Conquer the Memories

luxuries of sun and water, all the new smells and new sounds.

After a time, she turned over on her stomach, lifted her head and smiled at Craig. A sun visor separated them, along with perhaps three feet of distance, and Craig was standing at the helm; she could only see his face when she raised her head up so high. She gave him a lazy wave and lowered her head again. After a moment, she glanced on both sides of the boat, saw absolutely no other sail or vessel at all, and reached back to untie her bikini top.

In seconds, the wispy garment sailed over the visor. She lifted her head up just for an instant, to make sure that Craig had caught it.

He had. The skinny band of material was clenched in his fist. There was a nice little pulse hammering at the base of his throat.

Smiling, she cradled her head on her arms and closed her eyes.

***

They had anchored in a half-moon cove that looked for all the world like the tiny harbor of their own private deserted island. Sunset colors shimmered through the still palms, and the sandy beach in the distance had the glow of gold. Gulls soared overhead as if they had nothing better to do than glide free in those last moments of day.

The water slip-slopped against the boat’s hull in an endless, rhythmic sway that was half lullaby, half sensual call to the senses. A hush had fallen with evening. The wind had died, and the heat had become something alive and lazy and hypnotically soothing. Craig leaned over the rails, watching the silver fin of a fish just beneath the water. Behind him, the grill continued to glow with dying coals. Dinner was over, and he absently drank the last of his wine.

“Craig!”

He turned quickly and strode to the steps in time to catch the falling bundle in Sonia’s arms. “What on earth are you-”

“Guess what! I found a telescope below,” she explained, laughing as she set down the rest of her armload.

Craig noted her other choices with amusement. One blanket, two pillows, one bowl of grapes, two clean glasses, one additional bottle of wine when they weren’t even close to finishing the first one yet, and yes, a sort of portable telescope. “We needed the grapes to look at the stars?” he questioned wryly.

She stuffed one into his mouth. “Not specifically, but generally, yes,” she chided him. “Every normal human being suffers constant hunger pangs when spending a day on the water. Look how much we ate for dinner.”

“We?” Craig teased.

“Waste not, want not.” Sonia glowered darkly.

“Is that why you raced through nearly two steaks all on your own?”

She nodded impishly. “And you’re going to pay for this trip when we get home with a week of cottage cheese, if you can’t control my appetite better than that, Mr. Hamilton.” She turned away, to bend over and spread out the blanket on the deck.

“In that case, perhaps I’d better take control over all of your appetites, Mrs. Hamilton.”

Her fingers stilled on the blanket, and then she gave it a vigorous shake. Amazing, how quickly sensuous images could dance through her bloodstream.

She hadn’t kissed her husband in twenty-four hours now. Fourteen hundred and forty minutes. Withdrawal pangs had set in about fourteen hundred minutes ago. To the devil with sex. Affection, just touching, had always been part of their relationship. And her heart was regularly beating out a reminder that plans or no plans, a man in trouble needed all the affection and compassion she could give him.

Still, love and attention she had given freely. It hadn’t erased the haunted look in her husband’s eyes. Other action, drastic action, had been called for.

Fine. Well, actually that wasn’t fine at all, because keeping him at a good distance meant not only that he couldn’t touch her, but that she couldn’t touch him either.

Craig swiftly moved beside her, fixing the blanket she couldn’t seem to smooth out to save her life. He cast her a quick smile, one of his most lethal playful ones. He’d changed into canvas shorts for dinner; she’d dressed just as informally in a black maillot bathing suit with sexy holes up and down the sides. For the instant, though, she couldn’t seem to get into the role of tease. All she wanted to do was grab those sun-browned shoulders and hold that huge man so tight, so hard, so…

“Cat got your tongue?” he teased. “All this silence is so rare I can barely stand it.”

“You,” she said disgustedly, but the feeling wouldn’t leave her so easily. He needed some good, solid loving, that man. He’d been easy and tender and special all day, which made yet another ball of anxiety tighten inside her. What exactly was it going to take to get him to loosen up and admit what was bothering him? It hurt, that he believed he was fooling her. “Now,” she said, all businesslike as she plumped the pillows, “we have one night, one sky full of stars and one telescope. For once in my life, I’d like to locate more than the Big Dipper.”

He slid down beside her with a chuckle. “I wasn’t aware of this terrible gap in your education.”

“I don’t admit it to everyone.” Lying on the deck, she reached over him for the wine, and poured him a glass. “We have to do something until it gets dark enough. I figured I’d play Roman slave girl to your Nero. You lie there, and I’ll feed you grapes and wine.”

Blue eyes rested on hers. A lightning storm crackled from nowhere. The sky was cloudless and there wasn’t the hint of a breeze, but somewhere between his eyes and hers there was searing tension, a crackling awareness…“You do like that idea, don’t you?” Her voice was oddly low, working to keep the teasing tone in it. “The lady at your mercy, to do with what you will?”

“I like the idea.” His palm brushed in her hair, smoothing it back. “Not of Nero, not of slave girls. But of you feeding me grapes and wine, on a boat with no one around, on a night when no one can hear us. Do you know what I’d like to do to you?”

His eyes gave her a very good idea. She searched his face. Darkness had fallen so rapidly that his eyes had a luminous quality, all the intensity of luster, all the softness of the dark waters surrounding them. He wanted to touch her; he wanted to love her; she could feel it clear to her soul. Her spine tingled with it.

But would it be the same, would he make love to her but not with her, would he give only for her pleasure?

His eyes made lush, erotic promises to her…yet his body spoke of control. Control where he was concerned.

Leaning her cheek to his palm, she pressed her lips there softly and then withdrew. She picked up a grape and raised the sweet fruit to his lips. “Enjoy, Nero,” she commanded brightly. “Your time will come. First, the stars.”

She could feel him staring at her as she busied herself with the telescope, handing him his wine again, chattering. Naturally, he was staring; she’d never behaved like such a fool in her life! Still, he let her play out her games without a word, and in time she relaxed.

Twenty minutes later, stretched flat, she had the telescope to her eye and was squinting into it as she swung it back and forth across the sky. “This is hopeless,” she complained. “I can’t even find the North Star.”

Craig tugged the telescope from her hands and pointed it at the brightest diamond above. One could hardly miss it.

She gave him a severe look for the chuckle he was barely holding back. “I know it’s up there. But it disappears when you put the lens to your eye.”

He sighed. “How can one extremely intelligent woman be such an occasional dunce?” he questioned the heavens.

“Oh, hush.” She put the telescope back in its box, stood up and stretched. “I knew all along I should have married Mack McPherson. Never, never, would he have made fun of me.”

His eyes trailed the length of her long, sleek legs in the moonlight. “Who is Mack McPherson?”