His Only Obsession (Protectors #27)

by Beverly Barton

  “I’ve sworn a thousand times over that I won’t tell a soul, that I won’t go to the police. Besides, who would believe me? I think you’re all as crazy as that nut-job you call The Professor. Whoever heard of such nonsense as an island where people live to be two hundred and are never sick?” Cheryl laughed sarcastically.

  “If you knew Dr. Arnell the way I know him, you’d believe,” Jordan said. “He’s seen this island. He’s been there. When he was twenty, he spent three weeks with these people.”

  “Yeah, sure he did. And when I was a baby, my parents put me in a rocket ship and sent me to earth before our home planet exploded.” Cheryl lifted her arms and wiggled her fingers at Jordan. “That’s why I have supernatural powers.”

  “Laugh all you want, but when we rediscover The Professor’s island and are able to bring back a miracle plant to the world, you’ll understand why this trip is so important, far more important than any personal concerns you might have.”

  Cheryl screamed. “I’m on a boat to Hell with a bunch of psychos! Get out and leave me alone.” Swinging her right hand across the foot of the bed, she knocked the tray onto the floor. Food splattered across the carpet as the plate overturned, and the open can of cola sprayed over the hem of the bedspread.

  “Damn it, Cheryl, look what you’ve done.” Jordan stared at the mess she’d made. “Why can’t you look at this trip as a great adventure, one you can tell your children and grandchildren about? You realize that we could be famous, right along with The Professor, once we give the world—”

  “Oh, shut up. You’re an idiot, you know that, don’t you?”

  Cheryl eased off the side of the bed and stepped around the toppled tray and scattered food. Jordan Elders glared at her as if she were a disobedient child and he her stern parent. She marched right up to him and stared him in the face. What Tori ever saw in this geek was beyond her. He was tall, thin and gangly, with a mop of curly brown hair and a pair of—she studied him more closely—a pair of green eyes hidden behind his nerdy glasses. He wasn’t exactly heartthrob material, but then, Tori always did go for the brainy types. Her last boyfriend had been majoring in chemical engineering.

  “If you want to get rich, you don’t have to try to find some nonexistent youth-serum plant,” Cheryl said. “Get me off this boat and back to Puerto Nuevo or the States and my dad will give you any amount of money you want. A million dollars!”

  He stared at her as she’d been speaking a language foreign to him. “You think I’m interested in getting rich? I want to make history, to be part of a group that will give the entire world this marvelous gift—a long, healthy life for every man, woman and child.”

  Frowning, uncertain if she could believe he was on the up-and-up, Cheryl shook her head and grunted. “Good grief. Are you for real?”

  “Look, I’ll help you clean up this mess.” He knelt on the floor. “Then I’ll bring you a sandwich later. But you have to promise you’ll behave yourself. You can’t keep causing so much trouble. I don’t have time to babysit you.”

  Gritting her teeth, Cheryl balled her hands into fists and groaned. “You don’t have to babysit me. Just let me go.”

  He turned the tray upright, set the plate on the tray and took the napkin and wiped the food from the carpet. “If you hadn’t sneaked aboard the Sun Dancer before we left Puerto Nuevo, you wouldn’t be here now. So you have no one to blame but yourself.”

  “Oh, I have someone to blame all right—Tori and you.”

  “How am I to blame? It’s not my fault that Tori misunderstood our relationship and thought I was serious about her. You should have talked her out of following us to the marina and trying to stow away.”

  “No, what I should have done was let her follow you by herself, instead of tagging along and trying to keep her out of trouble.” Cheryl went into the bathroom, got a towel and then dropped down on her knees to mop up the spilled cola. Her gaze connected with Jordan’s. “If I’d gone back to the villa and let her chase after you all by herself, then she’d be the one stuck here with you now and not me.”

  Jordan lifted the tray as he stood. Cheryl got up, dumped the damp hand towel on the tray and huffed.

