She could hardly believe that the mere biological act of mating could be carried to such dizzying heights. Cord lifted her to a sexual plane she’d never experienced before, a place both feral and frenzied. She loved, and was loved, in a reckless, heathen way. No longer the prim innkeeper in lace collars and linen skirts, she had become a pagan temptress, a female animal stalking her prey and eating her fill.
Her body glowed with the joy of their exertion. When she had cried out her release for the third time, she lay back, exhausted, complete, full of Cord Redigo and full of the purest satisfaction imaginable as she felt him let himself go within her. Easing his body weight down, he held her close as he relished his own climax to the fullest.
His heart hammered against her breasts, and his breath was warm against her cheek. After a quieting moment, he teased the lobe of her ear with his teeth, half groaning, half sighing, “You’re a witch, Tessa Jane. A sweet, shameless witch.”
Lifting his head so that he could more easily see her face, he gave her a slow, careful scrutiny that made her feel devoured.
Her lips were numbed and well used, and her smile felt awkward when she tried it. Wrapping her words in a sigh, she told him, “You look like you want to eat me up.”
He brushed aside love-tossed strands of hair from her rosy breasts so that his gaze could roam unhindered. “You read my mind.”
She flushed at his deeply suggestive tone. “Oh, Cord…”
He grinned. “We have to pass the time some way. I’m no superman.” He rolled off her, and she relished the quiver of heightened sensation even their parting caused.
She let her eyes drift over his lean nakedness. He reminded her of a sleek panther, and she felt new fire burst to life in her core. She was surprised at herself and she smiled, delighted with the Tess Mankiller that Cord’s lovemaking had created.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she murmured, following him over, her small, white teeth nipping his neck. With his half moan-half growl, she lifted her head, raking him with a mischievous look before pressing him back on the bed.
“Let’s just time your recuperation, shall we?” She planted her hands on either side of his face, and then, with a womanly sureness of purpose, she lowered her breasts to his face. She closed her eyes as he began to tease, nuzzle and suck. Bringing his big, gentle hands up to cup them, he kneaded her flesh, drawing her all the way down so that he could bury his face in her pliant warmth.
She curled her arms about his head, kissing his musky hair. “How are you doing?” she queried, her voice low and breathy. “Need much more time?”
He groaned and nipped at her. He sounded so like a victim on the rack, she couldn’t hold back a gurgle of laughter.
He drew his face away and looked up at her, his expression a quaint mixture of lust and confusion. “What’s so funny?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
She sat back, straddling his belly, feeling quite powerful with her ability to bring this huge animal of a man to his knees with the merest twitch of her body. She grinned down at him. “I’d say it’s been almost a minute. Don’t you think?”
“Tessa Jane,” he groaned, trailing a finger between the tempting mounds of her breasts. “Don’t put a man in this condition and expect him to be able to think.”
Impishly, she ran her nails down his chest, eliciting a low sigh from him. “A minute and a half, maybe?”
“I’m dying.”
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and then down at his expectant face. Grinning, she slithered backward toward her objective.
Her intimate, straddle-legged trip across his furred belly made Tess’s body sizzle with need. More adeptly than she’d thought she could, she guided him home. When she had slid atop him, and fixed him hot and deep within her, she lay fully against him and whispered huskily, “Don’t ever let me hear you say you’re no superman, again…”
She both heard and felt his low chuckle. His hips lifted against her, drawing a flash of heavenly feeling. His arms came around her hips, pulling her lithe body to him once again, and with her gasp of rapture, time ceased to exist.
7
The sky had been washed so clean by the storm that it sparkled. Inhaling the crisp, rain-washed air, Tess wondered why she’d never noticed that the heavens held so many stars before. She hugged herself. Her clothes were dry, but for a slight dampness in the waist and hem of her skirt. Cord had found one of Mary’s old sweaters to drape over her shoulders. Still, the night’s chill was beginning to set in.
“There are people on the dock,” Cord called over the powerful rumble of the cruiser’s engine.
