The ugly evidence of his long-ago suffering twisted her heart. She wanted nothing to ever hurt him again. How better to express that wish than to give him the pleasure of making love once more.
To awaken him, she bent and pressed her lips to the center of his chest.
His heart took a quick bounce beneath her lips. The hand lying limply at his side twitched a little. That was all. After the way he’d responded to the slightest of her caresses in the pool, how the heck could he simply go on sleeping now, with her touching him, kissing him this way?
She smiled to herself.
Sleepy time is over, Commander.
She flicked her tongue back and forth over the nipple dotting the top of a scar. His eyelids stayed irritatingly closed. She noticed, though, that his fingers curled tightly into his palms.
Pretend to go on sleeping peacefully, would he, while the warm ache between her legs grew uncomfortable? Forget it.
Okay, mister. You ready for a full-fledged assault on your so-called nap?
She licked her lips to wet them. With deliberate slowness she drew them down over the taut leanness of his stomach. And lower.
She heard his choked grunt and was pleased to watch his fingers dig deep into the grass.
Let’s see how much more of this you can take, partner.
Hovering over the most delicate part of him, she held her mouth a tiny fraction of an inch above it, taunting him with what she hoped would provide a thoroughly agonizing moment. The faint whimper that came from him told her she’d succeeded. She pursed her lips against the thin, silky skin. His flesh swelled against her mouth. His breathing jogged into a pace that was far from shallow.
He still refused to declare surrender by opening his eyes, or reaching for her.
She now faced a needling problem of her own. Without lifting a finger, David was laying on friendly fire that was turning her battle tactic back on herself. With devastating results. Parts of her were pulsing into painful heat, and she was encountering serious breathing problems of her own.
But the lazy devil deserved to undergo a lot more teasing. She couldn’t really say, though, that it was only to torment him that she stroked the tip of her tongue along his satin-sheathed hardness.
His hips convulsed quickly. He let out a full-fledged groan.
Torture for herself as well as he when she forced herself to pull away from the delicious taste of him.
She moved up and bent over his face to nudge his nose with hers.
“You faker,” she breathed against his lips. “You aren’t asleep at all. You just want to lie there like a lump and have me do pleasant things to you. Admit it.” Not that it posed any hardship whatever for her to do those pleasant things to him.
“I admit it,” he rasped. “I’ll say anything you want. Only please, please don’t stop what you were doing.”
He lifted his hands between them and closed them around her breasts. The softness between her legs grew hotter.
She was ready to surrender, but he didn’t need to know that just yet.
Looking down at him, she pushed out her lips in school-marmy disapproval. “You don’t deserve it.”
“I know. Do it.”
She rather enjoyed seeing the pleading look on the face of a man who so often felt free to tell her what to do. “So the commander still thinks he can give me orders?”
His head moved into a shaft of moonlight. The dangerous glint she caught in his eyes suggested that this teasing maneuver might be about to backfire on her.
“The commander can give as well as he gets.” His voice rumbled low with warning.
His thumbs wiped firmly over her nipples.
“Do it.”
Tough not to let him see how much the touch affected her, when he’d managed to take a lot more without flinching.
“I’ll think about it.”
He grasped her shoulders and dragged her up with the power of his arms until the crest of one breast fell into his open mouth. His teeth pulled gently on the nipple. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Please,” he growled. “Kiss me the way you did before.”
Impossible to hold out any longer against a desire that was as compelling in her as it was in him. She scattered kisses down the heated skin of chest and stomach until her lips found the glorious fullness between his thighs.
His hands tangled in her hair, holding her to him.
Her kisses outlined his beautiful hard length.
He writhed and groaned beneath her gentle, merciless assault on his senses. The taste of him intoxicated her, but it was the sweet, vulnerable intimacy between them that truly filled her heart with joy.
“Enough,” he rasped out. “Or this will be over real quick.”
In an instant he’d grasped her arms, pulled her up and rolled her beneath him.
His lips drew a delicate web of pleasure sensors over her breasts, her stomach, her hips, fine-tuning every nerve to the slightest nuance of sensation.
Making love with David was a revelation, not only about him, but about herself. He brought her feelings as new as spring. Feelings she’d known forever. In an incendiary mix of passion and tenderness, he was teaching her the glory of equal partners giving and receiving pleasure. Bringing her a fresh and excitingly full understanding of herself as a woman.
She abandoned herself to all the magnificent roiling power of it.
“Open your eyes,” he gasped. “I want you to know it’s me. I want you to see me join myself to you.” His voice rasped low and dark and rich with emotion.
She captured his head in her hands and looked into eyes whose pupils had turned into deep wells of ebony fog.
“I do know it’s you, David,” she breathed. “I’ll always know it’s you.”
Holding her gaze, he slowly slid inside her and began to move in a delicious rhythm whose sensual beat her body instinctively strove to match.
She tried to keep her eyes open, but her will to control any part of her was swept away in engulfing ecstasy. The last thing she saw as her eyelids drifted down was his doing the same.
