“Maybe.” Robert nodded, but he didn’t look overly optimistic. “But right now, I’d rather think about your first massage. Why don’t you grab the beach towel from the bag and spread it out on that rock closest to the pool. I’ll run up and get the water situation sorted out and be right back.”
“You don’t have to give me a massage,” she said, heart beating faster. “Really, I—”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” he said in a husky tone. “Spread out the towel, take off as many clothes as you’re comfortable taking off, and get settled. I’ll be right back.”
Marisol watched Robert disappear around the side of the bluff, up another trail, a mixture of panic and arousal flooding through her veins. She stepped out of her boots and pulled off her socks, but panic won out as she reached for the hem of her tee shirt.
She craved Robert’s hands on her as much as she craved that shower he’d promised, but she was also anxious about an impending sexual encounter in a way she hadn’t been since high school. But then this wasn’t just a casual hook-up, or a way to ease the loneliness for an hour or two before it inevitably came rushing back. This was the first time with a man she cared about, someone she hoped would stick around after the role-playing was over and the blindfolds removed. And it had been ages since she’d been with anyone—long, lonely years that had made her as guarded with her body as she was with her heart.
What if her protective shell had calcified and there would be no breaking free? What if she would forever be denied a meaningful connection with another human being simply because she’d done too damned good a job at walling herself away in her tower?
For the first time since she and Robert left the ranch, Marisol could see this fairytale afternoon ending badly. The curse would never be broken, the princess would never wake up, and the prince would go on to find a woman with a less complicated back story and no skeletons lurking in her closets.
At that moment, with a wave of fear bearing down on her, Marisol stopped hearing the whispers of her heart. She stopped hearing anything but the voices that assured her this was never going to work, and it was only a matter of time before Robert figured out she wasn’t worth the trouble and the warmth vanished from his eyes.
The voices sounded like her parents and Shane and all the old high school “friends” who had called her a whore behind her back long before there was any reason for the gossip that followed her around school. The voices were so loud, so vicious, that Marisol didn’t realize she was crying until a tear fell to the dry earth by her feet, and didn’t hear Robert returning until he was standing in front of her, drawing her into his arms.
“Shhh,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked, voice thick with tears as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his tee shirt. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But I obviously don’t know how to do this right,” he said, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back that helped her regain control. “I made you cry.”
“You didn’t make me cry.” She tilted her head back to meet his gaze, fighting to keep her face from crumpling all over again. “Imade me cry. My stupid head and thoughts and…other stupid things.”
Robert smiled faintly as he brushed the tears from her face with his thumbs. “I hate stupid things. Tell the stupid things to give you a break.”
Marisol shook her head. “I don’t know if they will. And I don’t know if I can do this. I want to, I really do, but I—”
“And that’s all I care about.” Robert tugged gently at her hair band until her ponytail came undone, sending her hair falling around her shoulders. “You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is relax, and let me do the heavy lifting this time around.”
Her lips parted, but before she could say a word, he’d leaned down and claimed her mouth with the same assurance he had last Saturday, the night everything between them had started to change. His tongue pressed against her teeth and she opened for him without a hint of resistance, because when it came to this man, the last thing she wanted to do was resist. She wanted to let go, let loose, and let hope sweep in and shove fear back into the corner where it belonged.
Now, with Robert close and his taste in her mouth and his hands skimming up and down her ribs, making her blood pump faster, she found the strength to push the darkness away. She dug her fingers into the thick muscles of his back and held on tight to what she wanted, what she needed so desperately that she was trembling by the time he pulled away to tug her tee shirt up and over her head in one swift motion.
Marisol sucked in a surprised breath as the fabric floated free, but before a coherent thought could form, she was back in Robert’s arms, being swept off her feet. He sat down on the rock beside the pool, stretching out onto his back, urging her on top of him as he moved. She was aware of the way the sun-warmed stones heated her bare arms and felt a momentary flash of concern for how uncomfortable the hard rock must be against Robert’s spine, but then he cupped her breasts in his hands and she lost awareness of everything but the electricity he sent coursing through her body.
Even through the thin cotton of her bra, his touch was enough to turn her insides molten and send a heavy, achy feeling spreading through her core. He popped the clasp and stripped her bra down her arms a moment later, making her nipples pull into tight points that begged for his attention. Then he captured her ribs in his big hands, and lifted her into the air, up to his mouth, and she could do nothing but moan as he made her feel things she’d forgotten she knew how to feel.
He pulled first one nipple into his mouth and then the other, licking and sucking and nipping at her flesh with his teeth until her womb contracted with sharp twists and heat rushed from between her thighs. She braced her hands on his shoulders and arched her back, crying out as he slowly drove her crazy, all while supporting the entire weight of her upper body with an ease that made her viscerally aware of how strong he was.
Robert had at least thirty pounds of pure muscle on any man she’d ever been with, but the way he touched her made her feel safe, sheltered from the world and anything that would try to hurt her. By the time he reached for the close of her jeans, her fear had faded to a dull drone, barely audible over the desire roaring in her veins. By the time he stripped her jeans down her legs, her fear had vanished and Marisol couldn’t get out of the last of her clothes fast enough.
She reached for the top of her panties, but Robert stopped her with a hand around her wrist.
“I want to undress you,” he said, rolling them over until she lay beneath him and the warmth of the wide stone soaked through her skin. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel the slightest bit of discomfort from the rock pressing against her shoulders and tailbone, but then again, she was too distracted by the sight of Robert drawing back to strip his shirt up and over his head to pay attention to anything but how breathtaking he looked half naked.
His chest was every bit as beautiful as her brief glimpses in backstage dressing rooms had led her to believe, but he was no cookie cutter hunk of man meat. He was unique, purely Robert, and she knew she would never forget this first glimpse of him. She reached up, running her hands reverently over his bare skin. One of his rounded pecs sat a little higher than the other, and where his abdominal muscles divided into sharply delineated segments, the slight asymmetry continued. He didn’t have as much hair on his chest as she would have guessed, but the slight dusting across his pectoral muscles felt delicious under her fingertips and she couldn’t keep her eyes from dropping to the trail of brown hair disappearing into the top of his jeans, where a thick bulge left no doubt as to the way she affected him.
“You keep looking at me like that, and I’m not going to be able to go slow,” Robert said in a rough voice that made Marisol’s nipples pull almost painfully tight.
“You don’t have to go slow,” she said, letting her fingers trail lower, raking her fingernails lightly over the hard ridge beneath his jeans, shivering when the movement summoned a groan from low in his throat. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“I’m not even close,” he said, capturing her wrists in his hands and pinning them gently to the stone above her head. “I haven’t kissed you everywhere I want to kiss you yet.”
“I don’t need any more kisses.” She looped her legs around his waist, flexing her muscles until his cock rubbed against where she was aching for him. “God, you feel so good.”
“And you drive me crazy. Fuck, Marisol, you make me feel like I’m fifteen again.” He ground against her, hips rocking back and forth, fucking her through their clothes as he captured her mouth in a brutal, sanity-stealing kiss.