Volcano (24 page)

The more he woke up, the more he couldn't understand what had happened. Yeah, he'd had sex in mind from the moment he'd first laid eyes on Penelope. He'd gone out to the pool with a vague idea of seducing her. But he'd had some fuzzy image of leading her into bed, sensibly asking where his wallet was, and taking it from there. There hadn't been a damned thing sensible about anything they'd done.

That alone was scary as hell. He'd had lots of women. It wasn't any big deal. He'd take them to his place, fix them some spaghetti, have a good time, and, feeling much better, he'd take them home. That was sensible. He had a drawer full of condoms. That was sensible. Not looking for more than a release of sexual tension was sensible. Having sex with a woman who was the antithesis of everything he'd ever wanted in a woman was
not
sensible. Having it in a Jacuzzi without protection was the next best thing to insane.

Imagining Penelope Albright swollen with his child aroused images that gave him cold chills.

With a shiver, Charlie stalked barefoot through the suite.

He'd damned well buy an entire box of condoms first thing in the morning.

By the time he found what he was looking for, he'd dried off sufficiently to climb into bed beside her. By then, Penelope was sound asleep, and he had no need of the foil packages he shoved under his pillow. Cursing softly, he peeled away the robe and hauled her against him, relaxing in the warmth radiating from her bare skin. Finally, he'd stripped the starch out of her. Now, if he could just persuade her to stay that way...

***

Sunlight sneaked between the slats of the wooden blinds before Penelope woke the next day. Disoriented, she lay beneath the terry- cloth robe she'd pulled over her as she woke. She never slept naked. She was naked now. And so was the big man lying on his side next to her. Very naked. Without a sheet. She didn't dare open her eyes. Feeling his body heat was sufficient.

She ached as she hadn't ached in years. But she felt more wonderfully relaxed than she ever had in her life. Physical well-being flooded through her as she stretched, and cautiously, she replayed her memory of last night.

The kissing part she could handle. Charlie was a fantastic kisser. She would wish he'd wake and do it again right now if it weren't for where kissing inevitably led. Penelope forced herself to stop and think it over again before pushing the panic button.

He was big, there was no getting around that. She grinned briefly to herself. She
had
gotten around that. She'd been narrow and small, and he'd felt like a damned telephone pole, just as Zack had. But everything after that had been different. She'd adjusted to his thickness, taken him inside her, and it hadn't hurt. It had gone far beyond not hurting. It had been marvelous, as explosive as the books had promised it would be, more powerful than her imagination had ever anticipated, not that she had much imagination, she admitted.

And now Charlie was snoring beside her. Penelope opened her eyes to slits, trying to accept that those muscled shoulders and narrow hips belonged to a man who had turned her world upside down. If he rolled over right now, she would probably panic and run.

Shaken, she eased toward the edge of the bed. She'd made love with a construction worker, a man she hadn't even dated. They hadn't used protection, for heaven's sake! Her mind flew to that thought and clung there hysterically. How could she do that to herself? He could have given her anything..

Not Charlie. Penelope relaxed a little as she slipped from the bed without his noticing. Maybe she didn't know Charlie well, but she thought maybe she knew him that much. Charlie might not be the most imaginative or sensitive of men, but he would never have walked naked out to that pool last night if he'd carried any communicable diseases. His truthfulness was a trifle misplaced upon occasion, but he had principles of a sort.

She grabbed her clothes and carried them to the shower. Now all she had to worry about was getting pregnant. She didn't consider that much of a problem. As many times as she and Zack had done it without protection, she figured she was safe. After the first few times when she and Zack had lived in terror but nothing had happened, it had almost become a joke between them. She had been damned lucky.

Scrubbing her hair with shampoo, Penelope thrust aside her foolish worries. Once wouldn't hurt. She had Beth to worry about. He had Raul and Tammy. They'd move on.

She shrieked as a large shape shoved aside the shower curtain and stepped in.

“Charlie!” Foolishly, she crossed her arms over her soapy breasts as he loomed over her.

Lifting his eyebrows, he contemplated her crossed arms with dead seriousness. “You only reveal yourself in moonlight?” he asked without inflection.

Water pelted down his shoulder and arm as he reached for her. He hadn't combed his hair before entering the shower, but water quickly plastered it to the side of his head. Penelope could see the bristles of his beard as he pulled her closer.

“Charlie, not again,” she whispered. “We can't.”

“You have a good reason why not?” he asked with a degree of interest that apparently involved the soap on her breasts more than her words.

“I don't like sex,” she whispered in what she knew now was a ridiculous defense.

Lifting his gaze from her breasts, he quirked an eyebrow. “You don't like sex,” he repeated solemnly. “Tell me, when was the last time you had sex?”

He smeared circles in the foam, and Penelope quivered. He was doing it to her again, turning her mind to mush. She leaned back against the cool tiles and he stepped closer, until his arousal pressed firmly against her belly.

“I don't like men.” That wasn't what she meant, but she couldn't think straight with all that masculinity pressing her against the wall.

“Since when? Since the jock in college?”

She expected laughter, but when she glanced up, he was beaming with delight and a very definite smirk of male arrogance. The warm water splashed off his wide shoulders, streaking through the soap covering her and running in rivulets through the flattened hair on his chest. The tiles at her back were no longer cool. The effect of his grin and his body bubbled through what remained of her brain.

“Protection,” she managed to whimper. She knew she was whimpering. His fingers had turned her breasts into wild creatures demanding instant nurturing, and the hollow in her belly had opened so wide, she thought it would devour her from the inside out. She instinctively rose to her toes, offering herself as a target. She'd uttered her last intelligent word, and her mind had deteriorated to purple metaphors.

