Whirlpool

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Does it taste as good as it looks?” she asked.

  “Better.”

  She made both hands into a bowl and scooped. After the first sip she drank eagerly, recklessly. Water ran down her arms and neck.

  “Ah,” she sighed. “Unbelievable.”

  The shiver of pure sensual pleasure that went through her made desire coil hotly in Cruz. He watched with naked hunger as thin streams of silver water drenched her lips and skin and blouse. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The cotton of her tunic clung wetly to her skin, outlining the tops of her breasts.

  “Drink your fill,” he said in a low voice. “Then we can go in and cool off.”

  She gave him a wary, sideways look. “Are we talking skinny-dipping?”

  “Swim in your clothes,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to. Five minutes after we get out, they’ll be dry again, and we’ll be hot again.”

  While he spoke, he took off his shoes, socks, and shirt. There was a ripping sound as he peeled open the Velcro fastenings of the brace that had been binding his ribs. He breathed in tentatively, then with less caution. It hurt, but so did a lot of things.

  Cruz saw that Laurel was watching him. The look on her face told him she liked what she saw. Then she looked at his bruised ribs and made a low sound.

  “Finished drinking?” he asked, wanting to distract her.

  “Yes.”

  He waded to the center of the pool. The water was barely cooler than his body and no deeper than his waist. He settled onto a knee-high, flat-topped boulder and closed his eyes with pleasure as the water rose to just below his shoulders.

  Gentle splashing sounds told him that Laurel was on her way in. He watched through his lowered eyelashes as she shed her jeans. The tunic top came to midthigh. She gave a subdued gasp as water rose to her hips.

  “It’s not really cold,” he said.

  “No. Just surprising. Like warm milk.”

  Through slitted eyes, he watched her walk out until the water was just below her breasts. Then she lowered herself into the pool until only her head was above water. A sweep of her hand removed the baseball cap and sent it sailing to the rocks beyond the pool. Her hair fell free. The ends of it touched the water, then curled coolly against her neck.

  There were no rocks high enough for her to sit on and still lift her head above water. Kneeling, she kept her balance by gentle motions of her hands. Then she tilted back her head and let silky fingers of water caress her scalp. A low sound of pleasure threaded from her throat. She kicked back and floated, sculling slowly with her hands to stay in place.

  “When you get tired of swimming, you can sit here,” Cruz said after a time.

  His tone was unusually deep, a dark velvet that caressed as surely as a touch. Unwillingly she smiled.

  “I haven’t heard that voice since you were trying to get me to trust you back at my house,” she said.

  “It didn’t work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She stood up and slowly walked toward him. The tunic clung to her like a wet shadow. He watched her with silver-blue eyes that traced the curves of her body like hands.

  “On second thought,” he said, “maybe you better go back to floating around beyond my reach.”

  There was the thickness of desire in his voice. It acted on her like another kind of caress.

  “I probably should,” she agreed, “but this feels…right.”

  His arm swept out and pulled her onto his lap before either of them could think better of it.

  “How much of me do you want?” he said. “Tell me now, while I can still hear you.”

  “Whatever you want to give me.”

  He searched the golden eyes that were watching him, luminous with trust and desire. “Are you certain?”

  “I’m certain I’ve never felt like this before, ready to take risks.”

  A shudder that was more than desire went through his body. He started unbuttoning her tunic, then stopped, looking at her with burning blue eyes, silently asking again.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, touching the sharp peaks of his upper lip with her fingertip. “I won’t change my mind. I’m not that kind of tease.”

  Slowly Cruz bent down and kissed Laurel’s lips, tracing the curve of her smile with the tip of his tongue, probing gently, asking for more of her softness. With a broken breath, she gave her mouth to him.

  The taste of him swept through her. The heat and textures of his kiss made her breath shorten. He was taking her so delicately, so gently. It both excited her and made her hungry for a kiss that was less restrained, more wild.

  Her hands kneaded the resilient muscles of his shoulders and back, testing his strength. He made a low sound and pulled her closer. Only then did she realize that her tunic was completely undone. The tips of her breasts hardened in a rush as they pressed against masculine hair and muscle. She moved slowly against him, increasing the sensuous pressure.

  Instantly his kiss changed, becoming hard and deep and urgent, a mating of mouths that was almost violent. She was with him every bit of the way, demanding and giving equally, inciting him even more.

  Finally he managed to end the kiss. Breath hissed out from between his clenched teeth as he fought for self-control.

  “Is it your ribs?” she asked anxiously.

  He shook his head without looking away from her eyes. They were golden, smoldering, as hot as her kiss had been.

  “It’s you,” he said hungrily, watching her. “I wanted to take all day with you. I wanted to peel off your clothes and look at you before I tasted you, pleasured you.”

  The tremor of response that went through Laurel at his words did nothing to reduce his hunger.

  “I’m not fighting you,” she said.

  “Maybe you should.” He smiled ruefully, stroking her cheek with his fingertips. “You’re so damned responsive you make it hard for me to go slow.”

  “Responsive?” She laughed.

  Then she realized that he meant it.

