Hours to Cherish (7 page)

She felt him behind her. Instinct made her lean, innocently pressing her back against his chest. “Look how they’ve marked Cartagena,” she murmured, and then she turned, managing to twist herself into his embrace with her eyes, sparkling emerald, staring into his.

The heat between them became combustible.

It was all that she planned, and yet the shock of his kiss was staggering … frightening … all-consuming fire. She felt his tongue plundering her mouth, his mouth bruising hers, his hands splaying on her back, her ribs, her hips, her breasts, his thumbs working against her nipples, creating peaks that stood against the thin fabric of her halter dress.

It was wonderful, it was terrifying. She could do little but hold on to his shoulders, shivering, wanting it to go on, wanting it to stop so that she could breathe, trying to understand the ache that burned where his hips pressed against hers, teaching her that desire was real, alive, insistent.

A moment’s panic engulfed her and she tried to draw away. He held tight, crushing her, then apparently found control. And when he pulled away he was angry. With himself. With her. “You’re playing games you don’t know how to play, Catherine. And I don’t want any part of them. I think too much of your father.”

“My father?” Cat murmured stupidly, and then a flood of humiliation washed over her like a tidal wave. She had attempted to seduce him, like a tart, and then failed miserably. Her nervous withdrawal had clearly alerted him to her inexperience, and he had found her sadly lacking.

“Cat,” he said quietly, his anger abating. “You’re a very beautiful girl. But I don’t think you really know what you want.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Cat declared. “I’m a college graduate, Mr. Miller. Not a naive teen-ager.”

Clay sighed. “Honey, you’ve definitely got all the right stuff, you just don’t know what to do with it.”

She was going to burst into tears, but she couldn’t. She really didn’t know what she was doing, she just had to hurt him. She brought her hand across his cheek with all the strength she could muster, savoring the sound of the sharp retort. “You cocky bastard!” she hissed. And then what she had done shamed her, but it was too late. She saw the brown eyes darken to that incredible jet, his left cheek swell, the welt on his tense face red.

Praying she wouldn’t panic and run hysterically, Cat spun around to flee. She didn’t return to the party but discarded her heels in the sand and ran to the docks, her chest heaving. She reached the end, where the tranquil azure of the harbor had become as dark as the jet of his eyes in the moonless night. Exhausted, she fell to her knees, staring sightlessly into the black water.

If she’d had any breath, her scream would have rent the night as she felt herself plucked from the dock and into strong arms. As it was, the sound was no more than a gasp.

She was staring into liquid black again. It wasn’t the ocean. It was Clay’s eyes. Dazzling, dazzling jet. He was angry again, an icy anger that was partly reckless revenge, partly cold control.

“If you want to play games, Miss Windemere, I think you should learn how. I suppose I can be as good a teacher as any. Any protests? This was your idea.”

Protests? She couldn’t even speak. She could feel his raw, unleashed power. It was a surge, a relentless tide. She said nothing, but continued to stare into his eyes.

His looked away and walked swiftly down the dock and without pause for balance leapt into his cruiser with her in his arms. She was set down unceremoniously within the ragtag cabin. With dry, semi-controlled rage, he stuffed a paper cup of wine into her hand. “Relax, Miss Windemere,” he told her. “We won’t go far.”

He left her. She felt the hum of the engines; they were under way. And all she could do was sit and stare at the cup.

As he had said, they didn’t go far. The sound of the anchor hitting the water made her jump. She came from her dazed state to survey her surroundings. There was scuba gear everywhere, and shelves of books lining all available space. The cabin was clean but rampantly unorganized. … Even on the blue-sheeted bed where she sat, maps and charts spilled over the foot.

What was she doing here? she wondered. This wasn’t at all what she had intended. She loved this man. Everything should be beautiful. A gentle fog should drift from the heavens … it should be bright and soft and splendid. … Except that he didn’t love her, and he had been right all along. She had chosen to play a game she didn’t know how to play and she had taken one turn too many.

“You’re not drinking your wine,” he observed, entering the cabin with his jacket slung over his shoulder. He walked to a tiny closet, extracted a hanger, and hung up his jacket. Yanking his tie from his neck, he slipped that over the hanger, too, and unbuttoned his shirt.

