Chain of Love (13 page)

“I can’t believe I feel so splendid!” Meg crowed. “It must be having you here, darling,” she purred to her husband.
“This is the first morning I’ve had without nausea in three weeks. I feel like doing something to celebrate. What should we do, Cath?”

All Cathy’s attention at that moment had been directed to the strong backs of Sin’s hands, the light splattering of dark hairs, the thin, long
ringers, strong knuckles and well-shaped nails.

Hands that had already discovered ways to give her untold pleasures. Startled by Meg’s question, she looked up, to meet Sin’s knowing gaze. She
blushed, a deep, fiery red. “I—I don’t know. Whatever you’d like to do,” she said lamely.

“I know what you can do,” Sin broke in, the light in his eyes telling Cathy he had read her mind. “You can go shopping. There are a few
things I want to do in town, and I would be more than happy to take you in. We can spend the morning on our various errands and get back here in time for
lunch and an afternoon swim. How does that sound?”

“Perfectly divine,” Meg breathed. “Don’t you think so, Cathy?”

“Fine. But I don’t really have anything I need to buy,” she murmured.

“Now there I take issue with you.” Sin’s eyes were laughing. “What was that pink and green flowered monstrosity on the back of the
bathroom door?”

Cathy’s blush deepened. Sin’s tone and words sounded so terribly connubial. “That’s my bathing suit,” she replied with a
trace of defiance.

“I was afraid of that,” he sighed. “Your only one, no doubt.”

“One is sufficient,” she replied haughtily.

Sin ignored her, turning to an amused Meg. “I can rely on you to see that she buys something more suitable, can’t I, Meg? Suitably scant, I
mean.”

“You can, indeed,” her traitorous sister agreed enthusiastically. “I’ve always told her it’s a damn shame to have her lovely
body and then cover it with old women’s clothing.”

“Am I to be consulted in this?” Cathy asked with dangerous calm.

“Oh, by all means,” Sin said airily. “I’m sure Meg will let you have your choice, as long as you restrain your Quakerish
tendencies. After all, this entire hotel thinks you’re my woman, and I have some standards to maintain.”

“You—you—” Words of outrage failed her. She had to content herself with a murderous glare that Sin met with a bland smile. A
sudden, wicked plan began to form in her mind. She would buy a new bathing suit if he insisted. The largest, most old-fashioned, enveloping old
lady’s swimsuit she could find. Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it, she thought with satisfaction.

That plan, however, was much easier to envision than to carry out. The small, elegant boutiques that were scattered about St. Alphonse’s main city of
Verlage had nothing that would cater to senior citizens. The most enveloping of swimsuits were demure two-piece ensembles that still showed an alarming
expanse of skin.

“Foiled again, eh, sis?” Meg questioned with amusement, having been the recipient of Cathy’s evil plan. “Serves you right. Of
course, you can always reverse your plan.”

Cathy was in the midst of perusing an unbelievably scanty sea-green bikini, wondering who in the world would have the nerve to wear it. Although the scraps
of material looked better suited to a precocious ten-year-old, the tag and label insisted it was her size. “How would I do that?” she inquired
absently, holding the suit up to the light.

“You could buy the skimpiest, slinkiest swim-suit available. Something so outrageous Sin would be sorry he ever opened his mouth. The one
you’re holding looks like a good candidate,” Meg observed.

“Oh, heavens, I couldn’t do that,” Cathy laughed, quickly shoving the suit back on the rack with a clatter of plastic hangers.

“And why not? You haven’t got an ounce of extra flesh on your body. There’s no reason why you, of all people, couldn’t get away
with some-thing as skimpy as that.”

Cathy’s eyes strayed back to the rack. “He would be flabbergasted,” she admitted with a wicked chuckle.

“He’d be speechless,” Meg encouraged her. “And that’s something I’d like to see. Sin always seems in complete
control.”

Not always, Cathy thought silently, retrieving the suit. “Maybe I’ll try it on,” she said aloud.

“Don’t do that. If you try it on you might chicken out. You’re a perfect size eight; you know that as well as I do. Just ask the lady to
wrap it for you. The color matches your eyes perfectly.”

On the verge of backing down, Cathy hesitated, torn. “It does?”

“Absolutely. Look, let me buy it for you, as a present,” Meg urged.

