“I like boats, too. I suppose. Both of us having lived most of our lives in Wyoming, boats have just never been given a high priority.”
“You’ve been fishing with my dad up in the mountains,” she reminded him quickly. “You liked that boat.”
“Yes,” Craig agreed wryly. “I’m extremely fond of rowboats.”
“And big boats aren’t very different from little boats. They both float, for instance. Actually, big boats can be very easy to run.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s so.” Sonia took a huge breath. “I’ve found one that’s very easy to run. In the Gulf of Mexico. For four days. Starting Sunday.” One of them suddenly wasn’t dancing, but Sonia stayed firmly entrenched within the relative safety of his arms until he recovered a little from the shock. “I had to think of something to give you for our anniversary…”
“Our anniversary is six months away.”
“I’ve never remembered dates well,” she reminded him.
“Sonia,” he growled impatiently into her temple.
“It’s called a tri-cabin cruiser. A baby could run it, the man said. Everything’s taken care of-transportation, tickets, insurance. I talked to Mrs. Heath-she said next week wouldn’t be a bad time for you to leave. Charlie, by the grace of God, doesn’t mind taking care of things-”
“You’ve had one hell of a busy week,” he said abruptly.
“A little,” she agreed demurely. She’d only stopped panting that afternoon.
Her husband was silent for a time. The second love song stretched to a third one, a ballad about love and loss and tender memories. About the time of the second refrain, some of the stiffness seemed most unwillingly to rush from his body; he gathered her close again. His fingertips glided up and down, up and down, over her back in the rhythm of caress, the rhythm of intimacy.
She could feel the sway of her skirts against him and the softness of her breasts against his chest…and the arousal he was no longer trying to hide from her. Even massive shocks, she noted, had not appreciably affected the size or heat of that arousal. Through two layers of clothes, she could clearly feel him.
One of his hands strayed down to her hips, and lingered. She waited. His hand slipped back up to more appropriate territory, but after a time she heard the breath hiss from his lungs.
“You’re not wearing a damn thing under that dress,” he whispered in her ear.
“No,” she admitted. Dancing eyes suddenly peered up at him. “It was part of the campaign to distract you, so you would say yes,” she commented demurely. “Are you distracted?”
“Have you considered what it would look like if I dragged you down in the middle of this dance floor?”
Lord, he was suddenly restless. His voice was a low-pitched growl in her ear. He was moving to the rhythm of some song that certainly wasn’t what the pianist was playing. Craig’s song was infinitely slower, one about possession and fierce, swift loving. Sonia didn’t know the words, but she knew well the music of his body and understood in every feminine bone in her body the tempo his heartbeat was picking up.
“Are we going?” she whispered finally.
She studied the play of emotions on his face with an anxious feeling of waiting inside. He didn’t want to go; she knew that. He was looking for a way to say no to her. She could almost see him cataloging the problems in his head, from his work to the ranch, from timing to expense. Those, she knew, could be worked out.
She also knew he had never refused her anything that she had really wanted. And that, in the end, was what would make the difference, weigh in the balance against whatever reasons he really had for not wanting to be alone with her.
Her fingertips grazed his jawline, her soft eyes searching his, the frivolity gone. “It’s all right either way, Craig,” she said softly. “I just…love you. All I wanted was some special time with you, but if we absolutely can’t…”
There was so much tension in his face, a jagged, taut anxiety set in proud lines. And in the layer under that, she could not mistake the searing depth of sheer, rich love in his eyes. “So,” he said quietly, “what time did you say the plane leaves on Sunday?”
Craig jerked the pillow behind him and leaned up against it, tossing his trade magazine on the floor. Sonia was in the bathroom. He could hear her brushing her teeth.
He’d come home fully expecting Sonia to strip to the buff from her wanton white dress. She had, but out of sight in the bathroom. She’d appeared moments later in some granny nightgown he’d never seen before, and disappeared again. The next time her head darted around the door, there were gobs of white cream all over her face. Once he’d gotten a good look at that, she’d vanished again.
She’d been chattering about the trip to the Gulf the entire time, but the message that his lady had withdrawn from her irresistible-wench mood was unmistakable. She’d never before put white gunk on her face, and that blasted nightgown had come out of some attic.
In one sense he was amused, and perhaps even relieved she was…out of the mood. In another sense, he felt more restless than a hungry cougar on the prowl. His own problems were not Sonia’s, and he’d had every intention of taking up her sexual challenge. He did not understand her mercurial mood. Her taking off the dress in the bathroom amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and his own head seemed to be in so many confused places at once that, disgusted, he picked up the magazine yet a third time.
Sonia, yawning, stepped out of the bathroom, this time flicking off the light, her hair brushed and her face clean and soft under the lamplight. “Must have been that wine at dinner, but I am unbelievably sleepy. You must be, too, after all the hours you’ve put in this week.”
“A little,” he agreed.
She slipped between the sheets next to him. He immediately turned off the light, tossed aside the magazine and slid down next to her. Automatically, he tucked the sheet around her chin and then, beneath the covers, reached across her side, her signal to turn over and move in closer, the way she always liked to sleep.
She didn’t move.
He didn’t really pay much attention. A silent yawn rumbled from his lips; the week’s exhaustion was taking its toll. Instinctively, his arm slid around her again, but instead of rolling over, she flopped on her stomach, her face turned to the far wall. He stiffened. Sonia never broke her sleep patterns; he couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t fallen asleep in the same way. For himself, he could crash anywhere and anytime. It was his wife who couldn’t fall asleep unless she was tucked and curled and cuddled exactly just so.
He listened, hearing the sound of her even breathing. Carefully, silently and a little stubbornly, he shifted both of them. Her body was limp; she murmured something but didn’t stir. It took a few moments, because he really didn’t want to wake her, but in time he had it right again. Her leg was tucked between his, her cheek in his shoulder, his arm protectively curled around her, resting on her thigh. Finally, his eyes closed.
Sonia’s opened, facing the wall of his chest, her body as supple as grass in the wind, her mind racing at full speed. Her husband was finally asleep. He didn’t know what was going on yet, but he would.
We have a marriage here, Mr. Hamilton, which means sacrifices are occasionally required, she told him silently. That goes for both of us. Because if you’re giving up sex, buster, then so am I.
Chapter 11
Mr. Bartholomew grinned at them from the dock. “Have a wonderful time, you two! Any problems, you just give me a little ship-to-shore,” he called over the rising roar of the engine.
He motioned to Sonia and, laughing, she leaned over the side, expecting the precarious buss on the cheek that she got. “Don’t you worry about that husband of yours, honey,” the marina owner told her. “He knows more about boats than probably half the people on the Gulf. You just get yourself a solid honeymoon going there.” He winked lasciviously before ambling his portly body to the dock edge, where he untied the first line and tossed it to her.