All Hands Below Read online

  Table of Contents

  All Hands Below

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PRAISE FOR AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Thank you for purchasing this Wild Rose Press, Inc. publication.

  All Hands Below

  by

  Lelani Black

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All Hands Below

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Lelani Black

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Angela Anderson

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com

  Publishing History

  First Scarlet Rose Edition, February 2013

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-810-3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To the heroic Italian Coast Guard captain

  whose commanding voice was heard

  around the world.

  To the United States Navy who took me on my first Dependents Cruise. The ship left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and sailed its short, merry way

  to the neighboring island of Maui

  with excited families on board.

  It was an experience never to be forgotten.

  PRAISE FOR AUTHOR

  Lelani Black

  AND HER BOOKS

  GOING GREEK

  “…Ms. Black wrote such a good story, I actually couldn’t put this down. Then I went out and bought another of her stories. I loved this one and only had two wishes when I completed reading: I wished it was longer and I wished I had been to Greece.”

  ~Teresa T., The Romance Studio

  PRIVATE DANCER

  “…Erotica fans will feel satisfied as the author steams the pages and let the reader sweat.”

  ~Lady Raven Rave, Romance Novel Junkies

  BOSS WITH BENEFITS

  #1 Erotic Audio Book Bestseller!

  “…There were many times when I did not want to get out of the car because well it was just that good. I was most surprised with the amount of story there really was in the audio book. The idea of a seemingly boring and unattractive secretary inadvertently tricking her boss into thinking she had a HOT sister when it was really her deep dark secret! The narrator on this book was outstanding!”

  ~Lisa, Lisa’s World of Books

  Chapter One

  7 Night Western Caribbean Cruise

  aboard the Sea Sapphire

  Day 1

  “Are you sure it’s safe down here?”

  Liam Rossi ducked his head out from under a ventilation shaft as the sultry query floated up to his ears. Stuffing his flashlight into the pocket of his coveralls, he scrambled down the vertical ladder and onto a catwalk in the steamy engine room of the Sea Sapphire.

  “It’s safe, lovely Evie,” came masculine assurance from down below. “And, perhaps the only place I can have two minutes of peace without interruption.”

  Liam rubbed at the kink lodged in his neck and frowned down at the face of his watch. Ah, yes. It was that time again—the twilight hour. The courting hour. He peered at the couple standing in the corridor below.

  The woman raised sun-kissed arms and curled them around her companion’s neck. Her long throat arched up from an action-packed body whose Christmas-red gown clung to some pretty dangerous curves. Full-sized breasts tanned to a honeyed sheen pillowed up against her companion’s uniform dress whites.

  When she tilted her face to gaze up at her partner, Liam stared, arrested by the wide-set eyes, delicate sloping cheekbones, strawberry wine lips, and a pert nose.

  Beneath a flare of smoky topaz lashes, blue eyes simmered with a look so full of desire Liam suffered a fierce stab of envy for the other man.

  “We could go back to your cabin,” she offered, her voice lilting hopefully.

  “I’m on duty. I should not even be here with you.”

  “Then come to my cabin later. When you’re off duty.”

  “Not allowed, unless it’s official business. But you’re here, I’m here and…I’m on fire for you, Evie. I want what’s between those legs, sweetheart. Here.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. We could have our own cruise ship mile-high club.” Her companion nuzzled her neck. “Where is your sense of adventure, hmm?”

  It’s not in her pants, genius.

  With a sweep of his finger, the other man coaxed one luscious, quivering breast out from behind its velvet slash.

  Hot damn! Liam smothered a groan. His taste buds puckered and his mouth watered at the sight.

  “Look…at…you. Mm-mm-mmm!” The other man breathed and cupped that golden, buoyant mound in his hand.

  Concealed in the shadows, Liam watched him squeeze her breast until its pink peak jutted into a pout. The man fingered the wanton nipple to pudgy elongation till it looked like a plug of cotton candy. Then he guided that tender morsel and its creamy, weighty flesh inside his mouth, deep as it could go, and began sucking.

  “Ahh…” The woman’s gasp shot a sexual charge down Liam’s back, but a frown marred the sweet contour of her lips.

  What do you think, sweetheart? Liam mused. Time to move the party somewhere else?

  She sighed, cupped the man’s jaw, and slid a finger inside his mouth to break the rigorous seal his lips had on her tit.

  “Evie!” The man protested, pawing at her glistening nipple.

  She grabbed her partner’s hand and gazed, exasperated, into his face. “Slow down there, speedy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to have some fun with you in a bed, that’s why. The silk sheets I brought on board are the color of Belgian chocolate. They’ve never been used.” She kissed his fingers.

  Liam drank in a pensive breath. Heat sparked from the pit of his stomach and lit into his cock with a sharp, hot singe.

  While he struggled to hear what she was saying, his gaze remained fixed on her breast, its rosy innocence rubbing against the officer’s dress whites as she pleaded her case.

