She ran her hands through his hair, and then in a fit of bravado she would never have believed possible, she caught and held the silky stuff, pulling his head up so that he was forced to look into her face.
She gazed up at him. His eyes were softly glazed with desire, his expression beautiful even in his confusion about what she had in mind. Suddenly, the little imp within her surfaced. With a knowing smile she whispered, “I have a news bulletin.”
Cord looked worried. She couldn’t bear the uncertainty in his eyes. It was too cruel a thing to do to a man at this advanced stage in the act of passion. Cupping his head in her hands, she assured him, “Evidently hell froze over a couple of times today.” She drew his face up and brushed his lips lightly with hers, adding, “Take off your clothes.”
Hearing her husky order, his eyes lit like twin devils. “Yes, ma’am,” he obliged just above a whisper, enfolding her for one more lingering kiss. Finally, he rolled away and tugged the sweatshirt off over his head. In rapt excitement she watched the play of muscles across his chest as he tossed the garment on the chair. When he began to unbutton his trousers, she brushed away his hands. “I’ll take over from here.”
She pressed him to his back, then giggled at the surprise in his expression. With one quick movement, she slid the rest of the way out of her jumpsuit and kicked off her sandals. Clad only in bikini panties, she straddled his thighs and began to undo the slacks.
Seconds later, she’d helped him slip out of both trousers and underwear. The degree of his arousal was galvanizing. Tess grinned slyly down at his expectant face. Reveling in the wonder of being a woman, she bent forward.
In words that were almost a prayer, he asked, “Are you going to—”
“Teach you to take,” she murmured, and her lips found their objective.
His wistful groan of pleasure gladdened her beyond all her expectations.
TESS STIRRED, not quite opening her eyes to the morning. The alarm hadn’t gone off, but she had the strangest feeling she’d just been kissed…on the thigh. She felt it again, but higher this time. Her eyes flew wide when the full realization hit her groggy brain of how, and with whom she’d fallen asleep last night!
She sat up, unaware that her naked breasts were swaying tantalizingly for Cord’s hungry perusal. He smiled down at her, his eyes drinking her in. “Good morning,” he fairly sang, placing a wicker bed tray across her lap. “I hope you like scrambled eggs.” His eyes twinkled as he lowered his head to kiss the tip of each breast before he backed away. “I told Sugar I wanted to eat in my room this morning, so she dug up a tray for me. Didn’t think it’d be safe to ask her to dig up two.” He grinned the grin of a sated man. “Thought she might wonder who else was eating breakfast in my bed.”
He looked wonderful in the buttercup light of early morning. His sky-blue flannel shirt and worn jeans that tugged enticingly at hip and thigh hid little of his manliness, and she relived the glory of his nude body. Forcing the picture from her mind, she tried to speak sensibly. “I can’t eat scrambled eggs … naked.”
He sat down beside her and smoothed her hair back from her ear so that he could nuzzle a tempting lobe. “Humor me. I love you this way. All the prim little innkeeper is gone when you take off your clothes.” He made a sexy growling sound in his throat. “Baby, if I never see you in clothes again, it’ll suit me just fine.”
She blanched, tugging a sheet up to conceal her breasts. “Don’t call me ‘baby,’ Cord.”
He sat back, but continued to stroke the inside of her wrist with his thumb. “Why not? I called you that several times last night.”
She cast her eyes down at her tray. “Never mind. I guess ‘baby’ is okay … under certain limited circumstances.”
“Good.” He lifted the lid on her breakfast and stood. “I promise, I won’t call you baby in public.”
When their gazes met again, she couldn’t keep herself from smiling. His grin was so wicked, so undeniable that it made her pulse flutter into high gear. Stifling a shiver at the exhilarating recollection of their night together, she patted the bed. “Join me. I don’t usually eat much breakfast.”
He poured some coffee into the mug. “I’ll share your java with you. Sugar forced a couple of cinnamon rolls on me while I was in the kitchen. She was a little surprised when I still wanted eggs, bacon, toast, juice and coffee in my room.”
