Close enough to throw his body between them if Anndra got aggressive with Callie, Jonah retreated to lean against the dresser, arms folded to watch the show. “Have at it. Let me know if you want me to jump in.”
Callie shot him an unfathomable glance before bending to pick up Anndra’s scattered clothing off the floor, where she’d left a—short-trail. There wasn’t much. Two items to be exact.
“I suspect her plan to eat you before, during, or after sex had nothing to do with your sexual satisfaction.” Callie tossed the clothes on top of the other woman. “Just an FYI, Cutter. This one doesn’t consider sex recreational. Do you?” she asked Anndra as she walked over and stood closer to the bed.
With one finger she shoved the other woman’s bent knee. “Close these. He’s not interested, nor is he your gynecologist.”
Anndra slapped her legs together and dropped her hand from her breast. Then glared at Callie as if she were the devil incarnate. “I have as much right to be here as you.”
Callie’s smile was scary. “Not in a million years.”
Turning to Jonah, she picked some flimsy piece of clothing off Anndra’s belly, forced the fingers of Anndra’s left hand open, then shoved the fabric into her palm. Anndra squeaked with pain as Callie rather forcibly closed the other woman’s hand around her clothing. “Lady, get yourself dressed or suffer the consequences if I have to do it for you. I’m very generously giving you thirty seconds before I jump right in and see just how fast I can do it for you.”
She turned to Jonah. “Just an FYI. I’m saving your ass. This one is a particularly nasty Phoneutria.”
Jesus. She was magnificent. Cheeks flushed, pale eyes glinting with annoyance, she was a volcano under an ice cap. Fascinating to watch. Deadly as hell. Sexy—man, her sex appeal was off the charts. He grinned. “I’m guessing that’s something extremely unpleasant.”
“What is this?” Anndra shouted, swinging her legs off the bed, holding her clothing to her chest. She made no effort to fully cover herself; nor did she seem in any hurry to get dressed and run for her life. “I am no murderess!”
“A Brazilian wandering spider,” Callie informed him, yanking something out of the other woman’s hand, holding it up for inspection, and then pulling the skimpy tank top over Anndra’s head. “Wow. The size of your clothing is in direct correlation to your intelligence. Who would’ve thunk it? Stick your arms through, or be trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and sent home to your brother just like this. I don’t give a shit.”
She crossed her arms as she waited, giving the other woman a don’t-fuck-with-me look, until Anndra shoved each arm into an armhole with all the cooperation of a fractious three-year-old.
Not that it made a damn bit of difference. The skimpy bit of clothing barely covered her naked breasts and didn’t reach her belly button. The rest of her was still naked.
Callie wrestled the shorts from Anndra’s grasp, dropped them on her lap, then gave the woman’s ankle a sharp kick until she complied and pulled the shorts up to her knees.
Callie told her with utmost calm, “I’m quite sure you’re practiced at getting undressed and dressed while prone, but get your greasy, skanky ass off Jonah’s bed and finish this process. Hurry up, my patience is wearing extremely thin. Although, I must confess, I’m actually looking forward to you resisting so I can throw your half-naked ass into the boat and send you back to the loving arms of your brother.”
With a spate of unintelligible Greek, mixed, Jonah suspected, with some Turkish and possibly Arabic, Anndra slipped off the bed and yanked up her shorts, spitting invectives. He straightened in case he needed to intervene, but didn’t get any closer. If Callie made a move indicating she needed his assistance in any way, he’d be right there between them. So far she was more than holding her own.
If looks could kill, Callie would be lying in a smoking heap on the floor writhing in agony.
The two women were only a foot apart, because when Anndra stood up, Callie didn’t give so much as an inch. Inside, Jonah applauded. Yeah, he suspected he’d pay later, but right now it was a show not to be missed.
“Vicious,” Callie continued to him as if they were having a private conversation. “And sometimes hard to identify. Not that I had any trouble. One of the most toxic spiders in the world. Do you need help with that?” she asked politely as the other woman fumbled with the zipper and button on her shorts.
“Min m ‘angízeis, skýla!”
