Ride the Tide (Deep Six #3) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,79

claim her lips and forget what he’d just said. Then her eyes snagged on the bandage on his side and her expression grew horrified. “Oh my god! I wasn’t thinking! Did I hurt you when I was—”

“Believe me when I tell you,” he quickly put in, “nothing on me hurts when I’m with you. Well”—he frowned—“not in a bad way.”

“Are you sure?” The care in her eyes hit him directly in the heart.

“Never been more sure of anything.” And that was the truth. This moment with this woman, it was…right.

He mapped out his next moves in his head, anticipating which would make her moan and which would make her purr. “You trust me?”

She nodded quickly and he removed her glasses, setting them far enough away so they would be safe from what was to come. When he turned back to her, it was to find her eyes blazing.

Her gaze burned him. Singed his soul and ignited his heart. Then she turned her attention to his mouth, her little tongue darting out to wet her lips.

He followed the movement eagerly. Wondering what it would be like to feel her tongue lapping at his nipple. Swirling around his belly button. Gliding over the head of his—

He stopped that thought in its tracks and forced himself to take a deep, calming breath. When he had himself in hand, he did something he’d wanted to do since the day they met. He traced the arches of her eyebrows.

They were soft. Softer than he’d imagined. Warmer too.

It pleased him very much to watch the skin over her cheeks pinken from little more than the brush of his fingertip. And she looked so small and perfect staring up at him, her eyes full of anticipation. Full of…faith in him.

It made him feel ten feet tall and bulletproof.

“This feel okay?” he whispered gently. He’d let his fingers stray to the butterfly bandages on her forehead.

“Nothing hurts, Mason,” she murmured. “Please don’t stop.”

“Never,” he assured her, his blood pounding through his veins in a rhythm as old as time. And yet, he’d never felt this way before. Never experienced this level of awareness. “I’m gonna show you just how good it can be,” he swore. “I’m gonna take you to places you’ve never been before. And we’re gonna hit every stop along the way.”

He wasn’t one for words. But suddenly, he couldn’t stop speaking. Vowing. Making promises.

After tucking a wayward curl behind her ear, he kissed the side of her mouth, loving how her lips automatically sought more. “And when you’re ready, I’m gonna put myself inside you. Y’okay with that?”

A smile lit up her face and his whole body contracted. It was crazy what she could do to him with just one smile. “Yes, please.”

There were certain memories so warm and wonderful that they seated themselves into a man’s brain. This was one of those memories. Until his dying day, when he closed his eyes, he would conjure Alex in his mind. How she was right now, so utterly open and honest and beautiful.

Her bra was cotton-candy pink. Simple. Sweet. But it looked sexy as hell cupped around the soft, creamy swells of her breasts. He fingered one strap, arching an eyebrow. “Should we begin?”

“Yes, please.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “For a woman who usually has ten thousand words perched on the tip of her tongue, you’re being awfully succinct.”

She rolled in her lips—those delicious Kewpie-doll lips. “I figured that was far more expedient than telling you you’re pushing on an open door and you’re welcome to come on in.”

“Well, then.” He bent to kiss her shoulder and slide down her bra strap. “Let’s get to it.”

There was laughter in her voice when she answered, “Yes, please.” But it ended in a gasp when he pulled down her bra cup and bared one delectable nipple to the sun dappling through the leaves of the palm overhead.

“You’re beautiful, Alex.” He brushed the callused pad of his fingertip over the tip of her breast and watched it pucker and pout. “So perfect. So soft.” When he pinched the hard little nub, her hips came off the blanket by a foot.

She was a firecracker. No doubt about it. And experience told him it wouldn’t take much to shoot her into the sky. But before she did, he wanted to watch her burn.

He wanted to make her beg.

He wanted the pleasure he pressed on her to be so exquisite that this memory, this moment, this day would seat itself