He drew his hands up and down Ngaire’s legs from hip to knee. They were as smooth and strong as the metal molding the statue. She stared at him for long moments without speaking, then asked, “This legend, did it have a happy ending?”
“Do you think they’d have built a statue if it had?”
“I guess not.”
“Well, you’re right.” He looped his thumbs through the narrow strip circling her waist and began to slide it down. “The good news is, she was buck naked when she went swimming, so these have to come off.” A task he accomplished in less than two seconds.
She kicked out of his hold, diving to catch her bikini thong before it reached the bottom of the pool, and came up with her hands hooked over his waistband. “And the bad news is, if I’ve got to be naked, so have you.”
He clasped his hands over hers, stopping their downward pull. “Wrong. The bad news is that my only protection is the flip-flops beside the pool. But I can pleasure you in other ways.”
Shocked for a moment, she thought she hadn’t heard correctly. The wry grimace on his face said it all. “But you went back to your room.”
“I must have lost it on the way here.” He shrugged it off. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“I’ve never had unprotected sex before.”
His hands clasped her shoulders as if he’d push her away. “And I’m not asking you to have it now.”
Trust her to put it the wrong way. “No, what I meant was that I’ve never had unprotected sex with anyone, I’m safe, healthy. How about you?”
“No, me, neither.” Not even his wife. She’d said it was his job to take care of it, then hadn’t trusted him. He’d found out later she’d been on the pill. That had set the final seal on their relationship. What with no touching and no chance of kids… “Are you on the pill?”
“No, but I’m safe that way, too. Trust me, I wouldn’t lie about such a serious subject.”
Kel let himself brood for about as long as it took her to curl her small hand round him.
He froze, unable to move, unable to draw back.
Her hand moved, slid upward and drew the thumb over the blunt tip of his erection. His knees almost buckled, it felt so good. It took all his control to take hold of her wrist, to pull her hand away, halting the sensation.
Too bad it didn’t blank out his mind, as well.
“I can tell you want to.”
“Well, hell. I’m not dead. Even then I’d have to be in the ground a long time not to respond to your persuasion. But if we’re going to do this, I’m in charge. In control. Understand?”
No kid of his was going to experience the shame and chagrin he’d inherited on the death of a man he could hardly bear to call father, Milo Jellic. No way, not in this lifetime.
His grip tightened on her wrist. She refused to wince. “I understand. You’re a control freak, it happens.”
He looked big, bad and dangerous to know, and she only wanted him more. She understood his reservations; she’d known girls whose pregnancy had sealed their relationship with marriage, and she could inform Kel it didn’t apply in her case.
It was hard to tell a man you wanted more than breath that you were less of a woman than he thought.
“I’m not laughing, doll. I want you, but know this. I’m not the kind of guy to leave his spawn littering the world, and if you’ve lied, I’ll find out.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Great, I can’t wait any longer to be inside you.” He kicked off his shorts. They landed atop the lamp built into the center of the pool and blotted out the light. In the dark blue gloom he lifted her high and carried her to the side. “Plunk yourself there, doll, and hang on. I’d hate you to drown.”
“If I do, it better have been worth my while.”
“You can rate me later. Soon, you’ll be too busy to think.”
Not a smile crossed his expression, not even a smirk. They’d gone from playful to deadly serious in no time flat. She tried to think of something to say, some statistic or trivia about how many people drowned making love in a pool, but nothing came to mind. Hiding her nervousness that way was a no-go area.
So, why was she so edgy?
Was it the thought of opening herself to the experience of a naked man inside her? Or having sex with someone she knew so little about? And what had he meant when he said, “If you’ve lied I’ll find out?”
The answers were still playing hide-and-seek in her mind when Kel lifted her hands over her head to the terra-cotta-tiled coping. “Hang on there.”
“But I won’t be able to touch you.”
“I don’t want you touching me. This isn’t about me. It’s about you, doll. Your needs. I don’t want distractions.”