Ah, don’t touch me, bitch. Jonah understood that much. Anndra finally got everything zipped and buttoned. “You have no right to burst in here and interrupt us with your petty accusations.”
Callie laughed. “Seriously? You can say that with a straight face? Up and at ’em, Stheno. Hope there’s a boat waiting for you, because it’s a long haul swimming back to your island.”
“This is an outrage!” Anndra screeched, struggling in Callie’s hold as she was dragged to the door.
One hand clamped on Anndra’s upper arm, Callie pulled open the heavy door with the other. “It most certainly is.” With a firm shove, she pushed Anndra into the corridor. “Keep moving.”
“My brother will slit your throat for this.”
She was dead serious. Time to intervene? “Hey, that—”
Callie held up a hand to shush him as she stopped Anndra in her tracks, spinning the other woman around to face her. She got right in her face. “You listen to me, Spider Woman. You were not invited into my man’s bed, καταλαβαίνετε?”
Anndra gave her a black look, then swore at her in Greek. Jonah didn’t have to know what the words meant; their intent was clear.
“You have a nasty, filthy mouth,” Callie told her, then after a pregnant pause continued evenly, “I just gave you two pertinent pieces of information, which you’d be wise to actually hear. Let me reiterate those for you: You weren’t invited. My man.”
“I want my shoes!”
My man. Silently, Jonah handed Anndra’s gold sandals to Callie.
“Good Lord, you have enormous feet. To match your ego.”
Anndra snatched the heels out of Callie’s hand.
“You can put them on in the boat on the way home.” She gave the other woman’s arm a not-so-gentle shove to get her moving in the right direction. “I’ve had all the conversation with you I can stomach. Keep moving.”
Callie didn’t break stride going up the stairs to the next level, nor when she almost threw the other woman down the ladder to the dive platform.
Fortunately for Spanos’s sister, the small boat bobbed on the choppy water. The man/monk/accomplice woke from his nap with a jerk and raced over to assist her. Jonah untied their mooring as soon as her feet left Stormchaser.
Anndra grabbed the rail of the small craft, pale face a rictus of fury in the moonlight. “I’m going to tell Kallistrate how you treated me. You’ll both be sorry.”
“Please have him talk to me,” Jonah informed her coldly. “I’ll tell him exactly why you aren’t welcome on board my ship, and what you offered me—in detail—while you were here. I suspect your holiday will be cut short.”
She threw one of her sandals at him. It bounced off the side of the boat, then made a small splash as it hit the water. The sound of the powerful engine muted her screams of fury.
Callie padded over to a towel rack and pulled one down, wiping her hands vigorously. “I have skank glitter all over me.”
Jonah wrapped both arms around her waist from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head as they watched the white wake of the small boat head toward the darkness of the distant island.
“Holy crap.” Callie wrapped her arms over his. “That woman has no boundaries.”
She’d been an Amazon for the last fifteen minutes, but now she trembled slightly in the aftermath. Jonah tightened his arms around her waist. “Thanks for saving me from a fate worse than death.” He was only half joking.
“When I first met her, I dismissed her as a pleasure-seeking bimbo. But I think she has a whole other agenda. And sorry to crush your ego”—she twisted to look up at him—“but I don’t think it’s crazy lust for your admittedly scrumptious body. I think Miss Spanos has a different, more unsavory agenda.”
He cupped her breasts through her T-shirt, loving the weight and silky glide of the fabric over her smooth skin. Her nipple peaked to greet him. He smiled against her hair. “You think I have a scrumptious body?”
“Is that the only part of what I said that you heard, Cutter?”
He turned her in his arms, tilting her face up. “No, I hear and compute, but right now she’s on her way home, and I have you, the moonlight, and an empty deck.”
Dipping his head just as she stood on her toes to meet him, Jonah kissed her. A blast of sexual energy tore through them, like a forest fire, so that what he’d intended as a soft kiss instantly turned into a forest fire of need.
He sucked in her gasp of surprise, wrapping his arms around her slender body, loving the feel of her, the taste of her—Hell, he was in deep, deep trouble here.
