Time passed, but it meant nothing. They didn’t speak, only made incoherent little sounds of passion. He moved her from her knees to a ledge, and, later, lifted her high above him and watched the provocative movement of her breasts. Millions of stars seemed to fall on him, but each time she would have left him, exhausted and sated, he drew her back and touched and kissed or teased her into arousal again, loathe to let her go.
And finally, when they were both too exhausted to move, he held her against him in the tub, and they both felt the lulling rush of the water and the softness of the steam, and they simply stayed that way together, staring up at the sky and the stars and listening to the surf. Ryan held her against him, his hand beneath her breasts. He was content to feel her legs dangle with his. Content to hold her. He’d never known such a sense of peace.
“Oh, Ryan, this is beautiful,” she murmured.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her.
“You’re beautiful.” She laughed in return.
“Lucia—”
“Don’t ask questions tonight, Ryan, please?” she implored him. If only her eyes weren’t so expressive!
“Just one.”
“What?”
“Can’t we be together while we’re here?”
“We—we are together.”
His arms tightened around her, and his voice came out like a growl. “I want to be with you again tomorrow. I’ll have breakfast, lunch and dinner with your family if you want, but I want to be with you. And I want some time alone.”
She was quiet for a moment, and he was afraid. He was startled at how much it hurt to imagine that she might refuse him again. He thought that he had gotten over the pain, the thrust of the knife. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe it could hurt every bit as badly all over again.
But then he saw that she was smiling. “You really want to make love in the kitchen, huh?”
He smiled back, brushing her cheek with his knuckles. “Right.”
She started to laugh, but then she noted his watch. “Ryan, it’s 3:00 a.m. I’ve got to get back.”
“Why?”
“I told you, my whole family…”
He sighed, rising. “Okay. If you think it’s bedtime, I understand. But, Lucia…”
“What?” She was already out of the Jacuzzi, shivering in the night breeze. He reached for towels and threw one to her.
“Lucia, I’m sure that all your aunts are aware that people can have sex at 9:00 a.m. as easily as they can have it late at night.”
She made a face at him. “Ryan, try to understand—”
“I do.” He smiled. “Let’s get dressed. I’ll walk you down.”
At the door to her apartment, he kissed her. She stayed there, bemused, waiting for another kiss, but he only pushed the door open. “Go to bed. You need your beauty rest. Remember, tomorrow we make love in the kitchen.”
Lucia smiled, stood on her toes and kissed him again. She loved his smile. Lazily, he waved to her and started walking toward the elevator.
She walked into the hallway, flicked on the light and locked the door. It had been a nice night. No, a wonderful night.
She entered her own room, closing the door behind her. She still felt as if she were floating on clouds. Every bit of her flesh was probably eternally wrinkled from their extended stay in the Jacuzzi, but that was all right. She felt wonderful. She felt as if there was hope.
Maybe, just maybe, if she didn’t run, they could have a future. She was so in love with him, and it was just so good to be with him….
She undid her belt and dropped it on the floor, kicked off her shoes and started on her buttons. She pulled her dress over her head, and, still in a tired, dreamy state, pushed open the door to the bathroom.
She flicked on the light and stared into the mirror, smiling at the wild disarray of her hair. It was a good thing she hadn’t run into anyone!
Suddenly something she saw in the mirror disturbed her. A dark shadow in the bathtub.
She whirled around to look, and a scream bubbled to her throat, then died. There was a man in her bathtub. A dead man.
Gino Lopez, still in his swim trunks, still with his eyes wide open, was lying in her bathtub.
The scream finally tore from her, loud, shrill and hysterical, and she turned and ran from the room in terror.
CHAPTER 8
When Lucia reached the hallway she remembered that Dina was in her room. She couldn’t leave her cousin alone in the condominium with a corpse.
“Dina!” Lucia ran to her cousin’s room and threw open the door. But Dina wasn’t there.
