Page 14 of Kai (Alpha Heroes #13)

Cece

I woke to what sounded like waves lapping at the hull of a boat. A beam of sunlight streaming through a gap in the curtains made me blink. The double bed was firm but cozy beneath me. Plush pillows cradled my head, and sheets rustled against my bare legs, soft and silky.

I took in the blond wood paneling surrounding me on all sides.

My senses delighted in the calm that pervaded the space.

A delicious scent drifted in the air, making my stomach growl.

For a moment, I didn’t recognize the place.

This was not my tiny Spartan bedroom at the lighthouse. I jolted up in bed.

Where the hell was I?

Memories of last night crashed over me. Kai King, the fine specimen of a male that had shown up unexpectedly. The attack on the lighthouse. The fight. The moment my martial arts training had paid off with dividends. The kisses. Oh. My. God. I’d kissed him!

Shit .

Covering my face with my hands, I fell back onto the pillows. It had all happened too fast, and yet the memory of his caresses woke my body to delicious sensations. As I squeezed my legs, I couldn’t deny the dampness between my thighs.

After the kissing came the daring escape.

The sea and the wild waves. The pungent taste of salt lingered in my throat.

I remembered the journey, and also the man, standing beneath the moonlight like a sea god.

And finally, the sight of that sleek, beautiful catamaran floating at anchor under the light of a full moon.

As we approached the boat, small blue lights came on, illuminating two flights of stairs at each side of the stern. They led past the boat’s toy platform to the back deck. With help from Kai, I’d crawled up those stairs and collapsed, too tired to move.

I had blurry memories of Kai dropping his gear before he lifted me from the floor, propped me up on a chair, and fed me something. Hot soup, I think. He made me drink water as well. I wish I could say that it’d been enough to make me functional, but yeah, no, by then, I was done.

I remembered him carrying me to a bedroom—I mean, a berth—that’s what they called bedrooms on a boat, right? I recalled the sound of a shower going and then…

“Oh, hell.”

He’d taken off my wetsuit and clothes, then sat me on the bench while he rinsed me with the shower’s hose.

He’d soaped me, washed my hair, and combed through the conditioner.

Even now, the memory of his touch gliding over my body sizzled beneath my skin.

He’d handled me with great care. All the while, I’d sat there like a slug, half asleep and catatonic.

Me. Catatonic .

Only the ocean could drain me so.

At one point, when I looked up, I caught a blurry glimpse of him unzipping his wetsuit, sliding his muscular arms out of the sleeves, and folding the neoprene down to his waist. His broad chest hovered over me like pure temptation.

Not that I was in any condition to ogle, but his bronzed, smooth skin stretched over a slab of cut muscles that confirmed his body’s perfection.

A pair of small nipples also taunted my fingers.

I wanted to roll them between my fingertips right before I slid my hands down his middle, traced the lines that formed the grid of his stomach, and followed the “V” that got lost in his wetsuit.

Had I had the strength, I would’ve reached out to explore all of him.

Even in my state of exhaustion, as he trailed the washcloth over my body with confident but gentle hands, his touch had been titillating. My clit had perked up, and my nipples reacted to his touch. I’d craved his fingers on my skin, preferably inside my pussy.

It was shocking, but in my delirium, I imagined that, below the grid of his stomach, his groin swelled with the erection of my dreams. How would it feel pumping in my mouth or thrusting in my pussy?

Divine , I guessed from my bed. Full, firm, and solid , like the rest of him .

Cece Astor! I admonished myself. Your dreams belong to a slut .

Well, yeah , the rebel in me shot back. Something wrong with that?

Growing up, I’d kept my sex life simple and my bed partners at a distance. No need to keep them close, since they never rang my bell. I took care of myself.

But Kai’s sudden appearance in my life had jolted my sexual instincts.

Under the covers, I found myself stark naked.

Convenient . I dropped my hand and rubbed my fingers around my clit.

My little bundle was usually an underperformer, but today it was hard as a pearl and swollen with need.

I craved a “manual override,” as my sister Affie used to call it.

I massaged it until my hips rolled and my clit bubbled with sensations. My body came online, and my need built. It’d been too long since I’d last taken care of myself.

I closed my eyes. Replaying the shower scene in my head, I kept touching myself, pretending I’d seduced Kai and things had gotten out of hand. In my vision, he was naked, soapy, and slippery, pumping in and out of me in a way that made me feel alive.

