"You know," she said finally and with difficulty, "there will always be many things I admire about you."
He looked at her in surprise. "Oh?"
She nodded and went on despite the lump in her throat. "The way you expect the best we can give on Minorcan and your concern for your crew, for instance. I—I'm glad I've had the chance to learn about treasure salvage from you, Ponce. It's meant a great deal to me." Blindly, she turned to go.
He spoke sharply. "No—don't leave. I don't want to be with the others." His eyes beseeched her. "Please stay with me."
She turned back to the sea, blinking away unshed tears before Ponce saw them.
They stood wordlessly, their tension easing a bit as the minutes passed. The party went on without them. The sounds of the celebrants filtered through their silence.
It was Ponce who spoke first.
"Sometimes at night," he said, "I stand and look out over the ocean, and I can almost see the ghosts of the heavily laden Spanish galleons lumbering into the troughs of the waves, their sails set for far-off Spain."
"Year after year," Alix replied softly, trying to catch his mood, "the galleons rode the seas. The men who sailed them must have been very brave."
"It was the lure of the sea, you know," Ponce said quietly. "That was what kept them coming back for more, not just the promise of gold."
"Do you think so, Ponce?" Alix raised her face toward his.
"The sea is always changing, always different. At one moment it can be playful, at another moment it can turn dangerous. It's the sea's sheer unpredictability that fascinates me."
"I thought it was treasure that drew you to the sea," said Alix.
"It is, but part of my obsession with treasure is the sea itself. The sea keeps the treasure's secrets. I challenge the sea."
"And you win," murmured Alix, once more comprehending the complexities of this man.
"I win, when my contest is with the sea. But I don't win in everything." His voice was low, tormented.
Her eyes met his, and there was no doubt about what he meant. Suddenly she knew that they couldn't go on avoiding the very subject that was uppermost in their minds.
"Ponce, about the other night—"
"I don't want to hear about the other night!" His tone was harsh but revealing. Maybe he'd been agonizing almost as much as she.
She turned to him, hoping to see something in his eyes. At the same time he turned to her, his expression totally open and revealing his hurt and confusion.
Before she knew what was happening she was in his arms, her eyes closed, her head clasped against his chest.
A few moments passed, moments in which they seemed encapsulated, isolated from the noise and merriment nearby.
"Alix, I don't want to know what happened that night. This has been the most miserable forty-eight hours of my life."
"It wasn't what you thought," she whispered against his shirt, wanting to explain.
"Please, no details," Ponce said firmly in his strongest voice of authority. "It's over, and tonight is a new beginning."
Alix, clasped in his arms, wanted to talk about Daniel. She longed to tell Ponce the truth, that Daniel was her former lover, but she sensed that to speak of it would destroy this fragile moment and perhaps hamper the whole treasure quest. With difficulty she kept her silence, tremulously mindful that she had almost lost him.
"Today we found El Primero," she said. "Things will be different."
"We should have our own celebration," he said softly, his words tickling her hair.
There was no doubt in her mind what kind of celebration he meant. "But we can't, not aboard Minorcan," she objected.
"Who said anything about Minorcan?" Ponce smiled down at her with a gleam in his eyes. He took her hand and pulled her along after him. Below them, bobbing gently, was the dinghy which had been used briefly during the day's diving activity.
"Down the ladder," he urged, and she was too surprised not to obey. He disappeared and then reappeared quickly with a pile of blankets, which he tossed into the dinghy before descending the ladder.
"What... !"
"Shh-h-h!" cautioned Ponce, lowering the oars into the water. He rowed steadily in rhythm, dipping and sweeping almost hypnotically, following the path of the moon. The sea glistened like molten black glass washed in silver moonlight. The anchored Minorcan seemed far away, and the sound of voices and laughter of the crew receded and was finally obliterated by the slap of waves against the dinghy's bow.
Ponce shipped the oars, then reached for the blankets and spread them out in the bottom of the little boat. He took Alix's hand and pulled her down beside him, snuggling her against him.
