A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP

by Wendy Rosnau

  Finally, she said, "I'm free now, and it feels good. I can go anywhere I want."

  "Yes, you can."

  "I can be a vagabond, if I like."

  "Come here, Evy."

  That name on his lips sent a shiver down her spine and she wrapped her arms around her legs. Shook her head, still not wanting to look at him. "I don't think— Merrick told me you two had talked. He said—"

  "Come here."

  She didn't know if it was the need she heard in his voice that made her look, or her own need to fill her senses with the sight of him. But she did look, and when she saw his hand outstretched to her, she let out a strangled cry, and came off the leather seat in a solid, fluid motion. She raced to him and he scooped her up in his arms and pulled her close, burying his face against her neck.

  "I've missed you," he whispered into her hair.

  They were the simplest of words, and yet they sent tears flowing down Eva's cheeks. "I thought you weren't coming," she confessed on a sob.

  He squeezed her tight and she rejoiced in the feel of his arms so strong around her. She raised her face and searched out his lips. They kissed, a long, heartfelt kiss full of warmth and sweet desire.

  Suddenly remembering his recent surgery, she pulled back and asked, "What about your back and shoulder?" She checked him out, studied the vivid scars.

  "I'm fine. Scratches, is all."

  "Scratches that required six hours of surgery."

  "You were there?"

  "Yes."

  "I didn't know. Merrick never told me."

  "He doesn't like me."

  "I'd say he likes you a lot. So much he's appointed himself your parental protector."

  "I don't want to be protected from you." Eva wrapped her arms around Sly's neck and kissed him again, then again.

  He carried her to the seat and sat with her in his lap. "So where should we sail?"

  "You want to go somewhere with me? But I thought… Merrick told me you were going back to work as soon as you were well enough. What about Onyxx?"

  "I'm on a sabbatical."

  "I thought you said you were feeling fine."

  "I am. You complaining?"

  No, she wasn't. She just wanted to know where things stood. "How much time?"

  He drew back and studied her face, brushed a tear from her cheek. "Can't say. I suppose I'll go back when you get sick and tired of me and kick my sorry ass off your boat."

  Eva sucked in her breath. "What are you saying, Sly?"

  "I'm saying I'm in love with you, Evy."

  Sly watched her open her mouth, but unsure what was going to come out, he quickly added, "You don't have to say anything. I know what you think about that word, and that's okay. I just wanted you to know that I don't usually seduce beautiful women out of their panties during a mission."

  She was sitting very still, and he wondered what she was thinking.

  She said, "So you liked me from the beginning. Is that it?"

  "From the first time I heard your voice," he agreed.

  She touched his cheek, brushed her fingers over his lips. "I was wrong. Love is a beautiful word, and the most wonderful feeling in the world. To love and be loved. To need someone, and have that person need you, too. You need me, right?"

  "I need you, Evy."

  "What happens after I say, I love you, too, Slayton?"

  Sly hadn't let himself hope that she might feel the same way he did. He'd told himself on the entire fight from D.C. to Athens not to expect too much. That he could have read her wrong those times they had been intimate.

  What would a beautiful woman like Eva Creon see in a man like him, anyway—a rat fighter with a past as black as the Mississippi mud where he'd been born?

  God, he loved her. Had missed her. He'd been so damned relieved when he'd seen the Hector in the cove. He'd almost kissed that grinning fisherman.

  He had told Merrick he knew where she'd be, but it had been a bold statement. The truth was, he'd given her the Hector in hopes that this place had meant as much to her as it had to him. Hoped, no prayed, that she'd want to return.

  "You meant for me to meet you here, right? I didn't read you wrong, did I?"

  Sly grinned. "You didn't read me wrong. But the mop-up at Paros took longer than I'd planned, and then I had to go back to D.C. for a few days to file my reports."

  He drew her to him and kissed her, then glanced over her head to the sandy beach where they had first made love weeks ago. Heart-stopping, blood-pumping, all-or-nothing love.

  "That stretch of sand over there looks lonely. What do you say we go keep it company for a while?"

  She followed his gaze, and when she looked back at him he saw mischief in her eyes.

  "I had another dream," she confessed.

  He ran his fingers through her hair, slid them down her back. His gaze lowered to her parted red lips, then to her sun-kissed cleavage straining her black bikini. "So damn beautiful," he muttered.

  She blushed. "You really like me … love me."

  "Every inch," he promised.

  He could hardly believe she'd waited here for him for three damn weeks. Twenty-one days.

  "You really like me," he mimicked.

  "Love you with all my heart."

  Feeling oddly emotional, he said, "You want to tell me about the dream, or show me?"

  She pulled him close and kissed him. Against his lips, she whispered, "We were doing it underwater along the reef."

  He raised a black eyebrow. "Doing what?"

  Her smile opened up. "Stop teasing. Have you ever made love in the deep, Sly?"

  "No," was his answer, but it looked like that was about to change. Whatever time they were given, he intended to use it wisely.

  He slid her off his lap so she was standing between his legs. The little strings that kept her bikini clinging to her trim hips were easy to untie, and so he did.

  "Let's make a memory, Evy." He lifted her into his arms and kissed her with all the passion and care of a man who knew just how lucky he was. Then, he tossed himself over the side of the Hector, plunging into the azure water with Eva's sweet body clinging to him.

  There were a thousand islands and islets in the Cyclades. Two thousand more scattered from the Aegean to the Ionian Sea. Together Sly was confident he and Eva would find their own paradise in this magical place. And for a time they would be as carefree as the wind, sailing from port to port. They would love like vagabonds, and live each day as if the world might end tomorrow.

  For who really knew what the future would bring? Or how soon the truth would surface and the Chameleon would rise up out of the sea, and it would start all over again?

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