“What’s a Stheno?” he murmured, lifting his head, sliding his hands down to cup the sweet curve of Callie’s butt through her shirt. He danced her back against the rail, keeping the press of her small, perfect breasts and the flat plane of her belly against him.
Her legs parted enough for him to bring his erection tight against the juncture of her thighs. He felt her damp heat through his shorts, and got harder still as he wound his hand in her hair.
Annoying thoughts of Anndra faded as quickly as the wake of the rapidly retreating Astondoa. He wanted to take Callie right now, right there, on deck, under the stars.
“A Gorgon, and Medusa’s nastier sister.” She ran both hands up his chest under his shirt, her fingers cool as she paused to circle his nipples with the pads of her fingers. He could’ve told her it didn’t work that way on him—but right now, having his nipples fondled by her turned him into a bundle of rampant nerve endings.
Rock-hard, his dick pulsed as if it were a magnet zeroing on true north. Skimming her palms over his sides to his back, Callie ran her hands on either side of his spine in long, languid strokes in a far-from-soothing caress. The feel of her fingers on his body made his dick twitch, and his hair lifted as if electrified. Nipping at his jaw, she arched her throat when he went in to kiss her mouth.
“A vi-vicious female monster with brass hands, sharp fangs, and hair of live venomous snakes … Oh—I like that.” She gave a full-body shudder as he used the edge of his teeth on the taut tendons of her throat, then followed with a slow stroke of his tongue. “She—I feel that all the way down to my—She killed more men than both her sisters combined.” Callie finished in a rush, clearly trying to remember how to breathe as he nibbled his way to the shell of her ear.
Jonah slid the long skeins of her hair over her shoulder, loving the silky slip and slide of the dark, waist-length tresses. Having liberated her ear, he ran the tip of his tongue along the swirls, then nipped at her earlobe, pulling her harder into the cradle of his thighs. Her skin felt as soft as heated satin. “Then I’m very happy you burst in to save me.” He felt her smile as he explored her eyebrow with his lips.
“I burst in to have wild monkey sex with you.”
The skim of his lips felt the flutter of her heartbeat at her temple. “Didn’t we do that a few hours ago?”
Callie patted his back. “Aw, did I wear you out, Cutter?”
“Hell no. Seeing you tangle with that Gorgon revitalized me.”
“You are such a guy.” Smiling wickedly, Callie’s sparkling eyes reflected the small lights strung around the deck as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Jonah wanted to eat that smile—and more—all night.
The security cameras placed at strategic points through the ship made anything more than touching out here dangerous. He knew where the cameras were—he’d maneuvered Callie and himself just out of range—but he wasn’t taking any chances.
He caressed the firm globes of her ass. “¡Madre de Dios!” He bunched the fabric up to get to bare skin. “You went into combat commando?”
“That wasn’t the kind of combat I went in for,” Callie pointed out, kissing his chin. “I could hardly ask your skanky friend to wait while I went back to my cabin to throw on my panties, could I?”
He ran his fingers along the seam of her first-class ass. “Should’ve trussed her up, gagged her, and had her delivered to her brother.”
“How is this going to impact our access to the library? You know she’s going to run home crying to him.”
“I’ll talk to him. Diplomatically, man-to-man.”
Callie bit at his lip, taunting him. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. We’d better brace ourselves for attack.”
“I’m not worried about her. No woman would keep coming on to a man who flat-out tells her he doesn’t want her.” Except Anndra Spanos.
“I think she’s over the coming-on phase of her agenda and might go into an even more aggressive mode. Watch your back, Jonah.”
He smiled. “I’d rather watch your front.”
“I’m not opposed to making out here on deck in front of God and the fishes. But you know Randy is doing his rounds, right?”
He opted not to tell her about the strategically placed cameras on all the decks and in all the public rooms. “Life raft?”
She laughed, grabbing his wrist to pull his hand away from the delectable, silky curve of her butt. “Crazy man. That’s what beds are for, and there is a perfectly sized one without oily sheets in my cabin.” She slid her fingers between his, palm-to-palm and gave a tug. “Come on, I’ll race you down.”
