by Linda Turner
Maddy couldn’t believe that Ace would just drop something as priceless as Cleopatra’s bellybutton ring in the mail, but that was exactly what he did. Laughing at her horrified gasp, he assured her that the small package would never draw a second glance because he’d labeled the box Fertilizer Samples, and no one in their right mind would expect to find anything of value in a pile of manure. Maddy wasn’t so sure; he didn’t give her time to argue. They only had fifteen minutes to find their ship and they had to run all the way back to the docks from the center of town, where they’d finally found the post office.
Out of breath, they arrived back at the Amazon Queen and soon discovered that the ship wasn’t nearly as elegant as its name. Once a top-of-the-line cargo ship with a few cabins for passengers, it was now a rusty bucket of bolts that was used to haul bananas from Cape Horn all the way to New York.
In spite of that, the sheets were clean, as Ace had promised. The captain personally showed them to their cabin and seemed honored to have them aboard. After assuring them everything they needed would be provided for them, he managed to scrounge up a dusty bottle of champagne from somewhere in the bowels of the ship to celebrate a pleasant voyage. Then he wisely left them alone.
Heat singeing her cheeks, Maddy leaned back against the door and couldn’t seem to stop smiling. When Ace started to reach for her, she wanted nothing more than to go into his arms. But they had so little time left together, and if she was ever going to get any answers out of him, she had to do it now, before he touched her.
“Hold it,” she said, holding a quick hand to ward him off. “I’ve been through hell with you, Ace MacKenzie or whatever your name is, and a couple of times, I thought we were goners for sure. After all that, I think I’m entitled to a few answers, don’t you think? Who was that Philip character you called? And who’s paying for all this—”
“Philip is…my boss,” he said with a crooked grin. Taking the hand that she’d planted against his chest, he dragged it around his neck and pulled her against him to nuzzle her neck. “And as for who’s footing the bill, let’s just say it’s a little-known but very powerful department of the U.S. government. Honey, do we have to talk about this now?”
He trapped her against the door, and from her neck, he moved up to her ear and lazily worried the sensitive lobe with his teeth. Heat shot through her in a dizzying rush. Shuddering delicately, she leaned back weakly against the door and tried to remember why it was so important for her to know more about him, but with his warm, moist breath in her ear and his tongue teasing her, she couldn’t fight her own needs, let alone his.
“Later.” She sighed as she closed her eyes and leaned into him. “We’ll talk…later.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” he murmured, kissing his way to her mouth with deliberate care. “I want to take a shower. With you.”
That got her attention. “A…sh-shower?”
“Mmm-hmm. I want you wet and naked and so damn hot for me we steam up every porthole on the ship.” Slowly, softly, he brushed her lips with his—once, twice, a third time—until she was languidly moving with him, instinctively lifting her mouth to his each time in a sensuous dance of give and take, seeking him, kissing him, dreamily loving him. “What do you say, honey? Are you game?”
For an answer, she reached for the buttons to his shirt.
The loving that followed was like something out of a dream. She should have been nervous. Making love in the middle of the night was one thing, boldly stripping and stepping into a tiny shower stall with him in broad daylight was quite another. But somehow their clothes just seemed to melt away and she was too busy marveling over the wonder of his hard, sinewy body to worry if her own was a disappointment to him.
With the water pounding down on them and the rising steam swirling above their heads, they lost all sense of time, of reason. There was only need and an ache that grew more fierce with every touch, every brush of mouth and tongue. He murmured love words to her, praising her, worshiping her as he kissed his way down her body and back up again with a painstaking thoroughness that left her shuddering and every nerve ending tingling.
He could have taken her then, pushed her right over the edge with no effort at all, but he only laughed softly when she arched against him with a strangled cry. “Oh, no, sweetheart. Not yet. We’re supposed to be taking a shower, remember?” Taking her hand, which lay limp upon his shoulder, he closed her fingers around a bar of soap and flashed her a grin. “If you see anything you like, feel free to touch.”
