Riptide (30 page)

She was wearing a crisp white shirt, open at the throat, tucked into skinny blue jeans. Gold sparkled at her ears and throat, and on her fingers and toes. Her gypsy hair tumbled around her shoulders and down her back, blowing in the warm ocean breeze.

He held her gaze as he closed the gap. Her dark eyes danced and laughed, soft unpainted lips curved in a delicious smile. Nick needed a taste. Right now.

He hooked a finger in the narrow red belt around her waist, tugging her closer, then leaned in and brushed his mouth across hers. He lifted his head, knowing a taste wasn’t enough.

“Yum,” she whispered, eyes dancing. “Should we…?”

No. Not if she ever expected to get anything done today. “See something amazing?” he repeated, intentionally misdirecting. He took her hand. “Lead the way.”

She tugged him to the entrance to the caves. A ragged hole—large enough to drive a train through—opened into the first chamber. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness.

“It looks
exactly
the same.” Bria stopped, looking around the rough-hewn granite walls, and holding her hair back as the wind blew it over her face.

“Is this where Marvin hid you?”

“Back there.” She jerked her chin, busy scooping her hair in a ponytail, holding it in her fist to keep it from blowing. She used her hair as another might a worry stone. Something to occupy her hands while she dealt with something difficult. In this case, the memory of that day twenty years ago.

She blew out a hard breath. “Twenty years,” she said, as if echoing his thoughts. “But the smell of the mineral springs and the ocean remind me of happy times too. Picnicking here with my parents. Oh! We had my fifth birthday party here with my friends.” She glanced at him, her smile sad. “But it’ll always remind me of Marv. Always there, a rock, even when I was too young to know I needed one.”

“I think I would’ve liked him.”

Bria’s smile warmed and she let her hair go. It floated around her shoulders in a dark, shiny cloud. “He would’ve really liked you. He enjoyed quiet and deep.” Her grin widened. “I was a trial.”

“You?” He wanted to slide his hands down her back, over her waist. Feel her, warm and vibrant beneath his palms. Instead, he drew her closer to his side, slanting her a look filled with mock surprise. “A trial, Princess? I’d never have guessed.”

She tipped her head back as she laughed. Then tugged him across the sandy floor through an arch that opened into another, larger chamber. It was darker, and the smell of sulfur stronger than that scent of the sea.

“I used to climb up here with a book and a sandwich.” Bria looked around, her slender fingers clasped in his. “See that rock that looks like a chaise lounge?” She pointed. “I’d sit right there, and read all day.”

Nick raised a brow. “You were how old, and they let you come all the way out here
alone
?”

“I was a precocious child, but I wasn’t allowed to drive ten miles on my own.” She grinned. “Marvin was my designated driver. He allowed me to feel like I was here alone if that’s what I wanted, but he kept watch from over there.” She gestured.

“I have happy memories here. Come on, there’s plenty more to see. The deeper we go, the better it gets.”

“Odd place to see those.” Nick indicated a row of battered-looking portable toilets, the blue paint flaked and rusted, most of them with doors falling off their hinges.

“This used to be a big tourist attraction,” Bria told him, combing her fingers through her windblown hair. “Italians, Europeans, and a lot of British visitors used to flock here to see—” She grabbed his hand. “Wait, I’ll show you why.”

Nick allowed her to drag him farther inside, moving from chamber to chamber through jagged holes, presumably lava tubes. The floor was sandy, and slightly uneven, and Bria slipped off her shoes to walk in the cool sand. The caves started off about twenty feet wide, but each got successively wider the farther inside they went. It got cooler as well.

“Almost there,” she told him as they came to a shallow slope.

“We only have a few hours, Princess. How long’s this going to take?”

She didn’t seem to care. He hid a smile. “Close your eyes,” she ordered.

He did so. “I hope this is the part where you tie me up with silk scarves and have your wicked way with me.”

Bria led him forward about ten feet. “I didn’t bring any scarves.”

“So that’s a rain check, then?”

Her hand tightened in his, but she didn’t say anything for a few moments. “You need to duck a bit here. Okay, you’re clear.” The cave smelled damp and a little musty, but not unpleasantly so. “You can open them now.”

