Children of Destiny Books 4-6 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 10)

by Ann Major

  He’d liked her voice. She remembered all the things that he’d liked her to do in bed.... He was so close, she could feel his warm breath brush her sensitive skin.

  She saw his fear and the wild need that was stronger than fear. His black eyes ate her, devouring her with a dangerous consuming passion. Her heart began to thud violently in anticipation.

  With superhuman effort, he tore his eyes away. "I'd rather have breakfast," he growled. When he threw the door open and stormed out, she collapsed onto his bed with a triumphant smile.

  *

  Clinging to the wall, attempting a seductive slither, Eva oozed into the main cabin. Not that Nicholas looked up at her or reacted to her deliberate sexiness.

  The bathroom door was ajar. Clad only in his snugly fitting, faded jeans, he stood before the mirror stripped to the waist, His lower face a lather of white foam, he was cutting away dark morning stubble with quick, deft strokes of his razor. He looked delicious with his ink-dark hair damp and slicked back, as if he’d run a wet comb through it.

  The motion of the boat was not nearly as terrible as it had been the night before, but it was constant. Thus, he had to brace himself to stand, and she could only admire his great skill to shave under such conditions.

  He’d always been good with his hands, especially when he’d stroked every part of her body until she’d all but purred.

  He didn't know she was there, so she let herself admire his trim hips, lean waist and broad shoulders. When he turned, her gaze was drawn to the tangle of scars that ran the length of his back.

  What kind of inhuman monster had beaten him? Her eyes misted at the thought of what he’d suffered. Had he cried out? Begged for mercy?

  No, she was sure he’d stood it with the same grim fortitude he had stood all the other hard things in his life—his mother's death, his father's rejection, Africa. He’d withstood even her foolish, long-ago determination to try to remake him into a weak shadow of himself. Why hadn't she seen she’d loved him as he was?

  Was it his fierce primitive strength that drew her to him? She didn't know. But there was a bond. A bond so strong that eight years hadn't destroyed it. Nor had the most terrible scandal, nor her conservative family's disapproval, nor the foolish mistakes they had both made in their relationship.

  The network of scars was terrible, but to her they only made him more ruggedly beautiful. Shivering with desire, she longed to reach out and touch them, to offer him comfort. But he didn't want comfort from her. So she had to content herself with watching the play of muscle as he moved the razor back and forth and then rinsed his face with water. Just watching him sent more tremors of excitement through her.

  When Nicholas, caught unawares, turned and found her there, he flushed darkly and reached for his shirt.

  "It damned sure took you long enough," he muttered. "Did you make the bed?"

  Not the most encouraging of overtures.

  She smiled because he used to be susceptible to her smile. "No, I was such a mess myself, I forgot."

  His swift, hot look pleased her.

  "You and everything you have anything to do with," he grumbled in agreement.

  His insult didn't bother her. He was neat to a fault, and she knew she looked nice with her hair tied back in a saucy lavender ribbon. She was wearing her silky lavender bathing suit that molded her body like a second skin. Her face was scrubbed clean of salt grit, her lips moistened with lipstick that matched her suit.

  Once lavender had been his favorite color on her.

  "Couldn't you have picked something else to put on?"

  "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

  "As if you don't know. It's tight and sexy, and you're alone on this boat with two men."

  "Whose fault is that?"

  "I'm warning you, chere, don't play with me. You may find out you're playing a game that you'll lose."

  "Yes, I know." She smiled and her stomach danced with excitement. It was such sweet revenge to taunt him. Indeed, what other pleasure was available to her under these trying circumstances?

  "I'm starved," he said curtly.

  "For breakfast?" she asked charmingly in her most musical tone. "Or for..." She batted her lashes.

  "For breakfast, damn it."

  But neither of them was entirely sure.

  "Too bad. I can't cook."

  "That figures."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "You're messy as hell, disorganized, too. Spoiled rotten by too many servants and a doting family. And now you say you can’t cook. Well, it's time you changed. You're an adult."