Dazed, her blood rushing hotly through her veins, she looked up from the soap and found his eyes waiting for hers and alight with daring. Lifting a delicately arched brow, she started to smile. “Anything?”
He nodded, his grin broadening. “Anything.”
Entranced by the wicked laughter in his gaze, catching his suddenly playful mood, Maddy rubbed the soap slowly back and forth in her hands and had the satisfaction of knowing she had his undivided attention. But instead of accepting the dare and touching him where he obviously expected her to, she suddenly stood on tiptoe and lifted her soap-slickened hands to his wet hair. The move, catching him off guard, brought her breasts against his chest and her hips snug against the hard evidence of his arousal. And with every slide of her hands in his hair, her wet, naked body rubbed against his.
Her eyes, dark and sensual, smiled into his as she deliberately moved against him again. “How’s that?”
A groan ripped from his throat, and with a muttered oath, he clamped her tight against him. “You’re killing me, honey. Don’t stop.”
Her heart thudding, she laughed and traced a slow finger around his ear. A split second later, sudden mischief sparking in her eyes, she pulled his head under the pulsing shower head.
“Aaargh! Dammit, woman, what are you trying to do? Drown me?”
“Don’t be such a whiny baby,” she chided, chuckling. “I was just getting the soap out of your hair.”
“Baby? Me? I’ll show you who’s a baby,” he growled with mock fierceness, and swiftly reversed their positions. She was still laughingly sputtering when he shoved her up against the shower wall and covered her mouth with his.
Heat. It was instantaneous, raw, untamed, licking between them like the roaring flames of an inferno, and suddenly neither of them was laughing. He rubbed against her in the same way she had against him, melting her knees. She moaned, reaching for him with fingers that weren’t quite steady, and with no effort at all broke what was left of his control. His mouth rough, his hands blindly fumbling for the faucets to the shower, he shut off the water and swept her up in his arms.
“Ace, what-”
“Shh, sweetheart. I’m just carrying you to bed.”
“But we’re wet—”
“So we’ll dry off later,” he muttered against her mouth, and carried her down to the bed with him.
After that, there was no time for words, no time for anything but the fire they’d lit in each other’s blood that threatened to burn them alive. His breath straining through his lungs, need tearing at him, he moved over her like a man possessed, driving her over the first crest before she could do anything but sink her nails into his shoulders and gasp. With a single stroke, he drove into her to the hilt, all the while telling himself he had to slow down, give her time, find the control he needed for the tenderness he ached to show her. But then her hips eagerly lifted to his, setting a frantic rhythm that he found impossible to resist.
Feeling as if he were on the edge of dying, he moved in her, with her, meeting her thrust for thrust, every muscle in his body straining for release. Not yet, not yet, he chanted grimly to himself, his teeth clenched tight with the effort to hold back. But then he felt the first faint rush of pleasure deep inside her, the shudders that started to rack her slender frame, and it was his name she called, his name on her lips that pulled him over the edge. The searing heat inside him exploded, and with a strangled cry, he tumbled after her into the ecstasy.
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nbsp; Replete, Maddy never knew how long she lay there in his arms, her eyes closed to savor the tiny sparks that flashed inside her like star bursts, a smile of contentment permanently etched on her lips. In what felt like the distant part of the universe but was actually the nether regions of a brain that had turned to mush, she was vaguely aware that the ship had set sail soon after they had ended up in the shower. But not even the knowledge that she was actually sailing down the Amazon like a heroine in an Ace MacKenzie book could tempt her to stir from her lover’s arms. She was right where she wanted to be—the Amazon would have to wait.
It could have been minutes, an hour, later when a soft, infinitely gentle kiss brought her eyes fluttering open. Looking up into Ace’s dear, rugged face, she started to smile, but his eyes were somber and searching hers, his expression serious. Her heart twinging with the first faint twitches of alarm, she lifted her hand to his cheek. “What? What is it?”
