Diamond Spur

by Diana Palmer

  “How about taking us around, then?” Jason asked. “I’m not much on boxed tours, and I’ll bet you know Mo Bay better than any of the tour guides.”

  “You bet I do, man,” came the laughing reply. “I’ll have you hooked on reggae before you leave, too.”

  “Reggae?” Kate asked hesitantly.

  The cabdriver turned on his radio, flicked a switch, and a strange, new kind of music filled the car.

  “That is reggae, ma’am,” he told Kate. “You’ll hear a lot of it on the island. I’m Barton Cox, by the way.”

  Jason introduced himself and Kate, and set a time with the driver early the next morning for a day-long tour. They agreed to meet in the lobby of the hotel at nine, which would give them time to sleep in.

  “Don’t forget the time difference,” they were reminded as Barton pulled up in front of a modern modular hotel complex surrounded by palm trees of half a dozen different species and a glorious flame tree in full bloom.

  “We’re two hours behind Jamaican time,” Jason told Kate.

  “I’ll reset my watch,” she said.

  But Jason had already set his before he paid Barton and helped Kate out of the cab.

  Barton set their bags on the sidewalk, where a uniformed bellboy came to pick them up. “Hello, cousin,” Barton called to the bellboy, who grinned and called the greeting back. “See you in the morning now,” he told Jason and Kate, and was gone, his rickety yellow cab leeing a little as he sped out the round drive.

  “You folks just get in?” the bellboy asked politely as he led them inside the luxurious hotel.

  “Barely off the plane,” Jason returned. He took Kate’s arm. “Is there a big crowd this week?”

  “Hardly anybody. There was a riot in Kingston,” the bellboy said with a resigned sigh. “Everybody thinks we’ll kill all the tourists if they come down.”

  “Too bad,” Jason replied. “I suppose you think the United Stated is the gangster capital of the world every time you read about a gang murder?”

  The bellboy grinned. “Now you’re talking sense.”

  Jason laughed. He looked younger, Kate thought as they went to registration to check in and get their room key. He looked like a different man. This was going to be a marvelous honeymoon, if only she felt like enjoying it. She hadn’t told Jason how queasy she’d felt on the plane, or how shaky she felt now. She didn’t want him to worry. But she was getting greener by the minute, and the thought of being bounced all over the island in a cab made her worse. She had to get better. She just had to.

  The bellboy carried their luggage to the first module of the spacious hotel complex, where they had a room with an outdoor patio overlooking the bay. Kate opened the sliding glass doors first thing and drank in the breeze. It swept the graceful casuarina pines outside the door and stirred the flowering hedge bush near the sea wall. This was like paradise, and Kate sighed, closing her eyes as she felt her nausea slowly disappear.

  “Want anything to eat?” Jason asked.

  “I’m a little nauseated, but it could be lack of food that’s causing it,” she laughed, and looked up at him helplessly.

  “Uncomfortable?” he mused.

  “Green! I’m sorry.”

  “Good Lord, why?” he asked. He bent and lifted her effortlessly and carried her to one of the huge double beds, their green and white patterned coverlets corresponding beautifully to the green of the carpet and the white of the curtains.

  “I didn’t want you to know,” she sighed, leaning her weary head against his shoulder with her arms linked around his neck. “I’m not much of a companion for a holiday, I’m afraid.”

  “All that damned overtime didn’t help,” he said shortly. He laid her down, looming over her. “Tell me what suits your fancy and I’ll go get it.”

  She searched his dark eyes. “You’ll laugh.”

  “Not likely,” he said, smiling.

  “I want oysters and strawberry shortcake, a piña colada with no rum, and a cup of that Blue Mountain coffee I can’t afford back home.”

  “Whatever turns you on,” he said with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Okay. Just take it easy. I’ll be back as soon as I get it organized.”