  "I have Connoisseurs."

  "Your father's money bought that, and his money's bailed you out again and again. You're so sweetly rotten, I wonder if you can do anything for yourself. You're marrying Otto so he'll take care of you and finance Connoisseurs."

  Stung to the core, she shouted back at him. "For your information I wasn't going to marry him!"

  "Then why were you wearing his ring? I heard him announce the engagement with my own ears."

  "I told him not to do that."

  "Sure you did." Nicholas's face was white, his eyes red-rimmed from fatigue. "If you weren't going to marry him, then you damn sure were leading him on."

  "You once said I didn't believe in you. Well, you never believe in me, either! I'm telling you the truth."

  Something flared in his eyes, then vanished. Maybe he wanted to believe her, but couldn't. "It doesn't matter," he said grimly.

  “It does to me!” When tears welled in her eyes, ridiculous tears, she wiped them, not wanting to cry.

  "Look," he said, softening. "I'm sorry. Your life is really none of my business. Believe me, I would have left you to it if I'd had a choice. I don't like this any better than you do. When it's safe, you and I will be done with each other for good, so can we just drop it? Zak and I are hungry. I wouldn't ask you to cook if we didn't need your help."

  When she nodded, he leaned down in front of her and lighted the stove for her.

  "What do you want me to cook?"

  He pulled out a box of dried eggs and put it on the counter. Beside the stove he set a loaf of bread, a pound of unopened coffee and a jar of marmalade.

  "That ought to be easy enough for starters," he said dryly.

  Easy? She stared at the two bare burners in desperation. How was she going to make toast—in a sauce pot?

  Through the centuries other galley slaves had managed, most of them men, and everyone knew they weren't nearly so instinctually endowed with culinary talents as women.

  "Don't stay and watch me," she snapped.

  "I couldn't bear to." This he said with the flicker of a grin.

  Ten minutes later when she was done, she smiled proudly at the sight of her burned eggs until she saw that the galley looked like a dozen guerrilla soldiers had made war with eggs and marmalade. Spilled coffee was everywhere. Despite the gimbals, the eggs had slopped onto everything.

  But if Nicholas minded the mess in the galley or the fact that his eggs were burned, he didn't say so. Below deck, at the table, he and Zak gobbled the hot food with a gusto that pleased some secret female part of her nature that the feminist in her should despise.

  While the men were savoring every morsel of their breakfast down below, she glanced up at the empty cockpit in alarm. “Who’s sailing the boat?”

  “It’s on autopilot,” Zak said. “The radar’s on, and an alarm will go off if there’s the slightest danger that we’re on a collision course with another vessel.

  During the meal, Zak talked on the radio several times, and as always she watched and listened intently, carefully memorizing what he said about their latest position.

  "Breakfast turned out rather well," Nicholas said when he was done.

  She beamed.

  "But then—I picked a simple menu."

  “As always, you’re impossibly conceited,” she said.

  Victor, who looked like a drunken caricature of a cat as he walked
toward them at a decided slant, yowled at the sight of their plates and food.

  "Does he like sardines?" Nicholas asked her.

  Sardines... She’d managed to eat a little breakfast, but at the mere mention of the word, her throat went dry and her stomach flipped queasily.

  "I think I need... another patch for seasickness."

  "Here." Nicholas pulled one from his pocket. "I'll open the can for the beast, to shut him up—even though it seems a terrible waste of good sardines."

  She was too weak to defend Victor. Besides she wasn't altogether sure it was really necessary. Clever feline that Victor was, he seemed to have won Nicholas over. So, instead of playing peacemaker in their relationship, she went to the forepeak cabin and lay down so she could escape the scent of sardines.

  Later, Nicholas opened the hatches and aired out the boat for her. When she was feeling better, he taught her how to work the saltwater pump so she could wash the dishes with seawater and thereby conserve their fresh water.