  “Do you still not remember what happened after you and Tori boarded the Sun Dancer?” Jordan asked.

  Cheryl shook her head. “We followed you and The Professor to the marina and saw you two go aboard the Sun Dancer. We boarded the yacht so that Tori could ask you to take her with you. I knew you’d say no, and that’s why I was with her, to be there when you broke her heart.”

  “You told me that you remembered hearing voices and Tori telling you to hide. Do you remember anything else?”

  “I remember hiding in a large storage compartment on the cockpit and waiting and waiting. I’m not sure if I fell asleep or passed out. The next thing I remember was that the yacht was leaving the marina. When I came out of the storage bin, Captain McGuire saw me and dragged me to my feet. Then I screamed, and the next thing I knew, you and The Professor and Molly were all there and I fainted dead away.”

  “Why do you think Tori went back to shore and left you?”

  “I don’t know, but when I see her again, we’re going to have it out.”

  A long, drawn-out moment of silence vibrated between them as Cheryl and Jordan gazed at each other. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such green eyes, a blue green, almost turquoise.

  Snap out of it, she told herself. This guy is not only a nerd, but he’s crazy. Don’t start thinking of him as a nice guy, as someone you could actually like. But she could pretend to like him, couldn’t she? There weren’t many guys she couldn’t wrap around her little finger and make them do whatever she wanted. Why should Jordan be any different? She could play nice, and maybe, just maybe, he’d help her get off this damn boat and back to civilization.

  “I’ll bring you a sandwich later.” Jordan opened the door and walked into the salon.

  “Jordan?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a brat. And if you bring me a sandwich later, I promise I’ll eat it.”

  When he smiled, he was almost cute.

  After she’d eaten a bite of supper, Gwen excused herself and went into the small guest stateroom. She took a shower and donned her cotton sleep shirt with Huntsville Botanical Gardens imprinted across the front and a screen-printed photo of the rose garden on the back. Then she settled into the surprisingly comfortable bed and meditated for a good ten minutes until she felt relaxed and drowsy. She had begun meditating years ago, learning the technique from a friend who, like she, had difficulty winding down at the end of the day.

  The wind moaned, almost like a woman weeping, as it bombarded the yacht, rocking it none too gently. Think of yourself in a big cradle, being rocked to sleep.

  Just then, lightning danced in the sky outside the port-hole and booming thunder announced the storm had hit. Rain poured down, the sound blending with the wind, becoming an unnerving roar.

  Gwen shot up in bed. There was no way she could sleep. She could go into the salon and fix herself a drink, just as Will had after dinner. Maybe that would help her sleep.

  After easing open her stateroom door, she crept into the salon, tiptoeing on bare feet across the carpet. The room lay in semidarkness, lit only by the light from her stateroom and the dim light Will had left on over the sink. As she made her way across the salon, she thought she heard a noise.

  “Can’t sleep?” Will asked, his voice coming from the curved settee on the opposite side of the salon.

  Gwen gasped and jumped. “You scared me half to death.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What are you doing sitting in here in the dark? I thought you went to bed.”

  “I did, but I couldn’t sleep.”

  “All that wind and rain and thunder are pretty noisy,” Gwen said.

  “Hmm… Why don’t you come over here and sit down. We can pass the time by swapping old war stori
es.”

  Gwen turned on more lights. Will grunted.

  “Turn those off,” he told her.

  She looked at him and noticed he was sitting there bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only his jeans. His chest was as richly tanned as his face and arms, and quite muscular. He hadn’t shaved since they’d left Puerto Nuevo, so a light-brown beard stubble gave him a rough, rakish quality that unsettled her.

  She turned off the lights and walked across the salon. When she stood over him, he patted the large leather settee. She sat beside him but made sure there was several feet between them.

  “When I was a kid, I used to sit on our back porch at night, after everybody else was asleep,” he said. “I liked the dark, the solitude. I had to share a room with my brothers, so there was never any privacy and hardly ever any quiet. If Mama wasn’t fussing at us for fighting and roughhousing all the time, the old man was issuing orders and reprimanding us for not being tough enough.”

