She met his gaze squarely. “As sure as I’ve ever been of anything.”
“No doubts?”
“Rolph … yes. I have doubts. It’s normal to have them. I sometimes doubt my ability to make you happy. I doubt my sanity in wanting this so much, when I know that at any time you could turn from me, find someone else, someone who has all the characteristics you want in a woman. But I know that to get the gold, you sometimes have to dig through an awful lot of dirt.” She touched his face with the flat of her hand. “What I do not doubt, though, is that being with you is what I want and need at this moment more than I’ve ever wanted or needed anything else. I believe that whatever potential our relationship—assuming we have one—has for pain, the possibilities are equally as great for joy. I guess you have to be something of a gambler to fall in love. I am.”
Rolph continued to search her face for several seconds, then shuddered and gathered her close again, drawing in great breaths of her scent, feeling her heat against his body, her trembling need under his hands. It echoed everything he felt. “I’ll take a chance on you, sweetheart, if you’ll take a chance on me.”
Gently, he tilted her back so they both lay on the triangular bunk, crosswise of the boat. “I’ve wanted this since the day you came down to the marina and demanded a job.”
She lifted a shaking hand and brushed it through his hair. “I’ve wanted this since Max and Jeanie’s wedding. I think I’ve wanted it for a lot longer than that, but didn’t know what it was I ached for. Now I know. Make love with me, Rolph.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll make love with you,” he said, his face fierce with desire and resolution. “I have to make love to you.” He captured her hands and held them together over her head. “I have to have you now, and again and again, but that’s all it is, Marian. Believe that. Because I am not going to fall in love with you.” If he’d had the breath to spare, he might have laughed at the outrageous lie, but his breath stopped in his lungs as Marian kissed him slowly and very, very thoroughly with his full cooperation.
“I’m not going to ask you for a commitment,” he said moments later. He slid the hem of her T-shirt up over her slender abdomen, bent and fluttered soft kisses up along the undersides of her breast. “When this … whatever it is, burns itself out, you’ll be free to go.”
She gasped as his mouth fit over her nipple. “It won’t … burn itself out!” She arched her back. “I won’t ever ask to be free to go, I promise, oh Rolph, do that some more!”
Briefly, he lifted his head, his palm fitting over one breast, rubbing gently on its distended tip. “Hush,” he whispered. “Don’t talk now. Don’t make any promises. Just kiss me like that again, and let me love you.”
What was the point in arguing with him, trying to convince him with words? There were other ways. Other ways, and she was willing to use every sweet one of them.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Love me.”
Chapter Seven
THE FEEL OF HIS body against her, the taste of his mouth on hers, the scent of him in her nostrils combined to create a heady rush of desire and Marian parted her lips for Rolph’s kisses. He kissed her and held her as if starved for her touch, but gently, softly, with an infinite tenderness that made her ache deep inside like she’d never ached before. She let her head fall back over his upper arm as he continued to hold her hands, reveling in the feel of the hard muscles under her neck, and opened herself more fully to him, feeling his tongue, the roughness of it, the hardness, as searched out every sensitive spot within her mouth.
Moments later, he reluctantly lifted his mouth from her, met her gaze with his slumberous one, and smiled. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
“Rolph …”
“What, sweetheart? Tell me what you want.”
“Don’t stop … touching me.”
“I won’t. I can’t. I want … this … so much,” he said, kissing her throat, her shoulder, her arm, then laying a heavy palm on her lower abdomen, making circles against her quivering muscles. Then, in response to her soft-voiced, wordless pleading, he curved his fingers in between her thighs, lifting her slightly as her legs fell apart and she murmured his name again, her eyes wide and dazed on his face.
“Touch me,” he ordered raggedly, at last letting her hands go, giving her the freedom to return his caresses, a freedom she took gladly, greedily. Her hands traveled over his chest as she tested the texture of his skin, down his sides, across his back and inside the band at the waist of his blue shorts, creating convulsive tremors in each muscle she discovered.
