Affair Of Risk

by Jayne Castle

  "Like when things were a little 'hot' back in the States?"

  "You're determined to give me criminal associations, aren't you?" He grinned.

  "I don't see you rushing to deny the charges," she retorted cheekily. "Was he a criminal, Case?"

  "What he did with his life doesn't affect you and me, honey," Case said smoothly. "He's gone. And he was good to me. The casino was always run legitimately."

  She sighed. "Okay, no more questions along that line. But someday I want a lesson in how to break into a flat without leaving a trace."

  "Someday I'll give you one," he promised.

  "And one in how to make people like Gilbert Phelps disappear."

  "Phelps is alive and well as far as I know. But Wolf can be quite intimidating when he chooses."

  "Something tells me you can, too. What did you say to Radburn, after you beat him to a pulp, that kept him from going to the police?"

  There was a moment's silence above her head.

  "Case?"

  "Among the other things bequeathed to me by my friend were a number of his contacts. He had some very powerful friends. Their names can make a man like Radburn think twice about taking rash actions."

  "Threw your weight around a bit, hmmm?"

  "I told him rather succinctly who he might find himself

  dealing with if he pushed matters too far. I figured if you believed me capable of certain illegal activities and associations, I could make Radburn believe it, too. And then, of course, I added the clincher."

  "Well? Don't leave me in suspense!"

  "I told him he wouldn't be long for this world if he ever came near you or Donna again. And that's enough on that subject."

  Kendra looked up into his face and knew he spoke the truth. She would not pursue the subject. Instead she smiled.

  "I love you so much, Case."

  The movement of his hands on her lower back changed subtly, and Kendra smiled with pleasure. Very delicately she closed her teeth into the bare skin of his shoulder. He groaned.

  "Vixen," he muttered, fingers digging into her sun-warmed back. "For someone who had, until recently, concluded she didn't like this sort of thing, you've certainly adapted nicely to your wifely duties!"

  "I started adapting even before I became a wife, as I recall. You can be very persuasive!"

  "Right now I would like to persuade you to take a little walk down the beach and around that cliff with me. There's a very private little lagoon waiting there for us," he suggested in a deep, sexy drawl.

  "The other hotel guests don't know about it?"

  "I said very private. . . ."

  He took her hand, stopping briefly to scoop up the towel and beach bag. Slinging both over his shoulder, Case led her across the sand, around the outcropping, and into a lush, velvet, green place of ferns and trees and incredible flowers.

  "It's beautiful," Kendra breathed, absorbing the tropical scene.

  "And it's all ours. When we close the deal on the hotel,

  we'll keep it that way. Off limits to guests. For owners' use only."

  He spread the beach towel on the sandy ground and dropped the beach bag beside it. When he straightened she went into his arms with confidence and love and was rewarded with such a heart-stopping look of need and reciprocated love that she could have wept. Instead she lifted her hands to cup his face and pull him down to her.

  "Oh, my love, my life," he sighed against her mouth. "Please, don't ever stop loving me. I couldn't bear it if you were to ever change your mind. . . ."

  "Never," she vowed in a throaty whisper. "Never in this life. I think I must have walked into that casino looking for you ..."

  "And I was waiting for you," he concluded.

  His lips moved warmly, druggingly on hers, and Kendra felt him undo the clasp of her bikini top. A moment later the scrap of material fell to the ground, and his hands slid around her waist and up to rest just beneath the small, delicate weight of her breasts. With tantalizing slowness he lightly scraped his thumbs across the dark area of her nipples. They hardened beneath his touch, and Kendra moaned as the rising desire caught her.

  "So soft and perfect," he rasped, bending his head to kiss first one breast and then the other, his tongue curling hungrily around each thrusting peak.

  "Oh, Case . . ."

  She stroked his back and waist, her fingers sliding inside the waistband of the small swimming trunks he wore.

