Ultimate Romance Collection. Rebecca Winters
enjoy drinking beer, I’ve discovered I enjoy feasting on your mouth even more.”
And then he lowered his mouth to hers.
* * *
Perfect timing, Swan thought, because she needed this. She’d wanted it the moment he tilted his beer bottle to his mouth and she’d watched him do so. And now he was doing her. Showing her that he was enjoying her mouth more than he’d enjoyed the beer. Just like he’d said.
There was a certain precision and meticulousness in how he mastered the art of kissing. First, as soon as his tongue would enter her mouth, he would unerringly find her tongue, capture it with his own and begin gently sucking in a way that made the muscles between her legs tighten. Then he would do other things she didn’t have a name for. Things that made desire flow through her like sweet wine, kindling heated pleasure and burning passion within her.
He rocked his thighs against her and she felt him pressed against her. His arousal was massive. Instinctively, she moved her hips closer, wanting to feel him right there, at the juncture of her thighs.
When he finally pulled his mouth away, she released a deep, satisfied breath. Her mouth was still throbbing and there was an intense ache in her limbs. Right now, their heavy breathing was the only sound audible, and the laser-blue eyes staring down at her sent a tremor to her core.
She licked her lips when she took a step back. “Ready for a few crab balls?”
“Yes,” he said, after licking his own lips. “For now.”
He wanted her.
Flipper knew he shouldn’t, but he did. All through the delicious dinner Swan had prepared and while engaging in great conversation with her, the thought of just how much he wanted her simmered to the back of his mind. Now with dinner coming to an end, desire was inching back to the forefront. Images of her naked tried to dominate his mind, the thoughts made him shift in his chair to relieve the ache at his crotch.
“Ready for dessert, David? I made key lime pie.”
Right now, another kind of dessert was still teasing his taste buds. “Yes, I would love a slice, and dinner was amazing by the way. You’re a good cook. My mother would absolutely love you.”
Too late, he wondered why he’d said such a thing. From the look on her face, she was wondering the same thing. So he decided to clean up his mess by adding, “She admires other women who can cook.”
Swan smiled. “You don’t have to do that, David.”
“Do what?”
“Try to retract the implications of what you said so I won’t get any ideas.”
He had done that, but not for the reason she thought. He’d done so because it wasn’t right for either of them to think something was seriously developing between them. More than likely, she would hate his guts when she learned why he was really in Key West, when she discovered she was his assignment and nothing more. He couldn’t tell her the truth, but he could certainly set her straight on what the future held for them.
“And what ideas do you think I wanted to retract?”
“The ones where I would think we were starting something here, the ones that meant I would be someone you’d take home to meet your mother.”
He sat down his glass of ice tea, which she had served with dinner. “Any reason why I wouldn’t want to take you home to meet my mother if we shared that kind of a relationship, Swan?” Although he didn’t think he needed to let her know—again—that they didn’t share that kind of relationship, he did so anyway.
“Honestly, David, do I really have to answer that?”
“Yes, I think you do.”
She stared at him for a minute. “I’m well aware when it comes to interracial relationships that not all families are accepting.”
He chuckled. “My family isn’t one of them, trust me. Interracial or international, we couldn’t care less. My brother Brad met his wife, Sela, while working in Seoul, South Korea, and my brother Michael met Gardenia in Spain. Like I told you, my parents would accept anyone who makes us happy, regardless of race, creed, religion, nationality or color.”
She didn’t say anything to that. Then she broke eye contact with him to glance down into her glass of tea. Moments later, she raised her gaze back to him.
“My father’s parents didn’t. They threatened him with what they would do if he married Mom and they kept their word. They disowned him. Still, my mother reached out to them when Dad died to let them know he’d passed. They came to his funeral but had no qualms about letting Mom know they still would not accept her. They would only tolerate me since I was biracial. They even tried forcing Mom to let me go back with them. That’s when my godfathers stepped in.”
Flipper shook his head, feeling the pain she refused to acknowledge, the pain she’d obviously felt because of her grandparents’ actions. But he’d heard it in her voice nonetheless.
“It’s sad that some people can be such bigots. At the risk of this sounding like a cliché, some of my closest friends are black,” he added, immediately thinking of Bane, Viper and Coop. Like her, Mac was of mixed heritage and had a white mother and black father.
“I’m sure some of your closest friends are, David.”
He wondered if she believed him. One day, she would see the truth in his words. Then it suddenly occurred to him—no, she would not. There would be no reason for her to ever meet the four guys who were just as close to him as his biological brothers.
“I’ll be back in a minute with the pie,” she said. Then she stood and left the room.
Flipper watched her leave, feeling that he hadn’t fully eradicated her doubts the way he’d wanted to do. That bothered him. He didn’t want her to think he was one of those prejudiced asses who believed one race of people was better than another. What her grandparents had done to her father and mother, as well as to her, was unforgivable. Regardless of how she’d tried to come across as if their actions hadn’t hurt her, as if they still didn’t hurt her, he knew better.
She needed a hug right now.
He pushed back his chair and left the dining room to enter her kitchen. Instead of getting the pie like she’d said she would do, she was standing with her back to him, looking out the kitchen window at the ocean. And he could tell from the movement of her shoulders that she was crying.
“Swan?”
She quickly turned, swiping at her tears. “I’m sorry to take so long, I just had one of those miss-my-daddy-and-mommy moments.”
He crossed the room to her, knowing that her tears were about more than that. He knew it and he intended for her to know he knew it. “Not wanting to get to know you—that was your grandparents’ loss, Swan.”
She gazed into his eyes and nodded. “I know, David, but their actions hurt Dad, although he never said it did. I knew. Mom knew, too. I think that’s one of the reasons she loved him so much, because of all the sacrifices he’d made for her. That’s why she did anything she could to make him happy so he would never regret choosing her. But it wasn’t fair. He was a good man. Mom was a good woman. They deserved each other and should have been allowed to love freely and without restrictions, reservations or censure. It just wasn’t fair, David.”
And then she buried her face in his chest and cried in earnest. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her, leaning down to whisper in her ear that things would be all right. That her parents had had a special love, one she should be proud of, one the naysayers had envied.
Emotions Flipper hadn’t counted on flowed through him as he continued to stroke her hair and whisper soothing words next to her ear.