Countering His Claim Page 11

  Pure sexual awareness skittered down her spine. Nothing existed but the two of them and this moment in time. Lowering her arms, she leaned back into him, reveling in the warmth, the strength of his chest supporting her. His heart thumped hard enough for her to feel and it resonated through her entire body, as if it beat just for her.

  He undid the clasp on her bra, sliding the straps down her arms, and she felt the warm evening air brush across her sensitized breasts.

  His hands drifted down her sides, and she tensed as his fingertips found the first bump of a scar. Saying he was fine with her marked body and discovering the reality were two different things, and she couldn’t breathe as his fingers explored her ribs to her collarbone.

  “Della, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice rich and low.

  “But the—”

  He placed a finger over her lips, silencing her protest. “The scars are proof of your amazing inner strength. Enough to withstand something so awful. And that inner strength is something I find alluring. Irresistible.”

  With his acceptance, a shudder ran through her body and, finally, she was able to unleash the passion that had been securely locked away for far too long.

  She kissed him. Hungrily. With all the wanting and needing she had for this man. And he kissed her right back, with as much passion. More.

  The liquid heat of desire spread through her body. He held her waist firmly, keeping her upright, and the imprint of his hand on her bare skin burned with delicious heat. His fingers found the zipper on her skirt and released it. The whisper of the fabric as it fell to pool at her feet was almost as erotic as Luke’s touch. Almost.

  His fingers slipped inside the waistband of her panties, urging them down to join her skirt on the floor. She stepped to the side, away from her clothes, and slipped out of her shoes. Never had she been as meticulously, as erotically undressed.

  “And what about you,” she murmured as she felt for his belt and unbuckled.

  He laid his hands over hers, holding them. “I know this is selfish, but give me a few minutes to learn your body. I can’t see it, so I need to explore. To discover.”

  Biting down hard on her bottom lip, she let go of the belt with its dangling ends and allowed Luke the time he asked for.

  His head dipped, and surprisingly soft hair brushed against her throat, then her collarbone. As his hands and mouth moved across her skin, tingling awareness spread through her.

  Each time his fingers found a scar, he placed a tender kiss on the flesh, and a little piece of her heart melted.

  The heat of his tongue on the underside of her breast surprised her and she gasped. A hand cupped her other breast, while another snaked down her abdomen, to where she needed him the most.

  Too restless with aching need to wait any longer, she reached for him. “My turn.”

  His body moved against hers as he straightened, then his voice was at her ear. “Our turn,” he said, and dragged her lobe into his mouth.

  Her knees swayed, and Luke guided her backward a step until the bed bumped into her calves. He leaned down and she heard the covers being dragged back. Then Luke’s hands were at her waist again. Where they belonged. She eased down until she found the edge of the bed, then lay back, not letting go of his shoulders, bringing him with her. How had she held out against him before tonight? In this moment, he was everything she’d ever needed.

  “Luke,” she said, but didn’t have the words to complete the sentence. To tell him everything she was experiencing.

  He placed a lingering kiss on her lips, then pulled away. “Hold that thought. I’ll be back in a second,” he said. His body heat disappeared and there was a rustling of clothes a few feet away, followed by the sound of fabric landing on the carpet, then a drawer rolling open and a foil packet being opened.

  Then he’d returned to her, his hands making the mattress dip on either side of her head. His breath, so close, sounded rough. “I’ve thought of little else than this moment for days.”

  “Me, too,” she admitted.

  He stilled. “I thought you didn’t want this to happen.”

  “I didn’t think it was the right thing to happen.” Her hands searched for and found his face. Even though she couldn’t see him, she wanted him to know this wasn’t a throwaway remark, that each word was heartfelt. “I thought about it, though. Dreamed about it. About you.”

  “Della,” he groaned.

  He kissed a trail down her neck, over her collarbone and across to a breast, sending her spiraling back into his thrall. She knew his lips had passed over the puckered scars once more but she didn’t care, and the moment his mouth closed over the peak of her breast, she forgot the scars altogether and lost herself in the exquisite sensations his tongue and teeth were evoking.

  Greedy for it all, she touched wherever she could reach—fingertips across the crisp hair of his chest, nails lightly scraping along his abdomen, hand encircling the heaviness of his groin, eliciting a gasp from his lips.

  She ached for him, needed him with a desperation that seemed only matched by his need for her. Whispering his name, she arched her hips, then whispered his name again.

  When he entered her, nestling himself deep inside, her entire body quivered, overwhelmed with sensation, too much, needing more, urging him on. He moved in a steady rhythm, but she was past needing steady, so she wrapped her legs around his hips and murmured, “More.”

  A groan tore from his throat, and his movements became more urgent, frenzied. He hooked an elbow under her knee and lifted, changing the angle of her hips. The wave built higher, taking her up, up, until it broke, and for one perfect instant she was suspended in time and space, outside the world, and all that existed was pleasure and Luke. Then the pleasure came crashing down, filling every single fiber of her being.