  "Already I want you so much," she moaned into his mouth. "How do you do this to me?" She peeled the trunks off entirely, molding his muscular buttocks with probing hands.

  "We seem to do it to each other!" Gently he picked her up and settled her on the towel, kneeling beside her to

  drop a string of kisses along the line of her throat, over her breasts, and into the tiny pit of her stomach.

  He skimmed off the bikini bottom with both hands and continued the warm, lazy, seductive kisses, following the path of the receding bikini.

  Kendra gasped, her fingers tightening convulsively in his thick black hair. She arched herself against his touch again and again. But with maddening deliberation he continued to kiss her while he traced a dizzying pattern all along the inside of her leg, up to her inner thigh.

  She began to shift restlessly beneath him, calling his name in little panting cries until he guided her hand intimately against him. Longing to please, she touched him with butterfly softness, caressing and exciting him until Case groaned deep in his chest and moved away from her for a moment.

  She heard him fumbling with the zipper of the beach bag and smiled wonderingly.

  "You take such good care of me," she whispered, turning to look at him.

  "There are some gambles even a professional shouldn't take," he growled as he reached into the bag.

  Kendra held her breath for an instant and then said hesitantly, "Unless both parties agree to the stakes."

  His head swung around, his dark gaze narrowing with a flash of undisguised hope. His hand stilled on the zipper.

  "Kendra?" he questioned huskily.

  "We still don't know for certain if there are going to be any results from that first night in Tahoe," she reminded him, growing more sure of herself and him by the second.

  "And if there are?"

  "Would you mind bringing up a child here in paradise?" she whispered.

  "Mind!" The word was a muffled explosion. "Kendra, if I thought you could want a child with me . . ."

  She gave him her affirmative answer with smiling eyes.

  "I think we could make a very interesting baby together," she said softly. "A little black-haired boy, perhaps ..."

  "With his mother's hazel eyes and courage." Case's hand flattened on her stomach in a gesture of love and possession. "Kendra, my darling, I would very much like to create a baby with you and raise him or her here in paradise."

  "Then stop messing about with that beach bag and come here. We're not getting any younger, you know." She laughed seductively, reaching for him.

  "You're sure?" he pleaded.

  "I'm sure."

  With a murmur of passion Case lowered himself to her, finding the soft warmth of her with his aching hardness. She thrilled to the masculine strength of him, the exciting roughness of his thighs against hers, the teasing hair of his chest as he crushed her breasts beneath his weight.

  She curled around him, enveloping him with a possessive, feminine passion that he surrendered to even as he mastered it. They gave themselves completely to each other.

  Kendra moaned his name against his throat as the flames leaped to consume them. She heard him respond with hoarse sounds of male need. Together they succumbed to the perfect bonding, the essence of which had been reaching out to touch every aspect of their lives from the moment their gazes had locked across the casino floor.

  "Kendra! My own, my wife!"

  A long time later Kendra's lashes fluttered open, and she focused contentedly on the natural green canopy overhead. As if he knew she were awa
ke, Case stirred slightly, tucking her closer into his curving body.

  "You'll be happy here?" he asked again.

  "I'd be happy anywhere with you, Case," she told him dreamily.

  "The reverse holds true for me," he said softly. "If you ever decide you'd rather go back to San Francisco, I'll take you. I want you to be happy. It's the most important thing in the world to me!"

  She thought of something. "Now that you know all my secrets, will you miss your mystery lady?"

  "No," he chuckled richly. "The mystery was simply something I wanted to solve and get out of the way so I could get on with the business of making you mine."

  "I knew I was lost when I started thinking up ways to reform you," Kendra confessed.

  "We hardened professional criminal types need a lot of love and attention to keep us on the straight and narrow," he informed her wisely, lowering his head to touch the tip of his tongue to her parted lips in an intimate little caress. Then he moved on to her ear.

  "I'll see you get all you need of both," she promised, wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing his willing mouth back to hers.