by Liz Fielding
‘Well?’ he murmured, when he had finally made any point she’d care to think of, and quite a few she’d never even considered until now. ‘Shall we continue this somewhere less public, or shall we swim?’
Melanie froze. Why on earth did he have to ask? Didn’t he know? Did he expect her say “carry me to the nearest cave, strip me naked and make a woman of me, darling”? It was like being asked by a boy if he could kiss you. Only a hundred times worse. And there could only ever be one answer. ‘Go to hell, Jack Wolfe,’ she said.
‘All in good time, sweetheart,’ Jack said.
And he laughed.
The sound was like something strange, unreal. When had he last laughed out loud, for sheer happiness? Too long ago. She might be playing some deep and devious game, but there was nothing cold or calculating about Miss Melanie Devlin.
Calculating would have seized its opportunity.
Calculating would have given him the green light.
Calculating would not have sent him to hell but would have said, “Let’s get out of here, fast...”
It was plain now that Melanie was working on a purely emotional level. What was happening between them had nothing to do with takeovers, or commercial espionage, or anything he gave a damn about right now. She had wanted him. Even the most experienced seductress could not pretend that kind of arousal.
Melanie didn’t know enough to pretend anything. But it hadn’t been her all too obvious desire that had convinced him. It had been her eyes.
Her beautiful eyes had smoked with anger that he could have been so insensitive.
He laughed.
Melanie couldn’t believe it. He had been leading her on, tormenting her, driving her crazy - she ducked out of his arms and kicked away from him. But not fast enough. Not even with the flippers.
He was still laughing as she righted herself, spluttering with rage from her second dunking. ‘I know, I know,’ he said, quickly as she opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of him. ‘Hell. In a handcart no doubt. But first I have to give you a snorkelling lesson. Or have you changed your mind about that, too?’
She was speechless, utterly speechless.
‘Right, since you’ve obviously made your mind up, shall we begin?’ And without waiting for her reply, he proceeded to demonstrate the use of the snorkel and mask calm as you like; as if the earth hadn’t just moved; as if a tidal wave of emotion hadn’t just swept her off her feet; as if kissing someone like that was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to get out of breath about. Well, maybe for him it wasn’t. ‘Now, have you got that?’ he asked, glancing up.
She was staring at him as if he was a being from another planet and he discovered that the urge to kiss her again was almost overwhelming. But making love on a beach was for masochists.
An hour ago he wouldn’t have cared.
Now he wanted it to be a pleasure, for both of them. First they would swim and afterwards they would shower together and use that bed for the purpose it had been intended. It would, he knew, be worth the wait.
‘Melanie?’ he prompted.
‘Yes,’ she said, dragging her mind back to the task at hand. ‘I think so.’
‘Try it, let me see.’ Cool as a cucumber? Oh, no. Not a cucumber. More like a great big prize-winning marrow.
Well, she’d do her best to respond in kind. Except that as she lowered her face beneath the surface trying to remember everything he’d said about breathing through her mouth and not all the other things she would rather be doing with it right then, he placed his hand at her waist, keeping her at his side in case she got into difficulties.
But the snorkel was the least of her worries. All her difficulties involved far simpler things, like the way her leg would keep brushing against his, the way that he held her so that his hip and thigh pressed against hers. Considering that simply remembering to breath was something of a problem, the snorkel was a doddle.
And then, while she was still trying to work out what exactly was going on between them, he used his other hand to take hold of hers and lead her out into deeper water. As if she wasn’t already dangerously out of her depth.
At least the fish were a diversion. Jack led her around the deep pools created by the huge rocks, startling shoals of brightly coloured fishes that turned and flashed and then crowded round them curiously.
The sea was mysterious and cool and beautiful. Another world, but she was scarcely aware of it. All her senses were concentrated on those small portions of it where Jack’s fingers curled around her waist and her hand, anchoring her to him.
She dared a glance at him and behind his mask he might have been smiling, or he might not. Why was it so difficult? Why did men and women play these games when the rest of the animal kingdom seemed to have the whole sex thing down to fine art.
They swam into a shoal of vivid blue and yellow parrot fish that for a little while stayed to explore these strange new beings and before she knew it Melanie was staring cross-eyed at one of the fishes peering in at her face mask as if she were the one in the gold-fish bowl.
She caught Jack’s eye and she could see he was thinking the same thing and suddenly there was no doubt that he was smiling at her, or that she was smiling back.
For a while they drifted over starfish and crabs scuttling over the sand and then Jack tapped the stainless steel watch strapped to his wrist and turned them back towards the shore, but instead of heading for the sand, he released her waist and leading her by the hand, headed into a gap between the rocks, where they had tumbled to form sea-caves. Melanie grasped his hand nervously, hating to be in dark, enclosed spaces, but these caves were not like that. They weren’t dark. Inside, the sunlight seeped through the gaps in the roof to lend a translucent green light that rippled the surface of the water and reflected back against the roof.
‘Wow,’ she said, as she pulled off her mask, her voice echoing in the dim cavern. ‘This is beautiful.’
