Snowflakes on the Sea

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Well, I don’t feel comfortable with it.”

  “The choice is yours, Mallory. With your career and everything, it makes sense to call yourself ‘O’Connor.’”

  Mallory flushed slightly at his mention of her acting; here was another subject they hadn’t even touched on. She’d been shocked to hear that he planned to retire, and now he’d be shocked, too. Dear heaven, when had they stopped telling each other their plans and their hopes and their dreams? “I’m not renewing my contract with the soap, Nathan.”

  He raised one dark eyebrow. “That’s news to me. Did you get another offer or something?”

  She could see by the expression on his face, guarded as it was, that he was hoping she hadn’t. “No. I just don’t like acting. If I did, it would be different.”

  He looked away for a moment, pretending an interest in the fuchsias, ferns and healthy ivy plants thriving along one wall of the steamy room. “So what do you plan, as you asked me, to do with your time?”

  Mallory took another sip from her wineglass, then set it aside. “The first thing I want to do,” she began softly, her hand rising, of its own accord, to his muscle-corded shoulder, “is my part to make our marriage work. Nathan, we’ve grown so far apart. We don’t share anymore—we don’t act like married people.”

  He laughed, and it was a gruff sound, a sound of agreement. “That is truly an understatement, my love. You should have been the first to know that I planned to retire.”

  “And you should have been the first to know that I did, too. Oh, Nathan, what happened to us? Why did things change?”

  “Change is inevitable, Mallory. As much as I’d like to be a part of you, we’re two separate people and we’ve simply gone our own ways.”

  “Do you think we can find each other again?”

  “I know we can. But it’s going to take work, Mallory, and time—not to mention understanding and patience.”

  “Then maybe it’s a good thing our careers won’t be pulling us apart.” She paused to touch his steam-dampened, fragrant hair, and then frowned. “I’m sure quitting the soap is best for me, but I’m not so certain about your leaving the music business. Nathan, it’s a part of you.”

  He shrugged, then drew her close, so that their bodies were touching beneath the lulling churn of the water in the hot tub. “Lady, for you I would quit the breathing business. Besides, I’m tired—for the time being, all I want is you and one hell of a lot of rest.” He bent his magnificent head, sipped mischievously at her lips. “Admittedly, those two objectives are about as compatible as oil and water.”

  She laughed, drew back slightly in his embrace, and looked up at him with dancing eyes. “No sex, remember?”

  He groaned, made his case by nipping seductively at her lower lip.

  “Nathan.”

  He stepped back, looking comically chagrined. “Just how long did I agree to abstain?” he demanded.

  She was trembling with a desire that equalled or even surpassed his, but she managed a flippant toss of her head. “At least long enough to get upstairs. People don’t make love in hot tubs, after all.”

  He chuckled and then made a growling sound in his throat as he wrenched her close again, trailed searching lips along the length of her tingling neck. “Don’t they? Mallory, Mallory—you innocent.”

  She gasped involuntarily as his hand rose to cup her breast; it was a proprietary gesture, for all its gentleness, and it made her traitorous body yearn to offer itself in unqualified surrender. “P-please—stop—”

  But Nathan drew down her strapless, elasticized swimming suit top to reveal just one delectable breast. The nipple pulsed as his thumb stroked it to an inviting hardness, and the tender flesh surrounding that pink nubbin was being caressed not only by his hand, but by the warm, soothing water.

  Mallory tried to protest, but all that came out of her mouth was a sound that was part croon, part whimper.

  “Please, Mallory,” he whispered, his lips burning at her ear like fire. “Let me see you—all of you. Let me touch you—”

  “M-Mrs. Jeffries—” she reminded him breathlessly.

  He drew the swimsuit down deftly, baring her other breast, her stomach, her abdomen. She stepped out of the garment and immediately forgot that it had ever existed, as a pulsing, insistent warmth surged through her. She cried out softly as he closed hungry lips around the nipple of one breast, drew teasingly at its tip.

  Her legs were wrapped around his waist almost before she knew what was happening, and she groaned as he took his leisurely pleasure at her breasts, leaving one only to devour the other.

