COOL UNDER FIRE

by Justine Davis

  "Only when I ask, apparently," she answered, stung.

  He lowered his eyes as if abashed, but his jaw was still rigidly set. Without a word he turned, climbed out of the cockpit and strode toward the bow.

  Shiloh watched him go with a twinge of guilt. She should have remembered what he'd said. What was it about him that made her forget herself so? She got angry at the drop of a hat, and turned to jelly just as quickly. It seemed she was either snapping at him or her voice went all soft and husky. She hated the first, and the second seemed to make him turn on her.

  Her hard-won, much vaunted calm had become a thing of the past, and she couldn't seem to get it back. Where she had always analyzed, considered, pondered, with him she just reacted. Since he had appeared in her life she had regressed to some emotional, instinctive creature she didn't recognize.

  She looked at him, a dark, brooding silhouette against a sky rapidly building to the glorious oranges, pinks and purples of a California sunset. A solitary, isolated figure. In that moment she saw the essence of his life, solitary by chance, isolated by choice. Necessary choice.

  In idle moments, when she had considered in her analytical way the grim possibilities of losing her father or her brother to the hazards of their work, she had wondered which would be worse, to have no one give a damn about you or no one to give a damn about. She had never thought about the horror of both together. A horror he lived with every day. She was filled with remorse at having brought it up, at having reminded him, even though she wasn't certain of what.

  She knew better than to approach him, to apologize; the stiff set of his neck and shoulders told her that. With a sigh she went below. Feeling the need to do something, to channel that urge to go to him into some kind of motion, she pulled on the green swimsuit again.

  It was still damp and felt uncomfortably clammy on her skin, but she ignored it. She picked up a towel that was also slightly damp but would serve for wiping away the seawater and went back to the cockpit.

  Con hadn't moved except to lift one hand to grip the forestay as he stood out on the bowsprit. Once more she felt a strong pull to go to him, a pull so strong it frightened her a little. The sight of him, so alone as he stared out at the empty sea, tore at her in a way she'd never felt before. She backed up, as if by putting more distance between them she could lessen the power of the attraction. It didn't work.

  The boat had swung sideways to the small beach, so she sat on the port rail and quickly swung her legs over. The water was a cold shock as she slipped in, and she began to swim immediately to ward off the chill.

  The air seemed warm by comparison as she walked onto the sand, staying in the shelter of a jagged outcropping of rock, using it as a windbreak. She sat down, using the base of the rock as a backrest while she watched the sun as it made its plunge for the horizon. It was only then that she noticed the lone figure was gone from the bow of the boat.

  A movement near the cockpit caught her eye, and she shifted her glance in time to see a lean, muscled body arc in a smooth, powerful dive, breaking the water with barely a ripple. She watched that dark head approach her as he cut through the water with long, rhythmic strokes, watched with fascination, as she had not been able to before.

  When he rose from the water, he seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking at her. Shiloh returned the look, unable to tear her eyes away from the muscled sleekness of him, the wedge of broad shoulders to narrow hips, the flat ridges of his belly, the long, leanly muscled legs. Again her imagination supplied the details the clinging, wet nylon barely hid, and again she felt that flush of heat flood her.

  Why? She'd seen men better-looking than he was; California was full of them. Better-looking and without that haunted look, that sense of being driven, that air of having walked too long on the dark side. None of them had had this effect on her. Why was it he alone who stirred this fire in her?

  He began to move then, as if her gaze had been a signal. She wondered what he would have done if she had looked away, had turned from him. Would he still have come to her, or would he have gone back as he had come, a lone figure slicing through a sunset sea? Of course he would have gone, she told herself severely, trying not to notice how much the thought stung.

  He was there now, dropping down to sit beside her. Without a word she moved over to let him share her backrest. His eyes never left her. The silence spun out as he searched her face. The image of that solitary figure came back to her as if she could see it in the blue depths of his eyes.

