Night, Sea, And Stars

by Heather Graham

  When he released her she fumbled up, hands splayed across his chest, lashes lowered. He knew the ardor she gave him embarrassed her at times; she tried to ignore it by daylight, just as she tried to hide her mind and soul from him.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said huskily.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” she murmured primly, struggling against his arms until she realized she was stuck. “You’ve only been gone a few hours.”

  “I missed you within ten minutes!” He laughed.

  Skye finally opened her eyes fully to look down at him. He looked marvelous. He was deeply tanned now, and the muscles in his chest and shoulders were clearly defined, each visible and delineated. The auburn beard upon his chin was growing nicely. She had trimmed the ragged edges with her sewing scissors. And now, gently grinning from ear to ear, his eyes sparkling mischievously; his entire face was extraordinarily handsome, young, teasingly seductive. Skye shuddered slightly. He had become her whole world. She was so in love with him that he was part of her being. And yet she had to hold back something. So often he was distant, sometimes hard, utterly unapproachable. She couldn’t allow herself to forget for one minute who he was, in real life. She had his passions, as he had hers. But it was infuriating to know that he knew all too well that he could touch her, and she would surrender, forget her own past, plead that he take her.

  She was like a pet, cared for, pampered, ordered about at his convenience, forgotten when his mind went elsewhere…

  He whispered words of love, but wouldn’t he do that for all his mistresses?

  Skye felt herself blushing again and pushed against his chest. “Kyle…”

  “Do you know, Ms. Delaney,” he informed her, refusing to let go, “you don’t know how to play.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Skye murmured uneasily.

  “Play. Take things easy. Enjoy yourself.”

  Her face was growing very hot. How could he say such a thing? Dear Lord, they had played continually.

  He was working at her buttons. “Kyle!” she protested.

  “I want to see you,” his voice, in itself, fanned her flesh electrically-

  “You’ve seen me!” she gasped.

  “I want to see you in daylight. I want to look at you and look at you… and look at you…” Her blouse was open, but suddenly he pulled away. “Take it off for me, Skye.”

  She trembled, her eyes lowered. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Please.” It was soft, so soft; it compelled.

  Eyes downcast, she slipped the garment from her arms.

  “Everything,” he urged. Skye could feel his devouring gaze, and despite all that had passed between them, she trembled again as she undid her bra.

  She was, Kyle thought for the zillionth time, perfection. Her breasts were perfect, so firm, yet so soft… the nipples that provocative shade of deep rose. His breathing quickened and he said huskily, “Everything, Skye… please.”

  She rose above him, confused, suddenly aware that he was subtly changing their relationship again. He was asking more of her than he ever had before; he was asking for her trust, and in so doing, setting himself up for a certain amount of vulnerability.

  She wanted to reach out for him so badly.

  Standing over him, she shed her shorts.

  As if her nerve endings had suddenly been given a sensitizing drug, she could feel everything acutely—the heat of the sun as it played upon her, the rush of the cool ocean air, the flow of the surf over her heels and toes. But more than any real sensation, she could feel Kyle’s gaze. She opened her own to him, and the spasmodic shivers that had assailed her became shudders that contracted the muscles of her stomach in a heat of longing.

  He watched her for a long, long while, scanning her from head to toe, the expression in his eyes dark yet gentle—all the reward she could ask for loosing all inhibitions. It felt good, she realized with a sudden little thrill. Good to stand naked beneath the sun, good to feel the sand of the earth with every fiber… good to allow the breeze to caress her flesh… good to feel the appreciation of his eyes…

  Kyle finally rose, dropping his cutoffs. Skye felt her lids lower as he came to her, laughing softly.

  “Why look away now?” he murmured, his hands falling to her shoulders. “Don’t you like my backside anymore?”

  “Of course,” Skye murmured, then stuttered, “that was before…”

  He laughed again huskily, then began to plant butterfly kisses over her face, hedging her lips. His lips seared her down to her shoulders, creating moist streaks over the hollows with his tongue. Then he sank to his knees before her; his tongue sought her navel, the contours of her hips. The fire was so great that she cried out, digging her fingers into the breadth of his shoulders, convulsively moving them to his hair. Still his kisses moved on until her cries and moans were incoherent pleadings.

  He bore her down to the surf. The foam teased her thighs along with his arousing fingers and lips. The pleasure was so intense, so achingly sweet, it was almost unbearable.

  And then his lips finally met hers along with his explosion within her. The heat of the sun mingled with theirs; the relentless pounding of the ocean was their rhythm, the lash of the waves, the incredible wash upon wash of sensation. And when it was over, it was the surf that cooled them, the sun that benignly blessed them with its warmth.

  Skye was at peace, and yet she was torn. Basking in his arms was bliss; she had never known such a feeling of total belonging, of such wonderful, fulfilling satiation. At the moment their disaster was a paradise, their solitude a gentle miracle.

  But the storms would come again. Sea and sky would rage destruction, perhaps eventually death. She feared with a trembling terror that they would be stuck on the island eternally, yet she was beginning to fear with an equal ardor a return to civilization.