His words hit her like a wet rag, pulling her back to a reality she would have preferred to avoid. She dropped her gaze to the lighted wooden platform jutting out from the shore. Sure enough, there was a small crowd hailing them. She saw Kalvin, most of the cryptozoologists and Nolan, waving broadly. Her jaw firmed with distress and she shot a pained gaze toward Cord. He was looking at her, his expression one of concern.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
She smiled with little enthusiasm. “Sure…” In his white twill pants, white cotton turtleneck shirt, tennis shoes and socks, Cord looked the perfect preppy sailor, his blond hair tossed in casual elegance by a capricious breeze. She felt limp and dowdy in comparison, and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I just wish you’d found those clothes of Mary’s husband’s before…” She looked away, unable to finish. She was timid and embarrassed about what had happened between them.
He touched her chin with long, warm fingers, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I don’t think that’s what you really wish, is it, Tessa Jane?”
He fixed her with an unwavering regard, waiting. She swallowed. “No, I guess—I wanted you—everything…but…” Her whispered words were laced with confusion and panic. What was she to do? After her reckless abandon in Cord’s arms, how could she look Nolan in the face?
She avoided Cord’s eyes, looking at his chest instead. He had a magnificent chest, she decided, then squelched the thought. “Cord,” she began, her throat as dry as dust. “I want you to know that I don’t regret what we did today. Really.”
When he didn’t speak, she made herself look into his eyes.
He felt a tug of regret. The lift of her chin, the sadness that glistened in the striking green depths of her eyes stirred him profoundly. Sensing her need, he helped her. “But you don’t, want it to happen again.”
She nodded. “I—I guess there are just some people who are chemically attracted. Drawn together by nature rather than by true compatibility.” She shifted her gaze and fastened it on the dock as they glided alongside it. “But besides that … unfortunate chemical thing, we really have nothing in common. Please…” She looked back up, her eyes pleading. “Since you have no intention of marrying me—” she held up a halting hand to ward off any objections, though he’d made no move to speak.
After an awkward silence, she added hastily, “Since we have no intention of marrying each other, I think we’d better keep our distance from now on. Will you promise to do that?” she asked, struggling with her overpowering feelings for him.
Something like distress flickered across his face before he averted his gaze and swung the wheel enough to ease them into docking position. After the maneuver was completed, he looked back at her, studying her face with narrowed eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough. “I’ve been a lot of things, but, lady, I’ve never been a chemistry experiment.” He lifted a skeptical brow. “Until you say different, I’ll stay out of your … lab.”
She could hardly believe her ears. What a raging egomaniac this man was! “I won’t say different, Dr. Redigo!” she threw back. “Not until hell freezes over—twice!”
His head came up sharply, as though he’d been struck. After a few tense seconds, he said, “So be it.” This time there was no trace of malice in his tone. He looked as if he had absolu
tely no problem with the idea, and that made her unaccountably sad.
Her vision became blurred with unshed tears. Why did she suddenly feel as if he’d just rejected her? What had she expected him to do—stomp around in a rage, arguing and sputtering oaths? She swallowed several times, trying to think of a stinging rejoinder, but nothing came, which was probably for the best. If she chanced speaking, she’d just humiliate herself by crying.
Cord turned off the ignition, and the world became deathly still.
“Ahoy, there!” Nolan’s voice rang cheerfully across the air. “You two okay? We were worried, even though Cord radioed. You never know.”
Nolan’s lighthearted greeting hung in the air between them like a drawn sword.
Tension gripped tight in Tess’s throat. She tried to swallow it and failed. Though she wanted to drag her gaze from his, she couldn’t. When at last she found her voice, it was a reedy whisper. “We’d better go.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cord agreed easily enough, but his expression was unreadable. “Wouldn’t want to worry the boyfriend, now, would we?” He took her elbow and steered her toward the stern, giving her no opportunity to reply before helping her into Nolan’s waiting arms.
