‘Lean back and hold on to the back of my neck,’ he told her. Fierce, urgent, his lips moving over her shoulder. ‘I want to feel you come.’
‘Yes...’ Flinging her arms tight around the back of his neck, she shuddered as tremor after tremor rolled through her. She felt his own tremors, his breath harsh and fast as he climaxed inside her. And her body claimed him, her muscles clenched around him, pulling him deep inside her, touching her womb, her heart.
A short time later, as the setting summer sun painted the sky gold and crimson, they lay entwined on her bed, bodies still damp.
‘It’s past eight,’ Olivia said lazily. ‘Dinner’s more than ready, if you’re hungry.’
‘I’ve got something we can enjoy first.’
‘More?’ She felt for him beneath the sheet. ‘You really are magnificent.’
‘Not quite that magnificent, for the moment at least.’ Pushing up, he grinned, kissed her nose. ‘Wait here.’
This time she didn’t fall asleep while she waited. He returned with a drink-laden tray and a plate of strawberries. She felt like the cat who’d eaten more than her share of cream. ‘More Blue Mint Lagoon cocktail?’
‘I wanted you to appreciate it fully and leisurely so I made a couple of extras earlier.’ He handed her one, took the other and they drank.
He swirled his glass slowly, looking at her. ‘The first time I saw you it was your eyes that got my attention.’
‘Not my breasts?’
‘Nope—but they were a close second. I could feel those eyes on me as I came down those stairs.
‘And then I saw them for the first time and they reminded me of this drink. Sea-green with that hint of cool blue lagoon and warm sandy shallows. I knew then I’d been captured.’
‘By a mermaid.’ She raised her glass at him again, drunk on happiness. ‘Not a pirate.’
‘Mermaids.’ He took her glass and set it on the bedside table with his, then stretched alongside her. He cruised his fingers lightly down her belly, his gaze following his hand until they reached the top of her thighs. ‘They don’t have what you have.’
She grinned. ‘You know, I had an erotic dream about a pirate during the race.’
He looked at her with interest. ‘I hope you didn’t surrender to his wicked charms.’
‘Oh, but I did—Captain Jett Black, he was.’
‘Ah, yes.’
Jett recalled finding her dishevelled and dispirited below decks on that last day of the race. He knew she’d been thinking about her mum because Breanna had told him. The skipper had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him.
‘You were most vehement you wanted me far, far away.’
‘It was an erotic dream, Jett, of course I wanted you far, far away. How embarrassing.’
She blushed, and he grinned at her. ‘You mean you were...?’
Her chin jerked upwards. ‘You’ll never know, Captain Black.’ Then her feistiness turned mellow and she was nestling her head in his shoulder. ‘Was my asking about your surname that day a problem for you?’
‘No. It just brought it all back—remembering the day I met my father.’
She lifted her head to look at him, her brow creased in puzzlement. ‘Brie never told me about that. She didn’t even know you existed till your father died.’
‘Breanna never knew. She was only a couple of months old. I was five and my mum had died a few months previously. Of a drug overdose.’ He shrugged. ‘Past history.’
‘Jett.’ She placed a warm hand on his chest, over his heart. Her gaze, so clear and honest and open. ‘I think it’s time you told me, don’t you?’
He blew out a slow sigh, remembering the day as clear as if it had happened yesterday. ‘It was Christmas Day and I’d been taken from the foster home to meet him. A kid’s dream come true. But then Breanna was there...’
She kissed the place where his messed-up heart beat strong against her cool lips, then rested her chin on his chest and waited.
‘I was the unwanted result of an affair. And I resented Breanna for something she had no control over. So I made my foster families’ lives hell. Pushed kids away because I didn’t want to risk having them like me then turn against me because I couldn’t stand the idea of being rejected again.’
‘Brie doesn’t know all this stuff,’ Olivia said softly when he’d finished. ‘She’ll understand you better if you tell her.’
‘I will. Soon.’
‘She wants to help but doesn’t know how.’
‘When Breanna located me, it was a shock. Family and belonging and being close to people was new to me. Still is.’