Tess couldn’t suppress a laugh. “The way Virge eats, I doubt that Sugar will be the least bit suspicious.”
He handed her the mug, telling her softly, “You were a wild woman last night, Tessa Jane. Hell may have been a cold place, but it was plenty hot in here.”
She was in the midst of taking a sip. With widened eyes, she lowered the mug to the tray and murmured, “Don’t say that, Cord. I was a fool again. But I realize now that there is little I can do about the way I’m attracted to you.”
His face grew serious. “That’s not very flattering, honey. There’s a lot we can do about it, and if last night was any indicator, every minute will be spectacular.”
Tess exhaled slowly, dropping her gaze to the plate of cooling food. How wonderful it was to be here, feeling so uninhibited with Cord. It was almost frightening to be so at ease with him, so one with a man who was, by his own admission, not right for her. He was a vagabond. His work was his love, his life, his passion … at least his long-standing passion. This nagging truth dimmed a little when he nuzzled the top of her head.
“What are you thinking, babe?” he murmured against her hair.
“Nothing,” she fibbed weakly, forcing a small smile. “I was just wishing you’d asked for the eggs sunny-side up.”
He chuckled. “I’ll remember that for tomorrow.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Could she possibly allow this to continue?
9
Tess snuggled closer in the crook of Cord’s arm, and rubbed her palm across the blond haze of hair on his chest. She loved the texture of it, at the same time soft and rough against her skin. She inhaled. His scent was less distinct now. He smelled vaguely of flowers. She smiled to herself. No, that was her own perfume mingled intimately with Cord’s scent. There was no separating the two anymore. They were one living being as far as her olfactory sense was concerned. What a nice idea.
When she sighed contentedly, he patted her hip beneath the sheet that swathed her. He, too, was covered modestly, but for one brazenly naked leg that he had drawn up to rest an elbow on so that he could more easily look down into her face.
“What are you thinking?” he asked her softly.
She drew her gaze from his chest and looked up, her eyes smiling. She didn’t dare tell him what she was really thinking. Instead she asked him something that she’d been wondering about for years. “Are you sure you’re part Osage Indian? You’re so blond.”
He chuckled and it tickled her cheek. “The last three generations of men in my family were all attracted to Nordic types.”
“Oh…” She felt a little stab of hurt. Her eyes touched his tentatively, and the question slipped out before she could monitor what she was saying. “Then what are you doing with me, slumming, genetically speaking?”
“Tessa Jane,” he admonished gently, as he brushed his lips against her hair. “Don’t put yourself down.”
He graced her with a soft smile. “As long as we’re speaking physiologically, I was thinking how sexy you’d look lying in a teepee, that midnight hair splayed across a stack of wolf pelts.” He smoothed a strand of the stuff from her forehead and kissed the spot, whispering, “No man with the good luck to spend the night with you, in a palace or a teepee, could possibly be slumming, genetically or otherwise.”
She felt a surge of happiness rush through her and hugged him closer, dusting his jaw with a kiss. She knew she shouldn’t do it; she knew it would ruin her mood, but she had to ask, “Tell me about your work, Cord.” She didn’t really want to hear how important it was, how necessary it was for him to travel so far away, but she figure
d she had to hear it. She had to face the reality of his life choices now, while they were lying naked together, so that when he left her, she’d be well aware of exactly where she stood in his life, and not expect him to ever be back.
“Now?” he asked, sounding amused.
“What better time?”
“Hmm.” He appeared to think about it for a minute before he agreed. “I’ve never given a lecture to a naked woman. I’m not sure I can keep my mind on ichthyology.”
“Maybe I can help you,” she offered.
He arched a curious brow. “How?”
“I’ll put on an overcoat,” she teased, starting to move away from him.
“Never mind.” He pulled her back down. “I’ll manage.”
“Good,” she said, settling back within his embrace, “because I really do want to hear about your work.”