  “I had my own room,” Gwen said. “And my mother was a very quiet, easygoing person. We were very close. And being an only child living with a single parent, there were times when I longed for a brother or a sister.”

  “I guess it’s only human to want what you don’t have.”

  “My father lost his entire family the summer he was twenty. His parents and younger brother. They had rented a yacht and were sailing the Caribbean when a freak storm came up. Everyone was lost, except Daddy.”

  “Was that when he discovered his mythical island?”

  “Yes. My mother always said that losing his family that way did something to him, sort of warped him, so he invented this outrageous tale of an island where people live to be two hundred and are never sick.”

  “Did you ever think there might be some truth to his tale?” Will turned sideways and faced her in the semidarkness.

  “Sure. When I was a little girl, I believed everything my father told me. And then when I was older, I actually went with him on two of his quests to rediscover his island. I was eighteen the first time and nineteen the second time. Even though I didn’t believe in his island, I wanted to. It was during those summer voyages with him that I learned how truly obsessed he was with finding this island. My mother had tried to warn me that nothing and no one meant more to him than his totally irrational dream of finding the island and bringing the Fountain of Youth plant to the world.”

  Will stretched out his arm behind her head and leaned toward her. Gwen’s breath caught in her throat. He was too close. She could feel the heat coming off his partially naked body.

  “Is that why you hide behind your brains and your baggy clothes and your clean-scrubbed face and—” he lifted a thick strand of hair from her shoulder and slipped his fingers through it as he let it drift back into place “—frumpy hairdo? Because you don’t ever want to get involved with a man and have him disappoint you the way your father disappointed your mother and you?”

  Gwen felt trapped by the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder. “I’m not hiding behind anything. I’m just not the frilly, girly type whose main objective in life is to attract men.”

  Will ran his hand down her arm, over her waist and settled on her hip. She sucked in a deep, concerned breath.

  “I got a glimpse of your nightshirt,” he told her. “Don’t you own anything the least bit sexy and feminine?”

  “I dress for comfort, especially what I sleep in.”

  “I made a bet with myself not long after we met that you probably wear white cotton panties and bras. Am I right?”

  Gwen’s heartbeat accelerated alarmingly. He had no right to ask her something so personal, so private. But the very thought of him being curious about her underwear sent quivers through her body.

  “That’s none of your business,” she finally managed to tell him.

  He inched her nightshirt up her leg enough so that he could slip his hand beneath and caress her hip. She should protest, but somehow she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could barely breathe.

  “I don’t know what color they are,” Will said, rubbing his hand from her hip to her belly. “But they’re definitely cotton.”

  When he chuckled, she lifted her hand, intending to slap him. She had never slapped a man, not even her ex-husband, and he had broken her young and foolish heart. But she wanted to hurt Will Pierce, wanted to make him stop laughing at her. He caught her by the wrist just as her hand neared his cheek.

  Before she realized what was happening, he yanked her forward until she toppled onto his lap. Startled and gasping for air, she didn’t expect what happened next. He kissed her. A long, slow, tongue-thrusting kiss that ignited a fire in her belly. He didn’t touch her while he ravaged her mouth, except for his hand, manacled tightly around her wrist. Unable to stop herself, she responded, kissing him back with equal passion.

  Finally, when they came up for air, Will released his hold on her wrist and gazed deeply into her eyes.

  “You kiss pretty damn good for a brainy, frumpy, no-frills gal,” Will said.

  She eased away from him and stood. “I do a lot of things pretty damn good.”

  Will chuckled. “Anything else you’d care to demonstrate.”

  “Not for you, Mr. Pierce, now or ever.”

  When she tromped across the salon and into her stateroom, she heard his low, rumbling chuckle. Arrogant bastard!

