Tempestuous Eden (15 page)

“Listen to me, Blair.” She was suddenly jerked away from him so that she was forced to see his eyes. “Damn it, Blair! I want to do the best I can to make this easy for you! But we’re in for a bit of roughing it, and damn you, woman, you’re not going to make every minute on this boat a misery! Look around you! And, yes, look at this tub we’re on! So help me God, you are going to put in. You can be agreeable, or I can cast the anchor down now, throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and tie you up in the cabin. I don’t want to hurt you. Believe that, and we’ll get along just fine. Get this straight—cause me an overdose of trouble, and you will definitely regret it. Am I understood?”

Blair worked furiously at her wrist, to no avail. “Yes!” It was a desperate scream. “Yes, I’ve got it! I’m supposed to be an accomplice to my own kidnapping! Well, all right, Taylor, you’ve got it. You want coffee, I’ll get your damned coffee!”

He released her abruptly, so quickly that Blair, still unaccustomed to the swaying boat and still faintly dizzy, her head pounding viciously, staggered backward. She regained her balance quickly, her strength derived from pure determination and will power. She was out of his reach, and wisely decided never to make the mistake of coming within it again. She had one advantage—Craig was trying his damnedest to get somewhere; therefore, he had to keep the boat going.

She paused at the hatchway. “Just don’t ever sleep, Taylor,” she warned menacingly as she lowered herself down the ladder. “Don’t ever make the mistake of sleeping.”

“That’s my worry, isn’t it?” he queried in her wake.

By the time she reached the galley she was shaking like a leaf. For some reason she did believe him. He didn’t intend her harm. No one who really wanted to hurt apologized so sincerely while knocking you flat.

She was shaking because nothing changed her own reactions to the man. Standing so near him, feeling the intensity of his eyes upon her, his breath rustling her hair, for countless moments all she had wanted to do was pretend the whole thing had been a nightmare and curl into his arms, arms that could be shockingly gentle, arms that could demand and swirl her into an abyss where nothing mattered except the erotic delights he created.

“I hate him,” she whispered sharply, clenching her eyes closed. “I hate him, hate him, hate him….”

She finally stopped her shaking, opened her eyes, and looked over the stove. Odd, she thought. Although rustic in appearance, the appliance seemed to be adequate and in good working order. It was fueled by gas, and a tiny flame hovered beneath an aluminum coffeepot.

Chalk one up for Craig Taylor. Among his “dubious” talents, he apparently had the capability of making decent coffee.

But he really couldn’t be expecting her to run up the steps and cheerfully hand him a cup. They were not out for a pleasure cruise—she was his prisoner. Prisoners simply couldn’t be expected to assist their jailers. Unless, of course, they were being granted a certain amount of freedom in return. Would he carry out his threat? she wondered. If she didn’t toe the line as first mate to his captain, would she find herself bound in the cabin for the voyage?

Blair spent a little too much time pondering the problem. She suddenly realized that she had been hearing scampering up on the deck—sure movements, swift movements. There was a change in the feel of the sway.

Taylor had cast anchor and lowered the sails. And he was coming belowdecks.

Thoroughly annoyed with the interruption in her fumbling search, Blair continued to comb cabinets for cups. She knew when he was behind her; his presence permeated the small space of the galley section.

Dismayed with her panicked obedience, Blair refused to glance his way. Willing her hands not to tremble, she poured coffee into two cups, knowing that he watched her, knowing that he was near. She turned and none too graciously pressed his cup into his hands. “Here.”

He accepted the cup. “Sit down, Blair.”

The only feasible course of action seemed to be acquiescence to his invitation—or command, whichever. Brushing past him, Blair took a seat at the round table, scooting far away to leave him plenty of room.

But he didn’t sit immediately. He reached for a short-sleeve blue work shirt and shrugged into it, leaving it unbuttoned, then fit a hand into his pocket and tossed a pack of cigarettes and book of matches onto the table in front of her. He watched her speculatively, but said nothing and turned back to the galley section. Moments later he had produced a cast iron frying pan and procured a handful of brown eggs from a wire basket near the sink. Along with the eggs he cracked into the pan with a practiced hand, he threw in a thick slice of ham.