  “You look shocked,” he said dryly.

  “I am. Men usually accuse me of the opposite.”

  It was Cruz’s turn to be shocked.

  She turned her face into his hand, kissing the palm that had been caressing her cheek. “But then, those men never made heat splinter through me just by walking into the room.”

  She ran the tip of her tongue up his index finger.

  He waited for her to draw back from the old injury. Instead, she kissed it softly before she ran her tongue back down to the base of the middle finger, probing the sensitive skin between.

  “Those men,” she said in a low voice, “didn’t make my breath shorten every time they looked at me with eyes hot enough to melt stone.”

  “Laurel.”

  It was all he could say. The fingers of his right hand brushed the cool wet tips of her hair before he drew the back of his fingers down her neck, her collarbone, across the curve of her breasts.

  “Those men—” her voice broke. She drew a quick, sharp breath as his fingertips traced the dark circle of one nipple. “They didn’t make me feel like you do.”

  “How do I make you feel?”

  “Female. Violently female.”

  He smiled. “You are.”

  She started to shake her head. He caught the tip of her breast between his fingers and squeezed rhythmically. Shivering, she arched her back. From deep in her throat came a sound of approval and pleasure that made him want to strip off every bit of clothing and take her with a savage thrust of his body.

  “And you make me feel rather violently male,” he admitted.

  “You are.”

  He smiled oddly. “Not for a long time. And never like this. I was beginning to think I’d lost it.”

  Reluctantly he released her hard-tipped, creamy breast and lifted her off his lap.

  “Stand up, honey,” he said. “If I don’t get into my pockets now, I never will.”

  Puzzled, she did as he asked. He stood and thrust a
hand into the pocket of his desert shorts. The movement pulled the wet cloth even more tightly across his fully aroused flesh. He watched her eyes widen as she looked at him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. I’ll make sure you’re as ready as I am before I take you.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been that ready,” she said, her voice torn between anxiety and sheer female approval.

  He laughed despite the pain in his ribs and the even hotter ache of arousal. He dragged his hand out of his pocket and dropped a small foil packet on her palm.

  “Keep track of this,” he said.

  “You’re a better Boy Scout than I am a Girl Scout. I wasn’t prepared.”

  “I’m a bodyguard, remember?” He unzipped his shorts. “My job is to protect you in every way I can.”

  “Is making love to the client part of the job description?”

  His hands hesitated at his waist as he remembered Gillespie’s order. “Is that what you think?” he asked, his voice toneless.

  “I think you wanted me the first time you saw me. I know I wanted you. That’s never happened to me. It still…surprises me.”

  For a moment he closed his eyes and fought for self-control. Her honesty was as exciting to him as her kiss had been.

  “It’s never happened to me like this either,” he said. “Gillespie saw it. He wanted to take me off the case.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No. He decided to use it, instead.”

  “What did you decide?”

  Cruz looked at her with smoldering blue eyes. “I decided to guard you like I’ve never guarded anything, ever—come hell, high water, or Sergeant-Major Ranulph Gillespie.”

  The intensity of Cruz’s voice left Laurel as shaken as his naked hunger for her had.

  “Why?” she asked starkly.

  “You make me feel alive again. I can’t walk away from that, honey. I’m yours for the duration, however long that may be. If you still want me…?”

  Her hand clenched around the bright foil packet. The proof that he cared enough to protect her when she was too foolish to protect herself went through her like lightning, shaking her. She closed her eyes.

  Cruz was making her tremble with a look, a smile, a hunger that was both physical and something less tangible, something that drew her as surely as the flame draws the moth.

  “I still want you,” Laurel whispered. “More than ever.”

  Water swirled and splashed. When she opened her eyes Cruz was naked. Waiting.

  Awkwardly she began to peel the long tunic top off one arm. Before she was done, he was there, kissing her, taking the tunic from her hands, her body. Long fingers slid over her breasts, into the water, and down her stomach, spearing inside the bikini pants that were all that remained of her clothing. His mouth followed his hands, licking and biting and kissing all the way down until her pants were gone and he was kneeling in front of her.

  “Brace yourself on my shoulders.”

  She smiled to hear the dark velvet voice again, brushing over her, making her shiver with anticipation.

  Water swirled and he vanished. She felt the sweet sting of his teeth on her belly and then the wild heat of his mouth between her legs. She made a hoarse sound as her knees buckled. He held her suspended between his hands and his consuming mouth, burning her despite the water surrounding them.

  Then water seethed and boiled and the world turned dizzily around her. When it was still again, Cruz was sitting on the knee-high rock and she was astride his lap, facing him. She tried to say his name, but all that came from her lips was a broken sound. His mouth found hers and his tongue thrust deeply inside. In wild silence they tasted one another, each straining to be closer and then closer still.

  His left arm curled tightly around Laurel’s hips. His right hand slid down her body until he held her in the palm of his hand. He rubbed slowly, savoring the silky textures of her desire. Then he slid one finger deeply into her.

  She went still, then trembled and pressed closer, rocking against him, her nails digging heedlessly into his strong shoulders. He kissed her hard, was kissed even harder in return, hunger spiraling up to the edge of control.

