I can hear his dejected sigh all the way across the room before he shuts the door, muttering, “I don’t know why you’d turn down a perfectly good offer of help.”

I shake my head as I crawl from the warmth of the plush duvet and head for the en-suite bathroom. My guts are a jittery mess knowing that Reese is waiting for me and that today he’s going to be turning up the charm (and likely the heat) big time.

For one heartbeat, the bitter skeptic in me starts to speak up, but I smother her with my happiness until I don’t hear her at all anymore. Five minutes later, I’m opening the stateroom door to find Reese leaning up against the wall, arms and ankles crossed, waiting for me.

His eyes rake me from head to toe, taking in the skintight leggings and snug cap-sleeved tee that he brought me. I stop and let him look his fill. Then, since I’m feeling happy and plucky, I decide to give him the same treatment.

I start at Reese’s white sneakers, working my way up the loose black running pants that hang just right on his slim h*ps to the flat stomach that’s so perfectly defined beneath his dark purple fitted tank top. His well-developed pecs are clearly discernible beneath the fabric, his wide shoulders and muscular arms left open to my roving gaze.

When I skim his tanned throat and reach his face, his expression has turned from playful to fiery. His eyes are dark and his jaw is clenched. “I should warn you,” he says softly, pushing away from the wall and walking to within an inch of me. He stops, looming over me until I have to crane my neck to maintain eye contact. “If you do that again, I’ll haul your perfect little ass back into that room and give you the spanking you deserve for teasing me like that. Got it?”

A thrill races along my nerve endings, bringing my skin to tingling life at his nearness. “Got it.”

“Wanna try it again and see if I’m telling the truth?”

He leans in ever so slightly, his chest brushing mine, my ni**les hardening in response. He’s teasing me and, for some reason, it’s making me feel light and playful rather than defensive. Light and playful and daring. I arch my back the tiniest bit, rubbing my br**sts against him in an almost imperceptible way. In exotic dancing, I learned all sorts of subtle ways to move my body to titillate and entice. I’ve just never used them on a man up close before.

“Holy shit, woman. You didn’t tell me you liked to play with fire,” he growls.

“What would be the fun in warning you?” I ask with a grin.

“I’m gonna count to three. One…two…”

Before he can get to three, I slide out from between him and the wall and, with a tiny squeal, move quickly down the hall. When I glance back over my shoulder, his eyes are glued to my butt. Giving it an extra little swing, I turn my head and smile.

Reese might be right. This might be the best few weeks of my life.

Until it’s over.

********

When we reach the gym, it’s empty. “I guess we beat Brian this morning,” I say as Reese opens the door for me.

“Nope. He won’t be working you out anymore,” he admits, making his way to the stereo to turn on the music.

“What? Why?”

He doesn’t answer until he’s finished and back standing right in front of me. “Because. I told him I’d do it.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I ask, feeling the twitter of butterflies in my belly.

“I’ve watched every single thing he’s done to you until I can’t watch it one more time. I don’t want to see any hands on you unless they’re mine.”

“Brian’s hardly—” I stop myself before I accidentally spill Brian’s secret.

“I don’t care if he’s g*y or straight. I don’t like it.”

I have to hide my pleased smile. “Then you’d better make this worth my while,” I taunt.

Reese says nothing, merely raises one dark brow as he takes my hand and leads me to the mats on the floor. “Let’s start with stretching.”

As I lie down on the floor at Reese’s feet, the heavy, sensual thump of Closer by Nine Inch Nails drifts into the room, bouncing off the walls and enveloping me in the tension that buzzes between us. His eyes are locked on mine as he spreads his legs in front of me and takes my foot in his hand. Still watching me, he runs his palm up my calf to the back of my knee, bending it as he leans down and in toward me, pressing my thigh slowly toward my chest. He eases up and then leans in again, pushing a little harder and extending my stretch in a long, languorous pulse.

