Chain of Love (18 page)

“Sin,” she gasped, her nails digging into his flesh. “Please, Sin. Oh, please...” she moaned, moving her head back and forth in the
extremity of her need.

His hands left her, catching her head and holding it still as his eyes bored down into hers. “Are you ready so soon?” he whispered sweetly
against her mouth. “I was expecting to have to coax and reassure you for hours yet.”

“Don’t... tease me,” she gasped.

A slow, tender smile curved his mouth. “Never, my sweet.” And, setting his hungry mouth on hers, he moved over and covered her body with his,
joining them at last in that final embrace, swift and sure and deep. They moved together in perfect union, a masterful blend of mind, body, and spirit,
until the blazing conflagration engulfed them both in a fiery holocaust that left them, weak but replete, to struggle upward, phoenixlike, from the ashes
of their fulfillment.

Sin reached out a tender hand to brush the hair away from her flushed, sweat-dampened face. The cool wetness of tears caught his fingers, and very tenderly
he leaned over and kissed them away.

“Sin, I...” His hand covered her mouth before she could tell him, before she could say that she loved him.

“Not now,” he whispered, his warm breath tickling her ear. “Don’t tell me now.” He pulled her exhausted body against his,
spoon-fashion, cradling her against his taut, sweat-drenched leanness. And before she had time to wonder why he would stop what would surely have been a
very satisfying confession, sleep claimed her, leaving her wrapped in her lover’s arms and at peace with the world.

Cathy woke, slowly at first, the thoughts and feelings and images drifting lazily through her sleep-fogged brain. All along her left side was warmth and
comfort, and a heavy weight was pressing around her middle, a weight she slowly realized was Sin MacDonald’s arm. One large hand was cupping her
breast, and despite the even rise and fall of his breathing she knew he was more than aware of her. She lay very still, reveling in the feel of his strong,
lean body against hers.

“Good morning,” his voice rumbled in her ear, sounding sleepy, smug, and satisfied. As in-deed, she herself was. “How long have you been
awake?” He stretched beside her, rubbing his body against hers slowly and sensually.

“About half an hour,” she replied honestly, snuggling back against him. “I felt too happy to sleep.”

His arm tightened around her, and she felt her body being drawn slowly back down onto the bed. He leaned over her, pressing her against the soft mattress,
and the look on his face was tender, and, even if he wouldn’t put the word to it, loving. “Then you’ve only had a total of about an
hour’s sleep,” he said with a lascivious grin. “Aren’t you tired? You certainly should be after the workout you gave me last
night.”

“The workout I gave you?” she shrieked, albeit softly. “I’ll have you know, Sin MacDonald, that I was sound asleep when you... when
we...”

His grin broadened. “You can still blush,” he marveled. “Not that I’m surprised—if anything could make you blush, that
infamous ‘when we... when you...’ should. And I’ll have you know, Cathy MacDonald, that I was sound asleep the time before, when you...
when we...”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said crossly, trailing her hand up his tautly muscled arm. “And who says I don’t want to keep my
maiden name?” she added teasingly.

She had the dubious satisfaction of seeing his hazel eyes turn fiery with rage. Covering the lower half of her body with his stronger one, he held her
captive as his hand cupped her mutinous face. “
I
say,” he informed her huskily. “That five-minute ceremony made us one, a unit,
and I want us to stay that way. In name, in spirit, and”—he let his hips bump against hers suggestively—”in body.”

Her eyes widened in shocked recognition. “Good heavens, Sin. Not again,” she breathed, her eyes alight as she lifted her mouth for his
possession.

He kissed her long and deep, with a savagery that alarmed and excited her. “Is that a protest?” he murmured hoarsely against her throat.

“Hm-mn,” she denied with a low guttural noise, a purr of pleasure as her tired body responded once more to his practiced caresses.
“Merely an expression of awed wonder.” And sliding her deft hands down his lean torso, she met his passion fully, exploding within moments of
him as they reached the apex of their perfect desire. And once more they slept.

“You know, you don’t really need to wear that,” Sin said lazily as he stretched out on the bunk beside the small kitchen. He caught hold
of the short, velour wrapper she’d appropriated from him as she tried to find her way about the pocket-sized galley. It fell to just below her knees,
and must have been barely decent on Sin’s lengthy frame, she thought wistfully.

