Adrift, p.8
Adrift, page 8
part #4 of Serendipity Adventure Romance Series
She didn’t do the vixen thing, though, by tossing her hair and teasing him with a wink. She looked dead serious about getting it exactly right. Which was a forgone conclusion. Didn’t she know that? Anything she did would be perfect. The best he’d ever had in his life.
A second later, she dipped down and proved it, and that chorus of angels hit a high note in his head.
She kissed him on the tip — a featherlight touch — then followed up with a heavy lick.
He saw sparks. Fireworks. Low, choked noises came from his throat. And when Meredith formed an O with her mouth and took him deep, he shot straight to cloud nine. His head fell back to the pillow, and his toes curled while he forced the rest of his body to lie perfectly still. She slid up, taking him even deeper. Her tongue swished around him while her lips made little rippling movements, and he clutched at the sheets. What he really wanted was to clutch her hair, but he was too far gone to keep it gentle, to do it right.
“Meredith,” he groaned, one lick away from coming in her mouth.
She kept right on going, pushing him closer to the edge.
“Mer…”
One long pull brought her back to the head, and he just about burst. But this wasn’t about getting him off. It was about both of them finding comfort after a crazy day. So he threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her up, bringing her glistening lips to his in one quick move. He would have liked to say something suave or funny to segue into where he planned to take this next, but the second he tasted himself on her lips, his mind went blank.
Meredith was pressing him down onto his back, but after another minute of soulful kissing, she leaned back and waved the condom in the air.
“I think it might be time for this.” She grinned, and he did, too. About a mile wide, it felt like, given the stretch of his cheeks.
“I know it’s time for this,” he said, helping her slide it over him.
Chapter Eight
Meredith ordered her hand not to shake as she unrolled the condom. It made no sense for her hand to shake. So Tuss was big. So he was delicious. So she couldn’t wait to feel him slide inside her. No reason to shake, right?
But she was shaking, because she’d never had sex like this. They’d barely even started, and she already knew it would top their night in Bonaire — a night she thought had been the best sex of her life — until now. The best because it was body and soul, a total surrender to a passion that came out of nowhere and all but knocked her over the head.
Tuss put his hand over hers and watched her unroll the condom with dark, smoldering eyes.
“My turn,” he murmured the second the condom was in place.
With one big hand, he pushed her gently onto her back. Not that she needed much convincing. With one hand on each of his chiseled shoulders, she guided him into position. By all rights, she ought to have felt caged in, but all she felt was the electricity buzzing between them, the heady anticipation of a high.
“My turn, too,” she whispered, drawing him into a giant, openmouthed kiss.
Her right foot hooked behind his calf, and Tuss started walking a hand down her body in response. He traced the lines of her collarbone gently, then circled each breast. When he reached her belly button, he traced a pattern around it.
“What are you doing?” she giggled.
“Drawing.” Tuss grinned, hovering an inch away from her lips.
“Drawing what?”
“A compass rose. Here’s north…” His hand slid up, right between her breasts — a move he punctuated with a separate peck to her lips. “West is over here.” He short-cutted over to her ribs, then swept up to knead a breast. “Which means north by northwest is right over here…”
Her eyes rolled back under the magic of his touch.
“Northeast…” he whispered, circling the other side until her nipple was aching and erect.
The foot she had hooked over his started climbing higher as she let her knees drop farther apart.
“South,” she whispered. “What about south?”
He nuzzled her cheek with his chin, and her skin tingled all over.
“I was just getting there. South.” Never had a cardinal direction sounded more like a cardinal sin. “I like south.”
I like south, too, she nearly said, but all that came out was a squeak as he traced a finger down her centerline. One big finger slowly explored her folds, and she’d never felt more electrified. She lifted her hips off the mattress, greedy for more of his touch.
His knee nudged her legs farther apart, and when she extended her arms over her head, he ducked to kiss her breast.
“Tuss…” she breathed, opening completely, arching into his touch.
He worked her most sensitive spots, tweaking her nipples, probing with one finger, then two while circling her clit with his thumb.
“Yes…” she cried as he drove her higher and higher. “Tuss,” she panted, winding both legs around him. “Please…”
His nostrils flared as he came out of his hunch and stretched to his full length over her. He rested one hand by her ear and used the other to pin both her hands over her head. His cock had been jutting into her thigh, but now it was nestled right at her entrance, and she wiggled closer, desperate for more.
With one push of the hips, he was inside, and the searing sensation made her cry out. In pain; in pleasure. All a very fine line.
“Yes,” she moaned, begging with her eyes, her voice, her body.
Tuss pulled out then drove back in, bumping her up the mattress.
“Again. Again.” She pulled her legs so high, they were nudging his rear, spurring him along.
For every inch he pulled back, he thrust two deeper, until she was sure they were both at their limits. Sweat shone on his brow. His lips pulled back from his teeth as he thrust again and again, proving her wrong and right at the same time, because she’d never felt anything like this before. The sheer, pulsing power. The steady rhythm. The overwhelming need to cry for more and more.
“Tuss,” she murmured, meeting each push of his hips with little bucks and nudges of her own. “Oh…” She drew a deep breath and clamped her inner muscles around him, slowing the next thrust.