  Here Kyle belonged to her. While she as yet could not clearly remember the planes of Ted’s face, and while her own business became less important, she was well aware that Kyle was restless. His mind was often on his business, she was sure. And more. She had often watched him covertly when his eyes were off to sea, when she could fee! that he was totally lost in his past.

  Who awaited him? she wondered. And, despite his words, did he perhaps miss the wife he claimed to have no love for. Or were there others? A mistress he gave to as he did to her, a woman he loved, a woman she replaced physically.

  She realized he was watching her again. Leaning upon an elbow, he seemed contented. The warmth remained in the lime of his eyes. He smiled as her eyes met his. He ran a gentle finger from the cleft of her collarbone to her navel.

  “I don’t think there are words,” he said softly, “to tell you how wonderful you are.”

  He laughed as the eternal blush filled her cheeks and her lashes lowered. “Un-unh!” he teased. “Look at me.”

  She did so.

  “I want you to be entirely at ease,” he told her softly. “I want you to be as comfortable with me as you are with yourself…” He caressed her as he spoke, fondling her breast with fascination, as if he never tired of exploration.

  “I am at ease with you,” Skye murmured, tensing again to his touch. Words quavered on her lips. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she didn’t dare. He said so only in moments of passion.

  He was on his feet suddenly, pulling her up. “Let’s go swimming.”

  And then they were in the water, and Kyle was teaching her just how much fun it could be to play. He touched her again and again in the surf; she touched him back, she learned to stare and touch in return, heedless of the daylight, bold and brash and knowing. She laughed with him as she never had before; she made love in the water, able to stare into his eyes all the while.

  But late that night, curled together in the hut, she softly asked him a question. “You’re anxious to get back, aren’t you, Kyle.”

  He was half asleep, pleasantly inhaling the clean scent of her hair. “Of course,” he murmured drowsily. “My whol
e life is back there. Don’t worry,” he added, believing she needed the assurance he didn’t feel himself. “Rescue will come.” Then he stiffened slightly himself, barely controlling the harshness of his cross-questioning. “You must be very anxious to get back too.”

  Skye couldn’t possibly understand his meaning. He had just told her that she wasn’t any permanent part of his life…

  “Yes, I'm very anxious to get back,” she responded. “My entire life waits too.”

  A sudden fury hit Kyle. “Don’t hold your breath for tomorrow,” he said, not hiding the gravel now. “We may be here a long, long time.”

  His arms were tight around her; they were almost cruel.

  Skye felt tears bum behind her eyelids. She had allowed herself a foolish mistake; she had allowed herself to forget he was K.A. Jagger.

  And she had become his island toy. He was a man of strong desires and needs, and he would play at his whim. He was well aware that his toy hadn’t the strength to resist him.

  A single hot tear trickled silently down her cheek. She had allowed herself to become the mistress of a man whose mistresses she scorned.

  He was searching again, although he had no idea of what he searched for.

  Skye was sleeping when he left her. Upon their ragged sheets she had been a beautiful sight, her sleek limbs tanned and elegant. Her hair, too, was touched by the sun; it was fanned out in platinum splendor around her delicate features.

  The irrational anger that had struck him the night before returned to him. Without bothering for a drink of water, he struck off into the island, hoping to ease the tensions that assailed him.

  And today he was to make a startling discovery.

  He was about a hundred yards from the spot where the plane had exploded, and he didn’t even see it at first. He knew he was upon it because his toe struck it, hard with the fervor of his stride.

  It was a case, a metal case. Scorched and scarred, but obviously bomb-proof. It had survived the explosion.

  “What the…?” he murmured, surveying it, testing the cool metal with his fingers. The case was squat, no more than a foot and half by three, but its depth matched its width, and when Kyle attempted to lift it, he found it surprisingly heavy. It’s made of steel, he thought. He was able to pick up the case, but it was like lifting weights.

  He set the case back down, studying the catches. There were three, below and flanking the handle. Each catch was some type of lock.

  Kyle picked up a rock and began hammering away at the catches. He didn’t know how long he pounded. His hair and skin were wet from his exertions; beads of perspiration slicked the breadth of his shoulders and trickled miserably through the growth of his beard.

  His huge rock cracked before the first catch. But he sensed a give and scouted the ground for a second rock. Under normal circumstances, he thought vaguely, it would probably take a herd of elephants to snap the catches. But the force of the explosion had given him a chance.

  He went through four more rocks before snapping two of the lock catches. Another two rocks—and timeless persistence and determination—and the third catch gave.

  And then the case was open. And what met his eyes stole his breath in a sharp intake.

  Gold, its brilliance blinding beneath the sun. Small bars, five pounds, he decided as his fingers automatically reached to lift one. But there were many of them. Fifty to seventy pounds in all and stamped. Issue bars of the Australian government? They had to be.

  His mind ticked away even with his shock as he calculated the worth of his find. A small fortune. And then he made a second discovery. The depth of the case was deceptive. It was double walled in the same steel. Something else had been brilliantly secreted into the case, and as he realized that it was unlikely that even his herd of elephants could break the steel of the inner case, he felt a new outpouring of perspiration bead his features, and then turned cold, very cold.