  Presently, he released her and set her back on her feet. She caught both thumbs under the top of his swim trunks and drew them down until he was as naked as she. Then, with gentle hands, she caressed him.

  Nathan gasped with pleasure and stood with his feet planted wide apart so that he could be still more vulnerable to Mallory’s touch. The passion she saw in his taut features made her want him desperately.

  When he could bear the sweet torment no longer, he lifted Mallory out of the hot tub, climbed out himself and tenderly pressed her down onto a thickly padded chaise longue. He placed her feet gently onto the tiled floor, one on one side of the chaise, and one on the other.

  She gasped and arched her back as he caressed the silken vee at the junction of her thighs, trailed soft, warm kisses over her rib cage, her stomach, the tingling flesh beneath her breasts.

  He nibbled at the sweet peak of one breast. “Tell me what you want, Mallory.”

  She didn’t have the breath to answer him; her body was doing that without words. Her hips moved in rhythm with the delicious torment of his fingers, and her hands clutched desperately at the ebony richness of his hair.

  He mounted her gently, entered her just far enough to tease. “Mallory,” he rumbled, his lips moist and commanding where her neck and shoulder met. “Tell me.”

  “I—I want you to f-fill me—”

  Her reward was a swift thrust of his hips as he plunged deep inside her, filling her, possessing her and yet, at the very same moment, surrendering. They moved as one person, both gasping words that made no sense.

  Finally, Nathan lifted Mallory’s hips, so that his shaft stroked the very core of her womanhood as it entered and withdrew, entered and withdrew. And then she cried out, shuddering, as the crescendo of their loving convulsed her, took primitive pleasure in his echoing groan of total release.

  When, at last, they had both caught their breath and drawn apart, albeit unwillingly, there was a timid knock at the door leading into the kitchen.

  “What?” Nathan barked irritably, as Mallory blushed profusely and plunged back into the hot tub in search of her discarded swimsuit.

  “L-lunch is ready,” dared Mrs. Jeffries meekly, from beyond the door.

  Mallory began to giggle unaccountably as she struggled into her suit, and the sound softened the awesome tension in Nathan’s face and finally caused him to grin lopsidedly.

  “We’ll have it in the master bedroom,” he replied, his eyes sparkling as he watched another blush rise in Mallory’s cheeks. At last clothed—if somewhat more scantily than she would have liked—Mallory found Nathan’s trunks and flung them at him furiously.

  He caught them, but made no effort to put them on again. His grin widened as Mrs. Jeffries called out something and then went back to her duties.

  Mallory bit her lower lip, annoyed with Nathan, annoyed with herself. “We’ll have it in the master bedroom!” she mimicked.

  Nathan laughed. “No doubt we will.”

  “I meant—oh, damn you—”

  He arched one eyebrow. “Must be some kind of mating ritual,” he mused.

  Mallory crossed her arms over her breasts and stood stubbornly in the middle of the hot tub. “What are you talking about?”

  “The way we always fight—before and after making love. It must have some significance.”

  “Why?” Mallory demanded sourly, her fee
t still firmly planted on the floor of the hot tub.

  Idly Nathan pulled on his swim trunks, his eyes still full of mischievous musing. He slid easily into the bubbling, surging water again and approached her. “Why what?” he countered. “Why do our fights have significance, or why did I tell Mrs. Jeffries to serve lunch in the bedroom?”

  Mallory retreated a step, wide-eyed and suddenly wary. “B-both, I guess,” she faltered, stalling.

  He grinned, and advanced toward her cautiously. “I think we fight because when we make love we both become so much a part of the other person that it scares us. And I want lunch in the bedroom because I want you in the bedroom.”

  Mallory trembled. There was much truth in what he’d said about their lovemaking; they were both strong willed people, both fierce individuals. And when their bodies joined in the throes of passion, she often felt as though she’d lost herself in the consuming fire, as though her separate identity had somehow been forged to his, creating a third person that neither of them really knew.

