Motionless, Holden watched her, seeing what she must have been like before tragedy shadowed her turquoise eyes. He wanted nothing more than to lean into her and drink her laughter like golden wine.
As though she sensed his thoughts, she turned and held out her hand.
“You’ll keep me from floating away when it gets deep,” she said, closing her fingers around his.
“Whatever you want, Kate.”
She saw that he meant every word and felt more fear dissolve away, fear she hadn’t even known she had.
“I’ve always blamed the sea,” she said after a few minutes. “Hated it.”
“It’s easier than blaming your parents for diving when they bloody well should have stayed on board,” he said calmly.
Her fingers clenched. “How did you know?”
“It was rather well documented that they were diving at night with a tropical storm barreling down on them.”
After a long time Kate’s fingers unclenched. “Yes, hating the sea was easier than hating them for being so foolish, so selfish, choosing the gleam of gold over their own daughter.” And then she made a broken sound. “And I’m selfish for wanting to be more important to them than anything else, including the wreck they had been looking for longer than I’d been alive.”
“The Moon Rose,” Holden said.
“Yes.”
She walked deeper, bringing him with her. Clumps of coral grew like shadows from the bottom, reaching toward the light. But not too far. Just enough to let the organisms living in some corals transform sunlight to food. Other corals combed the water with fragile, restless fingers, millions upon millions of tiny hands begging for crumbs of life.
“I wish I had my mask and fins and snorkel,” she said softly.
He was close enough to hear. “Are they aboard the dive ship?”
“Yes, for all the good it would do. I haven’t touched them in years. They’re probably rotted by now.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“First chance I had, I checked the dive locker. It’s a quick way to size up a dive operation. If the gear isn’t cared for, it’s a bad operation. Period.”
“Larry might suck at bookwork, but he’s always had a magic touch with diving gear.”
“He’s thorough, too. I found a locker with ‘Kitty’ on it. The gear inside was as well kept as anything on the ship.”
She stumbled, but Holden and the water held her upright.
“Grandpa,” she said, tears standing in her eyes. “He always hoped I would come back.”
Holden half smiled. “Your grandfather is a man of great stubbornness.”
She made a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. “And very thrifty, yet when my parents died, he took my father’s rebreather and threw it overboard.”
“That explains why I didn’t find but one in the dive lockers. I thought it was because this site is relatively shallow.”
“No. Grandpa won’t have them aboard. Blames them for my parents’ deaths.”
“Why? All dive equipment has its own hazards.” And the biggest of them is the diver.
“That’s what Larry told Grandpa,” she said. “It’s the only time I remember them having an in-your-face shouting match. In the end, Larry kept his rebreather. Says he loves the silence and maneuverability.”
Holden thought of the many times he’d used a rebreather at night in places where a trail of bubbles was an invitation to get strafed by enemies on the surface. The fact that a rebreather allowed extended dives with much less time in decompression was a bonus.
A fish shot by, pursuing other fish. Unlike the rounded, colorful reef grazers, the bigger fish was streamlined, ghostly silver blue, and wicked fast.
As Kate turned to watch the racing ghost, she realized that she was up to her breasts in water. It was cooler now that she was out of the extreme shallows where sunlight heated water to the temperature of blood. If she took a few more steps, she would be swimming.
So she did.
She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t the sudden exhilaration that shot through her as the water accepted her with forgotten ease. A sleek, delicious feeling of freedom swept over her. She turned onto her back and laughed like a child rocked in loving arms.
“I’ve missed this,” she said, seeing Holden’s wide smile. “I didn’t even know. How could I not know?”
“The sea is what you make of it. Like life. The child in you made the sea evil. The adult always knew better.”
He could have kept wading. Instead, he turned onto his side, kicking alongside her with a lazy strength that radiated his ease in the water.
“I can’t believe you had trouble getting back into the water after you were injured,” she said, watching him.
Wanting him.
“Believe it,” he said. “I came close to vomiting.”
“Were you in scuba gear?”
“That’s what kept me swallowing hard,” he said wryly.
Her laughter rose above the lagoon like another kind of sunlight.
Holden paused in midkick, realizing he had never known the kind of peace he felt watching her languid glide through the water.
She was born for this, he thought, not for business suits and spreadsheets and fear.
Watching her, he could almost forgive her brother for making such a cock-up of the dive that he’d been forced to call his baby sister to save the family business, which was sinking like a ship with open seacocks. Not that Holden’s people had helped; the contract was shameful on the face of it.
That’s why I’d make a lousy businessman, he thought, keeping pace with Kate. Taking advantage of desperate people so that I can advance and enrich myself . . . I’d rather deal with live mines.
And he had.
Kicking easily, he shifted to a breaststroke, then to a backstroke.
“Does this hurt your thigh?” Kate asked.
“Not at all. It’s far more congenial than the heavily chlorinated pool I used for my physio.”
She made a face. She hated pools and chlorine, but that kind of swimming was better than nothing.
“I know I asked you before,” she said, “but do you miss diving?”
“I dive, love. It’s part of my work. What about you?”
