Florida Knight (34 page)

But only for a guilty moment. She was here because there wasn’t any other place in the entire world she would rather be. She was here because Michael was here. Because having fun wasn’t a sin.

Kate stumbled, nimbly retaining her balance as one foot strayed into a hole dug by an overzealous sharks’ tooth hunter. Her kite dipped, swooped, soared back into the sky. If she’d been paying attention to what she was doing instead of thinking about sin . . .

Kate checked Michael’s kite. He was ahead of her and well upshore on the broad beach, the long tail on his diamond kite whipping the air at least thirty feet higher than her shark. Of necessity, he kept his distance so their lines wouldn’t tangle. But when they left the beach . . . ah, yes, when they left, Kate strongly suspected Michael had further plans. There was just something about him today . . . an aura of power. What was the old expression? An iron fist in a velvet glove. Michael was a keeper of secrets. A man ever-so-slightly smug, pleased with himself. Michael had
plans
. Kate was certain of it.

Far above, the shark’s sleek black body rippled in the wind, sharp white teeth in the wide-open jaw gleamed in the sun.
The better to eat you with, my dear.

The day cooled rapidly as the sun sank toward the horizon, far out where the azure of the gulf met the blue of the sky. Kites abandoned, Kate and Michael lay side by side on the beach blanket, attempting to be lazy. Not easy for two people who didn’t know the meaning of the word. And who were far too aware of each other to relax. Michael groaned. They were so close they were practically joined at the hip. His nerves were dancing over hot coals. As an FHP officer, he wasn’t supposed to have nerves, but he was off-duty and knocked ass-over-backwards by this woman who was so close, yet so far away. If he just had some magical can opener to pry away the layers of armor she’d built up over the years. Or some of Mark’s charm? Or more patience? Some knowledge, however tiny, of humble supplication. Instead, the best he could manage was a classic maneuver to get her back to the condo. He’d have to wing it from there.

“Time to call it a day?” Michael asked. “I think there’s a pizza with my name on it out there somewhere.”

Kate’s head, which had been resting on her arms, shot up off the blanket. “How can you possibly be hungry after all that food?”

“I’m a big boy. I need lots of fuel.” He couldn’t very well admit his hunger was of a differe
nt sort. He hauled out his cell
phone. “We can order, then pick it up on the way back to the condo.”

So that was it!
Kate reburied her face in her arms, closed her eyes. She should insist on eating out, then have him take her straight home. A thought she recognized as ridiculous the moment it crossed her mind. The self-righteous mouthings of a woman running scared. A woman who clung from habit to archaic reasoning that was no longer comfortable or even sound. She was ready to move on in her life, and Michael was the gate she had to go through to get there. Perhaps . . . very likely . . . the only gate. The only opportunity she would ever have to be something more than she was at the moment. She’d gone seven years without taking a chance. After Michael there could be another seven years. Or never.

But what if she couldn’t? What if she failed?

She very well might. In spite of the sun’s great red glow low in the western sky, Kate’s day had faded to gray. Was it the thought of sex or the thought of failure that had her stomach rebelling, knotting into coils of pain?

Would Michael forgive her if she failed?

There was only one way to find out.

“So order the pizza.” Kate tossed the words at Michael like a bullet.
Real romantic, Lady Knight. What a winner the poor man’s got.

Chapter 20

Kate tucked the heavy cardboard lid into the pizza box and headed for Michael’s refrigerator. In spite of his assertions about being hungry, he hadn’t eaten much. Neither had she. Kate gaped at the inside of the fridge. From the looks of it, Michael never ate at all. She stowed the pizza leftovers on a nearly empty shelf, sneaked a peek in his freezer compartment. It, she discovered, was crammed full of convenience food. Evidently, Michael’s culinary skills were solely centered around mastery of the microwave. And knowing how to find his way to his mother’s table. Old-fashioned, that’s what the man was. Or simply expedient. Why spend time and dirty a lot of dishes cooking for one? She understood that concept all too well.