Rolling apart from her, he lifted the T-shirt off over her head, removed the rest of her clothing and then propped himself on one elbow, tracing the shapes of her breasts, the long, slender arc of her waist and the curve of her hip. His hand trembled as he parted the soft red hair between her legs and his fingers found the slick moisture there. “You are so beautiful,” he said, and his voice trembled, too. He bent and kissed her breasts, drawing each of her nipples deep into his mouth and sucking hard, then softly, flicking each one with the tip of his tongue before lifting his head again to smile at her. “And you taste so sweet, feel like satin.” Suddenly, he snatched her close, squashing her against his chest, rocking her back and forth, his moving fingers on her back, he waist, her buttocks, driving her wild with need. “I can’t get enough of you!” he cried. “There will never be enough.”
She held him, with arms and legs and clinging lips and the power of the love surging through her, and they ignited one another like a forest fire blazing up a windswept mountainside. “Rolph, now, hurry!” she cried, fighting to strip him as naked as she was, her hands getting in his way, his interfering with what she needed to do until it was done almost in spite of them, and she sank back, drawing him down with her, her one hand curved around his hardness, stroking, loving, massaging, the other clasping the back of his head, holding his mouth to hers. He tore her hand away from his flesh, and parted her legs with his, surging toward her entrance in an urgent thrust. Knees lifted, her head flung back, her breath sucking in on a sharp, startled gasp before she released it on a long, pleasure-filled sigh, Marian took Rolph into herself, wrapping him with her arms and legs, clinging as they both held poised on the brink. She opened her eyes, stared up at him, caught his gaze with her own and said softly, “I love you, Rolph McKenzie.”
With a groan, he buried his face against her and cried out, “I want so much to believe that!” and then there was no more time for talking as the fire raged and consumed and then slowly, beautifully, burned itself out until only occasional wisps of heat arose to let them know that embers remained within.
“Marian?”
“Right here,” she murmured, nuzzling her parted lips against the warmth of his throat.
“I just had a thought.”
She kissed his collarbone. “Me too. Was yours as good as mine?”
“Probably not, babe.” He sounded unhappy, the last way she wanted him to feel, considering what had just happened between them. She propped herself on an elbow and looked down at him, concerned.
“There I was,” he said, frowning, “talking all sorts of big-shot male stuff about responsibility and taking care of you, saying you needed protection, and all that, and then I forgot to take care of the most important kind of protection of all. I’m sorry, honey.”
She smiled. “And I told you I’ve been responsible in all my relationships. It’s taken care of, Rolph. Don’t worry.”
He pulled her head back down to his shoulder and stroked her hair. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“Nothing,” she said. “All in all, I think you’ve probably led a very sin-free life. I guess getting me is just the luck of the draw. Bad luck, of course.”
“Did you just insult one of us?” he asked sleepily.
“Not so you’d notice,” she said. “Go to sleep.”
Cuddled together, they both did.
“Rolph?”
“Hmm?” Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked
over at the woman lying beside him. The woman he loved. The woman who had claimed, in a moment of passion, to love him. Liquid light from the open hatch above them shimmered on her pearly skin. Her eyes were still closed and a smile curved her beautiful mouth. In another minute, he was going to find the strength to lean over and kiss that mouth.
“Would it be really rude, horribly unromantic, to tell you that I’m starving?”
He laughed. “Yes, considering what I’m thinking.”
She opened her eyes languidly and ran her gaze over his face as she ran her hand over his chest and shoulder.
“What are you thinking?”
He shifted closer and watched her eyes widen, her smile curve higher on one side. “Oh!” she said, and moved her hand from his shoulder to his waist and then his hip, her thumb making small, sneaky side-trips of which she appeared quite oblivious.
“Yes,” he said, his breathing becoming ragged when her little side forays became more deliberate. “‘Oh!’ is right.” Then, squeezing his eyes shut and lifting his hips, he said it again, eloquently, “Oh!”
