Sonia dragged one oar in an arc through the water until the dinghy was turned around and headed back for their cruiser. She leaned toward Craig with the forward motions and away from him as she brought the oars back. Amazing how such action echoed other, more sensual rhythms.
Her eyes rested on Craig’s face, studying him pensively. He was leaned back, studying her with equal intensity, a very stark, very male, very hungry sexual promise in his eyes. He was very clearly through talking. He was willing to communicate further about the past lonely weeks, but in other ways.
The ache in her lower body said she’d already been well loved that day. She didn’t need sex. She did, however, need to see that look in his eyes again. She needed that sweet, monumental relief of knowing they’d talked, that there had never been anything so terribly wrong that they couldn’t solve it together.
Dip and pull, dip and pull. Craig motioned his willingness to take the oars; she shook her head.
A kind of silence gripped her, deep inside, absorbing what he’d tried to tell her. Not the words, but the guilt behind them. That he’d blamed himself for wanting her too damn much on a very still, very seductive night in Chicago…that he’d linked that to his right to make love to her…that he’d suffered through a very masculine feeling of failure to protect her-how could she not have known?
Dip and pull, dip and pull. Always, the man had bolstered and encouraged and abetted every feminine instinct in her. She felt secure about herself as a woman because of him. It had never occurred to her that Craig could possibly doubt himself as a man, or that she could have been so totally oblivious to how important that male role was in their relationship. To him.
She was suddenly very definitely in the mood to make love again. She had a great deal to show Craig about how she thought of him as a man. A great many imaginative experiments to try that would reinforce that welling love she felt, that would make very clear that they were equal mates in bed, equally sensitive, equally giving, equally…
Leaning forward, she handed Craig the oars. She had no more time to risk getting all tuckered out. Not when there was a long night ahead, and their cruiser was finally within sight again.
Stepping off the plane with Craig just behind her, Sonia scanned the airport crowd for a cigar-smoking, wizened little man with a wrinkled face.
Charlie found the two of them first; Sonia’s cherry-red dress was impossible to miss. He whipped the cigar out of his mouth as he ambled forward. “Didn’t think the two of you were ever coming back. Well, how was it?”
Charlie bent a little forward. Not that he was expecting or even wanted a peck on the cheek from Sonia, but she usually insisted on these things. He received a resounding buss and hug besides. Beaming, he grabbed for her flight bag and reached around to hook an arm across Craig’s shoulder. “Looking good, you two. I can hardly wait to hear about the whole trip. You catch any good fish?”
“Not a one,” Craig admitted.
“Not one? How could you possibly be anywhere near-” someone bumped into him; he maneuvered aside “-that incredible fishing territory and not catch a single fish?”
“Nothing was biting, actually,” Sonia said, and added swiftly, “How’re the pups?”
Charlie gave her a disgusted look, as the three angled through the crowd to the baggage area. “Don’t ask.”
“Okay.”
“They tipped over the trash. One teethed on the patio furniture. Another decided he was going to whine outside the door the whole night. Thinks he’s going to be a lap dog, that one. John called from work,” Charlie mentioned to Craig.
“Hmm?”
“John. Work. Another problem with that guy from Radoil-”
Charlie watched, amused, as Craig leaned over his wife and kissed her. The kiss wasn’t long; it wasn’t short either. Sonia was wearing a hat, a wide-brimmed white thing with a red ribbon; she had to hold it on with one hand. And when Craig disappeared into the getting-luggage crowd, she was still staring after him, a faint flush on her cheeks, her fingers still holding the silly hat.
Charlie cleared his throat. “So you didn’t do much fishing,” he chortled.
Sonia twirled in his direction, a delightful smile on her lips, almost as red as her dress. “Pardon?”
“Did you at least see the Gulf? Port-to-port it between marinas?”
“Well…sort of.”
“Meet a lot of people?”
“Not really.”
“Get a lot of swimming in then?”
“We did swim. We swam a lot,” she assured him. “Every day.”
“Somehow I thought the two of you’d be browner than you are. Not that you weren’t plenty tanned when you left home, but after four days of nothing but sun-”
“It rained,” Sonia improvised swiftly.
Charlie’s eyebrows innocently vaulted up. “That’s strange. I watched the weather report every day. The whole area was supposed to be hot and dry.”
“The Gulf gets sudden rains.” Sonia’s eyes nervously sought Craig’s lean form in the crowd. “Lots of them. You’d be surprised.”
“That’s a shame,” Charlie commiserated.
“It was,” Sonia agreed.
“Nothing to do on a boat in the rain.”
“We played,” Sonia assured him, “a lot of chess.”
Charlie’s most undignified guffaw startled her. Craig shot her a questioning glance as he returned with their two small bags. Charlie grabbed both, adjusted them with the flight bag he’d already claimed and stumbled ahead of the two of them, still chuckling.
“I’ve missed him,” Sonia remarked to Craig as he steered her toward the exit with his palm at her back. “I could kill him, but I always miss him when we’re away.”
“Pardon? I can’t hear you because of that hat.”
She lifted her head, holding the hat in place again, an amused smile softening her lips. “That doesn’t make rational sense, Mr. Hamilton, that you can’t hear because of a hat. Give us another.”
“All right.” He took advantage, bending down again to test his lips against hers. The taste was not appreciably different than it had been moments ago. Delicious. The taste of her wasn’t any different, and the feel of her wasn’t any different, but after four days of seeing Sonia naked most of the time, he was having trouble adjusting to his lady fully clothed. The cherry-red linen dress and absurd hat and red-and-white shoes, the flick of mascara on her lashes again, the lingering hint of perfume…he liked it all. And wanted it all off again as soon as possible.
His lips lingered, until Sonia pulled back with a sassy frown. “You will behave yourself in the airport. That’s the second time in five minutes.”
“Then let’s get home.”
But arriving home was so complicated. Charlie talked continuously; the pups demanded attention; Craig had ninety-nine phone calls to return; they had to eat; her mother called; Charlie talked some more…Charlie refused to stop talking. Sonia had to give him three lemonades and tell him countless stories about rainy afternoons before he finally got up to leave around nine, still chuckling.
“What is wrong with him tonight?” Sonia demanded irritably.
“He’s on to us.” Craig switched off the light in the kitchen, then trailed Sonia through the hall. “It might have helped if you hadn’t handed him that cock-and-bull story about rainstorms.”
She unzipped her dress as she walked down the dark hall. “He seemed to expect us to have caught five million fish. What was I supposed to do? Tell him what we really did for four days?”
In their bedroom, Craig flicked on the dresser lamp, and Sonia savored for an instant the feeling of being home. The Wyoming sun, the car ride through dusty hills, the coming home and the look of the ranch and the feeling of total relaxation didn’t seep through her until her eyes lit on the familiar beamed ceiling and corner fireplace and familiar furnishings of their bedroom.