  “Come to me when you’re ready, Robert. I want to be with you, but—” she winced. Overwhelmed by the roar of marine diesel engines, she yelled louder, “Not here.”

  Robert? Chief Security Officer Robert Montero?

  Oh hell no.

  Liam swung out from the shadows and landed on the rubber soles of his boots with a whump in front of two startled bodies.

  “What the—”

  “Officer Montero, how is your wife and baby son these days?”

  “Umm…well…”

  “Wife?” The rosy flush in Christmas Beauty’s cheeks deepened to an indignant red. “Robert, you’re fucking married? With a baby?”

  “Evangeline, I—”

  “Your presence is needed on the bridge, officer.”

  “Of course.” The other man tripped over his feet, eager to escape the frosty edge in Liam’s gaze and hotfoot his way to freedom. “Evie, we will talk later.”

  “No. We won’t.”

  The other man hurried from the engine room, leaving Liam to wade through a taut silence with the other man’s catch of the day. Or night.

  “You’re in a restricted area, miss,” Liam said, no stranger to the party’s-over look that crept into her eyes. Her reality ship had just docked, but that usually happened after a cruise. This ship had just set sail.

  Two engineers came clattering in. She stiffened at the sound of voices drawing near. When he flicked a pointed glance at her breast hanging out in the open, she looked down at herself in dismay.

  “Ohh!” Hastily she restored the hill of flesh behind her gown, but the image of her silky hand tucking her breast behind a swatch of red velvet had already branded his memory cells.

  The men strolled by. Liam nodded. They nodded back, then gawked at the woman next to him. As one of them ran into a load-bearing pole, Liam guided her away through a maze of machinery and up a ladder, beyond a door, and out of the engine room.

  Once inside the safety of an interior corridor, she sighed. “It seems other things were off limits, too.” She looked up at him as she removed moldable earplugs.

  Misty blue lilacs, Liam thought. As he summed up the color of her eyes, muscles deep in his body throbbed with a blistering awareness of this lethally sexy
woman.

  He took the earplugs from her and stuffed them in one of his pockets, noting with relief how the baggy cut of his coveralls toned down the ramrod salute of his cock.

  “Thanks for what you did back there,” she said to him. “You just saved a married man from being naughty, and me from umm…getting…ah…”

  “Fucked?”

  “Yes. Right. Thanks for sorting that one out for me.”

  Liam shrugged. “Do yourself a favor and avoid men in dress whites altogether.”

  She studied the blue coveralls he wore. “Why?”

  “Ship’s officers meet beautiful women all the time, so you’re out of luck if it’s roses and forever you’re after. Only on a cruise ship do one-night stands last the entire voyage.”

  Her mouth quirked up. “Thanks for the warning, but I think I can handle a man in or out of uniform.”

  Liam’s gaze narrowed. “Then pick one who isn’t wearing a wedding ring.”

  Her long dark lashes flickered. “Robert wasn’t wearing one.”

  “Funny things rings,” Liam drawled. “They slide off at the most convenient times.”

  “Really? Are you speaking from experience?”

  Excitement rioted under Liam’s skin. Even his scalp tingled from the challenge that sparkled in her eyes.

  He grazed his fingertips down her arm and drifted closer to her, drawn to the floral notes that misted the air around her.

  “Maybe.”

  A blend of spring roses and something else, something fragrant like red, oaky wine, ripened his tongue with anticipation. She would taste as good as she smelled. No doubt about that.

  Liam’s fingers closed over her hand. He raised it to his mouth and feathered his lips along her silky-soft knuckles. “After all, it does get lonely at sea.”

  ****

  Evangeline Spencer gulped as dribbles of want soaked through her panties.

  Pleasure raced down her thighs and her fingers trembled against the caress of the sexy mouth belonging to this dark-haired stranger. A man who’d stepped in before she and Robert took things too far.

  He’d known Robert was married. Yet he risked the wrath of his superior by reminding the other man of his wife and baby waiting at home. This man’s actions showed a depth of character that intrigued her. What it meant beyond the next five minutes, who knew?

  Evie, proceed with caution! So he has a sex-god face, and a voice that turns your legs to stacked marshmallows, but a heart under the pretty red bow is priority number one.

  His mouth glided along her skin, and when her eyes met his, dark and cool like mountain moss, she didn’t mistake the glint of humor that flashed in them.

  Taking that as a warning flag, she jerked her hand away. It would be a damn shame if he expected some sort of reward for doing the right thing!

  “I see.” He straightened and arched a sleek brow. “So, you want an officer and a gentleman, hmm? You know the two aren’t always one and the same?”

  “I don’t see an officer or a gentleman anywhere, so I wouldn’t know.”

  He looked down at his coveralls and shot her a wicked smile. “I guess you haven’t heard the latest word on engineers. We’ll keep your motor running—all night long.”

