His flesh was so warm, all taut and strained, yet giving beneath her stroking palms. Such a rage of love she felt for him. His limbs were tangled with hers, oddly awkward when they’d played the game so many times. It didn’t matter. His need, his desire, communicated itself to her, and she accepted his love as if it were riches. Her unselfish lover radiated desire; she invited his selfishness. Her fingers curled around him, and she rejoiced at the sound of his gasp of pleasure.
“Don’t,” he hissed softly. “Sonia, if you touch me-”
He would explode. The warning was implicit, but she touched him anyway. One finger lightly traced the shape of him, and then her palm curled around his pulsing warmth.
He brushed her hand away, but she felt the tremor that shook his body. His head bent, and she saw the faint sheen of moisture on his temples, that coat of sensuous moisture like silk on his shoulders. His lips traced the line from her throat to her breasts. Her nipples were already taut for the wash of his tongue, yet a helpless shiver vibrated through her when his teeth gently grazed the sensitive flesh.
She felt a rush of sheer sexual pleasure, but that wasn’t the main cause of the trembling inside her. Mr. Hamilton was out of control. It was about time. Only, darn it, so was she.
Her fingertips danced over heated skin, down the muscled curve of his shoulders to his spine to his taut buttocks, finally resting on his thighs. He twisted. Such an impatient body, such exploding need. Plush carpet pressed into her spine, abrasive, ungiving. Sun poured on her eyes, and she lowered her lids. The flesh of his neck was so vulnerable; her lips whispered over it, so very gently; her teeth nuzzled, so very gently…
“Sonia, if you don’t stop…”
She had no intention of stopping. The damn boat was welcome to sink. Her lover was back. For some crazy reason, his lips were sinking from breasts to ribs to navel. The silly man was obviously still concerned with her pleasure.
“Come to me,” she whispered throatily. “Craig, I want my legs around you-I want to feel you inside me. Don’t wait. Don’t wait…”
For an instant, the searing images exploded in his head again. The man with light eyes, the darkness, that instant when Sonia’s eyes sought him out, desperately wanting and needing and expecting him to save her, that instant when he’d never felt more impotent, more helpless, his failure…The images were real; they had been real for weeks, as real as if it had all just happened.
“No,” Sonia whispered fiercely. “You’re not doing that to me again, dammit. Or to yourself. Look at me, Craig.”
Her palms framed the sides of his face. She wanted to kiss away that terrible look in his eyes. Frustration and desire and all the fierce feelings of love she had for him glowed in her eyes.
There was one moment…but then a smile formed on his lips. That smile hovered and came closer, until with exquisite tenderness his mouth molded itself to hers. Even as her arms tightened around him, he was shifting his body over hers; in a surging thrust they were one again.
So long…too long. Her legs locked around him, terrified he would leave her.
There was nothing to be afraid of. A low groan escaped her lips as Craig urged them both to a fierce, pulsing rhythm. She could feel the hunger in him as if it were a live thing. His skin was damp with it; his eyes burned with it; his body shuddered with it.
“I love you,” he whispered. “So much, so much, so much…”
At her sudden fevered cry, he felt the agony of his own release explode inside of her. Like a prisoner set free, he saw the brightness of sun behind his eyes, a world renewed in loving, all guilt banished to another time.
“One can carry laziness just a little too far, you know,” Craig teased.
“It’s your fault I have all the energy of a marshmallow.” She parted her lips again.
Craig forked in another tidbit of steak. “Would you like me to chew it for you?” he asked gravely.
“Would you?”
“Doubtful.”
“I’ll settle for being fed, then.” She settled back with her head back against a bunched-up blanket, surveying her husband with limpid eyes.
Two hours before, it had taken more work to unhook the dinghy from the cruiser than it had to row in to shore. By then a velvet night had fallen, so black and soft that it looked almost as crushable as fabric. They had rowed across the cove to a deserted sandy beach; undoubtedly there was civilization somewhere close by, but there were no signs of it. Palms and tropical brush guarded their privacy, and the crackling driftwood fire Craig had built on the sand tossed up delightfully colorful sparks to the sky. That steady splish-splash of surf only added to her already somnolent state.
“Open,” Craig instructed.
She opened. Somewhere in the mound of sour cream on the fork was a tiny morsel of baked potato. Her wry smile made her husband chuckle, totally unrepentant at stuffing her unmercifully with the delectable goodies. “No more,” she pleaded when she had swallowed the bite of potato and sour cream.
“Nonsense.”
“The dinghy will sink.”
“I keep hearing all these dire predictions about your getting fat. I have yet to see one spare ounce of flesh develop.”
“I’m hardly going to wait until I’m waddling and you’re driven into the arms of some skinny yacht owner.”
Craig set aside the paper plate and sank down next to her. “I thought we’d established that she was pockmarked and wore braces.”
“We haven’t established anything.” She rearranged the blanket so there was pillow potential for both heads. Two pairs of cut-off-denim-clad legs stretched out, all four sets of toes digging in the sand. “The only thing the prosecution is really aware of,” Sonia said sleepily, “is that the man knows too much about boats. The rest has been simply brilliant deduction on my part. How long did you date her, anyway?”
Craig lifted his foot and sprinkled her ankle with a layer of sand. “How long have you had this violently jealous streak?” he remarked conversationally.
“Ages.”
“You’ve kept it very well hidden.”
“Thank you.”
“I like it. That you’re jealous.”
“I’m glad that you’re glad that I’m jealous,” Sonia said patiently. “How long did you date her?”
He chuckled, rolling over on his stomach. His rear end, Sonia noted with amusement, was covered with sand. So was she, almost everywhere. The blanket made, at best, a crumpled pillow, and the grainy sand had crept inside her cutoffs…and she was amazingly, thoroughly comfortable.
But then, her husband was relaxed, as he hadn’t been in weeks. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were full of humor, and every limb and muscle reflected lazy, sated easiness. She reached over to push back a shock of hair from his forehead. “Answer me,” she demanded, but her tone was loving.
“About what?”
She sighed. It was useless to pursue. “You’re very good at keeping secrets, you know,” she scolded.
“Only at keeping secrets you really don’t want to know.”
“True.” Sonia added softly, “Sometimes, Craig. Not always.” She stroked back that shock of hair again. This time, her fingertips lingered on his temples. “I don’t need to know about your past love affairs,” she said softly. “That’s not part of our lives.”
His lips pressed a kiss into the center of her palm. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the tender gesture, reminded of the loving they had shared all day. When her lashes fluttered open again, Craig was shifting to lean closer to her. Her palm stroked the wall of his chest.
“Craig?”