by Sandra Kitt
Eva gasped. “Max!” she cried, wincing away from the water and coming to a sitting position as she pushed him away. Adam chuckled and turned back to the waiting bucket of specimens.
Eva drew her knees up to her chest and clasped her arms around them. She was wearing the bright tangerine swimsuit today, and it set off the rich brown of her skin, darkened even more now in the tropic sun, to perfection. Eva smiled at the reasoning that she’d worn the suit in self-defense. The black halter suit had too convenient a closing for Maxwell’s quick hands, and he’d grown very adept at getting it off her quickly. Physically he was not to be denied, but she knew in all honesty that she’d long ago given up raising feeble objections. Eva enjoyed having Adam make love to her.
“Do you want help?” she asked from her shaded hovel.
Adam looked at her. “You don’t have to. I know some of this turns you off.”
Eva grinned, already beginning to move toward him. “I’m brave. I can take it,” she teased.
Adam had to tell her very little. She’d helped him before, and the common sense routine had stayed with her. They worked quickly and efficiently in silence.
During the past weeks Adam sometimes had to go off on his own for a day, sometimes two. He would just announce he was going, and Eva would simply wish him a good trip. Sometimes she’d plan her own day without him, visiting ruins, lunching with Milly Decker, sitting quietly on the open gallery reading or down on the beach writing postcards and letters. Adam seemed to take these separations in the same light as she did, as an indication that they were separate people who perhaps at times needed to be alone and apart. It made the times together a special joy.
But Eva also knew that the arrangement lent them both some control. For Adam, perhaps that he was indeed master of his own ship. And for Eva, ever aware of Adam’s earlier accusations about her, that she would not prove him right in those accusations. Therefore, she was really herself and not like everyone else he’d ever known.
They finished putting the jars into coolers, and Eva dug out some lunch for them. Adam almost never ate anything if he was snorkeling or diving for samples. But Eva sat and watched him in amazement as he drank nearly half a gallon of cold orange juice.
Adam sat on the deck surface, his back against the side of the boat. Eva sat a little away from him, her legs folded gracefully to her side. She was restopping the thermos of juice and not immediately aware of the thoughtful deep look Adam was giving her. Eva suddenly looked up and caught his eyes, the light of his seemed eerily lighter in the brown of his face. Sitting in the afternoon sun was causing his body to sweat, and his broad chest was beaded with moisture under the dark curly hair, as were his shoulders and arms.
“Come here,” he ordered low to her. A message of desire was already beginning to vibrate between the two of them.
“I’ll think about it.” Eva smiled saucily, not moving.
Adam grunted. “If I have to come and get you, you’ll be sorry,” he threatened.
Their eyes held.
“Brute!” Eva responded easily. But then very slowly, taking her own sweet time, she uncurled herself and stood up. She picked up a towel and walked toward the seated Adam.
Eva knelt down beside his outstretched legs and raising her hands to his chest, began to slowly and gently wipe away the moisture. Adam sat still through her ministrations, still searching over her face, his eyes exploring every detail. Eva meantime was methodical and slow in her task, ending by wiping the perspiration from Adam’s forehead and chin.
Adam’s hands took hold of her waist, turned her, and pulled her down to sit on the deck next to him. Eva’s slender legs stretched out next to his, but he turned her shoulders so that her back was against his chest, and he put a long arm around her waist to hold her to him.
Eva sighed inwardly, wondering if Adam felt as much contentment and peace as she did. They often sat quietly for long periods of time without conversation. Adam was a private man, keeping much of his thoughts and feelings inside. They did, however, talk often about his work or Diane. But there were still things she did not know or understand about him. And he often chose the oddest moments to impart information to her. Like now.
Adam chuckled low, suddenly. The sound was a deep thud against his chest wall. “My wife was a lousy sailor…” he murmured vaguely. He stroked his hand across her latex-covered stomach. Eva quivered both from the sensual gentleness of the motion and the opening of Adam’s conversation.