Before Cord could hop down on the dock, Nolan had pulled Tess into a loving embrace and was kissing her tenderly. Cord busied himself securing the boat. Maybe it was true that he and Tess had nothing more between them than an unfortunate chemical thing, as she’d so analytically referred to it. But right now, Nolan was holding her in his arms, kissing those luscious lips, and it made Cord’s skin crawl.
Before he could drive himself nuts about it, Mary was chattering away, dragging him along, telling him what had happened that day. A fisherman near Big Snake Bay had thought he’d seen something “unearthly.” He’d snapped several photographs, but it would be tomorrow before he could get them the pictures. And just after the rain stopped…
Cord allowed her to tug him in her wake, but he’d long since quit listening. Apparently he was determined to punish himself for being so rash this afternoon, by keeping his eyes trained on Nolan. His arm was cinched greedily about Tess’s waist as they walked up the steps toward the cliff. When Nolan bent to whisper some endearment in her ear, Cord felt a tightening in his gut and cursed.
“What?” Mary asked, shocked that out of nowhere her cousin had decided to singe the night air with blue language.
He found the grace to grin ruefully at the disgusted look on her face.
“Sorry.” He searched for an explanation, but when nothing plausible came to mind, he offered vaguely, “I was thinking about something else.”
She grunted. “Something charming, no doubt.”
“Charming as hell,” he mumbled.
“For an educated man, your vocabulary has a truncated feel to it tonight.”
“My vocabulary isn’t the only thing that feels truncated.”
She gave him an odd look. “Well, we’ll get back to that later. Right now, I’m curious about how you ended up taking Tess with you on your jaunt to the island.”
“She came to my room. Wanted to talk. I was in a hurry, so I suggested we talk on the boat ride.”
“What did she want?”
He pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t know. We never got around to it.”
She stopped in her tracks, dragging him to a halt beside her. Twisting to face him, she charged, “Cordell Merrett Redigo. You spent three hours out there alone with her in a storm-tossed cabin cruiser and you didn’t get around to talking?” She planted her fists on her narrow hips. “Just how did you and Miss Mankiller pass the time? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
He met her hard gaze and told her everything she had a right to know. “We got rained on saving the camera equipment you wanted me to save.”
She tilted her head. It was an I-don’t-believe-you gesture that he knew well. “Did you make a pass at that sweet child?”
“She’s no child, Mary.”
“Oh, Lord. That’s the worst possible observation you could have made. You did make a pass, didn’t you?”
He took her arm and began to tow her forward. “Would it matter what I said? You’ve made up your mind.”
“You’re damned right, I have,” she agreed briskly. “I know how you operate. I still get letters from that underwater photographer who came on that Grand Cayman trip with us. Sylvia George. She says to tell you hi in every gooey letter.”
“Tell her hi back.”
“Not on your life. I’m not going to encourage her. You do enough of that all by your lonesome. Besides, I have a problem closer to home. Every time I go to the dentist, my hygienist, Beverly, keeps talking about your fantastic incisors.”
“Beverly?”
“You know, Beverly Lane. Last summer you asked me to get you an appointment at my dentist? Beverly still talks about your teeth all the time, but I’m no idiot. That woman wants more of you than your bite-wing X ray.”
“Oh, Beverly. Right.” He recalled her now. Pretty blonde. “We had one date. All she took off in my presence was her jacket. I did nothing to the woman.”
“Nothing? You bat those obscene lashes. You smile that deranged smile. I’ll bet you plied Tess with wine out there in all that thunder and lightning and told her something about how great sex is on the stormy seas, didn’t you?”
“We weren’t at sea,” he observed obliquely.
“Don’t mince words with me. I was describing your seduction tactics. How close did I get?”
He shook his head at her, giving up. He might as well let her believe what she was going to believe anyway. “Amazing, Mary,” he muttered. “It’s almost like you were there.”
She exhaled heavily. “Just tell me one thing. Am I too late? Did she resist you tooth and nail?”
“She used them with all her strength,” he told her truthfully.
Mary smiled with relief. “Well, good. Still, there’s no time to lose. I have a feeling she’s attracted to you.”
