“Mmm hmm.” The warmth of his palm burned through her skirt. “And if you don’t want more?”
His voice dropped to a husky growl. “Oh, Danielle, I will definitely want more. Call me crazy, but when we danced, something inside me started to—I don’t know how to describe it. Hum? Glow? Fizz?” One-handed, he bunched her skirt, baring her thigh. The sea breeze raised goosebumps on her exposed skin.
He nuzzled the sensitive crook of her neck. “You and me, we’ve got chemistry. Electricity. Magnetism.” The soft scrape of his beard sped her pulse and melted her bones.
His fingertips skimmed over her upper thigh.
Just a little vacation fling. What difference could it possibly make? When it was over, she’d go back home, and everything would return to normal.
“Two weeks,” she murmured and tugged his shirt loose from his belt. Her greedy hands skated over satin skin.
Maybe he was using her, a convenient distraction to keep the nonnas off his sculpted back, the horny single girls of Trappers Cove out of his silky hair. Even so, what he offered was far too tempting to resist. This gorgeous young man wanted her. The evidence thrust gently against her thigh—a hard, hot ridge of desire.
Heat pooled between her legs, pulsing, demanding. With a groan, she rolled atop him, her sopping panties pressed to his rough denim and splayed her fingers over his firm pecs.
His chest rose and fell beneath her palms. His lids lowered and his lips parted on a sigh as he grasped her hips and arched up against her sex. Back and forth he guided her, each slow pass over his erection shooting bright sparks of pleasure up her spine. Her breath stuttered. She was going to come any second now, and she wanted to feel him deep inside her as she tipped over the edge.
She fell forward and took his mouth in a sloppy, hungry kiss. “Do you have protection?” she murmured against his lips.
He gaped for a moment, then laughed. “Beautiful Danielle, as much as I want you, I don’t want to get sand in your most sensitive places. And the tide’s coming in. Let’s find somewhere more private and less gritty.”
Wincing, she rolled off him. Thank God his brain cells were still firing, because hers were totally fried by lust. While she folded the blanket, he stuffed the remains of their feast into his backpack. He slid the straps over his shoulders and pulled her against him, belly to belly.
There it was again, that perfect balance of sensation: warm, firm body and cool ocean breeze. Soft brown eyes and hard, pulsing cock. Balanced on the sharp edge between risk and safety, delight and disaster, she could turn back now, or plunge ahead. But for just a moment, she rested here and breathed in rhythm with the sea. Whatever came next, she wanted to remember this moment.
She deserved this.
Feigning confidence she didn’t quite feel, she cocked a hip and smiled. “You know, my place has a big, sand-free bed.”
He bit his lip and grinned. “Does it now?”
“And the headboard has pretty carvings. Seashells, I think. Wanna see?”
“How can I resist?” Mischief sparkled in his eyes as he danced her backward. “Artistic furniture is my jam.”
When her heels collided with the rock wall, she tottered and nearly fell.
His arms closed around her shoulders. “Careful. Wouldn’t want to scrape that beautiful skin.”
They stepped into their shoes and scrambled over the rocks. On the other side, Matteo grasped her waist and lifted her down, sliding her against his front in the process. He rocked his hips against her. Head lolling, she clung to him, lost in delirious pleasure.
“Dude,” a voice rang out behind them. “Not in front of my kids.”
“Oh, God.” She buried her face in the crook of his neck and shuddered with mortified laughter. When her kids were little, she’d had to divert their attention from amorous couples on the beach. And now, here she was, dry humping her new friend as if no one else could see. How gloriously tacky. How wicked.
Blushing darkly, Matteo stepped back and waved at the gawking sandcastle builders. “Sorry, guys. We were just, uh…”
Memory served up an explanation she’d used with her own kids. “Dancing. We were dancing. Great castle, guys.” She flashed them a thumbs-up, kicked off her shoes and stuffed them into her bag, then grasped Matteo’s hand and trotted away. Seafoam tickled their toes as they ran along the water’s edge. When the kayak rental place came into view, they turned toward town and slogged through slippery dry sand dotted with broken shells and driftwood.
They continued barefoot. The sand-dusted sidewalk felt good under her feet.
Matteo slung his arm around her shoulders and snugged her tight to his side. A few people heading for the beach greeted him by name as they passed.
“They’ll think I’m your girlfriend,” she whispered.
He squeezed her shoulder. “You are, bella.”
Somewhere in the back of her lust-addled, sun-drunk brain, a warning bell jangled. But when they turned the corner toward her cottage, all thoughts of consequences evaporated like the early-morning fog.
