He noticed that Mariel wasn’t exactly sipping her drink, either.
“Goes down easy, doesn’t it?” she asked, catching him watching her.
He offered her the basket of chips. “Never drink on an empty stomach.”
“My stomach is definitely not empty after today,” she said, but she helped herself to a couple of chips anyway.
Their conversation turned back to movies they had seen, and he got the impression that she, like he, caught most of them on cable or video. He wondered if that was because Rockton was too small a town for a movie theater, or because she didn’t date and didn’t want to go to the movies by herself.
He told himself that that was a broad assumption. After all, people went to movies all the time without being on a date. They went solo, or with friends, or family members. He should stop looking for clues into her personal life and simply come right out and ask if he wanted to know more.
But he couldn’t bring himself to do that, because he wasn’t supposed to be interested. So he changed the subject from movies to music to the weather. By that time, he was definitely feeling the effects of the tequila, and assumed she was, too. Her cheeks were still flushed, and she was smiling a lot, leaning forward in her chair, her elbows propped on the table. She seemed so relaxed, he thought, almost flirtatious, even though all they were talking about was the weather.
When she once again commented that she should have stayed at the Super 8 so she could go swimming and cool off, he took the bait.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t bait. In fact, he knew her comment wasn’t deliberate. When she had made it earlier, he had started to bring up the story of that May heat wave junior year in total innocence before she had unwittingly interrupted.
But this time, there was absolutely nothing innocent about his intentions.
“Like I started to tell you before, I was once here in Strasburg during a heat wave back in college,” he said.
“Oh, right, when you were living in Delta house or whatever it was.”
“The Delts were a sorority,” he said, with mock offense. “I was a Phi Sig.”
“Oops, sorry.”
“Anyway”—he was determined not to get off track, here—“the brothers and I went swimming late one night, and it was great.”
“What did you do? Go sneak into somebody’s backyard pool?”
“Even better than that,” he said. “There’s a swimming hole in the woods not far from here. We all went over and jumped in. The water was cold and it felt incredible.”
Her eyes sparkled at him, and she said, after taking another gulp of the almost-melted remains of her drink, “That sounds so good right about now, Noah.”
“Which is why we should do it.”
“Do what?”
“Go swimming,” he said, and asked devilishly, “Why? What did you think I meant?”
It was a suggestive question, and he said it without thinking, buoyed by liquor-inspired giddiness. As soon as the words were out he expected her to scowl or shut down or stiffly suggest that they call it a night.
But she grinned back at him and said, “Never mind what I thought. Swimming sounds great.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’d love to cool off before bed,” she said with a shrug. “And it’s been a while since I’ve dived into a swimming hole. We used to go to one in the woods when I was a kid. My mother worried constantly. And with good reason, I’m sure. One time my friend Katie Beth dove in and barely missed hitting a big rock.”
“Well, okay then. No diving allowed.” He could see she was hesitating.
“I wish I’d brought my bathing suit, or that there was someplace around here to buy one at this hour,” she hedged.
“Swim in your clothes,” he said with a shrug. “Come on, Mariel. I’m going with or without you. It’s too damned hot. What do you say?”
“I say, let’s go.”
How on earth had Mariel gotten herself into this?
Now, as she emerged with Noah from the wooded path into a small, tree-fringed clearing centered by a pool of moonlit water, swimming didn’t seem like such a good idea.
In fact, it seemed like a really, really bad idea.
This place was completely isolated. After leaving the restaurant, they had strolled down to the end of a residential cul-de-sac a few blocks from the inn, then followed the short path through the trees. Here, away from the streetlights and the proximity of other people, she was acutely aware of being alone with Noah—of the steamy night air around them and the crickets chirping and an occasional thrashing in the underbrush as wildlife creatures scampered out of their way.
Mariel stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked at the water, conscious that Noah had gone still beside her.
“It’s just like I remembered it,” he said, his voice hushed.
“It’s beautiful.” She just stood looking at the pool of shimmering water that reflected the heat-hazy moon and stars above and cast their fluid light back into the trees.
Her body was damp with sweat, and she yearned to plunge into the refreshing depths.
But that would mean walking back to the hotel dripping wet, something that hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea back at the restaurant, under the pleasant I-cando-anything tequila glow. Why hadn’t they at least stopped back at the inn for a couple of towels?
Noah still had both of their notebooks under his arm, for Pete’s sake. This was insane.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” Noah said abruptly, and carefully placed the notebooks on a flat rock at the edge of the water before pulling his shirt over his head.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, and plopped down on a large moss-covered rock. “I’ll just sit here and wait for you.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but didn’t.
Instead, he reached for the button on his shorts and unfastened it.