The innocent holding of hands was sweet, and shouldn’t’ve been erotic, but still, Jonah felt his need for this woman torque as she jogged him back inside.
“Craziest place you’ve ever made love?” he asked as they raced through the salon. As he passed, he slapped a palm on the light switch, plunging the salon into gloom while they headed downstairs.
Not that he wanted to know the who, but he was intrigued that a bed was the first thing that came to her mind.
“A bunk bed?” Waiting for him to use his keycard on his cabin door, she whispered in deference to the close proximity of the other cabins.
“You’re kidding me.” Pushing open the door to his cabin, Jonah tugged her inside. “No swinging from a rope?” he asked with mock incredulity, skimming her T-shirt over her head and backing her toward the bed. “No sex while skydiving?”
She punched his arm. “Neither have you.”
“I’m going to have to open new horizons for you.”
“What?” She pulled his shirt over his head, then made short work of his shorts. “Like making out in a small lifeboat? No thanks, I like being able to stretch o—” She stopped reversing. “Whoa! Not on those sheets!”
“Trust me, nothing happened on those sheets.”
Callie’s expression was one part sexy as hell and two parts I-don’t-give-a-damn. “Her naked butt was on those sheets. I’m burning them tomorrow.”
“Ah, crap. Those are my favorites.”
“I’ll buy you twelve more sets. Burn. You’re coming home with me, Cutter. Where’s my shirt?”
“I dare you to go just as you are.”
“Naked? You’re crazy! Someone will see me.”
“Everyone’s asleep.”
“Not some of the crew!”
“It’s four feet.”
She bit her lip, then blew out a sigh. “You have to come with me.”
“Okay.”
“Run!”
He grinned. “Bet you won’t run from one end of the corridor to the other.”
“Jonah!”
Time to expand her horizons. A little dare might jump-start the process. “Triple dare.”
She hesitated. “If you make one sound I’ll kill you. Go unlock my door first. I want somewhere to hide just in case someone sees me.”
“Us.”
“Trust me,” she said drily, “I don’t give a damn if anyone sees your naked butt. It’s probably something they have all seen before.”
“It’s not my butt I’m worried about someone seeing.”
“Then let’s not do this stupid th—”
Opening the door, he took the few steps to her door, using his master key to unlock it, then propped it open and went back into his cabin. “You know this will only take thirty seconds, right?”
She grabbed his hand. “Run quickly and lightly!”
“With this?” Jonah indicated his rampant erection. “I don’t know—”
Callie yanked him into the dimly lit corridor, spun right, then took off down, running flat-out. Her shapely ass was a thing of beauty. Half a step behind her, Jonah grinned, amused as hell that she’d actually taken him up on his dare. At the end of the corridor, they turned and raced back.
Of course no one, other than the camera discreetly tucked in the corner, saw them. And he’d take care of that before anyone saw it. All doors remained closed, and the night watch prowled the upper decks.
They dashed into Callie’s cabin, and he kicked the door closed behind them. “You are such a brave girl.”
She raised a haughty brow, hilarious since she was naked, and pink all over with embarrassment. “I’ll give a pass to the ‘girl’ part of that as a onetime compliment.”
Jonah pulled her to him with an arm around her waist. The blush made her skin warm all over. “You’re all the woman I need.”
“Excellent. I’ll send your little friend Anndra a memo. Now,” she continued firmly, pushing at his chest with both hands, “let me see if you have glitter on your boy parts.”
She stepped back to inspect his dick with eyes and hand. “No skank glitter, lucky for you. But I see some serious swelling. I need to get you into a shower immediately.”
He backed her against the wall. “How about getting me inside you immediately?”
Callie shook her head and gave him an admonishing look that made his heart tumble head over heels. “You have to be fumigated first,” she told him, voice librarian-stern as, frowning, she grazed her hand along the length of his dick and up again. “I’m not sure how long this will take. I have to be thorough.”
Jonah made an expansive gesture toward the bathroom. “The decontamination chamber is that way. Let’s get the painful process over as slowly as possible. I’ll try to be very, very brave.”