“Oh, yeah,” I murmured.

Stroking myself, I wanted his hard flesh, and yet my sex squeezed around air. Get in my pussy , I pleaded in my head. I needed his dick inside me, like, right now.

I dipped a finger or two and fantasized my flesh was his dick.

Thrusting my digits, I imagined it was his flesh sliding inside of me.

My fingers were a poor substitute, but my need was urgent.

In my imagination, I exaggerated his size and power, but what the hell.

This was my fantasy. Nobody needed to know.

My sex pulsed with promise. My walls contracted around my fingers. I was close, but before I could get myself off, I remembered something else. After the shower, Kai had put me to bed.

I don’t know what annoyed me the most, that he’d seen me naked and perhaps found me unappealing; that fiercely independent and self-sufficient me had been consumed with exhaustion and useless; or that I hadn’t been able to seize the moment and get him inside of me.

Not that I’d expected him to drive me to paradise, but it would’ve been nice to give my neglected sex life a little oomph.

You’re flirting with disaster, Astor. My logic piped up. He’s on a mission to get you home. He’s not looking at you in that way. Your sisters are in danger, and those mercs want you dead. What the fuck are you doing fantasizing about a man?

My logical mind wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t the fuckable type, anyway.

The thought killed my once promising orgasm.

My body went numb, and my swollen parts deflated.

I bit down on a string of curses. I was supposed to be the smart one, and yet I must’ve come across like a total moron last night.

Forgetting my stupid fantasies, I stared up at the paneled ceiling and groaned.

In my head, I did the walk of shame. Hell, I might as well.

Under the sheets, I was already naked and ready for it.

“Food’s almost ready.” Kai’s cheerful voice startled me, drifting from somewhere above.

How the hell did he know I was awake?

“I heard you squirming in bed,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts.

Fuck . Had he heard me trying to get off, too?

Impossible. I hadn’t moaned aloud. Had I?

“I also noticed when you stopped snoring,” his voice came again.

“I don’t snore!” I called out indignantly.

“You do now,” he announced, his voice bright with mirth. “Quiet little snores. They’re adorable.”

Adorable?

I rolled my eyes. There was a word no one ever used to describe me or anything I did.

“I bet you’re starving,” he said. “I know I am.”

The growl in my stomach agreed with him. But how was I supposed to go up there when I was still wet and aroused and wearing nothing but my skin?

“You’ll find some clothes in the wardrobe.

” The instructions from above were beginning to annoy me, even if I needed them to drag my ass out of bed.

“Your sisters packed a bag for you. I also laid out some new toiletries in the bathroom. Your sisters forgot to pack a hairbrush, so I lent you mine. You need it.”

“What the hell?” I ran a hand through my hair, and my fingers tripped over a bunch of prickly strands. “How do you know that?”

“I checked on you earlier,” he called out. “Your head reminded me of a sea urchin.”

“Hey!” I threw the blankets aside, scooted down to the foot of the mattress, and climbed down two steps from the elevated bed.

“No worries,” he said. “You looked cute.”

“Cute?” I stalked across the berth. “I don’t do cute.”

“You do now.” His rich chuckles echoed through the boat.

Arriving in the bathroom, I couldn’t deny that his laughter had a nice ring to it. If his chuckles had felt like sunlight last night, today they felt like the soft, warm, golden glow of a magical caress brushing against my soul.

The darkness churning inside of me ate it up, absorbed it, and clung to it like a precious find. After living alone for so long, I welcomed the sound, even if it came at my expense. When was the last time I’d made someone laugh? When was the last time I had truly laughed?

I couldn’t remember.

Bracing on my bare feet, I stood before the mirror.

My hair stuck up every which way. He was right.

I did look like a sea urchin. Or a hedgehog.

I opened the faucet, smoothed the offending strands with water, then shut off the flow and stared at the hairbrush on the counter.

His brush. Not mine. It felt too intimate to share his brush.

“I don’t got lice if that’s what you’re thinking,” his voice came again.

“Do you have a camera down here?” I snatched a towel, wrapped it under my arms, and, glancing around suspiciously, inspected the space.

“No cameras down there,” he said. “But I’ve got freakishly good hearing, and I can hear you cursing and groaning. Hell, I think I might even hear your stomach growling.”