  “Hmm, I missed that news flash in my Portland paper. Well, it’s been fun but I have to go enjoy the rest of my cruise. Bye-bye.”

  She turned to leave, but long fingers closing on her upper arm pre-empted her dash to freedom. The touch of his hand on her skin, the hint of cedar in his aftershave mingling with the scent of leather and diesel fuel, made her hot all over!

  Her perky nipples must have poked his chest when he drew her against him, too. But by the time he’d employed his stealth-bomber moves on her, it was too late to run. Curling an arm around her waist, he hooked her chin with one lean finger.

  “How about a little souvenir to take with you…” he murmured just before his minty mouth covered hers.

  I cannot believe this! Evangeline’s thoughts raced, but she did nothing to shrug off the wild tingle of his mouth exploring hers. It felt…amazing!

  Heated fingers swept over the ridge of her spine, rising naked above her gown’s bare-back design. It was meant to invite a touch such as this—a caress so teasing yet so potent, her pussy creamed with the hot thrill of it. Sensation melted her will. His soft, skilled lips dove over hers and melted her down.

  Coiling her hair around his fingers, he tilted her head to give him better access to her mouth.

  As his fingers massaged her scalp, he cradled her head to keep her mouth still, while he fed her the steady pulse of his tongue.

  My word, does he know how to wield that muscle.

  Suddenly she wanted that tongue everywhere! She burned to feel it lick her nipples, flick at her clitoris, and slide into her silken heat.

  Step away from the engineer, Evangeline, was her last thought before she curled into him like a dazed little lamb.

  She didn’t resist when he grasped one of her hands and glided the tips of her fingers down along the burgeoning ridge of his shaft.

  “Hoo,” Evangeline exhaled, impressed.

  Trouser bulge rising, his cock was shaping up with impressive girth. And length. Quite the humdinger. Oh, yes, indeed!

  Shame on me for taking measurements, she scolded herself, then spanned his mighty length with her hand.

  Good grief! The man wasn’t getting any shorter. His brazen words and velvet tongue mimicking the thrusts of a capable cock rubbing inside the grip of her palm let her know he was up for a sexy-hot romp, too.

  “Mm-hmm,” he murmured and, licking her lower lip, his hands spooned over her ass as he fit her lower body into his like a long-lost puzzle piece.

  She plunged her fingers through his rumple of dark hair and imagined his thickness rooted between her thighs. He tugged on the combs that swept her hair up from the sides of her face and dropped them to the floor.

  She knew what he’d see; honey-brown hair spilling below her shoulder blades with strands that cooled to golden blonde highlights.

  “Take me on, Evie,” he invited in a husky voice. “Let me give you what you want.”

  His breath spiraled in her ear and spilled down her neck. She shivered. “You don’t know what I want.”

  “Officer Montero dry-humping you while sucking on your tit gave me some pretty big clues.” The stranger kissed her mouth. Lavished her lips with lusty swirls and tugs of desire meant to chase away any embarrassment she might feel. He lifted his head to assess its rosy response. “Robert’s not here, but I am. And, I don’t have a wife and kid to make me think twice.”

  His thumbs brushed her cheeks, and his gaze probed hers with sensual appeal. “Let me be the one to satisfy you. I can even swing the roses.”

  Evangeline’s breath locked on the pull of his words. Not the part where he noticed her being dry-humped while Robert sucked her tit, but every temptation he was offering. Yet, one fine chunk of man candy he might be, there were certain criteria that needed to be met.

  “Can you swing the forever part as well? Because I came on this cruise for that, not just some holiday fucking. Make no mistake…I want that, too.”

  His thumbs tensed against her skin. So she didn’t pluck the daintiest terms out of the air, but she had no time to dance around the facts. She was on deadline here.

  Her heart thumped nervously in her chest. She’d just thrown some heavy words at him, after all. Forever and fucking were attention grabbers for sure, but had either piqued his interest?

  “Questions?” She hoped he had some to ask. She’d tell him the truth—that she’d signed up for this singles’ cruise to find a husband. Or at the very least, the start of something beautiful.

  Please show me some interest, Mr. Yummy, ‘cause then it would be worth it for me to ask your name.

  If she scared him off, she’d simply move on and forget about him. Forget the sultry curve of his mouth, his shameless kisses. His bold touch.

  A breath hissed past his lips. Decision made, he shook his head, placed a kiss on her forehead, and let her go. No questions asked. “I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”

  “Thought so.” She smiled at him like a good sport. “Will you show me the way out?”

  She followed him up a flight of stairs and out through yet another door. He then escorted her to a utility elevator that would take her up to the passenger decks.

  “I can help you with one, but not the other,” he offered up with an honesty she appreciated, especially given her forward proposal. “But if roses and forever are what you’re after…” The elevator doors swished apart. He waved her inside. “Good luck with that.”