Forever My Love (7 page)

“Kathy.” He took a step toward her and she knew he was going to touch her. That was when she made her ridiculous mistake. She took a step backward.

She hit the starboard rail, and before she could cry out or scramble for balance or do anything at all, she was pitching into the darkness of the night sea.

She plunged into water and immediately began to go down with the weight of her clothing and shoes. Kicking hard against the water, she started to surface. She was an excellent swimmer, and she wasn't frightened, although she couldn't see a thing. There could be sharks in the area, not that she'd ever heard of an attack here. Still she didn't like the darkness all around her. And more than anything else, she felt like a complete idiot, which was the last way she wanted to feel around Brent.

“Kathy!”

As she broke the surface, she heard his voice and realized he had plunged into the water after her. His face was bobbing in the waves right before hers, then she felt his fingers gripping her shirt at the back of her neck.

“I'm all right!” she assured him.

But he didn't let her go. He was swimming strongly to the boat, dragging her along like an errant puppy.

“I'm all right!” she insisted again, but a rise of water splashed into her mouth and she started choking and coughing as he thrust her toward the dive ladder at the aft of the boat. She grabbed hold of the rail and lifted herself from the water, feeling his hand on her derriere propelling her upward. She leaped aboard and turned, watching as he came aboard, dripping sea water in gallons just as she seemed to be doing herself.

She put up a hand in case he thought of coming near again. “I'm going to take a shower and put on dry clothes. And I suggest you do the same. Then I think that we really have to get out of here and find Shanna!”

Without another word she turned and fled down the steps to the starboard cabin. After slamming and locking the door, she peeled off her sodden clothing and stepped beneath a tepid shower.

Industriously she scrubbed her hair and lathered her body. Then she leaned against the walls of the tiny stall and just let the water run over her. She'd fly to China to escape from all the things that were already simmering between her and Brent this night. They couldn't talk any more, the talking was over, the past was gone. The divorce was the most painful, bitter thing she'd been through in her life, and she could never, never set herself up for such misery again. She had to remember that.

Yes, she had to remember that….

But all that she seemed to be able to remember was the way he could touch her. How she loved the sound of his voice, how she longed to sleep in his arms.

Abruptly she turned off the water and groped for a towel on the nearby rack. Then she dried herself briskly and opened the dresser door in one of the built-in cabinets.

She stared blankly at the emptiness there before remembering that she had moved all of her clothing into the other cabin when she had planned the outing with Axel. This was the nicest cabin, and she had wanted to offer it to her guest.

She stood, perplexed, certain that she didn't want to go walk out clad only in the wisp of a towel. Then she looked at the door and exhaled with a certain relief because she had a terry robe hanging there. It wasn't great, but it was better than a towel. In fact, lots of women probably felt fairly well covered in a floor-length terry robe.

But they were women who didn't know Brent, who didn't already feel as if their flesh and blood and limbs were already half afire, women who didn't feel as if they were already touched, already naked, waiting….

She wrenched open the cabin door and stood in the narrow hallway. She couldn't hear a shower running so she hesitated, then knocked on the door.

It was thrown open, and there was Brent, in a wisp of a towel himself, his dark blond hair slicked back from the shower, an expression of irritability naked on his face. “I see that you did clean out in here,” he said curtly.

“What?”

“I can't find a thing in here to wear.”

“It's my boat! And you've been out of my life for three years!”

“Any suggestions?” he asked her.

“Yes! Yes, I've lots and lots of suggestions for you but I'm really not certain that you want to hear them!” She flared. “Yes, I've dozens of suggestions! You could start out by locking yourself in a closet!”

“Kathy, you little brat—”

He didn't get any further. She shoved her hands against his chest, thrusting him into the room, then she swung around almost blindly, wanting to escape him once again.

She didn't hear him behind her as she passed the galley and mounted the steps. She didn't sense him until his hands were on her and he was spinning her around. She cried out and fell down to the floor beneath him.

