He grunted with the impact. “Well, hello,” he murmured a little hoarsely.
She looked up at him with a mute, helpless regard. He flashed a grin of dazzling whiteness and drew her almost imperceptibly closer. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
She could think of nothing to say. For some reason her repertoire of snappy comebacks seemed dismally lacking.
His fingers were caressing her back, and his breath was warm on her face. The world around her shrank stealthily away. All she could see were his lips, so near, so tempting. All she could feel was his body, hard against hers, and the slow, rhythmic thudding of his heart. Reason deserted her and she could think of no rational reply—nothing but Kiss me, Cord, and that was far from rational! “I—the boat tilted…” she stammered.
“And you realized you hadn’t hugged your marine biologist today.” His voice was light, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
She frowned, muttering, “You think you’re funny, I suppose.”
“Why don’t we talk about me later?” he whispered. “Right now we’re being watched.”
She stiffened in his arms and glanced over her shoulder. The elderly Inch sisters, twins, dressed identically in yellow cotton shirtwaists, were giggling and staring at them through the cockpit window.
“Oh, no…” she moaned.
A chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I knew you’d be pleased.”
“Will you let me go?” she whispered curtly, her cheeks hot.
“Can you stand up by yourself?”
“I’ll take a stab at it!” Pressing her hands against his chest, she berated him. “I would never have fallen if you’d given me some room. Can’t you go to the back of the boat, or down in the basement or somewhere?”
His laughter was low and rich, drawing more gazes. “A boat doesn’t have a basement, Miss Mankiller. In nautical terms, we call it the bilge.”
“What do you call a knee in the groin—in nautical terms?”
His lips quirked with amusement. “I’d call that painful.” For an instant it looked as if he just might kiss her. He didn’t, and some irritating little part of her wasn’t completely happy with his decision. As a matter of fact, she’d actually closed her eyes in anticipation—for the briefest instant—just as he’d let her go and stepped away. When she focused on his face again, his eyes were glinting devilishly.
Indicating the chart paper that was rolling out of the sonar recorder, he said, “Let me know if you see anything that looks like one of your monster kites on that.” Before she had time to answer, he was swinging up the ladder to the flying bridge.
She slumped into the helmsman’s chair and stared, unseeing, at the strip of paper as it slowly unrolled with its treasure of sonar information. She was too distressed to care what it revealed.
Dropping her head in her hands, she sighed loudly. She was cursed, that’s what she was. Cursed with a rare sexual dyslexia where Cord Redigo was concerned, knotting up every physical encounter, saying all the wrong things. Then, incapacitated, she was forced to watch while he swaggered off, looking roguish and unbothered.
She scanned the faces of those on the bow. They’d turned away to scout for Champ again. She was grateful for that, at least, but her nerves hummed with dissatisfaction.
NOTHING OF CHAMP was sighted that day. In fact, nothing worth mentioning happened for the rest of the week. Tess kept as far away from Cord as she could. She grew short of breath and fidgety whenever cursed fate threw them together. Every time he ambled her way, she had the urge to run and find a necklace of garlic to ward off the spell he seemed bent on casting over her. In the presence of his easygoing cowboy quality, his unique elegance and ruthless sexuality she felt utterly bedeviled.
Oh, in court she’d have had to swear that Cord had been a perfect gentleman, and his conversation had been absolutely unblemished by overt suggestiveness. His eyes, however, had not been quite so pure.
They’d teased her, made promises to her, told her that in his arms, her body would writhe with ecstasy, that it was within his power to end the painful longing he knew was eating her up inside.
One such encounter, insidious in its apparent innocence, still bothered her. He’d stopped her as she headed out of a third-floor storage closet with several bars of soap for her aunt’s apartment. He’d asked her for a bar, but the unspoken conversation between them had been pure sensual interplay. His eyes had probed the sexier precincts of her consciousness, telling her that he could take her and that bar of soap into their shower and lather up more than suds.
