I tasted salt water on his lips, and I chased the flavor down his cheek and along his jaw. I hummed into the cradle of his neck, my lips and tongue exploring the masculine sinews. With my legs hooked around his hips, I could feel him everywhere. Each of his muscles felt taut, coiled and ready to spring, as though he were holding himself back at the starting line of a race.
“Elise,” he groaned against my ear, his words anchored in need.
I longed to give him everything. Everything he needed. Everything he wanted. I yearned to make up for the times he’d had no one to turn to. For the nights when he’d gone without a comforting touch. For the years he’d been denied love.
I needed to show him. I couldn’t trust myself with words. They’d be too much. They might even scare him away.
But with touch…
I ran one hand down the terrain of his chest, the flesh over his heart both hard and vulnerable. His male nipple was a tight peak under my touch, and breath shuddered from him as I traced it with my thumb. I placed kisses over his pecs, loving how he whispered my name again with greater urgency. Almost like a warning.
And then Cole sprang onto his back, and I was moving through the water. Even with me clinging to him like a baby koala, Cole executed a powerful backstroke that propelled us toward the edge of the pool. And while it lasted, I felt like I was gliding through the water — naked — astride Poseidon himself.
At the edge, about halfway between the deep and the shallow end, Cole pressed my back to the tiled surface and kissed me. Neither hard nor soft, but searching, deep, and slow. While my legs were still entwined around him, here his feet touched the bottom, the water reaching our shoulders.
Cradling my face in his hands, Cole broke the kiss. “You’re not cold anymore.”
I shook my head, letting my lips brush against his. Because wrapped around him like this, I wasn’t cold at all.
His hands roamed over me, and I couldn’t get enough of his smooth, wet-slicked skin. My own hands crested his powerful shoulders, ran down his sculpted arms, and slipped freely over his plated abs. When my fingertips glided below his navel, Cole hissed a sharp breath. I reached further south until my hand closed around him. A shudder passed over his body, Cole’s eyelids drooping with desire. In my grip, he was a paradox. Vital and hard. Febrile and silken. So powerful. So vulnerable. I stroked him, and the muscles all over his torso seemed to dance with tension.
I wanted to watch it happen again — being the source of his heated arousal made me dizzy — but when I moved to make the slow journey from the base of him back up to the tip, Cole grabbed my wrist. Before I knew what was happening, both of our hands were behind my back, and Cole was kissing me. Hard.
“I already lost control once tonight,” Cole panted against my lips before claiming them again. “Now I’m going to take my time with you.”
I sucked in a breath. Cole taking his time with me sounded like heaven. I held him tighter, weightless in body and soul. I loved the feel of him caught between legs, clasping my hands. He was so solid. Permanent. Real.
Mine.
I wanted him to be mine like nothing else. I wanted this — the moment we were sharing under the silent sky — every single night. And if I couldn’t have that, I didn’t want this night to end.
But staying still and frozen in time was not in Cole’s plan. His kisses moved lower until I felt him boost me higher on him so his mouth could suckle my breasts again. The night air tickled my wet skin with its chill, but now I burned so hot the only shivers that coursed through me were ones of pleasure.
Cole’s tongue licked and teased one budded peak before moving to the other. The heat of his mouth was exquisite. He crushed me to him as though he couldn’t get enough. His fingers dug into my flesh, one hand spanning the middle of my back, the other clutching my hip.
He pulled away, breathing hard. Moonlight revealed a starved, desperate look in his pale blue eyes. I felt like they were looking right into me.
“I don’t deserve you, but God help me, I have to have you,” he rasped.
I brought my hand to his cheek, stunned at his words. “You deserve everything you want.”
“You. Only you.”
Cole lowered me in his arms until we were face to face, and then he was kissing me again. Such kisses. They were like sun-warmed honey pouring over my lips straight into my veins. Their sweet heat soaked me in pleasure and raised my pulse. I moaned my thanks for them.
Cole’s lips never left mine, but one of his hands moved from my back, and I was dimly aware of him reaching for the towel. My sluggish, blissed-out mind concluded — quite contently — that we would soon be leaving the pool, heading back to the bedroom.
But in the next instant, Cole caught me at the waist and hoisted me out of the pool. I found myself sitting on the ledge, my legs still submerged as water streamed from my naked torso.
“Lie back,” Cole whispered.
Confused, I frowned. “What?”
Cole placed the flat of his hand on my bare stomach. “Lie back.” He gave me a gentle push, and it was only then I realized he’d spread the towel down behind me. A quick glance at the wolfish gaze in his eyes told me exactly what would happen next. My middle seized as nerves struck.
“Cole—”
He planted his hands on the ledge at either side of my hips. With one great thrust, he lifted his torso out of the water, forcing me to stagger back on my hands. Dripping with salt water and gazing at me like some lust-driven merman, Cole levered forward slowly, urging me down.