She sat up and looked. “Ohhhh,” she drawled, impressed. “I guess we’re going to have to do something about that, aren’t we? I mean, I understand it’s terribly painful if left unattended?”
“Terribly,” he agreed breathlessly, sending one of his hands on its own little trip of exploration, one that made her gasp and rise up on her knees.
“Oh!” she said and he circled her waist with his hands, lifting her astride him and fitting her down over him.
“Oh!”
“Your … vocabulary needs work, lady.”
She smiled and leaned forward, breasts brushing against his chin as she swayed back and forth. “Oh? As long as it’s my vocabulary and not my technique.” Sliding down, she encircled each of his nipples with a fingernail, then flicked them, squeezed them and rubbed them between finger and thumb before bending and kissing each one, tonguing it, sucking on it, nibbling until he shuddered and lifted her up. “Your technique is fine.”
“My turn,” he said, and captured one of her nipples in his mouth, holding her very still while he sucked for long, intense moments, feeling the reaction to those sensations deep inside her where she held him in a velvet fist. He switched to her other breast, and felt those inner convulsions recur.
“I can feel your response to that,” he gasped, moments later. “It’s incredible. You tighten all around me, quivering, and it’s like heaven.” With his thumbs, he stroked her wet nipples and smiled as her muscles spasmed again. “Yes,” he said. “Like that.”
“I can’t … help it. I didn’t know you could feel it too.”
“Oh, yes. You’re unique, my Marian.” Drawing a breast into his mouth again, he sucked on it, her reaction giving him more pleasure than he had ever experienced.
Again, she said, “Ohhh,” on a long, drawn-out note as she dragged herself from his greedy mouth, leaning back, her hands on his thighs, her head flung back, her body rigid, and her back arched. “Rolph!” she cried out, and he tightened his hands around her waist, feeling the deep, hard shocks within her, his gaze never leaving her shimmering form as she swayed over him. Her legs tensed against him and she moved, slowly at first, then faster, until her wild rhythm infected him and he rode the crest of passion with her until they were both sated, lying damp and replete in each other’s arms.
“Hey. Hey, sleepyhead. A couple of hours ago you were starved. What about now?”
Marian rolled over and saw Rolph sitting bedside her, dressed in his undershorts again. She laid a limp arm across her eyes to shield them from the sun slanting in through the main hatch while she assessed her degree of hunger.
“I just remembered,” she said, coming more awake. “In my explorations earlier, about all I found was sardines. Believe me, I’d have to be an awful lot closer to starvation than I am now to eat them.”
He smiled. “But you don’t know what I can do with a can of sardines.”
She sat up, reaching for her T-shirt, feeling inexplicably shy, maybe even inadequate. Through its fabric as she tugged it over her head, she said, “I don’t care what you do with sardines. Nothing makes them edible.” She grabbed her shorts and clambered into them.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Now come on. I put the dinghy in the water so we can go ashore and pick blackberries.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Blackberries? Do they have anything to do with what you do with sardines?”
He grinned and shoved her ahead of him out the hatch and into the cockpit. “Only indirectly. Move it.”
“I think I’ll stick with pie for dinner,” Marian said some time later. She stood from bending to put the blackberry pie in the oven and brushed flour off her hands.
“Good little girls only get dessert if they eat up all their din-din,” he said loftily. “You’ll eat your rice and canned asparagus along with my magically transformed sardines, or you don’t get pie.”
Marian sat on the settee, pulled her feet up and folded her arms across her chest, watching Rolph as he filled a large pot with water and set it on top of the stove then lit the burner under it. “Canned asparagus is almost as bad as your ugly, oily little fishes,” she said. “But since I’m hungry, and you’re my host, I’ll make an exception and eat it. But only to be polite.”
He set a lid on the pot, then turned, hands on hips and grinned at her. “You’d better be more polite about those ‘ugly, oily little fishes’, or I might just refuse you even one tiny bite of the ambrosial transformation, my girl.”
