To the Ends of the Earth / The Danvers Touch

by Lowell, Elizabeth

  Abruptly Travis took Cat’s mouth with his own, needing to sink into her in some way. His tongue probed her lips with increasing pressure, demanding that she share the kiss. When her mouth opened, he asked for more, took it, his tongue sliding between her teeth until he was in complete possession of every soft, hot bit of her mouth.

  She responded with a need that equaled his, invading his mouth with her tongue, trying to consume him even as he consumed her. Her hands moved recklessly down his back, glorying in the rippling strength of his body, digging into the tensed muscles of his buttocks, seeking his hardened flesh, finding it, holding it.

  His breath broke, then came out in a hoarse groan that was a warning of how close to the edge he was.

  Too late Cat remembered all that her ex-husband had taught her about a woman’s role in bed. Instantly she snatched back her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said raggedly.

  “For what?” Travis asked. His voice was rough with pleasure and his hands were seeking her as intimately as hers had sought him.

  “I know that men—don’t like—aggressive women. I forgot. I’m sorry.” Cat’s words jerked out, sharp with the humiliating memories.

  “Are you talking about that sorry bastard you married?”

  Numbly Cat nodded.

  “Billy was a fool,” Travis said. “You’re passionate, not aggressive. That might frighten a boy, but it’s exciting as hell to a man.”

  As he spoke, he pulled Cat’s hands back down his body, then shuddered openly when her fingers brushed against him. He was so hard that his flesh jerked with every racing heartbeat. Her touch was heaven and hell at once, but above all it was a storm swirling around both of them, a storm building toward the moment of breaking.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Travis said, moving between Cat’s hands, letting her see and feel his pleasure. “I want my woman to touch me all over, everywhere, any and every way she wants to.”

  Cat stared at him, wanting to ask what he meant, unable to think of the words. He felt so exciting between her hands, hard and smooth, hot and quivering with life.

  Travis smiled down at her in lazy contradiction to the smoldering blue-green fire of his eyes.

  “That’s it,” he said almost roughly. “Touch me all over. Anything. Everything. It’s the way I’m going to touch you. All over, everywhere, any and every way I want.”

  She shivered at the sensual promise that radiated from him, the certainty of ecstasy burning in his eyes, the intense pleasure that rippled through him when she curled her fingers around him. The feel of him was unbearably arousing. She buried her face in his neck, caressing his skin with her tongue, biting the hard tendons, then licking away the marks her teeth left.

  Travis made a raw sound of pleasure and hunger. He could sense her liquid heat close to him, so close, it would be sweet hell to slide into her. The scent of her arousal infused the air like lightning. Her hands teased and praised him, measuring and caressing him in the same sexy movements.

  “That’s it,” he said, laughing softly, triumphantly. “Test me, Cat. See how hard I am.” As he spoke, one of his hands moved between her thighs, opening them. A long finger slid into her. “And how soft you are.”

  Cat gasped with surprise at the sensations surging through her body. She tried to say Travis’s name, to ask what he was doing to her. All that came out was a ragged sound of need.

  Deliberately Travis circled the soft, sleek folds of skin until he found the point of greatest pleasure for her. Then he stroked and teased and rubbed until she cried out and melted in his hand.

  “Travis?” Cat asked almost desperately. “What—”

  Her voice broke as another gust of pleasure shook her, a storm wave cresting endlessly within her, sweeping her toward an unknown shore.

  Body arched, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the storm and to Travis. She lived only where he touched her, and he touched her everywhere, the storm building until she couldn’t bear it anymore. She cried out with a pleasure so intense it was almost pain.

  His hips flexed and he sank into her. The powerful movement joined their bodies deeply, completely. Lightning scored her with searing pleasure. She clung to him, frantically matching his rhythmic movements, sharing his strength as they raced before the storm they had created, wanting both to outrun and be consumed by it.

  Then they could run no further and the storm broke around them, consuming them.

