by Ginna Gray
With a muttered oath, David leaped across the deck and hooked an arm around her waist. "Are you nuts?" he raged, dragging her back. "You almost drowned five minutes ago trying to swim across that cove!"
Abigail turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. Her aquamarine eyes glittered with a sheen of moisture, and David felt a sharp tightening in his gut when she whispered through quivering, lips, "Please. You don't understand. Chelsea is all I have."
Within seconds he found himself slicing through the crystal waters with the life buoy in tow. With every stroke he called himself a chump, but he knew that even if she'd asked him to swim the Atlantic, he couldn't have refused the heartfelt plea in those gorgeous eyes. What the hell, he told himself. A swim would cool his blood. It was that or a cold shower.
Chelsea refused to cooperate, and David chased her around the sandy beach three times before he caught her. The ungrateful little beast rewarded him with several sharp nips for Ins trouble.
Grinding out a string of colorful epithets that would have done a longshoreman proud, he tossed the snarling terrier onto the life buoy, uncaring whether she managed to hang on or not, and stroked furiously back to the boat. By the time he reached it, temper and the expenditure of energy had purged him of every trace of lustful feelings.
Unfortunately, one look at Abigail in the dinging cotton garments, and they all came rushing back.
As a result, so did his temper.
"Here. I hope you're happy now," he snarled, thrusting the drenched Yorkie into Abigail's outstretched arms. "And I'm warning you, that had better hold her for a while, because I'm not making that swim again anytime soon."
Abigail cuddled her pet close as Chelsea greeted her ecstatically. Water dripped from the little Yorkie's long coat, soaking Abigail even more, but she didn't seem to notice.
Arms crossed over his chest, David leaned back against the side and watched a drop trickle down her neck and collarbone and disappear into the shadowy cleavage at the top of her shirt. Desire surged through him in a hot wave. He clenched his teeth and lowered his gaze, only to encounter those luscious, endless legs.
Damn. There ought to be a law against prim librarians having legs like that.
Stroking Chelsea's head, Abigail looked at David curiously. "Why swim? Why didn't you just row ashore?"
"Because those two goons shot a hole in the life raft, that's why," he said with an unmistakable note of accusation in his voice. Scowling, he looked around. "Would you look at that!" he squawked, jerking away from the side when he spotted another hole in the bulkhead. "And here's another one."
The discoveries led to more, and before long David was darting from one side of the boat to the other, inspecting holes and splintered gouges in the wood and dents and scratches in the brass fittings.
It was the first opportunity he'd had to take stock of the damage in daylight, and with the discovery of each new blemish on his precious craft his face became darker.
"They shot up my boat!" he bellowed. "Those dirty rotten bastards shot up my boat! I'll kill 'em! I'll strangle the scum with my bare hands!"
Chelsea leaned out over Abigail's arm and curled her lip at him in a snarl. Abigail backed up a step. "I... uh... I'm sure it's not as bad as it looks," she ventured. "Wh-why don't you come below and let me fix you a nice hot breakfast?"
"Breakfast be damned! I'm going to try to repair the engine. As soon as I do, we're heading back to San Cristobal. No one is gonna shoot up my boat and get away with it!"
He disappeared below deck, and the sounds of doors slamming and drawers banging shut echoed through the companionway. Moments later he was back, dressed in the disreputable cutoffs of the day before, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his mouth. Stomping past her with a determined look on his face, he flicked the butt over the side and jerked open the engine well.
All morning, while David worked on the engine, Abigail did the prudent thing and stayed away from him. After eating a solitary breakfast, she bathed Chelsea, then showered, scrubbed the salt water from her clothes, and washed her hair. When done, she purloined one of David's cotton sports shirts to wear while her outfit dried.
To stay busy, she decided to clean and put things in order below deck. Abigail had noticed that topside all was shipshape and spotless, but the same could not be said for the living quarters.