For a time there was only the cry of birds and the rush of the sea foaming over a reef of rocks and coral farther out.
“I miss it,” she said finally, “but I’m not ready to dive. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. There’s nothing down there I can’t live without.”
Holden didn’t try to coax or wheedle or shame her into diving. He just followed her through the protected water, occasionally diving down when something on the bottom caught his interest, mostly staying close enough to touch her. Sometimes he swam beneath her, stroking her with his body, teasing both of them, sharing his sensual pleasure in being with her in the water.
Kate’s breath shortened the third time he caressed her chest to chest, body to body. He was aroused again and so was she. She went beneath the surface and returned the gliding caress, lingering against him until she ran out of breath.
“Can you stand on the bottom?” she asked, breathless from more than swimming underwater.
“If you’re tired, I can just tow you in.”
“Not that. I wanted to kiss you without worrying about drowning.”
His eyes changed, focusing on her lips with crystal intensity. “Come closer. I’ll keep you above water.”
Even as she reached for him, he drew her in. His skin was smooth except for the hair that slicked over his chest. As he stood, his muscles flexed and bunched beneath bronze skin. Drops of water clung like a net of diamonds that shifted with every breath he took.
Then his arms closed around her and all she knew was the heat and textures of his kiss. He was spice and fire, salt and sweet, rough and slick and alive, so alive. She wanted to consume him, to crawl inside his skin and
know him, flesh and blood and heat.
The soft whimpers she made were whips of fire on his hungry body. He took what she offered and demanded more, then more again, until there was nothing between them but need and more need, primal fire consuming them.
Vaguely Kate sensed motion, water sliding away.
“Put those beautiful legs around me,” Holden said roughly against her mouth.
Large, strong hands wrapped around her buttocks, lifting her. A single, heart-stopping rub over the length of his cock told them both just how good it would be. She locked her ankles around his waist and her arms around his neck, kissing his shoulder and neck as though afraid that something would tear them apart.
He dipped his head, ran his teeth over the curve of her neck, and bit her with exquisite care. She cried out, a husky female sound of approval, and he sucked hard, making her buck against him, clawing to be closer than skin.
Lifting his head, he saw the flushed circle that still held red dents from his teeth. “Your skin marks so easily, I’ll have to take more care.”
Her answer was a bite over his heart that was just short of fierce, then the gentle scrape of teeth over his nipple. She licked him slowly, circling, before she caught the dark nubbin of his nipple and sucked hard. His muscles locked and he shuddered.
“Enough, love,” he said almost roughly. “I have to get us to shore.”
“Why?”
“Condom.”
“Oh.”
Her eyes opened slowly, a smoldering kind of turquoise. She sighed and lifted her lips, snuggled against his biceps.
“I want to taste you,” she said, licking his taut skin. “Everywhere. I’ve never wanted that before. Never needed.”
Holden was sure his heart stopped. Then it kicked and began pumping like he was racing a wildfire. Except he wasn’t running away. He was running toward the flaming center so he could burn within it.
Within her.
The sea clung to them as though reluctant to release them to the shore.
Kate licked drops of salt water from every bit of Holden’s skin she could reach. She loved the heat, the taste, the supple feel of his skin on his neck and the rougher skin of his jaw shadowed by the beard lying just beneath.
Everything spun and she felt the sheet touch her back from nape to hips and then her legs as she unlocked her ankles. Moments later her bikini was a pile of emerald by his khaki pants. His swim shorts appeared next to them.
Naked, he knelt between her legs and looked, simply looked at her stretched out beneath him. Her skin was luminous pearl dusted with tiny flecks of gold.
And she was a redhead everywhere.
“Your eyes,” she whispered. “So beautiful. Dragon.”
She reached for the proud male flesh jutting toward her, only to have him catch her hands and put them next to her head. He stilled her murmur of complaint with a soft kiss.
“My turn,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time I saw you.”
Before she could ask what he meant, she felt the tip of his tongue touch the freckles across her nose, cheekbones, the top of her shoulders, the slope of her breasts.
“Freckles,” she said breathlessly.
“My weakness,” he said. “They appear in such tasty places.”
His mouth roved up one arm, nibbled on tender flecks of color, then down the other.
“Tickles,” she said.
“Suffer. I have.”
She laughed, then gasped when his lips roved over the curves of one breast, then the other, never touching either sensitive tip. Her nipples pouted.
“You’re missing some,” she said, her voice husky.
“Really? Show me.”
He saw the flush that rose from her breasts to her forehead. Slowly she lowered one hand and touched her left nipple. “Here.” Her fingers moved to the right. “And . . . here.”
Holden lowered his head until his breath rushed over one stiffened nipple, making it harder still. He sucked it into his mouth with slow deliberation, tasting and enjoying each ridge and seam, sucking, pulling until her hips began writhing against him. He pinned her in place with his lower body, sweating with the force of his own need.
“Not finished yet,” he managed finally.
“Save some for dessert.”
He laughed and felt the tension within him both ease and increase. The urgency was still there, still clawing deep, yet he was held in check by the velvet ropes of her humor. He had had his share of sex, but he’d never wanted to play with a woman, to share laughter as well as passion.
