by Janet Dailey
He looked up, a mischievous light dancing in his blue eyes. "Did you really think I wouldn't come back to see my girl one last time?"
His roguish glance slid over the golden length of bare legs, then darted up to her face to leave her in little doubt that he was referring to her as his girl. She knew he was only joking, too.
"Come on, Rhyder," she laughed, but tightly. "You're the kind that has a girl in every port."
The insanity of jealousy churned her stomach as she suddenly imagined all the girls he probably had held in his arms. She was only sixteen. What chance did she have of attracting a man like him?
"Jealous?" His eyes crinkled at the corners, but his mouth didn't curve into a smile as he teased her.
"No." Gina straightened away from the mast and tossed her head in proud defiance of the truth. "How could I be? I'm not even your girl. One kiss doesn't make you belong to someone, at least not in the crowd I run around with."
"I keep forgetting how experienced you are." The mockery was low in his voice. "If you want to make yourself useful, why don't you go below and fix some coffee? There's some instant on the shelf by the stove. Do you think you could manage that?"
"I think so," Gina declared, briefly hating him for the way he taunted her. "I've had to become very domesticated since my grandmother died."
The crystal brown of instant coffee covered the bottom of the mugs sitting on the galley counter in front of her. The water was heating in a pan on the stove, bubbles clinging to the bottom and sides. She shifted impatiently, then turned with a start as Rhyder entered the small galley.
"It's almost ready," she said quickly, turning back to the stove.
"No hurry." He slid onto a bench seat behind her. "What happened to your parents, Gina?"
"They were lost at sea when I was only two," she replied unemotionally. She had never really known them, so it didn't bother her to talk about them.
"Was your father a lobsterman like your grandfather?"
"No, he was an attorney, specializing in maritime law, but gramps said he loved the sea. My mother did, too, I guess. They went out whenever they could. One time they got caught in a storm and never came back," she explained.
"So your grandparents raised you," Rhyder concluded.
"They've been wonderful to me." Her voice carried the warmth of deep affection. "Of course, we lost grandma two years ago. The doctors said her heart just stopped. Gramps and I have been on our own ever since. He's a dear."
The water was nearly boiling. Gina lifted the pan from the flames and deftly filled the cups. She set down the pan at the back of the range, turned off the burner, then handed a mug to Rhyder. She started to offer him the sugar and canned milk she had set out, but he waved them away.
"I take it straight," he told her, and motioned her toward the bench seat opposite him. "What have you been doing these last three days?"
"Nothing special," Gina shrugged. Except waiting for you to come back, she added silently.
"No heavy dates?" He was mocking her again.
"None." She sipped at her coffee, knowing it was too hot, and nearly burned her tongue.
His gaze ran over her face, blue and glinting. "A young girl as attractive as you are must have a boyfriend or two somewhere around."
Sensitive about her sixteen years, Gina tried not to let it show that it irritated her when he mentioned her youthfulness. And he didn't care whether she had any boyfriends or not. Rhyder was teasing again.
"There are one or two," she agreed with forced calm. There probably were, but Rhyder was the only male who interested her. "But no one special." There was a flash of green fire in the look she gave him, but she veiled it quickly with her black, curling lashes. "How about you?"
"You must have forgotten," he mocked her. "I'm supposed to have a girl in every port. You said so yourself. So how could I have a special one with so many to choose from?"
"That might have been a slight exaggeration," Gina conceded. "But I'll bet you've known a lot of girls. I'm sure there are a lot of girls who are crazy about you." And she hated every unknown one of them with the violent emotion of youth.
"There might be a couple," his tongue was very definitely in cheek; he was amused by her answer and probably guessing that she was one of the girls who was crazy about him.
Gina lifted her chin, thrusting it slightly forward, determined to be adult and womanly. "Do you make love to them? The girls you take out?"
The mockery left the clear blue of his eyes as a dark brow arched at her prying question. "Do you mean, do I kiss them or—how did you put it the other day—do I take them into the bushes?"
