Rescuing Her Seal(18)

Her lips parted oh so slightly, and yes, he would like some more of her hot tongue. Without missing a beat, he took advantage of the opening and licked his way into her mouth. So sweet. Not enough. He deepened the kiss, determined to taste, to devour. God, she was responsive, sucking him in until every nerve in his body was on high alert.

But then everything shifted. She was kissing him. She was kissing him. Like she wanted to drive the bus. Well, then. It was A-OK if she wanted to use his mouth for her personal training exercise. Was there a signup sheet for other body parts?

She took her time testing out different angles until she found one she liked, and it was a good one. He groaned as she nipped at his lips. Instinctively, he held back because, well… it seemed like she wanted to experiment and it was lighting him up in all the good places.

Then she started toying with the hem of his shirt, and his heart nearly stopped as she hesitated. Go on. His skin was screaming for her touch, and finally she slipped a hand underneath, spreading heat along the small of his back as her fingers went on a recon mission.

His lungs strangled over a breath. God, when was the last time the touch of a female hand affected him like this? He was so hard all at once that his erection could clear-cut the wide swath of palm trees in the distance all by itself.

He ached to wrest control back, to dive into this woman. To lay her back and mouth his way down to the valley between her legs so he could really get a good taste of her, but this was totally uncharted territory. Next move had to be hers.

All at once, she stepped back. Not the move he’d been hoping for. But she was breathless and blushing, and hell if that wasn’t the most arousing look on her thus far. He nearly yanked her back against him with a plea to please, please, please try out whatever she wanted already primed to fly from his throat.

But a gut-deep ping stopped him. She wasn’t ready. He shut down everything in a supreme act of will that was so flipping difficult it totally deserved an award.

“Sorry,” she croaked. “I got a little carried away.”

“Lilah Houston, don’t you ever apologize for kissing me.” Geez. What was going on between her ears? “Or for getting carried away. That’s the whole point of adventure. You wanna tell me to strip naked and dance for you? Fire away. You want to see how much of your breast will fit in my mouth? I’m your man. But feeling bad over getting caught up in the sensations is not okay.”

She blinked. And blinked again. “You’d strip for me just because I asked?”

“In half a heartbeat.” God, he needed a fire extinguisher. Water would do. “But I’m sensing that request is not forthcoming, so I’m going to take some stuff to the beach. I’m on vacation and that’s where I want to be. Coming?”

Poor choice of words. No blood in the head did that to a guy. She took mercy on him and kept her mouth shut, but he could see her running his impassioned speech through her mind, reordering her thoughts. Good. He’d leave her to it.

He splashed down in the water, holding aloft the sheets, blankets, and pillows Jack had graciously provided. Two more trips, a large cooler, and four grocery bags later, everything a stranded couple could ask for lined the beach.

Lilah carried both of their duffel bags and plopped them down in the sand near the blanket he’d spread out.

“I’m going to build a fire, and then we can see what kind of shopper Mr. Hyland is,” he said. “There’s bound to be something you might like in one of these bags. If you’re hungry.”

“So hungry,” she confessed with enough of an edge that he did a double sweep of her expression just to be sure she was still talking about food. With Lilah, hard to tell. “I didn’t eat breakfast. Too nervous.”

Yeah. Okay. Firewood then.

That was fine. There wasn’t a whole lot of daylight left. He gathered up some palm fronds, careful not to let the serrated teeth tear up his hands. He planned to use them later to undress a woman by firelight and he didn’t want them to catch on Lilah’s skin. Optimism wasn’t a crime.

Fitz found a box of kitchen matches in the first bag and lit the large pile of fronds. They burned pretty fast, but it was a big stack. Still. It wouldn’t last the night. Of course, because the very thing he wanted to be doing on a pristine beach with no other people in sight except a sexy, dark-haired woman was to go look for more firewood.

But he did it. Without heat they wouldn’t be able to cook dinner. And he was starving. Eventually, he found an area of the small island where fruit trees grew. One had fallen over, which gave him easy access to a ton of small branches that cracked off the main trunk with a bit of effort. He stockpiled the wood and finally had a decent fire going.