The Navy SEAL’s Holiday Fling: Ballybeg Bad Boys, Book 3 (4 page)

Jill stepped out of the garment and turned to face him, hands on hips.

She wore matching bra and panties the exact shade of her dress, plus black stockings. “Whoa. You are one sexy lady. More Blush Shoppe products?”

Her lips curved into a come-hither smile, making his breath catch. “Of course.”

“You’re a walking ad for the place,” he said huskily. He reached out and toyed with her bra strap. The skin underneath it was smooth and the shade of his fave French hot chocolate. And just as delicious. He ran his tongue over her shoulder, hearing her small gasp of surprise. “Pretty as this bra is, it needs to come off.”

“Go right ahead,” she teased. “See if you can do battle with a bra strap.”

“I consider myself an expert at bra removal.” His fingers found the clasp and skimmed the skin beneath.

“Another skill they taught you at SEAL school?” Her breath was uneven, her pupils dilated.

“I’d already picked up that particular talent before I joined the Navy,” he said with a chuckle. He unhooked her bra and pushed down her shoulder straps, revealing two pert breasts. He sucked in a breath. “They’re even prettier than I’d remembered.”

“You’ve thought about them?” she asked, half coy, half surprised.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve thought of them every damn night since the summer.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Yeah, right.”

“Jill, I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I heard Katy was in Ballybeg, I panicked. I couldn’t risk running into her in the pub or a café.”

“I know. We’ve already been over this.”

“Doesn’t mean I feel any better about hurting you.” He drew her into his arms and kissed her. She tasted of peppermint gum and strawberry lip gloss. And, if it had a flavor, hope.

“You were supposed to be a fling,” he said when they broke apart. “I never meant to get emotionally attached.”

“But you did,” she said softly. “And so did I.”

He pushed her hair back from her forehead and kissed the bridge of her nose. “Then let’s make the best of the time we’ve got.”

J
ill squealed
when Liam picked her up and carried her over to the bed. This time, he was careful not to crack his head against the ceiling.

She smiled up at his handsome face, now shadowed by dark stubble. “You’re getting the hand of my ceiling.”

“Slowly,” he replied with a grin and tossed her onto the bed.

She landed with a bounce and squealed when he leaped onto the bed and began to tickle her. “Stop,” she begged breathlessly. “You’re torturing me.”

“That is the whole idea.” He trailed kisses from her neck to her breasts, making her shiver in anticipation.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, and her nipples pebbled under his warm breath.

“You’re not too ugly yourself,” she teased. “But I can’t decide if your French or your American accent is sexier.”

“I can use whichever one you want.”

“I want the one that’s real,” she said, tracing his tattoos.

He brushed a rebellious tuft of hair back from her forehead and stared down at her, his eyes darkening. “American it is.”

And then he lowered his mouth to her breasts. The sensation of his lips on her nipples was pure bliss. Her breathing quickened in time with her heart rate. He tugged on one brown nipple playfully, and then the other. When he moved downward to her belly, she gasped. “Don’t stop now.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to.” Liam ran a palm over her stomach. When he touched her navel with his tongue, she drew in a sharp breath. “Your bellybutton is the perfect shape. Just like the rest of you.”

He continued to trail kisses in a downward direction, eventually reaching her thighs. Each kiss was a promise and a tease rolled into one, exquisite but leaving her aching for more.

“Time for the toy?” He reached into the box and extracted the Cleopatra. “I hope I can get it to work.”

He pressed the device against Jill and hit a button.

The vibrator buzzed at full force. Jill jerked back. “Ouch. Steady on.”

“Too strong?” Liam frowned at the device and fiddled with the controls. “How’s this setting?”

The vibration changed from violent to oh-so pleasant. “Ooh.” She settled back against the pillows. “Now that feels good.”

While the toy buzzed and teased, Liam’s mouth meandered to the tender flesh of her inner thighs. The sensation of his stubble against her soft skin sent an electric awareness shooting through her veins. Jill ran her hands over his short hair, exploring the contours of his head. “I miss your longer hair.”

“I don’t.” He grinned up at her. “It itched.”

“It was a
wig
?”

“Yeah. I was worried it would come off when we were having sex, but I guess I used enough glue to make it stick.”

