Give And Take: Taken By Storm Part 25

"Feeling okay?" you ask.

The room spins and tilts. Black spots swim through my vision. "No. I need to sit." My drink slips through my fingers and splatters on my bare leg.

"I've got you." You put an arm around me and lead me toward the door. "You need some air."

I'm blacking out and coming to, over and over again. This has never happened from three and a half vodka and cranberries before. "I need to get home."

"I'll take you," you say.

"No. I..." The words won't come. They buzz around in the darkness inside my mind searching for the light. I watch them break apart and fade.

You usher me through the parking lot. Open the door of a black car. Put me inside. "We'll be home soon," you say, buckling a seatbelt around my waist.

I try to grip the door handle to get out. My arm won't move. My head lulls on my shoulder. The blackness narrows, leaving a small tunnel focused on the dashboard. Then it closes completely.

No more words.

No more light.

No more sound.

Just like that-I'm taken.

Kelli Maine's Give & Take series continues with.

No Takebacks...

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One.

The sun beats down on us. It's hot. Sauna hot. The kind that makes the air heavy and saturates your skin with a sheen of moisture.

I let my eyes roam over your tan, sculpted chest down to where your fingers thread together resting on your abs.

"Like what you see?" you ask. Smiling, you reach out and trace your finger along my cheek. I wish I could see your eyes behind your black sungla.s.ses.

"You know I do."

You chuckle and link your hands again, relaxing on your lounge chair.

The pool water ripples in the breeze, sunlight glinting off its surface. Pinkish-purple bougainvillea twines up to the palm frond roof of the pool-side bar. How did we get here? Us together? There were so many obstacles between us.

Over the past few months, Turtle Tear has been transformed from ancient ruins to a luxury resort on a private island in the Everglades. In the distance, the work crew bangs and saws, finis.h.i.+ng the last few rooms in the hotel.

"Let's cancel tomorrow," you say. "I don't want to share you."

"We've waited too long for this." Even though it's only been about six months for me, you've waited years for this day to come. Tomorrow is the grand opening of Turtle Tear Resort to our friends and family. After that... well, I haven't decided if I want to open it to the public, or keep it private. I guess I'm not ready to share this place or you with anyone else either. "After they're all gone, you can become a hermit."

You take my hand and kiss it. "At least you promised me we could stay in the tree house and not crowd in the hotel with everyone else."

I roll to my side and run a finger down your arm. "I love our little hideaway."

Footsteps sound from the covered walkway. I sit up and turn to see Riley, your new a.s.sistant, step out from the shade and into the pool courtyard. "Why are you wearing dress pants and a tie?" I ask him. "Are you insane? It's sweltering out here."

You sit up, and your knees b.u.mp against mine. "Riley likes to look professional." You grasp the left side of my red bikini top and tug it closed. "And you're a little too casual. More like falling out."

"No interest in sharing me with this a.s.sistant then?" I whisper.

You clench your jaw, but don't reply. I was teasing, but struck a nerve bringing up the reason I left you last time.

"Ms. DeSalvo," Riley interjects, spots of pink on his cheeks from either the heat or from overhearing my comment, "your mother and aunt are scheduled to arrive at ten a.m. tomorrow morning. Do you have a preference of which rooms are reserved for them?"

I shade my eyes and glance up at him, wis.h.i.+ng I hadn't forgotten my sungla.s.ses back in the hotel. "No. I'm sure you'll pick very nice rooms for them. I trust your judgment. But can you do me a favor?"

He nods, eager to please. "Of course."

"Call me Rachael."

A sheepish grin spreads across his face. He's young, twenty-two at most, not that I'm much older. But his reserved manner and uncontrollable blus.h.i.+ng make him seem a lot younger. "Can I get you another drink from the bar, Rachael?"

I pick up my empty mimosa gla.s.s from the small table beside my chair and hold it out to him. "That would be amazing of you. Thanks."

"Mr. Rocha?" he asks, taking my gla.s.s.

You pick up your half-full bottle of water and shake it in Riley's direction. "I'm good, thanks. But that reminds me, when's the domestic staff getting in?"

"Three this afternoon."

Riley trots off toward the bar on the opposite side of the pool and courtyard. "Someone has a crush," you say, squeezing my knees between yours.