“I bet you’d never been on a boat in your life before coming here,” he stated rather than asked.
“That’s true,” Eva agreed softly, her heart beginning to race for a still-unknown reason. There was a pause as Adam let his head go back to rest on the hard low railing of the ship.
“I was working on a research fellowship when I first met her. She was really fine. I couldn’t figure out why the hell she was in an advanced biology course. Not with her looks!”
“Don’t be chauvinistic,” Eva murmured without thinking.
“Yeah…that’s what she said, too!” Adam added caustically. He slid his hand back to its beginning resting point on her stomach. “She was a sophomore…and she really knew what she was doing. She was very good in biology,” he said with a note of renewed surprise.
Eva began to be very uncomfortable with the talk. They’d never spoken about his ex-wife. As a matter of fact, he’d made it very clear once he didn’t want to discuss her.
“Max…” Eva began, uncertain as to where this was heading now.
“Shhhh!” he said. His hand stroked again and tightened its hold imperceptibly to keep her still. “We got together…I mean, we really hooked up,” he stated. “We were going to be this dynamic duo. The first black husband-and-wife research team in marine sciences. She kept better notes and records. I did better research. She finished school, and I got a civilian job with the Navy. And we got married…”
There was a long pause again and a muscle tightened in Maxwell’s arm and leg. Eva could feel his whole body tighten up. Even his voice changed now with the previously unspoken-of memory.
“The very first time we ever got on a boat for a weekend fishing trip to test out a theory, she got sick. She was sick the whole three days. Then she decided she hated the sight of fish…and the smell, and the sea…and boats!” Maxwell laughed harshly, without humor. “That wiped out everything.”
Maxwell turned his head just enough to rest the side of his jaw and mouth against her hairline and temple. His voice changed again…softened, if that was possible for him. “You’ve never gotten sick. I bet the thought never entered your mind.”
He was wrong on the last count, but Eva didn’t say so. She was feeling a welling of tears behind her eyelids. Suddenly she didn’t want to know about his wife. She didn’t care. And she certainly didn’t want to be compared to her.
“And then it was my turn…” Adam was continuing. “Research wasn’t a real job, she said. It was glorified busywork. She wanted more security, a home…kids, more attention. So I gave her a home, and we had Diane. That helped for a while.”
He let out a sigh, some kind of long-standing tension dissolving in him and flowing outward. “Never have a kid because you think it will help,” Adam said firmly.
Eva fought the tears. No, she wouldn’t…ever. She and Kevin had Gail because they desperately wanted a baby. A baby seemed a natural extension of themselves.
“Was—was she angry at you for not giving up research?” Eva asked in a quiet, strained voice.
“I don’t know.” Maxwell shrugged. “We were angry at each other. It seems so crazy now that the whole thing happened. I thought it was exciting finding someone who knew what I was all about. But she had other plans for me…and herself. She tried to make me something I wasn’t. I thought she was something she wasn’t. Who knows.”
Eva could see what a costly emotional mistake it had been for both of them. Maxwell was leery. He was never going to make that kind of mistake again. It
was easier this way, being alone, not needing anyone. That’s what he was trying to tell her. Don’t expect anything. Don’t ask for anything. He’d finally gotten his life worked out and he didn’t want changes. Changes make you different.
Eva twisted in Maxwell’s arms and reached up to press her lips to his. She was almost shaking, and her breathing was erratic. She’d taken Adam completely by surprise. He sat stunned for a moment by her sudden overture. But he quickly recovered. His arms closed around her, pulling Eva onto his lap, his mouth opening to really kiss her deeply. Eva kissed him with an abandoned fervor that surprised them both.
She’d already decided she’d ask nothing of him. And right now she only wanted to give, and that was made very clear to Adam. He groaned. He held her and shifted, swinging her down until her back was against the hard damp deck. Adam’s tongue furrowed deep inside her mouth, knowing its contours very well. His hands pulled the thin straps to her suit down her arms, until her breasts were exposed with their sun-warmed centers. Eva’s chest rose and fell rapidly.