While not exactly a pigsty, the cabin was a far cry from Abigail's idea of tidy. Overflowing ashtrays were everywhere. Rolled charts and maps had been tossed haphazardly onto the ledge above the banquette, along with pencils, a straight edge, a sextant, an elaborate reel and a spool of heavy line. A billed cap swung from the handle of an overhead storage compartment, and a shirt was hooked over the knob on the wardrobe door. An assortment of hooks, lures, sinkers and bobbers cluttered the bedside table in the forward cabin, and a gaff and landing net stood propped beside the folding door. Mystery novels with lurid covers were crammed into almost every nook and cranny. And to Abigail's outrage, she discovered a girlie magazine wedged beneath the cushions on the banquette seat.
And all that, she knew, was just the tip of the iceberg; she hadn't forgotten the jumbled mess David had made of the drawers the night before.
Rolling up her sleeves, Abigail dived right in. She started by gathering up all the paperback books. She reached for the skin magazine to add it to the pile, but at the last instant her hand stilled.
Curiosity tugged at her. The magazine lay in the center of the table where she'd tossed it, its outrageous name, Babes, emblazoned in bold block letters across the top of the slick cover. She stared at it and felt a forbidden stirring.
Tapping her fingers on the tabletop, she pursed her lips and covertly glanced up through the door that led topside. Her forefinger riffled the pages at one corner over and over, ran up and down the edge of the pages, then casually slipped inside and flipped the magazine open.
Abigail gasped. Her jaw dropped. She stared, disbelieving, at the naked bleached blonde.
The picture was shamelessly explicit, a brazen appeal to a man's most prurient instincts. The bimbo knelt beside a pool, cupping her enormous breasts like an offering while she smiled at the camera with a scorching, come-hither look that had probably melted the lens. Her eyes gleamed beneath the sultry droop of her eyelids, and her lips were parted, the tip of her tongue peeking out from between her teeth. Long wet hair lay sleeked back from her face, and her oiled skin, beaded with drops of water, glistened in the sunlight. At the apex of her thighs, more moisture glistened in the dark feminine triangle.
Abigail slammed the magazine shut. Her body pulsed with embarrassed heat from her toes all the way to the roots of her hair. David Blaine, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
Making an aggravated sound, Abigail thrust the offending periodical into the overhead storage above the bed and threw herself into the housekeeping chores with a vengeance.
For the next several hours she went through the boat's living quarters like a tornado, burning up her ire and embarrassment in an excess of activity. When she had finally calmed, she chided herself for overreacting. After all, she should have expected such from a chauvinistic ruffian like
David Blaine. When—or if —she got home, she was going to have to write to her congressman about the caliber of men the government hired.
She had just finished below deck and was admiring her handiwork, when David loped down the steps.
He brought with him the smell of sweat and engine grease and maleness. His nearness, his size, his state of undress, all unnerved Abigail, making her skin prickle. She stepped aside as far from him as she could and averted her eyes from his body.
Without so much as a word to her, he reached into a cabinet above the sink and extracted two cigarettes from an open pack, his movements a study in unselfconscious masculine grace.
The action tightened his buttocks and caused muscles in his broad back to ripple. Abigail gritted her teeth. The man oozed a raw, animal magnetism and a supreme self-confiden
ce that made her insides flutter and aroused in Abigail, a woman who prided herself on her self-control and even temperament, the totally uncharacteristic desire to give him a good swift kick.
David lit one of the cigarettes and stuck the other behind his ear. His eyes flickered over her, taking on a strange glitter as he noticed her attire. Then he looked around.
He frowned. "What the devil have you done to this place?"
"I cleaned it and straightened everything up. Doesn't it look better?"
"Oh, great! Now I'll never find anything. What the devil have you done with all my stuff?"
"Your fishing gear is in the locker up on deck, your clothing is in the wardrobe and drawers, and your books are in the overhead storage."
At the last, David shot her a startled look, and Abigail returned it coolly.