“Nope. I’ll buy it myself,” she said with sudden decisiveness. “After all, it’s time I learned to live dangerously.
I...” Her voice trailed off as she headed toward the smiling saleslady. Her eye had caught the dress behind her. “Oh, my heavens.”

“I see what you mean.” Meg’s voice was awed. “Who in the world would have the nerve to wear a dress like that? Not that it
isn’t beautiful. But gracious, it would cling to every single line and curve... and that hot pink! I’ve never seen such a seductive dress in my
entire life.” She reached out and touched a silky fold reverently, sighing loudly. “That’s the sort of dress I’ve always wished I
could wear. But I just wouldn’t have the nerve.” She eyed her sister’s meditative expression with a secret smile, then added to the
effect. “I couldn’t get away with it, though. I haven’t got the frontage to fill out that decolletage, and there doesn’t seem to be
any back to the thing at all. Why, it would fall right off me. But God, what a dress!”

“What size is it?” Cathy asked in a curiously resigned tone.

“Size eight, mademoiselle.” The saleslady had rushed over, quite willing to be of service in the matter of the most expensive dress in the
shop. “Would mademoiselle care to try it on?”

“Oh, why don’t you?” Meg encouraged her eagerly. “Just for fun! No one will see you—it would be such a lark. How often does
one come across a dress like that in one’s life? It looks as if it was designed with your body in mind.”

“No, I won’t try it on,” Cathy said with unshakable certainty, and Meg’s and the saleslady’s faces fell. She turned to her
sister with a mischievous smile. “After all, as you just said, I’m a perfect size eight. If you would just wrap that with the bathing
suit?” she asked the beaming shop-keeper.

By the time the two sisters met up with Sin and Charles they were absolutely laden down with packages, all containing clothes for Cathy. Silk blouses in
jade green, hot pink, and deep plum, lean-fitting linen pants, evening sandals with tiny gold straps, and several pairs of quite the shortest shorts Cathy
had ever seen filled their packages. Sin watched their approach with amusement, taking the bulk of their purchases in his arms.

“You didn’t buy anything after all?” Meg questioned as they headed toward the Land Rover with its striped awning. “I thought you
had urgent shopping to do.”

“Good things come in small packages, nosy,” he replied mysteriously, and refused to say any-thing more.

It took her a surprisingly long time to put all her clothes away after the light, sinfully delicious lunch served at Pirate’s Cove. Silky little
wisps of underwear replaced her serviceable cotton briefs and plain white bras; the pink dress she hid in the back of her closet. Her old bathing suit had
mysteriously disappeared, thanks, no doubt, to Sin’s meddling. One look at her body in the new, sea-green bikini was enough to send her rummaging
through every corner of the spacious room. It was well and truly gone.

“I can’t be seen in public in this,” she gasped aloud to the mirror, tugging uselessly at the thin fabric. Her high, round breasts seemed
about to spill from the thin, banded top, and the bottom was cut high on the thigh, slashed low across the hipbones, and just managed to cover her firm,
rounded buttocks. If she didn’t die of embarrassment she would undoubtedly strangle on it as it came off when she tried to swim. Of all the stupid,
frivolous ideas. The color may have matched her eyes, but who was going to look at her eyes when everything else under the sun was exposed? She let out a
helpless little groan, shaking her long blond hair down about her shoulders in a vain effort to provide more covering. The sun-tipped strands stopped
several inches short of the rounded curve of her breast.

“I wondered what was keeping you,” Sin’s lazy voice came from the open door. “I was afraid you might have—” His voice
trailed off as his wide eyes swept over the full, scantily clad length of her. Straightening from his lounging position in the doorway, he moved into the
room, shutting the door behind him with an ominous little click. His face was completely unreadable in the early afternoon sunlight streaming in from the
sliding glass door. Very slowly he walked all the way around her, his eyes raking her body in a fashion that in anyone else would have been incredibly
offensive. With Sin, however, the effect made her tremble slightly with confused longing.

When he had finished his circuit and his eyes finally lifted to meet hers, there was an unmistakable light in their hazel depths, and the dimple in his
right cheek was in full evidence.

“Are you trying to give me high blood pressure?” he asked mildly enough.

