“Not—so—tightly!”
She just giggled. He grit his teeth. 44DFS was his baby; he should know the side effects if anyone should.
Still gasping, he hauled them both over the side of the Maggie Mae, and better situated his arms around her before starting for the forward cabin.
“You’re cute,” she told him, drawing her fingers down his cheek, seductively grazing his flesh with the tip of her nails.
“Thanks,” he muttered dryly. While he was looking at her, he slammed his head against the cabin door frame when he should have ducked beneath it.
“Ouch!” she murmured, snuggling closer.
Mike paused and inhaled deeply. Her body was very warm against his naked chest; her toes were dangling against his thighs. Her breasts, high and firm against the low edge of the bathing suit; were excruciatingly feminine. She might have only been about one hundred pounds, but damn, were those pounds disposed to the right places!
He groaned slightly, and wondered for the thousandth time just who in hell had flubbed up so badly.
“Ohhh … you’d be much, much cuter if you’d quit scowling!” she pouted, drawing a finger over his lip.
“Quit that!” Damned side effects! But that was what it was all about: studying the side effects of 44DFS, eliminating them. As a scientist, it was so important. But as a man, he was growing concerned that he wouldn’t last another minute, much less the whole night.
But 44DFS had been the driving factor in his life for over a decade now. Over a decade. Ever since Margo …
Mike hurried her past the roomy galley, by the dining table and the makeshift lab, and into the master’s cabin. Why the hell didn’t she just pass out cold, like the boy?
He knew the answer, of course. She had not received a direct shot of the stuff, as the boy had. The pellet had barely dispersed before the boy had appeared; it had received enough time to dilute before she had raced upon the scene.
And that’s why she was still clinging to him, her arms wrapped around him, her huge turquoise eyes wide on him.
“You’re very, very tired,” he told her.
Her eyes widened still further. “Oh, no, I’m not!” she protested dreamily.
“Dammit! You’ve had a good whiff of 44DFS, and that means you are totally agreeable and cannot argue with me!”
Her fingers roamed through his tawny hair, ruffling it at the forehead. “I certainly don’t want to argue with you!”
“Good. I’m putting you to bed. In twenty-four hours, you’ll be ready to hang me again.”
He laid her down upon the bunk, hoping he wasn’t going to give her pneumonia by leaving her in her wet suit.
“Aren’t you coming with me?” she queried.
He stared down at her, at the long red waves of hair splaying in a delicate web over the pillow, at the smooth line of her throat and the entrancing pools of her eyes.
He ground his teeth together; a hot shudder ripped through his body, and he was painfully aware that beneath his shorts his body was rigidly willing to comply with her request.
He’d had a few whiffs of the stuff himself—not that he would have needed it with such an invitation. He swore softly, pulling the covers high over her slender form.
She was his victim, and remembering her threats, he was convinced that she would never believe that he hadn’t been the one to involve her in the mix-up on the island. He was going to have a lawsuit on his hands. Not him maybe, but the U.S. government and the Navy.
But it would be his work exposed to public scrutiny and criticism, long before it could be perfected. And all because some jerk hadn’t done his job properly!
“Go to sleep,” he told her.
She smiled. A beautiful, sweet, and inadvertently sultry smile. Mike turned to leave her, swearing again.
He hurried back to the galley, and the chart table that flanked the sink and dryer. He was growing dizzier, and very, very tired. All he wanted to do was reach command, then take a cold, cold shower and sleep off the effects of his own drug. A nap should do it. Damn it all to hell! He’d sure need the sleep; by tomorrow night at the latest he’d be dealing with a righteously furious civilian.
Mike tapped into the radio.
“Go tell it to the Marines!” he muttered aloud, frowning then as he received nothing but static on his radio.
And that was another thing; damn the bureaucracy and red tape! This should have been left as a strictly naval venture! His liaisons should have been men he knew and trusted.
“Come in, 44DFS.”
He decided to cut the military crap right to the line. “I want to know who blew this thing!”
Static answered him; then, “I don’t read you, 44DFS.”