"You see? Total privacy, and we're not aboard Minorcan," said Ponce, gently stroking her cheek.
Alix, eyes closed, reveled in his touch. This was what she had wanted for so long.
"You're very clever, Mr. Cabrera," she said softly.
"I'll show you exactly how clever I am," he told her, pressing his body against hers. The intimate hard contours of his body told her that this time would be different from the last, and she felt a rush of exhilaration at the thought.
Slowly he began to undress her, enjoying the sweet ecstasy of pent-up excitement until she lay beside him, the sensuous curves of her nude body illumined by moonlight.
"Alix, darling, I've needed you so much." His voice was low and throaty with passion, and she sensed the magnitude of his desire. He bent his dark head to rest his cheek against her breast, suckling there, tormenting her with moist, willful lips.
He lifted his head, and his eyes shone silver in the moonlight, expressive with overwhelming longing. His passion mounting, he stroked her body with gossamer fingertips.
Alix moaned in pleasure and lost herself in the rocking rhythm of the sea as it rolled their boat back and forth across the waves. She became totally absorbed in her own sensations, welcoming the skillful ministrations that made lovemaking with Ponce so fulfilling for her. She lost all track of time; it was as though it had been suspended.
"I'd like to go slowly," he whispered, his words hot against her lips, "but it's been so long."
"Now." she urged him, losing herself in the rapture of his expert touch. "Now."
She thought she would explode with the exquisite perfection of their embrace. Making love with Ponce was like the perfect dive, a sensation of peace and promise, of looking up at the silver surface of the water above her and seeing, surprisingly, his handsome face reflected in it.
She plunged deeper into the soft, welcoming wetness of the sea, became one with the sea as she moved with its currents, alternately swimming and drifting in its warmth. She cried out at the height of her climax, only dimly aware that Ponce cried out, too.
Afterward, when their passion had subsided into the tranquility of the afterglow, Ponce held her close. They could hear the melody of the concertina as it carried over the water from Minorcan, their privacy preserved by distance.
She stirred in his arms.
"Ponce," she began.
"No," he insisted, his voice low and languorous.
"I want to tell you—"
"Ah, Alix, let's not dredge it up again. It's all too painful, and all I want now is to make love to you. I hope you'll forgive me for being insensitive the other night. I was so jealous that I couldn't think straight."
When she didn't speak he assumed her forgiveness. "We'll never speak of it again," he said firmly, weaving his fingers through her hair. "And right now I have other plans." He shifted his weight carefully, so as not to capsize the boat, and pulled her on top of him.
His fingers rippled along her backbone, then lower to cup her soft curves; helplessly Alix realized that indeed, this was not a time for talk. He drew her face down until her lips covered his, and then, even more intensely, speaking only with the language of the heart, they possessed each another once more.
Chapter 11
Now began the real work.
Archaeologic
al preservation was uppermost in everyone's mind. Their schedule was rigorous and demanding, but no one complained. A new spirit of cooperation existed aboard Minorcan.
An ever-present problem these days was the trouble with the radiotelephone. Troll was unable to reach anyone on shore.
Alix happened into the room one day just as Troll was giving up on the machine in disgust.
"I give up," he said. "I miss Mary so much, and when this happens, I might as well be in another galaxy."
"We need our radiotelephone now more than ever," said Alix with a worried frown. "Emergencies can happen while we're working."
Troll tugged thoughtfully at the ends of his long beard. "I'll ask around. Maybe there's somebody else with expertise in these things."
When Troll returned with Daniel in tow, Alix slid off her stool and prepared to leave. Daniel shot her a brash look but listened intently to Troll explanation about the radio's malfunction. As Alix left Daniel was saying, "I may have to fiddle around with this for a while, but I think I can get it going."
Since when had Daniel become an electronics expert? But then, what did it matter? The important thing was to get the radio operative again.