Charlie unfolded his fist and offered her the package within. “I remembered.”

Gratefully, Penelope grabbed the foil, tore it open, and with trembling hands, smoothed it over his erection. It didn't help that Charlie groaned the entire time she worked at it.

“We're gonna have to come up with a better solution in the future,” he muttered, sliding his hands to her buttocks and lifting.

Penelope scarcely heard him. Grabbing his shoulders, she covered his beard-stubbled face with kisses until he caught her mouth with his and pressed her solidly against the wall. His tongue thrust relentlessly between her teeth, robbing her of breath and all ability to reason.

He swallowed her cry as he thrust into her. Water and shampoo ran down her face as she leaned her head back, lifted her hips, and wrapped her legs around him. He took her weight and used it against her, prying her thighs wide as he drove into her, lifting her higher, taking her further, until she soared and he remained rooted to the ground, giving and giving until she could take no more.

As she floated back to the ground with the last spasms of her contractions, Charlie exploded inside her, holding her still with his arms around her back and her head on his shoulders as he filled her, until they both melted and slid down beneath the pelting water.

“Don't go,” he demanded as Penelope tried to stir into a more comfortable position.

How could she stay?

Weeping through the pounding water, she kissed him until his great body shuddered against her.

“I have to get back to work, Charlie!” Wearing a tailored polyester dress that swept about her knees, her wet hair gathered in a thick French braid, Penelope paced up and down the suite. “I've done everything for you that I can. Now I have to salvage my job.”

“You all but declare Jacobsen is dealing with the Russian Mafia, that he and my stepfather own equal shares of the Foundation, that in all probability they're in cahoots, and you want me to walk off and leave you here? What the hell do you think I am?” Firmly planted in front of the door, Charlie watched her with growing fury.

“A sensible man with better things to do than baby-sit a grown woman!”

“I don't call sending you home
babysitting
. I call it sensible. And I sure as hell gave you credit for more intelligence than to pull this stunt.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I told you they searched that cabin. They know who you are. They didn't murder Michel because they didn't like his looks. It was a warning. And we ignored that warning. Now we have to deal with it.”

She flung up her arms in exasperation and finally turned to look at him. “Charlie, you just don't understand. Beth's insurance doesn't cover the operation. The only way I can earn enough money to pay for it is to make partner. The only way I can make partner is to show them I can carry out assignments like this one and acquire new clients. If I do this right, I could expand into Castries and all over the Caribbean. I can't let this opportunity slip through my hands.”

“Your damned
life
could slip through your hands! I'm sending you home and that's the end of it.”

“You wouldn't send me home if I were Raul,” she pointed out caustically. “This is one of those
men
things, isn't it?”

“If you were Raul, you'd have the sense to go home,” he grumbled. “That's probably where he is right now. Now let's get going before the day security guard comes around and catches us.”

“Charlie, let's get something straight here.” Penelope planted herself in front of him, hands on hips. “My father inherited a fortune and expected my mother to stay at home and let him ‘take care' of her. She never learned to take care of herself—until he gambled their money right into the ground. All my sister wanted to do was raise kids. She married an up-and-coming young lawyer, had two kids, and lost both husband and kids when she lost her ability to see, and her husband decided he'd rather play cop. Now she's helpless.”

She stabbed his chest with her finger. “I not only learn from my experience, but the experiences of others. The only person I can rely on is myself. If I think it's safe to return to the resort, then I'll return to the resort. You have nothing whatsoever to say about it.”

He regarded her grimly. “You finished?”

At her decisive nod, he lifted his backpack. “Then let's go.”

Penelope regarded him suspiciously, but with no other choice of action, she shouldered her laptop and picked up her sack of clothing and followed him out.

They'd walked in the back way from Soufriere. In daylight, they looked conspicuous cutting across barbered lawns and golf cart paths, carrying their luggage. Penelope gazed at the acres of English green lawn, tennis courts, and shuttle bus roads, and wondered if this was another of the Foundation's resorts. She couldn't remember seeing the name on the list, but it looked like the kind of place Charlie complained about.

Well, to each his own, she supposed, shifting the heavy laptop. Before she could adjust the strap, Charlie reached over and took it from her, heaving it over his shoulder.

“I can carry it,” she hissed, trying not to attract attention from the tourists wandering past.

He shrugged. “So can I. Just think of me as your packhorse.”

She wished she could. If she could just picture him as a thickheaded, muscle-bound jock as she had that first day, she could excuse what she had done with him as a moment of irrationality and go on with her life. Apparently the sex had gone to her brain, however, and now she saw him as some kind of leader, a man capable of making intelligent, rational decisions that affected hundreds of lives. She could almost see him as a corporate executive commanding a payroll of thousands. He had that kind of power and decisiveness. He had taken over her life and the lives of everyone around him these past few days.

Which was all nonsense and a product of sunstroke and sex. She just wanted to shape him into the kind of man she thought she ought to be making love to, not the kind of man he really was—a male chauvinist pig like every other jock. If he were the kind of man she imagined, he'd be downright dangerous.

They stopped and bought breakfast in Soufriere like any other tourists wandering the booths along the waterfront. Penelope tried to look for shady characters or anyone following them, but she saw nothing but the fishmongers hawking their wares and the kids dodging in and out between the idle shoppers, selling their malachite necklaces. The sun shone benevolently on the waves lapping the shore. How could anyone believe in danger in a setting like this? She'd be perfectly safe in the isolation of the resort, feeding software into PCs and teaching the staff how to use it.