  Cat would have been frightened, but Travis was there, surrounding her, sheltering her while ecstasy shattered her world, then holding her while her world slowly reformed. It was a different world now, for he was part of her.

  NINE

  CAT AWOKE to sunlight pouring in silent golden cataracts across her bed. She stretched with a slow, feline thoroughness and smiled at the memories unfolding inside her, memories more beautiful than light.

  When she opened her eyes Travis was there beside her. He looked good to her, as golden as the sunshine, as warm as her memories, strong and wonderful and very, very male.

  Travis smiled at the approval in her eyes. He ran a lazy, possessive fingertip from her nose to her knees and back again. Then he traced the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

  “You don’t get enough sleep, do you?” he asked.

  She patted back a yawn. “Whose fault is that?” she asked, then caught his wandering fingertip between her teeth.

  “I’ll take the credit—um, blame—for this morning. But what’s to blame for all the other mornings that left marks under your eyes?”

  “Work.”

  “Not men?” Travis teased, sure of the answer. The utter lack of calculation in Cat’s response in bed had already told him that she wasn’t part of Laguna’s indiscriminate sexual games.

  “You’re the only man I’ve found who will put up with my bed,” she said, yawning again.

  “I’ve been meaning to bring that up.”

  “My lack of other men?”

  “Your bed.” Travis’s eyes caressed Cat as she lay softly tangled in sheets. “I was delighted to find that you slept single, but . . .” He dangled his feet over the end of the bed and at the same time bumped his head against the wall. “Do you think we could give my bed a try?”

  “For sleeping?”

  “Eventually.”

  He moved his body slightly, all but crowding Cat off the mattress. Only the fact that his arms were around her kept her from falling off the bed.

  “You’re at my mercy,” he pointed out. “I’m not only bigger than you are, I’m bigger than you and this bed put together.”

  Cat wrapped her arms around Travis, measuring his length with her own supple body. If she was worried about the fact that he had a good seven inches on her, she didn’t show it.

  “You’re right,” she said huskily. “I’m at your mercy.”

  “I can hardly wait. Do that again.”

  “What?”

  “Rub up against me like a hungry cat.”

  Smiling with pleasure that Travis approved of the sensuality he had lured out of her, Cat moved slowly against him again. The sensation of being naked and alive with him was so delicious that she licked her lips as though savoring a fine wine.

  Travis laughed and moved over Cat. Slowly he lowered part of his weight onto her, pinning her beneath him.

  “I was going to offer you lunch,” he said as he nuzzled her breasts, “but I think I’ll just eat you instead.”

  “Lunch?” Cat asked, startled. “What time is it?”

  Travis looked at the angle of the sun with a sailor’s measuring eye. “Nearly noon. Why?”

  “It can’t be!”

  “All right. It can’t be.” He nibbled around the top of one breast, loving the way her nipple instantly pouted to be in his mouth. “Maybe dinner is the best idea of all.”

  “Travis?”

  “Mmmm,” he said, smiling down at her breasts.

  “Is it really almost noon?”

  “It really is.
”

  Cat swore softly, then her breath caught as Travis sucked on the tip of one breast.

  “Travis, I was supposed to be somewhere at nine.”

  Reluctantly he released the tight, eager nipple. “It’s okay. Jason’s mother called at eight to tell you that he has a slight fever. I told her that you’d be glad to reschedule whatever you had going with him.”

  Cat stared at Travis. She hadn’t even heard the phone.

  “You aren’t glad to reschedule?” he asked.

  She frowned and thought aloud about her schedule. “I reserved Thursday morning for meeting T. H. Danvers.” She smiled distractedly at him. “Except for dawn and sunset, of course. They belong to Ashcroft.”

  “Like hell they do,” Travis said. “Dawn is definitely mine.”

  “But I have to shoot Jason for the Laguna Realtors.”

