CHAPTER SIX: Sunshine

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If I may borrow a term from HFCE, here's an unceremonious little smutlet. And btw, I don't really know what's come over me. I promise you I am not this smut-oriented in my daily life.

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They stood on the balcony looking down at the hotel pool below, where the wedding reception was being set up. The bride and criminal groom were about to leave for the church and Juliet and Lassiter had an hour or more to kill before going down to infiltrate the reception.

He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling her ear.

"Hey," she murmured appreciatively, turning her head to kiss him lightly. "That's sexy stuff."

"As sexy as this?" He slid one hand down her stomach, and she laughed, until he deftly worked his way under her gauzy skirt, and then she didn't think it was funny anymore.

"Ohhh... no, what you're doing right now is a lot sexier." She shivered, leaning back against him, most definitely not objecting to his activity.

Lassiter kissed her ear again, letting his fingers wander under her panties, ever downward, to where the heat between her legs summoned him.

"Would you rather relocate to the bed?" she suggested breathlessly.

"No," he growled against her hair.

They were on the tenth floor and the balconies were recessed. Someone might hear them, but no one could see them short of having high-powered binoculars from a boat out on the water, and he couldn't spot any vessels at all, let alone swimmers with telephoto-lens cameras.

They were undercover, which was unusual. But Chief Vick had called them in last week and said matter-of-factly, with the door firmly closed, that while everyone agreed undercover work was not Lassiter's forte, she thought they could handle this one, now that she was aware of their personal relationship.

"You're posing as newlyweds," she said. "You need to be at the hotel the day Prather gets married, because all the intel says his two rivals Butler and Cena are going to be at the reception, either for a summit or a showdown. And the truth is," she added, "I could have given you cases like this a long time ago, but after the speed-dating fiasco a few years back, Lassiter, I wasn't sure you'd be able to lighten up enough to make it work."

Getting past his embarrassment, and realizing she was not only not censuring them but also being very practical about work applications of her discovery of their relationship, Lassiter had focused on the details of the case in record time. He and Juliet had all the player names, they had the faces memorized, and they knew who to look for and when, once the reception got going.

But right now, he opted to focus on pleasuring the love of his life, and there was something incredibly erotic about doing so here on the balcony.

"No one can see," he whispered, and Juliet sighed.

The balcony was waist-high. Lassiter tugged her skirt and panties down and kicked them away. Remaining behind her, he sent his hands exploring her silky-smooth stomach and thighs and the rising heat between them, and she shuddered with desire.

He loved that he could reduce her to a quivering heap every time, because it went both ways. She could do it to him, too.

"You make me crazy," she said, and that went both ways, too.

She pushed back against his body as he relentlessly stroked her to a powerful rolling orgasm—his free hand cupping her breast through her silky bra, under the gauzy top—and he knew she could feel him hard behind her.

There was nothing for it, nothing, really, but for him to take her right here, just like this.

He couldn't, though, not out on this balcony.

So when Juliet whispered the suggestion to him, he froze at first. He had only intended to bring her to orgasm and then take her inside to the bed. But she was whispering that she wanted him here, now. In the sunshine. In the open. Private, but so very open.

"Are you sure?" he whispered back.

"Yes, please. Please, Carlton." Her voice was ragged.

Her hands gripped the balcony rail while he unzipped and removed his khakis and shorts, and he guided her to stand with her legs further apart, because what Juliet wanted he could not help but give her.

His eyes were blind to the vast blue ocean; he could only see the feelings; she turned her head and kissed him, sighing, little moans escaping as he moved against her, into her, and she moved back against him.

It went on forever, moments stretching out into eternity. Juliet clung to the railing and moaned out her pleasure and he anchored himself to her; the only way to make it better would be if they were face-to-face, and having formed this thought, he acted on it, swinging them away from the railing abruptly and turning her as he set her on the glass-topped table, parting her trembling legs again.

They kissed hungrily as he returned himself to her endlessly velvety heat, and this was what made it perfect—being able to look into her blue-gray eyes and see—feel—absorb—the passion he was feeling everywhere else, in every cell, every atom, every molecule of his body, and quite possibly hers.

The table moved with them, metal legs screeching a bit on the balcony floor, but neither one cared, because they were together in this mind-blowing, mind-numbing, mind-losing frenzy of pleasure.

When it was over—as if it were ever really over—he gathered her to him and carried her back into the hotel room, almost ready to collapse.

Juliet pulled off her top and bra and draped herself on him, feverishly unbuttoning his shirt and covering him with shaky kisses, finally settling her lush mouth on his and infusing him with love and more desire—there was always more.

"I love you," she said almost desperately. "I love you so much, Carlton."

"I love you back, sweetheart. You're everything." She was. He could imagine no other woman ever being this all-encompassingly important to him.

Her eyes searched his while she caressed his face and slipped her fingers into his hair. "How is it always better? Every time?"

Lassiter's heart was pounding. "It's you. Somehow you're able to improve on perfection."

"It was never like that with anyone else," she countered. "I think it must be you."

"Then it's us," he said quietly.

Juliet smiled. "It is."

"It's us." He kissed her slowly and tenderly, holding her warm soft body to his, and the moment went on in shimmering perfection, one of many so far, and God willing, one of many to come.

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