Daniel had been strangely quiet since they had begun salvage operations on El Primero. Alix, when she thought about him at all, attributed his silence to weariness. They all worked a busy schedule, and Daniel, being one of the strongest, had moved ballast stones for several days in a row. But now he spent hours hunched over the radio, trying to get it to function. Finally, after establishing communication with shore several times, Troll claimed that Daniel had repaired it. Everyone aboard breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Despite the renewal of their relationship, Ponce was again caught up in the intricacies of the treasure hunt. Alix began to be envious of Ponce's unswerving loyalty to the quest. His need to involve himself with the shipwreck was both emotional and physical, and Alix thought whimsically that El Primero seemed to hold the same kind of attraction for Ponce as another woman.
Alix was as surprised as everyone else when Ponce called a meeting on the foredeck one Friday morning instead of ordering them to dive.
"We've been working hard," began Ponce, and someone called, "Hear, hear!"
"Anyway, now that the ship-to-shore radiotelephone has been repaired, I've been able to radio for a launch, and I've planned a leave for all of us. Half the crew gets this weekend off, and the other half gets the next. The first group will leave for St. Augustine this afternoon."
This announcement was greeted with great excitement, and after Ponce cautioned them all not to talk to anyone about the salvaging of El Primero or anything else that had taken place on Minorcan, they drew lots to determine which crew members would go first. Ponce and Alix were both in the first group.
"Don't make any plans for this weekend," Ponce told her privately as they were planning to dive together later.
"Oh? And I suppose you have plans enough for both of us?" She smiled at him before she put on her helmet.
He adjusted a swim fin. "Just wait and see," he said before slipping on his own helmet and following her below the surface.
That afternoon the launch dropped them at the Coquina Marina dock. After weeks of seeing nothing but ocean in varying shades of blue, from slate to azure to aquamarine, Alix thought that the grass and palm trees around the marina seemed to glow with greenness. A mockingbird trilled at her from a palmetto tree, his song welcome after weeks of hearing only the sharp, querulous cries of gulls, and she took Ponce's hand and laughed out loud.
"What was that for?" asked Ponce, swinging along beside her on the rough, sun-warmed gray boards of the dock.
"For green and for mockingbirds," she replied, and Ponce—understanding immediately—laughed, too. It was going to be a good weekend.
Ponce left her at her apartment.
"I'll be back later with dinner," he told her as he turned to leave.
"You mean we're going out?"
"We're having a picnic. So don't dress too elegantly. In fact, a swimsuit would be appropriate."
"Couldn't we do something outlandishly different—like take a ride in an automobile?" She hadn't ridden in a car in so long that she had almost forgotten what it felt like. She still couldn't get used to the feeling of solid earth beneath her feet, and she kept waiting for the ground to roll like the deck of a ship.
Ponce only laughed. He seemed lighthearted, more like the man she had fallen in love with.
"A ride in my car will take us to our picnic place," he assured her with a twinkle in his eye. "Will that do?"
"Absolutely," she said. She loved to see Ponce this way. On Minorcan he was always so weighed down with problems.
She treated herself to a long, hot shower, a luxury not afforded them on Minorcan, where a scarcity of fresh water limited bathing. She closed her eyes and reveled in the soapsuds, and she shampooed and dried her hair. By the time she had finished dressing, she felt like a new person.
Wanting to enjoy the long summer twilight, she stepped outside her apartment to wait for Ponce. She pulled a lawn chair up beside a tall oleander bush and sat down. She was watching a water-skier skim across Salt Run when broad masculine hands on her shoulders startled her, and she looked up to see Ponce smiling down at her in his inimitable way. The sun sinking low behind him limned him in light, and her heart leaped at the sight of him.
"Did you know that your hair captures the sun and turns it into liquid gold?" he asked, running his hands up the sides of her neck and letting his fingers slip through her freshly washed hair. He bent over and buried his face in her long tresses. "Mmmm. Smells good, too."
