The Devil and the Deep - By Amy Andrews Page 0,64

sunlight glistening there so he could see it coating all of her.

He tossed the shell aside, swooping his head down, his hands gliding up her body to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing across the nipples.

It was then, as he used his elbows to push her open to him more, that he noticed it for the first time. The sun shone like a spotlight and it was suddenly obvious.

A tiny blemish. A pink birthmark.

Exactly where Lady Mary had hers.

He stared at it, as he tried to think past the pounding of his heart.

So...she was Lady Mary?

But the heady aroma of her drowned in coconut juice was rendering his thought processes useless. He wanted to ask her. Needed to know.

He should stop and demand that she tell him the truth.

But she was making those little noises at the back of her throat again and as another waft of coconut headed his way he actually salivated.

Stella rotated her pelvis as the anticipation built to breaking point. Rick liked to tease but this had gone on long enough. She knew the touch of his mouth was coming and every second he made her wait, she could feel herself get wetter.

‘Rick!’ she begged, unable to bear it any longer. ‘Please,’ she whimpered, lifting her hips involuntarily. ‘Please.’

It was the whimper that did it—just as it always did. There would be time enough for questions later. So he shut his eyes and gave her what she was asking for, licking that cute strawberry mark just as Vasco had done, savouring the sweet coconut essence of her, pinning her to the sand with his tongue and not letting her up until her climax rent the air.

* * *

Stella woke the next morning to a tight feeling at her wrists and a strange sense of foreboding. It was immediately allayed when she saw Rick, one knee planted on the edge of the mattress, his face hovering over her, smiling.

‘Morning,’ he murmured, kissing her.

She kissed him back. It wasn’t until she tried to move her arms to hug him that the foreboding returned. It only took a moment to figure out why. She looked behind her. Her wrists were tied with some kind of material to the posts of his bed. As were her feet.

She was naked and spreadeagled.

Her pulse leapt at the illicitness of it all. Was Rick going to enact the scene from Pleasure Hunt where Vasco had tied Mary to the bed?

She looked at him. ‘You do know that, unlike Mary, I am perfectly willing to ask you for sex and, not only that, but to tell you how, when, where and the number of times I want you to do me, right?’

Rick chuckled as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve noticed. You’re really not her, are you?’ he asked innocently.

Stella nodded as she averted her eyes to her ankle ties. ‘Is that one of my sarongs?’ she asked.

Rick grinned. ‘Sorry. I’m all out of eighteenth-century satin sashes and I thought it’d be gentler on your wrists and ankles than nautical rope.’

Stella pulled against the bonds to test them and had to agree. Even if she wanted to get out of them, which she didn’t, she knew it would be futile—sailors knew how to tie knots.

‘How on earth did you manage not to wake me?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Well, it took me a while and, thankfully, you’re a heavy sleeper.’

Stella nodded. That was true. ‘So, was there a purpose to this or are you just into bondage suddenly?’

Rick looked at her, naked and spread on his bed like a gift from Neptune himself. He was ragingly hard and pleased he’d decided to put on some boardies instead of being naked as he’d originally thought yesterday when he’d lain in post-coital glory on the beach beside her, formulating this plan to get a confession out of her.

He wasn’t sure why knowing whether she was Lady Mary was increasingly important to him.

It just was.

He’d often wondered if she thought about him. Knowing that she might have fantasised about them while he’d been training himself not to was beyond tantalising. Maybe it was ego, maybe it was something else he didn’t want to examine too closely, but he had to know.

And he’d known that there was only one way to find out.

He smiled down at her as he pushed off his bed. ‘Oh, there’s a purpose.’

Stella’s nipples hardened beneath his incendiary blue gaze as she noticed she was the only one naked. ‘You’re dressed.’ She