Penthouse Suite (10 page)

Maybe wearing long pants would have been smart, she thought. Max hadn’t seemed to object to her Ellie Mae Clampett look. She definitely didn’t object to his raspberry sherbert attire, she mused, and licked her dry lips. Kate closed her eyes, trying to blot out the very real picture that had appeared in her mind, the picture of a man with thick dark hair and black eyes. She opened them again. He was still there. He really was there, running down the pier, straight toward her.

“Kate!” He caught her in his arms and swung
her around. “What about it, are you ready for our grand adventure?”

Was she ready? Did a cool icy drink look interesting to the last legionnaire to cross the desert? Max was holding her, his arms loosely hooked about her waist. A fresh wave of heat washed over her, yet this time they were standing in the shade.

“Sure.”

He swung her around again. “All work and no play, remember?”

“I thought they were one and the same to you, so how can I tell?” Kate gave in to the urge she’d had all day and leaned against him.

“You’ll be able to tell,” Max said with a laugh. “When I work, I’m very, very good, and when I play, I’m irresistible.”

“Which are you doing now?” She leaned back into his arms and looked up into his face.
Tilt! Tilt!
Her senses screamed as the other shoppers faded away into the sunshine. She was waiting, waiting for him to kiss her. And he didn’t disappoint her.

Max brushed his lips across her face, beginning above her left eyebrow and working his way down to her mouth. Her lips parted naturally beneath his, and what had started as a playful hello became an intimate exchange of desire. A wolf whistle, followed by clapping hands shocked them back to reality. He slid his arm up to her shoulder and turned her around, clasping her hand.

“This has to be ‘playing,’ darling,” he said, grinning foolishly. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You got one thing right,” she said as she broke into a run to keep up with his long stride. “It was irresistible. Where are we going?”

“Back to the boat, Kate. We have a picnic to get to, and I’d like a swim, wouldn’t you?”

Only if it’s at the North Pole
, she thought. “Food. Great. I’m starving,” Kate agreed, with a light laugh. “Where are we going to have this lunch?”

“There’s a small island down the coast. It’s very private. We’ll have our picnic there.”

They made their way back to the dock quickly. Max started the boat moving back out into the Gulf, and soon they were flying across the water.

The sea breeze was wonderful. Kate pulled the hem of her T-shirt up under the life jacket and savored the feel of the wind against her damp skin. Soon she could see a patch of white and green looming up ahead. They hadn’t spoken, and Kate was glad. But the force of Max’s dark gaze made her constantly aware of his presence.

“Come over here.”

Kate jumped with the guilty feeling that he could somehow read her thoughts.

“… and hold this steady, like so,” he commanded, “while I lower the sail.”

They were nearing land, and the brisk breeze was threatening to take them away. Kate managed to slip by him and take the helm. Max strapped the canvas down and dropped the heavy iron anchor overboard. Kate looked skeptically at the beach, still a distance away.

“And how do we get the food to shore, or do you walk on water too?”

“I don’t, and we don’t. Not just yet,” Max answered, removing his life vest. He gathered up the hem of his knit shirt and pulled it lazily over his head. “First we’re going to have a real deep-water swim in the lagoon.”

Max began to unzip his shorts and slide them down his muscular legs. He was wearing
the
suit, she realized, the same skimpy black suit he’d been wearing that morning in the elevator.

Kate knew she was staring. Just being near him all day had been emotionally draining. The touching and the kissing had pulled the tension between them to a fine thread, which threatened to break at any moment. Seeing Max’s body now was more than she could stand.

“Well?” he demanded, arms crossed. “Are you going to join me?”

“Eh, no. I’m not going in,” she said, feigning an interest in the clear turquoise blue water where they were anchored.

“What’s the matter, wasn’t swimming one of your how-to classes?”

“I didn’t bring a suit.”

“No problem. I always have a couple of extras in the cabin. Take your pick.”

“No,” she insisted. “I’d rather not, but you go ahead. I’ll just watch.” She felt the boat shift as he moved toward her.

Kate raised her eyes and her breath left her in a rush as she leaned away from him. He lifted her easily.