Cat took a sip of her wine. She noticed her hands were trembling and she clenched them tightly around her cup. He no longer seemed so terribly angry. Maybe the cool Bahamian sea breeze had soothed the heat of his temper.

He sat across from her, an ankle crossed over his knee as he observed her, searching her face for something, his own impassive.

“What do you want, Cat?” he queried softly.

Why was he questioning her? How could she put into words what she did want anyway, when it wasn’t clear in her own mind. Him, of course, but with all the flowery phrases, his eyes answering the light in her own, soft breezes and gentle decor, down pillows and silk.

“Come on, Miss Windemere,” he prodded, “let’s talk.”

Cat took another sip of wine, and returned his glacial stare. “I don’t want anything,” she said coolly, hating him for making her feel so ridiculous.

“Stop lying,” he snapped. “Why did you tell me your father wanted to see me?”

“He did—”

“Bull.”

“Really, I’m not going to sit here and argue with you.”

“That’s nice to hear,” he said wryly. “But it seems as if you went through a fair amount of trouble to interrupt what I was doing. Why?”

Cat remained stubbornly—and miserably—silent, her eyes meeting his only through great willpower.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “I’ll help you. Actually, it’s rather flattering. You’ve decided you want to make love to me—or vice versa. But it’s turning out not to be quite what you imagined. A kiss doesn’t stop at the lips. It’s not a hazy dream out of a fairy tale where you ride sweetly off into the sunset. I’m afraid it all boils down to something rather basic and simple, and I fear ‘love’ seldom has much to do with it.” He fell silent for a moment, watching her. “Am I right, Cat?”

“No—you’re being absurd,” she lied sickly. “You really do underestimate me, Clay. I’m not a sheltered islander. I lived in the big bad city for a long time.”

“Oh.” His lips pursed slightly as he mulled over her statement. She didn’t really know him well enough to recognize the amusement glimmering in the jet of his eyes, which had completely replaced anger. “Okay,” he said finally. “Take off your clothes.”

“What?”

“Take off your clothes. It’s possible to make love half dressed, but much more satisfactory with both parties naked.”

A flush of surging blood rushed to Cat’s face. He was laughing at her. He had dragged her all the way out here to laugh at her.

She had never been especially good in controlling her temper. She was on her feet in a split second, splashing the barely tasted remainder of her wine in his face. “You are the ultimate bastard!” she hissed, whirling for the deck steps.

This time she didn’t even irritate him; she heard his laughter follow her trail. “What do you think you’re going to do, swim back?”

He heard her determined steps upon the deck. “Damn,” she heard him swear, “that little witch does think she’s going to swim back!”

He was after her in a flash, but he had underestimated his adversary. She was in the water, disappearing like a streak of gold.

“Get back here, you little fool!” he shouted after her, swearing a mile a minute beneath his breath. “Damn it, we’re in a good sixty feet of water, almost a mile offshore!”

Cat paused long enough for an answer, ironically glad she had chosen the light halter-dress for the evening. The weight wouldn’t drag her down. “I’ve taken every scuba and lifesaving course offered, Mr. Miller,” she shouted at him. “A mile, you say? I’ll be just fine.”

He was a silhouette in the light of the cruiser against the pitch-darkness of the night as Cat began to swim. She heard him laugh suddenly. “Okay, you want to swim—swim.”

Cat was relieved by his quick agreement. She could make the mile, and she could probably outdistance him if he came after her, but she could better utilize her strength by moving slowly and fluidly. But she was a fool, and she knew it. Even an excellent swimmer faced dangers at night. Lemon sharks and makos chose the evening hours as preferred feeding times and one never knew when one might encounter the trailing tentacles of a man-of-war.

Don’t think about it, she warned herself, utilizing a steady Australian crawl. It wasn’t really hard to face such hazards. She would rather see a man-of-war at the moment than Clay.

Cat paused for a moment treading water, startled as she found herself captured in a spotlight.

He was letting her swim, all right—but he was following just far enough behind for safety.

“You can come back up!” he advised her. He looked nice and rested, sipping a beer as he manned the small tiller.