  "I'm sorry—" They said it in unison, then stopped, laughing awkwardly. After a moment he spoke again.

  "I shouldn't have gotten mad at you. Or yelled at you. Or sworn at you. I'm sorry."

  "You don't have to apologize. You paid in advance, remember?"

  Con was amazed at the strength of the relief that filled him. "I used them all up in a hurry, didn't I?"

  "Not all. I owe you one, too. I was prying. I'm sorry."

  He sucked in a deep breath, and Shiloh could almost feel the effort he made to relax the instinctive tightening of his jaw. "No. You weren't. You were just asking a simple question. I'm the one who went haywire."

  "Why?"

  His breath came out in a long sigh as his head lolled back to rest on the ledge of rock behind them. "I … I'm not used to…" He drew another breath, then tried again. "I don't know how to… If somebody asks me about myself, I tell them whatever I think will get what I need from them. Whatever will make them trust me, or fear me, or whatever it takes to get them to tell me what I need to know, or to make that slip that gives me what I want."

  "It's part of the job." Her words were accepting, understanding. She'd heard Linc and her father talk too many times about that part of it, the part they hated most, the using. "But you're not working now."

  He laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "I'm not? Am I ever not? I don't think I know how to stop anymore."

  "So why didn't you just … make up something?"

  Why hadn't he? He lifted his head to look at her. "I don't know." He shrugged one shoulder, trying to belie his own uncertainty.

  The question had suddenly become important to Shiloh. Very important, for reasons she didn't understand. "I would have believed you," she began.

  That harsh chuckle came again. "Maybe that's why I didn't." He met her gaze then. "No," he said slowly, painfully. "I just didn't want to lie to you."

  At his barely perceptible emphasis on the "you," Shiloh's heart skipped a beat, then raced to catch up.

  "Then why not tell me the truth?"

  "God, I'm not sure I know how anymore." The words came out in a sudden burst, as if against his will. He recovered quickly, going back to that flippant tone to cover the break. "The truth's not very interesting, anyway."

  She studied him for a moment. "Is it really that hard?"

  He opened his mouth, another insouciant remark on the tip of his tongue. But something in her gaze, something warm and sweet and innocent, stopped him. He lowered his eyes.

  "Yes." It was barely audible.

  Somehow she knew how much even that small admission had cost him. She wanted to reach out to him, to hold him, to comfort him, but she didn't dare; just looking at him did such crazy things to her. Just looking at the dark sweep of his lowered lashes, the way his wet, dark hair clung to the back of his neck, the way the firm line of his jaw blended into the masculine cords of his neck, the way the pulse beat in the hollow of his throat…

  She felt that glowing heat inside her send up a little tongue of flame, and she searched for something to say.

  "Linc always said that when it got harder to tell the truth than to lie, it was time for a vacation."

  His head shot up, his eyes fastening on hers. With the slowness of a sunrise, a rueful smile curved his mouth. "That brother of yours is too damned smart for his own good."

  Shiloh smiled, both at the change in his expression and the open affection in his tone. "Runs in the family," she quipped, and was rewarded with a grin. "
So," she went on after a moment, "shall we consider this a vacation?"

  "From what?"

  "Everything. Including questions."

  He couldn't quite believe she was going to let him off the hook. He shifted, turning so that he faced her, barely a foot away. "Just like that?"

  She smiled at his words, and her voice was soft. "Just like that."

  Con shook his head in wonder. He stared at her, at those green eyes glowing with the last rays of the sun, at the thick, spiky points of lashes still wet from her swim and the sassy, uplifted nose.

  Slowly his hand rose, as if against his own volition. His fingers went to cup her cheek, while his thumb gently brushed away the glistening drops. He swallowed heavily at the feel of her silken skin, and his heart began to pound when she tilted her head, not to get away but to get closer to his hand.

  Shiloh had lost any awareness of what she was doing at the first touch of his fingers on her face. She felt suddenly chilled because of the heat that leapt beneath his touch. She couldn't seem to get enough air, and her lips parted as she tried to breathe faster.

