in my general direction. “Serena said they’d have to leave then.”
“Can you see me at all?”
“Not so good,” he admitted, and let his fingers do the walking, stroking my jaw, my cheeks, wiping away a tear I hadn’t even realized I’d shed.
“Hey,” he murmured, tugging me with him as he sank into the closest piece of furniture, a high-backed Victorian couch. Dust rose, enclosing us, and Kellan sneezed a few times “We’re going to be okay,” he promised, his hands staying on me.
Which was good. I liked that part a lot. With his hands on me, and the dark all around us, the adrenaline and fear turned into something else as I snuggled up to him on that dusty couch. “Kel?”
“Yeah?”
I slipped a leg on either side of him, straddling him.
He went completely and utterly still, only his face lifting to mine. “What are you doing?”
“Well…” I’d been kind of hoping he’d know. “Looking for comfort, I guess.”
“Feels like more than that. And anyway, didn’t we just do this?”
“Again.”
“Rach,” he said cautiously, and set the Blackberry aside. The screen went dark, robbing him of even that small bit of light. He blinked like an owl.
“You really can’t see anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Hmm.”
His voice went even more cautious. “This is not going to happen.”
“Work with me here.” I loved the look on his face, that wary arousal. “It made us feel better before, remember?” I leaned forward, and he put his hand out to feel exactly where I was, coming in accidental contact with my breast.
“Damn it,” he said, and yanked back.
I took his hands and put them on my hips.
I loved it when he said my name like that, as if I was both torturing him and yet was his next breath of air. “I’m just taking us back to where we were at the guest house, before we were interrupted.”
“We were not doing this.”
“No, but I wanted to be.”
“Yeah, but-Oh God.”
I’d leaned in, and because I was straddling him, the movement brought us flush together in a specific spot that had him breaking out an oath and me sucking in my breath.
I wriggled a little bit, just to get even closer. A rough sound escaped him, and I think I heard him grinding his back teeth into powder.
“You’re wrong,” he said in a tight voice. “We were not going here. Not again.”
I leaned down and kissed him, making a liar out of him, when his arms came up and surrounded me, holding tight, as if he didn’t want to let go.
As if maybe he didn’t want to ever let go.
Chapter 19
“This is not going to happen just because we’re here alone,” Kellan said into my hair.
I held him tight. “How about terror? Can it happen because of the terror?”
“No.”
“Okay.” I tightened my legs on him. “How about in case we die?”
He groaned. “We’re not going to die, damn it.” His arms gathered me in even closer, and he buried his face in the crook of my neck.
God, I loved the feel of that, his rough jaw skimming over my tender skin, his mouth pressing against my throat, tasting me as if he couldn’t help himself. I loved the feel of his body, all six feet two of lean hard muscle and hot libido. Plus he had this way of moving, sort of like a cat, at least when he could see. Had he always moved like that? Hard to believe I’d never noticed…
And then there were those liquid, sky blue eyes, or how about the coup de grace, that always, no matter whether we’d been lost in the woods, flying in a tin can or just plain running from unknown bad guys, he always smelled warm and sexy and one-hundred-percent pure, yummy male?
Slipping my fingers into his unruly hair, I held his head close. In reply, he kissed my throat, then my jaw, while his hand, low on my spine, urged me even closer. He felt so good against me, and I turned my head so I could nibble at the corner of his sexy mouth.
His fingers curled into the back of the sweatshirt I wore. “I no longer have enough blood in my brain to make a rational decision here. Rach…” he said when I tightened my fingers in his hair.
I kissed him, and he responded, and in that moment, all alone with him like this, adrenaline flowing, fear wild, there was nowhere else I’d rather have been.
Kel made a low, rough sound in his throat again, the one that said he had to be inside me, buried deep, now.
Because he loved me. He loved me, and I knew it. The knowledge bathed me, and something deep within me opened to it for the first time.
“Jesus.” His laugh was wry as his hands came up to my hips, rocking them to his most impressive hard-on, which was nestled nicely between my legs. “I’m like Pavlov’s dog with you. Touch me-hell, just look at me-and I get hard.”
I leaned forward and kissed his jaw, then nipped the same spot. “Love me,” I whispered against his mouth, running my hands up and down his tense arms, taut with strength and quivering with rigid control, which I intended to shatter. “Please love me, Kel.”
With a groan, he kissed me deeply, thoroughly, until I curled, warm and totally aroused, around his body, feeling the sensual pull of his mouth, of his hands as they ran restlessly up and down my back.
Straightening, I pulled off the sweatshirt, then let the straps of my camisole top fall. The top slipped to my waist. Lifting his hands, I put them over my bared breasts, so he could tell in the dark what I’d done.
His fingers knew what to do, and in no time I was out of control, melting with desire, and needing him to get on with it. But he just keep kissing me, deep, melting, languid kisses, along with those slow, sure strokes of his hands over my ribs, my breasts.
“Rachel,” he breathed, as if I were something special, something to treasure. He slipped his hands down the back of my pj bottoms, tracing a finger over my thong, the long line of which he traced down, down, down…
“Still not doing this,” he said, panting a bit now.
“Okay.”
Oh, he was wrong, so very wrong. In fact, if he stopped now, the very tips of his capable, long-fingered, work- roughened hands a fraction of an inch from where I needed them more than I needed my next gulp of air, it was possible I would cry.
“Look for them again,” he said.
“Huh?”
“The pirates. The others. Anyone.” He slid a finger beneath the thong. “Where are they?”
I tried to focus, barely managing it. “I-I don’t know.”
And another finger. “Look, damn it.”
Not easy, but I tried again. “I still don’t see anyone.” Reaching down, I pulled on the fly of his Levi’s. Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
I revealed a wedge of his tanned, taut, flat abs, and spread the jeans open as far as I could. Slipping my fingers