“Chemically speaking,” he grumbled.
“What?” she asked.
“I was saying you ought to dump zoology and tell fortunes for a living. You’ve got an uncanny knack.”
Both of her brows shot up with skepticism. “I don’t like your tone. Was that a crack?”
With a tired smile, he dropped a brotherly arm about her thin shoulders, suggesting, “You’re the mind reader. You tell me.”
TESS SQUIRMED, thinking of her own duplicity. How could she have succumbed to her weakness for Cord now? She was a grown woman, for heaven’s sake! What was she, some kind of masochist, determined to hurt herself in the worst possible way?
After writhing around in Cord’s arms all afternoon, her body had radiated with a near terminal gratification. And it had all been because of Cord’s incredible sexual mastery. Then she’d had to look up and see Nolan, steadfast and loyal, waiting for her on the dock. She felt like some philandering sailor with a lover in every port. It wasn’t a good feeling. What was worse, it was lousy to be so trusted and yet be so grossly unworthy.
She berated herself unmercifully all the time she was showering and changing, then all through dinner. Her self-flagellation continued even now, as she sat listening to Etta and Ella Inch romping exuberantly through a piano and accordion duet: a medley of songs from the movie Saturday Night Fever.
Tess didn’t know which was distressing her more, the bizarre rendition of “Stayin’ Alive,” which sounded strangely similar to a Bavarian polka, or the fact that Cord passed her skeptical looks whenever their eyes chanced to meet. Actually, if pressed to be starkly truthful, she knew which distressed her most. Those damned, doubting blue eyes. There was no humor in them. Only a dark challenge.
She knew what he was thinking—that she was near hysteria in her effort to be a charming mistress of ceremonies, as well as Nolan’s idea of a delightful companion. So what if he was right, she groused inwardly, rubbing her temples. He didn’t have to keep telling her so with every piercing g
lance. How she chose to live her life was none of his business!
She had a pounding headache and wanted nothing more than a deep drag on a cigarette and a warm bed. She hated these impromptu talent fests. She hated Nolan’s delight in seeing her in charge. But, most of all, she hated Cord Redigo and his annoying know-it-all attitude.
When the Inch sisters paused to accept polite applause, Tess noticed that Cord was leaving the room. She felt a surge of emotion—whether it was relief or regret she was unable to determine. How muddle-headed she’d become since he’d walked back into her life. She couldn’t even decipher her own feelings anymore!
Well, she didn’t have time to wrestle with the problem now, she had to get up and be bubbly and witty and introduce the Inch sisters’ next offering. She flipped her note card and scanned it for an instant as the clapping died away. It read: “A medley from the musical Hair.” She stifled a sigh as she put on her best aren’t-we-having-fun smile.
Cord stalked out of the inn and took in a gulp of air. It didn’t make him feel any better. He scowled up at the stars as he strode angrily out to the end of the patio, his mind returning to the way Tess had looked minutes ago—so vulnerable, her eyes frantic, yet her face a fragile, convivial mask. He wondered why he was the only one who could see how miserable she was in her carefree-hostess role.
She was a lovely woman, but she wasn’t a born entertainer. She wanted peace and an ironic sort of secure freedom, but life had given her work, worries, obligations … and a boyfriend who had the imagination of a dead flounder. Cord had half a mind to tell the idiot to buy a book on How to Be the Life of the Party and leave Tessa Jane alone. Why couldn’t Nolan see that, given a choice, she’d much prefer to sit in a corner and read, or go outside and fly one of her kites. There wasn’t the slightest hint of ham in that woman, and it pained Cord to see her struggle so in a role she detested.
It also pained him to see Nolan so satisfied with the situation as it stood. Cord ground out a blasphemy, not wanting to feel this odd brotherly protectiveness for Tess. He ran a hand through his hair, realizing that there was nothing brotherly about his feelings for Tessa Jane Mankiller. She might not be his type—blond and leggy and worldly-wise—but she had every bit of what a woman needs to make a man glad he’s a man.
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