Private Paradise (17 page)

He knew instinctively words wouldn't work,
not tonight anyway. Tonight there was nothing to do but show her in
the only way she'd accept from him, just how much he wanted her,
needed her, admired her.

Loved her.

Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her
off her feet and covered her mouth with his. Pressing her up
against the shower wall, he urged her to wrap her legs around his
waist, groaning deep as his cock brushed against the soft curve of
her ass. With the hot water cascading over them, the steam swirling
and clouding around them, it was like they were in their own secret
world.

A private place were nothing mattered but the
feel and taste of Carla's tongue against his, the lush press of her
tits, her nipples pebbled hard against his chest, the firm curves
of her ass filling his hands as he held her there.

Never releasing her mouth, he shifted,
hooking his elbows under her knees. Another slight adjustment, and
his cock was there, probing the entrance of her pussy as she
whimpered and sucked his tongue into her mouth.

His breath stuck in his chest at the feel of
her, so hot and tight. He looked down and in the candlelight, he
could see the head of his cock disappearing inside of her, the way
her body stretched to accommodate his size.

He meant to go slow, take his time, take it
easy on her. But one thrust had him buried so deep he could feel
the press of her ass against his balls as she moaned and squirmed
against him. He forced himself to hold still, taking her mouth in
slow, deep kisses as he held himself inside her, thrusting slow and
deep with his tongue the way he was dying to with his cock.

Soon Carla was arching her head back, her
fingers digging into his shoulders as she tried to ride the cock
pinning her so firmly to the wall. “Sam, please. I need you to fuck
me.”

“
Not as bad as I need to fuck you,” Sam
gasped. Gripping her hips, he rocked in, out, groaning at the
weight of her body helped him go even deeper than he had before,
until every millimeter of his cock was in the snug grip of her
pussy. “So hot, tight,” he murmured mindlessly. “Nothing has ever
felt this good. No one will ever make me feel as good as
you.”

“
Sam, Sam,” she chanted, and he swung
his hips in rhythm with her cries, struggling to hold back. He'd
always known it would be good with Carla, but he'd never been in a
pussy so wet, so tight, so slick around him as he drove inside.
Even better, unbelievably, than the first time.

It was like he couldn't get close enough, get
deep enough inside of her. And she was right there with him,
clawing his shoulders, crying his name, begging him for deeper,
harder, faster, more.

He gave it to her, relentless as he pounded
into her. Suddenly she stiffened and gave a high, frantic cry, and
Sam knew she was close. He gave one last hard thrust, rotating his
hips at the end, twisting his cock high inside as he ground against
her pubic bone from the front.

Her pussy contracted around him, squeezing,
milking him to his own pleasure. His balls pulled tight and he was
just about to let go when he realized in a flash why this all felt
so fucking good, so much better than anything ever had before.

No condom.

He lifted her off him, barely managed to pull
free as the first pulse hit him. He shot all over her stomach,
struggling to stand on legs that shook with the force of his
orgasm. When it was over, he loosened his hold on her hips, let her
slide down his body as he leaned in the wall for support.

“
Jesus,” he said into her hair as the
now cool shower spray washed over them. “I'm sorry about
that.”

“
Sorry? What the hell for?” Carla
asked. “Believe me, there was nothing about that to be sorry
for.”

“
I forgot the condom,” Sam
said.

“
Oh,” Carla said. “I guess I didn't
notice.”

“
Well one of us should have,” Sam said
a little indignant. He pulled away, turned off the water and
stepped out of the shower.

He grabbed a towel, patted himself dry and
wrapped it around his waist. How often, he wondered with a burst of
something that felt an awful lot like jealousy, had Carla trusted
another man with that kind of intimacy. In that minute he wanted
names and addresses. He wanted to hunt down every last one of them,
wipe them away until he was positive he was the only man on earth
who had ever felt the slick, tight, glory of Carla's pussy coming
around his unsheathed cock.