The stubble on your face has grown to a soft beard that covers your chin, not quite as full as it was when we first met, but soft to the touch and s.e.xy. I can't resist running my fingers over it. "You're right," I say. "But look at him. Those pressed oxford s.h.i.+rts he wears, the flop of dusty blond hair over his forehead and the way he always blushes when he looks at me. How can I not be crus.h.i.+ng hard?"

You lower your sungla.s.ses to the end of your nose and arch one brow over your blazing, dark eyes. "You're full of jabs today, aren't you? You know what I meant."

I stand between your legs and take your face between my hands skimming my fingers through your dark, wavy hair. "You know I'm kidding. Look at you." I let my hands run down your neck, across your broad shoulders, down over the bulging muscles of each arm. "Why would I ever want anyone else?"

Your hands find my hips and pull me closer, close enough to rest your cheek against my stomach. "I've already done everything you're just getting to do. I've reached my goals. You could have someone like him-like you. Someone driven, making his way up the ladder. I kicked my ladder down, Rachael."

Why do you think I care that you've decided to retire in your mid-thirties with billions in the bank? Somehow in your head that's a bad thing. "You told me your plan months ago. When we went fis.h.i.+ng, remember?"

"The storm that day." You chuckle, sending vibrations through my skin. "I swear, you wrapped your wet little body around my back so tight when I carried you back to the hotel, I had obscene images running wild in my head."

"Every time lightning flashed, I thought we were going to die." I stroke the top of your head, twisting sun-warmed locks of hair around my fingers. "The fish you caught was good though."

You turn your head and rest your chin in my belly b.u.t.ton. "Yeah? You hardly touched it."

I bend and kiss the grin off your face. Eating around you leads to kissing you and touching you and meals are quickly shoved aside and forgotten. I've lost eight pounds since I stepped foot on this island. "We need another chocolate raspberry cake."

You growl and lick my stomach sending delicious flesh memories straight to my center. Memories of smeared chocolate frosting devoured with your tongue. "Don't worry. I've got that covered."

"Uh..." Riley stammers, standing at the end of my lounge chair with a fresh mimosa in one hand. "I'll just..." He sets it on the wooden table and shuffles away.

"Thanks!" I call after him. "Think he's a virgin?"

You let out a derisive snort. "Can't imagine why you'd think that."

"I don't know. Maybe he's just modest."

"Hmm. Maybe." With a flick of your fingers, my bikini top falls open. "Glad you're not."

"Not with you." I wrap my arms around your neck and you pull me down on top of you on the lounge chair sucking a nipple into your mouth.

"Ah," I gasp. I'll never get used to the feel of your lips, your tongue. It's too good, too drive-me-insane overwhelming.

I press against your shoulders, releasing my flesh with a drag of your teeth. I have to have your mouth on mine, your tongue sliding over mine drawing moans from deep in my throat.

I devour your lips. No holding back. I held back so long waiting to trust you, but now I need to take and take and never stop until there's nothing left of you. Consume you delicious bite by delicious bite.

Rewarded with a low groan when I nip your bottom lip, I taste my way across your jaw to lap your earlobe and take it in my mouth. Your hands squeeze my a.s.s and slide down between my inner thighs, pulling them apart so I'm straddling you. Your chest is warm under my splayed fingers, salty on the tip of my tongue tasting your hard pecs. You rock your hips into me. I dig my nails into your skin in response making you suck in an airy hiss through your teeth.

The wind blows my hair across your face, cools my bare back damp with heat. You ball my hair in your hands as I trail kisses down your stomach. "I love how you taste."

My hair goes loose around my shoulders and you run both palms down my back. "I never want anyone else here. Just us. Alone."

"Me too," I say, springing your hard length free from your swim trunks. "I'll have you naked whenever and wherever I want."

Your fingers find my nipples and begin pulling, pinching and rolling, sending shocks of clenching arousal through my center. "My s.e.x kitten."

I run my thumb up the thick vein running from the base of your c.o.c.k to the ridge around the head. A bead of pre-come glistens at the tip. "Mmm, for me?" I tuck my hair behind my ear and lave your slit with my tongue while staring into your deep, dark eyes. "I love giving you that look on your face."

