Seven Nights Read online

  Sean didn’t answer, but reached back behind him on a table that held the feather he’d teased her with originally and the light oil Cory had been massaging her with. When his hand reappeared, he held a long, red silk scarf.

  “Didn’t you blindfold me last time?” Leah said in what she hoped was a light and teasing tone. “You don’t want to go repeating yourself, do you?”

  “That was velvet,” Sean replied as he sat down on the edge of the table beside her exposed hip. “This is silk and I’m not going to cover your eyes with it. A big part of the pleasure of touch is anticipation. I want you to watch my hands come toward your skin. I want you to rise up to meet me because you can’t wait. For that to happen, you have to be able to see everything I’m going to do.”

  Leah barely held back the shudder of need that rocked her body. When had Sean become so sensual? So controlled in his desires and so focused on making her be the one to let go?

  Sean grasped each end of the scarf and pulled it taut just as he brushed it across her chest. The sweet friction of soft fabric against skin puckered Leah’s nipples and sent an almost unbearable jolt of sensation through her nerves. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t hold back the groan that broke free of her lips.

  Sean smiled. “Don’t try to stay quiet. No one can hear you but me, and I want to hear how good everything feels.”

  Leah locked eyes with him as he rubbed the fabric back across her chest for a second pass. This time she didn’t even try to hold back her cries of pleasure. Sean’s face tightened even as he smiled and she realized that touching her, hearing her pleasure, was a test of his own desire.

  An overwhelming wash of power pulsed through her system at that insight. Sean might pretend to be in control when it came to her, but he wasn’t. And every moment that he tested her limits with his ‘fantasy nights’, he was pushing his own. Eventually something would have to give. She could only imagine how fantastic it would be when that moment came.

  Sean pulled the scarf back away from her skin. She watched as he wound it around his hand over and over until his fingers disappeared in a blur of delicate fabric. Once he’d curled the entire swath of silk around his hand, he reached down and hesitated just inches from her cheek.

  Though she tried to hold back, Leah found herself doing just as Sean had predicted she would do: She rose up to meet his touch and shut her eyes with a moan as the satin brushed her face. He slid the makeshift glove over her jaw line, down her throat and across the ridges of her collarbone. Every touch was molten heat and each one built the tension in her body until Leah was sure that the sheet tangled between her thighs must be soaked with need.

  But still his hand moved relentlessly along in its exploration of her body. Silk smoothed over her breast, pausing as he rubbed the fabric across her already throbbing nipples. Then he made a line down the apex of her body.

  As he’d asked, Leah didn’t hold back her reactions. She moaned when the cloth brushed against the hollow of her belly button. She couldn’t hold back the cry when silk met the edge of the cotton sheet. With his unbound hand, Sean inched the protective barrier down the rest of her body.

  Finally, just when Leah thought the torture would kill her, Sean moved his satin clad hand down and his fingers found her slick heat. This time she wouldn’t have been able to hold back her cry if Sean had told her the whole island was able to hear her. It started low and hungry, but as he began to massage her pussy with those silken-clothed fingers, the cry increased to a wail.

  Then his fingers were gone.

  “Why? What?” she stammered, struggling to sit up and see what Sean could possibly be doing that was more important than touching her.

  “Shhh,” he said, motioning her back down as he unraveled the now damp silk from his hand.

  “But-”

  He cut her off by turning to reveal a tray of ice he now balanced on his palm. “It’s just too hot in here.”

  “Too hot?” she repeated. How could he concentrate on the room temperature at a time like this? Didn’t he know he was killing her little by little with every moment she had to wait for his touch?

  He set the tray down on a small table beside the massage bed, then he began working at the buttons of his cotton shirt. And not fast enough, either. With a grunt, Leah rose up on her elbow and caught the edge of the fabric. She yanked him closer, close enough that she felt the body heat coming off of him, she could smell his cologne and the natural masculinity of his skin. All of it was almost overpowering and it took all her willpower not to drag him down on top of her.