  It wasn’t surprising, really, to find out that Nathan had felt the same way. But as he drew too near, she was again aware of his incredible power over her, and she stepped back once more. “I—I for one intend to eat my lunch,” she babbled inanely, trying to keep him at a distance. “I’m h-hungry and—”

  He laughed, closed the space between them and caught her shoulders in strong, gentle hands. “Don’t worry, pumpkin—you can eat undisturbed. I have, after all, a vested interest in seeing that you keep up your strength.”

  Just as he had probably intended her to, Mallory colored profusely. “Don’t you ever think about anything besides sex?”

  “Only rarely,” he confessed in a gravelly tone that sent fresh desire stirring through her like warm butter. “Where you’re concerned, it’s a compulsion.”

  In spite of everything, she laughed into his damp, strong shoulder; in spite of everything, she listened as he told her, in gruff, sensuous tones, all that he meant to do to her in his bed.

  And where he led, she followed.

  7

  They sat facing each other in the center of the huge, love-rumpled bed, Nathan clad only in a pair of cutoff jeans, Mallory wearing a lace-trimmed teddy that was, like the swimsuit, a remnant of some other visit to her husband’s house.

  A dozen feet away, a fire crackled romantically on the hearth of a small, ornate ivory fireplace, and a new snow was drifting past the windows over the head of Nathan’s bed. Still dazed from the lovemaking that had consumed the whole afternoon, Mallory sighed with warm contentment.

  “What do we do now?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

  An evil light sparkled in Nathan’s dark eyes, but then he laughed at her sudden blush. “You’re as pink as that delectable bit of silk you’re wearing. What is that thing, anyway?”

  Mallory laughed and scooted back a little, as though to withhold herself from this man who could take her whenever and wherever he pleased. “It’s a teddy—don’t you know anything?”

  He grinned, and with a warm, exploring finger traced the snow-white lace edging Mallory’s bodice. “I know it drives me crazy. What I don’t know is whether I like it better on or off.”

  “Lecher.”

  Nathan tilted his head to one side and chuckled. His finger slipped with tantalizing prowess into the warm, shadowed cleft between her breasts, then coursed upward, slowly, along the satiny length of her neck to the supersensitive place beneath her right ear.

  Mallory shivered, though she’d never been warmer in her life, and then glared at her husband. “Will you stop that, you sex fiend?”

  He laughed, withdrew his tormenting hand and bounded suddenly off the bed. The light from the fire shifted and danced in fascinating patterns on the sun-browned, muscular expanse of his naked back as he went to a closet and began rummaging through a variety of items stacked on the top shelf. “All right,” he conceded in a teasing voice that set Mallory to wanting him all over again, “I am a man of my word. No sex for at least three hours.”

  “That is so big of you,” Mallory retorted, somewhat petulantly, her eyes still fixed on the splendid play of the muscles in his back and his powerful thighs.

  “Noble is my middle name,” he said.

  “Albert is your middle name,” Mallory countered, an obnoxious grin curving her lips.

  Nathan whirled from the shelf, a Monopoly box clutched in both hands, his face a mockery of outrage. “And if you ever tell, I’ll shave your mink jacket,” he threatened, approaching the bed with long, ominous strides.

  “Rash words,” she shot back, reaching out and grabbing the game from his hands. “You forget how many charge cards I have.”

  The bed sloped a little as Nathan returned to his former position, facing Mallory, his long legs crossed at the ankles, Indian-style, and opened the Monopoly box. “You have me there,” he said. “But Monopoly is another matter. I’m warning you, woman—if you buy Park Place and Boardwalk again and jam them with hotels, it’s over between us.”

  Mallory smiled evilly and arched one eyebrow. “Is that so, fella?”

  He rummaged through the little metal game pieces tucked into a nook in the box. “Furthermore,” he said, as though she hadn’t challenged him at all, “I want the race car this time, and that’s it.”

  Mallory sighed with mock resignation and reached into the box to claim her personal favorite, the tiny Scottie dog. “Look out,” she said fiercely, and, within fifteen minutes, she owned both Boardwalk and Park Place.

  “I’m having an underwear party,” Trish announced briskly, her voice warm with humor. “It’s this afternoon at two and you’d better be there, McKendrick.”

