A Woman's Heart (20 page)

It would be easier to remember he was the enemy, Jann decided, if her knees didn't turn to jelly at his touch. If she let go of his hand, she might collapse, but by hanging on, she was equally lost.

As smoothly as rivers run downhill, Peter drew her up the path toward the uppermost pool. Sweating with exertion, they reached it at last, and standing together at the pool's edge, they watched as a waterfall spun out over the cliff in a silver strand before crashing to the rocks below.

Without a word, Peter handed her the camera case, anticipating her desire to capture the light-filled water forever. She worked mechanically at first, then with enthusiasm, but all the while she was aware of Peter beside her. When finally she was finished, she lowered her lens and faced him.

His face seemed naked somehow, as though all the emotion and tension had been filtered from it. His eyes were gentle as he gazed down on her, something indefinable lurking in their depths.

Reflected on their surface was a miniature rainbow that appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared again, as it did above the falling water.

"All done?" he asked, taking a step closer.

"Yes," she replied, spellbound by the colors dancing in his eyes. She cleared her throat. "It's beautiful here."

He smiled. "I've read about the upper pools, swore I'd visit them one day." Stepping past her, he moved to the very edge of the cliff.

A lump formed in her throat at the sight of him standing so near the precipice.

Then turning, he grasped hold of her hand. "Come stand by me." He drew her around in front of him, his arms crossing her body.

She tentatively looked out over the edge, her gaze shying away from the drop below her feet. But with Peter holding her close, her fear dissolved, as fog does when the sun comes out.

"Magic," he murmured, his breath soft against her ear.

If he meant the sensations exploding through her body, she had to agree. His touch and his scent produced a buoyancy so light she felt she might float away if he weren't hanging onto her so tightly.

"Unbelievable there's no one else here," she said, needing to say something lest she kiss him again.

"These upper pools are only for special people who truly appreciate them."

"Are we special?" She twisted her head in order to see his face.

"Oh yes," he replied, his lips coming nearer. "We're special." His last words came out stiffly, as though he were trying as hard as she to ignore what was passing between them.

For one long dangerous moment Jann stared into his eyes, then with a gut-wrenching effort she ducked from beneath his arms and moved away from the cliff, away from the danger of his arms, and back toward the safety of the pool. The water looked wonderful; clear, cold, and passion suppressing.

"I'm going for a swim," she said.

"We should be getting back. It's getting late."

Not back to that car, or that road, or that place where she had told him things she'd never told anyone. Before she risked that she had to rid herself of this heat, had to be able to sit next to him and not want him so desperately she burned.

Pleased that she had thought to change into her swim suit before they left Lahaina, Jann stripped off her shorts and top and stepped to the edge of the pool. She dove in, the chilly water robbing her lungs of air. But she went deeper, determined to dispel the need Peter aroused. Finally, her air all but gone, she re-surfaced.

"Looks cold," Peter said, his hands undoing the button on his shorts, then moving toward the zipper.

"It is." Her brow puckered with the strain of keeping her gaze from his hands, of trying not to know he was unzipping his zipper. "But... refreshing," she croaked out, sighing with relief when he pulled off his shorts and revealed a slick black bathing suit beneath.

Discarding his shirt and shoes, he stepped toward the water's edge. When he dove in, he came up again in the middle of the pool, his face mere inches from hers. His eyelashes glistened with beads of water.

She paddled her feet furiously, vainly attempting to evade the forward propulsion of his body as he catapulted into her. Before she could twist to the side, their legs tangled, his skin slightly rough but unbelievably warm in spite of the cold water.

He touched her waist as though to steady himself and the current flowing toward the top of the waterfall forced her against him, her body bumping hard up against his, his lean muscular lines meeting hers, pelvis to pelvis and chest to chest.

"Cooler now?" he whispered, the proximity of his lips creating a rippling current beginning at the base of her neck then streaking down her spine.

"Yes," she lied. Heat raced through her body and burned its way up her throat.

Intending to push herself away, she placed her hands on his waist, but was no more successful at that than he had been. When her fingers met the slippery satin of his skin, she allowed them to rest there a moment, savoring the way his stomach muscles rippled.

Then the current buffeted her closer. Her right leg drifted between his legs, bringing her firmly up against the one part of his body she was most at pains to avoid. He tensed at her touch, his belly hardening beneath her fingers.

Jann shut her eyes, but not before she'd seen the naked desire in his, had seen something else there also. Determination? Uncertainty? Whatever it had been, it was not visible to her now. Waves of yearning coursed through her, turning her tangled limbs to rubber and her resolve to mush.

"Peter," she whispered, then found his mouth on hers, hard, insistent, and filled with fire. His tongue battered her lips, until, with a soft consenting moan, they parted. The floodgates of Jann's passion swung open, loosing unspent desires and allowing them to flow.

Breathlessly... expectantly, she listened for the voice of reason. Always, in the past, on the very few occasions she had allowed a man to be close, the voice had been waiting there, ready to stop her with a reminder that to love is to court disaster.

She had even made love—waiting for, longing for, that special moment when her body would take over from her mind and move of its own accord in passion's timeless dance.

But it had never happened.

It was as if her heart were frozen and along with it her soul. Her movements had always been mechanical, her embarrassment extreme. No cymbals crashed. No fireworks exploded.

There had been simply nothing.

If she couldn't feel, if she couldn't give, if she couldn't risk the loving because she might lose, then there was no point in trying.