He was sprawled over her, taut, tense, his chest naked and the muscles rippling. The moon glowed on the bronze of his flesh, the harsh constriction in his features. His eyes seemed to blaze gold, searing her. “Kathy!” he began, then fell silent. Then he groaned as his fingers moved into her hair…and he was kissing her.

Not as he had kissed her earlier. Not lightly, not tauntingly. But with hunger, raw and ravenous. Openmouthed, his lips moved upon hers, wet, hot, eliciting. His tongue swept her mouth, thrust, demanded, tasted and thrust even deeper. Then he drew away and his lips touched her face. His tongue rimmed her lips before slipping inside her mouth again, so deeply that the heat and fever spread throughout her body. His fingers were in her hair, but there was no pain, even though he held her so tautly because of his need. She didn't want to touch him…but her fingers were upon his shoulders.

She didn't want to feel the warmth of his body, didn't want to recognize the length of it, the hardness of his thighs, the tautness of his belly…the bulge of his desire. She didn't want to feel the overwhelming urge, the fire, the desperation to have him at the cost of peace and sanity and life itself.

She didn't want to…

His lips rose above hers just a fraction of an inch. She touched them delicately with her tongue, encircling them, nipping lightly. He held still to her gentle assault, then swept his arms around her. Once again their mouths melded and the tasting and sweeping and hunger were shared. When they broke apart again, his hold on her hair eased, but the tension in him seemed even greater, explosive, anguished. His breath fanning her cheeks, he whispered, “Kathy, I didn't mean it to come to this. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you again. And by God, I sure as hell didn't want to do this to myself!”

She lay still, thinking that he couldn't mean it, that he couldn't manage to walk away now. The kiss was a mistake, but she'd live with the mistake, she swore silently. She'd live with the agony of all the tomorrows…

If she could just have this moment beneath the black velvet darkness of the sky and the ethereal glow of the silver full moon.

He was standing, reaching down to her, helping her to her feet. She stared at him, her fingers still entwined with his, her lips swollen and soft and wet from the kiss.

“Brent!” She whispered his name. He didn't speak, and his eyes remained hard upon hers. “It's a mistake, I know it's a mistake.…” Her voice trailed away miserably. She knew him still, knew him so well. But he wasn't hers anymore, and she wondered if his desire was great enough, if she could seduce him, if she wasn't making a fool of herself again.

“What, Kathy, what?” His voice was nearly a growl, his words fraught with tension.

She shook her head and tried to whisper more softly. “It's a mistake, but…maybe it's not a mistake. Maybe we can just touch and then let go. I mean by the light of day we can turn aside, we can see all the truths, we can know that it's over, that we can't take the pain again. But I was just thinking that tonight…”

She freed her fingers from his. She couldn't go on any longer, not without some help. She stepped back and turned around, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, her back to him.

He was silent. She felt the cool night breeze sweep around her and heard its soft whisper. She listened to the gentle lapping of the water against the hull of the boat.

Then he stepped toward her, and she felt his hands upon her shoulders.

The terry robe that had never seemed much of a barrier went sliding to the deck at her feet, and she felt the searing fire of his lips against her naked shoulder.

Chapter 4

Kathy caught her breath as she felt the touch of the night breeze combine with the caress of his kiss against her flesh. He lifted her hair and pressed his lips to her nape, and his kiss moved once more over her shoulder blades. She stood naked in the moonlight, thinking that they had never made love quite like this. She felt as if she should drape something around her, but then she felt the eternity of the night and the stars and the sea, and it suddenly seemed the most private place in the world, just as his touch with that of the night wind seemed to be the most sensual she had ever felt.

His arms swept around her from behind and she felt the erotic brush of the golden mat of his chest hair against her back. His hands swept upward, encircling her breasts, cupping them tenderly, his thumbs moving in seductive rhythm over her nipples.