  The entire thing had probably been brilliantly engineered. Set indestructibly into the false bottom and lining, Kyle was sure there would be a tracking device—maybe two or three. It couldn’t possibly be lost, couldn’t possibly be removed.

  Kyle suddenly began to wonder if the hydraulic failure of his plane hadn’t been planned. Wondering led to being positive that that was the case.

  And that being positive led him to wonder again. How had the gold gotten aboard his Lear?

  His thoughts fell instantly to the woman who already held his wrath this morning, the designer who dealt in gold. He thought of the innocence that combined with the sensuousness of her amber cat eyes. His only passenger, solitary passenger, the only other human being to come aboard the plane after checkout.

  Anger exploded in his mind. His plane, his company, he had been used.

  With tight lips a grim line against the auburn bush of his beard and the bronze of his face, he made his way painstakingly back to their shelter, the case feeling more and more as if it weighed a ton as he hefted it high on his shoulder to plod his way through the sand.

  Kyle stormed into the hut, body sleek with sweat, muscles strained and taut. He heaved the heavy case down beside the sleeping girl, undaunted from his fury as the sudden thud next to her ear awakened her, sending her startled eyes wide open with alarm, her torso jerking upward in panic. She saw him, saw the case, met his eyes, her own pleading confusion.

  She was lovely as she looked at him, her fair hair splayed around her shoulders, falling provocatively over her naked breasts. But her very loveliness increased his wrath. He had been used once by beauty and innocence and he had done the right thing—the honorable thing.

  But now he felt sick. His pain was gut-wrenching. He had fallen in love with her.

  “I found something I think you were missing,” he said harshly.

  Skye desperately tried to unmuddle her groggy thoughts. Strange, was her first coherent realization, yesterday she had felt so natural with him. But now, with him glowering down at her, clad half respectably in his cutoffs while she had on nothing, she felt vulnerable, stripped of everything.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmured, scrambling to retrieve the sheets from beneath her and wrap herself in them. Anything to shield herself from this scowling stranger who had the power to rend her limb from limb.

  “What am I talking about?” Her words had further incensed him. Mindless of her feelings, her state of dress or undress, he reached down with both hands and wrenched her to her feet by her shoulders, glaring relentlessly into her eyes. The sheet fell to the sand, but he ignored her gasp. “Gold, Ms. Delaney, I'm talking about gold. Funny, but it was on my plane. And I didn’t put it there. Stolen gold, Ms. Delaney.”

  Skye’s eyes fell to the case with horror. “I didn’t put it there!” she protested desperately. “I—”

  “I can only assume that you were working with someone,” he rasped heatedly. “And I’m also assuming you know damned well someone will come to this island. Your accomplice will be looking for that.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” Skye grated, tilting her head despite the pain of his tense grip upon her shoulders. “Why would I… why would I have to—dammit, I’m not suicidal!”

  “The way I see it, Ms. Delaney,” Kyle continued tersely, “you’re not suicidal. I don’t think that at all. I think you’ve been betrayed. You were just the lackey—the one who was supposed to get the gold aboard the plane. You were perfect, known by the government, perfect credentials. A businesswoman who frequently comes in and out of the country—very respectable. But apparently your accomplice didn’t intend to do any sharing. I think the Lear was supposed to go down—in fact, I’m damned sure now that the hydraulic equipment was tampered with. No, you’re not suicidal. You must have been every bit as shocked at the crash as I. Betrayed. Your accomplice got you to get the gold out of the country, but, you poor dear, he—or she—never intended to share. You should have never gotten into smuggling, Skye.”

  “How dare you!” Skye demanded in ful
l temper. “I’m not a smuggler! I have more than sufficient income of my own! I didn’t bring any gold aboard your plane,” she said in a scathing tone. “All my purchases go through the government! If there was something aboard your plane that you didn’t know about, it was lack of efficiency by your own company. And how do I know you didn’t know anything about it? You could have been a smuggler as well as I. Perhaps that’s why Executive Charters has done so well so quickly."

  He was tempted to strike her. He pushed her from him, and winced as she lost her balance and fell to the sand. He didn’t know what to think, his emotions were clouding his mind. Why was he in such a wrath? If he had found the gold yesterday, he wouldn’t have told her. He would have thought that it would have frightened her. And yet here he was today, accusing her.

  She was the only other person aboard the plane.

  But he did believe that the plane had been tampered with. Might she have been involved in something that could cost her own life? The depression she had fallen into that day had been real. She had been ready to give everything up until he had brought her back to life with his needs and desires and, yes, caring, needing, specifically, her.

  “Skye—” He reached a hand down to her.

  “Don’t!” she snapped, cringing away from him.

  He turned on his bare heels and left her hunched in the hut.

  It was some time before she could get herself together, but Skye finally managed to stop the ridiculous flow of tears that drenched her cheeks despite her insistence that she should be furious, not broken. He thought she was a thief. He could take her, hold her, laugh, make love to her with tireless energy.