“What are you going to do?” Her voice came out in a gravelly whisper. She reached up, clutching his neck in an awkward motion to steady herself. She quickly realized her error. In clasping her arms about him, she had simply pulled herself closer, and now the feel of his body against her brought a new and equally alarming reaction. “You don’t want to throw me in, do you?”

“No,” he said in a voice that had deepened measurably, “that’s not what I want to do at all. But I think we’re both overheated and need cooling off.”

Max walked to the side, gave her a quick kiss, and dropped her unceremoniously over the side. The cool slap of water was first a shock, then was
a heavenly relief to Kate’s parched body. She came up treading water. A powerful echoing spray of water told Kate that Max had joined her. She closed her eyes and dipped her head back, allowing the flow of water to wash her hair back from her face.

“Isn’t that better? Sorry you lost your glasses. Now you need to lose those cumbersome clothes.” He paddled lazily toward her.

“Glasses? And my visor. I lost my visor.” Kate began to whirl around, searching frantically. She felt exposed, as though she had been unmasked.

She’d known that coming with Max was risky. Now it was put-up-or-shut-up time, and she didn’t know what to do. He was right. Her clothing was in the way. But take it off?

Kate panicked. She started swimming toward shore, her anxiety transforming itself into untapped energy. She didn’t try to analyze her wild flight from the man in the penthouse suite. She just needed to get away. By the time her knees bumped the sandy bottom at the island edge, Kate heard the sound of the boat’s motor close behind her. She’d reached the shore, but she hadn’t escaped.

“I should have known,” she muttered, and flung herself on the beach.
“Fantasy Island.”

“Kate! Kate! Are you all right?”

Kate lay face down on the sand, eyes closed, heart pounding as she tried to pull air into lungs heaving from exertion. She heard the boat’s motor die, followed by a thud as the bow of the boat was beached on the sand.

While she lay very still, Kate tried desperately to marshal some line of defense against the man splashing toward her through the shallow water. Once they’d left the hotel, she had known he would make love to her. And she’d thought she was ready. But he’d let down some of his barriers, and she’d learned that he was more than just a powerful, handsome man. Now she was afraid. How could she stop him from getting to close to her? How could she stop herself from wanting him too much?

“Kate, what happened?” Max dropped down beside her and turned her over. She was breathing.
He could see the rise and fall of her chest. But she wasn’t answering. “Open your eyes, Kate, darling.”

Nothing.

“Well, Max, drastic measures seem to be needed,” he said aloud. “This woman may be the most beautiful castaway on the Gulf Coast, but she’s in trouble. CPR. You’ve never performed it, but you know the procedure. First make certain that the throat passageway isn’t obstructed.” He leaned forward.

Kate’s eyes flew open. “No. I mean, that isn’t necessary. I’m all right.”

“As the captain, I’m responsible for the members of my crew. I’d better be sure. Let me check your pulse.” He made an elaborate pretense of finding the pulse point in her neck.

His technique felt more like a caress than a medical procedure, and Kate held her breath.

“Ah, a bit rapid, I think. Better check the heartbeat.” Solemnly Max laid his head across her breast and listened.

If her pulse had been erratic before, it was playing pinball inside her now. “Get off of me, Max. What are you trying to do, smother me to death?”

The concern on his face changed into a smile as he raised up and began to laugh. “I thought I was about to perform artificial respiration on a dying woman. I guess I was wrong. Too bad I didn’t get to the part where I massaged her chest.”

“From where I am, I think you did—massage my chest, that is.” Kate rubbed her cheek, dislodging a layer of white powder from her face. She took a deep breath, came to her knees, and looked down at her gritty clothes.

“Yuck! This isn’t sand, this is a new kind of glue I’ve fallen into. If your Aunt Dorothea could see me now, she’d say I was a writer for the
Sewer Workers Daily
and that you’re addlebrained for asking me to come along.”

Max made a move to reach down and lift her up. “Here, let me help.”

“No thanks. I can manage.” She stood and moved stiffly back into the water toward the boat.

“What are you doing now?”

“What I should have done in the beginning. Getting out of these clothes.”

“At last a sensible idea. Do you need any help?”

“Not on your life, bossman. You just pull up a turtle shell and wait.”