She realized, startled, he was going to take them off. Well, what did she expect? He was probably going to go in wearing his boxer shorts. Probably? Of course he was, because the alternative was…
She shoved the thought of Noah, naked, from her mind, remembering that he had worn boxers back in college. She wondered if he still did. It certainly looked as though she was about to find out.
It was all she could do not to stare as he stepped out of his shorts and placed them beside his shirt and the notebooks on the rock. She felt a dribble of sweat running down her neck and another starting at her hairline above her temple. She thrust out her lower lip and attempted to blow her damp bangs off her forehead, but they were plastered there with sweat. Lovely.
It was sweltering out here. She would kill for a dip in the pond.
“Sure you don’t want to come in?” Noah asked, as though he had read her mind. He seemed to be almost taunting her.
“I’m positive.” She fought the urge to lift the weight of her ponytail from her neck and wondered why she hadn’t just pinned the whole mass of hair on top of her head this morning to keep cooler.
He shrugged and hooked his thumbs on the elastic waistband of his boxer shorts.
“What are you doing?” she blurted.
“Taking off my boxers,” he said, all innocence.
But she saw the gleam in his eye.
“Don’t you dare, Noah.”
“Huh?” He paused, on the verge of pulling them down, looking at her as though he was shocked she would make such a command.
“I mean it. If you take off your boxers, I’m leaving.”
“Why, Mariel?” He took a step closer to the rock where she was sitting, as though daring her to hold her ground. “You’ve seen me naked before.”
There.
He had said it, and now she could no longer banish the image from her mind. She remembered what he looked like naked, and the lower region of her body clenched in response to the vivid thought. He had been the first, the only man she had ever seen wit
hout clothes, the only man whose naked flesh she had ever touched, and not just with her hands. He was the only man she had ever made love to, and it was impossible not to remember that now, as he stood before her, ready to bare himself once again.
It had started as a game moments ago. Now it was much more than that. He was directly acknowledging the intimacy they had shared, after both of them had alternately skirted around it or joked it off for the past twenty-four hours.
What should she do?
She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think past her body’s betrayal and the explicit recollection that refused to leave her mind.
Noah looked at her, and she looked down, staring at her hands clenched on her lap.
“It shouldn’t bother you, Mariel, because it’s nothing new,” he said, and his tone was light, if the meaning was anything but.
With that, he removed his boxer shorts, tossed them casually to the ground, and dove in.
Water droplets splashed her, and she looked up just in time to see him surface, sputtering. He lolled onto his back and swam a few lazy strokes out into the middle of the water, then paddled back toward her.
“You should come in, Mariel. It’s incredible.”
“I’m sure it is.” If he only knew how she longed to shed her own clothes and join him…
Or maybe he did know. Maybe that was why he was doing this.
But what would happen if she threw caution to the wind?
Nothing, she told herself. Nothing would happen because they had sworn it wouldn’t.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “You’ll dry, you know.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded defensive even to her own ears.
“And you’ll feel so much better. You’ll sleep so much better.”
No, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t sleep easily until he was out of her life once again and her daughter was safe and she was back home in Rockton, where she belonged.
“Mariel,” he said, flicking water at her.
She ducked. “Cut it out, Noah.”
“What’s the matter? Did you get splashed?”
He did it again.
She ducked again, but felt the cooling spray on her cheek. She giggled. “God, you’re like a junior high school boy, Noah.”
“In more ways than one,” he said, catching her eye as he moved closer to her with languid strokes until his head was just beneath where she sat.
And she was locked on his gaze. She couldn’t look away.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, finding her voice.
He reached up and took her hands. The contact with his wet skin stole her breath, and she heard herself gasp.
“It means that junior high school boys usually have only one thing on their minds.”
She couldn’t reply to that. Her mind was swirling, her body aching with need sparked by the seductive expression in his eyes. He wanted her. She knew that without a doubt—knew that he was breaking their deal, and she was no longer safe.
And heaven help her, she didn’t care.
She wanted what he wanted, and to hell with the consequences.
He tugged her hands, and his voice was softer when he said, “Come on in, Mariel. The water’s beautiful.”
She struggled to reclaim the argument that was lost in the maelstrom of wanton contemplation. “I told you …I don’t want to get my clothes soaked,” she said futilely.
“So don’t wear any.”
With that, he reached up and tugged the hem of her shorts.
“It’s only me,” he said in a low voice.
“That’s the problem,” she managed, her whole body trembling at his touch. She looked down and saw droplets of cool water glistening on her thigh just below the fabric of her shorts, and she shivered.
“Look, Mariel, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and if you want me to stop it, I will,” he said.
But she didn’t want him to stop. She was engulfed by a craving so fierce that it left no room for rationale, or even further discussion. She uttered the only two words that came to mind, and they were enough for him.
“Don’t stop.”
She heard his breath catch in his throat.