  Mallory yawned into the telephone receiver and snuggled down into the warm vacancy on Nathan’s side of the bed. Hearing him singing in the shower, she smiled to herself. “Underwear?” she echoed, her mind still fogged by last night’s lovemaking.

  “You rich people call it ‘lingerie,’ daahling,” Trish teased. “It’s that silky, sexy stuff you wear under your clothes.”

  Mallory laughed, yawned again and stretched languidly in the warm bed. “Oh, that,” she said in the tones of one who suddenly understands a consuming mystery. “Isn’t this short notice for a party? I’m trying to conduct a reconciliation here, you know.”

  As if on cue, Nathan came out of the master bath, wrapped in a precariously draped towel, the water from the shower beaded on his powerful shoulders, an evil grin on his face.

  “Okay, so I didn’t give you two weeks and an engraved invitation,” Trish retorted. “Just be here, will you? I booked the thing so Candy Simpson could get a bathrobe for half price, and most of my guests are only coming because they think you’ll be here!”

  Mallory gasped as Nathan tugged teasingly at the covers, revealing one sleep-warmed breast, and then circled the nipple with a wanton finger. “A—bathrobe—for—half price?”

  Nathan replaced the exploring finger with his tongue, causing Mallory’s nipple to harden in eager surrender, and she moaned.

  “What the devil’s going on over there?” Trish demanded, never in her life having been accused of subtlety.

  Mallory arched her back and swallowed a contented purr as Nathan nibbled mercilessly at her breast. “It would serve you right if I told you, Trish Demming—”

  “T-two o’clock!” Trish sputtered in an obvious rush of understanding. “Candy’s bathrobe is at stake!”

  Nathan pulled the receiver from Mallory’s hand and replaced it without interrupting his other enterprise at all.

  There was a very becoming blush rising in Trish’s cheeks as she opened her front door to Mallory that afternoon, but her blue eyes were sparkling with mischief. “How goes the reconciliation?” she whispered. “As if I needed to ask.”

  Mallory laughed. “Despite repeated interruptions, it goes well,” she threw back.

  Trish’s modestly furnished living room was filled with familiar faces, including Kate Sheridan’s.
>
  “Did she give you that one about Candy Simpson’s bathrobe, too?” Kate demanded from the leather recliner where Alex usually sat.

  Mallory flashed a look of mock suspicion at Trish and nodded. “Was it just a ploy to get us here?”

  “Of course it was,” Trish confessed buoyantly. “Candy Simpson has more sense than the rest of us. She’s in Hawaii, lounging in the sun and sipping Mai Tais.”

  Mallory shook her head as she shrugged out of her warm, snow-speckled jacket and thrust it into Trish’s hands. “You rat. I thought I was on a mission of mercy!”

  “You are,” Trish imparted dramatically. “I’m the one who wants to get a bathrobe at half price!”

  Despite the fact that she missed Nathan, despite the carefully veiled curiosity in the eyes of the half-dozen women in Trish’s living room, Mallory enjoyed the lingerie party immensely. It felt good, after the rush of taping the soap every day for so many months, to participate in something so ordinary and frivolous.

  “Have you heard about Trish’s new business enterprise?” Kate Sheridan queried, once the party was over and she and Trish and Mallory sat alone in the Demming’s spacious kitchen, drinking coffee.

  Mallory raised her eyebrows and assessed her younger friend with teasing interest. “Don’t tell me they’ve recruited you to sell underwear!”

  Trish laughed, but her eyes were full of sparkling, earnest dreams. “I passed my real estate exam, Mall.”

  Admiration and genuine pride caused Mallory to reach out and touch her friend’s arm. “Congratulations! Good heavens, I didn’t even know you were studying for it.”

  Trish rolled her bright blue eyes. “It was a beast, but I managed. Starting next Monday, I’ll be talking the tourists into cozy island hideaways.”

  “Great,” Mallory said, honestly delighted. There was only one real estate agency on the island, but they did a brisk business among the summer people. “Are you going to give Soundview Properties a run for their money?”

  Trish shook her head. “Heck no, I’d have to be a broker to do that. I’m working for them.”