  With exquisite slowness his thumb slid downward to run lightly over her mouth, outlining first the delicately shaped upper lip, then lingering on the fullness of the lower. That single tongue of flame that had flared in her as he had walked up the beach toward her erupted into a blaze, spreading the heat throughout her suddenly trembling body.

  Con was beyond caring that he was out of line, beyond wondering what the hell he was doing, beyond worrying that his body's reaction to merely touching her was unmistakable. He only knew that in this moment, despite all his considerable will and resolve, he was going to kiss her. He had to kiss her, as surely as he had to take his next breath.

  Had she made one sound of protest, he might have been able to stop, but she only tilted her head back, as if offering her mouth. He took it fiercely, but gentled instantly at the first stiffening of her muscles. His hands slipped up to the back of her head, fingers threading through her slick, wet hair as he cradled her, exerting only the slightest pressure to press her lips to his.

  He could taste the salt from the sea lingering on the softness of her mouth, but the sweetness soon overwhelmed it. He felt her lips go warm and pliant beneath his, and his blood began to hammer in his ears. His hands tightened convulsively behind her head.

  Shiloh couldn't believe what was happening to her. She'd been kissed before, but never had it felt like this. Never had she flared into such an inferno; never had she been so swiftly hungry for more. His lips were hot and fierce, yet gentle and coaxing, and they were turning her to molten, flowing liquid in his hands.

  His mouth was moving on hers, asking, wanting. When she felt the tip of his tongue brush her lips, they parted for him naturally; to refuse him never occurred to her whirling, spinning brain. It had been numbed by his first touch, surrendering all control to her newly awakened, sizzling senses.

  She wasn't aware she had moved until her fingers felt the damp thickness of the hair at the nape of his neck. The moment her hands locked behind his neck he moved, twisting sideways to pull her down beside him on the sand. Never breaking the kiss, he stretched out next to her, throwing one leg over hers as if he were afraid she would escape.

  He was afraid. She had singed him just as that sweet dream had, and he was afraid she would somehow dissolve into that disappearing figure again. Not yet, he pleaded silently. He hadn't had enough yet. He might never have enough. He was drinking in the soft sweetness of her like dusty earth after a ten-year drought.

  His tongue crept deeper, flickering over her lips, tracing the even line of her teeth. She made a quiet little sound and then, tentatively, almost shyly, her tongue met his, brushing it with the barest of touches before retreating. An electric little shock raced through him at the touch, but it was that trace of innocent shyness that brought reality caving in on him.

  He froze, suddenly aware that he had pinned her to the sand beneath them, that his body was pulsing, throbbing, with need too long denied, and that the evidence of that need was pressed tightly against her hip. She was looking up at him with eyes that were wide and dreamy, and her face was flushed from his kiss. She looked amazed and yet full of an ancient feminine wisdom, both innocent and seductive, and the impossible contrast only made his body clench tighter as another piercing shaft of desire stabbed him.

  A different kind of color rose in her cheeks as he stared down at her, and the dreamy, distant look faded as she came back from the fiery world he had sent her to. The worldliness and seductiveness vanished, leaving only the amazed innocence.

  What did you expect? Con swore viciously at himself as he wrenched himself off her. That she was the kind of woman accustomed to being attacked on a deserted beach by a man she barely knew? He felt every one of his thirty-four years, and felt the dinginess of those years even more. His stomach knotted with a fierce self-contempt, as if he had soiled something clean and pure and beautiful. He had already dragged her down into the muck he lived in; wasn't that enough?

  He drew his knees up in front of him, circling his arms around them, trying to both hide and ignore the surging, aching hardness of his body. He stared out at the last little crescent of the sun that was about to slide out of sight, silently berating himself.

  Shiloh was still quivering in reaction. Her lips still tingled, and the tip of her tongue crept out to touch them, as if she could still taste him there. Gradually the flowing heat ebbed to be replaced by a growing, gnawing doubt.