“Suits me,” she said absently, hearing an echo of those words, ‘my girl’ as she watched him crouch to rummage in a locker. The last rays of the sun slanted in a porthole and bronzed his golden hair, glinting off the stubble of beard forming on his chin. His muscles moved and worked under his smooth, tanned skin of his back and shoulders, and she wanted to touch him but now that they were more-or-less dressed again, there was a hint of distance between them, not quite an awkwardness, but a reserve she had felt since she’d wakened the last time. Was she really Rolph’s girl? It was what she wanted to be more than anything in the world, but he had said he “had” to make love to her, as if he were compelled against his will, and that he wasn’t going to fall in love with her so that it wouldn’t hurt too badly when the whole affair burned itself out.
Yet, deep inside where her innermost feelings lay, was a conviction that he did love her. How could he have made love to her so sweetly, so tenderly, if he did not? And then she remembered: Wendell. Like she’d told Rolph, her husband had wanted her bank balance more than he’d wanted her; he’d just taken her to get the money he thought she was worth. So why had Rolph taken her? To get the sex he knew would be good? For a little illicit excitement because he was finding the search for his “long-term lady” a bit tedious at the moment?
“Hey, come on,” he said, snapping her out of her reverie. “Don’t look so sad. I didn’t mean it.”
She smiled at him and shrugged. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
He gave her a questioning look, but let it drop, only reaching out to tousle her hair. “On deck with you, wench,” he said, pulling her to her feet and encircling her with his arms. “The bow deck.” He half-released her to reach for the book she’d been trying to read only a few hours before and tucked it between her arm and her breasts. “Keep your nose buried in that. What I do to transmogrify those sardines is an old McKenzie family recipe and outsiders are never allowed to watch. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.” He kissed the tip of her nose, her chin and then, hard and fast, her mouth, leaving her heart hammering painfully in her chest.
“No peeking,” he ordered, shoving her toward the companionway. “Promise.”
She nodded, her throat too tight with an intense ache to form words, and slipped out.
She didn’t want to be an outsider. She wanted to be a loved and trusted member of the McKenzie family, the way Jeanie was. And, after “whatever this was”
finished “burning itself out” she didn’t want to have to stand back and smile like a good, old friend, while Rolph spent the rest of his life sharing Sunrise VII with somebody else.
She sat on the bow deck, facing forward, not reading the book on her lap, gaze roving along the outline of the long, low point that sheltered the bay from the restless swells outside, the dipping, wheeling gulls and a single bald eagle that soared in a high, constant circle above the boat. She refused to give into despair. Dammit, she had won a round at least. Rolph McKenzie was hers and she was not going to give him up.
Unless, of course, those sardines proved to be his favorite dish. Then, she might have to reconsider.
“All right, where are they?” Marian slid onto the settee and stared at her plate, on which lay a pile of rice beside several spears of asparagus covered with what looked suspiciously like cheese sauce. That made all the difference in the world. She could eat burned rope with cheese sauce. But of the despised little fishes, there was no sign.
Rolph grinned and flipped a tea towel open on her lap, in lieu of a napkin. He sat across from her and covered his own lap. “Right here,” he said, lifting the lid of the big pot and reaching in with another towel wrapped around his hand. With a flourish, he pulled out a large crab and set it on her plate so its bright orange pincers embraced the mound of rice. “I told you you wouldn’t recognize them.” He set another crab on his own plate.
“Oh, you rat, you,” she said, catching on. “Old family recipe indeed! You used a can of sardines to bait your crab trap.”
His grin broadened. “Works better than cat food. Besides, the sardines were free. A Norwegian client gave me a couple of cases.” He wrinkled his nose. “Personally, I can’t stand the ugly, oily little things.”
“Well,” she said, picking up one of the crab legs and snapping it free of the shell with a practiced twist of her wrist. “That’s one thing we have in common.”
“Only one?”
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