"Along with your... ah... other reading material, of course." Her arch tone and expression left no doubt as to what she meant or her opinion of it.
For an instant David appeared uncomfortable, but he quickly recovered, and his heavy brows lowered in a glower. "You can get that snooty look off your face. Just because a guy buys a skin magazine doesn't mean he's a sicko."
Abigail widened her eyes. "Did I say anything?"
"It so happens I didn't buy the damned thing for the pictures. That magazine contains excellent articles and book reviews—"
Her snort cut him off, and David skewered her with a killing glare. He fumed in silence for a full thirty seconds before throwing up his hands. "I don't know why I should even try to justify myself to you. What gives you the right to sit in judgment, anyway? If you don't like my choice of reading material, keep your priggish little nose out of it."
He spun away and stalked up the steps, muttering under his breath, leaving Abigail feeling properly chastised.
On one level, her brain and her conscience told her that he was right. But another part of her—the emotional part-still simmered with outrage...and a totally irrational, inappropriate feeling that was very close to jealousy, though she would have bitten off her tongue rather than admit it.
Abigail gave an indignant sniff and stiffened her spine. So what if the man got some sort of voyeuristic thrill out of ogling naked tootsies in trashy magazines? It was no concern of hers.
Her gaze fell on the partial pack of cigarettes he'd left on the counter, and her eyes narrowed. In fact, she told herself with just a hint of smug satisfaction, instead of criticizing the man, she ought to do something to thank him. After all, he had saved her life. Twice. Of course, the second time it had been his fault that she'd almost drowned, but he had saved her.
She picked up the cigarettes, fingering the cellophane. A tiny, dangerous smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. What better way to show her appreciation than to help him quit smoking?
***
A half hour later there was nothing left to do but braid her hair. It, however, was still damp, despite the hours that had passed since she'd shampooed it. When loose the thick mane hung to below her waist and was the very devil to dry, even with a hair dryer—and Abigail's was back in her hotel room in San Cristobal.
She wasn't anxious to get anywhere near David, but she needed to be outside so that the wind and sun could dry her hair. Besides, Abigail reasoned, it might be wise to be someplace where there was a bit more maneuvering room.
Resolutely she took her hairbrush from her purse, picked up Chelsea and went topside. The bridge was far enough away, she decided, settling herself on the companion bench. From there she couldn't possibly bother him.
***
She was driving him nuts. Stark, staring mad.
Straining, David grunted as he bore down on the wrench, but the stuck bolt wouldn't budge. He cursed and swiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.
Involving him in her troubles. Waking him up at the crack of dawn. Looking one minute like she'd spook if he said boo and giving him orders in that prim, schoolmarm voice the next. "As soon as you're done, I'm afraid you'll have to row Chelsea and me to shore," he mimicked silently.
Between her and the fuzz ball, he'd soon be bouncing off the walls of a rubber room somewhere.
That is... if he managed to get them out of this mess she'd dragged him into.
He banged on the stubborn bolt with the side of the wrench. Thanks to her, his boat was shot to hell and gone, the engine was crippled and the KGB was after his ass. And to top it all off, little Miss Mouse In Starchy Drawers was down there cleaning and organizing his boat. Soon it'd look like that damned purse of hers, with everything all neatly labeled and in its proper place.
Well, he didn't need or want a housekeeper. He wasn't exactly a slob. He kept his boat clean and orderly. Sort of. Anyway, a little clutter was comforting. Made a place seem lived in.
He wiped his sweaty palms on the seat of his cutoffs and gave the wrench another try, putting all his weight behind it.
And then there were those beautiful eyes and that fantastic little body with those knockout legs. He'd lain awake half the night, thinking about how they'd fed wrapped around him, those silky thighs clamping his hips as he—
The sound that came from David was very close to a snarl, and he gave the stubborn bolt another vicious whack. This time when he applied pressure, it gave with such suddenness, his sweaty palms slipped off the wrench and he scraped three knuckles.