  Travis watched Cat with an expression of patient curiosity that didn’t quite suit his pirate’s face. “That sounds rather extreme, shooting a child.”

  She smiled. “Film, not bullets. It’s for the ‘Laguna, a Fine Place to Raise Children’ campaign,” she added, as though that explained everything.

  “Of course,” Travis said gravely, but laughter turned in the blue-green depths of his eyes.

  “The light is best in the early morning and late afternoon,” she explained, “unless there’s a nice lively storm with lots of broken clouds and wind.”

  She frowned and looked out the window.

  “Not a chance,” Travis said. “Fair weather and smooth sailing, world without end, amen. Or until the weekend, whichever comes sooner.”

  “Then I’m afraid it’s Jason at dawn and Ashcroft in the evening.”

  “And T. H. Danvers?” Travis asked, his voice light, his eyes very intent.

  “I’ll fit him in every chance I get.”

  “Fit me in, huh? I love it when you go all wild and demanding on me.”

  One of his hands slid up between Cat’s thighs.

  “But this isn’t the time,” she said quickly. “Travis, I—oh!”

  Her breath came in on a gasp as his fingertips ruffled the hair between her legs. He prowled around the soft, hot core of her.

  “You’ll at least promise to see my ship, won’t you?” he asked.

  “I can’t—think when you—”

  She shuddered as his finger slid slowly, deeply into her. Her nails sank into the strong muscles of his shoulders. She could feel a liquid warmth seep out to meet him, bathing both of them in her helpless response to his touch.

  Smiling, he repeated the long, gliding caress several times before he said softly, “Don’t think, Cat. Just say, ‘Yes, I’ll go with you to see your ship.’ ”

  “Yes, I’ll—oh—do whatever you—”

  She made a low sound and forgot what she was supposed to say. Travis was circling the violently sensitive knot of flesh he had discovered hidden in her soft folds. His wet fingertips plucked her sweetly. She gave up trying to think or speak.

  “I think I like your version better,” Travis said, smiling at her unguarded, hot response to his touch.

  His breath sucked in as one of Cat’s hands slid between his legs and cupped him lovingly. Then her fingernails scraped over him with excruciating care. He couldn’t breathe for the shocking pleasure of her hand returning all the sensual tricks he had taught her last night.

  “Cat,” Travis said in a strained voice, “if you’re planning on getting out of bed today, one of us has to be sensible about this.”

  “Let me know when it’s my turn. Anyway, it’s all your fault.”

  “What is?”

  He closed his eyes and savored the feel of her hands cherishing him. He was hard and heavy, as though it had been months rather than hours since he had last had a woman.

  “This.”

  Cat’s nails ran lightly from Travis’s neck to his hips. Her fingertips ruffled the tawny hair on his chest, traced the subtle ridges of muscle down his abdomen, tangled again in darker hair, then teased his aroused flesh without quite touching him.

  “If you hadn’t told me that you like being touched,” she said, “I’d be lying on the bed like an inflatable doll and you’d be—”

  “Bored as Lucifer in church,” Travis finished, laughing.

  He caught Cat’s wandering hand, bit her palm with restrained power, then smoothed her hand back down the length of his body. Her fingers curled around the base of his erection and then slowly moved down between his legs until she could cup him in her palm.

  “I love feeling how tight you get,” she said in a low voice. “And I love holding you in my palm when you come.”

  Travis’s body leaped in response to Cat’s words and his own memories. They had proved to be even better matched as lovers than he had hoped. She was neither shy nor coy. She was simply, stunningly, sensual.

  “How anyone as sexy as you is still running around loose is more than I can understand,” he admitted, shaking his head. “But I’m damned grateful.”

  “I could say the same of you,” Cat pointed out, caressing him gently. “While I won’t claim great experience, I can guarantee that the other men I’ve met didn’t make me want to touch them. You, though . . .” She closed her eyes, tracing the strength and changing textures of his body. “You make me want.”

  “What do you want?” Travis asked softly.