“You’re going to be trouble,” he said, turning to her neglected nipple.
Whatever she had intended to say escaped as a needy cry when his mouth closed on her again, tongue rubbing, teeth just edgy enough to provide a balance to the rushing pleasure. By the time he released her, she didn’t have enough breath to argue.
Then he began kissing the freckles below her breasts, lingering, licking, nipping. His shadow beard was just rough enough to give contrast to his lips as he drifted lower and lower until suddenly she came off the sheet with a gasp.
“No freckles—there!”
“You sure?” he asked.
Then he sucked her clitoris between his teeth, rubbed it with his tongue, and felt her come apart. He gentled his touch, bringing her down even as his own need twisted into burning wires of hunger. Slowly, slowly, he licked her, nuzzled her, told her without words that she was beautiful to him.
“Dessert was exquisite,” he said, reaching for a condom in his pants pocket. “Now I’m ready for the main course.”
Through half-closed eyes she watched him put on the condom. “Next time I get to do that.”
“What?” he asked.
“Everything. I want . . .” Her voice unraveled when she felt him rocking into her, stretching her, filling her until all she could do was give and give and give until she had taken all of him.
She moved her hips in slow counterpart to his sexual dance, feeling both ravished and ravishing, until her breath was short and she felt his whole body tighten, rocking, pulsing deep within until she could take no more and came undone in her own shimmering rings of ecstasy. His body suddenly went slack over her, yet he held back enough of his weight that she could breathe.
“Don’t move,” Kate said, holding him.
“Not planning to,” he managed.
They held each other until their breath became the slow rhythm of an ocean’s measured caresses along the shore. And then they still held on, because peace was a bond as deep and as ancient as fire.
CHAPTER 12
KATE TOWELED HER hair dry and looked into the cloudy mirror nailed just above the wash basin. Her eyes looked back at her, turbulence and peace and wonder.
Does he feel this way?
She almost laughed at her own naive question. Holden was a man. All man. He enjoyed sex and made sure his partner did, too. A generous lover.
Savor it, she told herself, for as long as it lasts.
And that would be until her newly acquired lover destroyed an old family business.
One more thing I can’t control.
“You’re frowning,” Holden said from the doorway to the tiny bathroom, deciding she looked edible in her sleeveless tank top and shorts. He hoped to get her quite naked. Soon. “‘Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded,’” he said in his deep voice. “‘Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be.’”
The words shimmered in the red of the dying sun.
“Beautiful,” she said. Like you.
“Rumi has kept me company on many a long night’s watch.”
“Rumi?”
“A Sufi mystic and poet.” Holden took the towel from her and began to gently rub water from her hair. “Rumi was also Pashtun, from what we’d call Afghanistan now.”
She met Holden’s eyes in the mirror and felt her heart take a slow, lazy spin. He wore only dark shorts. The rest was a breath-sh
ortening expanse of golden brown skin tight over shifting muscles. She knew she should pull back, keep more of herself aloof, not chance the kind of pain she had felt at seventeen when the world had shattered and re-formed in nightmare.
I’m not seventeen anymore. I’m not terrified of darkness and storm and being alone. I’m not running away from something that is always in front of me no matter where I turn.
“‘Let the lover be,’” she repeated softly. “Do you think the world will?”
He smiled almost sadly. “Doubtful. That’s why you take what you can get for as long as you can keep it.”
“It won’t be long, will it?”
“That depends on the lovers.” He set aside the towel. “It was very, very good with you. I want more. Do you?”
Memories shivered over her. “Yes.”
The faint growl of his stomach in the silence made her smile.
“Then let’s fuel the machine,” he said, nipping lightly at her neck, “so it can run at full throttle again.”
While she made tea, he warmed up beans and rice. As he arranged fruit on a chipped plate, he asked, “Do you want the fish warmed?”
“Just put it on top of my rice and beans,” she said. “That should take the chill off it without giving it that cooked-too-much taste. Sweet tea or plain?”
“I’ll take sweet. I seem to be in need of calories, as if I’ve been diving.”
“Skin diving,” she said without thinking. Then she flushed as her words echoed in her mind.
He laughed softly and touched her hot cheek. “That I have. Some of the best work I’ve ever done, by the way, thanks to my thoughtful, thorough dive partner.”
She stirred sugar into the tea until her cheeks no longer felt hot.
They ate quietly, finishing off the leftovers and lingering over the fruit. Both of them accepted silence with the ease of people who didn’t need to talk in order to feel alive.
Finally she stood, stretched, and said, “I have to put in some time on the computer. Did Farnsworth leave anything on your phone?”
“Such as?”
“Whether the generator is running yet.”
Holden pulled his phone out of his cargo pants and pushed buttons. “Nothing about the generator. The light valuable goods shipped out a few hours ago. The new diver quit. He decided one day’s pay was enough to stay drunk for two or three. Your grandfather took the Golden Bough in to refuel, offload the unwilling diver, buy more cylinders for the dive mix, and secure a part for the generator. He’ll be anchored back on the dive site by now.”
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