“Uninhabited island, eh? I’ve a woman and child on board.”
“That’s impossible, sir. We’ve the consent forms right here—”
“And I’ve got two victims right here!” Mike interrupted in a rage. “Give me the admiral—now!”
To his credit, Admiral Larson came directly to the radio. Mike realized later that he was an okay guy to sit there and take abuse as long as he did, then, to speak soothingly without drawing rank.
“As you know, Taylor, we can’t approach the vessel tonight. We’ll be there by eighteen hundred tomorrow. A woman and a boy? The island’s owner, and her son, I assume.”
Mike vaguely heard the rustle of papers.
“Katrina Denver, widow, twenty-seven years old. In possession of Rock Cay seven years, purchased by James Denver just before his death. Lives quietly; no known liaisons; votes, but attached strongly to neither political party. No criminal record; somewhat active in the Congregational church—life-style as clean as a whistle. Nicknamed the ‘Coral Princess’ by a number of the main islanders; well liked—”
“And not off the damn island when she was supposed to be!”
Larson was quiet. Mike realized that he was furious at the flub, too, yet he wasn’t the one with the victims on his hands. In his hand he had a nice sterile fact-sheet. The military had a complete dossier on her; they just hadn’t bothered to make sure she took her sweet rumpus off the island!
“We’ll handle the situation on the civilians. Our fault, Taylor. You just continue with your observations….”
Larson kept going; Mike opened his mouth to protest, then gave up. What observations? The whole thing was a mess now. She’d surely sue them. The media would have a heyday.
Wearily, he rubbed his temple, and let Larson try to assure him that the project could be kept classified.
Larson hadn’t met his petite little virago—a mother with a totally protective instinct for her son.
“Oh, hell!”
“What was that, Taylor?”
“Nothing. I need a drink.”
He didn’t even sign out; he just switched off the radio, and stood, swaying a bit. He needed to sleep. But he wanted a drink, and he didn’t give a damn about the effects of a whiff of 44DFS when combined with a good shot of Johnnie Walker Black!
He moved to the sink, reached beneath it to the counter, and found the Scotch. He didn’t bother with a glass; he just downed a long, long swallow, enough to burn his throat, although the fire in his throat didn’t compare with the fire he felt in the rest of his body.
He lifted the bottle in the air dramatically.
“Ah, Dr. Jekyll—meet Mr. Hyde! Tonight, sir, you are a victim of your own mad mind!”
But he wasn’t mad, and he damn well knew it. A dreamer or an idealist, maybe. He had learned all about the horrible effects of germ and chemical warfare. And so he’d begun work on a defensive gas that could combat numerous chemical and germ weapons: 44DFS. There were just side effects to it, and they had to be studied and eliminated. He was so close—and now this!
He screwed the cap back on the Scotch. So, her name was Katrina Denver. Well, the hell with the widow Denver.
Mike closed his eyes. He was seeing pink again. A nice cold shower might somehow relieve his tortured m
asculinity and remind him that he was a scientist tonight, not a hot-blooded man. Then he could lean back at the table and turn on the screens so that he could snooze and watch his unwilling subjects.
Mike reentered the forward sleeping cabin, silently observing Katrina Denver. She was still smiling very sweetly, but her eyes were closed, the covers were up to her throat, and she appeared as innocent as an angel.
He quietly reached into the drawer beneath the bunk and dug out a white terry robe. Seconds later he was standing beneath a spray of ice cold water, rubbing his hands over his face and feeling somewhat better, somewhat relieved. He closed his eyes, smiling suddenly as he wished himself anyplace but where he was. He knew that his sexual stirrings were only a side effect of the drug, but knowing it didn’t really change things.
Washington would be nice right now, he thought lazily. Late in the evening. Dinner with Tania. Lovely, warm, giving, totally uninhibited Tania. An independent career woman, one who enjoyed her relationships without clinging, who seemed to understand that his heart was buried. Mmmm. Tania would be just right at this moment. Sleek and naked and passionate and—
“What the—!”