She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. "If we're going on that picnic, we'd better leave now."
He laughed. "I have a perfectly delicious meal waiting in the car, and I'll give you a rain check on my charms."
"It's a deal," said Alix, smiling at him happily.
Ponce drove along South A1A, a picturesque road bordering the ocean. He turned on an access road to the beach, where he drove north on the fine, hard-packed white sand with the ocean on the right and wind-carved dunes on the left.
Because it was late, the beach was almost deserted except for an occasional gull swooping alongside. They rolled down the windows and let the soft sea breeze blow through the car. Eventually they reached a beach almost opposite the Anastasia Island lighthouse, its black-and-white spiral stripes catching the last rays of the sun.
"A blanket—you get to carry that"—he tossed it to her—"and I'll take the picnic basket. Follow me."
Ponce set off for the sand dunes, with Alix skipping beside him trying to keep up with his brisk pace. They selected a hollow between two identically sculpted hillocks, their curves undeniably female. He spread the big blanket and proceeded to remove various items from the basket.
"We begin with assorted cheeses and breads," he said, producing them with a flourish and supervising their unwrapping. He set out two long-stemmed glasses and held aloft a bottle of wine. "California French Colombard," he pointed out.
"You go first class," said Alix in admiration. "I expected fried chicken in cardboard boxes."
"Cardboard boxes? Not for you," he answered, handing her a container of cucumber salad with watercress dressing. He unwrapped two earthenware plates and set one before her, then topped them with sterling-silver place settings wrapped in linen napkins.
"Our main course is a seafood pilaf," he continued, putting the bowl down on the blanket between them.
"Did you spend hours slaving over a hot stove this afternoon?"
"Wish I could say that I did, but actually I'm fond of a little restaurant that provides portable meals."
Ponce took a pair of chunky ceramic candlesticks from the basket and set them on either side of the blanket. "For atmosphere," he told her, lighting the candles, which, due to the protection of the dunes, managed to stay alight despite the breeze.
They sat cross-legged and ate their dinner as d
usk cast long shadows across the sand. By the time they had finished the assortment of fresh fruit for dessert and downed the dregs of the wine, it was dark except for the glow of the candles and the revolving beam of the lighthouse.
"Come over here," said Ponce when they had packed away the remains of their picnic supper.
She leaned against his arm, slightly dizzy from the effects of the wine. "We haven't been swimming yet," she said.
"And we probably won't," he answered. He was unbuttoning her blouse.
"I shouldn't have worn my swimsuit," she said fuzzily, "if we weren't going to swim."
"I'll take care of that," he said. "Because in a moment you won't be wearing it."
"What are you doing?" She looked down at her breasts, bare now, the pink nipples shaded darker than they really were in the shadow from the dunes.
"Unfolding you bit by bit," said Ponce. "Removing layer after layer."
"Of clothes?"
"And personality. I want to know you more thoroughly than anyone has ever known you, Alix." The beam from the lighthouse flashed by, lighting up his face, turning him golden.
The sight of him kneeling beside her, his strong, bare thighs lit in the glow of the flickering candles, was a powerful aphrodisiac. And there was power, too, in the strong sense of herself as a woman, which Ponce had been instrumental in restoring to her. She liked the way he responded to her, his eyes soft and half-closed in passion, and she loved sensing the tensile strength of his body as she transmitted her own readiness and awaited his answering ardor.
She felt lifted outside herself. The susurrant sound of the sea set the cadence for her own steady breathing, which, when Ponce rested his body upon hers, his chest warm against her back, became breathing in unison.
On this occasion they took their time, slowly savoring the pleasure of their union. Their breathing synchronized with their movements, and the whole act became a sublime blending of two people. It was an experience so encompassing that, although their bodies remained cupped in the curves of the earth, their spirits were able to rise and be magically, mystically transported to another plane.
The Beach Bachelors Boxset (Three Complete Contemporary Romance Novels in One) (The Beach Bachelors Series) Page 13