Then his kisses began to move down the length of her spine. Slowly his lips moved, touching each and every vertebra. Warm moisture burned her flesh, then the liquid fire was enhanced by the coolness of the breeze. Finally he was on his knees behind her, his fingers brushing her belly, his lips teasing her buttocks. Then she gasped as he turned her around. His face and hair lay buried against her abdomen, and the soft flick of his tongue began to touch her there. His hands stroked downward, over her hips and calves, then swept up her kneecaps and upper thighs, until she parted her stance for balance. He held her taut against him, and his searing, moist caress moved over the apex of her limbs, to the intimate center of her desire.

Three years were nothing.…

The sensations that ripped through her were wild and sweetly primeval, as natural as the swell of the waves in the sea. She felt a raging ecstasy so swift and overwhelming that nothing else existed. Her fingers tore into his hair but she did not seek to pull him away, only to hold tight lest the storm of desire send her spiraling into darkness. He brought her ever closer, ever more intimately against him. And he parted her further with his touch, stroking her endlessly. Torrents of pleasure, wilder than any tempest on the ocean, came sweeping through her and she twisted and moaned. The sweet liquid fire simmering deep within her rose and rose, until it burst explosively, until she did see darkness, and came sinking down slowly before him, spent, exhausted, emptied. Then brilliant lights and sparks of fire seemed to cascade around her. She closed her eyes, still shaking, and embraced him, her lashes lowered. A rosy color crept into her cheeks because she had responded so uninhibitedly to his intimate touch after so many years had passed.

But he didn't allow her any regrets. He caught her lips and kissed her deeply and passionately, slowly lowering them to the deck. He whispered to her decadently, demanding to know if she could taste the love between them on their kiss. Before she could regain her senses from the first explosion, he had slipped inside her. He was magnificent, and just feeling him inside her as he whispered so erotically brought her near to a second climax before he even started to move his body.

Then he did so, languidly, nearly leaving, then entering her again deeply. The quickening deepened inside her again; the sparks of fire left behind were incredibly fanned. As he held his weight above her carefully on the palms of his hands, their only contact being where his body was immersed so deeply within her own, she began to meet his slow, demanding thrusts.

The world took flight all over again. As he moved within her he leaned down and took the hardened peak of her nipple into his mouth, and he sucked it hard as the speed of his rhythm increased to a frantic beat. She clung to him. She bit and kissed his shoulders, she pushed her fingers into his hair.

Then it seemed that the sky exploded above her, and the darkness was filled with myriad multicolored stars and lights. The exquisite pleasure of her body was seeping into his while he held still, emptying the tempest of his own desire deep within her.

Then he fell by her side, gasping, and she fought to regain her breath, her sanity and her reason.

She didn't know what to do or what to say as she lay sheened with sweat, glistening in the moonlight. Hundreds of little things she had seen in the movies swept through her mind, but she knew none of them was right. Was it good for you? It was magnificent for me. No, no, those were things that strangers said, or near strangers, and they were not strangers. But neither was he her husband anymore, nor could this magic last. It had been stolen, a few snatched moments.

Still it seemed that something should be said, but not the truth. She would babble. My God, I didn't remember just how sweet, how wonderful, how shattering, how volatile making love with you is. How it could make the entire world seem to disappear, and I wonder, is it because I'm still in love with you, or are you really such an incredible lover?

And maybe it's both…

It wasn't going to be awkward, and it wasn't going to be hard, she realized. He wasn't going to let it be so.

His arm came around her, pulling her close beside him. He brushed a kiss against her forehead and held her beneath the stars. She stared at the stars as the silence stretched between them, then he spoke. There was a husky trembling to his voice that seemed to reach inside her and squeeze her heart. “Kathy, I remember so much, and yet…God, I've missed you.”

She smiled slightly and buried her face against his ribs, slightly stroking his naked belly. “I've missed you,” she admitted softly. Then she sighed, because she was so replete. She didn't want to move, and she really didn't want to talk anymore, not that night. She didn't want the past to intrude, she didn't want to remember any of the pain. She just wanted to lie there, beneath the stars, secure in his embrace, and remember what it had been like when he had loved her, too, when he had really been hers to love.