The Water’s Edge

~Excerpt~

Avery

A ghostly touch tickled down my back and I moaned softly. I think that was what woke me more than the touch itself. That impossibly low, sexy, and sultry moan that vibrated my throat startled me awake the rest of the way. I mean, I’d never quite made a sound like that in my entire life.

I blinked my eyes open and focused on a very masculine, very nude, thigh, inches from my face. I sucked in a shuddering breath and held it, my eyes flicking up past the jutting cock, which was uncut, interestingly enough. My eyes continued to climb up the flat, muscular stomach, across the swell of muscular chest, skating along the reddish-tinted beard to a set of the most incredibly vivid green eyes I have ever seen.

Dreaming. You’re not awake, you’re dreaming.

He smiled this incredibly sexy and endearing crooked smile, and I felt a mischievous answering one of my own. His rough fingertips slid over my heated flesh, trailing in light, nonsensical patterns over my bare skin and another of those moans, along with some gasping little breaths, slipped out of me.

God that felt good.

I didn’t remember closing my eyes again, but I must have, because they opened when his weight shifted, and the mattress beneath me dipped. He’d gone up on one knee and his lips landed on the back of my neck as he swept my hair aside for better access. I went limp, melting into the bed at the sensation it wrought, even as my pussy throbbed with an aching need.

You’re dreaming, and you should let this happen.

I was absolutely going to let this dream-man do whatever he damn well pleased. His lips touched again, slightly lower than the first kiss and he interchanged those butterfly kisses with hot, wet, flicks of his tongue and God, it was nice. He moved slowly, and I got the sense he was worshiping my body as well as exploring it, and that was… beautiful. A kind of gentlemanly you didn’t encounter in most modern lovers.

He found a particularly sensitive spot, kissing my lower back, where it dipped before the swell of my ass and I sucked in a sharp breath. I heard him smile. That’s right, I heard him smile and he lowered himself so he straddled my thighs, pressing my lower half into the sheets.

He explored me lightly with his fingers and I writhed a bit against that probative touch. His teasing had set me on fire, and I needed something to satisfy that burning desire for sex like nobody’s business. He eased forward, and I arched, to allow him to do what I so desperately wanted. He eased himself inside of me and I sighed out. God, that felt good! He lay atop my body which felt even better, despite the thick, summer heat pooling in my tent.

Eamon

There is a strange place that exists between wakefulness and true sleep, and I am aware of this gray predawn time. I am also aware that I am not alone in my bunk. There is a weight, warm and soft, pressed against my own. A woman, nude, her own eyes open, staring into my own.

By the Lord? 

I did not fly from the bunk, my hand did not seek dagger or cutlass, and that was how I knew this was not waking, but that I was still on the cusp of dreaming. Her eyes were as blue as the sea and just as bright, her lush lips turned up into an imp’s smile. She had the semblance of the angels painted by the Italian masters, but fairer. I thought to speak, to ask her name, to demand how she made her way into my bunk, but when my lips parted, she placed hers against mine. Such thoughts fled, and I was drawn into this kiss from my strange goddess.

This is a dream, nothing more.

I let my hands wander along the curve of her shoulder and down her back. Her hand grazed my face, her fingernails traced lines down the side of my neck. She was supple, her body smooth and perfect, clean and flawless. She moaned softly into my mouth and wrapped one of her legs around me. I was keenly aware of her nudity, and she was completely shameless. Perhaps she was more a siren and less an angel.

Did she know my thoughts? Because her mouth wandered away from mine. Her breath was warm on my neck, and on my chest. She traced an old scar from a sword wound with her lips, and I lost my breath when she found my nipple. Her hair was soft, golden as the first blush of sunlight as it rose over the horizon, and she smelled curious. Perfumey, but clean, not the overly sweet or cloying way a whore did. She moved lower with her kisses, undoing buttons and laces.

I groaned aloud.

Her angel’s face hid the Devil’s temptations. She took me into her mouth, and I could not breath. Her fingers ran down my chest, my stomach, and I was still breathless. If this was the dream I was going to have, I wasn’t going to fight it. It was a damn good dream.

She eventually released me from her mouth, and I groaned. She straddled me, pinning me beneath her, her face glowing with angelic lust. The shape of her smile was wordless desire. The look in her eyes reinforced that. She rolled her hips and I felt her, hot and wet, against me. I shuddered, and thoughts of reservation, sin without shame, left me. I could take no more of her teasing and I grabbed her hips. I had to have her, I needed her. Her eyes shone! I thrust.

God!

I bolted up with an inarticulate shout, my heart pounding in my chest. I was rigid and indisposed, that much remained unchanged, but my bunk was empty, I had no siren atop me. I rubbed my face with my hands, my fingertips sought out my own eyes as if they could press the sleep from my skull. I pulled down the hem of my shirt, and redid my disheveled laces. Thankfully, without the siren, the fallen angel, my ardor had cooled. I contemplated sleep but thought the better of it. The gentle rolling of the ship, the creak and groan of the hull was familiar, almost enticing me back to sleep.