“I love you.”
Startled, Maddy blinked, stunned speechless. He loved her! And all this time, she hadn’t allowed herself to dream…to hope. Tears of joy blurring her eyes, she started to smile, only to hesitate as it suddenly hit her that he’d blurted the words out like a man who had just been hit over the head with a sledgehammer and was still reeling from the surprise of the blow.
Suddenly as unsure as the untried girl he had rescued from Cement Johnny, she said carefully, “I love you, too. Is that a problem?”
He laughed shortly, the strangled sound a mixture of selfdeprecating amusement and amazement. “I always thought it would be,” he said half to himself, his eyes focused on the past. “Sandra taught me a valuable lesson about women— love ‘em and leave ‘em before they can stab you in the heart. And I learned it well. Nobody came close to tying me in knots…until you came along.”
He blinked, his gaze once again locking with hers as he looked at her, really looked at her, for what seemed like the first time. “I thought I could handle you, handle what you did to me, but you weren’t like Sandra or any other woman I’d ever met before. You were so damn innocent. And when you finally decided to trust me, you did it heart and soul. I don’t think you have any idea what that does to a man when a woman places that kind of trust in him, honey.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” she said huskily. “There was no reason to be afraid.”
“See? That’s what I mean. You gave yourself to me when you had to know that I planned to take you back home to your mother when this was all over. I thought that’s what I was going to do. But now that we’re safe and New York is just a long boat ride away, I don’t want it to end. I don’t want us to end.”
Cupping her face in his hands, he gently brought his mouth to hers and kissed her until her senses were swimming in pleasure and the blood was thrumming in her veins. “Marry me, Maddy,” he urged thickly when he finally, reluctantly, let her up for air. “Marry me and I promise the next fifty years will be the ride of a lifetime, Maddy Lawrence. I’ll take you to Rome and Sydney and Timbuktu if you like. Anywhere. Everywhere! Just say the word. Say yes, honey.”
Stunned, Maddy searched his face for some sign that this was all just a wonderful, fantastic dream that couldn’t possibly come true. But the man lying in bed with her wasn’t a figment of her imagination. He was warm and hard and real. His heart was in his eyes, his expression dead serious, the love he made no attempt to hide from her softening every fierce, handsome feature. He was offering her all the things she had ever wanted. All she had to do was say yes.
In spite of her love of adventure from afar, she’d always prided herself on being a practical woman. She’d known that Indiana Jones was never going to charge into her life and sweep her off to God knows where in search of lost artifacts and gold, and she’d told herself she could be happy just reading about such bold deeds. But now, looking up into his handsome face, she knew that most of her adult life had been nothing but a lie. She hadn’t been happy—she’d just been existing, waiting for the only man in the world for her to come along and turn her life upside down.
And here he was, asking her to marry him. In the real world, she told herself, things like this didn’t happen. But it was.
“Yes,” she whispered huskily. “I’ll marry you.”
“Yes! She said yes!” A broad smile spreading across his mouth, he swooped down for a fierce, ecstatic kiss. “When?” he demanded hoarsely. “I want a date, lady! I need to know when you’re going to be mine.”
Caught up in his excitement, she laughed and looped her arms around his neck. “Whenever you like.”
“Today, then,” he said promptly, stunning her. Giving her one last lingering kiss, he pulled her arms from around his neck, planted a quick kiss in each palm, then rolled away and reached for his pants. “I’ve got to talk to the captain, see about making the arrangements. And you need a dress. Every woman wants a new dress on her wedding day. I’ll have to see if there’s some kind of shop on this floating rattletrap.”