Lucia tried to tell herself that a corpse couldn’t hurt anyone. Corpses were dead. It was the person who had made someone into a corpse who had to be feared.
Logic didn’t help. She didn’t need to save Dina, so she ran out of the apartment. It was dark, and very quiet. Lucia looked nervously around the balcony, aware that she was clad only in her lacy underwear, garter belt and stockings. She looked like an escapee from a striptease show.
It didn’t matter. There was no way in the world that she was going to go back into her bedroom with the corpse of Gino Lopez.
None of her relations was about; no one had heard her scream. She looked up, toward the penthouse, and ran for the elevator. When it delivered her to the top floor, she raced to Ryan’s door and pounded on it.
A second later he flung it open. His brow arched as she burst into the apartment, sweeping by him. “Lucia—”
“It’s back!”
His eyes flickered over her attire, and he shook his head in confusion. “It’s back? Lucia, what’s back?” He stared at her as if the night had become too much for her, as if her mind had gone over the brink.
“Don’t you stare at me like that, Ryan Dandridge. It. The corpse. Him. Gino Lopez. There’s a corpse in my condo.”
“In the condo?”
“In my room—in the bathtub!”
“All right, come on, we’ll go check it out.” He was in one of his terry robes. He turned toward the door, then paused. “Shouldn’t we, er, get you a robe or something? You didn’t want to be caught staying up here. I imagine you would just as soon not have one of your aunts wake up and pay a late-night call when you look like a dancehall girl. What are you doing dressed like that? Or, rather, undressed like that?”
“Ryan, there’s a corpse down there! I do not worry about my state of dress when dead men are lying in my bathtub!”
“All right, all right.”
“Please, get me a robe! Then call the police, and then let’s go!”
He walked into the bathroom and returned with a short man’s robe. He handed it to her, watching her gravely as she slipped it around herself. Lucia stared at him indignantly. “Ryan, call the police.”
“Let’s call from your condo.”
“You don’t believe me!”
“I just think we ought to make sure the corpse is still where you think it is.”
“There’s no tide in the bathtub, Ryan!”
“Let’s just call from there.”
Lucia clenched her teeth tightly together. “Ryan, I’m telling you—”
“Lucia, I believe you. But let’s go down, huh?”
She started to speak, then snapped her mouth shut. She stiffened her shoulders and walked out of the apartment ahead of him. He followed her calmly, pressing the button on the elevator, watching her covertly.
“Ryan Dandridge, I have not lost my mind, and there is a corpse in my bathtub.”
“All right.”
“Don’t humor me!”
“I’m not humoring you!” They stepped into the elevator, and he pressed the button for the second floor, then glanced her way. “Where’s Dina? You didn’t just leave her sleeping there, did you?”
Lucia shook her head impatiently. “She’s not back yet. Or she wasn’t, anyway.”
Ryan glanced at his watch. It was almost four, Lucia knew. She smiled sweetly. “Dina likes to party.”
Ry
an just nodded. The elevator came to a halt, and she stepped quickly along the hall. The door to her condo was still gaping open. She stopped suddenly as she reached it.
“You first.”
He smiled and stepped around her. “Lucia, a corpse can’t hurt you.”
“Just get in there, will you, please? Maybe you should have brought a gun or something.”
“You want me to shoot a dead man?”
“No, damn you, Ryan, just get in there!”
He looked as if he was about to smile, and if he had, she would have hit him. But he didn’t smile; he walked into the hallway, and she followed. The door to her room was still open, too, and he entered. Lucia followed him into the room, then paused. She didn’t want to go into the bathroom again.
“Lucia?”
“What?”
Ryan came to the doorway of the bathroom and leaned against the frame, his hands in his pockets. “Lucia…”
“What? Damn you, Ryan, what?”
“Come here.”
“No!”
“Lucia, there’s no one in here. No one, nothing.”
