I leaned forward, unable to help it, and swiped the stray droplet off of her lip and brought the thumb I’d used to my mouth, licking it off.
“Yours is good, too,” I said, not realizing what I’d done until I’d already done it.
She shivered, and went back to eating her ice cream, but the whole time she kept her eyes on me while she did it.
From what little light that was cast at the shadows we were drenched in, I could see her eyes dilate. And when she finally started to crawl to me, her ice cream cone up high in the air, I felt my knees get weak.
It was a good thing I was already sitting down, because the way she crawled up to me was enough to bring me to them.
“Audrey…” I hesitated.
She stared, completely transfixed, until she came up to straddle my thighs.
The blankets were now in the way, but that didn’t make much of a difference. I could feel the softness of her backside as it rested fully on my lap. My cock was pinned in between our two bodies, and there was no hiding it now, even if I had still wanted to.
Which I didn’t.
Not with the way she was looking at me and making me feel.
“Audrey,” I tried again.
She was leaning in closer, her face only inches from mine.
“What?” she whispered back.
Then she lifted her melting ice cream cone to her lips, and rubbed them against it, creating a sweet, milky pool of the liquid on her mouth.
The first drop never even left the sweet plush bottom lip before I swiped it away with my tongue.
And that, my friends, was all it took for everything to change.
One single moment in time, and everything was different.
And this Audrey, the one who was on my lap on the deck of a cruise ship with people all around us but not able to see us, was different.
She was less inhibited. Less controlled. Less scared.
Which gave her the strength to make the move that both of us wanted, but neither one of us was able to do since she was still cautious of everything when it came to a man.
But right now, with her attacking my mouth, you wouldn’t know that anything bad had ever happened to her. She was assertive, confident, and so goddamn sexy that I found it hard to breathe.
But I had to make sure that this is what she wanted.
“Baby,” I whispered. “You need to stop before this goes too far.”
She growled against my mouth, and if my dick could’ve gotten any harder, it would’ve in that moment.
She started to rock her hips, and then tug on the blankets that were between us.
I helped her, yanking the blankets out between us with a ferociousness that would’ve sent her sprawling on her back had I not had hold of her hips with my arm hooked around her waist.
Her hands went to my neck when I took over control of moving our obstacles, and she started to stroke me from collarbone to jaw.
“I love your beard,” she whispered, leaning forward to nibble lightly with her lips against the tips of my beard.
My hands were clenched tightly on her hips now, the blankets and towels sprawled all around us in my haste to get her flat against me.
“Take off your pants,” she ordered.
I pulled back, breathing heavily, and stared.
“Are you sure?”
Her eyes smiled, crinkling in the corners.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. I’m ready to live again. Ready to feel…and you’re going to help me do that.”
I shook my head at the wonder in her tone. It almost sounded like it was surprising to her that I would be able to offer that to her.
“I’ve never been able to let go long enough to feel like this…not since…”
She didn’t need to finish. I knew what she meant.
Her rape. Not since her rape had she been able to get this close to another man.
It humbled me that she would choose me to be her first after the darkness of her past. After somebody had taken something so personal from her that she was still scared of men, even over six years later.
“You don’t have to explain,” I brushed my lips against hers. “You tell me to stop, at any point in time—it doesn’t matter if I’m inside of you or about to come—if you want me to stop, I will. No hesitation. Tell me. Immediately, do you understand?”
She grinned, and then brought her hand up to my mouth.
“Lick me clean,” she whispered, revealing the melted ice cream that now coated her hand and fingers.
I didn’t even hesitate. The second that her finger was close to my mouth, I licked it clean by pulling it completely into my mouth up to the webbing, and running my tongue hungrily over her skin.
Her hips jerked, and I knew in that moment that she was just as affected by what we were doing as I was.
She didn’t show one single sign of fear clogging her moves as she brought another finger up for me to lick.
When she thought I’d done a good enough job, she’d slowly withdraw it. At the same time I’d hold onto the suction, letting her pull her finger out with a small ‘pop’ each time she did it.
And when I finally got to her thumb, and then her hand, she was a shaking mass of energy in my lap.
“I’ve never wanted anyone so much in my life,” I breathed, taking one final swipe of her skin, tasting not a single drop of sweetness as I did.
“You know,” I said, looking down at where the ice cream I’d been holding earlier had spilled on the floor. “Two can play this game.”
I swept up the now half-filled cup, and removed the spoon, pressing it, dripping with ice cream and sprinkles, against the length of her collarbone.
She shivered, but I didn’t even give the melted cream a second to run down her honey-colored skin before I pressed my open mouth over the sticky mess.
“You taste…sweet,” I growled, this time scooping up a larger portion of the cream and pouring it down the middle of her shirt.
She gasped, looking down between her breasts, and then up at my face.
“You better lick this completely clean,” she growled. “I have to wear this bra again tomorrow, you know.”
I continued to grin at her as I slowly reached forward and tugged the snapped buttons free of their clasp, revealing those beautiful breasts, still in the simple black, low-cut bathing suit that she’d been in earlier.
“You’re not wearing a bra,” I informed her. “So your argument is rendered invalid.”
“I meant bathing suit,” she gasped when I dropped my mouth to her chest.
I let my beard trail along the length of her swimsuit where it came to a rest just above the swell of her breasts, and cursed myself once again.
“We should really stop,” I tried again. “This is illegal.”
She laughed breathily, and then pulled my head so that my mouth was once again resting against her skin.
“You have a job to do,” she whispered, tugging lightly on the top of her bathing suit, telling me with no words exactly where she wanted me to be.
So I did what she wanted.
And I did a damn fine job at doing it, too.
I licked, sucked, and delved my tongue between those breasts, licking up every last drop of sticky sweetness.