'All right. I have an agency we can call.'
'No, a party's personal.'
'And a lot of work.'
She shook her head. She wasn't able to explain that she needed something to keep her mind occupied. 'Don't worry, Nathan. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's throw a party. You take care of contacting your friends. I'll do the rest.'
'If that's what you want.'
'Very much. Now that that's settled, how about a swim?'
He glanced over at the pool. It was inviting and tempting, but so was sitting doing nothing. 'Go ahead. The idea of changing into a suit seems too complicated.'
'Who needs a suit?' To prove a point, she rose and shimmied out of her shorts.
'Jack…'
'Nathan,' she said, mimicking his tone, 'one of the ten great pleasures of life is skinny-dipping in the moonlight.' The thin bikinis she wore joined her shorts. Her baggy T-shirt skimmed her thighs. 'You have a very private pool here,' she continued. 'Your neighbors would need a stepladder and binoculars to sneak a peak.' Carelessly she pulled the T-shirt over her head and stood, slim and naked. 'If they want to that badly, we may as well oblige them.'
His mouth went dry. He should have been beyond that by now. Over the past few weeks he'd seen, touched, tasted every inch of her. Yet watching Jackie poised at the edge of the pool, her body gold and gleaming in the moonlight, made his heart thud like a teenager's on a first date.
She rose on her toes, arched and dived cleanly into the water. And surfaced, laughing. 'God, I've missed this.' Her body glimmered beneath the surface, darker and somehow more lush with the illusion of moonlight and water. 'I used to sneak out at one in the morning to swim like this. My mother would have been horrified, even though there was a six-foot wall around the estate and the pool was hidden by trees. There was something wonderfully decadent about swimming nude at one in the morning. Aren't you coming in?'
He was already having trouble breathing, and he only shook his head. If he went in, he wouldn't do much swimming.
'And you said you weren't a pillar of the community.' She laughed at him and trailed her fingers through the water. 'All right, then, I guess I've got to get tough. It's for your own good.' With a sigh, she lifted a hand out of the water. Like a child playing cowboy, she pointed it at him, finger out, thumb up. 'Okay, Nathan, get up slow. Don't make any sudden moves.'
'Give me a break, Jack.'
'This is a hair trigger,' she warned him. 'Get up, and keep your hands where I can see them.'
He couldn't have said why he did it. Maybe it was the full moon. He rose to a more interesting view.
'Okay, strip.' She touched her tongue to her top lip. 'Slow.'
'You really are out of your mind.'
'Don't beg, Nathan, it's pitiful.' She cocked her thumb back over an invisible hammer. 'Do you have any idea what a.38 slug can do to the human body? Take my word for it, it's not a pretty sight.'
With a shrug, he pulled off his shirt. It wouldn't hurt to go in wearing his shorts. 'You haven't got the guts to use that thing.'
'Don't bet on it.' But her lips twitched as she struggled with a grin. 'Come a step closer with your pants on and I'll blow off a kneecap. Something like that gives a whole new meaning to the word
She was crazy, he had no doubt about that. But apparently some of it had rubbed off. Nathan unsnapped his shorts and stepped out of them. She was going to get a surprise when he joined her in the water.
'That's good, very good.' Deliberately she took her time evaluating him. 'Now the rest.'
With his eyes on hers, he stripped off his briefs. 'You have no shame.'
'Not a bit. Aren't you lucky?' Laughing, she gestured with her imaginary gun. 'Into the pool, Nathan. Face the music.'
He dived in, no more than an arm's length from her. When he surfaced, Jackie was treading water and smiling. 'You dropped your gun.'
She glanced down, as if surprised, at her open hand. 'So I did.'
'Let's see how tough you are unarmed.'
He lunged for her, but she was quick. Anticipating him, Jackie dived deep, kicked out and glided under him. When she surfaced, she was six feet away with a smug smile. 'Missed,' she said lightly, and waited for his next move.
Slowly they circled, eyes locked. Jackie bit her lip, knowing that if she gave into the laughter she would be sunk in more ways than one. Nathan was as strong a swimmer as she, but she was counting on speed and agility to see her through. Until she was ready to lose.
He advanced, she evaded. He feinted, she adjusted. He maneuvered, she outmaneuvered. For the next few minutes there were only the sounds of insects and lapping water, giving them both a sense of solitude. Suddenly inspired, he brought a hand out of the water, cupping his fingers in his palm, pointing the index and cocking the thumb.
'Look what I found.'
That was all it took to have her laughter breaking through. In two long strokes, he had her.
'Cheat. You cheated. Nathan, there's hope for you yet.' Giggling, she reached to hug him. Then his hand was hard and fast around her hair. The roughness was so uncharacteristic that her eyes flew to his. What she saw had her breath catching. This time it was her mouth that went dry. 'Nathan,' she managed before her lips were imprisoned by his.
The need was fiercer, edgier, more frenzied than it had ever been before. He felt as though his body were full of springs that had all been wound too tightly. Against his own, her heart was beating desperately as he dived into her mouth, taking, tasting, devouring all. His teeth scraped her lips, his tongue invaded, tantalized by her breathless moan. Her body, at first taut as wire, went limp against him. They slipped beneath the surface without a thought for air.
The water enveloped them, making their movements slow and sluggish but no less urgent. The sensuous kiss of the cool, night-darkened water flowed around them, then ran off in torrents as they rose above it, still wrapped close.
Her first submission had passed. Now she was as desperate and anxious as he. She clung to him, head thrown back as he brought her up so that he could suckle her damp, water-cooled breasts. With each greedy pull, her stomach contracted and her pulse thudded out the new rhythm. The fingers on his shoulders dug in, leaving thin crescents. Then her mouth was on his again, thirsty.
She took her hands under, then over him, while her mind spun faster than her movements. Their bodies were captured in a slow-motion dreamworld, but their thoughts, their needs, raced.
Reaching down, he found her, cool and inviting. At his touch, his name burst from her. The sound of it across the quiet moonlight had his madness growing. She clung to him, her hands slipping over his slick body, then grasping for purchase. Her lips were wet and open when he took them again.
Jackie found her back braced against the side of the pool. Trembling with anticipation, she opened for him, then groaned when he filled her. Her hands fell lifelessly in the water, and he was there, holding her, moving in her.
The moonlight was on her face, making it both exotic and beautiful, but he could only press his own into her shoulder and ride the wave.
Chapter Eleven
Some people were born knowing how to entertain, and Jackie was one of them. The fact that she was using a party as a way of blocking out the knowledge that she had only a few more days until Nathan left didn't mean she was any less determined to make it a success.
