Born Wild

knew what to say. One thing, and one thing only. “Okay.”

* * *

Okay. Just that one word. Okay. Then, full stop.

Eve wasn’t precisely sure what she’d expected from Billy. Perhaps a rebuff, or maybe a flying leap on top of her. But certainly not…okay. Just…okay.

What did that even mean? Okay to the way he felt about her? Okay to the part where she said she realized he could never trust her again? Okay to the sex? Okay to the sex not meaning anything?

Which part, dangit? Which part is okay?

“Uh…Billy?”

“Huh?”

Was it just her, or had his vocabulary shrunk? And, for Pete’s sake, she could really use a little help here. Was he purposefully trying to humiliate her by just sitting there, brown eyes intent and blinking? Sheesh! Her cheeks were so hot she wouldn’t be surprised to see flames shooting out of her face. “Wh-what do you mean by…um…by okay?”

And his response? Blink. Blink.

All right, that was it. She couldn’t stand it a second longer. “Because I’m not really the sexpot, vixeny sort. I can’t tell if that means, okay, you want the sex. Or okay, you know it’d be meaningless. Or okay, I’m right in that you won’t be able to trust me again. When you say okay, do you—”

“Come here, Eve,” he said, gently reaching to take the half-eaten sandwich from her nerveless fingers. She watched, breath lodged in her throat, as he placed it on top of the remaining PB and J. And after he bent to set the plate on the floor, he straightened and patted the mattress beside him.

Gulp.

All right, and she’d officially lost her nerve…

“Billy, I—”

“Come here, Eve,” he commanded again. Yes, commanded. And silly, weak-willed woman that she was, that authoritative tone went all through her, zinging up her spine and fizzing through her heated blood. It was all about the I’m the big, tough man, so you will obey me.

She wasn’t supposed to like that. She wasn’t supposed to…

Heaven help her, in this situation, she did.

But she needed to know what he meant before she went and made an even bigger fool of herself than she already had. Swallowing, she bit her bottom lip and said, “So…so by okay, you meant —”

“Sweetheart.” When he used that endearment, she felt like flying. “Come. Here.”

The softly glowing lights overhead danced through his chocolaty hair and highlighted his steely, stubbled jaw, and the gleam of determination and…was that hunger she saw in the depths of his eyes?

For some inexplicable reason, she thought of that sage bit of advice: don’t poke the bear. Well, if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d just poked. And for the life of her, she wasn’t sure she could handle the beast once he’d been provoked.

“I…I th-think—” she sputtered.

He leaned back on one elbow, snagging her wrist and tugging her to the edge of the bed. The teakwood slats of the sailboat’s flooring were cool beneath her socked feet when her legs dangled over the side of the mattress. But Billy’s half-naked body was generating so much heat she felt a sheen of perspiration slick her skin. At six feet, he wasn’t that much taller than she was. But he had the kind of shoulders, the kind of zero body fat muscles, that bespoke of his last dozen years as a hardened soldier, which meant, to put it simply, he was big.

Big and manly and delicious. And he made her feel dainty and womanly by comparison. He made her feel —

“Are you sure?” he asked, playing with her fingers. And even that small touch, that should’ve-been-nothing touch had desire igniting low in her belly.

“Uh…” When he looked at her like that, his dark eyes sparkling and discerning, his high cheekbones slightly flushed, and the muscle in the side of his jaw ticking, it made it hard to think. “Wh-what was the question again?” she managed. And who the heck had shoved a wad of cotton down her throat?

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

This? Did he mean the sex? Is that what his okay was supposed to convey?

“Y-yes,” she said, although the word rose an octave at the end, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

“Okay,” he nodded, and she was really beginning to hate that word. From this moment forward she was going to ban it from her own vocabulary and…and what had she been thinking?

She didn’t know. Because Billy leaned forward until she could feel his warm exhalation whisper across her lips, until she could smell the peanut butter and jelly on his breath. “Well, come on then,” he said. And she was left to close that last inch separating them.

Chapter Twenty-one

He wanted to plow her like a wheat field.

It was crude. But it was true.

Thankfully, good sense and good manners prevailed, and he managed to refrain from grabbing her shoulders and throwing her back on the mattress, tugging the leg of her bikini bottoms aside and plunging into her. But, Jesus, it was crazy how the mere smell of her, all that expensive lotion and fresh shampoo could make his head spin. Could make him instantly start to swell. Could make him picture the hot, wet place between her legs. Could make him imagine his fingers there…his tongue…his dick so deep inside of her and—

Okay, and now he hadn’t just started to swell. He was swollen. Fully engorged. Throbbing and pounding and feeling as though he might just split his skin wide open. Which brought him back around to the part where he had to mentally and physically hold himself back from grabbing her shoulders and tossing her back on the mattress, tugging her bikini bottoms aside and…

But that would come later. Much later. Because Eve wanted him. And forgetting the fact that he wanted her too, the reality was there was a part of him that needed to show her what she’d missed when she’d chosen to cave to her father’s wishes, when she’d chosen Blake over him. There was a part of him that’d spent the last twelve years waiting for this very day.

Which meant he had to make it good.

And to make it good, he had to take it slow. He knew enough about women to know Eve was the kind to like it slow. Slow and hot and a little bit dirty, which, praise be, just happened to be his specialty.

And maybe, maybe after he showed her what she’d missed, maybe after he got it out of his own system, he could begin to move on. Begin to break free of the past. Of her. Of his seesawing thoughts and feelings in regard to her.

Of course, when she leaned in close, opening her mouth to him—sonofabitch, she had the most amazing mouth, the softest lips he’d ever kissed—he stopped thinking altogether. Tentatively, she slipped her tongue between his teeth. And the taste of her—the taste of peanut butter and jelly and…Eve— went straight to his head.

Or his groin.

His erection was now aching like a bad tooth, hammering against the dampness of his swim trunks. And his blood was running so hot he was surprised steam wasn’t billowing up from his crotch.