Tempt (Take It Off) (10 page)

“He can’t?” I asked, my voice shaky.

He shook his head slowly. “No. He can’t. You’re already taken.”

My tongue jetted out
, wetting my lips. “You think I’m taken?” Never mind the fact my words sounded breathless and I could barely hear myself speak over the pounding of my own heart.

“I
know
you are. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

“You’re not going to want me when we get home and there are a lot of other options
,” I said, surprising myself with the comeback. Usually, I didn’t just blurt out those things. Even so, it was true. Maybe if I had been more assertive with my thoughts in the past, I wouldn’t have gotten so hurt. The only reason I looked so good right now was because I was the only girl within a hundred-mile radius.

He turned his head away from the fire and pinned me with his
jade stare. “You said certain parts of you are broken.”

I didn’t say
anything. I just held his gaze.

“What parts are you talking about, Ava?”

I reached up and played with the ends of the thick braid falling over my shoulder, twisting the strands around my finger. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to have this conversation. It wasn’t something I cared to talk about—to even think about. Of course maybe if I told him, he would decide he didn’t want me after all and it would save me from the pain later.

Because Nash had the power to hurt me.

He was the kind of guy that would steal away my heart when I wasn’t looking. He was the kind of guy who would love me so well that when he left, no one would ever be able to take his place and so I would walk around the rest of my life with a huge chunk of myself missing because it would always belong to him.

I turned in the crappy
aircraft seat that was now a makeshift beach chair. I drew my knees into my chest and rested the side of my head against the seat, looking at him through the orange glow of the bonfire.

“I dated
a guy once,” I began, speaking only loud enough so he could hear. He didn’t look at me but stared straight ahead out over the waves as the breeze ruffled through those dark, touchable curls. “He was sweet, funny, the kind of guy that my mother approved of. Everyone liked him. I liked him. After a couple months of dating, he wanted to take our relationship to the next step. I said no. So we kept dating. He sent me flowers, took me on dates… Sometimes his touches would linger a little too long or his hands would be a little too rough. He told me I was just being a prude, that every other girl liked it. Every other part of our relationship was great. I just couldn’t seem to get into…” My voice faded away. I wasn’t sure how to explain it.

“He didn’t turn you on
,” Nash said, putting it simply. It seemed much simpler when he said it than how it felt when I was living through it.

“I guess.”

“What happened?” he said, still not looking at me. I couldn’t help but notice the way the muscles in his shoulders bunched, the way the side of his jaw ticked every so often.

He probably already figured out which parts of me didn’t work.

“Long story short, I gave in. I slept with him. It was awful. He broke up with me the next day and told everyone I was cold.”

He turned his head and looked at me.

His expression was unreadable.

“I haven’t dated anyone since.”

“How does that make you broken?”

I paused. “Clearly there are parts of me that don’t work the way… the way men want them to. Not
to mention the skewed view I now have about dating.”

He stood. He was going to walk away. This conversation was over.

But he touched me.

He started at my shoulder and trailed his finger down my arm and then cupped my elbow, gently tugging me out of the chair and onto my feet.

We stood at the edge of the crackling bonfire, facing each other. Everything in our little circle was bathed in a yellow and orange glow, the shadows reaching into the complete darkness beyond—like nothing else existed at all.

Slowly he tugged the tie around my braid, tucking the scrap of fabric in the pocket of his shorts. Using just one hand
, he unbound the weave, then pulled his fingers through the waves, spreading it out around me so it cascaded over my shoulders and covered up my chest.

“Did you feel that?” he murmured, releasing my hair and trailing his hands down my arms until he came to the hem of my
T-shirt.

Oh
, I felt it.

I felt it deep into my bones. All he had to do was look at me and I felt
everything
times ten.

His eyes looked deep into mine as he lifted my shirt
, the cooling night air brushing over my waist. “Up,” was his soft command.

I lifted my arms and he slid the cotton over my head, making sure it didn’t come into contact with my stitches. He tossed it away
, out of the golden bubble we were in, the blackness swallowing it as if it ceased to exist.

He stepped forward, eliminating the distance between us
. The only thing separating our chests from contact was the fabric of my bikini top. He took my hand and lifted it, placing it right over his heart, flattening my palm and holding it there.

He leaned closer so his lips brushed against the hair covering my ear.

“Can you feel my heart pounding?”

I swallowed and nodded.
It was pounding… so hard that its rhythm matched mine.

Still pressing my hand against the smoothness of his skin, he
dragged our hands lower, down his pec, across his defined abs, and then hooked them around his waist. When he pulled his hand away, mine stayed, flexing over his flesh, my fingers refusing to let go.

He flir
ted with the waistband of my shorts, tugging at it, then smoothing it back into place. Lightly he dragged his fingers up, climbing like a spider over my ribs until his hands rested just below my breasts.

Instead of traveling upward
, he went around, fingers fiddling with the strings that held my top in place.

His forehead leaned against mine. I could hear his breathing
, slightly uneven, as the heat from the fire enveloped us. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispered. “And I’m going to put my hands all over your body. You’re going to feel every single thing I do to you and then you’re going to beg me not to stop.”

