by Helen Conrad
“The truth?” he said calmly. “Just what is the truth, Summer?”
He’d led her out onto the veranda and now he stopped her, holding her shoulders with both hands. Her eyes avoided his, hiding beneath a thick tuft of lowered black lashes.
“Come on, Summer,” he mocked. “Tell me how you hate me. Tell me how your skin crawls whenever I touch you. And then explain to me why this little place ...” he touched his fingertips to the pulse point in the hollow at the base of her throat . . . “throbs wildly whenever I come close to you.”
It was throbbing now, and there was no way she could hide it. His fingers stayed on it, feeling the blood coursing through her, and as her eyes met his, it seemed as though something electric, some current, were running between the two of them. Breathless, she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take without moaning his name and clinging to him in complete surrender.
“Desire doesn’t mean anything,” she whispered hoarsely. “It isn’t ... it can’t take the place of. . .”
He frowned. “Of what, Summer? Of oil companies and biddable husbands? Of keeping cold control on your feelings and those of everyone else around you?” He dismissed both concepts with a contemptuous grin.
“Maybe not, Summer. But I’ll tell you something. Desire is getting higher and higher on my list.” His hard hand curled up and circled her chin. “Let’s get ready for our picnic.”
“No!” Didn’t he understand? She knew what would happen if they went to this romantic place. Or maybe that was exactly it. He knew, and he wanted it.
“We can’t go there. Not to where your father and mother fell in love. It’s . . . It’s indecent.”
His laughing eyes were mocking her. “Why Summer? Are you afraid it might happen to you?”
“No. We . . . we just can’t go there.”
He shrugged. “We’re going there. We promised my mother.”
She attempted to regain her usual equilibrium. “Let’s not and say we did,” she argued in her old cocky tone.
He moved closer. “Let’s go and not tell anyone,” he countered, then grinned. “I’ve never been one to brag about my exploits. I don’t know about you.”
She glared at him. “I don’t . . . there aren’t any ...” How could she get this across to him without sounding corny and prudish? She had no exploits to brag about and she didn’t want to start her list now.
“Come on.” He tilted his head to the side at an angle she found absolutely irresistible. “Come with me.”
Her mind raced desperately. “What about the reef? You promised to take me skin diving.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow. Or the next day. That’s the beautiful thing about the islands. There’s always more time.” He touched her cheek as though to brush away a speck of dust. “Come on.”
She was silly and stupid and hopelessly weak willed. At least, that was what she kept telling herself as she climbed the steep jungle path behind Jack, the path that would lead them to Apia Falls.
“If you slow down any more, we might as well plan on spending the night up here,” Jack called back to her, and she threw him a piercing glare in return.
What was she doing here? She should be on her way back to Dallas. Instead, she was on her way to a spot where Jack’s parents fell in love. She practically had an edict from his mother that she was to do likewise.
But what about Jack? Didn’t it matter if he fell in love or not?
That was a silly thought. If he wanted Summer for anything, it was for her money. And yet she knew that wasn’t entirely true. He had demonstrated again and again that he wanted more than money from her. And that was exactly what made her so nervous about this little adventure they were going on now.
“See that peak over the next rise?” Jack was calling back to her again. “Our falls are just below that. We’ll find the stream in a minute or two and be able to follow it up.”
Spring-green on emerald-green on olive-green . . . the jungle was rich with every imaginable shade of the color. The ground felt wet and spongy beneath her feet and she was sure there were insects crawling on her back.
“Here we go. The stream.”
He waited for her to catch up, reaching out to help her onto the rocks beside the tumbling water.
“It’ll be easier to go from one rock to another for a while, until we get past this bamboo,” he told her, and she followed him numbly, hardly noticing what she was doing, only looking to him for an example.
They got beyond the bamboo, but the way was still clogged with foliage and Jack had to pull the machete out of his belt to blaze them a trail.
“I guess no one has been up here for some time,” he mused to Summer, and she looked around apprehensively, wondering what sort of jungle animals they might meet in such a lonely place.
They could hear the waterfall before they could see it. Then the wet spray was in the air, glancing off the huge green leaves and pampering the large, drooping blossoms that clung to stalks along the sides of the stream. The water fell like diamonds through the long drop, then smashed into a million shattered pieces of sparkling light on the rocks beneath before it spilled out to fill the scattered lava pools. Summer stood staring at the beauty of the place, unable to believe anything so incredibly lovely could be so unvisited.
“Be very quiet,” Jack told her, taking her arm as though to hold back any sound she might make. She obeyed him, listening and watching, and suddenly a yellow-and-green parrot swooped down to perch on a branch that hung out over the water, screaming its wild, jungle sound as it came.
Summer watched, delighted, as another came down to join it, then a small group of yellow-and-black birds, chattering excitedly. She turned to smile at Jack and that one small movement alerted the birds who flew off, squawking their indignation at the presence of intruders.
“Oh!” she cried in disappointment. “Why are they so shy?”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t you be if everyone on the island was after your feathers?”