“
'I'm sorry,” Carla said. She snatched
up a towel and started drying herself in quick irritated strokes.
“I've never forgotten one before. I guess I just got kind
of...carried away.” She wrapped the towel around her, sarong style,
and moved over to the marble vanity.

Irrationally relieved, Sam walked behind
where she was finger combing her hair in the mirror and dropped a
kiss to her shoulder. “Me too. I've never forgotten a condom before
in my life.”

He watched in the mirror as Carla cocked an
eyebrow. “Really? Never?”

Sam shook his head. “I might have been
careless about lots of things, but I enjoy sex way too much to risk
fucking up my junk,” he said, satisfied when Carla couldn't hold
back her laughter. “Or worse, run the risk of knocking some one
up.”

He pressed another kiss to the side of her
neck. “Anyway, I don't want you to worry about anything. Along with
always using a raincoat, I've gotten a full system check every year
since I joined the Army and my last physical was six months ago.”
He watched as she did the math, and saw the moment she remembered
he'd admitted to being ten months celibate.

“
Well,” she said as she tucked the
towel tighter around her, “thank God you had the presence of mind
to pull out. Can you imagine if I'd gotten...” she trailed off as
if unable to utter the word. “Can you imagine what a disaster that
would have been?”

“
Yeah, a disaster,” Sam said, trying to
infusing his voice with fake relief. Frankly, his mind was full of
images that were anything but disastrous. A typical guy, he'd
politely acknowledged his friends' offspring but he was never one
to gush and coo over a baby, for Christ's sake.

But it was scary how easy it was to imagine a
baby, he thought. Not just a baby, but his and Carla's baby. Part
of him and part of her pulled together into a chubby little being
with a mop of dark curls that she would cradle to her breast.

Connecting them together forever, no matter
what.

He met her eyes in the mirror, and he thought
he saw something in the candlelight, a soft dreaminess, and for a
split second he wondered if maybe her thoughts were wandering in
the same direction as his.

Then it was gone, leaving nothing but relief
at the knowledge that she'd just dodged what could have been a very
complicated bullet.

Sam backed away, inwardly shaking his head as
he marveled at his own insanity. Like tying her to him with a baby
would somehow lead them to happily ever after. He'd seen enough of
his friends go through that on both sides to know that shit never
worked.

As he padded down the hallway, he accepted
that if he wanted to win Carla, he'd have to do it by continuing to
chip away at her defenses and continue to prove that he wasn't the
same weak-willed man child who'd hurt her in the past. Only when
she believed that would she really open up and give him another
chance.

In the meantime, he thought as she walked in
the room all smooth bare skin covered by nothing but a towel, he'd
use every weapon in his arsenal to get her to come around.

Under his towel, his cock twitched as though
expressing interest in the thought. He followed her into the
kitchen and started to reach for her. As she reached for a loaf of
bread and some more cold cuts he thought better of it.

They had a long night ahead of them, and
Carla was definitely going to need her strength.

After their snack, they radioed Chris again
to let him know they were okay and had made it through the worst of
the storm. Carla risked cracking open the sliding glass doors that
led out to the beach.

The normally turquoise waters were choppy and
gray, and rain still fell in a heavy patter, but the deadly wind
had lessened significantly. Carla, who had once again donned her
robe, stepped out onto the wet sand, noting the branches and other
debris that littered the normally pristine sugar sand beach.

Her stomach went tight as she thought about
the rest of the resort. How bad was it? Sam had said there was some
flooding in the fitness center and roof damage to the main
buildings. How much damage had the second half of the storm
done?

She didn't hear Sam walk up beside her, but
even in the rain she could feel his warmth, smell the rich
masculine scent of him over the salt of the sea. “I hope we don't
have to close for long,” Carla said, her brain already kicking into
gear, running the numbers, calculating the losses if they had to
close for more than a few weeks.