The words to the song are resonating in my head and Reese’s touch is resonating through my body as he reaches down to spread his hands over my hips, stabilizing them as he tucks his shoulder under my knee and presses harder. I feel the sting of the stretch in my butt, but I feel the throb of something else more toward my center. The throb of something deeper. Something hotter.

“Can you feel that?” he asks, his voice a low rumble.

I’m practically panting already. “Yes. I can feel that perfectly.”

“Mmmm, good. Let’s do the other side.” Reese releases my left leg and shifts to give the right the same treatment. When he eases in and gives me that first deep pulse, he grunts and warmth gushes through me.

As he nears the end of my right leg stretch, I feel my heart start to race. If he follows Brian’s routine, I know what’s coming next. Sure enough, Reese doesn’t release my leg; he straightens it, running his palm down the inside of my thigh as he scoots into the center of my body to stretch my groin.

Automatically, I lift my other leg and Reese presses a hand to the low inside of it as well, pushing outward, causing my legs to fall out into a split. He leans in, using a small portion of his body weight to exert pressure. Reese runs his hands up the insides of my legs to my ankles to hold them out straight as he eases forward against me to keep my stretch.

Oh, god!

I curl my fingers into tight fists where they rest at my sides. I want to beg him to kiss me and touch me, but I won’t. I squeeze my eyes shut, not because it hurts, but because I can feel his belly rubbing between my legs.

“Look at me,” Reese commands gruffly.

I do as he asks. The expression on his face is a mirror, reflecting everything that I’m feeling on the inside.

“Reese…”

He leans in even closer, his body grazing the flattened V of my spread legs. I can barely hear him when he whispers, “Are your panties wet?”

“No,” I say automatically.

“Liar,” he says with a wicked gleam in his eye.

I say nothing. I don’t know what to say, other than to beg him to put out the flames that are consuming me right now, which I won’t do.

“If I pulled them down right now and put my fingers inside you, you’d come, wouldn’t you?”

I can’t deny it. I probably would.

“I could make you feel so good, Kennedy,” he says, leaning further into me, “but I won’t. I won’t until you ask me to.”

I want to scream and moan and beg, but I do none of that. I simply let his eyes eat me up from the inside and I hold my tongue, determined not to give in so easily. This has become more than just me resisting Reese; this has become a battle of wills. He wants to make me beg, but I want to make him work for it.

“Can you wait that long?” I ask, rotating my h*ps under him the tiniest bit.

I know he felt it. I hear the air hiss through his teeth. “I promised you the truth, and the truth is I don’t know how long I can wait.”

I smile. I can’t help it. I love that he would admit that to me. “Then maybe just a little bit longer,” I say, tugging my ankles free of his grasp to wrap them around his waist.

I grin at the look of shocked desire on his face. Maybe I really do like to play with fire.

Lightning fast, Reese reaches forward and grabs my wrists, hauling me up and into his arms. He wraps them around me, holding me close as he picks me up a few inches and then drops me back down on his very noticeable erection.

“I wouldn’t wait too long. It could get ugly.”

“Maybe I like ugly. Maybe that’s what I’m into.”

Leaning forward, Reese licks a path from the V of my shirt neck to my ear. “I’ll give you anything you want. As often as you want it. Ugly, rough, the dirtiest things you can think of. I’d do it all for you, baby. I’d come all over you and then lick it off. On that sexy mouth, on those delectable nipples. In that beautiful ass. So far up inside you, it wouldn’t come out for days.”

Reese is slowly grinding my h*ps against his, whispering naughty things in my ear, setting my insides on fire. There’s friction in all the right places—body and mind—winding me up tighter and tighter.

“Mmm, the things I’d do to you. The places I’d put my fingers, the way I’d slide them in and out. Fast and hard, then slow and easy.” The movement of his body under mine is steadily increasing, making it harder and harder for me to hold out. “The things I’d taste with my tongue. Damn, I can just imagine how sweet and creamy you are, like vanilla. And what that tight little body would feel like wrapped around my cock. Hot. Slick. If I close my eyes I can imagine you sliding down over me right now. So wet. Kennedy?” he whispers.