She felt the steaming shudder of his release and fell headlong into hers.
An eternity later, she lay sleepily wrapped in his arms, her head pillowed on his chest.
“I can’t believe how selfish I’ve been tonight,” he murmured.
“Huh?” Her fuzzy brain struggled to parse the ridiculous sentence he’d just uttered.
“I never should have made love to you without seeing to your protection. My only excuse is that I honestly didn’t expect it to happen.” No more than did she. “I thought I could keep myself from — ” He broke off sharply. “I know that’s no excuse at all.”
“If you’re talking about the possibility of a child resulting from our union, you can stop worrying. I took care of that myself back in med school.”
For some dumb reason hearing David more or less say he was worried about making her pregnant disturbed her. His reaction was a lot more mature and logical than hers. To her, the idea of bearing David’s child felt wondrous.
“Not just that,” he said. “I also want to keep you from worrying about any medical problems that are out there. Even before my marriage, promiscuity never appealed to me. I took my marriage vows seriously. Which was the reason why my wife’s unfaithfulness came as such a shock. Since then I, uh, I haven’t...” His words trailed off.
She lifted her head and nodded encouragement at him to keep talking.
His sigh spoke plainly that he would just as soon not continue. Not wanting to press for what he wasn’t ready to share, she settled back down on his chest.
“You don’t have to worry about disease,” he went on, “because I haven’t been with a woman for the past two years.”
Her head jerked up. “You haven’t?” she blurted out, astonished. “But you’re so good at—at what we’ve been doing tonight. You’re so expert at making love, I was sure you — ”
A chuckle rasped through his chest and b
urst out in a soft whoop.
Laughter wasn’t the reaction she expected.
“How about letting me in on the joke.” She didn’t see anything all that amusing about the situation.
“Umm—” The string of irritating chuckles trailed off. “I don’t think you really want to know.”
“I do, too.”
Ought she to feel insulted here, she wondered, or what?
“Did that laugh mean that you think I’m not nearly the expert in the art of lovemaking that you are?” An observation she could hardly deny.
“Far from it, Cara. You’re a wonderful lover. Believe it. What you gave me tonight, I’ve never, ever experienced before.” He drew his fingers slowly through her hair. “And you’re one hell of a doctor.”
It was hard to stay disgruntled with him beaming up at her that way. He seemed as happy as a kid who’d just found a pile of presents under a Christmas tree.
She shook her head in bewilderment. “You’re not making a whole lot of sense, David.”
“Yes, I am. You just don’t know it.” His face finally sobered. “Okay. I guess you’ve a right to hear exactly what you’ve done for me.”
He hauled in a deep breath. “This isn’t something a man wants to admit to a woman—” He paused again. “Especially not one he’s holding naked in his arms, not one who’s just given him the most satisfying, intimate experience of his life. But up until I kissed you in the courtyard of the church the other day, I thought I might be, uh, immune to female blandishments.”
“‘Immune to female blandishments,’” she repeated dryly. “What the heck does that mean?”
“To be blunt, it means that since the night Anita ran away from me, I was afraid I might be impotent.”
“You?” Her voice came out in a squeak. “You, impotent?” Didn’t seem possible. David Reid was the sexiest male she’d ever met. The only male who ever kicked her female reactions into overdrive with only a look.
“Well, Commander—” She struggled to keep a straight face. “My extensive medical training allows me to assure you that impotence is no longer a problem—if it ever really was. I hereby pronounce you completely cured.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “I sure am.” His hand slid possessively over the curve of her hip. “But it wouldn’t hurt to make absolutely sure of that one more time, would it? Purely in the interest of scientific investigation, of course.”
And purely in the interest of scientific investigation, she agreed.
She fell asleep in his arms, the sweet memory of holding him within her still singing through her veins like music.
She woke alone on the grass.
Chapter 13
David had covered her with one of the hotel’s white terry bathrobes. She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet and hunched into the robe. Still lethargic after an exhaustive night of lovemaking, she slowly took the steps to the house.
David was fully dressed and waiting for her at the glass-topped dining table inside the bungalow.
“Breakfast is here,” he said without preamble. “Eat quickly and get dressed. We’re leaving in a matter of minutes.”
He poured her coffee and waved her to a seat at the table. “Uh...what?”
She raked her hair out of her eyes. Her mind was still cottoned in the aftermath of deep sleep. The effects of the magical night with David still resonated through her body. It took her a moment or two to kick her brain into gear and walk to a chair.
“Come on, Cara. Get moving.”
She obediently picked up the cup and sipped the coffee.
What happened to last night’s sweet sighs and whispers about how wonderful she was? What happened to his focused concentration on pleasing her?
His brisk efficiency in the bright light of morning slammed her down to earth with a thud. Already he was distancing himself from her.
She’d expected something different? She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. She understood the male sexual response. She knew that a man’s raging hormones would make him say anything, do anything in the middle of sex that he’d conveniently forget in the morning.
