Cherish Hard
Page 14

The message was on its way seconds later, a reply received not long afterward.
“Done?” When she nodded and put away her phone, he used this thumb to stroke her inner wrist and got a little shiver in response.
His body reacted as if primed. “You want to hang out at this party any longer, or are we going skinny-dipping?”
10
Public Nakedness with a Certain Gardener (Blame the Moonlight)
ÍSA WONDERED WHAT THE HELL she was doing.
Being a devil woman, she reminded herself. Having fun for a change. Not being a grandma at twenty-eight years of age.
Still, she couldn’t stop second-guessing herself as Sailor led her out of the house through a side entrance that opened out into a small, manicured garden. “I’ll have to take off my heels,” she whispered when she saw the pebbled path snaking through the garden.
“Want a piggyback ride?” A playful grin. “I promise not to molest your thighs.”
Goose bumps broke out over Ísa’s skin, her nipples tight. Reckless as she was feeling tonight, she might just have taken him up on his offer if she hadn’t been worried her damn dress would split in two. “Maybe when we’re naked,” she said instead, Devil Ísa in full flower.
Groaning, he doubled over as if she’d punched him.
Her lips twitching despite the melting sexual heat liquefying her bones, she leaned down to slip off her heels.
The man named Sailor waited, his hand firm around hers, until she was done. Taking the heels from her, he carried them in his other hand as Ísa padded beside him on the grass that lay on this side of the pebbled path. The path ended at a weathered wooden gate, which, when opened, put them at the top of a narrow walkway that led down onto a beach Ísa couldn’t yet see but could hear.
Her heart crashed in time with the waves as they made their way down to the beach while the mansion behind them pulsed with light and music. But she didn’t turn and run away, she didn’t stop and talk herself out of it, she didn’t attempt to be a sensible adult. She followed a gorgeous, blue-eyed man down a dirt pathway to an effectively private beach.
The sand that had been tracked onto the path was gritty under her feet, the air coming off the sea cool but not cold.
“The water’s going to be icy, isn’t it?” she whispered to his broad back.
“Don’t worry, spitfire. I’ll keep you warm,” was the deep-voiced response. “Stop here.” Jumping down to the beach, he reached up to grab her by the waist, swinging her down as if she were a featherweight.
Something fluffy and mushy came to life inside Ísa. “Here?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Raj said there’s like a little cove area—not a proper cove, but caused by— There.”
Ísa saw it at once. A huge tree had fallen into the water at some point and smashed up against some rocks where it appeared to be stuck. Between the jutting rocks on either side and the fallen trunk was a naturally created pool. The water within it was pretty calm, and it looked as if they could get to it by clambering over some rocks that didn’t appear too sharp or slippery.
Of course, she’d be walking over those rocks naked.
Ísa looked up at the moon. Imagined it shining on the stark white of her body. Gulped. “Will you close your eyes while I go in the water?” Even Devil Ísa wasn’t up for blinding him with her glow-in-the-dark form.
A glance back. “What’re you going to bribe me with?”
Ísa scowled. “Not pushing you into the water right now.” It was a toothless threat given his muscles and her lack of them.
Rubbing his jaw, he said, “Three tongue kisses. That’s my price, and I’m not budging.”
Ísa wanted to pounce on him all over again. “Two,” she countered.
“Nuh-uh. Three. Or I’m keeping both eyes wide open.” Leaning in, he pressed his nose to hers. “I really want to keep my eyes wide open.”
And Ísa really wanted to kiss him and run her hands all over that sculpted chest. “Three,” she whispered.
A wild grin. “Damn. I knew I should have asked for five.”
Laughing because he made her want to do things like that, made her feel young and carefree rather than a woman who was old before her time, she leaned in and kissed him soft and sweet. “No tongue till you keep your promise.”
“You’re a tough negotiator, spitfire.” Tugging her forward, he led her to a higher part of the beach. “We should be able to leave our stuff here.”
It was an area on the sand made distinctive by a particular gathering of rocks. It’d be easy to find in the dark afterward… though the closer she got to skinny-dipping, the more it didn’t feel dark at all. That moon was freaking big. And Sailor was already putting her heels on the sand and tugging off his T-shirt.
Dropping it on the sand, he reached down to pull off his shoes.
When he saw that she wasn’t moving, he stopped. “You change your mind?”
He looked like she’d just told him she was taking away his puppy. So adorably disappointed that Ísa wanted to jump on him and kiss him stupid for making her feel more wanted than she’d ever before felt in her entire life. “No,” she said, and put her purse on his T-shirt. “Just nervous. And I don’t have much to take off.”
“You’re really mean,” he said, his tone solemn. “Putting thoughts like that into my poor male brain.” Undoing his belt after putting his socks into his shoes and setting them aside, he pulled off his jeans and threw them onto the growing pile of clothes.
Black boxer briefs didn’t really hide much—especially not the hard ridge of his sizable erection.
Breath catching, Ísa had to force herself to turn away and not stare. “I won’t look,” she promised.
He laughed. “I don’t mind. I like my sexy redhead looking at me.”
Sexy redhead.
Ísa’s stomach clenched. Oh, she liked being thought of that way. As a sexy redhead. The kind of woman who might be a femme fatale if it struck her fancy. The kind of woman who was about to go skinny-dipping with a relative stranger with demon-blue eyes.
Glancing quickly over her shoulder because she had no self-control, she saw that he was facing the water… and that he’d stripped off his briefs while she hadn’t been looking. God. She was about to go skinny-dipping with a man straight out of a female wet dream. Complete with that incredible tattoo around his left thigh and another one high up on his right shoulder.
“Hurry up, spitfire, or I’ll come help you.”
Biting down hard on her lower lip because she wanted nothing more, Ísa quickly unzipped her dress before she could lose her nerve. It took a ridiculously short time to wriggle out of it. That done, she almost tore off her panties. “Okay, let’s go,” she said to Sailor after shifting so that she was directly behind him.
Reaching back, he threatened to squeeze her butt. “No hands,” she said with a laugh, pushing those playful hands away… but not too hard. Excitement skittered across her skin. “Go, before I lose my nerve.”
He laughed as if that was the funniest thing ever. “Spitfire, yesterday you accosted an innocent stranger in a parking lot, and tonight you’ve decided to go skinny-dipping with a party full of people only minutes away. You have nerves of steel.”