  When she didn’t answer, he looked up to her face. His breath caught as he saw her intense pleasure in simply touching him. Her eyes were closed, her face taut as she concentrated only on him.

  “I want to pull you around me like a warm velvet blanket,” Cat whispered, seeing Travis only with her sensitive fingertips. “To feel you change as I touch you. To cover you like sunlight covers the sea. To sink into you until neither one of us knows who is being touched and who is touching. To . . .” She laughed raggedly and shook her head. “I can’t explain.”

  “You don’t have to.” Travis lifted Cat onto his body with a single powerful motion. “You make me want in the same way. And that’s as new to me as it is to you.”

  Her eyes snapped open, revealing silver depths of surprise and desire. Before she could speak he rolled over slowly, lazily, taking her with him as he turned.

  Then he was over her, surrounding her, sinking into her while she made small sounds of welcome, sounds he echoed. They spoke to each other as they had last night, without words, their bodies swept up in a gathering wave of mutual need as they taught each other pleasures that neither alone had believed possible.

  And when they could climb no higher, they held each other while the wild wave broke around them. Then they forgot which was self and which was other, for both were one.

  * * *

  Turned halfway in the car seat, Cat watched Travis drive the Mercedes toward Dana Harbor. By the time they had dragged themselves out of the house, it was after two o’clock. The day was cloudless, sunny. He had declared it a perfect time to introduce her to his ship.

  The ship she would be photographing, assuming he liked her work.

  Cat hadn’t forgotten that no deal would be made until Travis saw samples of her photography. She didn’t resent his caution. Last night and this morning she had learned just how passionate a man he was. Passionate people cared deeply about their work. If the roles had been reversed, she would have insisted on the same kind of proof of ability before she allowed him to touch her work.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Travis said, glancing up from the road. “Are you falling asleep on me?”

  “Not yet.” Cat swallowed a yawn. “Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “This and that. Mostly that.”

  Travis smiled. “Sounds important.”

  Cat gave up and yawned openly. “Nope. You’ve unraveled my brain.”

  He changed lanes to pass a huge motor home that belonged on the multilane interstate highway, not on Laguna’s crowded streets.

  She enjoyed watching him control the car
with ease and precision. When he downshifted, sunlight ran like gold water over the tawny hair on his arm. As he transferred his grip from gearshift to steering wheel, the tendons on the back of his hand moved beneath tanned skin. His fingers closed firmly over the leather-sheathed wheel.

  Cat remembered the intense pleasure Travis could give to her with a simple caress. Sudden, stark need coursed through her, leaving her shaken. She wanted to touch him, taste him, take him so deeply into her body that she could feel every wild pulse of his release.

  “If you keep looking at me like that,” Travis said, “I’m going to pull over to the side of the road and do things to you that will get us arrested.”

  His husky drawl did nothing to cool Cat’s blood. She looked away from his knowing hands to his lips smiling beneath his tawny mustache. She remembered the feel of his beard sliding down her skin, the exciting silky roughness against her neck, her breasts, her stomach. She wondered what it would be like to feel him . . . everywhere.

  With a small groan Cat closed her eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I’ll pull over so we can find out.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “Chicken.”

  “Cluck cluck. I can’t afford bail.”

  “I can.”

  “They’ll put us in separate cells.”

  “Damn. I didn’t think of that. Then you better stop looking at me like a cat with cream on her mind. I don’t want to spend the night alone.”

  As Travis slowed to turn off the Pacific Coast Highway, the Mercedes made a well-bred, throaty sound. The sound deepened when the car accelerated along the winding road into Dana Point Harbor. To the right of the street, a deeply eroded bluff wore the skeleton of a failed hotel like a gap-toothed smile. To the left, yacht basins held row after row of pleasure craft, countless boats tied side by side, creating a forest of white masts with seagulls turning and crying overhead.

  “Close your eyes,” Travis said.

  Startled, Cat looked at him.