  Instead, she started working at his buttons from the bottom up while he worked from the top down. Finally, their hands met, along with their eyes. Sean tangled his fingers with hers, teasing her by stroking the tips along her hands, her arms, until finally he cupped her shoulders and slowly eased her back down on the massage table.

  In one smooth motion, he shrugged out of the shirt and caught the tray of ice again. Sitting down on the edge of the table, he chose one ice cube and leaned over her. A droplet of cool water splashed down on her impossibly hot skin and Leah was surprised it didn’t hiss. Then the ice cube itself touched down against her belly and this time there was a hiss. The hiss of Leah’s breath as she arched up off the table.

  Sean’s face tightened as he trailed the ice up and up until he finally lightly dragged it over her nipple. She gripped the edge of the table with both hands and swallowed back a sob of pleasure at the sensation of cold meeting hot.

  He smiled wickedly as he set the ice cube back on the tray. “Oh, now you’re all wet,” he said innocently.

  Leah pulled herself together enough to meet his eyes with a wild and wanton stare. “Yes, all wet.”

  Whatever control Sean was practicing faded away. His fingers threaded through her hair and he pulled her up for a kiss as hot as fire and just as melting.

  She slipped her hands around his back, kneading the firm muscles there, then tugging him down until they were pressed bare chest to bare chest. This time it was his turn to groan as he deepened the kiss and repositioned himself on the massage table so that he was lying on top of her.

  It had been so long since she’d felt Sean’s full length pressed against her that Leah just wanted to enjoy it as she kissed him. She smoothed her hands along his back, hooked a leg around his and prayed that there were no cell phones in the room to interrupt them.

  “I’m not doing very well with my fantasy idea, am I?” Sean asked with a smile as he broke their passionate kiss for a softer one on her forehead.

  Leah looked up at him with a smile of her own. “Sean, don’t you get it? You are the fantasy.”

  His face softened as he looked down into her eyes and then the softness was gone, blurred as he dipped his head and kissed her again, this time with more need and purpose. Leah moaned with both relief and pleasure. No, nothing was going to interrupt them now.

  “This table is so uncomfortable.” Sean laughed as he let his hand trail down from her shoulders to cup one breast.

  Leah arched under his thumb as he strummed it over the sensitive flesh. “Then sit up,” she gasped, surprised she was able to have a coherent thought, not to mention find words to go with it.

  Sean arched a playful eyebrow as he moved into a sitting position on the edge of the table. Leah slid onto his lap, straddling him. His cock throbbed against her thigh and her blood increased with anticipation.

  This was it. Unlike in the dining room, she couldn’t, wouldn’t deny herself. And unlike on the beach, he wasn’t going to let anything come between them. In a moment, Sean would surge inside her. And she would melt.

  With a shift of her hips, she lowered her pussy just to the tip of his cock. Her outer lips gripped at him, demanding she go further, but she stopped.

  “Better?” she whispered, groaning as he pulled the peak of her breast between his teeth and began to swirl fire around her nipple.

  “Not quite,” he murmured as he grasped her hips and gently t
hrust up into her body.

  The feel of him gliding into her inch by inch was almost too much pleasure to bear. She stretched to accommodate him, welcoming him back like an old friend who had been gone far too long. And when he had entered her completely, filled her to his very hilt, she leaned back and simply enjoyed the feeling of being one body.

  “God, it’s been too long,” he groaned as he shut his eyes and put his arms around her to hold her close. “You’re so tight and hot.”

  She shivered. “I-I haven’t been with anyone since you.”

  His gaze flickered up, filled with disbelief and joy. “No one?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  His face softened as he glided his fingers into her hair and brought her down for a hot, wet kiss that lit her whole body on fire and made her body flex wildly around him. Then his arms came around her back and he held her.