“I’ve seen people wearing less on the beach,” she said in self-defense, not sure whether she actually had.

“At this particular moment I’m not interested in what other people are wearing,” he said huskily, moving away from her and heading toward
his dresser. “I guess my shopping was successful after all. I bought you a present.” His eyes flickered briefly over her body, then back to her
face again. “Something to go with your new image.”

He tossed her a small, velvet jeweler’s box. Startled, she caught it with one hand. “Don’t look so frightened.” He grinned
suddenly. “It’s not an engagement ring.”

“I hadn’t thought it was,” she said with chilly dignity, wondering for not the first time how he managed to read her mind. Quickly she
snapped open the lid. Nestled in the black velvet was a long, thin, gold chain, with a small, clear emerald. “What-what is it?”

He moved up close to her, his lean, strong body dwarfing hers, and took the box out of nerveless fingers. “It’s a chain for your waist.
It’s supposed to be worn with a bikini.” Suiting action to words, he unclasped the tiny clasp and drew it around her waist, his arms snaking
around her. She drew in her breath at the potent touch of his hands on her bare flesh, and he laughed. “You don’t need to hold your
breath—it’s more than big enough,” he said casually, reclasping it and letting it fall. It rested just above her hipbones, the emerald
winking up at her.

“Sin,” she breathed, mesmerized. “I can’t accept it.”

“Why not?” He stepped back to admire the effect.

“Well, it’s too... expensive.”

“I can afford it.”

“But it’s too...intimate.”

His grin broadened, threatening to split his tanned face. “Nothing’s as intimate as that damned bathing suit,” he said. “And I
thought you’d learned I don’t take no for an answer.”

“You did this morning,” she said breathlessly, then felt herself blushing.

He surveyed her for a moment, and then, before she could divine his intention, he moved toward her, put a hand behind her neck, and kissed her briefly and
quite, quite thoroughly. Her mouth was seared by the contact, but before she had a chance to respond he moved away. “Now go on out and get some sun
on that magnificent body of yours,” he ordered lightly. “I’ll be along shortly.”

Cathy hesitated, still bemused by his kiss. He took a mock threatening step toward her. “Unless you’d rather spend the afternoon up here with
me...?”

Grabbing her terry cloth coverup, far better suited to her new bikini than to her grandmother-suit, she ran.

It had been an exhilarating afternoon, Cathy decided as she surveyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror still clouded with steam from her shower. A
perfect, golden glowing moment in time, when all that seemed to exist were the sea and the sun and the sand. And Sin’s long, leanly muscled body
lying by her side, the teak-bronzed flesh glistening in the hot sun. If she hadn’t known better she would have thought he did it on purpose. That
brief excuse for a swimsuit that stretched across his slim hips left little to Cathy’s imagination, an imagination already overactive. The laughing
light in his hazel eyes as he caught her hand and pulled her after him into the warm, salty water was far too knowing, but for some reason Cathy no longer
minded. It was enough to be with him, laughing in the sunlight, her body drifting against his in the turquoise sea, collapsing exhausted side by side, arms
brushing, legs touching, hands reaching, innocently, knowingly.

Sin had sat up abruptly, shaking the water out of his brown curls as he rested his arms on his drawn-up knees. He turned his head to meet her questioning,
lazy glance as she lay there in the sand. Reaching out one tanned hand, he gently brushed the sand from her flat stomach, then smiled as she tautened her
muscles in an involuntary reaction to his intimate touch. His eyes met her troubled green ones, and she had the uncanny feeling that he knew everything
that was going through her head that afternoon. Knew it, and was amused by it. And yet the smile on his face was so tender as he leaned over her that she
couldn’t summon forth her usual outrage. Or even any fear, she thought with belated wonder. Sometime during the last twenty-four hours, some way, she
had given her trust to him. And she knew with a sudden, blinding clarity that if he climbed into her bed that night she wouldn’t stop him.

She took more than her usual care dressing that evening. Sin was sitting on the balcony, already in the elegant black dinner clothes that suited him so
well, a German beer in one hand and a paperback thriller in the other. He’d barely looked up when she’d disappeared into the bathroom, content
with lazily telling her to take her time. Such a domestic scene still unnerved her, filling her with all sorts of strange emotions, foremost among them a
wistful longing for what was doubtless out of reach.