Blair drew a cigarette from the pack and lit it, noticing with dismay as the match trembled in her hand that she was still as nervous as a cat. He was being, in a strange way, courteous, she realized. If not courteous, at least concerned. He had known how very badly she needed that cigarette.

The aroma from the galley began to fill the cabin. Despite everything, Blair was aware of a voraciously growing hunger. Glad that she was to be fed, Blair took a covert look at her “host.” In the unbuttoned shirt and cutoffs, moving about the galley with the innate precision that was his in all things, he was just too much the epitome of the male ideal. Her blood began to sizzle again with the pain of betrayal.

Craig set a plate of food before her, then procured a plate for himself. Placing utensils on the table, he sat down across from her and began to eat. “You haven’t touched your coffee,” he commented politely.

It was too easy to be drawn into his web. Blair determined never to waver in the scorn she would show. “I was waiting for you,” she told him with a biting bravado, as cool as he for all outward appearances as she smiled icily. “I thought I’d assure myself it contained no arsenic.”

A look of intense annoyance flashed across his features. “That was silly, Blair.”

She picked up her coffee cup, furious to find her fingers trembling. “How the hell would I know anything?” she flared.

His cup made a sharp, clattering return to the table. Craig had had it. He was doing his best to see to her creature comforts and safety and she was still acting as if he had grown horns and a tail overnight.

“All right, Blair, you don’t know anything. So I’m going to fill you in.” There was no anger in his voice; it was low, soft, excruciatingly silky, and deadly. He stood, his height wavering her resolves as he towered over her before lowering his torso down to hers, setting an arm behind her, the other on the table, creating a virtual prison without touching her. “I’m a member of an elite cult. We meet in the forest on Halloween night. I’ve gone through all this trouble so that we can use you in a ritual. I was all for having you drawn and quartered myself, or at least put to the rack, but, no, we decided to save you for bigger things. You would have made an absolutely lovely sacrifice dressed in white upon the high altar, but …” His confession, told with a serious deadpan that had Blair staring at him with an almost believing fascination, suddenly took a pause as he cast an insolent glance over her from the top of her head to the spot where she disappeared beneath the table. “I’m afraid they demand the virginal type for sacrificial maidens, and I could personally guarantee the high priests that you certainly couldn’t be classified virgin material.”

Blair sat stunned at first, hypnotized by the somber intensity of his absurd explanation. The last, however, sank in with sure, deliberate insult. There was no conscious thought to her action; she simply responded with the spontaneity of rage and flicked the remainder of her coffee into his face.

Luckily it had cooled. Belatedly Blair thanked God for that small favor, sitting motionless, but regretting her impulse while cringing inside with the fear of reprisal.

There was none, unless eyes could be said to really wound. Craig was startled, definitely, and he stood as still as she for an explosive moment as the coffee dripped from his severe features. Then he grabbed his napkin, wiped his face slowly, and shot her that impaling glance. “Excuse me, will you?” His fingers lifted a side of the wet blue shirt from his chest. “I’ll just grab another shirt.”

Blair watched numbly as he walked to a cabinet in the far aft and extracted a similar shirt, a little more faded, and discarded the damp one to don the new. The man, Blair decided, was capable of tolerating a lot. But he did know what was going on; his nerves weren’t shattered, he was striking exactly where it would hurt the worst.

He sauntered slowly back to the table, his facial expression unfathomable, his eyes firmly guarded. “I’ll be happy to pour you another cup of coffee, Blair,” he said with an edge of warning rasping his voice,
“if
you plan to drink it this time. It will be hot, and though I’m a patient man, I do tend to become irate when scalded.”

Blair didn’t answer him, but something in her expression must have given the assurance that she didn’t have the innate maliciousness or nerve to purposely cause serious pain. He poured her a cup of fresh coffee and set it before her, watching her. Then he ran his fingers tensely through his hair before sitting opposite her a second time. “I’m sorry for what I said, but I don’t like this situation any better than you do and that razor-edged tongue of yours is wearing on the nerves.”

“What do you want me to do?” Blair demanded thickly. “Thank you for taking me along?”

“I asked you to trust me.”

“You asked the impossible.”