She stared at him blankly for a minute. “That’s impossible!” she cried. She moved to the doorway and pushed past him, entering the bathroom.
The bathtub was empty. There wasn’t a sign of another person—living or dead—in sight.
She turned and stared at Ryan. He was watching her in silence, but with definite skepticism.
“I’m telling you, Ryan, he was here!”
“Well, he’s gone now.”
“He was here!”
“Okay, Lucia. I believe you.”
“I’m not staying in this room.”
“You’re welcome to use mine.”
Lucia cast him a withering glare. “I can’t, and you know it.”
Ryan started to speak again; then he paused. They both heard Dina humming as she neared the condo.
“What do we do?” he asked Lucia.
“About what?”
“Your corpse. Tell her, don’t tell her, what? It’s up to you. We can call the police, except that we still don’t have the body to turn over to them.”
“I don’t know…”
“Hey!” Dina called. She came around to the door of the bedroom. She was holding her high-heeled sandals by the straps and smiled at them sweetly; then she slowly observed their attire and laughed huskily. “Am I home too early…or too late?”
“Neither,” Lucia said. Ryan was still staring at her. The look in his eyes demanded to know what she wanted to do.
“Well, it does look like it might have been an interesting evening,” Dina said, amused.
“I came back ages ago,” Lucia murmured.
“Um. The party moved downstairs, huh?” Dina teased. “Well, I like the cocktail attire. Matching terry. It’s great. Just great. Can I fix you two something? Coffee, tea, a nightcap?”
“Dina, it’s four o’clock.”
“Coffee, then? Are we late for the night, or early for the morning? What’s going on with the two of you? I can come back later. Of course, I’m not really sure where I can go now that I’ve come back, and it is four—”
“Dina, we don’t want you to go anywhere,” Lucia said. She stared at Ryan. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to upset Dina with a story about a now nonexistent corpse, but she was also extremely nervous. She wondered if Ryan even believed that the corpse had been there in the first place.
“Coffee,” Ryan said.
Lucia jumped. “What?”
He smiled at Dina. “I’d love some coffee. Sure you don’t mind making some?”
“I don’t mind at all. This is incredibly intriguing,” Dina said. Her eyes fell with amusement to Lucia’s robe; then she turned and headed for the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Lucia demanded in a hoarse whisper.
“I’m waiting for you to decide what you want to do.”
“Help me!”
“I’m trying to help you. It’s just that there isn’t a corpse here. Anymore.” He added the last word like an after-thought.
Lucia wanted to throw something at him. “It was here!” she hissed.
“All right, it was here. I’ll call the police—”
“No!”
“No? I thought that was what you wanted. And you might feel more secure—”
“No, because I intend to call them the second I find the corpse the next time!”
“Oh, Lucia! What if there isn’t a next time? Come on, this whole thing—”
“Gino Lopez is dead, and I have seen him. Twice. I’ve seen his corpse twice. It was here!”
“Shh—”
“Don’t you dare tell me to—”
But she did hush as he inclined his head toward the door. Dina was back. Ryan smiled at her. Lucia smiled, too. Dina shook her head with bemusement. “What on earth is going on here? Ah…I’ve got it. The age-old battle of the sexes. Lucia, don’t torture the man. Either do or don’t, but if you’re set on don’t, I suggest that you quit running around in your underwear. It’s cruel. Ryan, cream and sugar?”
“Black,” he said.
“Black,” she repeated sweetly. Lucia stared at her, thinking that she’d like to throw something at her cousin.
“How about some doughnuts?” Dina said.
“Sounds great,” Ryan agreed.
“Good.” Dina started to leave them again.
Ryan called her back. “Dina.”
“Yes?”
“Er, don’t worry on my account. She already did.”
Lucia gasped. Dina started to laugh.
“Good for you. Good for you both.” Then she was gone again.