Kate heard a footstep and slammed the freezer door, feeling unaccountably guilty. “I hope you’re not the type who eats cold pizza for breakfast,” she declared as Michael came through the kitchen door. Behind him, the exotic sound of an old Enigma CD filled the condo with a new beat. Gone was the soft sad wail of Enya which had accompanied supper. Strange, Kate thought, but liking the same kinds of music was perhaps all she and Michael had in common.

She recognized the message signaled by the music’s change of pace. Not that she hadn’t expected it, but somehow she’d managed to postpone the moment, chewing slowly, making desultory small talk. Fooling herself into thinking that if she could put it off long enough, she’d have an excuse to ask Michael to take her home. She had a costume to finish, she had to be at work early, she didn’t feel well . . .

“Come sit and talk to me,” Michael said, holding out his hand.

Kate’s chin firmed into a straight line, her feet rooted to the floor. “I
have
been talking to you. For hours.”

“Then come and kiss me,” Michael challenged, black eyes flashing, defying her fears. His message was clear:
you want it, I want it. We’ve pussy-footed around this thing for weeks now. It’s time, Kate Knight. I dare you.
He stood there, all six feet two inches of him, arrogant, proud, holding out his hand.

Damn your eyes, Michael Turco. Just when I’d begun to think you were gentle, kind, patient, understanding . . .

He wanted her to live again, she knew that. To be the woman she was supposed to be before she met Taggart Parrish, the southern gentleman with a short temper and big fists. She’d come a long way toward independence since then. But the only way she could handle men was on the lyst field. One-on-one in a man’s apartment, she metamorphosed into a timid little rabbit caught in the glare of the hunter’s spotlight. She could neither run nor reach out her hand. She wanted to change her life . . . yet she couldn’t raise her hand, take that step forward.
Kate, you coward, you’ve ruined it!
Inside herself, she shriveled, fe
e
l
ing
herself contracting into nothingness, becoming invisible. Disappearing from Michael’s life, her gate into a beckoning new world vanishing before her eyes.

“Okay,” Michael asked, “are you going to knock my block off if
I
kiss
you
?”

Kate tried twice to get words past her lips. Nothing more than a raspy sigh came out. “I don’t know,” she finally managed, honest to the last.

“I guess I’m tough enough to chance it,” Michael ventured. Still, he didn’t move, eyeing her cautiously as if weighing his chances against an opponent on the lyst field.

Kate discovered she didn’t care for the analogy. Combat was what she’d had with Tag. It was the last thing she needed with Michael. It was, of course, all her fault. She was the belligerent one. She was the one overcome by ancient fears, giving a perfectly good man a hard time.

She was also Catriona MacDuff, a knight for the
Kingdom
of
Florida
, a warrior who could handle anything the world sent her way. Including Lieutenant Michael Turco of the
Florida Highway
Patrol.

Her whole body trembled as she willed her feet to move. Grabbing Michael behind the head, Kate pressed her lips to hers. She was doing it all wrong. It had been so long . . . she’d never actually kissed a man first. She was making a fool of herself . . .

Michael hesitated all of eight seconds. He almost counted aloud, experiencing the infinitely drawn-out time a bull rider must feel while riding a volcano’s back.
Oh, hell!
His arms snaked around her. He bent his head into her kiss, all the time telling himself he had to let go the moment she balked, drew back, so much as tried to wiggle away. This was where he had to find a damn-sight more wisdom and patience than he’d ever had before in his life.

Gradually, Kate’s lips softened from challenge to what Michael could only hope was pleasure. Her body sank into his, one hand still pressing against the back of his neck, the other creeping around his waist, up under his T-shirt . . . His warrior princess was delivering the best damn kiss he’d ever had. What had seemed like an impossible citadel to breech had dissolved into a conflagration that warmed his heart and inflamed his soul. Michael’s knees almost buckled. Was this surrender? Or was Kate playing with him? His sex was so hard, she couldn’t help but notice. Would she bolt and run?