  And she wondered what she could ever need again.

  With a final powerful thrust, he followed her over the edge, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders tightly, wanting the moment never to end.

  Minutes later, she still lay in his arms, he in hers, trembling with the intensity of what they’d shared. He’d been right—she didn’t regret it. Not a single moment.

  She’d taken a giant step in moving on with her life—allowing herself to become intimate with a man again. The question now was, how would she ever go back once Luke walked out of her life?

  Eight

  After he’d ordered two coffees, Luke looked back at Della. A small smile played around her mouth as she surveyed the view of the sweeping white beach with gentle wavelets lapping at the sand. He knew the vista from the alfresco dining area of the exclusive French restaurant in Nouméa was spectacular. But he was more interested in watching Della. She glowed, radiating serenity and happiness, and he liked to think he might be part of the reason. She was certainly responsible for how he felt—he couldn’t remember ever feeling such a bone-deep contentment.

  She’d come to him for the past few nights and, despite the darkness she needed to relax, their lovemaking had only grown more and more amazing.

  She turned her head and her eyes met his. An easy smile curved her mouth and a jolt of awareness shook him.

  “Penny?” she said.

  “Nothing. Wondering…” He stopped, almost afraid of what might come out of his mouth. He looked for a safe subject. “Tell me about growing up on ship.”

  “It was great.” Her eyes softened. “There were advantages and disadvantages, of course, but I loved it.” She looked into the distance, obviously remembering moments of her shipboard life, and he wanted to her to look back at him.

  “What sort of disadvantages?”

  She shrugged. “Always having to be on my very best behavior when I was outside our cabin. The lack of other children to play with.”

  “Did you play with the children
of passengers?”

  The waitress came with their coffees and after she’d left, Della turned back to him. “Sometimes, but they were few and far between. My parents mainly worked on cruise liners that were on the luxury end of the scale, catering more to couples and retired people than families. They were limited in the ships they could work on—not only did they need a ship with a vacancy for a captain and a doctor at the same time, but an owner who would allow them to bring a child. Most wouldn’t.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers on the white linen tablecloth, loving the slide of skin that even simple hand-holding could bring. Three nights of Della Walsh weren’t nearly enough to satisfy his craving for her.

  Soon he’d convince her she could trust him enough to leave the lights on. She was beautiful, and seeing the same scars he’d felt under his hands wouldn’t change his opinion. He wanted to watch her toffee-brown eyes when he entered her, see her face when she lost control.

  Soon. He repressed a shudder of anticipation.

  “Tell me about the advantages,” he said.

  Della took a sip of her coffee. “Seeing the world. Spending massive amounts of time with my parents. Meeting interesting people.”

  When he was young, he’d fantasized about an upbringing very similar to the one she described. “Did you go ashore much?”

  She nodded, her eyes faraway. “My mother and I lived ashore until I was three, when my dad became a captain and could bring her back on board. After that, on school holidays, I’d often visit my cousins or grandparents. Sometimes a cousin would come to stay with us on the ship.”

  “You know,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “I envy your childhood.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You do?”

  “I had a sister once. Sarah.” Saying her name again was like a punch to the gut, even after all these years. Which was why he very rarely talked about her.

  Della’s face immediately transformed with concern. “She died?”

  “When I was thirteen,” he said, his tone matter of fact, as if that could counter the old pain. “Drowned at the beach.”

  She tightened her fingers that were still threaded with his. “Oh, Luke, I’m so sorry.”

  “Ironic, really,” he said, one finger of his free hand rubbing the condensation on the side of his wineglass. “That the family who made their money in ships lost a daughter to the sea.”

  She was silent for a moment, leaving him to his own dark thoughts, until she said, “Was that when your father moved away from ships?”

  “No, he’d been scared of the water since he was a kid, so as soon as he inherited, he changed his company to hotels. He didn’t even want us at the beach that day, but my mother took us, anyway. When Sarah died, it just reinforced his fears.”

  “Were you close to Sarah?”

  He nodded. “She was only a year younger, so we spent a lot of time together.”

  “Oh, Luke. Her death must have hit you hard.”

  “Worse than hard.” He cleared his throat. “And a month later, I was sent to boarding school.”

  A barely audible gasp slipped from her lips. “They sent you away?”

  “It was a planned enrollment. They’d always meant to send me, despite my protests.” At her raised eyebrow, he explained. “Before Sarah died, I’d thought they were coming around and would let me live at home through high school.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “After losing one child, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they wanted to keep you close.”

  One might assume that. But one would be wrong.

  “I wasn’t the type of child they wanted to keep close.” He looked out over the azure Pacific Ocean, unwilling to let the memory have a hold on him anymore.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sarah was the perfect one, always instinctively knowing how to please them.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I was…more challenging to parent.”

  “Let me guess,” she said with an understanding smile. “You became even more challenging after losing your sister?”

