His tongue tip ran the length of her closed mouth, and then gently thrust forward, parting her lips, encountering her teeth and the tip of her own tongue. He licked her upper incisors, feeling the white square shape of them, and then he ran his tongue around her top teeth from the back to the front, and deep into the back again.
For a moment, their tongues wrestled, in a welter of shared saliva. Then Mark's rigid tongue licked Catriona's tongue into curling submission, circling around it, thrusting beneath it, and teasing the membrane that joined it to the floor of her mouth. Her tongue retreated, shyly, while he provoked it and played with it.
Catriona opened her eyes for a moment and she could see the side of Mark's forehead, and his short, well-brushed curls. She reached up with her hand and stroked the back of his neck, around his stiff starched collar, and then the curve around his ears. He was so appealing, so masculine, that she could almost have eaten him. Sunk her teeth into those golden-brown muscles, and devoured him whole.
The kiss, after whole minutes, was over. Mark sat up straight, staring at her, unable to take his eyes off her, any more than she was able to take her eyes off him.
"Well," he said. "Miss Catriona Keys."
"Mr Mark Beeney," she answered him.
"Where do we go from here?" he asked her.
"Do you really want to go anywhere?"
"Not just now. But what about tomorrow? And what about the day after tomorrow? And Saturday, when we reach New York?"
She reached out her arm, tightly encased in exquisite lace, and touched his shoulder. At that moment Alice, who wasn't taking any chances with Catriona when it came to young gentlemen, returned with a fresh skein of cotton.
"You're feeling all right, Miss Keys? Not too tired?"
"Alice, I'm feeling wonderful."
"Well, that's as may be. But remember what the doctor said. And wasn't let yourself get carried away. You had a nasty shock. You haven't felt the worst of it yet."
"I know," said Catriona.
Mark said, "I ought to be going. I don't want to tire you out."
"You'll come and have breakfast with me tomorrow?"
"Of course I will, if you think you'll be up to it."
"I think so," said Catriona. She smiled at him, because she couldn't help smiling at him. "I seem to have a new lease of life all of a sudden. I can't think why."
"You'll take care, won't you?" he told her. "George may have hurt you more than you realise."
"I'll get my own back on him yet," said Catriona. "Don't you worry about that."
"You won't be the first person who's wanted to. I just hope you're the first person who succeeds."
Catriona said, "By the way, how's Sir Peregrine? Have you heard any more news? Edgar told me what happened at dinner."
"Nothing so far," said Mark. "They're saying that he was probably overtired, after the first night and the storm and everything. 1 According to the purser, he's resting."
"Mark," she said, as he stood up and straightened his coattails.
"What is it?"
"I don't know," she said. "It isn't really anything."
He waited where he was. He knew she had something important to tell him. In the end, in a strained voice, she said, "You will give me I time, won't you?"
"For what?"
"For everything. To think."
"Sure," he said and leaned forward and kissed her again.
Alice said, "It's time you took a rest, Miss Keys. You've had enough excitement for one evening. Come on, if you want to get up tomorrow—"
Catriona said, "Yes. I suppose I'd better." She felt more tired than she could ever remember. She smiled at Mark, and settled down amongst her pillows, and the last thing she heard was the soft sound he made as he snicked the door lock closed in the sitting room.
FORTY-SIX
Marcia said, "Where you have been? You haven't even changed. And where's the champagne?"
Mark looked down at his empty hands. "Did I say something about champagne?"
"Well, no. Not exactly. But one assumed."
"Oh," said Mark. He closed the door of the stateroom behind him. The theme of the sitting room was "Spring," but it was stifling enough in there to be midsummer. Marcia was curled up on the sofa with her long cigarette holder and a tall glass of seltzer, dressed in short-sleeved pyjamas of very pale green silk, with a laurel-green collar and piping.
"I don't know where your mind is these days," said Marcia. "You wander around as if you're half-asleep."
"Marcia, I have a thousand things on my mind. Not the least of which is you."
"And what are the other nine hundred and ninety-nine? Miss Catriona Keys, Miss Catriona Keys, Miss Catriona Keys, and so on, I suppose?"
"Will you forget about Miss Keys?"
"Only when you do."
Mark loosened his necktie and sat down in a green velvet armchair with varnished wickerwork sides. "You're being possessive again," he told her.
"Is that such a sin? Is it even so surprising, when you've just given me a diamond and emerald necklace and told me how much you adore me?"
Mark rubbed his eyes with his finger and thumb. "I'll call the steward," he said. "Do you really want champagne, or would you rather have coffee?"
"Coffee?"
Mark blearily checked his wristwatch. "It is nearly two in the morning. They'll be serving breakfast soon."
"Look," said Marcia, "if you want to go to bed, don't let me stop you. If my company makes you yawn, I'd hate to keep you."
"Stop being so damned unsure of yourself," Mark told her.
"Me? Unsure of myself? My dear Mark! I'm not unsure of myself, and I never have been. What I'm really unsure about is you. Do you really love me, or are you just playing?"
"Playing?" he asked her.
"Yes, my dear, playing. The same way you play with money, and the same way you play with ships. You've never had anything to do with anything that's real, have you? Not real struggle, or real love, or real disappointment. Even that beloved car of yours is only a fantasy. No wonder you're prepared to gamble it away. It never really existed at all, did it, except as a figment of your imagination. Now that it's real you don't even know if you want it or not. Well, I'm beginning to wonder if that's all that I've turned out to be. A dream girl who has come inconveniently true. A fantasy woman who has turned out to be a human being, much to your embarrassment. How discomfiting for you, to have to fulfil obligations and promises to someone you thought was nothing more than a pretty illusion inside of your head!"
"You're drunk," said Mark. "I'll order coffee."
"My God, if it could only be as simple as that," said Marcia. "If only I could be sure that you loved me, just by sobering up!"
Mark said, "Marcia, you're talking gibberish. You know what I feel about you."
"That's the trouble," she said. "That's the whole trouble."
"I don't know why you even came on this voyage," he told her. "You've done nothing but throw one jealous fit after another. And for no reason."
"I suppose Miss Catriona Keys isn't a reason?"
"What the hell does it matter if she is?"
"Well, is she?" Marcia demanded.
"Is she what?"
"A reason? Don't you even listen to me when I'm screaming at you?"
"For God's sake, pull yourself together," said Mark. "The more jealous you get, the uglier you look."
Marcia threw her glass of seltzer across the room. It smashed against the stainless-steel edge of a side table, and the contents fizzed across the carpet. "That's it, you bastard," she snapped. "You can take your diamonds back and your promises back and you can choke on them, for all I care!"