The subtle inflection of eroticism in his voice brought a pink glow to her cheeks. Gina bent over her coffee mug, hoping he would blame her rising color on the heat from the coffee.
"I guess I wondered if you were the kind that thought a girl owed you something just because you asked her out," Gina hedged.
"There isn't any such thing as an unwilling participant in a seduction scene, Gina." Without pausing Rhyder demanded, "Exactly where is this conversation leading?"
"Nowhere in particular." The forbidding line of his mouth made her more uncomfortable. "We're just talking, that's all."
"That's all?" He muttered her last phrase in sarcastic disbelief. There was checked anger in the way he pushed himself from the bench and poured the coffee from his mug down the drain. "Someone should tell your grandfather how dangerous it is to let you run loose. He should keep you under lock and key. You're not even dry behind the ears yet."
"How would you know?" Gina challenged, her eyes smarting with tears at the way he had verbally slapped her as if she were a precocious child.
Hurt drew her to her feet, and she dumped her own coffee into the sink. When she would have turned away, Rhyder grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her around.
"You're hurting me," she protested tightly.
"Someone should teach you a lesson," he growled, and pulled her against him.
His mouth closed punishingly over hers as his arms crushed her against his muscular length. But the pliant softness of her almost womanly curves molding against the hard contours of his body seemed to immediately drain the savage anger from his kiss.
The mobile pressure of his mouth became sensual and arousing. Gina wound her arms around his neck, surrendering with innocent abandon to his assault.
Abruptly Rhyder tore his lips away from hers, and she pressed closer to him, trying to force his head down. "Rhyder, please," she invited.
His jaw worked convulsively as he roughly pulled her arms from around his neck. "You aren't going to play any grown-up games with me!" he snapped. "Go home, kid, and wait until you grow up before playing with fire!"
His eyes were as cold as the winter sky, freezing her with their iciness. With a sobbing gasp, she wrenched her wrists free of his hold and raced past him up the steps to the deck, nearly knocking a returning Pete down in the process.
Once ashore, she checked her blind flight, slowing her steps to a stiff walk. Her emotions alternated between hate and hurt at the way Rhyder had robbed her of her pride. The humiliation she felt was magnified by her young years until she wished the world would come to an end.
For two days she avoided the harbor as fiercely as she had once sought it. The harbor and any place where she might run into Rhyder. Considering the small area of the community, it meant Gina practically had to restrict herself to the house.
The third day her grandfather mentioned that the Sea Witch II wasn't at its moorings when he had gone out to haul. And Gina felt free to wander to some of her childhood haunts without encountering Rhyder.
After washing up the noon dinner dishes, she slipped out of the house. Her grandfather was busy repairing some damaged lobster pots and probably wouldn't miss her until nearly supper. She walked, her pace fast as if she were trying to race to escape the dogging pain. By three o'clock the summer sun and her exertions had made her hot and sticky. The prospect of a
n ocean swim became decidedly inviting.
She made a brief stop at home to change into her swimsuit and grab a towel, then set out for the small beach where she always swam. She was picking her way along the rocky path down the headland when a movement near the beach caught her eye. She stopped to look, then became paralyzed as she recognized Pete wading ashore. Anguish clouded her eyes as her searching gaze found Rhyder swimming toward the shallow water.
Common sense told her to run before she was seen, but pride insisted that she had to show Rhyder that he meant nothing to her. Childishly she didn't want him to know how severely he had hurt her with his rejection of her love. With a determined toss of her raven hair, she continued along the rocky path to the beach.
"Man, that beer is really going to taste good when we get back to the boat," Pete declared, a breathlessness in his voice from swimming.
Rhyder didn't respond to the comment, and Gina glanced up as she took her first step onto the sand. He was staring at her, grim-faced, and she immediately looked away with a haughty lift of her nose. Pete turned to see what had captured Rhyder's attention and brought such a forbidding expression to his darkly tanned features.
"Hello, Gina," Pete offered quickly.
