“Greer?”
“Some romance. Most of the pirates had scurvy, scars and VD. I figure even the most man-hungry woman alive had to be pretty desperate,” Greer said prosaically.
Ryan burst out laughing, and lifted his head to look at her. “Hey,” he said suddenly, his voice soft.
He felt it, the change in her. An openness, an alluring wistfulness in her eyes, a spark of something free and burning and yet wary. Her eyes shuttered closed just that quickly.
She needed touching, his lady. Badly. And he so badly wanted to touch her, but it hadn’t proved that simple. Not from the instant she’d stripped down to that simple black swimsuit. It was modest, as two-piece suits went, but then he hadn’t understood until he’d seen her naked that no swimsuit was ever going to look modest on Greer. Her breasts were high and firm and full, her skin satiny, her hips gently rounded, her legs long and beautifully shaped. Tantalizingly shaped. Woman. All of her was Eve, the tease of lush curves and softness.
He wasn’t in the mood for a little touch. He craved all of her. And now.
Abruptly, he stood up and grabbed her hand. “In the water with you.”
“Wait a-”
“Insto-pronto. We’ll swim past the waves and have a race for the sandbar.”
She tried to regain that lighthearted feeling they’d shared earlier, laughing with him as he tugged her unwilling body to the shore. “I forgot to tell you, you’ve only got a wader here. No marathon swimmer. Ryan. Wait-”
“No waiting.” His voice was teasing, yet it carried an undertone of tension. He needed, now, to get cool.
Water splashed and surged around her bare ankles, and Greer stiffened. “Ryan-”
“It’s not that far. No more nonsense, woman.”
“I don’t swim.”
His jaw dropped along with his hand. “You what? You live this close to the ocean and you don’t-”
“Swim.”
“I used to be able to,” Greer said uneasily less than an hour later as she stared down into a placid aquamarine swimming pool. “As a kid, I was even into fancy diving. And that’s exactly where I got into trouble. I was doing a double back-flip off the board-”
“In,” Ryan said firmly from the waist-deep water in the shallow end. He stretched out both arms to reach her, his fingers motioning impatiently.
“And I moved wrong, hitting the water on my back. I conked out-it must have been only seconds. When I woke up, I was underwater and I thought I was dead. Anyway. Ever since then-”
“In.”
She gave him a sour look. “What if I just plain completely change my mind about this?” she asked casually.
“Then we’ll go home, foolish one. Obviously. But an hour ago, you were embarrassed as hell that you couldn’t swim. Of course, the ocean’s not the place to teach anyone to swim, but this will do beautifully.” He motioned impatiently to her again.
“I would just like to discuss this a little longer.”
“You’ve been discussing it for over fifteen years. The lady should have known enough to get back on the bike after she fell off.”
“I got on the damn bike after I fell off,” she said dryly. “This is different.”
“It is not.”
“It is. Oh, hell!” She could have delivered a long dissertation about how the reaction of teenage boys to her figure in a swimsuit had been another reason why she’d never developed her swimming talents, but she didn’t. She could never have told Ryan that; she’d never shared those embarrassing moments with anyone.
She slid her legs into the pool and then jumped, feeling the cool, clear water immediately rush and enclose her flesh to her ribs, but no higher. She dipped down, just to where her breasts would be modestly covered by water. She’d forgotten how delicious that feeling of weightlessness was.
The other resort guests should have been enjoying the pool, but most of them were sitting in lawn chairs absorbing the sun. Greer was totally unfamiliar with the resort. Ryan had stopped on the cape at the first place with a pool. The owners had accepted a bill from him for their right to use it.
The man could move incredibly fast when he was in the mood. And at the moment, his arms very swiftly, protectively enclosed her. She shivered free from that touch, staring at the droplets of water on his chest. And then up to his face. His hair was slicked back, wet from his dive, and for some reason his eyes looked bluer right now. Endless blue, a captivating sky blue. And those eyes wouldn’t let her alone.
“This is silly, you know,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “First of all, I’m fine in the shallow end, and it’s not as if I don’t remember the strokes. I really did know how to swim once.”
“Feel comfortable enough to prove it?”
“Of course.” She raced him the width of the shallow end and then again, and then again. She was rusty and slower than molasses and increasingly annoyed with herself. One really didn’t forget how to swim. And it had been so long…she’d forgotten how deliciously buoyant water was, what it felt like to slice through that smooth coolness and just savor the sensuality of the water. On the last lap, because it was the only possible way to beat him, she dipped her head under, felt a moment’s uncertain panic, and swam the last of it underwater.
She should have known she couldn’t win. He was grinning, languidly relaxed with his arms outstretched at his sides, when she surged up with water dripping in her hair and eyes. “Feel good?”
She nodded.
“Not scared?”
She brushed the hair away from her eyes and tugged up her suit straps. “I feel like a perfect idiot,” she said lightly. “I won’t even mention coward. It’s too humiliating.”
He immediately pushed off from the side of the pool, gliding next to her, his hands sliding to her waist. “You’re a long way from a coward, Greer,” he whispered. “I never thought that. You think you’re the only person who’s ever been afraid of something?”
“All right. What phobias have you got?” Greer obliged. She was certainly more than sick of her own at the moment.
“Mice.”
“Mice?” Her eyes sparked with amusement.
He nodded solemnly, his sun-browned face inches from hers. “Can’t stand ’em. I had a little argument with a black bear in the woods once, and weathered that fine. But give me a mouse running across the room and my machismo immediately shrivels up. So there.”
“Mice are adorable,” Greer mentioned. “I’ve always loved mice.”
“And you love swimming. Just not in deep water, right, lady?”
He captured her waist in his hands. The water skimmed over her ribs, then her breasts, then her throat, as he propelled her closer to the deep end. And they hovered there, their faces above the water, Ryan’s arms securely around her. Deep water. Damn deep water, Greer thought suddenly. She could feel the brand of every one of his fingers on her bare waist.
“You afraid of anything else?” she asked breathlessly.
Her senses were picketing her rational mind, having a strike for unfair deprivation. She’d never felt deprived before. It was just now. The way the tips of her breasts grazed his bare chest. The way his shoulders felt slippery beneath her arms. The way her legs had to fight against the water’s special gravity, not to move toward his, not to let thighs touch thighs. The water no longer felt cool, but warm, silky, inviting.
Danger was a sultry, sun-warmed day, a sky so blue it hurt her eyes.
“Just a little deeper,” Ryan coaxed. “Hold on now.”
She held on. He didn’t give her much choice. His hands slowly glided down her spine to her hips, lifting her, forcing her to wrap her legs around him for security. Security, on the other hand, was becoming an elusive commodity. Her pelvis was intimately cradled against his flat stomach, and her breathing suddenly wasn’t normal.