Page 20 of Tropical Inferno

“I use a coconut shampoo.”

He bent his head and buried his nose in her hair. “Oh yeah. God, that’s so fucking sexy.”

She paused, running her hands up his massive chest, across his broad shoulders, down those muscular arms and around his waist to rest just behind his hips. “All I ask is that when we’re together like this you give me the real Garrett.”

He covered her hands with his and looked deep into her eyes. “Honey, since the moment you zipped past me in that hallway, you’ve had nothing but the real Garrett. He’s the only one that’s good enough for you.”

“Liar.” She took a few steps towards the bedroom and turned to look over her shoulder. “Coming?”

“Oh yeah.”

* * *

Hawk took a moment to compose himself. Not physically—there was only one thing that would solve that problem—but emotionally. She’d done exactly what he hadn’t wanted and wormed her way not just into his heart, but right into his very being. The things she said, the way she looked at him… How the hell would he ever be able to look at another woman after this? How would he be able to look at himself? She was it. He didn’t need months of dating, talking, getting to know each other. He already knew she was the woman for him. If he could, he’d walk her down to the resort’s concierge and get one of the ladies that worked there to tell them exactly what they had to do to get married immediately. It was a fleeting, completely unreasonable thought, but it hit him so hard he had to take a deep breath.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered under his breath. “She’d divorce you so fast your head would spin.”

“Are you trying to talk yourself into or out of coming in here?” she called out to him.

“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he said softly, standing in the doorway and watching as she sprawled on the bed in nothing but black lace panties.

“You already are,” she smiled. “Now come over here and let me lick you.”

He laughed, moving towards her slowly, their eyes locked as he approached. He crawled across the bed in one long, exaggerated movement but she stopped him with a finger to his chest.

“Over there,” she pointed. “Stand next to the bed.”

He backed up and got to his feet again. “Like this?”

“Don’t move unless I tell you to.” She slid to the edge of the bed and sat with her legs hanging over. She nudged down one side of his boxers, eyeing the ink she’d seen peeking out. It was the number “90,” set just inside and below his hip bone, and had a lightning bolt through it. She bent her head and let her tongue curl over the characters, her fingers on either side of it. She glanced up, her lips parted expectantly. “That’s one.”

He took a shaky breath, wondering how he was going to survive her doing this sixteen more times, but she’d already moved down to the outside of his hip, running that warm, wet tongue along the Chinese characters tattooed there.

“It says Nèi zài de lì liàng,” he said quietly. “It’s the longer version of—”

“Inner strength,” she whispered, her eyes wide.

“How did you know?” he frowned.

She stood up and gently pushed him back a couple of inches. She turned her back to him and slowly lowered the edge of her panties, revealing the exact same tattoo right along the edge of her tailbone.

“Maddie.” His voice was full of wonder as he wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his head in the hollow of her shoulder.

“My Garrett,” was all she said, letting one hand drift up and across the side of his face.

“Let me love you,” he whispered.

“Fifteen more tattoos for me to lick, and then you can do anything you want to me.”

“Fuck, baby, that’s the sexiest thing a woman’s ever said to me.”

He closed his eyes and straightened up again, emptying his mind of everything except his lovely sea nymph. She found all of his tattoos, slowly and with purpose, kissing, licking and sucking each one with almost artistic precision. She went from the left hip up his side to the ones on his shoulders and then moved to the three on his bicep and the one on his forearm. Her next stop was his back, finding the four there and running her lips down the length of his spine to inspect the one on his left butt cheek. From there she worked her way up the right side, blowing lightly on them after she’d used her tongue, raising gooseflesh all over his body.

“Mine,” she whispered as she finished the hawk on his right forearm. “All seventeen of them. No matter where we go after we leave here, those seventeen tats are mine. You know why?” Her eyes were burning with heat, but they also twinkled with amusement.

He shook his head.

“Because I licked them.”

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