"Hi, Pete," she replied, but she deliberately avoided greeting Rhyder and he did the same. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pete glancing from one to the other and knew he felt the crackling tension in the air. She dropped her towel on the sand and started slipping off her sandals. "How's the water?"
"Fine," Pete answered uneasily. "Look, er, we were just leaving. If I stay in the sun much longer, I'll turn into a boiled lobster." He laughed uncomfortably, trying to make a joke of it.
In truth, Pete's fair skin was more inclined to freckle than tan, but she knew he was only trying to cover up Rhyder's pointed silence.
"I couldn't care less whether you leave or not," she shrugged, and pushed her sandals under her beach towel.
"Are you meeting someone?" Rhyder suddenly demanded in a curt tone.
Her head jerked toward him, her expression cool and disdainful. "I don't see that it's any of your business, but no, I'm not."
"You shouldn't swim alone."
"I've done it hundreds of times and nothing has happened to me yet. I'm a very strong swimmer," Gina declared.
"Ability has nothing to do with it," he growled roughly.
"Really?" she answered mockingly. "Well, for your information, I'm also wise enough never to get out of my depth."
"Are you?" His steel-blue eyes touched her mouth and the rounded swell of her breasts in a suggestive look that sent the blood rushing to her cheeks. "You could very easily get into trouble."
"I certainly wouldn't call to you for help if I did," Gina muttered bitterly. "Go drink your beer and leave me alone. What might or might not happen to me has nothing to do with you." Impatiently she moved away toward the waves lapping the hard-packed sand of the beach.
"Pete, go on back to the boat," Rhyder ordered curtly. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on her."
As if she was a child, Gina thought wretchedly, and raced toward the waves, diving shallowly into the water to hide the mortification he made her feel. For several minutes she exerted herself to the limits of her physical ability. She had to force herself to settle into a less tiring stroke and edge closer to shore.
After her rash boast, she didn't want to become too exhausted to reach shallow water and thus need to have Rhyder rescue her. Only once did she glance toward the beach to see if he had strayed. He was there and Pete had gone. She remained in the water for as long as she could, wanting Rhyder to have a long watch.
Eventually her muscles began to tremble in protest and she turned toward shore. When her toe scraped the bottom, she stood up and waded in. Her gaze slid over him where he stood out of reach of the lapping waves. The wait hadn't improved the chiseled harshness of his impenetrable mask.
Ignoring him as best she could, Gina walked to where her towel lay. Exhausted, she wanted nothing more than to collapse on the sand, but it would reveal a weakness that she would rather Rhyder didn't see. She picked up the towel and began briskly rubbing her arms, aware that Rhyder hadn't moved, only half turned to watch her.
"You can leave now." Bitterness caused her voice to tremble slightly. "As you can see, I survived the solitary swim. And I would have whether you had been on watch or not!"
"At least I know you're safe," he snapped.
"No one appointed you my guardian, certainly not me." Gina glared, her eyes flashing a stormy green. "There isn't any more reason for you to stay, so why don't you go?"
He came striding toward her. "You're the rudest little brat I've ever met! What you need is a good spanking to teach you some manners and some respect for your elders!"
Gina stiffened. "Don't you dare touch me!"
She couldn't have provoked him more if she had waved a red cape in front of him. In the next second, he was swinging her off her feet and carrying her to a rocky boulder farther along the shore, oblivious to her swinging hands and kicking feet.
Gina struggled and cursed, calling him every name she could think of as he swung her over his knee. After a half-dozen well-aimed and hard blows had been administered, Rhyder let her go.
Tears streamed down Gina's cheeks, partly from pain but mostly from the ultimate humiliation. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth to hurl abuse at him, she would start crying. She sent him a baleful look and spun away, running and stumbling to where she had dropped her towel in the initial scuffle. She fell to her knees beside it, sobbing her heart out.