“Don’t mess with the chef,” she ordered sternly, twitching the robe out of his grasping fingers. “If you want coffee you have to
let me get to it.” She fumbled with the automatic coffee-maker, mastering its intricacies with her usual difficulty with mechanical objects.

His hazel eyes were half-closed as he surveyed her lithe form, and Cathy knew perfectly well that his imagination was stripping away the robe with
devastating accuracy. She could feel the color rising, and she forced herself to turn and survey him with the same sensual directness. Leaning against the
counter, she let her hungry eyes roam over his tanned, muscular body. From the long, long legs, the trim hips and lean buttocks encased in the scantiest
excuse for underwear Cathy had ever seen, the flat stomach and broad, hair-fringed chest that she had wept and moaned and laughed into last night. And this
morning, she added silently. To the broad shoulders, strong arms, and diabolically clever hands that seemed instinctively to know what part of her needed
to be touched, with just the right amount of gentleness or force. And the hazel eyes that looked so tenderly into hers, the mouth that had taught her
things she had scarcely known existed. All in all it was a very potent package, she realized with a small blissful sigh.

The tiny laugh lines around his eyes crinkled in amusement. “I’d ask you what you were thinking but I’m sure I’d be shocked out of
my mind.” He accepted the coffee she offered, never taking his eyes off her. “And I don’t see why I have to wear these.” He plucked
at the briefs. “I’ll allow you your modesty, but when there’s no one around for miles and miles...”

“You have to wear them,” she said, sitting down cross-legged beside him and sipping at her rich black coffee, “because I find you far too
distracting without them. It’s hard enough to concentrate on cooking as it is. What do you want for dinner?”

His eyes roamed lazily over her. “You,” he said, pulling her down to lie against his broad, hard chest without spilling a drop of her coffee.

“I think you’re going to need something a bit more substantial if we’re going to keep on at the pace we’ve started,” she
said, sighing happily. She let one hand trail intimately across his stomach, listening to his stifled groan of pleasure with a smile as she snuggled closer
against his chest. She took another sip of her coffee. “Speaking of food— you know what the trouble with you is?”

His arms tightened companionably around her slender form, one hand dipping into the robe to touch her breast. “No, tell me. What is the trouble with
me?” he demanded lazily, showering small, unhurried kisses in her cloud of silver-blond hair.

She moved her head to look down at him mischievously. “You’re like Chinese food,” she explained in dulcet tones. “Very satisfying
at the time, but a half an hour later I’m hungry again.”

A shout of laughter greeted her impish remark. Taking the half-empty coffee cup from her hand, he placed it on the table beside his, then stretched back,
taking her with him, so that her slender, half-clad form was stretched out on top of his lean, strong body. It was a dizzying feeling, with his warm flesh
and hardening desire beneath her, waiting for her. With a sigh she buried her head against his chest, nestling against the soft cushion of hair as his
hands reached beneath her robe.

“All I can say,” he sarcastically murmured in her ear, “is that it’s a lucky thing you’re frigid. God knows what I’d do
with you if you actually liked to make love.” His hips, magically divested of the restraining briefs, reached up to meet hers, as her whole body
tensed.

“What’s the matter?” His voice was soft and patient, unlike his passion-stirred body.

She tried to pull away from him, but his hands sensed her withdrawal and reached up to stop her, holding her frailness against him.

“It’s just...” Her words faded for a moment, then strengthened. “You reminded me of something I’d rather forget.”

“Greg Danville,” he supplied in a short, angry voice. At her reluctant nod, his grip tightened. “Listen, Cathy,” he said in a
surprisingly stern tone, “Greg existed. You can’t wipe him out of your life, forget that you ever knew him or that he ever hurt you. It
happened. But it’s over, long over. And it has nothing to do with you and me, and what we have together. Nothing at all. Is that understood?”
Despite the sternness there was a gentleness in his eyes and the hands that held her captive against his still fully aroused body. “Is it?” he
demanded again.