After handing him the soap and watching him walk away with a spicy John Wayne saunter, she’d careened off in another direction completely forgetting her original destination. She’d felt like a fool when she arrived at the front desk clutching five bars of soap to her chest. In a moment of true brilliance, she handed each of two departing guests a bar, explaining lamely that the miniature bath soaps were a traditional parting gift of the inn. Kalvin’s gape-mouthed incredulity had been her just reward.
She’d begun to worry constantly. The invitation in Cord’s gaze that day in the hallway remained quite vivid in her mind. But had it been real? Was she going crazy, or was he playing a very careful orchestrated game to wear down her defenses? If that was the case, then it was working. She wanted Cord Redigo to make love to her, and that scared her silly. Was she every bit as big a fool as she had been at sixteen?
To make matters worse, Nolan had come to visit on Friday evening. Several times Cord’s remark about how Nolan “needed” Tess had come back to haunt her with something Nolan said or did. All too often, when it happened, her eyes had met Cord’s knowing glance, and as the weekend progressed, she’d grown more and more infuriated.
A time or two, Cord had had the gall to egg Nolan on in his efforts to get Tess to entertain. This made her so angry that she could barely contain her fury, while Cord remained casually amused by it all. She wanted to slap him and kiss him at the same time. Her warring needs were tearing her apart.
Now it was Sunday afternoon and Tess was at her wits’ end. Furious with Cord, she marched to his room to tell him in no uncertain terms how she felt about his interference. Seeing the door ajar, she barged in.
“Cord,” she began, her voice controlled and low. “I need to talk to you, and I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“Fine.” He nodded, but not in her direction. He was on the phone, his back to her. He looked tall, broad and casually chic in a dark-blue-and-red plaid shirt, buckskin pants and vest. She’d never seen buckskin pants before. She wondered how they felt—if they took on the hardness of his thighs and tight, rounded hips, or were they soft as velvet….
“Thanks, I’ll get right on it.”
His words brought her back to why she was there, and she pulled her gaze away from his legs as he hung up. Without looking at her, he walked to the dresser and picked up a set of keys, but when he turned toward the door, he finally noticed her. The recognition in his grin was chillingly beautiful. “Hi, I didn’t hear you knock.”
She straightened her shoulders, feeling a little guilty. “I—I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t. Your door was open…. I—I was thinking about what I have to say to you, Cord. We need to talk.”
“Okay.” He took her arm and led her toward the door. “But we’ll have to do it on the move. There’s a storm coming and I need to get the cameras off the island before they get battered to pieces.”
“On the boat?” she asked, feeling a spasm of panic. “In a storm?”
“If we hurry, we can beat the storm.”
“I don’t like the ‘if’.”
He chuckled but kept his pace rapid. She was dragged along, barely able to keep up with his lengthy strides. As they descended the steps to the dock, Tess squinted distastefully at the roughness of the water and the foreboding darkening of the sky.
The wind was racing around them in heavy gusts, swirling and tugging at her hair, tailored blouse and wrap skirt. She didn’t w
ant to go, but she knew that she had to get this said once and for all. If it took another boat ride to do it, then she would just have to deal with that, too. Besides, it looked as if Cord might really need help this time if his sensitive photographic equipment was to be salvaged.
THE WIND HAD PICKED UP while they were in the dinghy, and when they reached the island, the rain began. Cord ran for the cameras, shouting for Tess to secure the rubber boat, just as a powerful gust upended it. Though Tess held on to the rope, saving the boat from being swept away, one of the oars tumbled out and bobbed off out of sight.
Cord loped toward her, a large camera bag slung over one shoulder and two tripods jouncing on the other. He was squinting against the rain. Using both hands to cling to the boat’s mooring rope, Tess could do nothing about the rain pelting her own face.
“Good work, saving the boat,” Cord called over the wind and rain as he waded out and placed the camera bag and tripods in the bottom. “I’ll help you in a second.”
“We lost an oar,” she shouted back, trying to shake wet hair from her face. “What’ll we do?”
