The Honeymoon Trap (8 page)

Somewhere along the way, Eli had decided to hell with not looking. He was looking. And it seemed that he liked what he saw.

Zoey could have blamed the pebbling of her nipples on the coolness of the water as she splashed out through the smaller waves and into deeper water, but she wasn’t one for self-delusion on quite that grand a scale.

The more time she spent with Eli Jackson the more she wanted him. Body, certainly.

And soul.

There was a reason why only the brave had ventured into the water this afternoon. It was freezing, and the undercurrent was vicious. Zoey was an enthusiastic swimmer rather than a world class one, so she halted while she was still waist deep, ducking down to wet her shoulders and slip beneath an oncoming wave. She popped back up several meters sideways from where she’d started. Okay, so that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Even Eli, who appeared to be part seal, had a crease between his eyes as he reached out and grabbed her by the hand.

‘Stay with me.’

Which, for all that she was totally on board with that plan, was easier said than done.

The sea walloped her every which way, tossing her around as if she were seaweed. Eli fared better. Maybe they were in the wrong spot. Maybe they needed to get out past the breaking waves. ‘You want to go out further?’

‘Not today, Sherlock. Your lips are turning blue as it is.’

‘Really?’ She should probably go in. ‘Five more minutes.’

He nodded, and for five more minutes they played, and then a wave pulled her in and spat her out hard. By the time she surfaced she was halfway back to the beach and she figured she may as well keep going all the way out of the water.

But it proved much harder to get back in than it had been to get out. The undertow kept trying to sweep her sideways and succeeding, and the rip was getting closer every time she lost her footing. She didn’t want to get stuck in that long string of foamy water streaming back out to sea. Didn’t want the lifesavers to have to come and get her. Not at all.

In the end, Eli simply hauled her close, and with her back to his chest and the pair of them still on watch for oncoming waves, he began to walk them backwards towards the shore. Half the time Zoey’s arms and legs trailed after them like a rag-doll’s. The other half of the time she was kicking him in the shins as she tried to get her feet beneath her and help him along. ‘Is this going the way you expected?’

‘Not so much.’

‘Yeah, me either.’ So much for the honeymoon image she’d conjured of her and Eli chest to chest and cheek to cheek as warm water gently caressed their skin. It was a great image. She liked it a lot.

But it wasn’t happening.

By the time they reached knee-high water and Eli let them turn around, Zoey was exhausted. ‘Mind if we just rest for a—’ He didn’t answer, just picked her up, carried her back to the towels and moments later he had one wrapped around her, dry and fluffy, cutting out the wind, enveloping her like a cocoon. ‘Okay, that’ll work too,’ she offered with a faint grin and crumpled down to sit on the sand.

‘Will you be okay while I go and have a word with the lifeguards?’

‘Sure.’

A couple of minutes later, Eli and one of the lifeguards ventured back into the water. Five minutes after that they were back out and the flags were coming down and the beach was being declared closed to swimming.

Guess even the youngest of the Jackson clan knew how to take control.

She’d kinda never doubted it.

It took her a while for her heart rate to settle and the lethargy to leave her limbs.

‘You okay?’ Eli asked when he returned. He sent her a swift, searching glance as he bent to pick up their stuff.

‘Getting there.’

‘Let’s head back to the hotel.’

‘Can we stay a while longer? I’m aiming to do a little whale watching.’

‘Wrong season.’ He held out his hand. ‘Up.’

‘You can be a little immovable sometimes. Do you know that?’

‘Yes.’ His hand stayed right where it was, waiting for hers, and finally she took it with a sigh and let him haul her to her feet. He didn’t let go of her hand as they headed across the sand towards the hotel. Halfway there he stopped, tucked her dress and his T-shirt into the waistband of his boxers, draped their towels around his neck and asked if she wanted a piggy back.

Did she really want her legs wrapped around that powerful body? Her chest plastered to all that bare skin?

Turns out she did.

He hefted her effortlessly, made her feel like a lightweight as they tracked back across the sand and Zoey was grateful for the contact and the warmth. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek on his warm, still-damp shoulder and tasted salt on her lips from the contact with his skin.

