by Kris Pearson
He watched as Kerri discovered storage spaces, a small wardrobe, and the bathroom facilities. “There are no portholes down here because we’re partly below the waterline,” he added.
“We could see fish if there were portholes.”
“We’d more likely spring a leak and sink.”
She pulled a face at that. “No—I don’t like it—it’s too dark.”
“Then come back up in the light. The squabs up there make beds for the children.”
She preceded him up the steps.
“I suppose you’re looking up my shorts?”
“You wish me to turn my back on you? The view is quite lovely, as you knew it would be.”
He grinned at her sniff of disdain, and kept enjoying the view.
A few minutes later, he had the powerful motor throbbing and had cast off. He inched them away from the mooring and navigated to starboard. For the moment his concentration was diverted to getting them safely past the other vessels and into the harbor proper. Kerri stood on tip-toe beside him—peering at the waterfront apartments and the big hillside houses with their expensive outlooks.
“Some people are so lucky,” she said. “There’s billions of dollars worth of real estate up there. The paper did a feature not long ago. That’s the most expensive area in the city.”
Alex noted her shining eyes, and her glossy lips curved in a hopeful smile.
“You’ll need to save hard to live up there, then.”
Her smile faded. She shrugged and turned away. “I’ll have money one of these days. Once I’m twenty-five.”
“You have it all planned?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re going to win Lotto?” he couldn’t help asking.
She drew in a very deep breath but said nothing.
“Not Lotto?”
“Probably not.”
Why had she clammed on up him?
He turned the boat in a gentle arc, and the sun invaded the cabin. He reached for the sunglasses he’d known he’d eventually need. Kerri started rummaging in her bag, probably with the same aim.
“How long until you hit twenty-five?”
He had no idea what her age was. Sometimes she seemed as lively and irresponsible as a sixteen-year-old—and then she asked questions that were deep and interesting. He’d been surprised at her interview technique at Gaston’s. The afternoon’s flip little sexpot had shown a whole new side of herself.
“Almost a year.”
So she was twenty-four. Old enough to know what she was doing. Old enough, he thought guiltily, to know what she was doing in bed. Just minutes ago his hand around her waist and his thumb caressing her breast had made him hard. Now, even without that stimulus, and although he was preoccupied with maneuvering the big boat, his body was still giving him hell. He thanked God the front of his jeans was out of her line of sight.
“You’re such a little thing I wasn’t sure.”
“I hate being short. No authority. People don’t take me seriously. You don’t know how lucky you are being tall.”
Suddenly she kicked off her high sandals and stood closer beside him.
“See? Not even up to your shoulder when I’m in bare feet.”
She looked so doleful that he dropped a kiss onto her hair. “But all in the right proportions,” he said when she looked up at him in surprise.
She jerked her eyes away from his and worked her feet back into the silly sandals until she was once again as tall as she could manage to be. Still barely level with his chin, he noted.
The city looked magnificent from the water as they burbled further out. Steep hills ringed Wellington’s harbor—some with unbroken swathes of trees, some with timber houses arranged every which way. Alex thought of the long boulevards in Paris, and the orderly rows of classically drab buildings. So much was uniform there; here in New Zealand everything had its own eccentric personality.
A bit like me and Kerri. I’ve got my life organized and secure, but she’s lurching along from week to week. Silly kid—she’s going to have to grow up some time.
“Where shall we go?” he asked, putting on more power as they sliced further into the harbor. The big engine responded with a throatier note, the boat lifted its bow, and Kerri clutched his arm as she swayed against him.
“Over towards Eastbourne?” she suggested, pointing. “It’s lovely around there, although if you’re stopping out on the water it really won’t matter. Don’t go so far if you don’t want to.”
“Your choice entirely, cherie. We’ve the whole day ahead of us. Gaston has gone to collect Felice and his girls from Martinborough.”
“He loves being a Dad, doesn’t he?” she said, stroking his arm and idly tugging at the dark mesh of hair. “My father loved me, I’m sure, but he died early. Drowned,” she added, staring out at the water.
Alex felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
“Not boating I hope? Would you rather go back?”
She shook her head and continued to watch the water.
“Fishing. Rock-fishing. There was a storm-warning out but he took a gamble the weather would hold long enough.” Her voice held a thread of desperation, and she continued to avoid his eyes. “The sea came up rough and swept him off the rocks.”
She sounded very different from her usual casual confident self. He heard the lost little girl she must have been, deprived so suddenly of her beloved father.
“He was always trying to beat the odds,” she added with a sigh. “But that time the odds beat him.” The desolation rolled off her as she stood beside him, still kneading and stroking his arm.
“At least you had a father,” he murmured. “I had a biological father, of course, but God knows who. My mother seemed to have no idea.”
Kerri looked sharply up then, and her dark brown eyes held his for several seconds.
“You did okay without him,” she finally said. “I really needed mine. I ended up living with my grandparents because my stepfather was nowhere as nice as Dad.” She heaved another huge sigh, and, apparently realizing she still had hold of his arm, jerked her hand away. “We didn’t get on,” she added.
“He mistreated you?”
