By the time dinner was over, their laughter was muted with tiredness. They were both content to lie down on their sleeping bags, watching the fire die down, watching the stars take on added brilliance. A crescent moon hung low and lazy, and the steady lap of the lake against the shore created a hypnotic rhythm of private promises.
It was so natural for her to want to touch him. The night belonged to the senses, and the day had been full of pleasures. Instinctively, Erica’s hand reached out to touch Kyle’s. Just as instinctively, his larger hand curved around hers, his thumb gently stroking her wrist. For a moment, it was fine. Closing her eyes, she could feel the warm current flow between them. It changed only gradually to something warmer, more restless, like a slow rush of flame where their fingers touched. Kyle’s hand tightened in hers.
Just as fast as the flame had taken hold, it was extinguished. He jerked up suddenly, leaning forward, staring at the black waters of the lake lapping so gently on the shore.
She stared at the slope of his back for only a second before he spoke. “I think I’ll walk for a while, Erica.”
Without you.
No, sweetheart, she thought. We’re not going to end another day with both of us unable to sleep. “I’m tired, but not quite tired enough to sleep. Have one more glass of wine with me before you go?”
He conceded to that. She poured his wine, a nice full cup. She leaned back as he did, careful not to touch him. A shooting star cascaded down into the depths of the lake, lost like a single spark of fireworks. The whole beach had turned golden by starlight, dark treasures of shadows and hollows in the sand. Kyle’s eyes were shuttered at half-mast, not closed.
He didn’t want to go for a walk. He didn’t want to risk touching her, she thought idly, feeling like a general fighting a war without troops. The loneliness frightened her. Maybe it was Morgan. But maybe it was just that Kyle really didn’t want to get close again. Ever.
She was willing to fight, but it was so…hard. Kyle didn’t move when she stirred a few feet from him, to unroll the sleeping bag she’d been using as a pillow.
“Sleepy now?” he murmured.
“Very.”
She’d never been less sleepy in her entire life.
Chapter 14
Erica took a slow walk into the woods and stood in the pitch-black shadows of the trees. He couldn’t see her; she knew that, and she took a long time, pulling off her shirt and jeans, then slowly removing her panties and bra. A thousand things were in her mind, a restless kaleidoscope of uncertainties.
She’d taken too long to tell him about Morgan; now she didn’t know how.
No, that wasn’t true. The problem was that she’d never known how. To tell him the truth was one thing. For him to believe her was another. For months now, he’d seemed to lack trust, faith in her. At home…
But they weren’t at home now. There, all she could think of was convincing Kyle of the truth about Morgan; here on this wild, deserted beach, she knew Morgan wasn’t the point. What she had to tell Kyle, what she wanted to tell him, what she needed him to believe…was that she loved him.
And she desperately wanted to hear that back from him.
“Erica? You’re all right?”
Her head jerked up at the sound of Kyle’s voice. He had lurched to a sitting position and was staring in her direction. Even by moonlight, she could see the frown etched on his forehead. She was taking a very long time preparing for sleep.
“Fine,” she called back.
She lifted her head, closing her eyes. The virgin woods, the total darkness, the primitive rustlings of animals in the brush-all echoed her own restlessness, her own impatience. Thinking accomplished nothing. Not here. Survival was a matter of the senses here, of feel and hearing and scent. Of instincts.
She stepped out of the cover of darkness. Moon rays shimmered over her skin as her toes dug into the soft, cool sand. A whispering breeze from the lake lifted her hair, teased her breasts. It was a warm breeze. Ahead of her the lake seemed untouched by that wind, smooth and black and fathomless. Cool. She’d never in her life walked naked outdoors at night. The warm wind on her bare flesh touched another primitive instinct, as though there were a soft voice deep inside of her, promoting woman and night, urging her to follow her natural, sensual instincts. She could have sworn the lake was calling her…
Her toes touched the first of the smooth, slippery stones at the edge of the lake, and she winced at the icy chill of the water.
“Erica?”
“Not to worry. I just want to cool off before sleeping,” she called back.
He said something else; she didn’t hear it. In four steps, she was up to her knees; at the sixth step, she dived cleanly into that shocking ice bath and surged up again. Every nerve ending burst into life. She whipped back her rope of wet hair and dived again.
The water was both torture and pleasure, a curious combination. The lake was so totally black and endless that she felt a shiver of fear, yet that icy silk embraced her body, seeming to flow in, around and all through her, intimate and possessive.
She couldn’t have explained in a thousand years why she’d gone into the water; it was instinct more than logic. Her arms sliced through the black water in soundless strokes. Then her slow crawl gradually picked up pace. More instinct. She felt wild, frightened, free. Her heart kept drumming out those rhythms of feeling. Her stroke drove her farther, as if she could swim forever, as if she would never tire, as if she could span oceans.
She couldn’t. It hit her all at once that the chill water had finally seeped into her bloodstream. Her limbs were tiring, and her lungs were desperately hauling in air. Suddenly, she could see nothing but black sky and water. The shore could not really be so far, yet she couldn’t see it in the darkness. Panic hovered over her. She rolled onto her back and simply tried to breathe, to tell herself that her arms weren’t too tired to tread water. All she had to do was relax…
A sure, firm hand curled at the nape of her neck, and she opened frightened eyes.
“Easy, honey.” Kyle’s face was white by moonlight; his hair a sleek, shiny black helmet. Water was streaming down his neck, glistening on the deeply etched lines of his forehead. His grim, taut expression was a total denial of the voice dipped in velvet, gentle and soothing. “You’re all right?”
Undoubtedly, she would have found her second wind; she had no cramp; she would probably have made it back to shore with flying colors. Those were thoughts, not instincts. She was terrified. “No,” she whispered.
She didn’t have to say anything else, and Kyle didn’t waste words. He turned on his back, drawing her on top of him. His legs and arms treaded water, but his chest was ballast, safe haven. She lay back, just breathing in and out until the long, gulping breaths calmed.
After a time, he shifted upright, bracing her arms on his shoulders. “You’re cold as hell, love. We’re almost in. Can you sidestroke next to me?”
She nodded weakly. “It was just suddenly so…dark. I got so frightened. Stupid of me, Kyle…”
“Everything’s fine.” His voice was so sure, so calm, so soothing. “Just go easy, Erica. I’ll be right next to you. So close you can touch me; you can reach out and hold on any time you want to. Come on, love.”
He let her go, hovering as she forced her arms to scissor through the water. He sidestroked next to her. Every time she opened her eyes she could see his, watching her, dark and soft, within touching range. All those primitive instincts surfaced again, a wealth of feeling that washed through her physical exhaustion. He had come. Safe haven was within touching range; the love was there, the strength and power of feeling were there. He’d had to know before she had that she’d overestimated her physical strength. He’d had to plunge into the water before the thought had even crossed her mind that she was in trouble.