Jacquie D’Alessandro - Jinxed!

Infused with the confidence of knowing how much he wanted her, she forgot everything else, moving forward and giving him another slight push to get him back down on that mattress, then tossing him a pillow so he could prop up his head. She knew he’d want to watch; she needed him to do it, too, needed to feel naughty and rebellious.

He understood her intentions, shoving the pillow under his head as she put the lollipop back into her mouth with one hand and pressed one of his legs open with the other.

As she pulled out the sucker, she felt the floor roll beneath her feet. Her head swam.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Taking a fortifying breath, she crawled onto the bed to hover over him. “You think the water will be rough out there?”

He closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe she was talking instead of…doing. She couldn’t believe it, either, but for a second, she’d felt queasy.

He opened his eyes again, but his hands clutched the pillow under his head. “Ship’s too big for you to feel the waves. Don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry.

Okay.

She ran the fingernails of one hand up over his leg, his inner thigh. He shifted, his cock bobbing. It made her clit seize, paining for him to massage it again. She sucked hard on the lollipop, juices stinging her mouth.

Traveling higher, she found his sac, tracing her fingers over the softness. He bunched the pillow in his fists, groaning.

Lightly, she rolled his balls with her fingertips, fascinated by the ecstatic agony on his face. Then, while drawing harder on the candy, she ran her index finger up the underside of his shaft.

He bucked. “Erin-”

She cut him off with a low sound from her throat-a strangled longing for him.

Wrapping her fingers around his penis, she took him into her fist, sliding upward. She moved downward, up again, slowly, bringing him to absolute hardness. With every carnal motion, she rolled her tongue around the lollipop.

She found that his gaze was on her mouth. Was he picturing her tongue on him?

She coaxed the candy out, a slurp echoing in the room as she nonchalantly held him in her hand.

Slowly waving the sucker back and forth, she felt more flirty and powerful than ever, knowing she had him at her mercy. This was what she’d been missing before Wes came along-a sense of mutual giving and getting.

“You wondering what I’m going to do next?” she asked.

A harsh, choked sound was his only response.

On a whim, she took one more taste of the candy, allowing her tongue to linger and invite. A muscle jerked in his cheek as she leaned the sucker away from her mouth and licked her lips.

Then she whispered, “All those long hours in the store. Staring at those creamy candies, the suckers, the bonbons…It does things to a girl. It makes her create diabolical daydreams. New ways to use all those sweets.”

She slid her lollipop back inside her mouth, wet it thoroughly, then took it out and carefully placed it on the tip of his penis. She circled the head, coating him with sticky promise.

After she was satisfied, she lowered her mouth, licking the sugar from him, taking her time as he moaned beneath her. Stoked by his reaction, she took it one step further, winging her tongue back and forth over his head to tease him.

By the time she came up for air, he was breathing hard. “You…learn that from your L.A. friends?” he asked, clenching his jaw.

“Nah, I’m not so L.A.” She repeated the process by sucking on the candy again, then this time very deliberately bathing his entire length in lollipop-slickness, avoiding getting too close to the dark patch of hair nesting his erection. “The place is Cheryl’s home base. I just moved there to open the business with her.”

Business. Why the heck was she talking about it again?

She bent to lay her tongue to him, this time concentrating on his shaft. Greedily, she tasted him up and down as he encouraged her with building groans. Cherry, skin, Wes…

Stimulated by his enjoyment, she took him all the way into her mouth, swirling her tongue around him, up and down, sucking, lingering, getting a sugar rush that hummed in her veins.

Oh, he tasted so good…delicious…

His hands bunched her hair, and when he came, he filled her mouth. She savored that, too, swallowing. She rubbed her cheek lower, against his inner thigh. His leg hair crisped against her skin, the scent of sweet male satiating her.

Dizzy, she rose away from him. Sweat beaded his chest, his upper lip, and he was gasping for air, just as she was. Her pulse jackhammered from her chest to her sex, tearing her into a thousand pieces, making her tummy roil again.

“Come here,” he whispered raggedly, reaching for her.

Her stomach jumped, but she obeyed, falling over him, mouth seeking his. She grinded her hips against his to alleviate the pressure that’d built between her legs. Even though he’d climaxed, he was still going strong. She rocked against him, wishing she didn’t still have her jeans on, wishing he was inside of her.

As they devoured each other, nipping, sucking, tonguing, the world rolled inside Erin’s head.

Words flashed through her, blinding her sight with neon distraction: You can stop looking for the man of your dreams.

She tried to shut out the fortune-teller, instead reaching for her zipper to undo it. Fun, freedom, immunity from seriousness, that’s all she wanted right now.

You’ve already found ‘the one.’

Panic began to overtake Erin, materializing in clumsiness as she fumbled with her jeans. The sea seemed to lift the ship, and it got to her, making her come up from Wes for a deep breath.

Again, a wave seemed to rock the boat, and Erin’s head went tight.

You reject what love has in store for you, and you twist karma around until it comes right back at you with negative energy.

Closing her eyes, Erin backed away from Wes, holding her forehead. “Dammit.”

“Hey…” he said, cradling her face.

But she pulled away, lying on her side until the ship stopped moving. “Are we in bad weather or something? I…”

She stopped, the taste of candy suddenly like copper in her mouth. Wes was just a short fling, no more, that’s all either of them wanted from each other-

Wes was stroking her hair, obviously concerned. “The ship’s not moving. What’s wrong?”

The answer was clear.

Cursed.

Her karma truly was bent out of shape, and seasickness was the price she’d have to pay this time.

IT’D BEEN A ROUGH NIGHT.

And it hadn’t been because Wes had stayed up half the time making sure Erin was taken care of, either. No, he hadn’t minded running a washcloth under water so he could put it on her forehead. He hadn’t even minded going to the gift store for aspirin and those “seasick” bracelets, which were like sweatbands with a bead that pressed against the pressure points on your wrist to cancel the nausea.

Uh-uh. The night had sucked because, once again, he and Erin had been getting so damned close to what he wanted. But it’d also been much too far away.

Fighting his pent-up, eternal state of arousal and the hope of the closeness that might come out of all this, he left Erin sleeping and went to a buffet, bringing back some breakfast for them to share. But upon his return, he found her out of bed and in the shower. So he left the pastries and took a quick trip to the fitness room, where he worked off a load of frustration on a rowing machine.

Of course, that didn’t do crap. He was still wound up and ready to blow. Last night’s candy-coated games and intimacy had only given him a taste of what was in store with a woman like Erin, and it wasn’t enough.