Heather Graham (20 page)

“I’m—I’m sorry, Brittany. I—uh—I knew then, but when I saw you, I thought that I could save Ian.”

“It’s all right, Elly.”

Elly went on down the stairs. Juan murmured that he would get her something to drink, and followed her.

The indigo boat sat silently on the dark sea and night swept around them. Brittany felt the salt air on her cheeks, cool and caressing. Cool when she felt so very hot. He was staring at her with a mixture of tenderness and amusement. Staring at her with a query in his high-arched brow.

“What—what just happened?” she asked softly at last.

“Well, I was a pirate. Sort of,” Flynn said, taking a step toward her. “But Ian was the man that you wanted. They’ve been watching his coming and goings from the home office for a long time now.”

“You’re a—policeman?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“You’re with the CIA?”

Flynn chuckled softly, taking another step toward her.

“No. That’s an American agency. I work for the British government, but if you had called your friend Brice, you wouldn’t have been able to clarify anything. They would have had to deny me. It’s a sticky situation, you see. Spanish officials don’t necessarily want to shield British criminals. Their hands are often tied. But neither could they really condone a pirate off the coast and the only way we could ever really haul Ian into court was to have some tangible proof against him so I had to rifle a few of his boats. The rest of the legend …” He shrugged, grinning, and took his last step toward her, setting his hands upon her shoulders.

“There really wasn’t such a thing as the El Drago you claimed to have attacked you at sea. We all created the legend. There were a couple of other instances when the pirate did go to sea. We had a bank clerk down here who had embezzled a couple of million pounds and Juan and I came aboard to find those pounds and transfer them back. Other than that …”

“Rosa knew,” Brittany said. “Rosa knew all along.”

“Well, yes. She’s the one who managed to create the legend for the newspapers.”

Brittany shook her head. “You knew! You knew from the moment that I opened my mouth that I hadn’t been attacked by El Drago because you were El Drago!”

“Well, yes.”

Brittany lowered her head.

“Tonight—” she whispered.

“You’re a real little horror, you know that, my love? I asked you to trust me—”

“You scared me half to death in there!”

“Only because you chose not to trust me!”

“Oh, my God,” Brittany murmured, gripping his arms because her knees were trembling again. “Flynn, I held a gun on you. I could have shot you. I brought Elly out to get that gun. Elly could have shot you—and you, you stupid idiot! You just stood there and you could have been—”

He laughed softly. It seemed to be part of the velvet of the night, and she couldn’t believe that the night could have come out this way, beautiful, the two of them here, together, alive and well, and—innocent.

“Brittany, I’ve known Elly a long time. I knew that she was never going to pull that trigger.”

“She might have panicked.”

“Sometimes you have to gamble. I thought that it was a safe bet. But, now, as to you—”

“How did you know that I wouldn’t pull the trigger?”

“Because I knew that you still loved me, even if you were doing a fabulous job at denial.”

“You knew that I loved you—still?”

“Mm-hmm.” He moved even closer. Brittany felt his body hard and flush against hers, warm and stirring and wonderful.

“How?”

“Your eyes.”

“Oh, really?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You faltered—because you loved me.”

“No—I didn’t falter. You disarmed me.”

“I faltered.”

“You did?”

“Hmm. I almost lost everything because I loved you. I couldn’t tell you the whole truth because there were others involved and because the home office doesn’t trust anyone. But then suddenly there you were in the thick of things and I was trying so desperately to explain when I should have been paying more attention to what El Drago was up to. And then, of course, I underestimated you. I was so anxious to have it all over with and try again to explain, that I wasn’t in the least prepared for you and Elly to arrive in Ian’s cabin. I couldn’t think …”

He kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and then her lips, softly.

“El Drago is gone for good, you know. He never really was such a bad guy. So—are you going to marry me?”

Brittany stared up at him, desperately searching out the silver-gray lights in his eyes. She’d wanted to believe, so desperately. And now, of course, she could. She smiled, lowering her head.

“After tonight—you still want to marry me?”