She shivered, nerves taut. A wisecrack, that will be a first, jumped into her mind. His index finger traced her from navel to thigh, seeking her heat. Semidarkness did nothing to avert a rush of vulnerability. Hiding behind closed eyes, she fell into sensation and the power of his touch.
“Open your eyes.”
“Wha-a-at?”
“Open your eyes. How can I see if I’m pleasing you if they’re closed? We’re in this together. Except I’m the more active partner.”
She stared at him, having difficulty associating what was going on under the surface with the feeling of him opening her wide. Her hips bucked, a climax threatening as the tip of his thumb brushed in a lazy circle. Her eyelids fluttered as she gave into ecstasy.
“Uh-uh. Remember what I said, eyes open. Look at me.”
“It’s too dark to see. You must have eyes like a cat’s.”
Good night vision was a plus in his line of work, something he’d always been grateful for. The night-vision goggles he’d worn in the SAS were useless for working undercover.
“Don’t worry, I’ll fix it.” He kicked back with one foot and pushed his shorts away from the light. He could see her clearly now, spread like a virgin sacrifice for some deity’s pleasure, except she was no virgin and he definitely wasn’t a deity. He was just a guy doing his duty and trying not to enjoy it too much.
“Is that better?”
She could see him clearly, too clearly, standing in the V her legs made, arm muscles flexing to the rhythm she felt inside. Etched in light, male flesh she’d only known by touch till now, rose through the water. Her insides contracted as she realized she hadn’t been wrong. He was big all over.
“Define better.”
“First there’s this.” His thumb drew a ring round her.
“Next, that.” He pushed and the undulating water rocked her on an erotic tide, caressing her breasts. Wide-eyed and wondering what came next, she followed instructions and watched.
“Lastly, there’s this…”
He thrust inside her. A swift movement, blurring her mind as she marveled that he fit. Then everything but the feel of him gliding back and forth inside her was forgotten as he rocked every particle of her being, her soul.
“Better, definitely better,” she moaned as his strokes robbed her of speech, of thought, until one word filled her mind, and her shout as she reached the peak. “Kel!”
Pulling her hips firmly against his, Kel held on tight as she pulsed around him. The result was indescribable, pushing his body to the point where it wanted to let go.
Whoa, you don’t want to go there, remember?
He bit down on the inside of his cheek.
His wife had never come like this for him, not once. And every other woman he’d had sounded like fakes compared to Ngaire. The ebb and flow of stormy emotions in her sea-blue eyes showed hers was real. It was as if they’d been made for this.
Only not in this lifetime.
As the aftershocks lessened he began moving again, his control on as short a leash as his first rhythmic thrusts. Slowly, gradually, he built up to long caressing strokes from thigh to womb. Then her ankles locked in the small of his back, disrupting his momentum, changing the angle of his thrust, throwing him forward. The s
oft fullness of her lips taunted inside his head with a promise he didn’t dare take up. Kiss me.
Determined not to be beaten, he gripped her knees, pulling them wide, closing the gap hip to hip, yet in the game of mind control increasing the distance from dangerous to manageable.
Staring at Kel, Ngaire watched grim concentration shape his features. His jaw tightened where his smile usually tilted. Sweat beaded his face as the water slopped round them in heated waves of sensuality. It grieved her to find no joy in his expression, none of the elation he brought to her.
Though her shoulders ached and she struggled to hold her head above water, her discomfort faded as she began another climb, Kel driving all the way until nothing existed. Pain, heat and water were forgotten as she fell over the edge and let go.
Just as Kel reached the point where holding back started to look like a masochist’s version of paradise, Ngaire disappeared underwater in a cloud of hair swirling around her head like black seaweed. Releasing her legs, he grabbed her shoulders.
The pain of separation felt like having his heart ripped out as he pulled her up into his arms, coughing and spluttering. He patted her back, and soon she began breathing normally.
“Hey, doll, I didn’t mean what I said about drowning. You gotta learn to take a joke.”