  She sat up, shivering a little as she methodically brushed the sand from her arms, her legs. On the edge of her vision was that huddled figure, as alone now as he had been on the bow of the boat. Her mind was racing. Had she done something, made some unconscious sound or movement, that had caused that sudden, chilling withdrawal? She didn't know. She brushed at more sand.

  It wasn't working, Con thought. He was as hard and tight and aching as he had been when he'd rolled away from her. From the corner of his eye he could still see her, could see the graceful movements of her slender hands and arms as she brushed away the sand, could see the golden length of her legs. Now that he had tasted the sweetness of her mouth, had found out what incredible things it did to him, anything more didn't bear thinking about.

  He'd left it too long, that was all. He should have taken that redhead in New York up on her offer three months ago. Or the blonde in Houston last year. That he hadn't had the slightest desire to make love with either one of them, or any of several before them, was no comfort now.

  That's all it is, he repeated silently. Even though it had been, in a way, by choice, he'd been celibate for too long, and his body had just picked now to remind him. Right, McQuade, he muttered silently to himself. You just keep telling yourself that.

  He had to do something, he thought desperately. He had to stop this pulsing ache before he reached for her; he had no illusions about his ability to stop again. Keeping his back carefully to her, he stood up. He muttered something about the boat, and without looking at her, he headed for the water.

  He nearly gasped aloud at the shock of the October ocean against his heated skin; the Pacific had suddenly become the Antarctic. Good, he thought grimly, and struck out for the Phoenix with his longest, fastest stroke. He stretched out, pushing himself to the utmost, needing the strain of exertion to divert his raging body. By the time he reached the boat he was cooler, if not relaxed, and his aching flesh seemed to have gotten the message. He took the towel she'd laid out and dried off, then went to get her another to replace it. When he came back she was there, climbing over the rail, and he held it out to her silently.

  She took it with a nod, wiping off minimally before she disappeared below. He heard the door to the head close and the shower start. A vision of her peeling off the wisp of swimsuit flashed through his mind before he slammed the door once more on thoughts of that kind.

  Later, as he lay awake in the aft bunk he'd gone to the moment she'd climbed into the forward o
ne, he wondered why he was even trying to go to sleep. It had been a strained evening until a leaping fish had broken the water, startling them both, and breaking the tension, as well. They'd been able to talk after that, although the memory of that searing kiss hung between them like Damocles' sword.

  Why her? he asked himself for the hundredth time. Why her and not any of the others who had happened along over the last couple of years? Cissy, the blonde from Houston, hadn't affected him at all, even though she was a classic beauty in the way Shiloh would never be, not with that upturned nose and defiant chin.

  He smiled in the darkness as he thought of those two sassy features, but the smile faded when the memory of her mouth followed close behind. He rolled over to face the teak-lined hull, drawing his knees up in an involuntary movement as the ache began again. It was a long, long time before he slept.

  Shiloh sat up in her bunk, unsure of what had awakened her, knowing only that she hadn't slept long enough. Of course, lying awake for hours hadn't helped, but, as with everything else, her control over her mind and an imagination that had become unusually vivid had seemed nonexistent.

  She had relived those moments on the beach time after time before she had at last drifted off to sleep, only to relive them even more clearly in her dreams. She had racked her brain for something she might have done, something wrong, something that had made him pull away like that. She couldn't find anything, unless her inexperience had been so painfully obvious that he found it repellent.

  And if he hadn't? She had asked herself that question over and over, as well. What would she have done if he hadn't stopped? Would she have halted him, presuming she could have, or would she have let her senses, and the way he brought them cracklingly to life, carry her away?

  "Oh, God," she moaned, wrapping her arms around herself. There had been a time when she would have scoffed at the idea of losing control like that. She couldn't scoff any longer. The thought of making love with him there on the beach, or anywhere else, sent little ripples of flame along nerves that had never truly been used before, and the shock of it swept through every inch of her body.