He swallowed
my reply, kissing me so profoundly it was as if he completely understood the inner workings of my body. The kiss wasn’t deep, but it reached so far inside me that I no longer knew where I ended and he began. He cupped my face, angling it up so he could sweep his tongue along mine until they tangled together so intimately I groaned.

As we kissed
, he pulled the string behind my back, untying my top. When it didn’t fall away, his hands delved into my hair and found the other bow, tugging, and the top fell between us, landing in the sand.

My breasts brushed against his chest and I gasped at the skin
-on-skin contact. My nipples hardened instantly and became more sensitive than I ever thought possible. But their sensitivity didn’t make me pull away; it made me arch into him farther.

He growled low in his throat
. The sound vibrated from his mouth and into mine, echoing deep inside me. His hands cupped my butt, kneading its softness and tilting my hips forward so I could feel his rock-hard erection pressing against me urgently.

I purred. Like a
contented cat.

I gripped his waist, trying to pull him closer
. He just wasn’t close enough.

He ripped his mouth free of mine
and lifted me; my legs wound around his waist. Instead of letting me fall against him, he held me out and suckled my breast into his mouth. I jerked against him. The sensation of his hot, wet mouth upon me sent a rush of fiery tingles throughout my body. It was like his mouth was in one place, but I felt him
everywhere
.

The ocean breeze carried away my moan
as my head fell back and the ends of my hair brushed against my waist. When he lifted his head, I grabbed at him, delving my fingers deep into his mane of hair, finally touching the curls that had called to me since I laid eyes on them. They were softer than I imagined and they curled around my fingers, claiming them, as if everything I had wasn’t already his.

His mouth moved to my other breast and he licked beneath it, a long drawn out drag of his tongue on the underside. His mouth traveled upward
, nipping lightly at the creamy flesh before closing over my nipple and causing jolts of pleasure so intense that it felt like I was being electrocuted.

No one had ever put
his mouth on me before like this.

He languished attention on my chest until I was making small mewling noises and both our bodies were shaking. Totally weak and turned on
, I collapsed against his chest, managing to keep one hand tangled in his hair.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he murmured and s
ank to his knees right there beside the fire. Gently, he laid me on my back, my blond locks fanning out around my head and across the sand.

“You still with me?” he murmured, his body hovering over mine.

I opened my eyes and gazed up at him. He was utterly gorgeous. He was everything I ever wanted and never thought I would have. Not because I wasn’t good enough for someone like him, but because I didn’t think feelings like this actually existed.

“Yes,” I said, reaching up and running my hands across his chest. “I’m with you.”

His mouth claimed mine once more, searing my soul and trailing down into the hollow of my neck, leaving a scorching path behind him.

My skin would never be the same after this.

It would forever echo with the memory of how he made me hum. Desire curled through me, rising up like steam on a humid rainy day and filling me up until I craved something more, but I had no idea what more there could possibly be.

He started to whisper words I didn’t understand, words that sounded like a song rolling off his tongue, carrying across my skin
, and sinking in… right into my heart. In between all his whispered words of romance, he pressed kisses like he was following a map to a destination that only he knew.

When he reached the inside of my thigh
, I tensed, not sure what he planned on doing. He rocked back on his knees, kneeling over me like a god conquering a new possession.

And
dear Lord, I wanted to be possessed by him.

He watched me closely as he slid the black linen shorts down my legs, yanking them free of my body. He
skimmed his hands up my thighs. “You are unbelievably soft,” he whispered.

I shivered.

“Tell me what you feel,” he said, sneaking his hands beneath the ties at the sides of my hips.

I moaned. He expected me to speak?

“Ava, tell me,” he commanded, pulling away his touch completely.

“I feel like my skin is on fire and you’re the only thing that can cool me down.”

He smiled. His gaze was heavy as he came over me, supporting his weight on his hands on either side of my body. “Did he touch you like this,
bella
?” he asked, his eyes were heavy with desire. “Did you want him so badly you could barely think?”

“Who?” I asked, not wanting to talk. Talking was clearly overrated.

He chuckled. “Good answer.”

H
e lowered until our bodies brushed together and then he moved down, dragging his skin across mine, and I arched up, the touch driving me insane. He grasped the strings at my hips, and tugged, but he didn’t pull the bottoms away.

“Can I see you, Ava? Can I see all of you?”

“Please,” I whispered, rolling my hips.

The night air brushed over my newly bared skin and once again he whispered something in Spanish. It sounded like a prayer.

His fingers played with the nest of short curls between my legs, tugging and caressing. My eyes opened wide, shock rippling through me.
He was going to touch me there?

Instead of feeling insecure and embarrassed
, I was curious. I wanted to know the kinds of pleasure he could elicit with a single touch.

I didn’t have to wait long
. He drew two fingers down the center of me, his fingertips gliding through the silky wetness that my body was pumping out to excess.

He groaned. “You’
re soaked.”

Before I could say anything
or wonder if that was good or bad, those two naughty fingers slipped
inside
me. My back arched up off the sand and I grabbed for something to anchor me to the ground because surely I was going to float away.

In and out, in and out
, his fingers worked me, my muscles contracting around them, begging for more. I was panting. The sensations rippling through my body were unmatched. It was the single most pleasurable feeling I had ever known.

And then he kissed me. Down there.