Your heavy-lidded, l.u.s.t-filled expression s.h.i.+fts for a moment as one side of your mouth hitches into a smile. "What look?"

"Like I'm killing you." I circle my tongue around the underside of your head, flicking and nibbling. "Slowly." I stroke you and let my tongue slide down to trace the seam between your b.a.l.l.s. "So slowly."

Your hand cups the back of my head. "G.o.d, you're right. You are killing me slowly. Painfully slow. Suck me."

I take you in deep, hollowing my cheeks and moaning along with you. Your hand guides my head, but I know what you like. And I love giving it to you, to that glorious c.o.c.k that makes me come so hard.

Your breath comes faster as I pick up the pace. I'm wet and throbbing, needy and empty. You have to touch me soon, satiate this ache. Fill me.

Both hands cup my face and pull me off of you, breaking my suction with a wet sucking sound as you free yourself from my mouth. "Take me inside you."

Your fingers sweep my bikini bottoms aside, and you groan finding me wet and swollen, ready to take all of your considerable length. I'm always ready for you.

I angle your tip against my opening and ease down onto you. Both of us sigh in ecstatic relief. Nothing feels as perfect as when you're squeezed tight inside me.

You sit up, shocking me with the way you slide even deeper, and pull my a.s.s into you as close as I'll get. Your mouth finds mine. Our lips barely graze as we breathe the same air, the tip of your tongue teasing mine. At the gentle urging of your hands, I rock my hips torturously slow.

It feels so, so good. You're hitting a spot inside me that sparks tears to my eyes. Our lovemaking is bittersweet with suppressed urgency, denial of clenching muscles begging for a faster release.

Another languid rock into you, and a whimper tumbles out of me. I choke out the word, "G.o.d," like a prayer. I'm all senses and longing. I'm going insane.

Your jaw's taught, eyes barely open, brow furrowed in your effort to hold back. "You're... so... tight," you whisper, sounding like you're in pain.

I can only make incoherent noises in response between gasps of pleasure.

You lay back, and I clench around you tighter, desperate to keep you so deep. But when your thumb presses and rubs against my c.l.i.t, I lean back and brace my hands on your thighs, grinding and bucking. Release is so close. A delicious, tingling burn smolders in my core. "Oh G.o.d. Right there."

"That's right, baby. Come for me." Your thumb continues its maddening a.s.sault, while the fingers of your other hand pluck and squeeze my nipples.

On the brink of exploding, I raise and lower faster and faster, slamming you deeper inside me. Your hips come off the lounge chair, meeting me thrust for thrust. "f.u.c.k. I'm so close, Rachael."

"Oh! Oh, G.o.d!" I throw my head back as the first o.r.g.a.s.mic wave crashes over me. "Come, Merrick. Come with me."

Your fingers dig into my hips as you thrust hard twice and groan in release. "f.u.c.k." You throb inside me as you come and I continue to ride you.

My o.r.g.a.s.m runs rampant. My fingers take over for your thumb, and I set loose the last pulse of my climax before falling limp on top of you.

We lie panting with the sun beating down on us, the distant buzz of a saw blending with the chirps of birds and rustle of leaves in the gentle island breeze. "I couldn't have dreamt this." I kiss your chest, slick with sweat. "It's too perfect."

You comb your fingers through my hair. "It's more than perfect. Promise me something."

I prop myself up on your chest to look at you. "Anything."

Your face is so serious, so... wide-eyed and wistful. "Never leave."

There's a fear in your eyes I've never seen before. It worries me. "I won't. I promise."

You hold me tight against you and kiss my temple. With your father trying to take everything you own, all of the real estate you've acquired as CEO of Rocha Enterprises, your primal need to grasp on tightly to what's yours is understandable.

But seeing you, confident-to-a-fault Merrick Rocha, falter on your axis, leaves me shaken.

Acclaim for Taken by Storm.

"This book hooked me from the very beginning and glued me to every page. MJ stole my heart and quickly became one of my new favorite leading men. Loved it."

-Mich.e.l.le Valentine, New York Times Bestselling Author of Rock the Heart.

"Taken by Storm is a pa.s.sionate love story that grips you by the heart from the first page and doesn't let go. MJ and Maddie's love is soul-deep. Maine has written a masterpiece!"