He was in the midst of grinding out a string of colorful curses, when he heard Abigail come up on deck. Breaking off in mid spate, he peered over the top of the engine well in time to see her climb the ladder to the bridge.
He ducked back down, banged on the engine a few times, then stood up and pretended to arch the kinks from his back while he slanted another furtive glance her way.
The instant he saw her, he went utterly still. He felt as though someone had dealt him a blow to the solar plexus.
With Chelsea curled at her feet, Abigail sat on the end of the bench, her eyes closed, running a brush through her hair from scalp to tip with slow, smooth strokes.
Lord, how could he have thought, for even a moment, that she was just attractive? With her hair loose around her face instead of scraped back in that hideous tight braid— why...she was lovely. Not drop-dead gorgeous, maybe, but striking—in a quiet, understated way that grabbed his gut.
He had assumed her hair was plain light brown, but the thick cascade glittered in the sun with golden highlights, a long, straight curtain of shimmering silk that hung past her hips.
His hands clenched. He wanted to run his fingers through that luxurious mane, gather it up in his hands and bury his face in it, inhale its clean scent. Feel it slide against his skin. Tangle with the hair on his chest...
A shudder of desire rippled through him, constricting his breath and sending blood surging through his body, straight to his loins.
Hellfire, he was in trouble. Big, big trouble.
Shakily, never taking his gaze from her, David hoisted himself out of the engine well onto the deck. The throbbing heat pounding through him robbed him of strength, and with a deceptive nonchalance, he stood and rested his hips against the rail and crossed his long legs at the ankles. He reached for the spare cigarette behind his ear but it was gone, and he remembered that he'd already smoked it.
Damnation. He couldn't have another for at least an hour, Already he was over the limit he had set for himself that day.
He stuffed his shaking hands into the pockets of his cutoffs and stared at Abigail's legs. She was wearing one of his shirts. Below, earlier, he'd tried not to notice how sexy she looked in the masculine garment, but now all he could do was stare. It swallowed her slight frame and the tails hung down to her midthigh. He wondered if she wore anything under it.
Tipping her head to one side, Abigail noticed him watching her. Instead of turning away or feigning indifference, her gaze found his and held.
The sun beat down hotly. A salt-scented breeze toyed with the ends of her hair. Water lapped at the hull of the boat, an
d from ashore came the distant raucous call of a bird. All else was still. Quiet. In the somnolent afternoon, they looked at each other. The air between them pulsed and sizzled with something wild and electric, something irresistible.
Abigail licked her lips, and David's chest grew tighter. The slow, heavy beat of his heart reverberated through his body. She gazed at him steadily, her aquamarine eyes glazed, unblinking, helplessly fascinated. As though of its own volition, the hand holding the brush continued its slow, mesmerizing strokes.
"Aw, the hell with it," David growled, and shoved away from the side. "I need a cigarette. Now."
The spell broken, Abigail watched him disappear below deck, her heart pounding like a wild thing in her chest. She was inexperienced where men were concerned, it was true, but she wasn't so naive that she didn't know what had occurred between her and David just now. It was called chemistry, sexual attraction, the age-old pull between male and female. And it had been primal. Hot. Dangerous.
Her cheeks flamed at the memory, and she covered them with her hands. She understood what had transpired, all right, but what confused her was how such a thing could have happened between her and David!
She was left with no time to ponder the matter, however, because at that instant David shot up out of the cabin like a scalded cat.
"Dammit, Abbey!" he roared. "Where the hell are my cigarettes?"
Chapter Six
Abigail sucked in her breath. Whoops. In the past few minutes she had forgotten all about the cigarettes.
Which was hardly surprising. That sizzling interlude had practically rendered her a mindless lump of quivering flesh. Even now, faced with David's fury, her breasts still tingled, and a pulsing heat persisted at the core of her femininity, making it difficult for her to concentrate.
David glowered up at her from the deck below. With his fists planted on his hipbones and his stance wide and aggressive, he radiated anger.