“My goodness,” she murmured, biting her lip at the vibration between her legs. “I never noticed.”

“Shh. Right now, the only thing you should be noticing is what that device is doing.”

“Oh, I’m very interested in what it’s doing.”

Continuing to massage her breasts, Liam increased the speed slightly, eliciting a groan from deep within Jill’s throat. This was bliss at its most decadent. A sexy man, the perfect sex toy, and a night of pleasure stretching before her. Jill leaned back and let her imagination run wild. As the pressure built, so did her desire to replace the toy with Liam. She was greedy for him, wanted to possess him in any way she could.

She placed a hand over his.

“Not good?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

“Too good.”

His laugh made her skin tingle. “Want to toss the device?”

“If tossing the toy is synonymous with you taking its place, then yes.”

“Consider it done.” Liam switched off the vibrator and flung it onto the floor.

Her heart skittered when he slid into place and claimed her clit. And when his tongue touched her, Jill pressed her head back into the pillow and moaned. No amount of sexual pleasure could tamper her anger at Liam for disappearing, but the man sure knew how to pleasure a woman, and she was not averse to allowing him to satisfy her.

Liam used his tongue to devastating effect. Each flick, each touch, brought her a fresh jolt of pleasure. The pressure inside her increased until she thought she would explode. Liam licked and sucked her pleasure bud that showed her he’d paid close attention during their passionate weekends together during the summer. He remembered exactly what she liked, including being tickled behind her knees during oral sex.

Each movement of his mouth inched her closer to the edge. Whenever she neared climax, he paused, only to renew the torture a moment later.

“You’re enjoying teasing me,” she gasped. “Why don’t you just let me come?”

He kissed her inner thighs and ran his thumbs over the backs of her knees. “Do you want me inside you first?”

Her breath caught in her throat. Did she want that? An image of his hard cock made her ache with want. “Yes,” she whispered, “but hurry up.”

He grinned and climbed off the bed to locate his wallet. When he’d rolled on a condom, he joined her on the bed again and showered her with angel kisses—light and feathery and as much of a tease as his movements when he’d gone down on her.

Jill ran a finger down his hard shaft, pausing to tickle his balls. He exhaled a groan. “You make me wild for you, woman.”

“Ditto.”

Jill spread her legs and wrapped them around his hips. With her help, he eased himself inside her, pausing to allow her a moment to adjust to his not inconsiderable size. By the time he thrust into her, she was close to climax, but his slow movements prolonged the sublime torment.

“You are an amazing woman, Jill Bekele,” he whispered against her neck.

“And you are a dick, Liam Ryan, but very good in bed.”

He roared laughing and nibbled her ear, making her inhale sharply.

She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer, angling her pelvis to allow him deeper penetration. For the next while, neither of them spoke, each thrust bringing them closer to the edge. She ran her hands over his strong shoulders and back, down to his toned backside, and over his balls.

“You want it from behind?” he murmured into her ear. “Because I really want to admire your ass while I fuck you.”

“Oh, yeah.”

He eased himself off her and Jill rolled onto her stomach and allowed him to pull her up onto all fours. When he entered her from behind, the different angle hit her in all the right places.

“You are a goddess,” he said, moving in and out of her with increasing speed. “And you have the best ass on the planet.”

His obvious pleasure in her body was a major turn-on. Jill had never been shy about sex, but Liam made her feel like the sexiest, most desirable woman in the world. His every movement increased the excitement building inside of her. As the pressure mounted, her heart rate accelerated and her breathing grew shallow. When her orgasm hit, it was the most powerful she’d ever experienced. She cried out, not caring how loud she screamed.

Liam kept up the pace, hitting his own peak a minute after she’d reached hers. His cry heralded a second flurry of pleasure waves inside her. Less intense than the first, but sweetly pleasurable.

When they were both sated, he pulled out and rolled her onto her back.

“That was spectacular,” he said, gasping. “Even better than I’d remembered.”

Liam collapsed onto the pillow next to hers, pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “So how do I measure up to your treasure chest of sex toys?”

Jill put her head on his chest and listened to his heart’s rapid beat. “You’ll do if the batteries run out.”

This made him chuckle. He slapped her bottom. “Cheeky.”

“Seriously, I expect a repeat performance before you disappear from my life again.”