His eyes popped opened and his body tensed as he spun to confront the intruder in his shower. He seized the small hands that were sliding along his ribs.
“Hi!” Katrina said sweetly.
“Oh, God!” Mike groaned.
Her eyes were luminous, sapphire, emerald, swimming with soft and guileless seduction. Her lips were curled into that wonderful, wistful smile. He froze. All that the cold water had done for him, the sight of her undid. She had shed her bathing suit somewhere; she was naked as a nymph and twice as provocative. Her hair flared about her like a siren’s temptation, and what little the teal maillot had hidden from him was displayed to him now. She was a full head smaller than he, slim, but proportioned. Her breasts were high and full and rounded; her nipples were the color of rich berries and were less than an inch from his chest. Her waist was tiny; his hands could span it. But then her hips flared out, and her rump was very femininely rounded and in a second he was going to give in to the temptation to cradle his hands there and discover their shape for himself.
She pulled her hands from his grasp and rested them against his chest just below his shoulders. “I was dreaming about you,” she whispered, and then she inched toward him. Her lips touched his chest and her belly came in contact with the hard rise of his manhood that he could no longer control.
“Oh, Lord,” Mike gasped out as her tongue, warm and sweet as heated honey, raked over his collarbone.
“I was missing you, and you came to me….”
“Oh, Lord!” Mike grated out. His pulse had taken on the beat of the shower, and the ice cold water seemed to steam. He was fire; he was throbbing, aching heat. She had moved against him, nipples raking his chest arousingly, sinuous body sliding along his, her kisses touching him; lower and lower, her whispers silken and sultry and yearning …
For another man!
The only thing that pierced the savage tempo of his own desire was the tone of her voice; something in it that hinted of a loss he knew. She had loved once, deeply. And with his drug he had conjured up an image of that love.
Grating his teeth together, he caught her shoulders. He drew her up, he forced her eyes to his. “No!” he yelled at her, shaking her roughly. “No! Listen to me, dammit. I’m not made of stone! This is a drug. You’re going to hate me—”
“I couldn’t possibly hate you,” she interrupted flatly. “I love you.”
“No, no, no!”
Exasperated, Mike turned off the water. Soaking wet, he lifted her into his arms, and returned her to her bunk. And then he grinned suddenly, looking down at her perfect form, still aching but now aware of the ironic humor of the situation. “Listen, honey, you glance at me, sideways when you’re not under the influence, and I’ll have you on your back beneath me so fast you’ll never know what hit you. That’s a promise. But for right now, you’ve got to go back to sleep.”
She smiled, and her eyes closed obediently.
For a moment he remained standing above her. He couldn’t totally resist temptation; absently, he stretched out a hand, feathering through the lush strands of hair that tangled in disarray over the pillow. And then his hand was moving again, over her cheek. It was soft. So soft. His knuckles grazed her breast, and then the pure sleek flesh of her abdomen. So delicate, so lovely …
“Arggh!”
Swearing against the stupidity of the clod who had put him in his present situation, Mike stamped back to the bathroom and snatched up his robe. It further irritated him to discover that not even the robe could hide his aroused physical state.
He tried to keep his eyes averted from her as he passed back through the cabin, but he couldn’t. And he realized that she might be cold. Moving carefully, he clenched his teeth and maneuvered her beneath the covers.
Please, God, he prayed silently, let her sleep the drug off this time!
He left her, carefully closing the door behind him. He reminded himself strictly that he was a scientist and switched on the lab monitors. The boy, he noted from the picture on the tiny screen, was very definitely out like a light.
And she … Katrina … was sleeping, too, now. As peacefully as an infant.
Mike sighed and decided on one final shot of Johnnie Walker Black. He deserved it. In fact, damn it, he would snooze with the bottle in his arms, for lack of something better.
He procured the bottle and situated himself in the booth that served as the dining table. With his back against the wall he could see the screens, snooze, and surely awake if there was sound or movement from them.
Mike took a sip of the Scotch. He capped it and set it on the varnished wood table. He leaned his head against the wall, closed his eyes, and saw a rush of pink fog.