  Considering that the hotel didn’t offer room service, Jason still managed to have the meal catered, white-coated waiters and all. God alone knew where he’d found the exquisite meal, but Kate had everything she wanted and then some. And since she’d reluctantly taken one of her nausea tablets before she ate, it even stayed down. She was just tired now, and content to be alone with Jason and feast her eyes on him.

  “That was just delicious,” Kate sighed when the remains of the meal had been taken away and they were alone again. She stretched out on the bed with a weary sigh, relaxing with a smile. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Donavan,” he returned. “Now just lie there and rest for a little bit. And when you feel better, I’ll help you change clothes.”

  She looked up at him with dawning traces of her old sense of humor. “How exciting,” she mused mischievously.

  “That’s what I think, too,” he said with reluctant interest. She was getting to him again. He laughed softly and walked out onto the patio to smoke a cigarette, standing tall and quiet in the semidarkness. After a minute he was back, rummaging in his suitcase for casual clothes. He hesitated, glancing at Kate. Then he turned and started toward the bathroom.

  “I thought that the woman was supposed to rush into the bathroom to dress, not the man,” she pointed out.

  He glared at her. “I’ve never undressed in front of a woman except you, unless it was in the dark.” His eyes glittered. “Go ahead. Laugh.”

  “I can’t. I’m just delighted.” She smiled, and meant it.

  He started to laugh at his own self-consciousness. “Hell.”

  He threw his clothes down on the bed and took off his suit, aware of Kate’s frank, curious stare as he stripped down to his underwear and pulled on his tan Bermuda shorts.

  “It was good for me. Was it good for you?” she asked with a wicked smile and a leering eyebrow.

  He laughed softly, with pure delight. “Just when I think I’m getting used to you, you knock me off balance again,” he remarked gently.

  “You never used to smile at all,” she replied. “When I first met you, and Dad took the job as your foreman, I was scared to death of you.”

  “Are you still?” he asked with a speculative glance.

  “Sometimes you intimidate me,” she confessed. “But I haven’t been afraid of you for a long, long time. And I like seeing you smile.”

  He felt as if he had bubbles in his bloodstream when she looked at him like that. She aroused him more every day. As his dark eyes slid down her body in that becoming garment, he thought about her the way she’d been that day in her own living room, beautifully nude and soft under him. His body reacted immediately to the mental pictures and he felt it going taut. There it was again, that threatening desire, the consuming arousal that stole his mind, his ability to reason. When he was with Kate, he seemed to be a totally different man.

  She watched the expressions cross his face, fascinated by their complexity. She was learning new things about Jason all the time, exciting things. Her eyes noted the changed contours of his powerful body, and knowing that he was aroused in turn aroused her. She stretched slowly, her eyes on his bare, broad chest with its feathering of hair, wanting to touch him there, to kiss him there.

  “Could you help me on with my tent dress, Jason?” she asked in a voice that sounded husky and odd, but what she wanted was much more than that. And it showed in her eyes.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The sound of the surf outside on the beach was suddenly dim compared to the beat of Jason’s own heart. Kate’s voice made him tingle. He remembered that husky note in it from the first time he’d made love to her, and the memory was already causing him some problems.

  He lifted his chin and his dark eyes went over her soft curv
es like hands, masculine appreciation in his smile.

  “Will you?” she repeated.

  “Will I what?” he murmured.

  She cleared her throat. “Help me change.”

  “Is that all you want?” he asked bluntly, his eyes alive with sensuality.

  She shifted again on the bed. “No.”

  He sat down beside her, pushing back her unruly hair. “We can’t,” he reminded her. “Now stop tempting me.”

  “I never used to think I could,” she confessed as his lean, deft fingers worked the buttons of her jacket to unfasten it. They were exciting even through three layers of fabric, their touch warm and knowing.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he murmured. He helped her out of her jacket, and then the white blouse under it. He hesitated at her bra, his eyes narrowing on its obvious inadequacy to hold the blossoming curves under it. “Isn’t this thing too small?” he asked curiously. He hadn’t seen that many women in bras, but this lacy thing didn’t look big enough to give any support.