A woman heading toward thirty ought not to have mistaken a man’s demonstration—extremely vivid demonstration—of his sexual expertise for true tenderness. She never should have read nonexistent evidence of genuine caring into the simple influence of pleasure and moonlight.
The realization slashed her heart. David had used her to restore his virility. She didn’t begrudge him that. She only wished he wanted more from her. Wished he wanted as much from her as she did from him.
He gulped down his coffee while standing.
“I meant to get you out of here last night, but I—” He stopped to clear his throat. “I never should have let myself get sidetracked like that.”
Sidetracked? That’s how he thought of the soul-stirring wonder of what they’d shared? As a mere sidetrack on the way to more important plans?
“Tommy and Robert Kane were here yesterday morning. They left at noon.”
Tommy? She’d completely forgotten Tommy until David mentioned him just now.
“It took some doing, not to mention parting with another healthy stack of dollars, but I managed to find out that Robert—and lately, Tommy—are frequent guests here because Dan Kane’s headquarters are located somewhere in the vicinity. That’s too damn close for comfort. We’re taking the first plane out, regardless of its destination.” He shot her a dark look. “Don’t give me any grief on this, Cara. I’m holding you to the promise you made.”
“You don’t have to call me on that promise,” she said quietly. “I didn’t intend to break it.”
Her concern for Tommy was over. The debt her vow to many him had lain on her was paid in full. Lying in David’s arms last night had washed away the last traces of guilt over her former fiancé. Thomas Grant was a grown man entitled to make his own decisions about his life. If those decisions were hopelessly wrong—as they were—that was his responsibility, not hers.
No. Her wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible had nothing to do with Tommy. She simply couldn’t bear to spend any more time with David. Not with him acting as if last night were nothing more than an insignificant sexual interlude. How could she stand the torture of feeling his soul twinned to hers while he obviously felt no such bond?
The past year, and more, had stretched her coping skills to their limits. She was afraid there wasn’t enough left to deal competently with the aching hollow David’s departure was sure to leave in her life.
She picked up her cup and headed into the bedroom, drawing the louvered wooden doors shut behind her. She’d lain naked and wanton in his arms last night. This morning she didn’t care even to have him watch her get dressed.
She showered quickly and pulled on a pair of jeans and her last clean shirt for the trip home. She was tying the laces on the second sneaker when she heard the sound of a scuffle from the outer room. The grating of a strange man’s voice.
Cold fright scuttled through her. Someone was in there with David. From the harsh growl of the man’s voice she didn’t think it was a waiter.
She shot from the edge of the bed.
A foot-high, heavy bronze cherub stood on the dresser. She grabbed it. Holding the statue at the ready, she rushed to the bedroom door and reached for the knob.
The door was flung open from the other side. She leapt back an instant before it would have smacked into her.
A mean-looking Colombian blocked her way. Her heart sank. Cupid wasn’t going to do much good against the weapon the gangster trained on her. She lowered her arm and let the useless statue drop to the carpet.
David! She didn’t hear his voice. What had they done to him? Her gaze darted frantically around what she could see of the living room beyond the goon’s bulk.
David stood flattened against a side wall, a cheek pressed against the flowery pink wallpaper, his arms and hands splayed above his head. The same thug who’d come at him with a machete back at the vi
llage now jammed the ugly black snout of an assault weapon into the small of his back.
The terrifying sight turned her blood to ice water.
The butt of David’s pistol poked from the back of the man’s pants.
Her own assailant grabbed her arm and pushed her ahead of him into the living room.
David couldn’t move his head much, but his gaze found hers when she moved into his line of vision. How could the eyes of a man with a gun on his spine reflect such deadly calm, when she had to fight to keep from trembling in fear?
“Are you all right?” His voice was hard but steady. She tried—unsuccessfully—for the same effect.
“I’m okay. You?”
“Yeah.”
A ridiculous exchange when they were both in a situation that could never be listed under the heading of okay. But that David was still in a condition to talk to her, when she’d feared the worst, brought a bit of comfort.
“Passport. Give!” David’s attacker demanded.
“There. In that black bag on the table.”
Not taking his eyes off David for a moment, the man backed up to the carryon and rummaged through it. He came up with the blue passport and shoved it into a pocket.”
“You?” he growled at Cara.
“In my handbag on the couch.”
Her man did the honors, appropriating her passport.
David’s attacker had to reach high to grab a fistful of David’s hair. “Move, Americano.” He pulled him from the wall and aimed him toward the open patio door. “Muy vite.”
“I need my cane,” David protested loudly. “I can’t walk without it.”
The cane was the only weapon he had left. And that was lying on the floor near the breakfast table.
His attacker only laughed. Clearly the brute hadn’t forgotten the mayhem David had wrought on him using that same cane.
Her own personal goon wasn’t holding on to her at the moment, although he still had her covered with his weapon. Maybe she could pick up the cane on the way out. She started toward it. Her captor caught her wrist and forced her after the other two.
Unbroken Vows Page 19