Not his Kate. She played fair. She wouldn’t accept a challenge, then run away.

Or would she? Maybe this was all an experiment to see if she still knew how.

Michael groaned, spinning Kate around until her back was against the door frame. “You’re not going to back out on me, are you?” he demanded, his lips just far enough from hers so he could get the words out.

“I don’t . . . think so,” Kate murmured. She could see the lines around his eyes, the crinkles in his bronzed forehead. Badges of experience etched forever into features too strong and rough-cut to ever be handsome. But Michael was far more. His looks were striking, and she was beginning to suspect
he
had a beautiful soul. Any barriers between them were solely her own.

A wavering
I don’t-think-so
. Michael winced. Then again, it was better than a sudden run for the door.
Finesse, Turco! No strong-arm tactics. Patience, dammit, patience!
He leaned forward, pushed aside a few wisps of blond hair, brushed his lips over her ear. “Remember that oil I bought at the fair in
Largo
?” he whispered.

“Um-m-m?” The sheer pleasure of Michael’s warm breath in her ear almost convinced Kate she was going to make it.

“Let’s try it out.” His voice husky, seductive.

Kate struggled for rational thought. She’d made such a terrible mistake with Tag, she had to consider every angle. When Michael had bought the oil, she’d been certain he planned to use it on some other woman.

Maybe he had.

Okay, she’d been jealous, proprietary. Just because she cared didn’t mean Michael was everything he appeared to be.

“Come on,” he murmured on another surge of mind-numbing breath, “I bought it for you. That poor bottle’s getting positively lonely.”

Kate jerked her head away. Michael probably thought she was chickening out when all she was doing was hiding her crumpling face.
Damn the man!
He was too good to be true. How could he possibly want a great big ox like herself?

She couldn’t say
yes
, her mouth wouldn’t move. She couldn’t even nod. Seven years of abstinence was a hard habit to break. And yet . . . if she didn’t accept Michael’s offer, didn’t give them both a chance, she deserved to be listed by Guinness as the greatest idiot of all time.

And yet she couldn’t give in gracefully. She was too much the warrior to admit the idea of Michael touching her, spreading sweet-scented oil over . . . over all of her weakened her knees, turning both mind and heart to liquid fire.

Warriors kept fighting, Kate reminded herself, even when grievously wounded. She might not be able to reply in any expected form, but there
was
something she could do. Her feet obeyed her command to move. Head up, shoulders back, she marched toward Michael’s bedroom.

As he watched, torn between astonishment and triumph, Michael could only wish she didn’t so closely resemble a French aristocrat on the way to the guillotine. Was he supposed to follow on her heels? Wait respectfully, like some Victorian bridegroom, while she did whatever females did before . . .

Hell, no! She might change her mind.

Michael paused in the doorway as Kate allowed a pair of satiny pink panties to slip down over her thighs. Deftly, she caught them on her foot, tossed them up into her hand. They joined the rest of her clothes, which were in a neat pile on top of his dresser. He surveyed the long length of her back and legs, the firm rounded buttocks with the starved intensity of a man who had never seen a naked female before. Kate pulled the elastic band from her
ponytail
, shook out her waves of silver blond hair. Michael swallowed hard, took a grip on the doorframe, squeezed until his knuckles turned white. This was not the moment to turn into a horny old goat. He had a game plan. He had to remember it, no matter how much he suffered.

With her back still toward him—and of course she knew he was there—Kate pulled back the bedcovers and climbed in. Sliding to the far side of the bed, she turned on her side, facing away from him, and pulled the covers up to her chin. Michael couldn’t decide if he wanted to make love to her or wring her neck. A difficult woman, Kate Knight. Then again, he supposed a lot of men had encountered worse, even on their wedding nights. Even from willing brides. Or at least that’s what he’d heard.