  As he stood beside her in the galley, showing her how everything worked and where to stow things, she began to have more of those dangerous feelings for him again. She almost felt a sense of belonging on his horrible boat as it raced through the stormy sea. How was it possible that nothing that had mattered to her yesterday mattered to her at all today?

  She should hate him for the way he’d taken control of her life and had carried her off on his boat. But every time she felt his eyes on her or their bodies accidentally brushed, she experienced a rush of heated excitement deep in the pit of her stomach that thrilled her.

  Damn the man! He was so sexy, just standing near him had her body overreacting. In a heartbeat she could go all tingly and soft because his hands were huge and darkly tanned. It was pleasant to watch him dry a dish and put it away. Pleasant to breathe in the musky scent of his aftershave.

  What right did he have to be so virile and vitally attractive? If only she could be sure he was the good guy.

  He’d come back to save her.

  Paolo had beaten him.

  Nicholas had risked his yacht and himself to take her and, yes, even her cat, away. She did want to believe he’d thought her in danger. He would never have sailed out into a storm to recklessly amuse himself, would he? But she'd never been any good at judging men, so she couldn’t trust her instinct.

  As he stood beside her, drying dishes, he was silent, seemingly unaware of her conflicting thoughts and emotions. When they were done with the dishes, he went up on deck to join Zak, closing the hatch because of the large swells.

  Alone in the main cabin, she was still puzzling about Nicholas when the radio made a garbled sound.

  The radio!

  She was alone with it! This might be her only chance.

  Scrambling across the bunks and table, she grabbed the mike. After hesitating for a mere breathless second, she flicked buttons and switches the way Zak had. Carefully she whispered into the microphone and made her distress call, giving the last position and heading she'd heard Zak give.

  She waited as expectantly.

  Nothing. Frantic that Nicholas would open the hatch and discover her, she repeated the call she’d made earlier.

  Metal slid against metal, and the hatch was flung open. A great whoosh of damp air sent charts flying everywhere as she hid the mike behind her back and glanced up at Zak whose dark face was framed in the square of steel-gray light. She was so startled she nearly dropped the mike.

  "Oh, hi..." Her greeting was a croaky gasp.

  Zak's dark gaze flicked to the radio and then back to her. "You don't look too good. You seasick again?"

  She nodded a bit too savagely.

  "Why don't you lie down? I'll finish up in the galley."

  Then he would come down. "N-no. No! I'm fine."

  She wasn't though. She felt like a traitor—to Nicholas.

  *

  Nicholas's expression froze when she stepped out of the cabin. The night was dark and moonless, but golden light from the open hatch backlighted Eva's hair, turning it to flame. Her beauty had him gripping the cold chrome wheel for all he was worth.

  All night, hour after hour, he’d been clinging to the wheel, his deliberate intention to stay at the helm and avoid her by not going below.

  She shut the hatch, and they were alone in the vast emptiness of the black night as mist swirled around them.

  "You must be dead," she said softly. "I brought you coffee. I made it the way you like it."

  "Thank you." His tone was grim, but his fingers closed gratefully around the cup when she offered it. He felt the fleeting brush of her hand burn his. Dear God, just her touch...just being near her lit every male nerve.

  Closing his eyes, he sipped the delicious liquid, but the warmth that spread through him was not from the hot coffee. It was because she was near. He wasn't used to anyone caring about his comfort. She paid too much attention to him. She noticed everything and tried in small ways to please him.

  He was fastidious on board; she was messy by nature. But she had neatened the cabins, cooked and cleaned up after lunch and dinner. And everything she did made him more aware of her.

  Not only was she turning into excellent crew, but she was a pleasure to look at. Too much of a pleasure—in that tight lavender swimsuit that came so high on her thigh she seemed to be all curved golden leg. After the way she'd so wantonly teased him this morning—he knew now—just to bedevil him, he didn't trust himself to be around her without becoming aroused. Even teaching her to wash dishes had been a torment with her enticing body squeezed in the galley beside his, with the boat's movements causing too much accidental contact. He had known then there was no way that he could spend another night in the same bed with her, without touching her—not unless he utterly exhausted himself, which was what he’d been doing for the past eight hours.

