He nods. It seems like he blinks less than most normal humans. I find myself wishing he’d do it more, if only to give me a break from the piercing intensity of his stormy gray eyes.
“It gets claustrophobic down there sometimes,” he remarks. “I thought you might need a little breather.”
“Do you do that for everyone on your payroll?” I ask.
“Just the ones that interest me.”
“Hate to disappoint, but I’m not that interesting,” I say, trying to cover my blush with another sip of the champagne.
“I disagree,” he says. “In fact, I might be almost as interested in you as you seem to be in me.”
This time, I do actually choke. “What makes you say that?” I ask when I regain my composure.
“For starters, you’ve spent most of the night thus far staring at me through the kitchen windows.”
At this point, there’s no way I can stop the embarrassed blush from ravaging my cheeks. I hand the champagne back to him only because I think I might break the glass if I hold on to it any longer.
“No, that was… That was just absent daydreaming.”
He smiles. “Why deny it, Jessa? Why deny yourself what you want?”
I look down and fidget. “I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.”
“You couldn’t if you tried,” he demurs. “But I should warn you: staring at me too long will get girls like you into trouble.”
My heart thunders frantically against my chest. “What kind of trouble?”
“The kind of trouble that involves moonlight and champagne,” he says with a smile that makes my insides clench. “The kind that swallows you up before you even know it’s happening.”
He dangles his hand over the edge of the yacht. I watch as he releases the half-empty flute. The glass falls into the ocean. A few thousand dollars’ worth of champagne guzzled greedily by the black waves.
“Why did you do that?” I gasp.
He smiles. “I wanted my hands free.”
“For what?”
“For this.”
He turns and grabs me. And before I can make sense of what is happening, I’m being kissed.
Anton’s hand falls to the small of my back and he pulls me against his body. His body is rock hard underneath the thin fabric between us.
And it’s not the only part of him that’s rock hard.
The cautious side of my brain starts blaring with a thousand alarm bells. But I can barely hear any of it over the scream of my desires. Desires I never even knew I had.
When his tongue slashes across my lower lip, I shudder and part my mouth for him.
When his hand lands between my legs, I melt instinctively.
He pulls back just enough so that he can speak. “Do you want me to stop, kotyonok?”
“No,” I say, the word wrenching itself breathlessly from my lips. “Never.”