“That’s a lie, but it’s a nice one.” He traced her nose with one finger then kissed its tip before beginning. “My old friends, the coelacanths, first appeared on earth about 400 million years ago. That was before Champ.” He winked, teasing her. “By studying them we may someday be able to shed light on a vital stage of evolution—namely, the time when creatures first wriggled from the water and walked on land, becoming ancestors of all land animals, including man.”
“Fascinating,” she said, smiling up at him, more in an enjoyment of his nearness than any real interest in the subject.
“Yeah, right.”
She wrapped her arms around him and cuddled closer. “Please go on.”
Nuzzling the top of her head with his jaw, he murmured, “Well, there’s a lot more I have to learn. For instance, why have coelacanths remained virtually unchanged for aeons? What environmental conditions enabled these passive, sluggish creatures to survive for some thirty million generations?”
“And you have to be the man to find out?”
She felt his shrug. “I want to be the man.”
“You will,” she assured him, positive that he would. Cord Redigo was a winner, if she’d ever seen one. She felt a surge of pride just to know him. She somehow knew that she was holding a man who would, one day, be renowned in the annals of science.
“Tell me more about these precious fish of yours.”
“Boring.”
She toyed with a tuft of blond chest hair, curling it about her finger. “Tell me. I want to know.”
He laid his hand across her arm, stroking it gently with his thumb. “If you insist, but I know something much more interesting we could be doing.”
She giggled. “You’re an animal.”
“You should talk.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
He exhaled. “Okay. First, coelacanths are relatively large—nearly six feet in length. The presence of two sets of paired fins on their underside indicates that these may have been the rudimentary legs, making them an extremely important find. Secondly, they’re slow, awkward fish. Unable to compete for prey with most species, they retreated to depths where others couldn’t survive for lack of food. We can only find the coelacanths at night and at depths of almost 550 feet, and only in the Indian Ocean. They move to even deeper and cooler water during the day.”
“But you can’t scuba dive that deep,” she remarked. “Can you?”
“No. We have a two-man submersible. My partner, Hans, and I go down and study the coelacanths for eight-hour stretches. Did you know that those crazy fish do headstands on the ocean floor, and they swim backward, sometimes belly up?” He chuckled again, rubbing her arm as he spoke.
“Do they ever walk on their fins?” Tess asked, really interested, but not quite able to get her mind off Cord’s soft stroking. He was a very physical person, and she loved that about him. Never in her life had anyone petted her lovingly that way.
“I’ve seen them rest against the sea bottom on their fins, but never walk. I have to admit that’s been a bit of a disappointment,” he murmured, adding with a slight smile, “But for every myth dispelled, there are many fascinating discoveries still to be made.”
She looked up at him. “Are you talking about Champ?”
“Not specifically.” He grinned. “Just myths in general.”
“And you want to be the one to dispel the myths and make the discoveries?”
He nodded, his eyes soft. “Always have.”
“Hmm.” She had to admit that his work was important, and she also had to admit that it was truly a passion with him. He spoke of the fish as though they were close friends. She tried to keep from feeling depressed as she asked, “Didn’t you say once that the coelacanth was thought to be extinct?”
“Uh-huh.” He slid his hand up her arm, his knuckles grazing her breast. The casual touch caused a shock of pure pleasure to sing through her body.
“Scientists thought they’d been extinct for seventy million years, then in 1938 one was caught in a trawler’s net and an alert naturalist spotted it. That coelacanth is now on display in the East London Museum in South Africa.”
“And it was you who brought the first two live specimens back to the New York Aquarium.”
He nodded.
“You must be proud.”
He grinned down at her. “The word is relieved. I wasn’t sure if they’d survive the flight.”
Tess looked up at him, knowing that this man would very soon go out of her life and walk into the history books. She didn’t really feel like teasing, but deciding it was better to tease than to cry, she taunted softly, “And you’re a doubting Thomas about Champ when your precious coelacanth was also thought to be extinct? Isn’t that a little narrow-minded for a scientist?”