  “I’m pregnant, Jason,” she said gently.

  His bewildered gaze lifted to her face. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “My breasts are swollen,” she explained softly, amazed that it didn’t bother her at all to discuss intimate things with him. Well, they were lovers, after all, and they were married.

  He scowled. It still didn’t register.

  She reached behind her hesitantly and unfastened the lacy garment and slowly peeled it away. His eyes stared down as if he were mesmerized, darkening with that intent, fascinated stare as he studied her full, soft breasts with their pretty pink and mauve contrasts.

  “See how many veins there are?” she whispered. “These little changes make it possible for me to nurse him….”

  “My God.” He made it sound reverent. His lean fingers went to the dark aureole of one swollen breast. He touched it, very lightly, watching it stiffen. “You’re darker here than you were.”

  “Yes.” She tried not to tremble at his intimate caress, but she couldn’t help it.

  He looked up into her eyes. “Do you want to nurse him?” he asked unexpectedly.

  Her face colored. “I want to,” she whispered.

  His lips parted on breath that was coming hard and quick as his hand grew bolder and openly caressed her. “You’re trembling,” he whispered back. “Does it excite you when I do this?”

  “More…than you realize,” she managed huskily.

  He sat up, his hands going to the elastic waistband of her skirt, which allowed for her thickened waist. “I want to look at you,” he said quietly, searching her eyes as he hesitated. “I’ve never seen a pregnant woman.”

  “Not even…her?” she asked, muted anger in her tone because she was jealous even of that shadowy figure in her past.

  He scowled. The memory came down between them like a wall, and he started to draw back, but she suddenly sat up.

  She forgot immediately what her original intention had been because the tips of her breasts brushed his hard, hair-matted chest, and knocked the thought right out of her head.

  She caught her breath at the feel of him. Her hands went to his muscular arms. They were cool and his skin was a little rough, but he felt so good to touch. She drew her fingers down to his elbows and back up again, and she swayed helplessly against him, her breasts touching and then not touching, brushing, the tips growing harder. She wanted to be closer than this. She wanted all of him.

  He felt himself shudder. She was seducing him. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to risk the child. But her breasts were warm and hard-tipped, and every time they brushed his chest, his body reacted more.

  He caught Kate’s upper arms with the vague thought of pushing her away before things got out of hand. And then her head fell back and she looked at him. Her green eyes were half-closed, misty and soft with desire, her full lips parted, waiting, her body moving with helpless sensuality. His eyes went to her taut, swollen breasts, and his reason deserted him. God, her breasts were exquisite!

  She reached up to his cheeks and pulled his face down as she arched. “Please,” she whispered, her voice odd, soft, shaking. “Please. Jason, kiss me there…!”

  Yes, he thought, his lips already parted even as he bent to her body. His hands held her as he nuzzled against one perfect breast and took it, hard tip and all, right inside his hungry mouth.

  She moaned at the wave of pleasure that his mouth was giving her, and the sound made him even more reckless. He took her deeper into the warm moist darkness of his mouth and felt the softness of her like silk against his tongue.

  His hands were moving. He only vaguely realized that they were against her skin now, having gotten everything else out of the way. His mouth went down her, onto her soft belly, where his child lay. He pressed his lips warmly there, and onto her hips, and her long, elegant legs. She was still moaning, her body fluid in his grasp. He was going out of his mind and she was pushing him over a sensual cliff. He couldn’t stop. His body was already thrusting against her hip, so fevered that he was in agony.

  He found the snap and the zip of his Bermuda shorts and stripped them off while his mouth slowly teased the inside of her silky thigh. She made a new sound, a different sound.

  “Jason,” she whimpered, blind and deaf and dumb to everything except her sudden, overwhelming need to join with him, to lock her body with his and know him in every way there was. “It’s so sweet, it’s so sweet, Jason…!”