“
No use worrying until we know how bad
it is,” Sam said, and Carla was oddly gratified that he didn't try
to placate her with meaningless assurances. “Let's go back inside.
You're getting soaked out here.”

Carla didn't move, her eyes locked on the
beach. “Maybe we should take a walk, assess the damage,” she
said.

Sam moved behind her and put his big hands on
her shoulders and kneaded at the tension already forming there.
“There's plenty of time for that. It's still raining and getting
close to sunset,” he said. “After twenty minutes, half an hour
tops, we won't be able to see anything.”

There was no hint of sun through the thick
cloud cover, but a glance at her watch told Carla he was right.
Though her mind was spinning with anxiety she knew wouldn't be
allayed until she knew exactly what they were facing, she felt a
guilty tremor of relief as she let Sam guide her back inside.

Because she knew that as soon as they got
back to business, this thing with Sam had to end. But until that
time came, she was free and clear to indulge in every sensual
pleasure his body offered. Free to pretend that he meant everything
he said in the heat of the moment as he fucked her deep and
hard.

To even let herself go so far as to imagine
what might have been had Sam not pulled out at the last minute. To
imagine that maybe it wouldn't have been such a catastrophe after
all.

She could do all of this because this
situation was so ridiculous, so impossible, it could hardly be
counted as real. As long as they were stuck in this villa, it was
like they were in their own world, a time out of time, a place that
couldn't exist in her normal universe.

With that in mind, Carla sat back on the
couch and accepted the glass of wine Sam had poured, shoved away
all thoughts of the harsh reality awaiting her, and determined to
enjoy the hell out of every last second of their not so forced
proximity.

Momentarily sated, Sam pulled her to his side
as he sipped his wine. Carla was relieved that he seemed content
not to delve too deeply into their past or try to convince her that
she shouldn't judge him by the person he used to be.

Though some of the changes were obvious―his
work in the army and success after retiring were testament to that.
But that aside, it was impossible to believe Sam had changed that
much on the inside, that the insatiable player suddenly strove to
be an upstanding family man with two point five kids and a house in
the suburbs.

Impossible to believe that he'd spent one
single second pining after her, lamenting Carla as the girl that
got away.

But if Sam wanted to play it that way, she
thought, practically purring as his fingers combed softly through
her hair, Carla would indulge in the fantasy for just a little
longer.

And she would also pointedly ignore the tiny,
hidden corner of her heart that desperately wished to believe
him.

For the rest of the evening, Sam stayed clear
of touchy subjects, instead asking her about her brother and mother
back in Vegas. He then regaled her with stories of some of his
wilder exploits in the army. Carla found herself alternately in
hysterics at some of the pranks he and his buddies had pulled on
each other, and horrified at the level of danger he'd been in.

“
It's part of the job,” Sam said,
echoing his earlier sentiments when Carla expressed her shocked
sympathy as Sam relayed how one of his best friends had been blown
up in front of him.

Carla shook her head. “That's what I say when
my chef complains about having to cater to every single whacked out
diet plan under the sun. When the vegan raw foodist acidentally
gets a smear of butter on her plate, there's just a lot of
screaming. Nobody gets blown up.”

Sam's eyebrows pulled together as he looked
down at her. “Vegan raw whatist? What the hell does that even
mean?”

A laugh bubbled out of her throat at his
obvious confusion. “It's someone who not only consumes only plant
based foods, nothing can be cooked above one hundred four degrees
because it kills all the living enzymes and nutrients in the
foods.”

“
You deal with a lot of whack jobs
around here.”

She snuggled closer to him, sleepy from the
wine, and suddenly acutely aware that he was totally naked under
his towel. “Yeah, well you better get used to it if you plan on
sticking around here.”

“
Hell yeah, I plan on it,” Sam said,
his voice pitching low like it did when he was turned
on.

Carla tried not to think about how she was
going to deal with that, having him so close, yet knowing that
letting their sexual relationship continue outside these four walls
could only lead to disaster.