“More than ever.” He smiled and touched a lock of her tangled hair. “That fire in your hair is all a part of you, a part that I love with all my heart. No matter what, you were going to fight me. When you knew you would lose, you fought me anyway—”

“I thought you were a crook!”

“I know.”

“Oh, Flynn!”

Brittany threw her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to capture his lips in a long and ardent kiss and when she came down to earth again, she was smiling up at him.

“You really love me. I mean—love me. Forever.”

“I adore you,” he whispered in return. “Forever.”

“Oh, Flynn,” she repeated, and this time he leaned to her, and their kiss was long and ardent and they couldn’t come close enough together beneath the velvet sky.

Flynn sighed and rested his cheek against her head. “Let’s go home, now, shall we.”

“Home,” she murmured. “Flynn, where is home going to be?”

“A castle in the uplands, the sand on Cocoa Beach, a flat in London, an apartment in New York. Will it really matter what we decide?”

She leaned against him, smiling.

“It won’t matter at all, Flynn.”

F
LYNN PAUSED IN HIS
labors with the rigging and stared southeasterly, smiling. There was something about the view that had called him; nature held him there in a bit of awe. He had been called by her tune as any man might, and, as was a bit unusual for him, he felt a touch of magic in the view.

It was a beautiful day; warm and balmy, but touched by breezes. The ocean was at its shimmering best. To the south and the east, deeper waters were gleaming indigo against the clear horizon; here, the indigo paled to turquoise and green, glittering, dancing, filling the senses with the varying mood of the sea. Salt-clean and fresh, fantastic beneath the sun. The sun … yes, today was one of those occasions that gave credence to the land mass behind them. Costa del Sol: coast of the sun. Today belonged to the sea, and to the golden orb of the fiery sun. To Neptune, and to all the various gods of the seas.

To mermaids …

His own.

She was out there, on a small float, lazy, seductive, a sun worshipper. Red hair drying in the breeze like a siren’s beacon, limbs stretched out luxuriously, tanned and sultry.

He paused for a minute, thinking to leave her in that lazy, lethargic peace.

Then he shrugged.

He left the rigging, cast the anchor, and returned to the rail, diving from it. Quick, strong strokes brought him to the float where a streak of pure mischief caused him to plummet beneath, cast the float over, and send her screeching and sputtering into the cool water beneath it.

Wet, laughing, she emerged, eyeing him warily from her side of the float, keeping a safe distance from him.

“You do know who you’re dealing with here!” She warned him impertinently. “One who believes in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—a severe drenching for a severe drenching. And I can see by that smug grin upon your face, Mr. Colby, that you’re thinking that you’re twice my size and that I shall never get you under. But you’re entirely wrong. I have patience. I shall wait, and when your mind is completely at rest and you’re totally relaxed … then I will strike!”

Flynn laughed and edged around the float, breeching the distance between them.

“Perhaps, one day, it will happen. But not today.” He leaned back and with a kick and a long crawl began to tow the float and Brittany toward the
Bella Christa
. “And actually, that was only justice you know, Brittany. The first time I dove into the water after you it was on a panicked rescue mission—and you were just fine. Such a wonderful little actress. Opening those emerald gems to me in such surprise …”

Brittany smiled secretively and lazily crawled back upon the float while he towed her. “Well, I was surprised, you know. I opened my eyes and knew instantly that I was out of my league.”

“You weren’t out of your league. You simply weren’t playing with a full hand, my dear mermaid.”

“I simply wasn’t expecting you to be a pirate.”

“Mmm …” Flynn murmured. He’d reached the yacht.

He tied a tow line to the float and tugged at it again, smiling as Brittany toppled off.

“Really …” she protested indignantly.

But Flynn caught her hand, laughing, and urged her up the ladder, following close behind her. She turned to him quickly only to find herself in his arms. Arms that dripped from the sea and burned with heat of the sun and held her so closely that she trembled, responding with an equal heat, her body so attuned to his.

“Flynn … ?”

He really had beautiful eyes. Blue and silver and gray and ever changing against the dark bronze of his features and the wet jet coloring of his hair.

