Jacquie D’Alessandro - Jinxed!

As he worked the tenseness out of her muscles, he grew hard, anticipating what the foreplay could eventually lead to. A meeting of their bodies…maybe more.

She moaned as he used his thumbs to knead the back of her neck.

“You put in too many hours at the shop,” he said.

“Shh.”

He laughed quietly, retaliating by coasting his hands beneath her body and cupping her breasts. Soft, erotically swollen. She arched her back in response, allowing him room to slip her nipples between his fingers.

She gasped. The sound jabbed into him.

He smoothed down lower, over her flat belly, feeling a thatch of hair wisp against his fingertips.

“I thought…” she said, voice breaking apart “…I’d get…hot stones with this…massage…”

“Saucy,” he said roughly, slipping his hands up and over her waist, then her back, then down to palm her ass again. Moving lower, he spread apart her legs, then ran his thumbs into the wet cleft there.

She rocked upward. “Oh-”

He pressed harder, separating her folds, hunger stoked at the sight of her glistening pink sex under candlelight.

Careful, he thought. Slow.

Finding her clit, he circled it. She echoed his movements, clutching the table and bunching the bottom sheet.

He worked her, harder but not faster, drawing out her groans until they grew higher in pitch. All the while, his own libido was expanding, pulsing, nagging him to take this further.

“Wes,” she said against the table. “Oh, Wes…”

As she moaned his name, Wes’s chest tightened.

There was a knock at the door.

He froze in utter disbelief.

Erin jerked away from him, sheened with sweat. It made her skin gold, hazed with a glow.

An erection ruling him once again, Wes covered her with the sheet, cussing under his breath. She’d been saying his name, as if she’d wanted more than just the physical from him…

“One second,” he bit out.

A voice from the other side said, “My boss came in, sir. I’ve gotta-”

“One minute.”

Erin had already jumped off the table, heading for her clothes, which were hanging on a wall hook. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was that curse.”

Wes helped her into her jeans. “ I’m starting to know better. I think you need to fully explain this curse to me, Erin.”

Knock, knock, knock.

She tugged her T-shirt over her head, nipples beading against the thin white material. With a jolt, Wes snagged her sweater and wrapped it around her before Justin came in. He didn’t give a crap if the guy saw naked women every day, this was Erin, and Wes wasn’t about to allow some random man the satisfaction.

Justin’s voice filtered in again. “Excuse me, but-”

“One minute!” they both said in stereo.

“The room,” Wes said, pained. “Tell me we’re going to our room.”

Another click of her eye colors-a combination lock securing her thoughts away into a vault.

“Erin? What is it?”

After a beat, she smiled, looking as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. “It’s nothing.” She touched his arm. “Let’s just go back…”

Justin had obviously waited long enough because he jammed open the door. The candle flames waved and angled with the breeze.

“Sorry,” he said, “but my boss showed up and asked me why I wasn’t with my scheduled appointment.”

“That’s okay,” Erin said, tugging Wes away by the hand. “Thanks for trying.”

And they continued on to their cabin, where Wes hoped they could prove that there really wasn’t any damned curse.

THAT WAS CLOSE, ERIN thought as she and Wes bolted into their cabin. Close to getting caught, close to actually getting somewhere. Even now, her skin was still slick with oil, buzzing with the imprint of Wes’s practiced hands sliding over her, under her…

At the reminder, she felt a jolt in her sex. She was still primed for him, beating with a plump reminder of what could’ve been.

As Wes shut the door, the ship’s intercom sounded a bell, and the purser’s voice came on. “We’d like you all to join us on deck as we depart-”

“No,” Wes said, stalking over and guiding her toward the bed. “ Hell, no.”

She clasped his arms and turned their bodies so that his back was to the mattress. “Exactly. No more interruptions.”

With verve, she pushed him onto the bed, where the edge of it caught the backs of his knees to take him down. Propping himself up on his elbows, he reclined, obviously entertained by her take-charge attitude.

They both laughed. Then her gaze caught his and-

Ja-joom .

Her heart pistoned, jarred to life by his sitting there, just watching her with such casual, frank interest. Black hair slouching over his brow, eyes liquid with dark yearning, his T-shirt straining over his tight abs while the white material skimmed every cut muscle. He was more than she could handle and, for a flailing minute, she didn’t know what to do or how to do it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the ship pulling away from the dock, taking them out to sea. Stranding her with the decision she’d made to get intimate with this gorgeous, hot man who sent tremors to her core.

Not wanting to dwell on what those tremors might signify, Erin pushed all her doubts to the wayside, purposefully moving to the vanity counter, where she’d set down her lollipop earlier.

Shaking with anticipation, she picked it up, making a show of inspecting it: cherry candy, heart-shaped and innocent.

“Do me a favor?” she asked quietly.

Ja-joom . Oh, man, she was really going to do this. Sleep with Wes. Ignore that they had no future and just go for it. Expose herself to a prediction that scared her half to death.

“Name it,” he said, tone low and gristled.

Slowly, she began to undo the candy’s clear wrapper. “Take it all off.”

He slid a curious look at the lollipop, then cocked an eyebrow, clearly up for any request. Rising, he tugged off his shirt, tossing it away to the corner.

Through the window, the harbor glided by: a swollen sky met by wind-ruffled water.

Stomach going goofy-from the thought of sailing, or from nerves?-she went to the window. With a decisive jerk, she closed the curtains, then turned back to Wes.

There. The room was dimmer now, less intimidating. It was a shadowed alcove where she could act out her fantasies without feeling fully revealed or losing her courage under too much illumination.

Tracking her with predatory eyes, Wes had also taken off his shoes and socks while still sitting on the bed. His olive skin looked darker with the lack of light. Exotic, smooth, so masculine.

“And?” he asked, voice edged with the same sexy amusement.

She went hot again, pulse throbbing in a countdown to contact. Instinctively, she ran the lollipop over her lips.

His smile grew.

Moving closer to him, Erin lolled the candy away from her mouth. Screw all the cautious cells bumping against each other in her body in their attempt to get her to reconsider, to take this slower. She was ready to go.

“Your jeans aren’t going to do us much good,” she said.

As he stood and eased them off, she went back to the lollipop, tilting her head and licking the sweet cherry, knowing Wes was taking it all in.

He tossed the denim away, the heavy material hitting the wall with a bunched slap. And there he stood: tall, athletic, his penis half-erect from her preshow.

Erin took the entire sucker into her mouth, then drew it out. “Mmm…”

“Erin…” Wes said. It was as if his voice had been sliced open and was bleeding raw desire.