“You trusted me once.”

Blair looked quickly to her plate and gave her concentration to her now very cold eggs. “Yes,” she said lightly, trying to hide the tears that were forming behind her lids. “I made a very foolish mistake, didn’t I? On top of your other tricks, you connived me into a confession scene where I bared not only my own life to you, but Ray Teile’s.”

“Damn it, Blair!” His fist connected with the table in an uncontrollable spurt of violence before he took a deep breath and started over. “Blair, all the time that we shared has nothing to do with this. You and I have nothing to do with this. Anything I asked or gave was real—”

“Oh?” Blair couldn’t prevent the bitterly sarcastic interruption. “Seducing me wasn’t part of the plan?”

She almost heard the grind of his teeth and his cynical reply made her desperately wish she had chosen to keep her mouth shut.

“It was the other way around, wasn’t it? I distinctly remember
you
appearing in
my
tent. Although I will say that I’m perfectly willing to take up where we left off.”

“Thank you, no,” Blair denounced him with acid contempt. “That is, if I do have a choice. After all, I’m merely the victim, right?”

He laughed with no mirth, and the leonine eyes were keenly upon her. “Poor, ravaged victim, eh? Can’t quite reconcile your own nature with the situation. Are you suggesting I rape you? It will be all right if Blair has no conscious choice?”

“No!” Blair gasped with horror, standing to viciously assault the table with her napkin. She had been ravenous; she now felt sick.

“Don’t worry, my dear Mrs. Teile,” he mocked her, lazily leaning his shoulders against the seat, “We haven’t been at sea quite that long. Besides, I sincerely doubt that anything occurring between you and me could ever be classified as rape. I’d never have to use force, I promise.”

Blair glared at him for a split second, then turned from the table, certain that if she stayed any longer she would toss another cup of coffee into his face or do something even worse. She was equally certain that his reaction would not be so calm a second time.

“Where are you going?” Craig demanded coolly.

She turned back to him and her gaze implied he had to be ridiculously stupid. “Now, just where the hell could I go?” she demanded in turn. “Topside. I don’t believe I’m compelled to carry on a conversation with you either.”

“Wait!” he ordered in a stinging voice. Rather than trust her luck, Blair stood antagonistically still, wondering if and vaguely hoping that he was about to make another apology.

None was forthcoming. His eyes were imperious and hard as he reached for the wet shirt. “We have a few things to get straight here.” He stuffed the shirt into her hands. “Our clothing supply is limited. You are laundry detail.”

“The hell I am!” Blair denied in an adamant growl.

“The hell you aren’t,” he replied softly, eyes narrowing to their dangerous tilt. “You’re also going to cook and sail this tub along with me. We have a distance to go, my sweet, and you’re going right along with me. There’s nothing outside this boat, Mrs. Teile, not for a long, long way. We’re surviving together out here, and you will be putting in your fair share.”

“You forget, Mr. Taylor, this sail was not my idea. And if you have problems to solve, you are just going to have to solve them yourself.”

“We’ll see about that,” he informed her, leaving no doubt in her mind that they certainly would. But for the moment he had little else to say. Brushing past her, he mounted the ladder to the deck.

Since he was on deck, Blair decided to stay below. She sat back down, glanced at the cigarette pack on the table, and hastily extracted one to light. She watched the smoke plume away in the cabin. Dusty gray curtains were pulled over the portholes, and with a flash of claustrophobia she yanked them open. She was just in time to catch a view of Craig’s muscled calves and bare feet passing by fleetly as he moved busily across the deck weighing anchor.

She nervously smoked the cigarette down to the filter, aware that they were under sail again as the swaying of the cabin increased. The feeling wasn’t uncomfortable though—she loved to sail. She and Ray had often spent their free time sailing the brilliant blue waters of the Chesapeake.

Ray! She thought of her husband with dismay. She had entrusted Craig with so many secrets.

But it had seemed so right at the time. She had purged herself of so much pain, relinquished the ghost she held so dear, found a new ecstasy that had shadowed the past into its proper perspective.

That was her fury, she knew. She should be frightened, she should be determined to escape her captor at any cost. But her humiliation was still taking precedence in her mind.