  He'd liked having her on board, too much, which was dangerous. A single day had taught him what he'd been living without. He remembered the long months in prison, the trek across the desert, the years without her. But never had his life seemed so empty and lonely as it did now.

  He had to remember he’d taken her with him by force. She would never want him, never accept him, never believe in him. Nor could he allow himself to trust her. At any moment she might find a way to betray them to Otto.

  Determined to hold her at bay, he remained silent.

  Naturally she couldn't leave it at that.

  Inching closer to him as she held onto the lifelines, her lavender silk blouse rippled against her breasts. Always lavender...because she knew he thought she was beautiful in it.

  How could merely watching her have his pulse pounding and his blood heating?

  "How long before you let me go?" she queried softly.

  Nicholas's gaze narrowed. "That depends."

  "I can't stay. I have a life—"

  "Which is why you will stay, so you will have that life. I don't like this situation any better than you do."

  "What kind of man grabs a woman at a cocktail party and runs off with her?"

  The muscles in his throat tightened. "I thought Otto told you what kind of man I was."

  "Maybe I want to hear your side."

  Her voice was like velvet. It made him want to pour out his soul.

  "That's a change," he said grimly.

  "I want to hear it."

  He stared past her. "You wouldn't believe me."

  "Try me. Why did you assume a new name? I want to know about the scars on your back. About Africa. About everything. Please... tell me." Gently, she covered his hand with hers.

  She was not forcing him to do anything. She was asking, sweetly asking. Maybe he owed her his side. Slowly he threaded his fingers through hers so that the two of them were warmly entwined.

  "All right..."

  After a long time he began, and in telling her, he became caught up in his memories. His voice grew low and furious as he drew vivid pictures of Africa, of the desert, of the hot, choking d
ust, of death, of blood and the flies. Hatred made him paint the horror of no medicine, the betrayal and the stench of men dying in graphic detail. He told her about the real Nicholas Jones, about Paolo, about the dreadful march from the battlefield to the prison, about the privations of thirst and drought he and Zak had had to endure to escape. He told her about his own fierce vow to obtain revenge when he learned Otto had killed his men and fed the press lies to blacken his name.

  When Nicholas finished, tears streaked her cheeks. At the sight of her crying for him, some of his anger melted. His breathing slowed and his fists unclenched.

  "Oh, Nicholas," she moaned softly.

  He put his arms around her. "It was a long time ago." But he made an inaudible and very blasphemous curse.

  "Not so long, if it's still this fresh on your mind…and heart."

  He held her hard against his body until her sobs subsided. With a sympathetic, healing touch she eased her hands over his back, her fingers tracing his bones and the coiled ridges of flesh that ran the length of his spine.

  She drew in a deep breath. "It must have been terrible."

  His arm about her waist contracted. He told her more, everything, while she clutched him silently, willingly sharing the grim horror. He described his bed of rock and sand in the prison, and how he'd lain on it every night torturing himself with memories of his dying men along with dreams of home. “Yes, I dreamed of Louisiana, of food too—of mouth-watering delicacies like fried chicken, steak and baked potatoes. Because I was alive and couldn’t think about death and dying all the time.”

  He didn't tell her that most of all he'd dreamed of her. But he told her how terrible he'd felt when he'd found out Otto had bought Sweet Seclusion, and that she'd remodeled it.

  "Because I didn't know... In my heart I was restoring your home. Everything I bought, every board I had painted—I did it all for you. When I was finished, I went to London."

  For a long time afterward they were silent as Rogue Wave soared over the black waves and left a wake of glistening phosphorescence. Eva's hair flew against Nicholas's cheek, and he breathed in the scent of honeysuckle and salt air. He did not know if she believed him, but her mere presence soothed his bitter despair. No night at sea had ever been more beautiful than this one with its misty curtains, with her in his arms.