“Sit down, honey. If you don’t want breakfast yourself, at least have a cup of coffee.”
“I forgot your melon.”
“Sit.”
She perched obediently on the cushioned stool next to him, hugged her coffee mug in her hands and smiled brightly. Her husband was sending out calming, soothing vibrations. Which was very strange, because she felt increasingly unnerved. “If you don’t want to go fishing, we can explore the shore of the cove. We could take the dinghy. I’ll row in, you can row back,” she remarked magnanimously.
“You’ll row with the surf, and I fight the battle against the tide on the way back?”
“And if you’re really good, I’ll even let you make the picnic lunch.”
“One of us,” Craig mentioned, “is in an awfully lazy mood this morning.”
“Exactly,” Sonia agreed impishly. “We can gather shells and swim and lie around in the sand. There are palm trees out there just waiting to provide a little shade. Now, it may be the coast of Texas, but who’s carrying an atlas? It looks like the shoreline of a nice little deserted Pacific island.”
Craig chuckled, pushing back his plate. He turned and swung his leg around, hooking his bare foot on the rung of her stool. He watched as Sonia ever so unobtrusively tried to shift away from any physical contact, but between his leg and the teak bar she had nowhere to go.
That very small effort at withdrawal from her aroused a very pure, very basic, very male instinctive response in him. The same instinct that had nearly driven him over the edge the night before. His jeaned calf rubbed against Sonia’s bare one, and his wife’s chatter accelerated just slightly, like the increased rev of a motor.
“If you don’t want to do any of that, we could snorkel. There’s equipment in that locker on deck.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“You’re supposed to be able to see all kinds of fish and things in the shallow waters.”
“Yes.”
Sonia could feel his eyes on her lips and throat and felt another dozen of her nerve endings zoom to life. He shouldn’t be looking at her like that now, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t he see she was dressed like a derelict? And she was not going to succumb to those damn eyes. Not if he had in mind more one-sided loving. She had several days of specific activities planned to ensure that his libido was hot-wired solely on his own behalf.
Furthermore, she had the sneaky feeling he was deliberately trying to make conversation difficult. With utmost grace, she stood up, only to find that his other foot had captured the rung on the opposite side of her. She was pinned in. “I’ll do the dishes now,” she said cheerfully.
“In a minute. Finish your coffee.”
Her bottom despondently plopped back down on the stool. Nothing was going well. “Which would you like to do?” she asked brightly.
“The choices are fishing and snorkeling and picnicking on the beach in the cove?”
She picked up her mug, nodding. “Actually, we could probably do them all. We’re up early.”
“Very early,” he agreed.
His tone was still mild. One would think he was trying to soothe a fractious kitten. Sonia was not soothed. She took another hurried sip of coffee. “And if you don’t want to do any of those things-”
“I think you’re in the mood for a very busy day.”
She nodded, much more happily. It was the first sign that he was going to prove…tractable. “We take vacations so rarely. We may as well take advantage of every minute.”
“I agree.” Craig set down his mug. “We should take advantage of every minute. And I think we should do everything on your list. Tomorrow. Today we’re already busy.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “We’re already-?”
“We’re going to spend this day in bed, Sonia.”
A few drops of her coffee decided to leap right out of her cup. Craig took a napkin to mop it up.
“Finish your coffee, honey,” he said gently. He made every effort to keep his voice calm and soothing. It didn’t seem to be working. Sonia was both nervous and clearly…not in the mood. Huge green-blue eyes peered at him over her coffee cup.
His ethical system flew out the window. His unbudgeable, rocklike, irrefutable ethical system. No one and nothing had ever made Craig do anything he believed wasn’t right. And as much as he adored his Sonia, she was going to have to get in the mood. Two months of abstinence had just, very simply, combusted inside him with all the docility of nuclear fission.
Did he mean what she hoped he meant? Was he thinking of his pleasure for a welcome change?
Sonia licked dry lips. “Listen…”
“Finish your coffee. I want to go to bed.”
Rapidly, she raised the cup to her lips again. A disgraceful feeling of utter elation was trying to swamp her.
“The first time, unfortunately, it’s going to go fast,” he said gently. “Not the second time. The second time, we’ll take it nice and slow. Then we’ll have lunch. After lunch you can nap. And after you nap, we’ll be tired of mattresses, Sonia, and we can go for a swim. We’re going to do a complex study of friction in salt water. Body friction-it’s going to be an in-depth study…You’re not drinking your coffee,” he chided gently.
Hurriedly, she took another sip. Actually, she downed the cup.
His legs hooked around the rungs of her stool; he leaned closer with his palms spread on her thighs. “When you bought that red bikini you wore yesterday, you must have been in an inciting-violence kind of mood. I hate to say this, honey, but it’s your own damn fault the first time is going to go too fast.”
She nodded. Everything was her fault. She would gladly have taken responsibility for the earth caving in. Who cared? She hadn’t heard that sound in his voice in weeks. That unmistakable I’m-going-to-take-you tone.
“You want me to tell you how much I want you?” His voice was gravelly, almost pained, trying to be light, trying to be humorous.
She set down her cup. She wasn’t smiling. “Want me, then,” she whispered vibrantly.
“How on earth could you doubt it?”
In a twinkling, he gathered her up. The stools teetered behind them. His mouth pressed on hers as if he were totally unaware her neck could snap from that kind of pressure; his length to her length seared into one. Air was forgotten. Breathing was forgotten. His hands were running up and down her spine, his fingers finally closing around her hips, crushing her to him.
His lips lifted from hers long enough to trail more heated kisses on her cheeks, down to her throat. “But what has been wrong, then?” Sonia whispered achingly. “Craig…”
The T-shirt muffled her words. Her T-shirt. In a moment, it went soaring over her head; his palms skimmed down her white shorts, and he lifted her to get her out of them. She didn’t argue. His lips crushed down on hers again with a bruising pressure, a bruising sweet, sweet pleasure. So rough…Craig had never been rough. And the drowning hunger of his lips ignited a sweet, fierce hunger in her as well.
He carried her up a step and then another. She felt like laughing for the first time in weeks. The bed couldn’t have been thirty feet away, that gorgeous stateroom set up with satin sheets and opaque curtains and soft pillows. But he placed her on the carpet, and through the slits in the curtains the morning sun was blinding…at least for that instant before Craig’s head dipped down to hers again.
She tried to draw back for a brief gulp of air. He wouldn’t let her. His tongue slid inside her parted lips, a busy, busy tongue informing her without words that she didn’t need to breathe.
He was absolutely right. She needed that arrogant tongue. She needed the feel of his chest and his heartbeat crushing her breasts; she savored his impatience as he finally pulled away to peel off his jeans.