‘Are you falling asleep on me?’

‘Uh huh. Best blankets ever – you on one side and the sun on the other.’

‘It’s really not that cold.’

‘Not anymore.’

He took her in through the side entrance to the hotel and didn’t put her down until they were at the door to the Queen suite, and that was probably only because he needed to find the key card to the door in order to get in. He shot her another worried look, this one a reflection in the recessed mirror. ‘Zoey, are you hurt?’

‘Relax, healer. I didn’t bust anything. I did take on a little more than I should have with that surf. I’ll come good.’

‘When?’

‘Soon as I get the sand out of… everywhere and order in a table full of room service.’ Zoey made sure to put a saunter in her step as Eli ushered her into the suite. He headed directly for the bathroom, turning the shower on and shoving his hand under the water until it ran hot and fast and steam began to rise.

‘What are you planning on broiling?’

‘You. And then I’m going to order in food. Is there anything on the menu that you don’t like?’

‘Mustard.’ She dropped her towel on the floor and stepped beneath the spray. She’d take her bikini off soon, all he had to do was leave the room. She put her hands to her hair, sluicing it away from her face and tried not to think about how this moment might go if Eli took it into his head to take the bikini off for her.

‘You’ve grazed your elbow,’ he told her gruffly and Zoey opened her eyes and looked.

So she had. She’d put some cream on it later. There was some in her bag. She turned her back to him now and looked over her shoulder, deliberately teasing. ‘Did I graze my hip as well?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anywhere else?’

He stepped a little closer. ‘Maybe your shoulder. But your hair’s in the way.’

Obligingly, she scraped it to one side.

‘I still can’t see.’ His voice was nothing more than a low tortured rasp. ‘You’d have to step away from the spray.’

‘Or you could come closer.’

‘If I did that I’d be in the shower.’

Mmn hmm. Zoey didn’t reply, just lifted her face to the spray.

She knew the moment he joined her because the water started hitting the floor differently. The sound changed and then he reached past her for the shampoo. Moments later his fingers were in her hair, firm and capable as he massaged her scalp and worked the shampoo into her hair. Zoey groaned her appreciation and stepped back a little closer to the source of all that heat.

She wasn’t stepping closer to the water.

‘Are you sure you weren’t a hairdresser in another life?’ she murmured languidly.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Pretty sure you must’ve been.’ She let the water catch the edge of her lip, supersensitive to the faint sting of it. ‘I think I cut my lip.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘You can’t even see it.’

‘Saw it earlier.’

‘Maybe inside.’ She ran her tongue around the inside of her lips, testing, tasting, as he maneuvered her back beneath the spray and gently rinsed the suds from her hair. She kept her eyes closed as his fingers worked their magic and the suds fell mostly behind her, and then he turned her, cupped her head in his hands and gently laid his lips on hers, lips that soon made way for a questing tongue that traced the inner rim of her lips with exquisite care.

‘No cuts,’ he whispered into her mouth.

‘Are you sure?’

A deeper kiss followed. ‘Yes. Where else needs washing?’

‘Everywhere. But mostly where there’s sand. And that’s mostly in my bikini,’ she added helpfully.

‘Perhaps you should take it off.’

Perhaps she should.

The tiniest shred of modesty she owned had her turning around to put her back to him again as she raised her hand to the bikini tie at her neck. One quick tug and it came undone.

Eli got helpful after that and the other tie came undone too. The little blue scrap of material fell to the floor of the tub as Zoey breathed deeply and tried to settle her sudden onslaught of nerves. She reached for the soap gel, lathered up her hands and ran them over her stomach, gathering the courage to show him what she wanted, which was his hands on her body, on her breasts, his thumbs flicking the hard little nubs of each breast. ‘If I show you what I want will you give it to me?’ she asked while her heart started racing again.

‘I might.’

Up went her hands, even as Eli’s larger ones replaced where hers had once been, caressing silky soft and fragrant suds into her skin. Her own hands at her breasts now and her eyes closed and her head thrown back as she gave herself over to sensation. She heard Eli’s swiftly indrawn breath but his hands didn’t go up, as expected, they went down, sliding over the sides of her bikini bottoms, effortlessly unhooking the little bars that held it together.