“I hope you split up on a coral reef or hit a sandbar,” she replied sweetly.

Cat frowned as she saw his grinning expression suddenly change. The smile was radically erased from his face. “Get out of the water,” he yelled.

“No, you think this is a joke—all highly amusing. Well I haven’t been amused and you can follow all you like, but I’d rather swim than accept a second of your brand of hospital—”

Her words were drowned out by the splash of his body cutting cleanly into the water. She hadn’t been prepared for his jumping in after her and was caught off guard when the strength of his dive brought him beside her.

“Let me go—” she gasped.

“God damn it, this is no joke, and I’m not playing!”

She was propelled to the cruiser’s starboard side and hoisted high into the air. Her shoulder, derriere, and head hit the deck hard, but before she could rage her protest, he hurtled over her. And then before she could even stutter, she was ignominiously dragged to her feet and swirled to stare into the spotlight.

Her words caught and died in her throat. In the shaft of yellow that had bounced upon their heads just moments ago, two large fins speared the surface, cruising stealthily, turning in figure eights. She could feel his anger, intensified by fear, in the harsh grip he maintained over her shoulders. She tried to twist in his arms, to apologize, to thank him.

He turned her himself, shaking her. “All this over making love. Okay, Cat. You want to make love, we’ll make love. I had thought to protect the vestal virgin, but I suppose deflowering beats death by shark bite.”

Cat opened her mouth. She wanted to tell him that she was really very sorry about the whole evening, that she had acted like an idiot, made a total fool out of herself. She was even ready to explain that she had fallen in love with him and hadn’t known how to handle the situation maturely. Could he possibly understand such a thing? She really wasn’t usually so incompetent.

She didn’t have a chance. Her mouth was nothing more than an open invitation as his lips burned hers. His tongue was hotly seductive, plunging deeply one moment, withdrawing with his lips a whisper away the next so that he might trace the line of hers, weave his moist trail along her cheek, to her lower earlobes, to her throat. She was hanging on to him again, her fingers splaying into the damp hair on his chest, working beneath the dripping sides of his opened shirt.

She felt his fingers at her nape, struggling to untie the wet knot of the halter. Apparently he had a certain expertise, for the knot gave. His hands pursued a course over her body, peeling down the wet fabric until it gave and fell to her feet. Cat was stunned, but also filled with a raging fire, an exhilaration like nothing she had ever known. His hands teased the small of her back, cradled her buttocks, lifting her, pulling her, pressing her against him, and then she could feel the lean masculinity of his chest against her breasts, the nipples crushed and teased by his hair.

His kisses ceased as he stepped back, dark eyes heavily upon her as he stared at her revealed before him. He had seen her before in a bikini, so the lush perfection of her body was no surprise. Slender, slender waist, full firm breasts, a tantalizing curve to the flare of her hips, and seductive emerald eyes that stared into his unblinkingly.

She was clad in only a wisp of white lace over her hips. Clay shed his damp shirt, dropping it to the deck. He unbuckled his sodden and ruined belt, and stepped from his pants and briefs.

Still she watched him, eyes holding his, dropping, widening just a hair, returning to his.

He took her back into his arms. Her hands began to move this time, running across his shoulders, threading into his hair. He was startled, jolted, and then inflamed as she returned his kiss, her tongue moving with subtle seduction, her lips sweetly inviting, her delectable body moving against his, writhing, adjusting.

He broke away again, only to sear a kiss into her shoulder, slide against her, to find and tease and hold her breasts with his mouth and his hands. He was a little crazy. The blood was pounding in his head and he lost all thought … all awareness of time. Somehow they had gotten to the bed below, and he was still tasting the nectar of her body, his fingers slipping beneath the band of elastic to remove that last wisp of lace, his lips tracing the beautiful line of her hips.

Cat moaned as his hand moved between her thighs. She was past apology, past speech, past reason. Fear still hovered over her, but it was mainly obliterated by the fever of anticipation, the culmination of something that would ease the agonizing ache that was also so good.

She felt his withdrawal from her, his hesitation. There was a rumbling anger and agony to his voice when he spoke. “Damn it, Cat, I never meant this to get this far. …”