“God, Mer…” He groaned, closing his eyes. “So good.”
He stayed rooted deep inside her, then withdrew slowly and met her eyes.
Again, his eyes begged.
Her whole soul cheered. He liked that. He liked what she did. She nodded, then cried out as he filled her again.
Tuss opened his mouth in a silent groan as she contracted over him, begging her to do it again.
And again and again, until she thought she couldn’t keep it up any more. But if Tuss could maintain his relentless rhythm, she sure wasn’t going to wave the white flag anytime soon.
“So close,” he croaked the next time he pulled back.
She was close, too. With any other man, she’d have long since stumbled over a hidden threshold and petered out to a so-so conclusion. But with Tuss…
“Yes,” she huffed as his rhythm quickened. “Yes…” she whispered, trying not to share her pleasure with Superfly and the rest of the village, as difficult as that was. “God, yes.”
Tuss’ mouth opened as he pounded harder. He pulled her leg higher along his side, found a new angle, and hammered on. She came with a keening cry, clutching at him with every limb until he, too, stiffened all over and came with a long, low groan.
“Mer…” He panted into her neck.
She held on, fluttering her hands all over his back. They were both breathless and gleaming with a fine layer of sweat.
“That was — Oh!” She cried out with an aftershock of sheer pleasure, and he held her close, still buried deep inside.
Tuss lowered himself over her, spreading his weight so as not to crush her. She couldn’t move, and she didn’t want to move. And neither, it seemed, did he.
“Just one more second…” he murmured.
She laid a hand over his heart to feel the heavy beats, the evidence of what she’d done to him.
“How about all night?” she whispered, kissing his shoulder.
“All night sounds good,” he said. His voice was a little slurred, and suddenly, she felt it, too — exhaustion, creeping back in.
The sounds of the rain forest filtered back into her senses. The chirp of countless insects, the swaying of leaves, the peeping calls and cries of birds. Were they calling to their own lovers? Giggling at the antics of the humans nestled in a cabin in their midst?
She stroked Tuss’ broad back and closed her eyes, etching the moment into her memory.
When he sat up to dispose of the condom, she wanted to protest, but a second later, he blew out the candle and nestled up along her body, snuggling her back to his chest. All possession, all protection. He hooked an arm over her ribs, held her hand, and kissed her back.
“See?” he teased in the darkness.
She blinked. “See what?”
“I told you you’re amazing.”
There he was, being all delusional again.
“Sure,” she snorted. “I am beautiful. I am perfect. I am a goddess…”
“Who says you have to be?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
Tuss shrugged. “Just be you. I like you just the way you are.”
Part of her wanted to thump his arm and say, Sure, just try being me sometime. You’ll see how far from perfect I am. But when she considered his thick, muscled shoulders and his perfect mocha skin, she stopped. Maybe the road to being himself hadn’t been all that easy for Tuss. He’d said it himself.
In Denmark, I’m Haitian. In Haiti, I’m Danish. I’m always somewhere in between.
“You are amazing,” he murmured. “And you are a great kisser.”
She wiggled closer within the scoop of his body and closed her eyes. She didn’t have the energy to protest. And deep down inside, part of her even believed. Maybe I am amazing. At least a little tiny bit.
“Sleep tight, fair lady.” His voice caught a little when he said it, as if it wasn’t just a joke.
“Sleep tight, fair knight,” she whispered back.
She could feel him smile against her skin. “Believe me, I will.”
He said it with such conviction, she let the last strands of tension go and closed her eyes, slowly surrendering to sleep.
Chapter Nine
“Pssst.”
Meredith flapped a lazy hand at the fly buzzing around her head and hugged the sheet a little higher up her bare chest. She was not ready to wake up. So not ready to wake up.
“Pssst.” The fly buzzed again.
She grimaced and ducked under the covers, smoothing a hand over Tuss’ broad back. Then she blinked. Wait a minute…
She jolted upright, clutching the sheet. “Oh!”
A little boy with big eyes and an equally big grin smiled at her. “Hey, nice lady.”
Nice lady? More like naughty lady. Her eyes fluttered to Tuss, snoozing soundly at her side, buck naked.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
A rooster crowed outside, and just enough light crept in through the plaited banana-leaf paneling to signal dawn. A quiet morning after much too short a night.
Still, her body was warm, her brain not yet in hyperdrive as it really ought to be, given everything that had transpired in the past eleven hours. She ought to be fretting about whether Serendipity was all right and how she’d get to Prickly Bay — not to mention figure out what she’d say to the man who’d made her cry in pleasure last night. But all she could do was grin dumbly and surrender to the utter bliss.
“Superfly says to tell da nice lady she got to get up.”
Get up? Her whole body rebelled, and one ankle snuck back to Tuss’ side of the bed.
“Superfly says, some men been asking about da nice lady,” the boy went on.
Her spine stiffened. “Men? What men?”
“Buncha white men in nice white shirts,” the boy said.
She just about dropped the sheet in her shock.
“Superfly says, show you da back way out.” The boy gestured over his shoulder.
“Coming. Just a second.”