Thinking of the feather necklaces and edgings on the finely worked mats she had seen, she ruefully agreed and followed him as he led the way to a large, table-flat rock where he set down the picnic basket.
“How about a swim before we eat?” His black eyes were hooded, as though he had some plan in mind, and Summer was wary.
She hadn’t worn a swimming suit and he knew it. It seemed silly now, but at the time they left the house, she’d thought not dressing for swimming a small rebellion against his intolerable rule. He was getting his way by having her come along, but she would get back by not swimming. Or so she’d thought at the time. Now, she saw that she had only cut off her nose to spite her face.
“You go on in,” she said challengingly, trying to keep up a good front. “I don’t even feel tempted.”
He shrugged, amusement sparkling in his ebony eyes. “Don’t you?” he asked teasingly. “I know your lack of a bathing suit isn’t stopping you. I’ve seen you swim without one.”
She stared down into the swirling waters. ‘That’s right,” she clipped out. “You just go ahead.”
He moved closer and she felt her pulse begin to flutter. “I just want to let you know,” he said huskily, “that it won’t bother me at all if you go in as you did the other day.” He reached out to touch her pulse point again. “In fact,” he whispered, “I would love it if you would.”
Taking a deep breath, she tilted her head, narrowing her turquoise eyes to what she hoped was a deadly thin line. “Not a chance, Jack,” she said through gritted teeth. “I came, as you ordered. But I won’t perform like a trained seal.”
His chuckle was low and infuriating. “The most beautiful seal I ever saw,” he declared. “Shall I go on in without you then?”
“Why not?”
His slacks fell away and he pulled off his shirt, then dove into the silver water without another glance in her direction.
“The water’s great,” he called back to her when he surfaced. “It’s much colder than the
tepid water inside the reef down in the lagoons.” He promptly dove under again, staying down for quite some time.
A testing toe proved the truth of his statement. After the climb to get to their mountain waterfall, Summer was hot and ready for an icy swim. Wishing she had worn the bikini Lia had loaned her the day before, she rolled up the legs of her slacks and sat on a rock at the edge of a pool, dangling her feet in the cool water.
Once she was positioned, she looked up to find that Jack had climbed the black volcanic rock face beside the waterfall and was now standing on a ledge twenty feet up from the water.
“What are you doing?” she cried, a bit alarmed. He looked so high, and the rocks below looked so very jagged.
“This is a great diving rock,” he called back down.
“Are you crazy? It’s all rocky below!”
His laugh rang out, echoing from one volcanic pool to another. “Just watch.”
Her heart leaped to her throat as he jumped from the rocky ledge, hanging in the air in a magnificent swan dive before he swept down into the water just beyond the rocks catching the flow of the waterfall. She closed her eyes for a second, uttering a silent prayer, then began to watch for him to surface.
Chapter Ten
The minutes seemed to drag by, and she wondered if her agony was stretching time out of all proportion. But finally, she knew he’d been down too long. She stood, her heart beating wildly. He’d been hurt and she had to save him.
Without another thought to her clothes or the dangers to herself, she dove from her rock, her body cutting into the water as smoothly as his had.
The water was clear and as she swam back and forth across the bottom of the pool, she could tell his body wasn’t there. Panic vied with uncertainty as she turned to give it one more pass, sure that his lifeless form must have wedged itself in between two rocks.
When she saw him, her first feeling was relief, but it soon sank beneath the wave of fury that assailed her. Under water and out of air, she watched him swimming toward her with a sense of disbelief. Then his body was wrapping around hers, carrying her up to the surface of the water.
Gasping for breath, it took a few minutes before she was able to vent her anger, and Jack took advantage of the lapse to wind her more tightly into his arms, weaving her legs and arms with his own until the two of them were tied together in an impossible knot.
“You are the most despicable ...” She finally had her breath back. “How could you? Where were you? Do you have an air tank down there or what?”
He chuckled. “When you’ve fully recovered. I’ll show you,” he promised, planting tender kisses behind her wet and dripping ear. “But right now, you just feel so good ...”
“Show me,” she ordered icily. “I’m ready.”
One more kiss and he released her. “It’s a long dive. Hold in plenty of air for it.”
She folded her body down into the deep right behind him, swimming quickly toward the tiny oval of light that he pointed out. As they drew closer, the oval widened, and suddenly she was in an underground channel, leaving one volcanic pool for another.
They burst out into a little recess that was even lovelier than the first. Small and enclosed, it was a fairyland of ferns and tiny flowers hanging down over the water in an enchanting way.
The water was shallower here and Jack took her hand.
“Come on,” he said softly, leading her up out of the pool and onto the mossy bank.
“It’s perfect, isn’t it?” she whispered, looking about the enclosure in awe. “But where are we? How did we get here?”
He pointed above them. “The waterfall is just around the corner. Listen—you can still hear it.”
It was true. She found herself smiling for no apparent reason, other than that she was happy and in a magic place.
He came up behind her, sliding his hands down her sides until they met across her stomach, and she leaned back against him.
“You taste like an orchid,” he said huskily, nuzzling into the curve of her neck, “cool and crisp and clean.” He strung a necklace of tiny kisses along her neckline.