Uninterested in a debate at the moment, Cord kissed her bare shoulder. “You may have a point,” he murmured, his lips bedeviling her cool flesh.
There was a sharp rap at Cord’s door, bringing him up, alert. “Who—”
“Hi ya, cuz. Sugar told me you were having breakfast in your room. Figured you’d be interested in the fisherman’s photographs,” Mary was chatting away as she pushed open the door, her eyes on a handful of pictures. “Just as you feared, a combination of atmospheric refraction and—” When she looked up, Cord had moved forward to try to protect Tess as best he could from the embarrassment of being caught in his bed.
Mary’s expression changed from an irritated all-business squint to one of wide-eyed disbelief. “Lord,” she prayed aloud, her agony theatrically evident. “Let me not be seeing what I’m seeing!”
“Thanks for dropping by, Mary,” Cord said. “You may go now.”
Mary leaned tiredly against the door as it clicked shut and groaned. “When Sugar said you were having breakfast in your room, I didn’t think she meant Miss Mankiller.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but—” Cord indicated the door with a jerk of his head.
Mary gave him a killing stare and then peered around him to look at Tess, who had shrunk down as far as she could into the pillows, wishing she were dead. Mary shook her head, her expression pained and sympathetic. “Sometimes I think hormones are more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Goodbye, Mary.” The growled words were a thinly veiled threat.
“I’m going,” she snapped, turning away. Then, with her hand on the knob, she turned back. “You want these pictures?”
“Mary,” Cord began, his voice barely controlled. “When you’re dead you’ll still have enough wind to deliver your own eulogy!” He arched a brow meaningfully. “And that event may come sooner than you’d like.”
She nodded largely. “So you don’t want the pictures. Don’t get testy. I’m going.”
The last thing they heard before the door closed was Mary’s louder than necessary exclamation, “Oh, helloooo, Nolan! Looking for me? Oh, Tess! Uh, haven’t seen her since, er, my mind’s a blank.”
The door banged shut. Panicked green eyes shot to brooding blue ones before Tess deliberately withdrew her gaze. Her whole body was flaming with mortal humiliation. Nolan was knocking at he
r door and she was tangled in another man’s sheets. Not only that, but her embarrassing indiscretion had been witnessed by a third party.
Feeling guilty and traitorous, she struggled to free herself from the chaos of Cord’s bed. Without a backward glance, she padded a hasty retreat to her room.
Cord reached out to stop her, then drew his hand back. He scowled, watching her sweet, naked hips taunt him in her flight until she disappeared beyond the bathroom door. When she was gone, he flung his legs over the side of the bed and slumped forward, running his hands distractedly through his hair. What in hell had he been thinking when he’d reached for her? What, he wondered, in that mindless instant, had he thought he was going to say?
Twenty minutes later, Cord was on the Coelacanth II, roughly yanking on his wet suit. Mary had called him a short while before, not allowing him a word in edgewise, relating a very terse message. She’d told him that had he been “less erotically occupied or more modestly clothed” she would have been able to tell him what she’d come up there for—namely, that there had been some large blips on the sonar at about 100 feet out in the cove. Since she was fighting a lousy inner ear problem, Cord was their resident scuba diver. Would he set up the underwater camera in the cove, seeing as how it had a rich history of reported sightings?
She had quickly hung up, but not before she told him with hearty good humor, “Save some time for me, later, stud. When I’ve calmed down, we have to talk.”
When she calmed down? He snorted out a sarcastic laugh. She’d be calmed down about the time hell froze over, and hell had been doing way too much freezing over in the past twenty-four hours for there to be much chance of it happening again.
He leaned against the railing and dragged on the black scuba pants, zipping the legs before grabbing up the top half of the suit. His thoughts turned to Tess. She didn’t want to be needed, but there was something she needed. That was an unselfish love in her life. With an irritated tug on the waterproof material, he forced his arms into the tight sleeves, muttering a short oath.
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