  “Sean,” she groaned as she squeezed her inner muscles rhythmically and made him groan. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

  He didn’t wait for her to ask a second time. With a growl of pure, animal possession, he skimmed his hands down her sides until he cupped her backside and began to move.

  Leah cried out on the first long thrust, digging her fingernails into the planes of his back as a huge surge of pleasure nearly had her coming right there. The second thrust was too much and she screamed out his name, thrashing out an orgasm that might have made her black out if Sean hadn’t continued his relentless thrusts that only seemed to prolong the pleasure to a nearly unbearable length.

  When she’d finally ridden out her first release, Leah regained her senses enough that she realized he was doing all the work while she merely enjoyed the fruits of his labor. With a wicked grin and a hard kiss, she tightened her legs around his waist and began to move on her own.

  The room was getting hotter and louder with each thrust, with each time Sean lapped his tongue over her skin or cupped her closer as he drove up into her. She met him at every turn, keeping the pace as fast and hot as it had been when he began.

  Sean’s face tightened, his neck flexing as he tried to keep rein over his control. It was a challenge and Leah did her best to meet it. She rolled her hips, grinding as he drove up into her, knowing she was rubbing him in all the right ways. All the ways that would force him to let go and experience a pleasure as intense as her own had been.

  But her teasing only seemed to make him more determined to give her release once more. As she rolled her hips again, he dug his fingers into her thighs. To her surprise, he stood up with her legs still latched around his waist. He took three steps and she found herself pressed against the wall, no longer able to drive the rhythm of the sex or tease him.

  “Not until you say my name again,” he said, soft and low in her ear as he continued to thrust over and over again. The sweet embrace they’d shared when he’d first entered her was barely a memory now. Now they were fucking. Plain and simple and absolutely fabulous.

  The intense pressure began low in Leah’s stomach, the tingle of pleasure that would roar into an out of control flame. Sean thrust, then pivoted his hips to grind his pelvis against her swollen, sensitive clit. It was all too much and she let out a cry. Her hips shivered wildly. Nothing had ever felt so good and she never wanted to be without this, without him, again.

  “Now, baby,” she moaned as she kissed him.

  Sean stiffened inside of her and then pumped hot as he braced his weight on the wall behind her and groaned out his own utter pleasure.

  For a long time, he simply continued to balance her against the wall, resting his damp forehead against her equally damp shoulder. Finally, with a smile, he lifted his head and pressed a kiss against her neck.

  “There is no one like you, Leah. No one else in the world.”

  “Is that a compliment?” she asked as he lowered her to the floor. She was surprised her knees could hold her weight after that earth shattering experience.

  He smiled as he bent to kiss her lips with the gentleness of a boy with his first crush. “The best one I could ever give.”

  Her heart soared with emotion as she gazed up into his eyes. Eyes she knew could easily steal her heart if she let them.

  Even though she knew she couldn’t let him, the prospect was more than tempting.

  Chapter Eight

  Morning sunlight streamed across the impossibly blue Caribbean waters and sparkled off the golden sands. Leah took a sip of her coffee and enjoyed the view from the Escapades breakfast terrace. It was early and she was alone.

  By choice. She had to keep reminding herself that her solitude was by choice. If Sean had had his way, she would have still been curled up in his bed. After their second round of lovemaking in the spa the night before, he’d asked if she would come back to his room.

  And she’d refused, no matter how much she wanted to spend the rest of the night safe in his arms.

  “I’d never leave,” she murmured against the rim of her cup as another wave broke on the beach below.

  “A lot of people feel that way,” said a masculine voice behind her. “But we do have an off-season.”

  Leah turned to find a stranger standing behind her. He was tanned and handsome, older than Sean by about ten years.

  “You must be the famous Will Todd,” Leah said, rising to her feet to extend her hand. “I recognize you from your interviews. I’m Leah Prescott.”

  He laughed as he shook her hand. “Well, don’t believe everything you’ve heard in the travel magazines or from Sean Dalton. Most of it is exaggeration or just plain lies.”