  He grinned. “You could say that.”

  Her eyes flashed in anger, but he knew it wasn’t aimed at him. There was something nice about having Della on his side.

  “So,” she said, drawing the word out, “even though your parents might have been softening about sending you away before Sarah died, after it happened, while you were grieving and your behavior was worse, they made you go.”

  The memory sat like a rock in the pit of his belly, but he wouldn’t let his face betray his reaction. “That’s about the crux of it, yes.”

  “You were just a boy.” Her outrage on his behalf brought a pink flush to her alabaster cheeks. “Of course you were acting out.”

  “My parents were never particularly good at seeing things from a child’s point of view,” he said, his tone dry. That had to be the understatement of the year. They’d been too wrapped up in themselves and each other and barely noticed he existed.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Within the space of a month, you effectively lost your entire family.”

  “Except Patrick,” he clarified. Besides Sarah, Patrick had been his favorite family member.

  She sipped her coffee, but didn’t take her eyes off him. “Did you see much of him?”

  “Whenever he docked in Sydney, he’d come and take me out of school for the day.” Those days were some of the happiest memories of his childhood. They hadn’t done anything particularly exciting, but Patrick had just had a way of making everything fun and making Luke laugh.

  “Now I see why you envy my childhood—you wanted Patrick to take you out of school to live on the ship with him.” She gazed at him with warm brown eyes that saw too much. He shifted in his seat, but answered truthfully.

  “He told me it was impossible for a child to live on board.” He’d started to wonder if Patrick had believed that, or he’d been protecting his brother who would never have consented, anyway.

  “I had the childhood you wanted—growing up aboard a ship with parents who wanted me with them. And I also lived close to Patrick for the past couple of years.”

  He attempted a smile. “Seems so.”

  “I’m sorry, Luke.” She leaned closer, her gaze sincere. “That must have been hard.”

  With a flick of his wrist, he waved away her concern. He didn’t need it. “It taught me a good lesson when I was young. Never to rely on anyone.” People might promise him the world, but they never stood by him in the tough times. He had friends, sure, including his buddies from boarding school, but he would never depend on another person again, or let them close to his heart.

  “What about relationships?” she asked, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear. “A good partnership needs trust. Partners need to be able to rely on each other. Surely you’d have that when you meet your soul mate?”

  Soul mate? He had to cover the instinctive flinch. That was the last thing he wanted.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not good in relationships. I’m not interested in baring myself to another person, which they tell me is important.” Though, admittedly, he couldn’t remember telling anyone else the story about Sarah, or that he’d wanted to live with Patrick. Not even his ex-wife, Jillian, which probably said a whole lot about his marriage right there.

  There was something about Della that made him let his guard down a bit too much. Which only meant he’d have to work extra hard to ensure neither of them got in too deep.

  He tapped his fingers on the tablecloth, carefully organizing the words in his mind.

  “Della,” he said, capturing her gaze, “I need you to understand that anything with me can only ever be temporary.” He hoped to hell she already knew it from previous conversations, but it couldn’t hurt to be extra sure. And to remind himself.

/>   Her eyelashes hid her eyes as she looked down at her hands in her lap. “So you’ll always be alone?”

  “It worked for Patrick, it will work just fine for me.” He’d have occasional female company, and he had a strong group of friends. Alone didn’t necessarily mean lonely. It meant being in control of his own life.

  “Luke, have you considered that you resent the Cora Mae?” she asked gently. “That the person you wanted to live with as a child kept leaving you for a ship and wouldn’t let you follow. And if you resent the ship, that might be behind your determination to anchor it?”

  He winced. That sounded like a pile of psychobabble, but something tugged deep inside him. Was he trying to fulfill a boy’s wish of keeping Patrick’s ship chained down nearby?

  He shrugged. “Who knows how the subconscious works. Either way, it also makes good business sense.” He rubbed a hand across his chin. “How much do you know about floating hotels?”

  “I’ve seen photos, heard stories.”

  Hearing stories and knowing specifics were poles apart. “My staff has finished working on the preliminary plans for the Cora Mae’s conversion and I need to review them, so I’ll be flying out to Melbourne for one night. Come with me.”

  He’d previously considered showing her the plans his vice president was overseeing and decided there wasn’t much to be gained—he was confident she would sell him all or part of her share of the ship regardless, and getting into extra detail would just muddy the waters. But something had changed. He no longer wanted her to merely sell her share of the Cora Mae, he wanted her to understand that this really was the best thing for the ship. To agree with him. To want the transformation of her home.

  He cared about Della. When this was all over, he didn’t want her to look back on their time together with bad feelings, or to think she’d somehow lost. He’d like to think she’d remember him fondly. This situation with the ship needed to be resolved in a win-win. Della had to be convinced his plan was for the best.

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “When?”

  He did a few mental calculations about flight times and their next ports of call. “How much notice do you need to give the medical department to get another doctor to cover you?”