"Promise me you won't regret this in the morning," Jared said into her ear, his fingers tangling in her hair. "I want this to be right for both of us. No recriminations, no reprisals, no apologies."
"I wouldn't have come this far with you if I had any more doubts."
"The other night I thought you knew what you wanted, but you still left without a word."
"I told you, the other night there were other complications. Things were happening too fast. Nothing felt real. Then I realized your friend Letty was matchmaking and I really got nervous. I needed time to think."
"No more thinking. I've tried to think this through for the past couple of days. It got me nowhere." Jared groaned and pulled her close. Kate's body reacted instinctively to the hard, demanding male strength in him. His kiss was a heavy, drugging caress that intoxicated her with emotion and sensual excitement. His mouth moved on hers as his hands moved on her body—slowly, intimately, hungrily.
Kate felt the zipper of her sheath slide down the length of her spine to her waist, and the dress crumpled to her hips. Her small, lacy bra fell away under his touch. Jared leaned his forehead against hers and looked down at her breasts.
"I knew you would be this lovely. I want you so much. I haven't been able to think of anything else since I saw you in that alley on Ruby." He touched her nipples, sliding his thumbs across them slowly until they flowered into firm peaks. "You make me ache in a way I haven't ached in a very long time."
She trembled under the warm honey of his words. "I have never ached this way." The honesty in her own words amazed her. She hadn't meant to say them, but now that they were said it was all right. It was the truth.
"Letty was right about us striking sparks off each other. But some of the sparks are very, very exciting."
"Yes." Kate slowly unbuttoned his shirt until it hung open and then she pushed it off entirely. The garment fell to the sand, and she stroked Jared's sleek shoulders, loving the feel of the strong, muscled flesh.
Jared finished undressing her carefully, his hands gliding down over her hips, taking the dress and her panties with them. Then he was stroking her bare, rounded buttocks, cupping her and lifting her up against him. She felt rough denim and the cold metal fastening of his jeans against her stomach. The heaviness of his manhood thrust against the fabric. The fullness of his arousal was almost shocking.
"You feel so good," Jared whispered as he eased her down onto her back on the blanket. He knelt beside her and stroked the length of her bare leg. "Warm and soft and sexy."
"Not prickly?"
"Not prickly at all." He bent his head and kissed the hollow of her stomach. "I should have guessed all the prickliness was designed to protect something very special."
Unable to help herself, Kate arched sensuously under his touch, closing her eyes and moaning softly. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders and she urged him closer. He was hard all over, the contours of his back defining his physical strength.
Jared came down on top of her, his bare chest crushing her gently. So much crisp, dark hair on that chest, Kate thought.
He was still wearing his jeans, and Kate found the texture of the cloth against her naked leg strangely exciting. It became almost unbearably so when Jared slid down the length of her. His mouth was all over, tasting her, exploring her body, covering her with hot, damp kisses. She gasped and her head tipped back over his arm when she felt his teeth lightly graze her breast. Then she felt his tongue curl around her nipple and she laughed in soft delight, lightheaded with the thrill of it all.
When he moved lower still, she thought she would fly apart into a million glittering pieces.
"Jared."
"I'm not going anywhere. You taste like the sea."
"I can't stand…Jared, wait. Come here. Please." She coiled one leg around his thigh and tightened her grip on him, pulling him upward again. Her hands slid down his back. "Your jeans."
"I know. I'll get rid of them." He rolled to one side, unfastened his denims and slid out of the last of his clothing. He paused long enough to draw a small packet from one pocket, fumbled with it for a few seconds and then he came back to her in a hot, enveloping rush.
"This is so perfect," Kate said, looking up at him through half-closed lashes. His body was lean, hard and beautifully male. "Maybe too perfect." The strength in him was controlled and all the more powerful because of that control. "You're so perfect."
His smile was slow and deeply sensual as he bent over her. "Remember that in the morning. Promise?"
"I promise."
He caught his breath as he put his heavy thigh over one of her twisting, restless legs, pinning her gently. "Now put your arms around me and open yourself for me. I want you more than I can ever remember wanting anything in my life."
"I want you, too." She was stunned at the depths of her own need. Such incredible passion would have a high price. Nothing came free in this world. She looked up at Jared, studying his shadowed face.
"I'm glad you want me. I need you to want me. Lord, how I need it," he said fiercely. His expression was stark in the moonlight; the desire in him unmistakable. His eyes glittered with it. The hand that covered her stomach shook with it.
Jared slid his warm palm down to the soft hair above her thighs. Kate parted her legs for him, lifting herself helplessly against his hand. She felt his fingers slip down into her softness and search out the growing dampness between her legs. Slowly he explored her secrets with roughened fingers, coaxing more of the liquid heat from her until she could not think of anything except the mind-spinning passion. He kissed her, filling her mouth and then withdrawing in a tantalizing rhythm that set up the more intimate pattern that would soon follow.
When Jared moved at last, settling himself deliberately between her legs, Kate cried out and sank her nails into his shoulders.
"Yes, sweetheart. Show me how much you want me." He pushed himself slowly, relentlessly into her heat. "So good," he muttered hoarsely. "So tight and hot and sweet. I'm going to lose my mind."
She clung to him, wrapping herself around him as he filled her completely and then he began to move, pulling almost free of her, hesitating and then driving as deeply into her softness as he could.