Damn but she liked a man with initiative.

That little scrap of blue hit the floor too, and there was sand, yes there was, and Eli reaching forward again for the hand-held shower rose, the one attached to a snaky silver hose that could go anywhere. He angled it so that the water still sprayed downwards and set to washing the suds from her stomach and the sand from the cut of her thighs. He circled ever closer to the vee between her legs but he never quite lingered, never found his way into the nitty gritty of things.

‘I think you missed a spot.’ The teasing was becoming unbearable, ratcheting her higher with every teasing spray.

‘Where?’

But he knew where. ‘C’mon, Eli.
Please
.’

His lips were at her ear, his tongue flicking at her lobe, warm and pointed, as if he knew exactly where she wanted that tongue of his and what she wanted it to do. He probably did.

‘Can you come from water on you in just the right place?’ he murmured and she whimpered.

She didn’t know.

And then he got down to business, taking the bulk of her weight, his arm a steel band about her waist, barely letting her move as he parted her legs, applied water and brought her to swift and screaming completion.

Guess the answer was yes.

H
e’d never been
with anyone so openly responsive. Not ever. He shouldn’t compare, didn’t want to compare, but his brain was busy conjuring up other times and places and not once had a woman reacted like this. Not anyone. Not even Simone. Zoey’s eyes were glassy green orbs, half drowned by wet lashes, real lashes, and they were long enough and curling enough that he wondered why she ever felt the need to add more. An aftershock ran through her sleek, slick body, and her eyes fluttered closed again.

‘I’ll get to you, I will,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t mean to fade on you. I’m all inspired and I have so many ideas. Just give me a minute.’

She looked as if she could use a solid eight hours. ‘How about you save those ideas for another time?’

‘Not how it works.’

‘How ‘bout if I tell you I came approximately two seconds after you did?’

‘Did you?’

‘You could always stick your hand in my shorts and find out.’

She did. Her lips curved lazily. ‘Well, hello.’

And then she lifted her hand to her mouth, licked a stripe across her finger and tasted him and it was his turn to unload a curse.

Her smile widened. ‘Are you hungry? I’m hungry. So I’m just going to let you finish rinsing off while I get all dry and go and lie on your bed and order room service. Does that sound like a good plan?’

‘There should probably be clothes involved.’

‘Words to live by, my friend.’ She got out of the tub, wrapped herself up in a fresh towel, scooped up the tiny scraps of blue bikini and dumped them in one of the hand basins. She rinsed them, hung them over a towel rail and headed for one of the suitcases that seemed to live in the bathroom permanently. A few moments later she slipped her gauzy white cotton beach shift over her head and headed for his bed.

She didn’t seem to feel the need for panties, he noticed.

Well, then.

He showered thoroughly – damn right he knew he had an appreciative audience. He took his time finding boxers – yeah, he wanted something soft between his junk and his jeans and then he found an old grey cotton shirt that was thin to falling apart, and he put it on because it was soft and Zoey liked soft almost as much as she appeared to like hot and hard.

She’d abandoned browsing through the room service menu in favor of a nap. He could probably get on board with that plan as well except that his stomach chose that moment to protest his lack of nourishment. ‘See anything you like on the menu?’ he asked. Her hand came out to pat the menu beside her on the bed, and then she picked it up and waved it in his general direction but she didn’t open her eyes.

‘All of it.’

‘How about the tapas for two? Pork belly in ginger and sweet plum.’ He had a weakness for pork belly. ‘Crispy duck with cucumber, spring onions and a drizzle of chili and orange glaze. Atlantic salmon with charred lime and béarnaise, teriyaki chicken sticks, BBQ pearl perch – oh, hell yes.’

‘You’ve a sweet tooth, Eli. But it sounds divine.’

‘Sweets,’ he muttered and turned to the sweets pages in the menu. Three pages of sweets. He liked this hotel. ‘Can’t forget the sweets.’

‘Amen,’ she mumbled and slid into sleep with a sigh.

He put in their order, wandered over to the mini bar, cracked a beer, opened his laptop and set about doing some relaxing of his own.