His lips made contact and she cried out his name, her hips flying off the bed. In response, he gripped her, his fingers pressing into the firm flesh of her thighs and behind, easily catching and holding her weight in his hands.
Then he ran his tongue around the outer edge of her opening, slowly, deliberately, agonizingly slow, and when his circle was completed, he plunged his tongue inside her, and she dove over the edge.
Her body convulsed like a storm, hot waves of her pleasure pulsing, while her breath came in ragged gasps. His kiss had shaken her to her core. This—this had shattered her into a million pieces and melted each and every one of them.
Congealing back into her former self, she couldn’t stop the goofy grin.
He hadn’t been lying. There was a long stretch between celibacy and not pregnant, and it seemed like a week of enforced vacation with Drake might be the perfect time to explore it. His eyes—easy, warm and cocky, as always—suggested he was up for the adventure.
She just had to remember that he was also up for crossing that outer boundary. He was exciting and thrilling and more beautiful with every passing moment, but like all of the aristocratic men she’d known in her life, he had an agenda.
An agenda that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with her name and her father.
The thought cast a shadow over her lingering pleasure as she sat up. Sliding off the bed and pulling up her shorts, she marveled that so much could shift without getting completely undressed.
In fact, he was fully clothed, if disheveled.
Which was convenient, as someone chose the moment to swing the door open exuberantly.
Hel quickly scanned the newcomer, noting that she was a statuesque young woman with deep umber skin whose proportions presented serious competition to Queen Mina’s newly famous curves. The young woman’s hair was deep black and hung to her waist in hundreds of tiny braids. Each one was perfect and glossy, many of them decorated with thin golden rings and tiny gold cuffs that sparkled where they caught the light.
It was little Nya, all grown up and gorgeous. And, based on the stunned expression on her face, she had not been expecting her brother to be entertaining company.
“I—Oh, goodness. I’m so sorry!” she gasped.
Hel blushed—she wouldn’t have been able to help that if her life depended on it, to her shame—but she didn’t cringe or flinch in the face of being caught. She’d never be a spy, but she’d learned how to make up for her weakness by being better than everyone else at her job. And, as long as they weren’t deadly, she’d learned to see embarrassments and stumbling blocks, such as being caught playing with fire when your honor was on the line, as opportunities to learn and grow.
This situation, for example, was an excellent reminder of just how quickly things burned out of control when touching got involved.
Touching was most definitely not safe, not when the mere brush of skin set them off like it did.
Hel shook her head, opening her mouth to say that she should be the one to apologize, when Drake cut her off, turning to Nya with frustration in his voice. “Helene, Nya. Nya, Helene. Helene and I have some serious matters to come to a conclusion on and not much time to do it so I am taking her to Yancy Grove. We’ll sail on theIbrahim.”
“Now? It’s past eleven o’clock at night,” Nya pointed out.
Hel, to whom this was also news, lifted an eyebrow.
“Yes, immediately. We’ll be gone no more than a week, Nya. Stay out of trouble.”
It was a clear dismissal, and his sister, desperate to get out of the room, was going to heed it. She smiled the same half smile her brother had and said, “I always try,” then shot Hel a final apologetic wave and left the room.
The room was quiet, neither of them speaking, the weight of what they’d done heavy and delicious all at once, until Hel couldn’t take it anymore.
Forcing a half smile, she tilted her head, brought a hand to her chin and pondered. “I wonder what she wanted.” She had always been happy to play the clown if it meant lightening the mood, a trait she’d learned from her mother.
Just as it’d always worked with her mother, Drake smiled at her, the expression warmer and more rooted than her attempt had been, and he reached a hand out to her.
She didn’t know whether it was because of the incredible adventure of the day they’d shared, or because she knew they’d been heading in a direction she’d had no control over and was still shaken from it, but she took it.
For a moment, she thought he might pull her close, but then he released her hand to grab a jacket from a closet.
“You’re going to need another layer when we get down to the harbor.”
Smiling, she slipped the high-quality, but much-too-large waterproof jacket over her body, swimming in it ridiculously like some kind of haute couture runway model.
“You’re always trying to get me in a dress,” she teased.
He laughed. “I will deny it to my dying breath. We both know I am trying to get yououtof your dress.”