Nick blinked his eyes open. And stared. The ceiling arched cathedral-like a hundred feet overhead, and shimmered with watery, iridescent turquoise light. In the center of the giant natural auditorium lay a placid lake. Mist floated above its surface and draped over the gleaming emerald ground cover and foliage at the water’s edge.

The cavern was about the size of two football fields. The sapphire water was crystal clear, casting shimmering waves on the pale walls. “Grotta Zaffiro,” Bria murmured reverently.

“The famous Sapphire Grotto. Stunning.” But he wasn’t looking at the scenery. The expression on her face, the way her whole being lit up, entranced him. Brighter than any grotto. More beautiful than any sapphire.

She was all but bouncing with excitement. “There’s enough light in here for all these plants, which is amazing, right? I always thought it was a faery garden.” Bria pointed to the lush ferns and moss.

“This is a lot bigger than I thought,” Nick admitted. “How far back are we going? I’m getting hungry.”

“A couple of hundred yards-ish.” They circled around the right-hand side of the lake. “The clarity is deceptive. It might look shallow, but it’s spring fed, freezing cold, and forty-five feet deep.” Circling around a huge fern that was as tall as he was, he turned back to look at her with a smile. “We won’t be swimming then.”

“No. But we could eat our lunch right here.”

“Hot spring farther back?”

She smiled. “It is.”

Decision made. “Okay, let’s go.”

The sapphire glow of the water faded as they walked. The faint odor of sulfur assaulted his nose as he came across the small pool of steaming water. The underground spring that fed it was several hundred feet away, so the water would be pleasantly hot, the smell of sulfur not too overpowering. The pool was about six feet across and surrounded by water-smoothed rock covered in a thick layer of moss. The bottom was white, powdery sand. Steam drifted lazily across the dampened stone and disappeared up to the ceiling some thirty feet above them.

Bria wiggled her toes for a few moments in the cool greenness, then plopped down cross-legged on the emerald green moss covering the rocks and immediately opened Antonio’s backpack. “No wonder it’s so heavy, look.” She pulled out a bottle of vino and held it up triumphantly. Nick’s heart leaped, then did a somersault. God. She was so pretty. Beautiful without a doubt, but today
pretty
. Her hair was gypsy-wild, her lips a sweet natural pink, and her cheeks flushed with a rosy glow. Everything about her was vital and joyous.

She looked young, carefree, and happy.

Big brown eyes danced as she unpacked the rest of their lunch, setting containers and wrapped packages beside her on the moss. “And meatball panini. And oh! Chocolate-covered biscotti. I bet it’s his mother’s re—”

“I’m not hungry for panini, or biscotti, but definitely for something Italian.” Nick cut off her happy chatter. Kneeling beside her, he plunged his fingers into her silky hair, drawing her face up to his, and slanting his mouth over hers.

One hand dropped to the top button of her shirt. After several breathless moments, he lifted his head to look down at her.

“Don’t you just love it here?”

His eyes met hers. “Yeah,” his voice was thick. “I do.”

“Maybe after lunch we can go swim—”

He pressed a finger against her lips.

Bria tugged his hand away, kissing his fingers. She smiled a siren’s smile and murmured, “Too chatty?”

He curved his arm around her back and lowered her down. “Way,” he murmured before he kissed her.

The soft-looking moss was deceptive, providing only a meager layer of protection from the hard rock beneath it. But after a moment, Bria forgot the discomfort. She let herself sink into the kiss.

Nick cupped her face, his mouth hot and hungry, impatient. As hungry as he was, Bria realized
she
was the one who was insatiable. She couldn’t get enough of him. She gasped for air, lips and body begging for more, and twined one arm around his neck.

He ran his open hand from her cheek to her throat, then slid his cool fingers inside the V of her blouse, against her superheated skin. He brushed the peaked nipple with the edge of his nail. Bria whimpered, tightening her hands in his hair, and arched her back. It pressed her breast into his hand.

“You have on far too many clothes,” she told him breathlessly when they came up for air. Her mouth felt hot and swollen, and oversensitized. Reaching down, she grabbed fistfuls of his T-shirt, dragging it up over his chest, then tugging it over his head. She tossed it aside and cupped the back of his head.

“Good things come to those who wait,” he told her, blue eyes snapping with heat.

