Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

She bent her head. Kissed his satiny tip, tasted his pungent tang. She slid her tongue down one side of him, tracing his pattern.

He groaned.

Her tongue traveled, roaming over the brilliant territory. As her excitement grew, her control slipped. Her mouth closed delicately over the head of him.

Liam lay motionless, straining against his impulses. She clutched his hips with both hands, sucked him first slowly all the way to his tip, turning her head so she could feel every part of him, then slipping down to the base of his shaft.

Katie dove, her tongue swirling, in one fluid movement.

Sitting up, she moved her hands around his buttocks to the inside of his firm, muscular thighs. Gently, she stroked, moving over him with a shivering lightness. She glided with him.

Yet the whole time she was holding back, holding something in reserve. Their pace quickened and they never lost contact. They swayed in unison.

“Katie, Katie, Katie,” he groaned, his head thrown back, his eyes tightly closed.

His body went rigid. The signal she was looking for. The signal to wait.

Katie did not move, her mouth resting on the base of his shaft, the head of him throbbing inside her.

He shuddered in premonition.

She wrapped her legs around his thighs so he could feel her warm wetness, dripping with excitement. She undulated her hips in rhythm with her mouth, moving up and down him once more.

His hands reached for her. He touched her hair. His fingers moved blindly over her shoulders, trying to find a place to hold on to as he arched his back.

She wriggled away from his hands, determined to focus all her attention on his pleasure, knowing he would return it tenfold. She closed her eyes, calmed her pulsating heart. All her consciousness pooled in her fingers and her tongue.

He was close. So very close.

His breath came in rough gasps. Her body simmered in sweet sweat as they rocked together. She moved her mouth and her fingers took over. With a burst and shudder, he came, his juices leaking over her hand onto his belly.

He cried her name.

And she collapsed against him. Together, they lay breathing heavily, absorbed by ecstasy, until slowly they slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

WHEN KATIE WOKE again, dawn was rising on the skylight beyond the lanai. The morning breeze was slight. Birds chirped happily in the palm trees, greeting the new day.

Beside her, Liam slept like a sexually satisfied male-lying on his stomach, arm slung over a pillow, his gorgeously naked butt on delicious display. Grinning, she slipped out of bed, careful not to awaken him and padded naked into the kitchen to put on the coffee.

After a night of rigorous sex, Katie was feeling a tad achy. She pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and twisted off the top. She found her purse-after stepping over the pile of clothes they’d left scattered at the front door-and dug for a travel bottle of ibuprofen.

As she did, her fingers brushed the corners of the pink envelope from Lindsay Beckham.

Her third Martini dare.

The first two had turned out so splendidly, she was intrigued to discover what the third dare entailed. She swallowed two of the pills and put on Liam’s discarded white shirt. The hem of it hit at the middle of her thigh, and it smelled of him. She pressed the collar to her nose and inhaled the scent of him as she sat down on the sofa. She propped her bare feet on the coffee table and slid her fingernail under the flap of the envelope.

Out fell the parchment scroll wrapped with the familiar red velvet ribbon.

She untied the ribbon and unrolled the scroll to read one single word.

Confess.

Confess? Confess what? To whom?

Puzzled, Katie peered into the envelope in hopes there was something else inside, but it was empty.

“Morning, early bird, I smell coffee brewing.”

She looked up to see Liam standing in the entry way, his hair disheveled, sheet creases on his cheek, looking totally adorable. Her heart melted all over again.

“Hey.” He grinned. “You look much better in my shirt than I ever did.”

She smiled at his compliment.

He yawned and scratched his chest. A total guy. “Watcha got there?”

All at once it was perfectly clear what she was supposed to confess and to whom. “It’s a Martini dare.”

“What’s a Martini dare?” he asked, picking his underwear and pants up off the floor and sliding into them.

“It’s something I have to do for this women’s club I joined. They dare you to do something outside your comfort zone.” She went on to explain the tenets of Martinis and Bikinis.

He sat down beside her on the couch and reached for his shoes. “Sounds interesting.”

“It is.”

He leaned over her shoulder, peered at the scroll. “Confess? What does that mean?”

Katie swallowed. She had a sudden fear Liam wasn’t going to take this dare in the spirit she’d agreed to do it. “I think I’m supposed to confess to you.”

He went suddenly still, one shoe off and one shoe on. “Confess what?”

“That you’re my Martini dare.”

He drilled a hole through her with his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Remember that afternoon in the theatre?”

“How could I possibly forget?”

“It was a Martini dare.”

“They dared you to have sex with me?”

“In a forbidden place.”

He looked as if someone had just kicked him in the gut. “And this trip to Fiji?”

Feeling miserable, she nodded. “Have sex in an exotic place.”

He clamped his lips together and said not another word. He got up off the couch and went to the bedroom. Katie jumped up to follow him. “It was stupid, I know.”

He didn’t even look at her, just stalked to bathroom, and scooped his toothbrush and razor off the counter.

“What…what are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” he snapped, picking his suitcase up off the floor and stuffing his toiletries inside.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes.” His jaw tightened as he bent over to zip up his suitcase.

She stared at him. “But why?”

“You lured me here on false pretenses.”

“Oh, come on, you didn’t come here just to assess the value of my family’s real estate.”

He straightened up to glare at her. “No, I came here because you and my best friend convinced me I needed to learn how to relax. That I needed to take a vacation. I came here because…” He shook his head. “Forget it.”

This wasn’t making sense. She couldn’t understand why he was so furious with her. Okay, so her dares were a little underhanded, but they weren’t malicious. They’d both had a good time. Why weren’t they laughing about this over the breakfast buffet?

She touched his forearm, but he shook her off. “What is it?”

His glower cut her like a knife. “I came here because I thought you and I might have a future together. I knew it was going to be tough. I knew you were commitment-phobic, I knew I was taking a chance by laying my heart on the line, but I had no idea you were toying with me. That I was nothing more to you than some stupid dare.”

“You are more to me than a stupid dare.”

“Then why didn’t you just tell me about it?”

“We’re supposed to keep the dares a secret,” she said. “Club rules.”

“And you put your oath to your Martini club above my feelings?”

“I admit it. You’re right. I should have told you about the dare before I invited you out here. I made mistake.”

“Damn right you did.”

Stupefied, Katie couldn’t speak. She stared at him, openmouthed.

His eyes flared with anger. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

He pressed his lips together in a hard line. “And that’s the problem. You don’t get me. I can’t believe that I ever thought you did.”