“It’s a deal.” He ran his fingers through her hair, stretching the tight curls. “I’ve missed you, Jill. So damn much. I don’t want tonight to be the end. We had something good going over the summer and I fucked it up.”

Jill opened her mouth to respond but bit down on the words. She wanted to ask him to stay in Ireland. She wanted to offer to quit her job and run after him. Neither of these suggestions was sane and sensible.

“It sounds like your job was to blame for you going AWOL,” she said in a shaky voice. “As for us making a go of this, you’re about to go back to the States, and I’ve barely begun my job at Blush Shoppe. How could we ever be more than a pre-Christmas fling?”

He kissed her knuckles. “Let’s not worry about the details tonight. Just know I want to be with you, however and wherever we swing it.”

“We barely know one another,” she said, tracing the lines of his sea goddess tattoo. “At least, I barely know the real you.”

Liam propped himself up on an elbow and winced in pain.

Jill touched his bandages. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Just a little sore after all that movement.” He smiled down at her and the power of his gaze warmed her from her scalp to her toes. “Now what would you like to know about the real me?”

She bit her lip as a myriad of questions tumbled through her mind. “What was it like being undercover? Did you enjoy living a—” She paused, searching for a neutral phrase.

“Did I enjoy living a lie?” He flashed her a rueful grin. “It was fun for the first couple of weeks, but pretending to be someone else wore me down. I liked the cooking part of being a chef, and the guys on the island are good people. I can’t say we became friends, though. I had to keep up my grumpy chef act and speak in broken English. Didn’t exactly lend itself to forging friendships.”

“Sounds difficult. I don’t think I could keep up a pretense for so long. Did you train for undercover work as a SEAL?”

He shook his head. “That’s not what SEALs do. The undercover business was pure chance.”

“Really?” She gazed at him curiously. “How did you fall into it?”

“A friend who’d left the Navy started his own private security company. When I said I was thinking of getting out of the military, Cash offered me a job. He had a guy lined up for the Inish Glas mission, but the man’s mother died the day before he was due to leave. I was a last-minute replacement.”

“Because you could cook and speak French?”

“Exactly.” He leaned back against his pillow and pulled her close. “The worst part was being away from Meggie. The job was never meant to drag on for months. At the time I met you, I honestly thought I’d be leaving in a couple of weeks, and you made it clear you weren’t after a relationship.”

“I wasn’t,” she admitted. “I’d just broken up with my on-off boyfriend. But after our one-night stand turned into several weekends, I did feel I deserved more from you than a vanishing act.”

“I know, Jill. I tried to talk to you after my sister left, and you brushed me off each and every time. I didn’t want to stalk you, and I couldn’t have told you the whole truth even if you had agreed to talk to me. The job I was on only wrapped up last week.”

She exhaled a sigh. “I’m sorry, but this is a lot to take in. Between the bomb at the hotel and you suddenly being someone else…”

“I’m the same person you met last summer,” he said softly, “just with a different name and accent.”

She opened her mouth to argue the point but was interrupted by the insistent vibration of her phone. Olivia’s name flashed on the display. Jill glanced at her bedside clock and frowned. “If Olivia is calling me at one o’clock in the morning, it has to be important.”

Jill hit connect and pressed the phone to her ear. “Hey, Olivia.”

Her friend got straight to the point. “Have you seen the news? Your face and Liam’s are splashed all over the media.”

Jill leaped off the bed and fired up her laptop. Sure enough, the website of the
Daily Echo
featured a photo of her and Liam outside the Sheldon Hotel under the lurid headline, “Navy SEAL Saves Sex Toy Seller from Crazed Christmas Bomber.” The story named both of them and mentioned that Jill lived in Ballybeg.

“Motherfucking journalist,” Liam swore, reading the story over her shoulder. “Does he not realize he’s just put both of us in danger? What if The Ghost sees that story and decides to make his insane agenda personal?”

“Thanks for letting me know, Olivia,” Jill said in a shaky voice. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Take care of yourself,” her friend said. “Contact the police and demand protection.”

Jill hit disconnect and sagged onto the bed. An icy fear spread over her body, leaving her limbs cold and numb.

“We’re moving you to a hotel,” Liam said and placed a finger against her lips. “No arguments. I’ll call Inspector Tobin on the way. Now pack a case and let’s go.”