Adam looked at her, frowning slightly, perhaps wondering at her urgency. Then he bent to kiss her more gently as she held back nothing from him. Tears rolled from her closed eyes, down her cheeks into her hairline. He quickly removed the last barriers between them and, settling himself with a moan, he brought them together.
The sun was unbelievable on his naked back. His skin was burning hot under her hands. But Maxwell never noticed, and after a short time she didn’t either.
They were moving together in space. Higher and higher into the sky, into cool wind-swept air, into dark-blue star fields twinkling behind her eyelids madly, almost blinding her with their light. Speeding through time until it completely stripped her lungs of air, as Maxwell held and rode with her. There was a rhythmic cadence to their movement, Maxwell the stronger of the two and leading the way. His thrusting made it all go faster until Eva was dizzy and breathless, aching and exhilarated by his demands. She couldn’t let go, afraid she would crash alone.
But then the speed was too fantastic, and they had to come back. It washed through her, making her cry out his name with the sudden reversal in feeling. She clung to Maxwell’s damp body, silently begging him not to let anything happen to her. And he was careful. Slowly, gently, caressingly, bringing them both back to earth. Delightfully exhausted but safe. Eva’s heart raced, and so did his. And she clung to Adam even more.
She changed her mind. It was no longer a question of being able to love him. And maybe it hadn’t been for longer than she knew. She did love him. She loved Adam Maxwell beyond imagination…But she was going home. She had to. Soon…sooner.
Tomorrow if she could.
EVA USED HER HIP to push the door closed, and she immediately began to riffle through the mail on the foyer table. All bills and advertisements. She sighed, putting them back without interest, and left her leather work folio leaning against the table leg on the floor. Without admitting it to herself, it was the prospect of hearing from Maxwell that gave her the impetus to check the mail every day.
She heard low voices in the living-room and wondered which one of her mother’s friends was visiting so close to suppertime. Eva bypassed the living room entrance and went into the kitchen. Something awfully good was roasting in the oven, and rice was simmering in a saucepan on top of the stove.
Carrots in the process of being sliced lay on the counter with a discarded paring knife. Eva frowned at the apparent interruption that had taken her mother from the kitchen. It was unlike her not to finish what she was doing, even when gossiping with neighbors.
Eva picked up half a raw carrot and stuck it in her mouth. She dropped her shoulder bag on a kitchen chair and peeled off the jacket to her lightweight navy-blue summer suit and put it on top of the bag. She bit into the hard crunchiness of the carrot and walked from the kitchen through the dining room, already beginning to talk.
“Mom, if you’re busy, I can finish the…”
Inside the living room Eva stopped dead in her tracks, her heart skipping a beat painfully. Florence Stewart sat in a highbacked chair, her head with its short, iron gray hair bending around the chair to watch the approach of her daughter. But Eva’s eyes were riveted wide open to Adam Maxwell standing in the middle of the room, dwarfing everything around him. He stared back at her evenly, but Eva knew at once the underlying anger that burned through his eyes and from his tightly clenched jaw.
Eva gulped down the mouthful of carrot and moved reluctantly into the room. Her mother was saying something to her, but she never heard a word. Maxwell held her mesmerized. He was dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt with a dark brown tie. His trousers were a khaki color and expertly cut and fitted to his physique. He seemed the epitome of masculinity to Eva in that instant. And he had lost none of his appeal for her.
Blood felt like it was draining from her head, and she feIt momentarily giddy. Her ears were ringing, and her mother stood and mouthed meaningless, soundless phrases to her. Then Florence Stewart gave up. She clicked her teeth, shaking her head, and threw up her arms in resignation. Walking past her temporarily paralyzed daughter, she pulled the carrot remains out of Eva’s hands and went back to her kitchen.
Maxwell braced his hands on his hips, more than likely from want of anywhere else to put them. He and Eva stared at one another.