He waded back and lifted her into his arms. “We make do.”
“There’s really no need to carry me. I’m already wet,” she told him irritably, noting all too clearly the solid warmth of his chest against her breasts.
“Your heels aren’t very good for wading.”
He was right about that. She said nothing. Shortly after Cord settled her in the boat, he pushed off and jumped in. Grabbing the oar, he began to paddle first on one side and then on the other in the direction of the cruiser.
The rain grew heavier, pounding them mercilessly while the wind chopped up the water. Tess was huddled in the bow, facing Cord. She turned to judge how far they had to go and gasped. The cruiser was lost behind a curtain of rain. Jerking around, she craned her neck past Cord. The island was also blotted out.
“Oh, my heavens, Cord. We’re lost!” she cried, cowering back against the slippery rubber.
Cord continued to paddle, his expression closed and determined. His biceps bulged and bunched beneath his wet shirt as his efforts moved them forward. Or sideways. Or backward. It was impossible to tell which way they were going in the swirling maelstrom. “We’re okay as long as we’re afloat,” he assured her, his voice betraying his struggle to keep the flimsy boat upright.
Tess looked down. The rainwater was collecting in the bottom of the dinghy. There was about an inch sloshing around. “Just how long do you think we’ll stay afloat?” she called, her fear of drowning bringing her to the brink of hysteria.
The blinding rain turned suddenly to hail. Tess screamed when the first pea-size bullets of ice hit her. Cord drew in his oar and shouted, “Get to the middle of the dinghy!”
Too frightened to question him, she obeyed. As soon as she was settled there, Cord surprised her by pressing her backward. “Lie flat!” he shouted. “I’ll cover you!”
“I’ll drown.”
“Rest your head on my arms. There’s not that much water in here.”
With his weight pressing her down, she could do little else. She could hear the hail pelting down all around her, making a deafening rat-a-tat on the dinghy. She wondered what sort of damage it was doing to Cord’s back. She was still very aware of the stinging in her cheeks, shoulders and chest from the hail that had hit her before Cord had crawled over her. She hoped his vest would help protect him.
“How are you doing?” Cord asked her.
“I was just wondering the same thing about you. Does the hail hurt?”
He chuckled. She could feel it against her cheek. “Not as much as if we’d lost ten thousand dollars worth of equipment. Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” Rainwater, dripping off one of Cord’s shirt buttons, wet her lower lip. She inhaled the clean scent of the storm mixed with the pungent soaked leather and Cord’s musky warmth. After she’d taken a few deep breaths, her panic began to ebb. Even the water she was lying in didn’t seem so cold anymore with Cord’s arms around her, his legs sheltering hers.
His weight was not heavy on her. She realized he must be using a great deal of energy to hold himself up and keep from crushing her. Even so, she grew strongly aware of his vital body heating her through their soaked clothes. She had the unruly urge to take that dripping button in her teeth and rip it off, then run her tongue over the damp, furred hardness beneath the shirt, to make him groan with desire.
His muscled chest, warm through the wet clothes, tightened in his efforts to hold himself away, and she became aware of the heavy thudding of his heart. He made an odd noise in his throat and shifted as though to find a more comfortable position, accidentally brushing against her. She was shocked to feel him, bold and hard.
His muttered blasphemy was not lost on her as he shifted away. But he had not moved in time to quell the urgency his intimate touch had sparked to life in her. She tingled with a need to arch against him. Her sanity argued that initiating sex in an inflatable rubber dinghy awash with water and ready to capsize in a raging storm was madness, but her passion whispered slyly, What better way to go?
They were suddenly jolted with enough force to knock them both on their sides. Tess screamed and grabbed Cord’s neck. “What—what was that?” she cried, terrified.
“I don’t know.” His voice seemed strained. “But at least it’s stopped hailing.”