“Huh?” I moan, my entire being focused on the place where he’s rubbing against me.

“I can feel those soaked panties through our clothes. Because you’re close, aren’t you? So close. Maybe if I did this,” he murmurs, reaching between us to scrub the backs of his fingers over my sensitive center, stroking exactly where I need him to, as though there is an X marked there that only he can see. “Let me have it, Kennedy,” he whispers, his lips grazing my ear as he speaks. “I wanna watch you come.”

With Reese’s eyes riveted on my face, refusing to let me go as he pulses one knuckle against me, I feel my body spiraling out of control. Over and over, he moves his hand until…

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!

My muscles squeeze and I swallow a gulp of air, determined to hold back the sounds of my orgasm. I move against him, unable to remain still any longer. My breath stops and starts, stops and starts and I pant against his neck, my arms gripping his broad shoulders as he rubs me through each wave. As I make my way back down to earth, Reese slows his assault, massaging me gently until my breathing returns to normal.

“That’s just a taste,” he murmurs, leaning in to nuzzle my throat.

Oh my god, Reese just watched me have a fully-clothed orgasm in the floor of a gym.

I can feel my face burst into flames and I hide it in the curve of his shoulder. Reese leans back and reaches up to cup my face. It’s hard to look him in the eye. “Don’t hide that from me. Don’t ever hide that from me.”

In the sweetest of kisses, Reese covers my lips with his own for a few, too-brief seconds before he wraps his arms around me again and holds me against his chest.

After a few minutes, when my buttery bones have started to solidify once more, Reese pulls back again. “Bet Brian never gave you a work out like that before, did he?”

His eyes are sparkling with mischief and, yet again, I have to hold back a smile.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

His eyes narrow and he smacks my butt. Hard. “What was that? I’m sure I didn’t hear that right.”

I give him my most innocent smile. “Nothing. I didn’t say a single thing.”

“That’s what I thought,” he says, kissing the end of my nose. “How about some breakfast? I’m starving.”

“I just bet you are,” I tease, planting my hands on his shoulders and standing, my legs only feeling slightly wobbly. “Come on, let’s go feed the beast.”

“Oh you already are,” Reese says, reaching for my hand as we make our way from the gym. “Trust me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Reese

As much as I would’ve liked to have a quiet, intimate breakfast in my room with Kennedy, I figured there was no reason to put myself through that. Her sassy little comments coupled with the images I kept getting of her na**d, showering in the room right next door was more than enough to convince me to bring her up on deck for breakfast. In public.

I smile just thinking about her reaction when I escorted her back to the stateroom next to mine rather than her tiny shared room in crew quarters. “I had Karesh bring your things here.”

She looked at me with worried eyes. “I don’t want the others to think that I’m—”

“I don’t care what the others think and neither should you. I want you here. I want you close to me. That’s all that matters. Everyone else can go to hell.”

She might’ve wanted to argue, but she didn’t, especially when I opened the door to the stateroom and Karesh had made the few other changes I’d asked him to make. Fresh flowers were overflowing a crystal vase that he’d placed on the dresser. Her cosmetics bag was sitting on the vanity. Her robe was draped over the end of the bed, which had been made while we were gone. The curtains over the balcony had been drawn back to display the stunning view. And, most importantly, a tiny coffee table had been placed out there, a private place from which she can sit and enjoy the outdoors as much and as often as she’d like. As thrilled as Karesh said she seemed about just having a window in her other room, I figured a balcony would seal the deal.

And it did.

She turned bright eyes and a quietly beaming smile on me. “Thank you. It’s beautiful here.”

“It doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

“I’m so tickled, I’m not even going to comment on the quality of that line,” she quipped.