He opened his eyes and gazed at the screens again. All appeared well; both mother and child were sleeping.
He closed his eyes again. The pink fog encompassed him.
Sleep took him to a place that was beautiful beyond bounds. The sun glowed softly, mingling with the clouds in swirls of crimson and gold. The clouds embraced him; they touched him with a gentle magic, with a tender peace. He was wandering through the clouds, just walking, as if on air. He could see his bare feet touch the floor, never faltering, for there was nothing to injure him in the clouds. He was smiling, and he could feel his smile, just as he could feel the ethereal caress of the clouds against his flesh. He walked naked and serene, knowing that the clouds were gentle, that they were magic.
There was only one disturbance; something that nagged at him, something that tried to reach him. Some thought. Some logical thought. Yet he felt that he was above it; if he didn’t allow the thought to pierce the clouds, then it could not, and he could continue to walk, feeling nothing but himself, his smile, his pride to be free and peaceful and strong and alive….
Something touched him. Something more vibrant than the clouds. Something that warmed and thrilled him, and made his blood race like molten lava through him. And there was sound, a whisper that cajoled him, that seduced him, that reminded him just as the touch did that he was a man….
“Come to bed, my love.”
To bed.
“Yes …”
And he was walking, but no longer alone. She was with him again; the magical pink clouds had brought her back.
“I have missed you so much.” The words tore from his throat, touched with joy, touched with agony. There had been many other women, but none who could still the longing, the pain.
She answered with a strangled little cry of her own. “Oh, yes, I’ve missed you. It’s been so long … and I’ve needed you, and it’s been so, so hard to live alone.”
She was with him. Standing before him. Touching him, her small hands on his shoulders, her eyes, brimming with tears, locked to his. He grinned crookedly; her eyes were blue. The pink fog had given them a touch of sea-green.
> He cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her. Tasted the salt tears on her lips. Sampled their delightful texture. Gently, gently, tenderly, with love …
And then it was as if a rush enveloped him, a flood tide of desire. His arms swept around her feverishly; he crushed her length to his, cradling the firm, rounded flesh of her buttocks, lifting her slightly, lifting her to rub her body against the potency of his desire. With hunger he swirled his tongue into her mouth, savoring the sweetness, alive with the tempest of need. She whimpered slightly, but welcomed him, wrapping her arms around him, her fingers playing in the hair at his nape, nails digging into his shoulder at the force of him against her.
He was vital, about to explode. Desperate to love her before she disappeared, yet determined to love her so that she could never forget.
He broke the kiss, allowing her toes to slide back to the floor. Gently he touched her cheeks, and her shoulders. And he bent his head to plant kisses there, to nip lightly at her flesh, to let her feel the graze of his teeth and the moist caress of his tongue. She gasped softly, clinging to his shoulders, and he grinned, the fire inside him growing in heat and wonder with each sweet moan that escaped her throat, telling him of her own need. Her breasts, dear God, how long had it been since he had touched her breasts? He held them, loved them with his hands. Touched one nipple first with a flick of his tongue, suckled the other, tugging at it, savoring the feel and texture in his mouth.
“Ohhhh!” Her teeth, small, delicate, dug tenderly into his shoulders. Her nails skated over his back, raked his buttocks. Each touch brought his heartbeat quicker, the pulse inside him stronger. The need, the hunger, was dizzying. Erotic, wonderful. Stronger than anything he had known in his life. He wanted to lay her out flat and drive into her, to be shielded in her giving warmth, to have all of her with all of him.
“Oh, please …” she gasped out.
He fell to his knees, and the tip of his tongue laved her navel with moist passion. She shook and trembled, and begged him to come to her again. He stroked her thighs and touched them with the heat of his kiss. He slipped his hand between them, enjoying the satin texture of her flesh, questing the heart of her passion, thrilling to the soft cries and moans that shook her. He gripped her hips, holding her still to his hunger and her own, and caressed her with the intimate, intimate heat of his tongue until she gasped out a strangled cry, stiffened and arced like a pagan goddess, and like that goddess, released sweet nectars of love.
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