  His mouth traveled, open and warm, back up to her breasts while his hands touched her, probed and explored and excited her. Then his lips found her mouth, and locked with it, and she felt his hard body moving over her soft one.

  She arched, on fire, burning up. She had to have him. Her feverish eyes didn’t even see him. She clutched at his broad shoulders, her voice shattering, her body eager and taut, trying to fit itself to his.

  “Oh, God, honey, you’ll make me hurt you…!” he ground out. Her urgency was throwing him more out of control by the second. He’d never dreamed how sensual she could be, how passionate.

  “Now,” Kate cried. Tears ran down her cheeks at the intensity of desire he’d aroused in her. “I can’t bear it, now, please now, Jason, don’t stop…!”

  He went over the edge. His mouth ground down into hers as his body intruded powerfully in one smooth, hard thrust.

  She moaned, but not in pain. Her nails bit into his back, and her hands went trembling to the base of his spine to dig in, pulling him, holding him. Her hips arched and arched, and she made noises he’d never heard come out of a woman’s throat. It shouldn’t have happened so quickly, but her mind barely registered that. She was part of him. He was filling her…!

  He gave himself to her. Completely, in a feverish, passionate giving that robbed him of anything except the raging, thrusting need to possess. He pushed down against her in an unconscious rough buffeting, the sound of the surf overshadowed by the rasp of their breathing and the sound of skin sliding against damp skin.

  He whispered things to her as the tide became red and hot. He whispered things he’d never said to a woman, intimate things, secret things that she only vaguely heard. His mouth slid over hers and his tongue matched the quick, hard rhythm of his body as passion turned to insane urgency, and all at once everything exploded in a sweet, blind rush of heat and color and light that went on, and on, and on….

  Jason felt her softness a long time later, when consciousness came filtering back. She was gasping for breath, as he was. Kate’s warm body was wet with sweat, her heartbeat matching the frantic throb of his. “Kate?” he whispered at her ear. His voice sounded unsteady. “Kate, did I hurt you?”

  “No,” she whispered back. Her lips brushed at his throat, his chin, his shoulder. Her eyes rubbed there, and there were tears in them. She wept softly. “Darling,” she whispered brokenly.

  Jason felt the heat stab through him. She’d never used endearments, not even the first time he’d made lo
ve to her. Such a surge of tenderness welled up in him that it became terrifying. He kissed her soft face with lips that cherished, possessed. It had been like dying. He’d never dreamed of such a surrender. It had been that. He’d given himself to her, he’d given up control. And as he realized that, and that she knew it, his lips grew cool and he began to feel a stirring of stark fear.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  She’d felt the mood swing. That bothered him, too. She saw too deep, knew too much. He wanted her obsessively, and now she knew it. Would she use that against him?

  He lifted his head to search her soft eyes. His own were very dark and quiet.

  She touched his mouth, her whole look one of wonder. “We’re like…one person, aren’t we?” she whispered, letting her eyes run boldly down the length of their intimate contact.

  Heat surged through his body at the question. Yes, they were. In ways he didn’t like to consider, ways that had nothing to do with the physical intimacy they were sharing.

  And then he thought about the baby. And he froze.

  “Kate…the baby,” he whispered roughly.

  She stopped breathing. In that mad, wild joining, her only thought had been to get as close to Jason as possible. Tears stung her eyes as she realized what they might have done.

  “I didn’t think,” she whispered tearfully.

  “Neither did I,” he said half angrily.

  He lifted himself slowly away from her, his body throbbing at the way she intently watched him unlocking his hips from hers. She grimaced and he drew in a harsh breath before he jerked off the bed and went into the bathroom. She heard water running, and he was back with a warm wet cloth before she had time to miss him.

  Kate laid still while he bathed her gently, his dark eyes almost black with concern. There were streaks of blood on the cloth.

  She wept, but after a minute he laid the cloth aside and pulled her against his wet, hair-matted chest, holding her gently.