‘I thought you might like it.’ He tugged off his flippers and tossed them with his mask onto the small bar of sand where the beach had been sucked through the rocks. ‘Here hop up and I’ll take those things off your feet.’
Melanie hauled herself onto a small boulder that protruded from the water, offering each foot in turn while she raked her fingers through her hair, pushing it back off her face.
Jack looked up and suddenly he was very still. ‘All you need is a shell comb, Melanie,’ he said, he words echoing softly off the rocks. ‘Then, you’d look like a proper mermaid.’
She too was still. ‘There’s nothing proper about mermaids, Jack. They sing strange songs and lure sailors to their doom ...’
‘I remember. You said that you were overdressed for the part.’
Her heart was hammering now. ‘I am.’
His eyes were dark, shadowed as he straightened. ‘Why don’t you show me?’
‘Are you quite sure you’re prepared to take the risk? Once you’ve heard the mermaid singing -’Softly, she began to sing an old folk song from the Auvergne; the strange acoustics of the caves picking up the lilting melody lent it an awesome mystery and as Jack stared at her mesmerised by the sudden realisation of what she was going to do, Mel reached up and pulled at the bow fastening her bikini at the neck.
It was like holding an audience in the palm of your hand, she thought, that magic moment when a thousand people held their breath as one and waited for permission to breathe again.
She flipped the clasp that held the top in place and then, after a pause that seemed to last forever, she lowered her lashes and let it go. It dropped away from her, catching momentarily on the rock before slipping into the water and drifting away.
Still, it seemed, he was waiting. So Melanie raised her arms and as she pushed her fingers through her hair a soft expletive finally escaped Jack’s lips.
She stopped singing but the notes seemed to echo on and on as she remained poised, waiting, on the rock, her arms akimbo, the small, dark buds of her breasts pout
ing with anticipation beneath his stunned gaze.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper.
She raised her lashes then and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘Does it matter?’
Jack Wolfe felt desire explode within him. Nothing mattered. Nothing but this moment. Nothing but Melanie Devlin sitting in a shaft of sunlight that shimmered over her hair and turned her wet skin to liquid gold. She could have been anything. Siren. Mermaid. A magical creature who had woken him, like some enchanted princess from a deep torpor of the spirit to fill his being with a forgotten longing.
A desperate need to hold her, to feel her arms about him finally shattered the ice cage of his heart and sent him surging towards her, driving out the last vestige of concern about motive or intrigue. She was his saviour, not his enemy.
He reached out to her and she came into his arms with a little sigh, a shiver of anticipation and as he lifted her from the rock she uncurled herself and slid down him, wrapping her arms about his neck as she kissed him with a boldness that lent a fierce urgency to his need.
He sensed the change in her, the utter bonelessness of her body as she moulded herself against him, her breasts flattening against his chest, her belly hard against the surging heat in his loins. This was no uncertain flirtation with danger. She wanted this as much as he did and by taking the lead she was showing him how much.
Melanie’s lips deserted his mouth and although he made a move to recapture her, set off on a tour of exploration that promised to make a man feel like a god.
She nuzzled the tender skin beneath his chin, drawing an involuntary sound from deep in his throat. She lapped the hollow at the base of his throat like a hungry kitten before her tongue slid along his collar bone, nipping at his skin. There was something animal about the way she seemed to be tasting him and he groaned her name as she slid lower, seeking his nipple, teasing it to hardness with the tip of her tongue, her own nipples hard and thrusting against his stomach, her hands sliding over his back, fingers wide and eager against his flesh.
‘Melanie, sweetheart,’ he murmured, dropping to his knees, so that the sea lapped around his thighs, cooling his heat.
Circling her waist with his hands he drew her to him, kissing the soft swell of her stomach, tasting the salt drying on her skin. His tongue eased slowly along the line of her bikini and she whimpered softly, letting her head fall back, offering herself to him and with a kind of wonder, he slipped his hands inside the white cloth of her bikini and eased it down her legs, lifting each foot in turn so he could remove it, wanting her entirely naked, entirely his. Every part of her.
He devoured her with his eyes, his hands, his mouth, stroking the smooth white skin of her thighs with the tips of his fingers, trailing them with his lips until the seaweed scent of the sea was obliterated by the sweet muskiness of her desire and he dipped his tongue into the honey pot, drawn irresistibly by the dizzying, addictive essence of her.
There was a shuddering, ragged intake of air as she fought for breath and he looked up. But she didn’t want him to stop. Her eyes were glazed with something beyond desire, something new and undreamt of.
New.
Before the realisation hit him, before he could begin to think about what that might mean, she slithered down into his arms and wrapping her arms about him, she kissed him again.
Her tongue was demanding, insistent now, driving everything else from his head and as he matched her growing ardour she began to push frantically at the cloth of his swimsuit, her hand boldly seeking the rearing, almost painfully intense arousal that she had provoked, an arousal that it seemed no amount of cold water could extinguish. And as her fingers found him, held him, it was his turn to gasp.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JACK knew they should move - get out of there and back to the cottage. He tried to pull away from her, tell her, but even as he attempted to frame the words Melanie covered his mouth with hers once more and the languorous exploration of her tongue, hot and slow and deep, took him far beyond any capacity for rational thought.
