Dex chuckles, reaching on either side of my body to take the steering wheel. “Baby, if they made you practice that, I might have words with your instructor.”
“Relax,” I grin, smoothing my hands across his chest. “Mrs. Donovan kept her hands to herself.”
Unlike me. I relish the feel of his muscles under the thin fabric of his T-shirt, chiseled and rock hard. I feel another shiver. “Aren’t you kind of hot under there?” I ask with a flirty grin, tugging the fabric up around his stomach.
Dex laughs. “You know, now that I think about it…”
In one swift motion, he yanks his shirt over his head and tosses it aside before grabbing the wheel again.
That’s better.
I trace the outline of his tattoos, snaking across his bicep and shoulder in a dense pattern. “What do they mean?”
“These guys?” Dex glances down. “They all mean something different. I started with the scroll, when I was in high school. My parent’s names. That’s sanskrit,” he adds, as my fingers stroke a foreign marking. “It means ‘life is now.’”
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
“Those are my siblings’ initials,” he continues, as my hands move across his warm skin. “And that’s the chord progression for the first song I ever wrote.”
“Really?” I smile.
“I must’ve been in grade school,” he laughs. “But my father wrote it down for me, and I found the notebook in some boxes a couple of years ago. It’s not any good,” he adds, with a rueful grin.
“But it was the beginning,” I reply slowly. My fingertips come to rest on a dark inked strip. Numbers. 04.04. A date.
“What’s this?” I ask, curious.
Dex tenses beneath my hands. “Nothing,” he says quickly, and then I realize. The date is from last year. Whatever happened to turn his life upside down, that’s what’s commemorated in dark ink, branded in his skin.
What is it that he can’t bring himself to talk about—but won’t let himself forget?
“I like them,” I move on, not wanting to ruin the good mood. “I think they’re sexy.”
“Got a thing for bad boys, do you?” Dex’s voice relaxes again.
“Maybe just this one,” I murmur, dropping an experimental kiss along his collarbone. His skin is smooth, faintly salty under my tongue, and I inhale the scent of him, his spicy, masculine smell. My body is still heavy-limbed and breathless from my orgasm, but I feel a new itch twisting in my veins.
I want to touch him now.
I want to be the one to drive him wild.I nuzzle closer, teasingly licking in the hollow of his throat. I feel Dex’s body stiffen, hard against my hip.
My heart catches. I feel a reckless thrill.
Slowly, I slide my hands down his chest, over his abs. I slip my fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans, and run them back and forth between the hard fabric and his skin.
Dex inhales a sharp breath.
“Alicia…” he starts, a warning note in his voice, but I’m already unbuttoning his fly and edging the zipper down over his swollen, straining flesh. He reaches to stop me. I swat his hand away.
“Eyes on the ocean,” I tell him, mock scolding. “Let’s see how your concentration holds up this time.”
Dex laughs, but there’s a new tension in his voice now. He grips the wheel, glancing down as I ease his jeans over his hips. He’s commando underneath, and I have to catch my breath when his cock springs free: hard and big, with a long, thick shaft and bulbous head. It swells in my hands, even bigger.
Oh my.
I feel a tremor of nerves. I’ve never done anything like this before—never been so up close and personal with a man. But a new curiosity takes me over.
I want to learn everything about him.
I close my hand around him, feeling the stiff muscle leap against my touch. Dex lets out a strangled groan.
I look back to his face, watching the tension there: the way his breath gets quicker, how he clenches his jaw when I grip him tighter and move my hand up and down the length.
Power surges through me, a giddy rush of pride.
Slowly, I sink to my knees.
“Fuck.”
I kneel on the floor of the speedboat, feeling every rock and motion of the waves. I hear Dex curse above me as I lean in, examining him up close. There’s a thick vein running from root to tip, and a ridge of muscle just beneath the head. He looks even bigger from my position down here, and for a moment, I wonder just how he could possibly fit all of that inside me.
I push the worry aside. There’ll be time for that later.
Right now, I want a taste.
I lean in and slowly lick up the length of him. Dex flinches, making a low gasping sound. Emboldened, I do it again, swirling my tongue, tasting salt from the milky beads of moisture forming on the tip. I open my mouth wider, and slide my lips down, taking the head into my mouth and sucking.
Dex groans with pleasure. Interesting. I lift my head, returning to the shaft, licking and teasing along the turgid length like a popsicle, exploring every inch of him. I slide my hands up his thighs, reaching higher to cup his balls and lightly massage the tight, swollen sacs.
“Yes,” I hear him gasp over the rumble of the engine. “God, Alicia…”
I close my fist around the base of his shaft and pump gently, moving my mouth to his balls now, licking and tasting them, curious at the feel. I take one into my mouth and suck experimentally, rewarded with another string of fevered cursing.