“That first day,” he told her huskily, “we were talking. Juan and I, you know. About Neptune and mermaids and nonsense. And then there you were. This mysterious, exotic beauty, cast up like a gift from the gods. Juan and I, being logical, had rather wondered what mortal man would do with a mermaid. I mean, what does one do with a fin?”

“You and Juan!” Brittany retorted. “I can well imagine!”

He laughed. “Well, pirates are supposed to be lusty fellows, you know.”

“If you’re going to play the role …?”

“Precisely. I’m ever so glad that you came with long shapely mortal legs.”

“And I’m ever so glad that you were a jealous pirate.”

“Jealous?”

“If you hadn’t chased me down at Ian’s …”

He arched a brow to her. She found herself off of her feet and in his arms and they came into the cabin with the beautiful Victorian furniture and down on the sofa.

“Flynn, the furniture—”

“The hell with the furniture,” he said fiercely. She saw that he wasn’t so much teasing anymore, that he was tense, strained. He knelt beside her, watching her. “You told me that you wanted me,” he reminded her, and she smiled, bringing her hand to his cheek.

“I did,” she whispered. “But I’d have never made the first move. You were still on my suspect list, you know. And beyond that, I was afraid of your reputation. I did want you. That’s why I’m glad that you were rotten and ill-tempered and jealous, otherwise, I’d have never been in the right position—”

“Oh,” he murmured. “Rotten and ill-tempered and jealous?”

“Definitely.”

“And you were all sweetness and innocence?”

“Much closer to it!” she defended herself.

She drew her finger from his cheek to the pulse at his throat, then gripped his shoulders and pulled herself toward him, placing a hot kiss against that pulse. She brought her hands down against his chest slowly, playing with the hair that grew there, following her touch with her kiss.

She felt his breath catch. She moved her hands lower and brought her fingers just beneath the waistband of his trunks and moved them slowly and erotically back and forth, just brushing his flesh.

He caught her hands.

“That’s not exactly sweet and innocent behavior.”

“No? Well I’m a quick study,” she assured him, freeing her hands. She took the longest time to actually unbutton and unzip his cutoffs.

And he took a frightfully small amount of time to find the straps of her bikini, and free that meager fabric from her body. He pressed her back against the sofa and his mouth roamed hungrily over her until she ached.

“You taste like salt and sea … like a mermaid, Mrs. Colby,” he told her. And he came between her thighs. Brittany gasped softly and shuddered and wound her legs welcomingly around him, closing her eyes slightly with the sensation of being loved and filled with desire when he entered her. Loving her …

“A mermaid,” she said agreeably.

“With the most beautiful legs.”

“Thank God.”

“Oh, yes, thank God.”

Later, much later, Brittany hugged a robe and came out to the deck and saw that Flynn was staring toward the sea again. He sensed that she was behind him. He reached out an arm and she came to him, situated happily in the shelter of his arms, leaned against his chest.

“We’ve got to get back in, you know,” he murmured. “I wish we could stay forever. When I looked out and saw you on that float today, it was a little bit like magic all over again. That first day, I wanted you. And today … I have you.”

“We can come back,” she reminded him.

“We will come back.” He set his chin upon her hand. They’d been married three weeks. This was honeymoon time. Special time. Tonight he’d be standing as best man for Juan—he and Rosa had been so taken with wedding fever that they had actually set a date for their own nuptials.

And in two days they had to be back in London, where Flynn was taking a more conservative position. And where Ian would be standing trial soon.

Flynn hugged Brittany closer to him. “Are you going to be all right?”

She knew exactly what he was talking about. She nodded. “I’m going to be fine.”

“I’m only sorry that we met through Alice’s death,” Flynn said softly.

Brittany turned in his arms to face him earnestly. “She would have loved you. And I think that she’d be very, very happy with this outcome.”

Flynn smiled and drew her hands to him, kissing her fingertips.

“So soon,” Brittany murmured.

“Mmm.”

“We have to get back.”

“Mmm.”

“We should come here every year.”

“Mmm.”

“It’s so special.”

He picked up his wrist, glancing at his sports watch. “Mmm.”