“Good.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. When their gazes brushed, something shockingly lusty passed between them. His face hovered closer, his eyes drawing her into a web of intimate meanings. Rain plastered their hair and their clothes, the wind blew cold and the lake bucked and kicked, bent on throwing them out. Still, she met his look boldly, accepting his overture, the right and wrong of it be damned. If she were going to die, she was going to do it with a smile on her face.
He read her desire and was lowering his lips to hers when they were jarred again by a blow to the side of the dinghy. This time, Tess clung to Cord’s chest, hiding her face there. He drew her tightly to him, murmuring something unintelligible, but somehow comforting.
They were pushed along sideways by, another bump, and then another. Tess lifted her head to look at Cord. “What’s happening to us?”
He said nothing, just shook his head, but he seemed alert, concerned. “I think the rain’s letting up.” He raised himself on one elbow to look around.
Tess squinted into the drizzle, her eyes trained on Cord’s face. She watched with surprise as his grim expression was altered by the familiar crooked grin. “Well, well,” he said, pulling her up to sit beside him. “Look what we have here.”
She leaned weakly against him, shivering from a combination of cold, passion and terror. Wiping water from her eyes, she looked in the direction he was pointing. To her amazement, the cruiser’s stern was only a few feet away.
Grabbing the oar, Cord paddled the distance and helped Tess clamber onto the deck of the big boat. After offloading the camera bag and tripods he came on board and began securing the dinghy. “You go forward,” he called to Tess, motioning toward the cabin door beneath the deckhouse. “There should be a couple of terry robes in the starboard locker beyond the galley.”
She crossed her arms to stifle a shiver and stared blankly at him. “Where?”
He grinned as he slung the camera bag over his shoulder. “Go down the steps, past the living room and kitchen. There’ll be a closet on your right.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Where can I change?”
“Anywhere you want,” he offered easily.
She raised a brow. “And where will you be?”
His expression grew serious and he looked quite endearing. His lashes were spangled with droplets of water, and rain was dripping off his chin. Quietly, he said, “Anywhere you want.”
6
Endearing though Cord looked, Tess had regained her perspective and her sanity. She was no longer in the clutches of the Grim Reaper, so any rash plans she’d made while
she’d thought she was dying were off.
Needing to avoid Cord’s persuasive eyes, she bent and grabbed a handful of soggy linen and wrung her skirt out on the deck. She did it once more on the other side before she looked back up. To be on the safe side, she pinned her gaze on his chin. “I—I won’t be long.” Without waiting for him to reply, she fled down the steps, past the tiny sitting room and kitchen and opened a narrow closet. There were two terry robes in it, both white.
With shaky fingers, she stripped out of her sodden clothes and donned the terry robe. Her hair hung wet and heavy down her back. Noticing a stack of fluffy white towels on a high shelf in the closet, she took one, wrapped her hair and coiled the whole bundle atop her head.
She looked around. There didn’t seem to be any appropriate place to deposit her clothes, so she dumped them in the kitchen sink on her way back to the steps that led up to the cockpit. The carpeting felt good against her cold feet. She opened the door. “I’ve changed, Cord. You can come in.”
He was hunched over the solar panel in the protection of the deckhouse. The rain was hammering down as hard as ever, but the buffeting was much less noticeable inside the cruiser. He looked up, first through the cockpit window and then down at her. His smile was wan. “I was hoping we could get back, but it looks like this storm is going to have its way for a while. I guess I’d better get out of these wet clothes.”
She held the door open in mute invitation. “I’ll wait out there.”
“No need.” He stood up and faced her. “I’ll just use the forward berth.”
As he skimmed past her in the narrow companionway, he stopped and smiled down at her. “You look nice in white, Tessa Jane.”
Before she could absorb the quiet compliment, he’d turned away, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll toss you a pair of socks.”
“I—thanks,” she said a little weakly, watching him eat up the small space with his long strides.
“When I get changed, I’ll rig up a line to dry the clothes on.” He pulled the locker doors closed between them. “We’ll aim a couple of fans on them. It’s the best we can do for now.”
Legendary Lover Page 9