“Hello, Adam,” Eva whispered.
Maxwell scowled disagreeably at her. “You never called me Adam.”
“It is your name,” Eva reminded him lightly.
“That’s not what I mean!” He arched a brow at her. Slowly his eyes swept the length of her, making particular note of the front slit of a modest depth in the front of her slim navy skirt, also noting the high-heeled beige pumps and the soft rose color of her boat-neck silk blouse. Her hair was softly curled and layered.
“You look different,” he observed caustically. Then there was a pause.
“How?” Eva tilted her head slightly to the side.
Maxwell barely shrugged. “You look…efficient. Professional…very sophisticated.”
Eva grimaced with a small smile. “It’s mostly show…”
“I’m not used to seeing you with so many clothes on,” he continued with a show of impatience.
Eva’s brows shot up, and Maxwell, not ever given to embarrassment, shifted uncomfortably as his meaning sank in and registered. “The setting is different now. I can’t wear a bathing suit and cover-up to work. I do work, you know,” Eva also reminded him. Maxwell didn’t respond to that.
Eva locked her fingers together in front of her, a little more settled now that the initial shock had worn off. She felt a certain breathless excitement at actually finding him in her living room and with the recognition that for whatever reason Adam Maxwell had come to find her. And even as he stood angry and cold in front of her, she knew she’d missed him very much, almost to the point of pain. Eva tilted her head further and pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“You look different, too,” she said. Maxwell rocked a little on his feet and crossed his arms over his chest challengingly. “Mostly very uncomfortable.”
“I am,” Adam admitted. “I can’t remember the last time I wore a tie!”
Eva smiled a bit more openly at his remark because it was said without any conscious attempt at humor.
“Then you’ve really made quite a concession.”
“Thank you,” he said sarcastically.
“I think I like it,” Eva murmured flippantly. “It makes you look…” She searched for the word.
“Real?” Maxwell supplied, raising his brows.
Eva cringed inwardly. That had always been obvious to her. He was more real to her now than ever. “I was going to say, distinguished,” she said softly.
Silence fell between them again. Eva imagined that something like pain flickered through Adam’s eyes. But it was gone very quickly as they faced each other.
“Why did you just leave like that, without saying anything?” Adam fina
lly asked angrily. His tone surprised Eva. She turned from him and walked to the other side of the room, not immediately answering.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought of telling him. But having realized her deep feelings for him, she was actually afraid he’d do something like merely wish her a safe trip back home. Or even worse, say that it had been fun. She’d already been through the fantasies of his returning to Lavona’s arms, if she’d have him back. But somehow Eva didn’t think there’d be any question of that.
“We were together one afternoon, and I told you I had to fly to St. Croix for two days. I come back and you’re gone!” he fairly exploded at her. Then he moved to stand in front of her, not letting her escape the confrontation.
“You must have known that I would come home eventually,” Eva reasoned, not looking at him. “After all it was only a vacation.”
“Quite honestly, I hadn’t thought of it. I was busy with other things at the time!” Adam said caustically. “I agree I was pretty stupid to think our time together meant anything to you!”
“That’s not true! It—it was very special,” Eva defended, looking now with appeal into his tightly drawn face.
“Then how could you just leave?” Adam stormed at her, an angry cord in his neck bulging prominently.
“I—I didn’t want to put you on the spot.”
Adam frowned, his eyes searching hers. “What are you talking about?” he asked in a deep, confused voice. Eva lowered her eyes to the subtle embroidery of his brown-on-brown tie. She hugged her arms around her waist.
“I didn’t want you to feel obligated or pressured or sorry for me. I didn’t want you to do or say anything then that you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Adam’s expression became bleak and cold. “So you made the decision for me. You didn’t give me much credit, did you? Was I that insensitive? Did you trust me so little with your feelings and pride that you had to—to just sneak away?” He gestured vaguely in the air with a hand. Eva looked into his rugged face.
