Page 32 of Second Time Around
Chapter 7
Kyra came awake with a sense of panic because her bed seemed to be rocking violently beneath her. As she registered the weight of Will’s arm over her waist and the feel of his bare skin against hers, her awareness came surging back. The bedwasrocking. She could hear the rumbling sound of a powerful engine and guessed they’d been hit by the wake of a large boat.
Will slept through it without a twitch, but he was accustomed to being on the water. She tried to gauge the time by the slant of light through the porthole. She guessed they’d dozed off for nearly an hour.
Which meant she needed to wake Will. But she closed her eyes again, imprinting on her memory how the muscles and tendons of his arm felt against the softness of her waist, how the tickle of his slow, steady breathing whispered over her skin, how the heat of his big body on her one side contrasted with the brush of the cooling breeze on the other.
She ran her fingertips up a ridge in his arm and shook his shoulder gently. “Will, we fell asleep.”
He stirred, muttering something she couldn’t understand, and pulled her into him. She felt his cock harden and push against her hip.
“Are you awake?” she asked, shaking him again.
“I was trying not to be.”
“I think it’s late,” she said, even as he skimmed his hand up to cup her breast. And suddenly a liquid wave of desire rolled through her to settle low in her belly. But she caught his wrist and pulled it away. “I like the way your mind works, but we don’t have time.”
He let her move his hand before he looked straight up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to leave this bed.”
“I’d be flattered except I know you just dread going back to your family.”
“You’d be wrong. There are many more important reasons I want to stay.” He turned his head back toward her so she could see the seriousness in his eyes. “All of them are about you.”
Happiness shimmered through her like a mirage of clear, cool water on hot asphalt. “Okay, I’m flattered.”
“No flattery, just truth. You’re something special. I knew that at Brunell.”
After those words, Kyra couldn’t lie still. She levered herself up on one elbow, wanting to get a better view of his face to judge his sincerity. “You sure didn’t let on that you felt that way.” She winced at her slip into the country phrasing but she was shocked all over again.
“What do you mean? I came by the suite every chance I could.”
“To see Babette.”
“I always hoped Babette would be busy for at least half an hour.” He gave her a bone-melting smile.
So their conversations hadn’t just been holding patterns for him, as she’d always thought. Why hadn’t he ever given any sign that he wanted more from her? But she knew. He couldn’t have taken her to his frat parties and been comfortable that she would fit in with his friends. She didn’t have the right clothes or the right attitude about drinking or the right social graces. Those were things she’d taught herself later, when she came to New York and her survival depended on it. He probably didn’t even realize that was why he hadn’t asked her out.
“Lucky for me, Babette was a popular girl,” Kyra said, her comment holding an edge she couldn’t keep in.
“Lucky for me, too, in the long run.” Will contracted the magnificent set of muscles in his torso to sit up on the bed. “Duty calls.”
“Does that mean we’re staying for dinner after all?”
He shook his head. “Just a quick stop to say good-bye. Maybe a little longer if they behave themselves.”
“At least you’re not quoting dying gladiators now,” Kyra pointed out.
“Proving that you have done wonders for my mental state,” he said. Standing, he began to gather up their scattered clothing, while she admired the play of muscles moving under his skin. She felt her center go liquid again as she remembered what all the power had felt like over and inside her.
He dropped the clothes on the bed beside her and began to sort them into his and hers. “If you’d like to freshen up, the head is through that door.” He nodded toward the front of the boat.
She didn’t want to wash the feel of him from her body, but she should. “My purse. It’s still outside.”
He pulled on his trousers and ran lightly up the steps, the arches of his bare feet as strong and elegant as the rest of him. “Here you go,” he said, returning with her clutch and her sandals dangling from his fingers.
She stood and stretched up onto her toes to brush a kiss on his cheek. “My knight in khaki armor.” The fact that her breast brushed his chest did nothing to reduce her yearning for him.
The head was roomier than she expected and fitted out with scented soap, fluffy white towels, and a well-lit mirror that made her gasp at the disarray of her hair and makeup. She used a washcloth to clean up and then did her best to redo her face with the minimum of cosmetics in her purse. She hadn’t been prepared for an afternoon of uninhibited sex.