She shook her head. “He ignored me. He didn’t know what to do with children. He didn’t have any.”
“But your grandparents were kind?”
“Yes, of course. Way out of touch with a twelve-year-old’s needs, though. They were Mum’s parents—old-fashioned people, and quite religious.” She worried at her bottom lip for a few seconds and then looked back up at him. “I still wanted to do all the things I’d been allowed to do with Dad. They disapproved terribly, and stopped me. I was a horrible little rebel, I suppose.”
Alex throttled back and settled an arm around her shoulders.
“So we are two fatherless waifs,” he said, trying to coax out a smile. To his surprise, Kerry didn’t object to his arm. Indeed, she leaned a fraction closer to him, and the faint fragrance of her riotous dark hair rose to tease him.
“You’re a lot less waify than me,” she said.
“Perhaps I had to grow up very fast, my mother being the way she was.” When Kerri looked up, he added,” She’d come to Paris to paint, but got drawn into the nightlife. She was tall and beautiful, and became one of the showgirls in Montmartre. Lots of skin, not many feathers—I still have a few of those photographs.”
He sent her a rueful grin. “Very ‘ooh-la-la’. But of course she became pregnant with me, and she grew older. She never returned to New Zealand. It was—difficult for her. Finally the gambling got her.”
“You did very well then.”
“Survive or starve...”
“Alex—surely not!” She half-turned against him and a warm breast nudged his side.
“Some well-meaning ‘authority’ would have taken me into care if they’d known, but I managed to avoid that. I’d been looking after myself for so long that a couple more years made no great difference.”
Kerri was silent for a while and he supposed she was picturing him younger, gangly, hungry. Living off his wits.
“You make me feel very juvenile with my tantrums and complaints,” she eventually admitted. “Granny and Grandpa were killed in a car-crash five years ago. They died feeling very disappointed with me, I’m sure.” Her hand crept back onto his arm as though touching him was a comfort to her. “You had no family and yet you’re secure and settled. I had a loving Gran and Grandpa and I’m a mess.”
“And your mother?”
She shook her head, but said no more.
The boat ploughed on across the blue water until Alex cut the engine back to the barest idle.
“Too serious for such a beautiful day,” he said. “Let’s see if Gaston has packed coffee.” He reclaimed his arm, brushing his fingers across her nape as he did so.
“Watch it,” she said, glaring at him.
He raised both eyebrows in mock-innocence. Plainly her fire-cracker temper was only just below the surface of her other emotions.
“We’ll sit in the sun. You could put your bikini on.”
“Huh!” she said. “You’d be hopeful.”
Oh yes, very.
His mouth quirked with amusement as Kerri picked her way across the cabin floor and out to the deck as though she was navigating a minefield.
“Take them off,” he growled, meaning her shoes, and watching her legs.
And to his pleasure, once he joined her with a thermos of joltingly strong coffee and a clear plastic box of chocolate croissants, he found she’d kicked the sandals away and stretched her legs out in front of her. Ten shiny mauve toenails sparkled like amethysts in the sunshine.
“So what are you taking off in return?” she asked.
“Me? Why should I take anything off?”
“I thought you wanted to get some sun?”
He nodded as he unscrewed the lid of the flask.
“Later maybe. Sugar with yours?”
“Later?” she mocked. “But you want me to change into a bikini? I bet I could get all your gear off in no time with a game of strip poker. If you even know how to play it.”
Alex couldn’t stop the slow smile from spreading across his face. Strip poker with Kerri? Had all his Christmases just come at once?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“You think because I’ve seen the bad side of gambling I don’t know how to play poker? It would be my pleasure to accept your challenge.”
“Hmmmm,” she said, doing a quick tally of their respective garments. Jeans, T-shirt, underpants, boat-shoes, watch. Six chances for him. Shorts, top, bra, panties, earrings, watch, and ... sandals. She edged her feet towards them.
“Uh-uh! We start even.”
Damn you, Alex. But it’s seven for me because there are two earrings. I’ve still one chance more than you.
“Fine,” she said. “You’re a dead man, Alex Beaufort. No sugar thanks.”
He poured. They sipped. The croissants were so fresh and flaky they practically floated up without assistance.
“You have a crumb,” he murmured, reaching across to brush a finger over her lower lip. “Lick.”
Kerri licked. There was no crumb. Their eyes held, and he didn’t draw back. His hand stayed warm against her face for a few seconds.
I bet he’s trying to spoil my concentration. Make me lose my nerve.
“You have a crumb, too. A flake, right here,” she said, reaching across to the neck of his white T-shirt. She slid her finger up to his Adam’s apple and then down again, unable to keep away from that smooth tanned skin. The cords in his throat tightened.
“There—gone,” she said, pretending to lick something off her finger.
Do it to me and I’ll do it right back. I’ll call your bluff anytime, Monsieur.
But as she ate, Kerri knew with rising trepidation there was only one likely outcome to two unattached people voluntarily getting undressed together. Had she just indicated she wanted to have sex with him? Was he looking quite pleased at the prospect? How could she redeem herself?
“That was a very silly offer I just made,” she said in a small voice.