  Swiftly he redoubled his presence inside her, testing her, caressing her, stretching her, preparing her. She moaned and shook as if the pool had turned suddenly cold. Her mouth tugged at his in the same rhythm as his caresses. A heat greater than that of the water clung to his fingers and his palm.

  With the last of his self-control, Cruz pulled his mouth from hers. Laurel looked at him with dazed golden eyes. His hand moved again, deeply, and again he felt her hot response.

  “You,” he said, dragging at air, “are burning me alive.”

  She started to answer, but his hand stroked again, pleasure burst again, and she trembled, clinging to him.

  “Now or never,” he said. “Put it on me, honey.”

  “You’ll have to stop—”

  The words ended in a ragged sound as he caressed her again.

  “I don’t want to stop,” he said. “I love the sounds you make, the way you feel deep inside. God, you’re soft. All silk and cream.”

  She fumbled with the thin, slippery foil packet. The fact that her hands were shaking didn’t make her job any easier. Finally she managed. Then she got revenge by sweetly torturing him, taking unnecessary time and fussing and stroking before everything was fully in place.

  “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” he asked, smiling a bit grimly.

  “Yes,” she said, biting his lower lip recklessly. “Every last bit of it.”

  “How about this?”

  She tried to answer, but couldn’t. He was pressing into her, filling her, merging their bodies until they were so deeply joined that neither knew whose mouth kissed and whose hands caressed, whose arms held and whose voice cried out. There was only one body, one rhythm, one voice.

  Then there was pleasure, swift and fierce and final, ecstasy burning them alive.

  42

  Karroo

  Wednesday morning

  The sheer inner curtains at the Karroo compound softened the intense desert sun, making the bedroom glow. But it wasn’t the subdued radiance that awakened Laurel.

  It was the feel of warm breath caressing her neck and lips nibbling softly on her nape.

  Yesterday came back to her in a flood of images and sensual memories. Even before she rolled over and opened her eyes, heat shivered through her. Fingers teased her breast in the instant before a warm tongue licked one taut nipple.

  “Mmm,” rumbled a deep voice. “You do tempt me, honey. And I was trying to be such a good little flower of manhood and let you sleep until noon.”

  “Two out of four isn’t bad,” she said, her voice husky with sleep and rising desire.

  “Which two?”

  “You’re not little, and you’re not a flower. But you’ve got the good and the manhood parts down real well.”

  He laughed, kissed the dark peak he had been teasing, and forced himself to release her.

  “Don’t stop now,” she murmured. “You were just getting to the interesting part.”

  “After yesterday, I thought you might need some time off for good behavior.”

  She looked at him. He was smiling but quite serious.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Are you sore?”

  “No.”

  “You sure? I wasn’t as gentle as I wanted to be, not until the last time. And then I shouldn’t have taken you at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “You aren’t used to having a lover.”

  She flushed. “Was my lack of finesse that obvious?”

  For an instant he didn’t understand. Then he laughed and allowed his fingers to curl into her feminine warmth. One fingertip sought and found the heat that had haunted his dreams.

  “I wasn’t talking about technique,” he said, sliding just a bit into her, tracing her layered softness. “I was talking about this. You�
��re tight, honey.”

  Heat cascaded through her in a shimmering wave. An instant later it spilled between them. He swore very softly, more reverence than true cursing.

  “That was the only bad part about the pool,” he said, his voice velvet with desire. “I couldn’t feel your response this clearly.”

  “I could feel yours. I loved every bit of it.”

  She shivered as heat and memories coursed through her. Her legs moved restlessly. “Cruz? I’m not sore. Truly.”

  He hesitated, then reached past her into the drawer of the bedside table. Moments later, he settled between her legs.

  “We’ll take it slow and easy,” he promised.

  “Next time.”

  Despite the tempting movements of Laurel’s body, he took her so slowly that she thought she would die of wanting him…and when the mutual possession was finally complete, she was certain she would die of the pleasure. Like dawn, ecstasy expanded inside her until she surrendered her body to the tender, ravishing heat.

  It was the same for him, ecstasy tender and fierce, giving him completely to her until he was too spent to lift his head. Groaning, he forced himself to roll aside. Then he gathered her close and held her until they both could breathe again without having each breath shatter over bursts of pleasure.

  Laurel kissed the scratchy line of Cruz’s unshaved jaw, sighed, and rubbed her cheek against the dark, resilient pelt of hair that curled over his chest. Slowly she ran her fingertips over his cheeks and shoulders, lips and chest, hands and torso. Nearly everywhere she touched there was an old scar or the slight irregularity of a bone that had healed after being bruised or broken.

  Then there were the fresh marks left by two bullets. She kissed him and rested her fingertips very gently just beneath the bruises on his ribs.

  “So many scars,” she whispered.

  “You should see Gillie’s body. On second thought, forget it. You’d never look my way again. ‘Drop-dead handsome,’ I believe you called him? God, he’ll never stop strutting now.”

  Smiling, she nuzzled against Cruz’s chest. “You’re every bit as handsome as he is.”