and a white cotton caftan. 'I may need to redeem that promise you made to help me storm the bastille.' Her voice was as light as his, and didn't reflect the fact that her heart was pounding so hard she felt as if she'd been running.
She didn't dare keep up the badinage as they made their way down the ladder and along the path to the pool. She wasn't experienced enough to maintain that casual sophistication and was sure that at any moment she'd betray how nervous and uncertain she felt. Nervous and something else. Something exciting and moving and as beautifully primitive as the rain forest surrounding them.
It was almost pitch-dark as they reached the bank of the pool and the water was only discernible from the bank by the occasional glitter of moonlight on its mirror surface.
Kate dropped her towels and the caftan on the bank. 'It's shallow enough to stand upright around the edges. It only deepens as you go toward the middle.'
'Right.' Beau had already striped off his meager clothes and was jumping into the water. 'Damn!' he exploded. 'Where does that spring originate, the South Pole?'
She burst out laughing. 'I told you it was cold.'
She tossed it to him and then pulled the T-shirt over her head. There was no use being shy. Beau had seen everything there was to see last night on the
She inhaled sharply as she jumped into the water and she heard Beau's chuckle. 'Definitely the South Pole, eh?'
'Definitely,' she gasped. She poured a little shampoo in her hand and began rubbing it into her hair. The curls were coarse and wiry with salt and she sudsed and rinsed it twice before she was satisfied it was clean. 'I've finished with the shampoo. Would you like to use it?'
'I made do with the soap,' he said carelessly. His voice was suddenly much closer and she looked up to see him only a few feet away. 'I didn't want to wait. I wanted to get through in a hurry so I could have my treat.'
'Your treat?' She moistened her lips nervously.
'Bathing Kate, bonny Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom.'
'Shakespeare,' she identified, a trifle breathlessly.
'Right,' he drawled, 'but we're not going to discuss literature tonight. That I promise you, sweet Kate. I only display that degree of restraint every century or so.'
'I think most of the salt is washed off now,' she offered faintly.
'But we have to be sure, don't we? I promised you
The cold wet bar was against her throat and she gave an involuntary shiver. 'Cold?' he murmured.
'Let's see if we can fix that.' He rubbed the soap briskly between his hands. 'I'm going to like this much better anyway. And you will too, Kate. I guarantee that you'll like it a hell of a lot better.'
He took the bottle of shampoo from her and tossed it and the soap on the bank. Then his hands were on her throat rubbing the lather from his hands into her skin with slow teasing skill. She stood perfectly still, almost forgetting to breathe as his hands moved to her bare shoulders rising out of the water. His hands were cold from the water and hard with calluses. Playboys shouldn't have calluses, she thought inconsequentially, but then Beau wasn't a stereotype. He was a law unto himself. His hands weren't really cold either. She could feel the vital heat beneath the surface coolness and it was arousing an answering heat everywhere he touched.
'Give me your left arm.'
She raised her arm from the water and his hands moved over it from shoulder to wrist with slow easy strokes that should have been soothing. They weren't. By the time he'd finished the other arm, her heart was beating wildly and her flesh was so exquisitely sensitive that every brush of his hands was actually painful. It was like something from an erotic fantasy to be standing here in this icy water in almost total darkness while a naked shadowy stranger ran his hands over her body in this intimately arousing fashion. Yet Beau wasn't really a stranger. They'd been through so much together that in some ways she felt she knew him far better than she did Jeffrey or Julio.
And now the piece de resistance,' Beau drawled. His hands closed upon her breasts beneath the water. She cried out and involuntarily surged toward him.
'I've been wanting to do that since the minute I saw you in that bar,' he said thickly- He was squeezing her gently and his thumbs were exploring the pink rims that encircled the hard crests of her nipples. 'And I think you've been wanting it, too, haven't you, Kate?'
She hadn't realized it, but she must have. The response was so immediate, the filling of an aching void so evident. 'The water has washed all the soap off your hands,' she said vaguely through the haze of heat surrounding her. It seemed impossible now that she'd even noticed the coldness of the water.
'It doesn't matter, we'll never miss it,' Beau assured her. 'They say friction does just as good a job as soap.'
'Who says?' she asked breathlessly, not really caring. The nail of his thumb was toying playfully with the swollen tip of her breast.
'I forget,' Beau said absently, moving closer, 'but I'm anxious to test the theory. Part your legs, love.'
She obeyed without thinking. 'Why do-' She broke off as his knee suddenly was inserted between her thighs and he was lifting her, one hand moving from her breast to the curve of her buttocks to pull her forward so she was straddling his strong muscular thigh with shocking intimacy. He pressed her back against the bank, resting his other knee against it for support.
'There, that's better.' Beau's voice held the same breathlessness she was feeling. 'Almost comfortable. ' His hand at her bottom was moving her back and forth on his leg. 'A very comfortable ride, eh, sugar?'
Comfortable? There was a distinctly mischievous note in that Southern drawl that made her aware he knew just how ridiculous that adjective was. That friction he'd mentioned was burning her with every motion and she felt she was learning by Braille the physical substance and textures of him. The hard bone beneath the resilient muscles, the slightly rough film of hair that was prickling against that most sensitive part of her. Her swollen breasts swung heavy and ripe against the sleek smoothness of his chest with every other movement and she could hear his breathing become harsher and more labored with every touch.
His hand still cupping her breast was squeezing and relaxing in rhythm with the molten friction he was stirring in her lower body. His index finger encircling the budding tip was both inquisitive and arousing. 'You have lovely little puckers all around this pretty thing,' he said raggedly. 'Is that because of the cold or what I'm doing to you?'
'I don't know,' she gasped. She didn't know anything that wasn't connected with the liquid aching need that was racking her entire body.
'Then perhaps we'd better find out.' The hand that was on her buttocks suddenly moved around and slid swiftly between her and his thigh. 'I want you to be sure. It's a matter of personal pride.' His fingers started moving, caressing, delving, teasing with a devilish skill.
'Beau!' She arched forward against him, her hands clutching desperately at his shoulders. She uttered a low sound that was half guttural groan and half whimper as she felt two of those diabolically knowledgeable fingers enter, stroke, burn, rotate.
She was so close she could feel the thunder of his heart against her ear and his voice was shaking a little. 'It's me, isn't it, Kate? Say it!'
'It's you,' she said, hardly knowing what she was saying. She would have said