  Chapter 6

  Gwen lay on the silk sheets, which were smooth and cool to the touch. As if captured inside a transparent bubble, Will and she touched and kissed and explored each other until every nerve in her body screamed for release. Will lifted himself up and over her, then took her with gentle force. Whimpering with pure pleasure, she grasped hold of his shoulders and gave herself over to the uncontrollable hunger she could not deny.

  She climaxed with earth-shattering intensity.

  Still quivering with the aftershocks of her release, Gwen opened her eyes and realized that she was alone in the round-edged bunk bed nestled inside the belly of the Footloose. Not fully awake, she ran her hand over the cotton sheets and felt terribly alone.

  Will had not shared her bed. He hadn’t made love to her. It had all been a dream. A sensual dream. An erotic dream.

  Dear Lord, she’d never dreamed about making love with a man, any man. And she’d certainly never had an orgasm while she was dreaming.

  This was bad, really bad. She kicked back the covers, hopped out of bed and went straight into the tiny bathroom. She couldn’t allow herself to get hung up on Will Pierce. The very idea was totally ridiculous. She didn’t like his type—swaggering macho he-man. Even though she understood that gentle, intellectual dreamers like her father, and sweet, nonthreatening types like her ex-husband, were not necessarily loyal, caring and steadfast, she would never sink so low as to jump in the sack with the first horny Neanderthal who asked her what kind of underwear she was wearing.

  He hadn’t just asked. He’d found out for himself. Remembering the feel of Will’s big hand caressing her hip and belly sent shivers through Gwen.

  No. Absolutely, positively no! She was not going to have sex with Will. She didn’t have brief, meaningless flings. It wasn’t her style—not in her nature.

  By the time she finished showering and had dressed for the day, Gwen felt much better, confident that she could handle her silly attraction to Will. For heaven’s sake, I don’t even like him!

  When she emerged from her stateroom, she found the salon empty. Was Will still asleep? Suddenly she realized the cruiser was moving. Had she been so preoccupied with her sex dream that she’d missed that all-important fact?

  She climbed the steps leading up to the deck and emerged into bright sunlight and the smell of the salty ocean. Will sat on the bench seat at the helm, shaded by the arched hardtop. She sat down beside him. He glanced at her, smiled and nodded.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  “How long have you been up?” she asked grumpily. “And how long have we been out at sea?” Looking a
ll around her, she saw nothing but the turquoise blue of the sea and the azure of the sky, the two meeting and melding on the horizon.

  “I’ve been up a couple of hours and we set sail about thirty minutes ago.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I thought you needed your beauty sleep,” he said in a teasing voice.

  “Ha-ha. Very funny.”

  “Ah, come on, brown eyes, don’t you have a sense of humor?”

  “Maybe women who wear white cotton bras and panties don’t have senses of humor. Ever think of that?”

  “Nah, can’t say that I have, but then, I don’t know many of those women. The gals I know usually wear the black-and-red and hot-pink silky stuff. Either that or they don’t bother with underwear at all.”

  “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” Gwen looked pointedly ahead, determined not to make eye contact with Will. “Exactly where are we going?”

  “St. Mallon.” He nodded toward his covered metal mug perched in the cup holder. “If you want to do something to help, how about making a fresh pot of coffee and refilling that for me.”

  “Why are we going to St. Mallon?” she asked, ignoring his request.

  “I was in radio contact with Dundee’s this morning. An operative on St. Mallon said that the Sun Dancer dropped anchor there late yesterday.”

  “They’ll be gone by the time we get there.”

  “Probably, but my contact said he’ll try to find out where they’re headed. It’ll help if we know whether they’re heading straight for Bermuda or if they have another stop or two on the way. If we hear something before we get to St. Mallon, we can keep going to their next destination and possibly catch up with them.”

  Gwen removed his mug from the cup holder and stood. “I’ll make fresh coffee.” As she crossed the cockpit, she paused and asked, “Any other womanly duties you’d like for me to do? Cook breakfast maybe?”

  “Are you offering to cook something for me?”