It's In His Kiss(58)

She felt a jolt of either electricity or pure adrenaline as soon as the tips of their fingers touched, and by the look on his face, she knew he felt it, too.

“Wow! Static, possibly? Maybe there’s a storm brewing out over the sea,” he said when she jerked her hand away, and he sat across from her trying to think why she looked so familiar.

“Am I interrupting, or do you mind if I join you?” Bly stood above them, and the hard edge of his voice matched the look on his face.

“Not at all. You must be the husband,” Christopher said, standing to leave. “I was telling your wife it seems that we should know each other, but I suppose not.”

“It’s the eyes,” Bly said before he could stop himself. He hadn’t meant to speak a kind word to a man who was leaning across the table intimately talking to Charlotte. “And the black hair. The two of could be brother and sister, but Charlotte’s an only child. She’s one of kind, in fact.”

“Yeah, me too. No brothers or sisters that I know of. Well, enjoy your time on the island,” he said, and before Charlotte could even suggest that they have a picture taken together, he was gone.

“I don’t know why I said that—he was obviously trying to pick you up. You must have noticed how he was looking at you,” Bly said. He sat down and ordered a vodka tonic for Charlotte and a vodka straight for himself.

“No, I don’t think he was trying to pick me up and I can order my own damn drink, thank you very much,” Charlotte hissed. She was suddenly fuming. First that creep Louis Santos was all over her, and now Bly was acting liked a spurned lover. “You’re pissed off that a nice Navy pilot said maybe a dozen words to me, when that Neanderthal with the boat basically told me to ditch your ass and sail away with him? Well guess what? I can’t control which men decide to strike up a conversation with me. And didn’t you tell me a few hours ago that sometimes I’m recognized from that freaking magazine article that I regret ever having done? The infamous pictorial in a magazine that you own?”

Their drinks arrived, and she tossed hers back and told him she was leaving and maybe she’d see him later at the villa.

“Charlotte, wait,” he said, following as she led the way, but staying cautiously behind her as she hurried to the Jeep and climbed in.

He told her to please scoot over and let him drive, since she shouldn’t have had the vodka on an empty stomach. He got in on the driver’s side and his right hand rested on the steering wheel. That’s when she noticed the skin on his knuckles was torn and bloody.

“What happened? Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” she asked, her temper waning as she kissed his hand and laid it in her lap. Then she searched through the straw tote she’d brought along, looking for tissues, or anything to stop the bleeding.

He pushed the hem of her dress up and his fingers found their way between her legs, and she closed her eyes and opened herself to him.

“Arguing makes you wet. Do you remember that from your past, Charlotte? After you try a case in court or we have a disagreement, you call it ‘mad fucking’ and it’s beyond erotic,” he said as the blood from his wounds mixed with her slick, salty arousal. She pressed into his touch, arching, quaking, not caring if anyone saw them. Her hands gripped his shoulders and she was shuddering in the throes of orgasm almost immediately.

“Drive,” she said, without looking at him, and he laughed as he started the Jeep and pulled onto the road. “I suppose you gave that sleazy drug lord what he deserved. Why didn’t you let West take care of him?”

“Because you’re mine, and I’ll handle anyone who tries to take you from me. You’re distracting me, you know—maybe I should stop on the side of the road,” he said as she climbed onto his lap facing him, the wind whipping through her hair, her eyes wild with lust. Her back was to the steering wheel, and she slid her panties off and threw them out onto the road as they drove along. “That’s littering, but I doubt that’s what we’ll get arrested for. Fuck! Charlotte, you are so hot,” he said when she’d unzipped and freed him, then settled onto his straining erection.

“Don’t stop, keep driving and stay still. I’ll do all the work,” she said, inching down, her body clinching hard, gripping him, drawing him deeper.

Her unquenchable heat, the motion of her body, faster and more frantic, her unbearably erotic words whispered in his ear. It was torture and it was heaven, and he hoped he didn’t crash the Jeep and kill them both, but what a way to go. He kept driving, face forward, his eyes never leaving the road, her body molded to his, her sex gripping him like a glove. That was the divine odyssey of being loved by Charlotte—she was a like the Gauguin paintings they both adored. Beautiful and mysterious, primal and animalistic, irresistible and unforgettable. His love for her was unquenchable, it burned night and day and had left him adrift during the six years when she wouldn’t be his. It was true what they said, money couldn’t buy happiness. He had more wealth than he could spend in several lifetimes, but Charlotte’s head hadn’t been turned by a mere dollar sign.