A shadow fell across her, long at first, then shortening as Rhyder knelt beside her, but she couldn't stop crying, the sobs hiccuping from her chest. His hand touched the curve of her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Gina," he murmured in a low voice.
"Leave me alone," she demanded through gritted teeth, and drew away from his hand.
"Dammit, Gina, I don't blame you for hating me because of what I did." His hand settled again on her shoulder, but this time in a grip she couldn't elude. Rhyder turned her around and drew her against his chest. She was too physically and mentally exhausted to struggle as he smoothed her wet hair with his fingers, nestling her head near the curve of his throat. "I'm sorry, Gina. I'm sorry." His mouth moved against her hair.
Even though she hated him, Gina sought the soothing comfort of his embrace. The racking sobs stopped inside the circle of his arms, reduced to sighing gasps. She lifted her head slightly as his mouth touched her temples, his breath warm against her skin. His lips encountered the first trace of tears along her cheekbone and Rhyder began kissing them away.
His hand curved along her slender throat, turning her face toward him. She seemed to stop breathing, not needing air as long as he continued exploring every inch of her face. When his mouth closed over her parted lips, she could taste the saltiness of her own tears in his kiss. The pressure of his hand near the small of her back arched her toward him.
Through the wetness of her swimsuit she could feel the solid beat of his heart. The mahogany hardness of his chest flattened her breasts. Where once there had been only the coldness of humiliation, a warmth began to spread.
Gina stopped passively accepting his kiss and began to return it. Her response deepened the kiss and the pressure of his mouth hardened in demanding possession. Gina answered as much as her limited experience allowed.
Rhyder lifted his head a fraction of an inch, their breaths mingling. "Open your lips, Gina," he instructed huskily.
She did, and his hard male lips claimed hers again, showing her the sensual fullness of a kiss between a man and a woman. Wildfire raced through her veins at his exploration. Her bones seemed to melt with the heat he was generating inside of her.
His weight was pressing her backward. It didn't ease, not even when gritty sand was beneath her shoulder blades. The heat of his sun-warmed body seemed to induce a languor that lifted her to a dreamlike state.
Tangy ocean salt clung to his skin, mixing with his musky male scent to make an intoxicating aroma. Her hands spread over the rippling, hard muscles of his back and shoulders, trying to evoke the same pleasure his stroking caress was giving her.
The knot of her swimsuit halter was digging into the back of her neck, an uncomfortable lump in an otherwise satisfying bed. She moved against Rhyder in relief when his exploring fingers encountered it and loosened it, pulling the straps away.
When Rhyder dragged his mouth from hers to explore the slender column of her throat, she felt a giddiness she had never previously experienced. She tipped her head back to expose every inch for his inspection.
Delicious shivers danced over her skin as he roughly nibbled at the lobe of her ear, then trailed over the sensitive cord to investigate the pulsing vein in her neck.
A thousand sensations assaulted her mind when he pushed the top of her swimsuit away and his hand glided over the curve of her breast. Fleetingly it occurred to Gina to protest against this liberty, but the firm, yet gentle caress of his hand erased her momentary apprehensions.
His warm mouth left the hollow of her throat, drawn to the pointed thrust of her breast. Primitive desire exploded within her at his possession of this previously private area. The fierceness of the emotion nearly overwhelmed her but Gina fought her way out of the whirlpool of uncontrolled passion, stiffening in fear at the wanton longings his fiery touch was arousing.
Immediately Rhyder shifted his attention to her lips. His burning kiss led her back to the whirlpool and reassured her she had nothing to fear in the drowning eddy of passion. Again her flesh became pliant to his touch, her limbs boneless. The moment of resistance had been conquered masterfully.
As her fingers started to curl into the wavy thickness of his black hair, Rhyder ripped himself from her, rolling away, turning his back to her as he knelt sitting on his heels. For a stunned moment, Gina lay where he had left her, staring dazedly at his slumped shoulders and bent head. She could see the effort he was making to try to control his erratic breathing.
"Rhyder?" She murmured his name in confusion and scooted into a half-sitting position.