Already caught up in the arrangements, he tugged on his shirt and headed for the door before he stopped, suddenly realizing she hadn’t said a word. Pivoting, he frowned at her. “You didn’t want one of those big elaborate fancy shindigs, did you? I mean, I know most women dream of that sort of thing from the time they’re little girls, and if you’ve really got your heart set on it…” He shrugged, his grin rueful. “Hell, honey, if that’s what you want, you’re the only one I can think of I’d wriggle into one of those penguin suits for. Just say the word, and we’ll wait till we can throw it all together…”
He would do it, she thought, sudden tears stinging her eyes. He’d go through all the hassle of planning a wedding when that was obviously the last thing in the world he wanted…just for her. If she hadn’t already loved him before, she would have fallen for sure after that.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said with a quick grin as she wrapped the sheet around herself and stepped from the bed and advanced toward him with a purposeful glint in her eyes. “Now that I’ve finally found you, there’s no way I’m waiting to make you mine…or giving you a chance to change your mind.”
He gave her a wounded look. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t do a thing like that to you.”
“Good,” she said promptly. “Then there’s no reason why we can’t be married today.” Standing on tiptoe, she leaned up to give him a kiss that promised a lifetime of hot nights of love and seduction. “I can’t imagine anything more romantic that being married on the Amazon,” she whispered dreamily against his mouth. “Go make the arrangements.”
Dazed, he nodded…and just stood there like a man who couldn’t remember what he needed to do next. Laughing in delight, Maddy pulled open the door and pushed him gently through it. “This way, darling. Hurry. I’ll be waiting for you,” she promised, and promptly shut the door in his face.
Long after she heard him make his way down the narrow passageway, she leaned back against the door, hugging herself. Lord, she loved him! So much that she, who had never had a man in her life, wondered how she’d lived without him all these lonely years. He’d made her believe in fairy tales when always before she’d believed they came true for everyone but herself.
And as soon as he could pull whatever strings needed to be pulled, he’d be back…to marry her. Dear God, she had to get ready!
Her thoughts rushing ahead to what she was going to do with her damp hair, she stepped away from the door and forgot all about the sheet that was wrapped around her like a mummy’s shroud. She tripped just as the ship rolled slightly under her feet. Gasping, she jerked at the sheet that had somehow gotten tangled around her legs, but too late, she realized she was standing on it. She started to fall and never saw the closet door swing open. She hit the floor hard just as the motion of the ship brought the door swinging back in the opposite direction. It slammed into her head, right at the temple. Stars exploded behind her eyes in a white-hot flash of pain, then there was nothing. Nothing but blackness.
Ace was there, jus
t beyond her fingertips in her dream, grinning down at her from the billowing softness of a pristine white cloud, beckoning her to join him. Everything she wanted—love, happiness, adventure—could be found in his arms. She knew that as surely as she knew she loved him with all her heart. All she had to do was take his hand and let him lift her up and she would be home, with him, where she belonged.
“I’m not going to let you slip away from me, sweetheart. Do you hear me? So if you’re thinking about checking out on me, you can just think again. I won’t allow it. Dammit, Maddy, don’t do this!”
From his perch on the cloud, he leaned down to her, his extended hand reaching for hers, silently begging her to just trust him enough to place her fingers in his, but even as she hesitated, it was too late. Before her eyes, the distance between them slowly stretched into a dark, bottomless chasm that was impossible to cross. Helplessly, she watched him drift away into the clouds, fading from sight until there was nothing left of him but his hoarse cry for her to come back to him. And even that disappeared when the blackness descended again, blocking out the light and dragging her down into the soothing depths of oblivion.
After that, time, the world, ceased to exist. There was only the darkness and the aching sense of loss that gripped her every time she even thought about opening her eyes and leaving Ace behind in her dreams. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t! He would come back for her if she just waited long enough.
In the end, however, she was never given a choice in the matter. One second she was lost in the shadows that shrouded her brain, and the next she was struck first by the feel of clean sheets against her body, then the antiseptic scent that was unique to hospitals and clinics that teased her nose. Her eyelids fluttering against the sunshine that seemed to be hitting her right in the face, she blinked once, then again, and, with no conscious intention on her part, opened her eyes.