Your chest is warm under my splayed fingers, salty on the tip of my
tongue tasting your hard pecs. You rock your hips into me. I dig my
nails into your skin in response making you suck in an airy hiss
through your teeth.

The wind blows my hair across your face,
cools my bare back damp with heat. You ball my hair in your hands
as I trail kisses down your stomach. “I love how you taste.”

My hair goes loose around my shoulders and
you run both palms down my back. “I never want anyone else here.
Just us. Alone.”

“Me too,” I say, springing your hard length
free from your swim trunks. “I’ll have you naked whenever and
wherever I want.”

Your fingers find my nipples and begin
pulling, pinching and rolling, sending shocks of clenching arousal
through my center. “My sex kitten.”

I run my thumb up the thick vein running
from the base of your cock to the ridge around the head. A bead of
pre-come glistens at the tip. “Mmm, for me?” I tuck my hair behind
my ear and lave your slit with my tongue while staring into your
deep, dark eyes. “I love giving you that look on your face.”

Your heavy-lidded, lust-filled expression
shifts for a moment as one side of your mouth hitches into a smile.
“What look?”

“Like I’m killing you.” I circle my tongue
around the underside of your head, flicking and nibbling. “Slowly.”
I stroke you and let my tongue slide down to trace the seam between
your balls. “So slowly.”

Your hand cups the back of my head. “God,
you’re right. You are killing me slowly. Painfully slow. Suck
me.”

I take you in deep, hollowing my cheeks and
moaning along with you. Your hand guides my head, but I know what
you like. And I love giving it to you, to that glorious cock that
makes me come so hard.

Your breath comes faster as I pick up the
pace. I’m wet and throbbing, needy and empty. You have to touch me
soon, satiate this ache. Fill me.

Both hands cup my face and pull me off of
you, breaking my suction with a wet sucking sound as you free
yourself from my mouth. “Take me inside you.”

Your fingers sweep my bikini bottoms aside,
and you groan finding me wet and swollen, ready to take all of your
considerable length. I’m always ready for you.

I angle your tip against my opening and ease
down onto you. Both of us sigh in ecstatic relief. Nothing feels as
perfect as when you’re squeezed tight inside me.

You sit up, shocking me with the way you
slide even deeper, and pull my ass into you as close as I’ll get.
Your mouth finds mine. Our lips barely graze as we breathe the same
air, the tip of your tongue teasing mine. At the gentle urging of
your hands, I rock my hips torturously slow.

It feels so, so good. You’re hitting a spot
inside me that sparks tears to my eyes. Our lovemaking is bitter
sweet with suppressed urgency, denial of clenching muscles begging
for a faster release.

Another languid rock into you, and a whimper
tumbles out of me. I choke out the word, “God,” like a prayer. I’m
all senses and longing. I’m going insane.

Your jaw’s taught, eyes barely open, brow
furrowed in your effort to hold back. “You’re…so…tight,” you
whisper, sounding like you’re in pain.

I can only make incoherent noises in
response between gasps of pleasure.

You lay back, and I clench around you
tighter, desperate to keep you so deep. But when your thumb presses
and rubs against my clit, I lean back and brace my hands on your
thighs, grinding and bucking. Release is so close. A delicious,
tingling burn smolders in my core. “Oh God. Right there.”

“That’s right, baby. Come for me.” Your
thumb continues its maddening assault, while the fingers of your
other hand pluck and squeeze my nipples.

On the brink of exploding, I raise and lower
faster and faster, slamming you deeper inside me. Your hips come
off the lounge chair, meeting me thrust for thrust. “Fuck. I’m so
close, Rachael.”

“Oh! Oh, God!” I throw my head back as the
first orgasmic wave crashes over me. “Come, Merrick. Come with
me.”

Your fingers dig into my hips as you thrust
hard twice and groan in release. “Fuck.” You throb inside me as you
come and I continue to ride you.

My orgasm runs rampant. My fingers take over
for your thumb, and I set loose the last pulse of my climax before
falling limp on top of you.

We lie panting with the sun beating down on
us, the distant buzz of a saw blending with the chirps of birds and
rustle of leaves in the gentle island breeze. “I couldn’t have
dreamt this.” I kiss your chest, slick with sweat. “It’s too
perfect.”

You comb your fingers through my hair. “It’s
more than perfect. Promise me something.”