Commanding Her Seal (Plus Bonus Novella)(26)

The guide paddled them around the bay for an hour, his strokes silent and sure. When it was over, the sense of loss was shockingly brutal, as if Charlie had left a piece of himself behind on the water.

He and Audra didn’t talk until they reached the lobby of the hotel and only then to make a quick decision about whether to hang out in the bar or skip it in favor of going to bed early.

There was no debate. But instead of pulling off clothes the moment they got inside his room and falling on each other in a fast, hot, and dirty encounter, she led him to the bedroom and kissed him languorously. It unwound inside him like aged whiskey, smooth and mellow and beautiful.

“Undress me,” she commanded softly. “Slowly. I want to savor it.”

That matched his own mood perfectly. How had she guessed that he was still oddly affected by the luminous ride across the bay? Or was she similarly affected?

As requested, he slipped the buttons on her long-sleeve shirt from their mooring by touch alone, unable to tear his gaze from hers. Awareness, heavy and powerful, laced the atmosphere. Her shirt drifted to the floor, and he put his mouth on her collarbone in a long kiss. She sighed, arching against him. Her arms tightened around his waist, smoothing against his back. He kept waiting for the blind urgency to overtake them both, but it never happened.

Of course, this was not the first time they’d had sex today by a long shot. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume they’d burned out that wild lick of lust that always seemed to drive them to a hard and fast finish.

This was something different, and he felt it in her touch, her kiss, her exhales. He moved to her throat, mouthing her skin in an achingly slow exploration. Her head tipped back to allow access while she worked on his clothes. At some point she must have pulled off his shirt because her warm hands set off a trail of heat along his bare back.

“I want you to touch me,” she said. “All over.”

That worked for him.

When they were both naked, he picked her up and laid her out on the bed so he could kiss every inch of her. She gasped as he ran his tongue down her stomach and laved at her inner thighs, and when she moaned for him to cover her, he did, twining their bodies so tightly, a piece of tissue paper couldn’t have fit between them.

Her hands rested on each side of his jaw, and she laid her lips on his with quiet insistence, opening him up and sliding her tongue against his, hot and questing, as if searching for the perfect angle. And when she found it, she stayed there, kissing him for an eternity, and it was simultaneously peaceful and arousing. A paradox to end all paradoxes.

She pulled back long enough to say, “Fill me, Charlie. Now.”

He didn’t mind taking orders from Audra Reed in the slightest. He rolled on a condom in moments and slid into place, so deep inside her he felt her soul.

They rocked together, and the unhurried intensity nearly tore him apart.

This was what they meant by making love. He’d always thought it was a stupid phrase—how did you “make” love, like it had substance and you just had to mold it together?

But as he thrust in and out with such aching slowness that they both cried out with it, the connection they’d been forging while he wasn’t paying attention bled from their skin, melded, bound them together. It was gorgeous and he never wanted it to end.

Except the sweet, rhythmic undulations of her body sucked him under until he was enmeshed in a web of sensation that built and built and built until he couldn’t hold back the tide of release. He shut his eyes as she tightened around him, climaxing at the same moment. Perfection.

“God, Audra.” He groaned and kissed her temple as he gathered up her still-quaking form to hold her close. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice as shaky as her body. “I’ve never done anything like that before. Isn’t that what the list is about? New things, amazing things, try-it-out things.”

Okay, he could go with that. But he internalized that she’d felt it too, that whatever had just happened, it wasn’t only on his side. They’d done something different, irreversible. What, he wasn’t sure. Nor did he regret it. He just didn’t have the capacity to untangle the ramifications, not now.

She must have been similarly affected, because she lay there in his arms quietly for a long time, apparently content to be still.

“My father left,” she said so abruptly that his lungs froze.

His fingers stilled in the midst of the lazy pattern he’d been tracing on her hip. “I’m sorry.”

And he was, even without details. Because she wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t a significant event, especially when they were still naked and in bed.