“What did you offer me, Kerri?”
“You know exactly what it sounded like I was offering...”
“And were you offering? Let’s get this straight before I get my hopes up, hmm?” His eyes flashed a hot blue invitation.
“Were you accepting?” she countered.
“I accepted a game of strip poker, oui.”
She drew a frustrated breath and stayed silent for a few moments.
“Well—no—I mean...”
“No?”
“Are you winding me up, Alex Beaufort?”
The corners of his mouth kicked up and Kerri felt her resolve slipping away. A warm unsettling glow shimmered below her belly button. And lower, a nice little tickle needed rubbing. She wriggled on the seat, wondering if that would help. No—worse if anything.
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” she flannelled. “I’ve never—um—offered to make love to a man. It’s not my thing.”
“Offering, or making love?”
“Neither, Alex! Neither is my thing...”
“Making love is ‘not your thing’?” His intense blue eyes danced over her with disbelief. “Kerri, I’m not a man who makes a habit of hauling a woman onto my lap so suddenly. And certainly not…er…letting my hands roam the way they did. But you provoked me most unreasonably. You sat there with your eyes challenging me, and those sexy red shoes making your legs look so long. You had love-making oozing from every pore.”
Oh my God—how can he think that? No-one’s ever said I’m the least bit sexy.
She swallowed hard and forced out a disbelieving, “Hah!”
His eyes held hers. “And you didn’t fake that orgasm. How can you claim you don’t like making love?”
She twisted her hands together.
“Well, normally I don’t like it as much as that. I mean...it’s never... Oh God, Alex—for some reason you turned me on, okay? It was nice.”
“And you’d like to do it again?”
“No.”
“No? So we’ll just have a game of strip poker then? Get each other undressed and sit in the sun with another cup of coffee, perhaps?”
Kerri knew she’d painted herself into a corner and had no idea how to escape. She abhorred being trapped, and this was even worse because she’d set the trap herself.
“It was a stupid suggestion.”
Truly horrendously stupid. Why was she such a klutz at real life when she was a perfectly competent journalist? Was it because she could always edit and delete and shine her work up until it was as good as she could make it? Her real life had to be lived as it happened. It wasn’t in her nature to plan and forecast and weigh up consequences.
She dropped her voice with embarrassment and made things worse again. “I don’t have any condoms, anyway,” she muttered.
“I do.”
Slow delicious heat flooded her belly. He made her feel sexy and beautiful when she normally felt awkward and defensive around any man she found attractive. She was now confused and flustered and bothered, and filled with a gnawing savage yearning for things she’d never had before.
Her mind ran hot and wild. Was his chest as hairy as his arms? Did he have great legs to go with that fantastic butt? Was he hard yet?
Now she really, really wanted to make love, and he’d think she was cheap and immoral. Or ridiculous, which was almost worse.
She didn’t dare look at him after hearing him say he had condoms. He didn’t seem to think sex was a slutty offer or a stupid idea. But...
Somehow, after a few breathless seconds, she found the courage to bring her eyes back to his. And right when she was on the point of opening her mouth to possibly put her foot in it yet again, he filled the silence instead.
“We’re both adults, Kerri. We turn each other on to an extre
me degree. It seems a shame to waste such good fortune, don’t you think? Just for one day, while we can?”
His eyes shone dark with desire, and held hers with an intensity she’d not expected.
He really wants me!
Just for one day—that’s the kicker though.
Or maybe it was the escape clause? One day of uninhibited, unobserved sex, and then goodbye.
She could handle that. She was sure she could handle that.
Alex continued to gaze at her with incredible turned-on attention.
“So how do we do this, Kerri?
“You said you knew how.”
“Oui, but what about cards?”
“I have cards. I brought some in case I wanted to play Solitaire to pass the time.”
He drew a sharp affronted breath. “You thought I would be so boring? That I would not entertain you?”
“I had no idea what you had in mind,” she said primly.
And feeling an even worse fool after that, she looked away, reached over for her bag, foraged about, and pulled out the deck of cards.
Alex watched and waited, wondering if she really was serious about playing poker. He sipped more of Gaston’s thousand-volt coffee and hoped it would bring him luck. Kerri half-naked? Kerri completely naked? Kerri wild and willing?
“Are we safe here?” he asked, gazing about before the last vestiges of common sense deserted him. A yachting regatta progressed on the far side of the harbor—a flock of white triangles leaned against the freshening breeze. The inter-island ferry had bustled out a little earlier. They didn’t seem to be in a shipping lane. Indeed they were opposite a stretch of tree-covered hillside with no sign of close habitation, and that seemed about perfect.
Kerri shrugged and grinned, apparently switching on a sunnier mood.
“I am,” she said. “Don’t know about you. I’m going to have the shirt off your back in no time. Does that make you feel safe?”
Alex imagined his shirt off, and Kerri’s shirt off too. His fingers curled without his volition, as though touching the soft pale skin of her incredible breasts.
She cut the pack and shuffled with a practiced hand.
He watched the cards flashing black and red on brilliant white, and felt anything but safe. Exhilarated...turned-on...disbelieving—all of those.