Neither of the swimsuits on board offered much more covering that the suit Max was wearing. But turnabout was fair play. And play was the name of the game on Fantasy Island.

Kate jerked her wet clothes off and tied the scanty triangles of knit fabric about her hips and around her neck. She’d never sailed to a tropical paradise before, and she might never have such a day again. Somewhere between the shore and the swimsuit, she’d decided that she was going to enjoy herself.

Perhaps Dorothea was right. Perhaps she could be whomever she wanted to be. She could live in the present and fantasize about her future.
All there is
, she thought, waist-deep in the crystal blue waters,
is now.

She moved into the deeper water, submerged herself, and sluiced the sand from her hair, before moving toward the beach and the wide-eyed man who was watching her.

“You’re wrong,” Max said. “I may have thrown overboard a writer for the
Sewer Workers Daily
, but this is Kathryn, an almond-eyed nymph from the sea, that I’m looking at now.” He started toward her.

The wet suit clung to her body, concealing little. Though she had been just as intriguing in the coveralls the first day he’d seen her, he hadn’t realized how delicate she was. Wielding that wrench in the bathroom, she’d seemed bigger.

They stood only inches apart, swaying in the surf, bodies frosted with mist blown from the sea. Even the cool water couldn’t quench the flame that leapt from Kate to Max and back again.

“Not smart, bossman,” she said with a dare in her voice. “Sea nymphs capture their lovers, imprison them in seashells, and wear them around their necks on chains of seaweed.”

“Lucky shell,” Max said hoarsely, his eyes drawn to the space between her breasts.

“Lucky nymph.”

As she looked up at him, he felt something wonderful happen. The warmth in his chest heated the very air he was breathing. She wasn’t laughing anymore. She was waiting for him to take her in his arms and kiss her. He leaned down, capturing her lips with his. Their kiss started slowly, intensified, and changed into a wild, hot frenzy of release.

“We ought to get some sunscreen on you before you burn,” Max said as he caught his breath between kisses.

“Too late,” she said with a gasp, feeling his lips nudge away the top of her bathing suit. “We’re already on fire.”

Max untied the knot behind Kate’s neck and
those at the sides of the suit. He stripped off his own suit, and they were both nude. There was no time for wondering, no questions, no answers. He lifted her into his arms and laid her back on the warm sand as though the beach were an altar and she were a mystical virgin.

As Max began to worship her with his lips and hands, Kate felt sunbursts explode everywhere he touched. She couldn’t tell where she ended and Max began. The tiny flame that had begun to glow when she’d first seen him in the mirror now erupted into a raging passion. She let out a sob of yearning as she felt herself engulfed by liquid fire.

When at last he lowered his muscular body over hers, Kate melted into him, losing herself completely to the relentless waves of desire that built into a final thunderous explosion.

Afterward, Max lay across her for a moment, then raised himself up and kissed her. “You look as if you’ve been sprinkled with sugar.”

“I feel more like melted honey.”

The raging storm that had taken them had been quick and violent. That was the way Kate wanted it, without the gentle promise of love. She’d been on fire, and their coming together had been the release of violent emotion. Now they were calm, and the regular pulsing of the incoming tide lapped a lullaby gently across their feet.

“You really are going to burn,” Max said. “Your skin, I mean. It’s so fair.” He came to his feet, bringing her along with him. The experience had rocked him as well, and he reverted for a moment to the old Max, the Max who had never known such awareness of a woman’s feelings.

“You mean I’m going to freckle.”

“I like your freckles, Kate Weston. They’re honest and open, just as you are. I like you, too. But I think we’d better wash off this sand and get that sunscreen before you blister in places you can’t leave uncovered.”

“Covered? Max, our clothes!”

Max glanced around. The clothes were definitely gone. He laughed. “Well, it looks as if we’ve gone back to nature in the most basic way.”

“Not on your life, Robinson Crusoe. To the boat!” Kate started into the water.

Max groaned in exaggerated remorse. “Shucks! And I was looking forward to dressing ourselves in fig leaves.”

Inside the cramped cabin, Kate tried to avoid touching Max as she rummaged around for replacement garments. She took the swimsuit he offered her and fastened the top around her neck.