She was a siren and her song had captured his heart even as it set him free.
Despite his experience and her lack of it, it was Melanie who led the way, lying back in the water, her hair fanning out around her face as she drifted back towards the sandbank. ‘Make love with me, Jack,’ she murmured and lifted her arms to him in invitation. And like the sirens of myth, he had no defence against such sweet temptation.
He went to her arms and held her, kissed her, made sweet love with her knowing that for Melanie it was new, special. Despite the clamouring in his loins he held himself in check, wanting to give more than to take.
The slow and tender exploration of her body reawakened forgotten needs, lost desires so that he too trembled, weak with desire so that when she whimpered softly into his mouth, ‘Now, Jack. Please…’ the fragile control snapped and he came into her with a fierce passion that seemed as new for him as it was for her. And when they finally soared together in that meteoric oblivion of pleasure, it was for him too, as if it was the very first time, so that he felt reborn, remade, full of wonder.
Afterwards, when he opened his eyes and looked down at her, he saw that her eyes were luminous, reflecting the green light of the sea, shimmering with more than their silken beauty. And as he bent to kiss them he tasted the salt of tears on her lids. But she was smiling, too. Tears of joy, then?
He rolled onto his back, pulling her down onto his chest, stroking the damp hair back from her face as it lay against his heart.
‘Thank you,’ he said, scarcely able to form the words, so deep was his gratitude.
She raised her head to look down, her own smile catlike in its satisfaction. ‘It was entirely my pleasure,’ she assured him, huskily.
‘Not entirely, I can promise you.’ He thumbed away the tears that she seemed unaware of, touched her mouth and as her lips parted to his fingers, her tongue lapping each one in turn, he felt invincible, god-like. ‘Was it worth waiting for?’ he asked.
‘I think so.’ She looked at him seriously.
‘You’re not sure?’ For a heartbeat he felt the sudden gripe of uncertainty and then, as he saw her teasing smile, a deeper, more compelling need for her bucked through him. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to be left in any doubt, my love. You only have to say the word-’
‘And what is the word?’
It was his turn to smile. ‘You get three guesses, sweetheart.’
‘And if I don’t get it right?’
‘I disappear in a puff of smoke.’
‘Is that so?’ Melanie enquired, thoughtfully. ‘Well, I’d better be careful not to make a mistake.’ Apparently deep in thought, her fingers began to stray, absently sliding through the rough, dark hair that shadowed his chest, her thumb tip brushing against the flat tip of his nipple, extracting an involuntary groan. She raised herself a little so that her breasts brushed against him. ‘Did you say something?’
‘No,’ he gasped.
She ran her hands more purposefully over his chest. ‘Sure?’ And when he didn’t answer she let the tips of her nails slide across the taut plane of his belly so that he had to bite his lip to keep from yelling out loud with pleasure. He wanted to see how far she would take her game, how long he could hold out against it. ‘I thought you might be cold.’ Before he could answer she sat up, straddling him with her legs so that her buttocks nudged against the growing heat of his manhood. She looked back over her shoulder and then turned to face him, a small smile deepening the dimple at the corner of her mouth. ‘No, definitely not cold.’
‘Mel...’ She eased herself back, lifting herself over him, taking care not to touch the evidence of his need for her. Then slowly, she lowered her head to swirl the tip of her tongue around his navel. ‘Please...’ he moaned, louder now, and she lifted her lashes to look up at him as her tongue began to slide down across his abdomen, until the word became a growl.
Slowly she raised he
r head. ‘Please?’ she enquired.
‘Yes,’ Jack begged. ‘Please.’ And without waiting for her to register her triumph, he grasped her around the waist, holding her above him for a moment when their eyes said all the things that were beyond words before, slowly lowering her onto him.
‘Yes,’ she moaned, and then laughed softly. ‘Yes, please.’
Afterwards they swam naked in the clear, sun-spangled water, touching each other, holding each other, not wanting to leave the magic, knowing that outside, in the brilliant sunshine, it wouldn’t be quite the same. But it couldn’t last forever. Clinging to Jack, holding onto him as if he was the rock at the centre of her being, Melanie laid her head against his chest.
‘If I don’t get out of here soon, Jack, I really will become a mermaid.’
‘I thought you already were,’ he murmured, nuzzling her cheek.
‘A very wrinkly mermaid. Pickled in brine.’
‘A cold one at any rate,’ he said, holding her, reluctant to let her go. But she was cold, they had been in the water far too long. Well, warming up would be another pleasure to share. They would go back to the cottage, take a warm shower together, send for lunch and eat it in bed.
He gathered her bikini and handed it to her, lending his shoulder as she steadied herself to put it back on and trying not to dwell on the way the water and sun reflected on her skin, the way that she had felt against him.
If he started thinking about that, they’d never get out of the cave. He turned away as she fastened her top, tugging on his own swimsuit.
‘How do we get out of here?’ Melanie asked, when she’d finally managed the clasp. ‘Do we have to swim back to the beach?’
‘No. No more swimming. We can walk through here.’ He extended his hand and they splashed through the light-barred caves, gathering their snorkelling gear as they went.