She wanted it now. Wanted him, but he resisted her efforts to pull him closer. Systematically, Nick undid each tiny button down the front of her shirt until he reached the waistband of her jeans, then tugged the tails free and leaned away from her to spread the fabric apart to reveal her lace bra.

“Better things come to those who take,” she assured him, fumbling between their bodies to find his zipper. Behind the heavy fabric, the hard ridge of his erection jerked against her questing fingers. She got it unzipped all the way and his penis sprang, long, thick, and pulsing with life, eagerly into her hand.

She couldn’t believe how soft he was there. Velvet over steel. Bria felt his heartbeat in her palm, and circled his length, running her fingers up and down. His hips bucked.

Still kissing her, driving her slowly insane, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist to hold her hand still.

Bria opened glazed eyes as he leveraged away from her. The skin was pulled taut over his cheekbones, and his eyes blazed blue fire. He used both hands to drag her jeans down her legs.

When he’d yanked her feet free, he rose, grabbing her hand and pulling her up with him. Their bodies collided, skin hot and slick, already dampened by the steam around them. Bria dug her fingers into his loosened jeans and forced them down over his lean hips, taking his boxers with them. Nick kicked them aside.

“You look like Eve.” Holding her hand, he stepped over the edge of the pond into the thigh-deep water, then tugged her gently into the water beside him.

Instead of inching in, Bria jumped into the hot water, splashing it onto his chest. Smiling, Nick shook his head as he drew her body flush with his. Crystal clear water, as hot as if she’d just drawn a bath, lapped around her waist. His happy penis caressed her belly, and his hands held her against him exactly where she wanted to be.

“I think there’s an apple in the backpack,” she managed to murmur through the pulse hammering at the base of her throat.

Nick splayed his hands on her hips, backing her up until the mossy rocks surrounding the pond brushed her hip. “I don’t need fruit to tempt me.”

Her brain came up with a million rejoinders, clever things, light and teasing and sexy, but he didn’t let her get even a word out before his hips pinned her back against the mossy rock and his penis nudged with gentle insistence at the juncture of her thighs.

Her breath shuddered out on a strangled sound of raw lust; her hands tightened at his shoulders as he slid one hand down her side. He drew her leg upward, cupping her thigh and sliding it over his hip. Opening her.

His eyes never left hers. Bria drew in a steam-laden gulp of air, barely able to draw a full breath through the tension he was building within her.

“What was that?” he asked wickedly. “Did you say something?”

She opened her mouth.

Nick sheathed himself in her body in one smooth, incredible motion, and she moaned with it. With him, until their voices merged as totally as their bodies and Bria lost all sense of reason or balance.

There was only him, his body pulling away, pushing back, the muscles of his chest and shoulders flexing as he held her buoyant weight in the hot silken water.

Her legs tightened around his waist, and though she tried to hold his gaze as he watched her respond to every thrust and delicious inch of him, she couldn’t. There was too much emotion welling up inside her, too much feeling and heat and intensity that she couldn’t risk revealing. At this moment he was the brilliant sun, and she the sea. Together they were liquid light, without end and infinite.

But what would she be when the sun disappeared? Dark, like the ocean at night. And Nick was leaving. Though she was trying to imprint on him, she knew that she’d only succeeded in imprinting every part of him even further on her heart: his smile, his blue eyes, his scent, the feel of his body beneath her hands. Inside her.

She closed her eyes, trying to draw every last ounce of sensation she could from the moment to store in her heart for the years to come. Bria threw her head back and rode the wave of pleasure as it crested.

*   *   *

The noonday sun sparkled on the smooth sapphire ocean far below the mountain drop-off as they headed back down to civilization. Satiated from a spectacular bout of lovemaking, Nick was starting to feel guilty for being absent so long when the shit was hitting the fan on his ship. He knew Jonah could handle anything, from a third corpse to the confession of a killer, but
he
needed,
wanted,
to be there.

Wanted to tie things up …

Needed to resolve issues …

But for now, he had Bria glued to his back, her arms around his waist, and her warm breath on his neck. Their downhill momentum gave the ridiculous lime green Vespa a little extra speed, and he enjoyed the feel of the hot wind through his hair.