She looked at him, eyelashes beaded with pearls of water, as if plucked from her lagoon-blue eyes. “That’s a lot of saving in only three days.”
He pulled her into his arms, pressing her face against his shoulder to hide his tortured expression. “This is getting to be a habit. A bad one. We ought to make a pact to break it as soon as possible.”
No way would he tell Chaly of Ngaire’s third close escape. It didn’t take much effort to imagine his growled response. “You should have let her drown.”
He’d done what he’d set out to do, distract her. Murder, assassination, call it what you will, wasn’t included—never would be, not after tonight. He’d kept her busy for two full hours while her room was searched and made certain while he did it that no drug runner would mother a kid of his.
Instead, she was warm and wet in his arms and he’d an ache in his groin that would never be eased, not by Ngaire.
Chapter 11
H ell had nothing on this place. How people lived constantly with the smell of sulfur in their noses was beyond Ngaire, yet the small village of Whakarewarewa abutted the tourist park of the same name filled with boiling mud pools and spouting geysers.
The tour had started off with a Maori welcome and concert party, much like the one she had shunned last night.
There was no comparison.
What idiot would willingly swap an evening of passion with the best lover on earth—by her limited experience—for this morning’s Maori haka? And though the opening words of the challenge—death, death, life, life—gave her pause for thought, the rhythmic stomping of feet and studied arm movements had soon distracted them. Kel’s take on it hadn’t been forthcoming. He’d been quiet, remote with an edge, like a spring wound too tight, threatening to snap at the slightest touch.
From the moment she’d joined him on the bus, after sleeping so well she’d missed breakfast, she’d known to be wary. All she’d done was lay a hand on his arm and he’d tensed, glowering from under his dark brows, saying, “What?”
Some men just weren’t morning people. And if the chance of her getting pregnant after last night’s lovemaking still bugged him, she for one wasn’t going to take a shot at explaining. Not before he was on his third cup of coffee.
In fact, she empathized with his condition. She’d been just as edgy when Pops died, and Paul Savage wouldn’t take no for an answer. She shuddered to remember the lessons her students received on not letting their feelings temper their skills. Or the way her do jan had rung with her satisfied cries as they hit the floor during a demonstration. That had been a black time, when she’d almost hit bottom.
One she refused to repeat.
With an uncommunicative Kel by her side as the little electric train taking them round headed for their last stop, the giant geyser, Pohutu, there was little to do but think of what she’d learned that morning. She mulled over the Maori guide’s words after they’d visited the wood-carvers. “You may have noticed the blond carver and thought he wasn’t Maori, but even a teaspoonful of our blood in his veins is enough to be regarded as such.”
Right there and then, she’d restructured all her negative feelings of not belonging and had wanted to shout “That’s me!”
And an empathetic pulse from Te Ruahiki had seemed to agree.
As the train drew up beside a rocky area stained in sulfurous yellow, where a couple of geysers spouted a meager three feet, she forgot her intentions to let Kel come around in his own good time. “Sheesh, I thought it would be bigger than this. I mean, they named it Pohutu and everything.”
Kel shook his head, but his lips twitched. “There’s not enough hot water in all of Rotorua to keep it constantly running. My guess is you won’t have long to wait, though. They usually time these conducted tours to the minute.”
Armed with her camera and intent on being first in the race to the fence overlooking the rocky basin, she slipped off the train the moment it stopped.
Kel followed hard on her heels as he’d done at each stop, this time minus the black cloud. A sign that whatever had disturbed him was beginning to mend.
Cameras clicked in a cicada-like chorus, hers one of them as the guy driving the train pointed out the famous geyser.
Pohutu looked as if its night had been as bad as Kel’s, but when she turned around to tell him so, he’d gone. For a moment it was as if someone had stolen her shadow, a sensation forgotten as she discovered the metal fencing sloping up the bank overlooking the basin. No one else had thought to park themselves there for what should be a sensational shot, but she needed to arrive before the geyser decided to blow. So, without Kel to nag her about the dangers, she climbed higher.
