Queen For A Night (6 page)

Caroline was rubbing her stiff arms and watching the door with wide eyes when Ross reappeared. “Don't tell me,” she said, “let me guess. We’re grounded.”

He gave a quick, hard nod as he slicked water from his face and arms. “It seemed best to park her until things die down. The water took out our navigation. We’ll have to find the mouth of the bayou by sight.”

“Park her? You mean—you don’t mean you grounded her on purpose?”

“It’s nothing we can’t get out of when the time comes.”

“And when will that be?”

He shrugged, his features solemn though wry humor gleamed behind the shields of his lashes. “Who knows?”

“So we won't be back before midnight after all.”

He actually smiled. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Who,” she asked in dry disbelief, “is safe?”

He watched her, his eyes dark blue in the dim glow given off by the battery-operated lights. But he didn't answer.

If Caroline had entertained, even for an instant, the idea of huddling with Ross for the sake of warmth created by body heat, she soon abandoned it. The boat had every comfort, from central heat powered by the generator he cranked up and a hot shower to remove the stickiness of salt water from their skins and hair to a hot drink to take the chill from their bones. Ross even produced a white terry bathrobe for her and an extra pair of jeans for himself.

The rum toddy he had made by pouring a stiff shot of rum into steaming, honey-sweetened lemonade was definitely warming. It was reviving as well; she could feel its sweet potency drifting along her veins, taking the knots of tension from her muscles, soothing the tangle of doubts and fears inside her.

She stretched her arm muscles that were stiff and a little sore from holding the mattress, then pushed her fingers through the damp mass of her hair. The words tentative, she said, “I don't suppose you have a hair dryer stashed away somewhere?”

He lifted a brow, watching her where she leaned against a cushion on the sofa in the dry lower sitting area. “Sorry. That's something I seldom use.”

He certainly didn't need it; his crisp, black hair was already dry. At the peak in the center of his forehead, it had sprung free from its rigorously combed waves to form a curl that softened his face, giving him a certain boyish appeal.

There was nothing boyish about his wide, sun-darkened shoulders covered only by the towel slung around his neck, nor the way his well-worn, blue-white jeans rode low across the flat expanse of his abdomen. His tan line, visible just below the waist of those jeans, indicated going shirtless while on the boat was a comfortable habit. Lounging beside her, resting his mug of hot toddy on the well-defined muscle of one thigh, he exuded unconscious power and pure masculinity.

Sensing it, Caroline felt the stir of some suppressed, half-forgotten yearning. It made her uncomfortable and more than a little wary.

She tipped her head toward the cabinet doors that stood open beneath the instrument console on the upper deck. “You said the navigation was on the fritz. Did the water damage the rest of the wiring?”

“I dried out everything while you were showering, and it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. We might even regain the navigation if we’re lucky. You worried the engines won't start up again?”

It had certainly crossed her mind. “It's a long walk, and I don't do too well upon water.”

“No? Guess I’ll have to carry you.”

She had to laugh, in spite of the brief shiver caused by that image. “You being a regular worker of miracles?”

“I got us this far, didn’t I?”

“So you did, though there was a minute or two when I wondered.”

“Couldn’t let anything happen to you. Tony would kill me.”

“Whatever the reason, I thank you.”

“My pleasure.” There was a deeper note beneath the humor in his voice. His gaze was intent as he rested it on her lips, then lowered it to the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat.

Caroline lifted a hand to the neckline of the oversized robe she wore, gathering the excess material closer.

“Don't panic,” he said as he settled further down on the sofa, closing his eyes as he rested his head against the back. “You’re as safe from me as you are from the storm.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a relief.”

“I thought it might be. You should know I'm long past grabbing at females. Any move I put on you would be nice and easy, the kind you can see coming from miles away.”

“And here I was wondering if running aground wasn't the yachtsman's equivalent of running out of gas.” The toddy was, just possibly, stronger than she had thought. It wasn't like her to speak her thoughts as they crossed her mind.

He opened one eye. “You think I should have tried to make it back to the dock?”

“Maybe.”

“I might have if I had been alone. Risking your neck didn't seem like a good idea.”

“You could have asked me.” She gave him a darkling look.

“I was responsible, so I made the decision. Next time I'm on your boat you can decide.”

“That’s not happening,” she said pointedly.

His gaze widened, one brow lifting in inquiry. “No? “

“In the first place, I don’t have a boat. In the second—”

“You think I ran my boat aground, risked tearing the bottom out of her on a piece of old wreck or a stray piling, for a little hanky-panky? If that's what I had in mind, I could have arranged things better, I promise you. A dry mattress and sheets on the cuddy cabin bed, for instance.”

“And I was so scared.” The words were tart.

He shifted, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankle, settling his mug squarely on his navel and centering his attention on it. “Yeah, I know.”

“Uncle Tony again, I suppose.”

“He said a thing or two. I listened.”

“He and I are going to have a serious talk.” She considered him with a distinct rise in her level of irritation. What she minded was not so much the loss of privacy as the fact that Ross knew more about her than she expected.

“It's no business of mine. But Tony is concerned about you.”

“He needn't be. I'm fine.”

“Are you?” he asked, shifting his head on the sofa back to watch her. “Bruises heal on the outside but not, sometimes, on the inside.”

“I'm not afraid of men, if that's what you think,” she said clearly.

“Not even a little? It would be natural enough.”

Caroline met his gaze a long moment. She preferred not to talk about her ex-husband or her marriage, but it seemed important, just now, that there be no misunderstanding. She said, “I'm not sure what Uncle Tony told you, but Louis wasn't always violent. He only hit me with his fists once, when I told him I was leaving him.”