And strangely enough, it was true. Greg Danville was out of her life, never to be heard from again. He had nothing to do with her and Sin, nothing
whatsoever. She managed a smile, tentative at first, then widening with real delight. “Yes, sir,” she said sweetly. And then with dizzying
force he turned her over onto the bunk, covering her body with his ardent one. And Greg Danville vanished completely in a torrent of desire.

Cathy sat on the deck, soaking up the hot, Caribbean sun with truly hedonistic fervor. Her body was turning a lovely golden brown, setting off the thin
gold chain with its perfect emerald, and she felt warm, full, and completely satiated. She reached out to touch the emerald, which served as a sort of
talisman for her. Any time she began to doubt what had happened to her during the past weeks, and particularly the past two days since she married Sinclair
MacDonald, she would reach for the chain through her clothing or, more frequently, on her naked body, and touch it. For good luck, or to remind herself
that it was real. She wasn’t sure which—maybe a little bit of both. Her eyes trailed across the deck to Sin’s lean frame. He was hunched
over some piece of equipment, his face intent beneath the sunglasses, his tanned body, clad only in the briefest of denim cutoffs, glistening with the sun
and a light film of sweat.

“I hated to leave that island,” Cathy said dreamily. “Everything was perfect there. The water, the sun, the privacy.”

He looked up and smiled at her, easily, casually, the very naturalness of it incredibly sexy. “I hated to leave it too,” he replied, squinting
out at the horizon. “But we need supplies, and Martin’s Head is the closest place I know. We can sail right back.”

“No, I don’t think so,” she sighed. “For some reason I’m afraid it will have vanished if we try to find it again. You
don’t even know what island it is, do you?”

“Hey, I’m not that bad a navigator. I can find it again,” he protested. “Or maybe we can find another island.”

She turned to peer up at him in the brilliant sunlight. “That would be nice,” she sighed. “We may never run out of islands at this
rate.”

He seemed to hesitate, on the verge of saying something and then obviously thought better of it. He returned his attention to the instrument in his hand,
his fingers as dexterous on the intricate machinery as they were on her responsive body.

“What were you about to say?” she questioned curiously, pulling herself to a sitting position and retying the straps to her bikini behind her
neck.

“Was I about to say something?” he murmured vaguely. “Can’t remember what.”

“Maybe it was something about when we have to go back,” she prodded, a flicker of nervousness racing along her veins. “You know,”
she added with an uneasy laugh, “I don’t really know what you do for a living.”

There was no mistaking the wariness in his body. She knew every inch of it far too well by that time to miss his reaction. “Sure you do,” he
said easily, too easily. “I told you before, I’m a consultant.”

“But for whom?” she persisted. “Oh, I remember. That Joyce-woman said you own your own company. Is that why you’re able to just
disappear on your honeymoon without telling anyone?”

He put the piece of machinery down, turning to stare at her with lazy charm. “Why the cross-examination, Cathy?” he inquired evenly.
“I’m more than happy to tell you anything you want to know.”

“Even about Joyce?” she dared to ask.

“Even about Joyce,” he agreed. “Though I can’t imagine why you’d want to know. I never pretended to be a monk before I met
you, sweetheart. Joyce and I were... close at one time.”

“You mean you were lovers,” she said flatly, miserably aware of how bitchy she sounded.

“Yes.” His answer was unequivocal.

“And how many others?”

The last trace of a smile was wiped from his face. “I lost count,” he snapped, crossing the small section of deck to kneel down beside her.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Cathy?” he demanded roughly, pulling her unresisting body into his arms with an anger that was oddly
reassuring.

“I’m sorry,” she said meekly against his firmly muscled chest. “I guess I’m just on edge. I’m afraid that everything is
going to end in disaster since we’ve left the island. Can’t we go back?” she pleaded.

Tenderly he pushed the hair from her face, a crooked smile that didn’t belie his own misgivings playing about his mobile mouth. “We’d
starve to death, baby,” he said softly. “Don’t be so gloomy. We’ll stop at the store on Martin’s Head, be there for a total
of fifteen minutes and then be off. You can do the shopping while I get fresh water and fuel on board. And then we’ll be miles away again, where no
one can get to us. How does that sound?”