  Leah smothered a giggle. “For the worse or the better?”

  “Well, for the travel magazines we like to exaggerate my good qualities. And with Sean… well, it’s all for the worse.” Will leaned back and rubbed his chin playfully. “He’s just jealous that my pretty face is on all the magazine covers.”

  Leah motioned to her table. “Would you like to join me?” she asked. “I have a few questions for my article.”

  She winced as she thought of the article she hadn’t bothered with for nearly two days. Until she’d seen Will Todd, she’d sort of forgotten an article had been what brought her to Sean’s island in the first place. Ok, totally forgotten. But now that it was on her mind again, she had to focus.

  “The article, eh?” Will arched an eyebrow as he took the chair across from hers and looked out over the ocean with a sigh. “I’d have thought Sean would have more than answered your questions by now.”

  Leah snorted as she dug into her bag for a notebook and pen. “I think you and I both know that my article isn’t exactly on the top of Sean’s mind.”

  She blushed at her careless admission. Maybe Will didn’t know about Sean’s real purpose in brining her here.

  To her relief, Will didn’t seem surprised at all as he motioned to a waiter. “Coffee, please. No, Miss Prescott, just getting you here seems to be what’s been on the top of Sean’s mind for some time now.”

  “Leah,” she corrected, even though her heart fluttered with Will’s statement. “You can call me Leah.”

  “Leah.” The older man’s smile was wide and genuine, but she could feel him searching her face, looking for… something, though she wasn’t sure what he wanted to find. He was as unreadable as her ex. “But I admit, now that I’ve met you, I can see why he would go to so much trouble.”

  She blushed despite herself and fiddled with her pen as she tried to find her reporter’s detachment. It was one thing to lose it around Sean, quite another to have to search for it in this man’s presence.

  “Pretty compliments won’t get you out of the tough questions, Mr. Todd,” she teased.

  He laughed. “Fire away.”

  She struggled to forget Sean, forget that this man knew an awful lot about him she didn’t. This conversation was supposed to be about her article, not the past and certainly not the foggy future.

  “The resort is new. In fact, this will be its first full year in operation. How
do you feel like the season is going? Do you think you’ll find financial solvency in this risky economic environment?”

  Will leaned back with a look of surprise. “Wow. And here I thought you were going to ask me about the resort’s activity schedule. I don’t think any travel writer has grilled me about the finances before. The Wall Street Journal did once.”

  Leah paused. It was an odd question. One she’d never asked in any of her other interviews. Though financial solvency was always a prevalent issue in the travel industry, her articles were meant to be an overview of why someone would want to visit a destination.

  “Does that mean you’re opposed to answering?” she asked as she dipped her head to dodge Will’s pointed stare. He knew why she’d turned her attention to finances, and if she was honest with herself, so did she.

  Sean. It mattered to her whether or not he succeeded. And not because she was a snob who depended on her mate’s success to define her own. It was because it would crush him if his dream fell apart.

  And that was just another piece of evidence that her feelings for him were coming back. Not just the old feelings, but new ones, too. Her heart tingled with an emotion that was richer and deeper than anything she’d ever experienced in her life. No matter how much she tried to push it away, it was there, changing everything. Changing her.

  “I’ll answer if you’d like.” Will stared at her evenly, his blue eyes pinning hers. “Though we are a new resort, and our resources have been tapped by the expansions and opening expenses, I can reassure anyone who’s interested that I believe we’ll succeed. Between us, Sean and I have spread the word to several key clients. Now that we’ve got a reputation with them, we’re hoping articles like yours will let the general public know that we can make them feel every bit as important as the Trumps and Gates and Hiltons who have visited before them.”

  “So you feel a combination of upper class spending and middle class escapism will keep the resort in the black?” she asked as she scribbled notes on her pad. This guy was good. Sean had made the perfect choice in a front man.