Over and over, Jared repeated the excruciatingly exciting rhythm until Kate was lost in her need. She could no longer think clearly or question or talk. She could only feel, and what she felt was unlike anything she had ever known in her life. She was on fire with passion, a white-hot banner of searing flame that threatened to consume her. It would have been terrifying if it hadn't been so totally irresistible; so totally right.
Together they twisted and writhed on the blanket, clutching each other as if locked in mortal combat. They rolled over and over, fighting for the release that was racing toward them out of the darkness.
As the sensual battle moved toward its inevitable conclusion, Kate experienced a wild, surging sense of freedom and exhilaration that was beyond anything she had ever known in her life. She cried out with it.
"Jared."
"Now," he muttered against her throat as he pushed her onto her back. He grabbed her wrists and anchored them above her head, muttering hot, encouraging words into her ear as he held her. "Let it go. Give it to me. All of it.
All of it
." His muscles bunched and his back arched. "I've waited so long for you, sweetheart. Too long."
Pinned beneath him, Kate opened her eyes just enough to see that Jared's face was set in a rigid mask of emotion. She didn't think he even knew what he was saying. His words were thick and hoarse, almost anguished. He surged deeply into her one last, shattering time and she was spun outward into the shimmering sea.
And suddenly she knew without a shadow of a doubt where she had seen him before. He was the man in her dreams, the one she had first begun to know when she had changed from girl into woman; the one who had haunted her all these years; the one she put into every book she wrote. This was her pirate—fierce, tender, passionate and proud.
The shock of recognition merged with the sensual storm that was sweeping through her and blotted out everything from Kate's mind. She cried out and then she was lost.
Reality trickled back slowly, mixing with moonlight and the soft sounds of the sea. Kate was aware of Jared's arm across her breasts and of the dampness of his warm skin. He was sprawled beside her, one leg still flung over her thighs, his chin just touching her head. He was heavy, but his weight made her feel protected and safe.
She remembered the fleeting instant of recognition a few minutes earlier and shuddered.
"Cold?" Jared stirred lazily, turning onto his back, one hand behind his head. He looked up at her with eyes that gleamed with the banked embers of a fire that had been only temporarily quenched.
"No." She touched his moonlit-etched face with curious fingers.
"What's wrong?" He kissed her fingertips as they traced his mouth.
"Nothing's wrong. It's just that I've had this odd feeling I know you."
"You do know me. In fact, I'd say that you know me very well now."
She crossed her elbows on his chest and studied him. "Better than you think."
He laughed, his voice husky and replete with satisfaction. "Is that a warning?"
She shrugged. "Maybe."
"I'll keep it in mind." He stroked her bare shoulder. "You know something? You're not prickly at all when you're in this mood."
"I'm glad you approve."
"I approve, all right. I can see the trick will be to keep you in the right frame of mind as much of the time as possible."
"That could take a lot of work on your part."
"I'll devote every spare minute to the job." Jared snagged his fingers in her hair, pulled her mouth down to his and kissed her hard. "Damn, but you're a delight. You make me feel like a million bucks. Two million."
"I feel pretty good myself."
"What piece of good luck brought you to my island, sweet Kate?"
"The combined effects of overwork and two well-intentioned, interfering friends. Left to my own devices, I would never have made it as far as
Jared framed her face with his hands, his expression turning serious. "What's your home like? A snazzy little apartment in
"I like it."
"How long have you lived there?"
"Since my husband went off to devote himself to his talent."
"What was he like, this ex-husband of yours?"
"He's a man who has the soul of a poet. A writer of great undiscovered literary potential, or so he told me."
"Why did you marry him?"
"Good question. When we were first introduced we were both aspiring writers. I thought he was sensitive, intelligent and supportive," Kate said slowly. "And he was. At first. He liked the fact that I had a full-time job and could support him while he devoted himself to his writing. But then I got published and he didn't, and he blamed me for his failure and things went downhill from there. I now realize, of course, that he was really weak, neurotic, self-centered and a whiner. Goes to show how one can change one's opinion of a person, doesn't it?"
"Where is he now?"
"I'm not sure. Last I heard he was hanging out at an elite writers' colony, reading his poems to other writers who all agree with him that the only reason they're unpublished is because the world does not appreciate true genius."
"Miss him?"
"No." Kate smiled. "And I know he doesn't miss me. Toward the end of our relationship, I had gotten tired of coddling his overinflated ego and even more tired of dealing with his nasty little remarks about my writing. I'm afraid I turned a tad shrewish."
"I'm shocked. You? A shrew?"
"That was how Harry saw me."
"Probably because he didn't know how to deal with you," Jared said easily. "So your ex turned tail and ran, hmm?"
"Packed his bags and walked out after making a suitably dramatic farewell speech. I cried for about fifteen minutes, and then my friends Sarah and Margaret came over and took me out for champagne and pizza. They told me I was lucky to see the last of good old Harry, and within forty-eight hours I knew they were right. But it took a while to put it all behind me."
Jared nodded soberly. "Harry was not the man for you."
"Truer words were never spoken." The man for her existed only between the covers of her books and here on
Jared grinned. "On the other hand, be sure you remember what you yourself said earlier."
"What's that?"
"Unlike your ex-husband, I am perfect. Your very words."
She laughed softly. "I'm not sure you can hold me responsible for that remark. I was under the influence of a lot of raging hormones at the time."