Mariah closed her eyes and tried to stifle the delicious shivering that came each time Cash brushed against her. Standing as close as they were, the sweet friction occurred each time either of them breathed.
"Damn it, Mariah, wake up and concentrate! Which way do you want to pan?"
"C-count."
"What?"
"Counter." She dragged in a ragged breath. "Counterclockwise."
With more strength than finesse, Cash moved his hands in counterclockwise motions, dragging Mariah's hands along. The circles he made weren't as smooth as usual, but they were a great improvement on what she had managed alone. The problem was that, standing as they were, Cash couldn't help but breathe in Mariah's fragile, elementally female fragrance. Nor could he prevent feeling her warmth all the way down to his knees.
And if he kept standing so close to her, there would be a lot less innocent kind of touching that he couldn't – or wouldn't want to – prevent.
Yet brushing against Mariah was so sweet that Cash couldn't force himself to stop immediately. He continued to stand very close to her for several excruciating minutes, teaching her how to pan gold and testing the limits of his self-control at the same time. "That's it," Cash said abruptly, letting go of Mariah's hands and stepping back. "You're doing much better. I'm going fishing." "But – how much water do I put in the pan?" Mariah asked Cash's rapidly retreating back.
"As much as you can handle without spilling," he answered, not bothering to turn around.
"And how much gravel?"
There was no answer. Cash had stepped into the willow thicket and vanished.
"Cash?"
Nothing came back to Mariah but the sound of the wind.
She looked at the empty gold pan and sighed. "Well, pan, it's just you and me. May the best man win."
At first Mariah tried to imitate Cash and crouch on her heels over the stream while she panned. The unaccustomed position soon made her legs protest. She tried kneeling. As Cash had predicted, kneeling was more comfortable, but only because of the thick mat of streamside grass. Kneeling on gravel wouldn't have worked.
Alternating between crouching and kneeling, Mariah concentrated on making the water in the pan turn in proper circles. As she became better at it, she used more water. While she worked, sunlight danced across the brook, striking silver sparks from the water and pouring heat over the land.
Patiently Mariah practiced the technique Cash had taught her, increasing the amount of water in the pan by small amounts each time. The more water she used, the greater the chance that she would miscalculate and drench herself with a too-energetic swirl of the pan. So far she had managed to make her mistakes in such a way as to send the water back into the stream, but she doubted that her luck would hold indefinitely.
Just when Mariah was congratulating herself on learning how to pan without accidents, she made an incautious movement that sent a tidal wave of ice water pouring down her front. With a stifled shriek she leaped to her feet, automatically brushing sheets of water from Cash's shirt and her jeans. The motions didn't do much good as far as keeping the clothes dry, but Mariah wasn't particularly worried. Once the first shock passed, the water felt rather refreshing. Except in her right shoe, which squished.
Mariah kicked off her shoes and socks, relishing the feel of sun-warmed grass on bare feet. Sitting on her heels again, she dipped up more water in the pan. Just as she was starting to swirl the water, she sensed that she wasn't alone any longer. She spun around, spilling water down her front again. She brushed futilely at the drops, shivered at the second onslaught of ice water, and smiled up at Cash in wry defeat.
He was standing no more than an arm's length away, watching her with heavy-lidded eyes and a physical tension that was tangible.
"Cash? What's wrong?"
"I was just going to ask you the same thing."
"Why?"
"You screamed."
"Oh." Mariah gestured vaguely to her front, where water had darkened the flannel shirt to black. "I goofed."
"I can see that."
Cash could see a lot more, as well. His soaked shirt clung lovingly to Mariah's body, doing nothing to conceal the shape of her breasts and much to emphasize them. The frigid water had drawn her nipples into hard pebbles that grew more prominent with each renewed pulse of breeze.
Watching Cash, Mariah shivered again.
"You should go back to the line shack and change out of those wet clothes," he said in a strained voice. "You're cold."
"Not really. The shirt is clammy, but I can take care of that without going all the way back to the cabin."
While Mariah spoke, her hands picked apart the loose knot in the bottom of Cash's shirt. She had undone the bottom two snaps before his fingers closed over hers with barely restrained power.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded.
"Giving my bathing suit a chance to live up to its no-drip, quick-dry advertising."
Cash looked down into Mariah's topaz eyes, felt the smooth promise of her flesh against his knuckles and could think of nothing but how easy it would be to strip the clothes from her and find out whether the feminine curves that had been haunting him were as beautiful as he had dreamed.
"Bathing suit?" he asked roughly. "You're wearing a bathing suit under your clothes?"
Mariah nodded because she couldn't speak for the sudden tension consuming her, a tension that was more than equalled in Cash's hard body.
The sound of a snap giving way seemed very loud in the hushed silence, as did Mariah's tiny, throttled gasp. Cash's hands flexed again and another snap gave way.
Mariah made no move to stop him from removing the shirt. She hadn't the strength. It was all she could do to stand beneath the sultry brilliance of his eyes while snap after snap gave way and he watched her body emerge from the dripping folds of his shirt. Where the thin fabric of the tank suit was pressed wetly against her body, everything was revealed.
Cash's breath came out in a sound that was almost a groan. "God, woman, are you sure that suit is legal?"
Mariah looked down. The high, taut curves of her breasts were tipped by flesh drawn tightly against the shock of cold water. Every change from smooth skin to textured nipple was faithfully reflected by the thin, supple fabric. She made a shocked sound and tried to cover her breasts.
It was impossible, for Cash's hands suddenly were holding Mariah's in a vise that was no less immovable for its gentleness. He looked at her breasts with half-closed eyes, too unsure of his own control to touch her. Nor could he give up the pleasure-pain of seeing her. Not just yet. She was much too alluring to turn away from.
There was neither warning nor true surprise when Cash's hands released Mariah's so that he could sweep the wet shirt from her faintly trembling body. Warm, hard palms settled on her collarbones. Long masculine fingers caressed the line of her jaw, the curve of her neck, the hollow of her throat, and the gentle feminine strength of her arms all the way to her wrists.
Too late Mariah realized that the straps of her tank suit had followed Cash's hands down her arms, leaving not even the flimsy fabric between her breasts and the blazing intensity of his eyes.
"You're perfect," Cash said hoarsely, closing his eyes like a man in pain. "So damn perfect."
For long, taut moments there was only the sound of Cash's rough breathing.
"Cash," Mariah said.
His eyes opened. They were hungry, fierce, almost wild. His voice was the same way, strained to breaking. "Just one word, honey. That's all you get. Make damn sure it's the word you want to live with."
Mariah drew in a long, shaking breath and looked at the man she loved.
"Yes," she whispered.