“No, wait,” she said, as the past crashed into her brain and she realized what they were about to risk. She was furious at herself for having forgotten for even an instant.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in dismay.
“We can’t, Noah. Not without protection. What the hell was I thinking?”
He laughed. “I have it,” he said, reaching for his shorts, pulling a small silver packet out of the pocket.
She laughed, too, a giddy sound of relief. There was nothing else to hold her back now, no reason she should hesitate.
And then she was undressing herself, untucking the sleeveless T-shirt and pulling it over her head, unfastening the hook at the waistband of her shorts and pulling down the zipper, then lowering them over her hips. She was wearing a plain white lace bra and white lace-edged panties, garments she had never imagined he would see when she had unthinkingly pulled them on this morning.
Now, with the heat of his gaze on her body, she wished she was wearing something silky and seductive; but it didn’t matter, because she was unfastening the bra and freeing the weight of her breasts, and she was shimmying out of her panties, and now she was naked, standing on the rock above him.
She heard the slow release of breath and wasn’t sure if it had come from her own throat until she looked down and saw that it had come from his. His lips were parted, and he was staring up at her, as though he were entranced, and she vaguely wondered why she didn’t feel self-conscious.
But she didn’t.
She never had with Noah, for all her inexperience and uncertainty. Somehow, when they were together, she had been sure of herself—sure of him, and how he felt about her.
“Come in,” he beckoned, and she hesitated only a moment, looking down at Noah and the waiting water.
Then, without allowing herself another moment to think it over—another moment to consider changing her mind—she closed her eyes and dove in headfirst.
When Mariel surfaced a few feet from where he was, Noah’s first impulse was to swim over to her and take her into his arms. He knew what it meant, that she had shed her clothes and joined him in the water, and it was all he could do to curb the ferocious desire that had overtaken him at the first glimpse of her naked body.
He forced himself to hold back, to let her get used to the water’s chill and the inevitable outcome of her actions. He knew she had teetered on the brink of backing out only moments ago, and he wanted her too badly to risk losing her again.
Whatever lay beyond this night—this interlude—would be left to chance. But not this.
He watched her sweep her hands across her cheeks and eyes to wipe away the streaming water, and he saw her smooth her hair back from her face. She was lovely in the moonlight, with those huge eyes and creamy white shoulders rising inches above the water’s surface. He thought about what lay below, and he wanted to groan. He ached for her. It had been so long…
Months since he had made love to Kelly, and years since it had meant anything. If he allowed himself to think about the instinctive physical urgency to sate himself, this would be over before it had begun, and that wasn’t what he wanted.
He held his ground, so to speak, treading water though he wasn’t in over his head.
It was Mariel who swam toward him.
She stopped, treading water inches away, her movements enveloping him in ripples of water that teased and tantalized his sensitive flesh.
“Mariel, if you come any closer,” he gritted out.
She did. She swam into his arms as he reached to embrace her, and his feet hit bottom as he crushed her against him, kissing her.
He moaned when she opened her mouth and allowed him to taste her, to explore the soft inner rim of her lips and to stroke her tongue with his. As he clasped her against him she wrapped her legs aro
und his waist just above his aching manhood, and he held her weightlessness in his arms, dipping his head to close his mouth over her breast. He coaxed one nipple to a puckered nub, then turned his attention to the other, and she sighed, her wrists tucked under his arms and her fingertips clutching his shoulders.
And when she squirmed the apex of her legs against his belly, he nearly went mad with desire.
“I can’t…I can’t…”
Her eyes flew open, and she searched his face. “You can’t do this?”
“No, hell, Mariel, I can’t wait any longer.”
“Then don’t,” she whispered, and that was all the encouragement he needed.
Cupping her bottom, he lowered her around his hips, and then he plunged into her with a groan. He felt her welcoming warmth, and the contrasting chill of the water played around his rigid flesh each time he rhythmically withdrew. The sensation was like nothing he had ever experienced, and he dragged his lips from hers to bury his face in her wet hair, breathing the wet herbal scent of her shampoo as he neared release.
Just when he knew he could last no longer, he heard her whisper, “It’s okay, Noah, go ahead,” as she reached up to stroke his forehead.
And then he was driven over the edge, soaring, white hot, melting into her, panting into her shoulder as his body shuddered violently.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he could speak again, though his breath was still coming in pants. “You didn’t—”
“It’s okay,” she interrupted.
“It’s been a long time,” he said by way of explanation.
“Fifteen years, Noah.”
That wasn’t what he had meant. He had been referring to the time that had passed since he had last made love to a woman—not to her. And then he realized that it didn’t matter. That even if he had made passionate love to a different woman every night in the past decade and a half, he would have wanted her this desperately, unable to restrain his need.
He looked at her and saw the faint smile on her face, and he kissed her lips tenderly. She was still smiling.
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