But this moment was different—breathtakingly, brilliantly different. She struggled to remind herself Peter was the enemy, but that thought seemed to have no connection to this time or place.

As his tongue filled her mouth, a heady lust filled her senses. Her heart pounded faster, shifting from apprehension to desire. Her limbs loosened, and her muscles relaxed, her entire body giving itself up to pleasure. Relinquishing her fear, she allowed herself to feel, relishing the exquisite joy of sensation. Without a whisper, the voice of reason disappeared.

Peter's lips left hers, exploring the planes and contours of her face before traveling down the long curve of her throat. She drifted, her body entangled with his, the water buoying them up, undulating around and beneath.

His legs stiffened as he found his footing on the flat surface of a submerged boulder. He lifted her until her chest rose out of the water and her legs encircled his waist.

With an easy motion, as though making love were as natural as breathing, not the futile exercise it had been for her in the past, he unhooked the top of her bathing suit, eased it over her shoulders and let it float away, a fuchsia wisp against the water's clear blue surface.

His lips moved from the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat to the glistening peak of her breast. His groan, the primitive sound of passion, quickened her blood to boiling. Encircling her nipple with his tongue, he kissed and caressed. Sensations rocketed through her, shaking her to her core.

He grasped her tightly within his arms, but she needed no encouragement to press closer. She desired nothing more than that his body be a wave, washing over and into her.

She arched backward, her hands gripping his shoulders. Her breasts thrust toward him, allowing his lips easy access.

She could scarcely breathe.

She didn't need to breathe.

Desire sustained her more completely than air.

Her fingers kneaded his shoulders in rhythm with the thrust of his tongue against the hardened bud of her nipple, while involuntarily, her legs tightened around his waist.

With delicious slowness, he traced his way to the hollow between her breasts then tantalizingly climbed up the other side. Her lips parted, her loins on fire.

His hands cupped her buttocks, pressing her closer, while his fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her suit, tracing a line of heat around its edge.

The air had turned still, as though nothing else existed. Or was it the pounding of blood through her veins that had blocked all other sound? The warble of a songbird brought the world into focus, but even that sweet sound was mere backdrop to the symphony erupting in her soul.

Peter lifted his head and his gaze met hers. His lips were full with lust, but his expression was vulnerable, the pupils of his eyes wide and black against a bed of emerald. She was suddenly afraid, knowing they should stop, knowing also that they wouldn't. She could not endure making love to Peter and finding herself frozen like ice to the past.

Then slowly, surely, Peter covered her mouth with his. The flame lighting her nerve endings erupted into a bonfire. His hands swept her back, over the curve of her buttocks and along her thighs. Heat spread like a tropical wind, streaking her skin until she raged out of control. She loosened her legs' grip and slid down his front, gasping when his hardness met her belly.

He tugged off her bathing suit bottom and she floated in the water before him, completely naked at last. Strangely, she felt no shyness, only urgency and need. She reached for him, her breathing rapid, and pulled off his trunks.

Nothing stood between them now. There seemed no wrong-doing, only an incredible rightness, an irrefutable lightness.

Floating towards him slowly, his body blazing hers with heat, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Then locking her legs around his hips, she settled snugly against him.

When he entered, she cried out, her anticipation of his touch paling at its reality, his long firm strokes filling and inflaming her with desire.

She clung to him, her fingers digging into his back, his thrusts soaring her to the pinnacle of sensation then down the other side, only to be shot aloft again on the roller coaster ride of passion.

The sun's warmth became lost in a maze of hot skin on hot skin, hardness piercing softness, wetness within and without, and everywhere... fire.

Flesh burning, nerves singing, their bodies played an exultation to the sacred Gods of the Islands. Their spirits soared together, their passion building to an impossible crescendo. Finally, in a volcanic explosion of heat, they vibrated against each other, involuntarily... lovingly.

Yet at the end, there was silence.

A silence so complete, Jann could hear Peter's heart pounding against her ear and the soundless lap of the water touching the shore, could hear the trill of the grasshoppers rubbing their legs together.

And beyond that silence came fear, as loud as the screech of a siren, and as jolting as the peel of an alarm. She buried her face against Peter's chest, desperate to still the noise, desperate, also, to hold on to what they had shared.

He held her now as though they had never been separated, as though he never intended to let her go again. But how could she stay?

She now knew the joy, the exhilarating ecstasy of truly making love, but in the making of love, she had realized she did love and the only possible finish to that was pain.

Pushing hard against Peter's chest, Jann fell backward through the icy water. She rose spluttering to find him reaching for her, and resolutely paddled beyond his grasp.

"We have to talk," he called after her, his voice low and insistent.

There was nothing to say. Only that they had made love and everything had changed. She could no longer trust herself to be near him or to do what was right.

He stroked powerfully through the water after her, and just as determinedly, she stroked away. If he touched her, she'd be lost. Sucking in a faltering breath, not caring about her bathing suit or if she retrieved it, she staggered up the rocky edge of the pond, resolved not to allow his magic to engulf her again.

The risk was too great. If she gave up her heart, it might be smashed under the heel of this stranger.

And she was not about to lose her baby because she couldn't hang on to her heart.

Snatching up her clothes, she flung them on. Peter emerged naked from the water, looking just as powerful as he had before and infinitely desirable. Her breath snagged as he moved toward her, the touch of his hand on her arm making her tremble.

"Why are you running?" he demanded, his eyes on fire.