“You don’t count shoving you around or pulling your hair as violence?”

“In any war of words, he was pretty much unarmed. That was his answer.”

“So you’re defending him because he only put you in the hospital that one time?”

“I'm not defending him at all, just trying to tell you how it was. Hitting me was his worst mistake. Maybe he thought it would frighten me into staying, I don't know—though why a man would want a woman to stay with him out of fear is a mystery to me. Instead, it made me see it was really over.”

“About damned time.”

She ignored that muttered comment. “But it didn't change who and what I am or how I feel about myself. I'm not afraid of men in general, and I'm certainly not afraid of you.”

“Aren't you now?” There was a definite arch in one dark brow.

“Being a little nervous in a situation like this isn't the same as being afraid.”

“So you do admit to nervous?”

She gave him a sour look while trying to ignore the warmth that flared across her face.

The blue of his eyes darkened. The movement deliberate and unhurried, he reached with one hand to touch a knuckle to her cheek, brushing gently across the point of most intense heat. The contact felt as if an electrical circuit had been completed, its power switching on with a low hum inside her. She steeled herself not to flinch, not to move, and could feel the rigidity of her muscles caused by the effort.

A wry smile tugged a corner of his mouth. He drew back his hand and lifted his mug to his lips to drink.

The disappointment was wrenching.

Caroline knew abruptly that she had been right; she wasn't afraid of Ross McDougall. It seemed important, suddenly, that he know it, too.

Without planning, almost without her volition, she put out her hand to halt his mug. Leaning toward him, she pressed her lips to the chiseled contours of his mouth.

He tasted of lemon and rum and honey, a heady blending when combined with his own sweetness. His lips were firm and warm, with the faint throb of a pulse in the smoothness of the lower one. Generously giving, inviting, he returned her kiss. Still there was care and restraint in his response. He made no move to touch her or hold her.

She sat back and lifted her lashes. He watched her, his gaze slumberous yet alert and faintly questioning.

The rain came down on the overhead decking with a steady thrumming, splattering as it fell beyond the glass door. The close cabin with its smell of seawater and wet carpet seemed warmly intimate, incredibly isolated as it rocked with the storm waves. The moment that stretched between them had the feel of a time set apart, one with no beginning and no end. Yes, and one that might not come again.

Between them also was the memory of shared danger, shared exultation in the pleasure of being alive. The residue of that moment sang in their veins along with the kick of the aged rum in their mugs.

She moistened her lips, tasting him upon them, before she said, “You didn't see that coming, did you?”

“That I didn't,” he answered, a low note in his voice that had not been there before.

She glanced at his mug she still held, pushing it toward him. “It was just an impulse. I'm sorry.”

“Only be sorry for impulses not followed,” he said, “and opportunities missed.”

“At least you know now I'm not afraid.”

He held her gaze while recognition of the nature and intensity of the attraction between them hovered near. It grew, crowding out sound, movement and thought, leaving only the two of them and the rain-drenched night.

“I also wonder,” he said at last, “just how much braver you can be.”

He leaned to pry her mug gently from her fingers before setting it and his own on the floor. Reaching for her hand, he lifted it to his mouth before he kissed the palm and transferred it to his bare shoulder. Placing the tips of his hard fingers at her waist, he slid them to the small of her back. With slow deliberation, he drew her nearer.

Amusement and something darker rose in his eyes as he spoke. “Do you see what I'm doing?”

“Yes,” she whispered. The lengths of her thighs tingled where they brushed his, as did the curves of her breasts that grazed his chest.

“Good.” His breath feathered over the sensitive surfaces of her lips before he dipped his head to brush his mouth across them. The words not quite even, he added, “If you're going to take evasive action, now is the time.”

“This is a move?” Her lips tickled, almost stinging from the brush of his as she spoke against them. Longing welled up inside her, spreading through her veins.

“And an irresistible impulse.”

“I wouldn't want,” she said on a fretted edge of sound, “for you to be sorry you didn't follow—”

The firm surfaces of his lips stopped the words. He molded her mouth to his, tracing the smooth contours and the finely molded edges. With the edge of his tongue, he teased the sensitive line of their joining until it parted for his entry. Carefully enticing, he engaged her tongue in sensual play before swirling to learn the warm silk of her mouth. He invited her participation, sought it with inventiveness and smooth ease. In his arms around her, there was no confinement, no slightest threat.

The night-fresh scent of him, cleanly masculine and wholesome, was like a drug to her senses. Sweet pleasure and curiosity stirred deep inside, mixing with the slow rise of desire. Murmuring low in her throat, she pressed against him, and did not care as she felt the robe she wore fall open so that bare flesh touched bare flesh.

She spread the fingers of her hand then slowly closed them to knead the taut muscles of his shoulder, enjoying the ridged hardness. The feeling of turgid vulnerability it brought to the lower part of her body was not fearsome, but welcome. It crowded out all thought, all restraint. She wanted him as she had wanted no one and nothing else in a long, long time. And there seemed no reason, in the growing extremity of her need, to deny either of them.

With unerring instinct, he smoothed his hand upward from her waist to the open front of the robe. Slipping inside, he cupped the globe of her breast and fitted it into his hand, brushing the nipple into beaded firmness. Shifting on the sofa, he stretched full length as he drew her with him.

Her breasts flattened against the sculpted planes of his chest as he settled beside her on the narrow sofa, their hardened tips burrowing into the soft, dark mat of hair, prickling deliciously with its friction. The rasp of his jeans against the sensitive inner surfaces of her thighs was a vital incitement. The firmness under the line of his zipper made her catch her breath as a deep and pleasurable ache expanded inside her.