She’d been dreaming of waking Tuss with a whisper and a kiss, but there was no time for that. She swatted at his shoulder.
“Tuss! Wake up!”
The second the boy turned to wait outside, she jerked out of bed and ran around the cabin, collecting her clothes.
“Tuss. Tuss…” She shook him. God, the man was a sound sleeper. God, his shoulders were round. And damn, had he known just how to touch her…
She hauled her mind back on track and fiddled with her bra. “Tuss,” she hissed, pulling on her shorts.
“Hmm?”
Even groggy, the man exuded hot, sexy vibes.
She pushed his clothes at him. “They’re coming! Hurry!”
“Who’s coming?” he mumbled, burying his head in the pillow. In any other situation, she’d have leaned over and tousled his hair, kissed him on the brow, and let her hands explore all that uncharted territory.
“A bunch of white men in nice white shirts.”
That got him moving, all right.
“Jesus. Andreiivich’s men?”
She paused. Until last night, Tuss had been one of Andreiivich’s men. Now he was her…rescuer? Lover? Huge mistake?
Her mind quickly scratched out the third option. Whatever happened, Tuss wasn’t a mistake. He was the best thing that had happened to her in…in… Her mind spun through months, then years, wandering over so many heart-tearing trials, so much pain. She spun on through all the memories, then crashed up against a stunningly clear conclusion.
Tuss was the best thing that had happened to her, ever.
She had a way of picking lost causes, of having to be the strong one. And for so long, she’d felt adrift — a boat without a compass or a wind to fill its sails. But with Tuss, even this crazy situation seemed manageable somehow.
And right now, that meant moving fast, not overthinking things.
“Hurry,” she said, pulling him to his feet. Then she wavered for one second despite her rush, marveling at the look he gave her. The one that said, You’re amazing, you know that?
“Coming,” he said, pulling on his shorts.
Once they were outside, the boy waved them onward, jogging silently over the dirt path. Leaves and vines grabbed at her hair and clothes, but she hurried on as quietly as she could. Quietly enough to hear voices in the distance. Insistent, angry voices completely unlike the islander’s smooth, singsong tones. When she heard a snippet of Russian, her pace went from slow jog to jittery run to all-out sprint.
The backpack jostled between her shoulders. A thorn scratched her bare arm. Tuss ran along behind her, cursing under his breath.
Okay, maybe they’d slept too long. But the last thing she was expecting was Andreiivich’s men to find her in a mountain village that probably wasn’t on any map. On the other hand, how difficult could it have been to ask a few questions, flash a few dollars, and track an out-of-place white woman down?
“Shit.” She cursed her own recklessness, then threw a hand over her mouth. “I mean shoot,” she muttered at the little boy’s back.
Behind her, Tuss chuckled, damn him. It was all his fault she’d turned off her brain and let the hormones roar. All his fault she’d slept like a baby. All his fault…
The string of complaints turned into a river of hot memories and a dirty grin. He’d made her feel so damn good. Better than good. He’d freed her from her captors and her inhibitions. So, she might be able to forgive him, given all that.
The path grew narrower, muddier, curvier. She ran around a tight turn and nearly bowled the little boy over at the intersection where he’d paused.
“Dat way.”
A branch snapped in the distance. Meredith whipped her head around.
“Dat way,” the boy said urgently. “Past Seven Sisters Falls then down da valley…”
Tuss pulled her along. “Got it. Let’s go.”
“Wait!”
She twisted to dig her wallet out of her backpack and handed three twenties to the little boy. “Tell Superfly thank you, please. Tell everyone thank you.”
The minute the money was out of her hand, Tuss tugged her along. “You are too much.”
“But we owe them for the cabin.”
He shook his head. A good kind of shake of the head, though. A what am I going to do with you shake, a lot like the one he’d given her last night.
“I love how you do it while running for your life.”
She looked back, alarmed at the sound of footsteps. Shit, he wasn’t kidding.
They crashed through a thick patch of forest, then raced across a banana grove. The going was easier there, but she felt dangerously exposed. She flew across the lumpy ground, wishing for the cover of the forest again.
“Here,” Tuss grunted, ducking behind a hedge to a dirt road. He motioned for her to run ahead while he looked back.
“Anything?” she called as quietly as she could.
“No one.”
He didn’t say, Not yet, but she could hear the unspoken words in his tone.
The dirt road split, and she followed the hand-painted sign to the right.
“Seven Sisters Falls,” Tuss read, catching up.
His stride was long, and hers was surprisingly steady given that she hadn’t done much running in the past weeks. Not the fleet steps of her athlete sister, but not bad, considering. She just hoped she could keep it up.
They splashed through an ankle-deep stream, then leaped from boulder to boulder, steadily climbing upstream.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Tuss called.
“He said past the falls, then down the valley.” Plus, the area fit her sister’s description. Mia and Ryan had explored Grenada in the days before their flight home while Meredith stayed back on Serendipity to give the happy lovers their private time. Now, she wished she’d done the hike with them — at an easy hiking pace, not a run.
Tuss cursed behind her, and just when she started to turn, he touched her back. “Don’t look. Just run.”