“A parasite, huh? Thanks a lot. I think I liked the sea anemone better.”
His arms tightened around her and he took the lobe of her ear in his teeth, teasing it with his tongue.
“No,” he finally told her, “orchids aren’t parasites. They live in trees, but they stand on their own, gaining their own nourishment from what they can find in the rain and the wind.”
His hands were moving over her wet jersey top. “Now doesn’t that sound like you?”
She smiled to herself. “Maybe,” she whispered, then gasped slightly as his hands cupped her rounded breasts, the nipples so hard beneath the wet cloth.
She knew where this would lead if she let it go on, but she wasn’t ready to stop it yet. The other encounters with Jack had hinted at a mysterious wonder that she hadn’t believed could really exist before she met him. She wanted to catch a hint of that again. She didn’t think she was brave enough to explore it fully, but she wanted just another glimpse.
Slowly, she turned in his arms until she was facing him. Her arms crept around his neck as she leaned back to frown into his dark face.
“I’m still angry with you,” she chided. “Why did you scare me like that? Why did you hide? I was sure you were lying smashed on the rocks of the bottom.” Her attempt at anger didn’t quite ring true, but then, he knew she was too full of other emotions to have much room for it.
His eyes were dark and soft as velvet, the black lashes so thick and long, they cast shadows on his high cheekbones. “But you dove in to save me, didn’t you?” he murmured as his hands made a sensuous path down her back until they curled around her hips, drawing her in to feel the warmth of his body.
“I would have done the same for any mangy dog,” she replied haughtily, trying to ignore the trembling that was starting along her thighs.
He reached for her mouth with his own, taking slow, lazy kisses from her, tugging on the soft, silky pout of her lower lip.
“But not for just any old shark,” he teased huskily. “Tell me I’m the only shark you would do that for.” He took one more tender kiss. “Tell me,” he whispered.
She found her hands making their way up into his shaggy wet hair, taking handfuls of the thick, rich pelt and pulling at them gently. “You’re the only shark I’d do that for,” she agreed softly. A tiny gasp tore through her chest as the electricity quivered along the nerves of her legs.
“But what am I doing kissing a shark like this?” she cried pulling out of his grasp, suddenly timid again as she glimpsed the deep, swirling waters she was preparing to enter. “Aren’t you supposed to turn into a prince or something?”
The hand that snagged her back was caressing but as unyielding as steel. “But I am, Summer,” he whispered into her shell-like ear, his breath cool against her wet cheek. “Haven’t you noticed? I’m being transformed before your eyes.”
She opened her trembling lips to his conquest once more, knowing it was time to call a halt, but unable to bear the thought of it. The kiss deepened, pulling her in, casting her out into a wave of desire, and she rode the crest of it, writhing against him and drawing at the sweetness of his warm, moist mouth.
When he pulled away, she felt the moan rising in the back of her throat, and she reached to catch him back.
“Just a minute, darling,” he told her tenderly. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes.”
She stood obediently while he began to roll the soggy jersey top up, peeling it away from her to reveal her pink-tipped breasts and gleaming shoulders. She raised her arms as he pulled it over her head, enjoying the feel of the cool breeze on her dampened skin, enjoying the glittering light in his eyes as he looked at her.
“To hell with orchids and sea anemones,” he growled, touching one glowing nipple with his gentle fingertip. “You’re more beautiful than anything made by man or nature.”
She arched towa
rd him as his mouth came down on her breast, his flickering tongue tantalizing the nipple while his free hand worked at the button on her slacks, then released the zipper.
His deft hands soon shucked off her pants, and then he folded her up in his arms and laid her back upon the mossy bank.
She lay back stretching as he gently made patterns of fire across her skin. He touched her breasts, teasing the nipples erect, then explored the circle of tiny hairs around her navel with his tongue. When the hand that had been stroking her thigh came close enough to ignite the blaze that had been so long banked, she gasped and sat upright. “No, Jack,” she said, reaching for him. “I don’t...”
“Yes, you do.” Reassuringly, he kissed her, then gently pushed her back down onto the furry moss. “I’m going to love you, Summer,” he rasped against her satin skin. “Just relax and love me back.”
He eased his body over hers, caressing with his hands, kissing with his mouth, until the instincts of all of humanity took over and she joined him, shedding fear, shedding reluctance, and glorying in a union of such delicious intensity, only this man could ever have achieved it with her.
She gasped as he entered, sliding in so smoothly, so roughly, so agonizingly hot and hard. A strange feeling over took her, building and building, until she cried out, needing more…just more and more…until she thought she would die from it.
Together they rode high on the wave, each holding the other at the peak, Summer growling with the need she’d never felt before, extending the moment as it broke around them.
As the emotion spent itself, leaving behind the golden dust it had cast about it at its height, she closed her eyes, loving Jack so much she was afraid he would see it in her face. She was embarrassed by how intense their lovemaking had been. She lay there, feeling the heavy weight of his body, the warm tickle of his breath against her neck, and the love she felt grew, swelling into a thing of such ferocity, she almost choked on the emotion.