Lucia whipped the pillow off the bed and threw it with all her might at Ryan. He caught it, laughing and came toward her. She struggled, but he put his arms around her and brought her to sit beside him at the foot of the bed. Then she saw that his expression had grown serious.
“Lucia, you have to make up your mind. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know!” she wailed softly.
“I’ll call the police—”
“No! Really. I don’t want them to think I’m crying wolf. The corpse is definitely gone. But, Ryan, how did it get in here?”
He shrugged. “There’s no sign of a forced entry.”
“How many keys are there to this place?”
“I told you, four.”
“Dina has one, Joe has one, and now I’ve got the one Aunt Faith had before. And the key I originally had washed up on the beach in my bag…somewhere.”
“Maybe. Maybe you just forgot to lock the door.”
Lucia didn’t remember. She shook her head in frustration. “Ryan, I can’t sleep here tonight.”
“It’s almost morning.”
“I still can’t sleep here.”
“I told you, you’re welcome in my room—”
“No!”
“If you’re scared, maybe Dina will trade rooms with you.”
Lucia thought about it and decided that would be her best chance for what remained of the night.
“There are two dead bolts once you’re both inside,” Ryan said. He smoothed back her hair, smiling. “When I leave, lock the bolts. Then I’ll know that you’ll be all right.”
“You don’t believe me,” Lucia said bitterly.
He sighed. “I believe that you believe—”
“Oh, damn it, don’t start that!” Lucia moaned.
“Okay, okay.”
“Coffee’s on the table!” Dina said cheerfully from the doorway.
Lucia stood quickly, trying to wrap Ryan’s robe around her with more dignity. She smiled to her cousin. “Great.”
Ryan rose, too. “Great,” he echoed.
The three of them sat down at the table, and Ryan reached for a doughnut. Dina just kept staring at them. “All right, what’s going on here?” she finally burst out.
Ryan almost choked on the doughnut. He recovered quickly and offe
red her a charming smile. “Illicit sex,” he explained innocently.
Lucia groaned. She glanced Ryan’s way, and Dina sighed.
“Lucia, please?” Dina asked.
Ryan and Lucia stared at one another; then Lucia looked at Dina. “I think there was a corpse in my bathtub.”
“The corpse of Gino Lopez,” Ryan elaborated.
Dina looked from one to the other. She pleated and smoothed her napkin, then said, “Oh.”
Lucia and Ryan looked at one another. “That’s it? Oh?”
Dina looked at Lucia. “It was there—but it’s gone?”
“And it was on the beach the other day, too,” Lucia said defensively.
“Oh,” Dina repeated.
“I’m telling you the truth!”
“Ryan, have you seen this corpse?”
“Uh, not yet.”
“Dina!”
“Well, Lucia, it is strange. Okay, I believe that Gino Lopez might be dead. Lots and lots of people hate him—” She broke off, her eyes going very wide and meeting Lucia’s. “Oh!” she exclaimed softly, and Lucia knew that her cousin was sharing her own fears about the family and Gino Lopez. “Oh, no! No way. Our family might have had their problems with the man, but they wouldn’t—”
“No, they wouldn’t!” Lucia agreed fiercely.
“They wouldn’t!”
“We know they wouldn’t.”
“Then who?” Dina looked slowly to Ryan, and Lucia followed her cousin’s gaze. Ryan threw his hands up. “Oh, no!”
“No, no, of course not!” Dina said guiltily. “I mean, we still haven’t even got this corpse, right? Oh, Lucia, I am sorry. I’m really not doubting you—”
“I can’t possibly sleep in that room tonight.”
“I’ll take your room.” Dina hesitated. “I mean, you didn’t find him in the bed, right?”
“In the bathtub.”
“All right.”
Ryan stood. “You can still call the police.”
“So that Sergeant whatever-his-name-is can laugh at me?” Lucia demanded. “Not on your life.”
“But, Lucia—”
“No. I’m certain.”
He was watching her with a curious mixture of concern and humor…and tenderness.
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