Confident Ngaire was going nowhere until she’d taken the photos she was after, Kel strolled over to wait by the train. All night he’d been cursing his response to making love—no, having sex—with Ngaire, and his restless sleep had left him bone weary.
He had put his values on the line, and still Chaly had come up empty-handed. Since there was no formula in her day pack, he should have looked elsewhere. It had to be in her room; he knew for a fact she hadn’t hidden it on her person.
Hell, he’d even considered checking for microchips under her skin, but he’d pretty much covered most of that already and found nothing.
Resting one boot on the train’s footplate, he caught a glimpse of Myrna, from the ferry. No doubt in his mind, it was her. How many other blondes would take a chance on their big hair collapsing in the damp microclimate of Geyserland, wearing mile-high shoes and a miniskirt? Only someone desperate to get their hands on a piece of paper worth a billion dollars.
But, could he take his eyes off Ngaire long enough to tackle the blonde? He scanned the crowd for the source of constant ache in his groin, worse now than before he’d known how it felt to balance on the edge of pleasure and be dragged back just in time. Mark him up as a masochist, he wanted to do it again.
He couldn’t see Ngaire for Schmidt’s tall, wiry frame, but he doubted the guy would try anything in that crush of snap-happy passengers. Anyhow, he’d already marked the guy down as an opportunist who’d heard the whispers about kiss-and-tell on the streets and decided to crash the party.
By the time he turned back, Myrna had disappeared, although she wasn’t going anyplace fast in those heels. So he set off at a brisk pace, catching a glimpse for an instant before losing her again. There was comfort in feeling the Smith & Wesson strapped to his ankle as he moved. One more turn in the track and he’d go back down. The whole setup seemed too pat. Hell, if he’d kept his mind on the job instead of his damn libido he’d never have let himself be lured away from the action.
Dirt-bound boulders protruded fr
om the path, forcing Ngaire to watch her step. Not enough to want to turn back, but just enough that she was thankful she’d worn jeans impervious to mud should she land on her butt. She soon found a vantage point above the basin and congratulated herself on her fore-thought as the spout rose and fell, gathering force. Sort of like the ups and downs her affair with Kel was taking. Should she be more careful there, not to follow him blindly down a path that seemed as littered with rocks as the one she’d just climbed? Leena had always been a fountain of knowledge when it came to men, but then she’d never met Kel, or anyone like him.
Would her friend have encouraged her to have a last-ditch fling and arm her with condoms, knowing someone like Kel would swing into her orbit? Uh-uh. This was no ordinary fling.
She rolled her shoulders. As if she wasn’t hot enough from her exertions, sweat began pooling at the small of her back next to Te Ruahiki. “You’re surely not frightened of a little steam?” she teased, having long since given up thinking of the mere as an inanimate object.
The ground beneath her rumbled as if she were in the path of a locomotive. Clicking shots all the way, she followed the rush of water into the air as the geyser at last lived up to its publicity.
When the lens clouded over, she shrugged off her day pack, intent on grabbing a tissue to fix the problem, then realized the problem was hers, as well. She couldn’t see a foot in front of her face.
She laughed out loud, delighted by her sudden walk among the clouds. Laughter that faded as she remembered where she was and took a step, then another away from the fence and the drop beyond it. Kel was right not to trust her to avoid trouble. It had followed her ever since she picked up the case with its worthless good-luck charm from the Blue Grasshopper. Maybe she should ask for a refund.
Rocks rolled underfoot. Some other idiot had gotten lost in the steam bath. “Take care,” she warned when a hail of stone chips dashed against her shoes. “There’s a steep drop nearby.” Hands reached out of the blanketing mist as she swung round and her day pack clunked against someone. “Kel, is that you?” She didn’t much care for the quaver in her voice or the silence that followed. “This isn’t funny.”
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