Wild And Willing. Joanne Rock

Mia reached forward to set her flower on the helm, leaving her hands free, empty.

      Seth picked up those hands and placed them on his shoulders, urged them around his neck.

      “You thought wrong.” He slid his hands around her waist. The silk of her blouse was already dry, warmed by her skin beneath it. “Kissing is my domain, Carmen, and I’m going to kiss you for two reasons.”

      She shifted closer, bringing with her the vague fragrance of exotic flowers, hothouse scents like jasmine or maybe orchids.

      “I think reasoning defeats the point of kissing,” she whispered, her husky tone a siren’s song.

      Determined to convince himself there was a reason for this kiss, Seth forged ahead, hovering closer to her lips. “First, kissing should be a part of any adventure.”

      “Oh, I’m with you there.” Her green eyes locked on his, enticing him with sensual promise, urging him to forget his dumb-ass logic.

      Without conscious permission, his fingers fanned out from his palms, reaching for new terrain over Mia’s gentle curves.

      He swallowed. Hard. “And second,” he had to clear his throat as she wriggled beneath his hands, her body closing in on his. “I hear kissing can loosen the lips of women who won’t reveal their secrets.”

      Mia tilted her head to one side, her gaze dipping down to his lips and then back up to his eyes. A slow smile curled her lips.

      “Then by all means, sailor, give it your best shot.”

      3

      FROM THE MOMENT Seth’s lips touched hers, Mia realized this was a man who knew how to mix business with pleasure.

      Pleasure abounded in his kiss, washing over her in waves as surely as if she dived into the undulating waters of the Gulf. His tongue tangled with hers, calling her to take a few risks in her life, to come and play for a change.

      Yet the kiss held the down-to-business quality of a man on a mission, too. This was no casual exploration of mutual interest. The steady pressure of Seth’s body against hers told Mia in no uncertain terms that he wanted more, much more, than this kiss would give them.

      Her heart rate sped, stamped out a heavy beat against her chest. His hands shifted up her body, brushing the sides of her breasts. Desire shot through her in automatic, irrefutable answer. Her silk top posed little barrier to the sensation of his warm fingers teasing her skin.

      Kissing wasn’t at all like she remembered it in her college days. Oh, she’d shared a brief peck with Frankie the marina guy in Twin Palms, but she hadn’t really locked lips with anyone since her days at the University of Miami.

      And although she’d had her share of fun back then, those college boys obviously hadn’t known what the hell they were doing. Their kisses hadn’t been so thorough, so deep, so…sexual.

      The salty air, the sultry breeze over her skin, the briny scents of the sea, it all seemed so sexual. Sensation coiled between her thighs, a vivid pulse of pleasure that had never surfaced from just a kiss before.

      “Oh my.” She whipped her hand up between them, bracing it between Seth’s chest and her own while bracing her against a tide of unexpected sensation in her most secret places.

      “That’s just what I was thinking,” he whispered over her lips before indulging in another heady, roll-right-through-her kiss.

      His tongue tangled with hers in obvious mating. He suckled her lower lip, drawing on the soft flesh in a way that sent her imagination spinning into overdrive.

      His leg brushed against hers, his chest grazed her breast despite the barrier of her hand. The heady friction of their bodies created a seductive swirl of heat. Never had kissing seemed like such a microcosm of the sex act, so rife with innuendo of heady pleasures waiting for them….

      The warmth inside her built, mounted, threatened to bowl her over. She couldn’t be feeling what she thought she was feeling. Not now. Not from just a kiss.

      But then waves rocked the boat, swayed her whole body in a provocative rhythm that mirrored the seductive thrust and recede of actual intercourse until…

      “Oh!” She couldn’t help the squeal of surprise, astonishment and all-out delight as an orgasm squeezed her insides, penetrated her every nerve ending. Sensation rocked her, saturating her senses and raining pleasure over every last cell of her body.

      Oh my.

      If Seth harbored any shock over her suddenly falling apart in his arms, he didn’t let on. Instead, he merely groaned in time with her rapturous sigh, echoing her pleasure as if it were his own.

      He kissed her another moment before sliding away from her, leaving her wilted and only semisated—and still in total shock—on the helm seat.

      Silence reigned in the aftermath. She couldn’t help but feel a bit exposed to his frank, assessing gaze in those moments of intense quiet, yet she couldn’t summon the will to object or do anything about it.

      After long moments of shared heated breaths, he finally nodded his satisfaction. “I think I did more than loosen your lips.”

      She had to laugh, despite being flustered. “Understatement of the year.”

      “I take it you like kissing?” He swiveled to face her, propping an arm along the back of the cream-colored vinyl seat, his fingers toying with her hair.

      A residual shiver tripped over her at his touch.

      “I’ve never liked it that much before.” She straightened her floral skirt to cover up a little more thigh, her fingers still trembling just a little. “That was a definite first for me.”

      “Really?” He flashed her an all-male smile, at once possessive and full of pride. “Must have been a hell of a kiss.”

      “It might have been partly the rocking of the boat, too.” Her cheeks heated a little at the open acknowledgement of what had just happened, but she couldn’t very well let him think she was the kind of woman who came apart at the brush of a man’s lips.

      Far from it.

      She’d had sex before that hadn’t been as…fulfilling…as Seth’s kiss.

      His smile slipped. “The rocking of the boat?”

      “Well, partly.” She tried to shrug off the awkwardness of the moment, looking out across the vast expanse of open water, no land in any direction. She gathered her courage, determined to be bold for a change. She tried to imagine what her mother might say to a man in this situation. “Is it just me, or is that rocking kind of an erotic movement?”

      Granted, she had been a closet sensualist for most of her life. She had never been as good a sculptor as she was a painter, but she still sculpted because she loved the slide of wet clay over her palms, the twirl of a half-formed object coming to life in her hands.

      She dreamed of one day planting a huge flower garden so she would have an excuse to play in the dirt, to absorb the rich scents of damp earth, blooming jasmine and honeysuckle.

      So maybe she was unique in her enjoyment of a rocking boat. She stared at Seth as he grew quiet, perhaps concentrating on the gentle undulation of water beneath them.

      For a moment, he stared into her eyes. As a small wave swayed the cruiser, lifting them up and back down in their seats, a current of pure electricity sizzled between them, connecting them in a mutual thought, a mutual feeling.

      “Holy hell.” Seth shot to his feet, gripping the windshield of the helm to brace himself for the sudden move.

      “You see what I mean?”

      “Yeah, I see exactly what you mean and thanks for ruining my fishing trips for the next fifty years.” He swiped a hand through his spiky brown hair, leaving the strands standing up even straighter than before. “We’d better get out of