‘Beautiful,’ she said from behind him. Her arms slithered around his waist. ‘Swimming makes me horny,’ she said, close to his ear.
Without turning he reached behind him and moved his hands under the towel and up the insides of her thighs. She leaned back a trifle, giving his hands more room to move, and slid her hands under the band of his skimpy swimsuit, feeling him rise to her touch. She slipped his trunks over his hips and let them drop to the floor, freeing him.
‘And everything makes you horny,’ she said.
He turned and pulled the towel loose and, sliding his hands gently down her back and over the soft mounds of her cheeks, drew her to him.
‘You got a cold rear end,’ he growled in her ear.
‘But a warm heart.’
She stood on her toes, spreading her legs a little more, and stepped into him, her thick hair surrounding him, and wrapped her lips around one of his nipples and began sucking.
‘Been a while,’ his peculiar whisper-voice answered.
‘Right,’ she chuckled. ‘At least two hours.’
She leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘Put it on automatic pilot,’ then took his hand and drew him back toward the master stateroom.
OLD TIMES
She was a real beauty, sleek and uncommonly low in the water that looked more like a racing craft than a yacht, with her squat cockpit, the long, trim bow jutting fifty feet in front of the windscreen, the four 750 hp fuel- injected engines rumbling in the stern. The long, slender profile concealed a large main salon, a master bedroom with a king-size bed, ample quarters for two other guests and a galley fit for a cordon bleu chef.
Sloan saw only the exterior, but he could not suppress a soft whistle as the boat sliced silently through the water toward him.
The hardest emotions to control, 126 had once warned Hatcher, would be love and hate. Hatcher had loved Harry Sloan as he would have loved his own brother and hated him as he would his deadliest enemy. Now, as he approached the dock and saw Sloan for the first time in seven years, he was overwhelmed with mixed emotions.
The bond between mentor and student is as hard to break as the one between father and son; 126 had told him that, and it was true.
He wanted to get even with Sloan for betraying him, and yet part of him was glad to see the son of a bitch. Rage began to grow in him as the boat neared the dock. Rage at Sloan. Rage at himself for not hating the man more than he did. The hardest thing to forgive was not the three years in Los Boxes — it was that Sloan had betrayed him.
What the hell was he doing here?
He turned to Ginia.
‘See the big guy standing by the slip house?’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He’s the guy who’s looking for me.’
‘Friend or foe?’ she asked breezily.
‘Jump off as soon as we tie up, okay? We’ve got some talking to do.’
‘The old screw-and-run trick, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you later. Catch the bowline for me.’
‘Sure. Dinner?’
‘Maybe.’
She leaned over and kissed him. hard on the mouth. ‘Remember that, just in case you feel like playing soldier- boy with your pal.’
‘He’s no pal.’
Sloan watched Hatcher ease the big boat into its slip, watched Ginia jump on the dock and hook up the front line, then turn and blow him a kiss, watched her walk up the pier toward the setting sun, which silhouetted her long legs through a thin white cotton skirt. Sloan ambled down the pier and stood below the bridge, looking up at him.
‘Been a while, Hatch,’ Sloan sail around his perpetual smile.
He looks great, Sloan thought. Tanned, filled out, got a lot more hair than I do. Hell, he’s better-looking than he ever was.
Hatcher glared back at him and said nothing.
‘Permission to come aboard, Captain?’ Sloan asked with a laugh. When Hatcher didn’t answer, Sloan clambered on board anyway.
Pushy as ever, Hatcher thought.
