In response to her fear of not knowing him, Noah took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You know me, Sloan,” he whispered as he purposefully lowered his head. Slowly, tantalizingly, he smoothed his lips back and forth over hers, coaxing them to open for him. “Remember?” he whispered huskily, his hands sliding over her shoulders and back. Abruptly his mouth opened over hers and he deepened the kiss.
It took him less than fifteen seconds to bring Sloan’s memory into sharp focus, and all her defenses began to crumble. As if her hands had a will of their own, they slipped inside his jacket and slid over his hard chest, curving over his shoulders and around his neck. He lifted his mouth a fraction from hers, his eyes smoldering, his voice thick with desire. “Now do you remember me?”
Sloan realized it was already too late to turn back, because she was never going to be able to forget him. It was pointless to deny herself the rest of the memories he’d make for her in this room. There’d be time enough for loneliness and regret in Bell Harbor. In the meantime, she wanted to be with him tomorrow and the next day, and maybe the next—as long as her appeal lasted.
He was waiting for her answer, and Sloan nodded, her voice reduced to a soft moan of surrender. “Yes.” Leaning up on her toes, she crushed her mouth to his. She kissed him back with all the love and desperation in her heart, and his response was shattering. His mouth became insistent and hungry, his arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her against his rigid body, and his hands wandered possessively over her back and the sides of her breasts.
He shoved the door closed with his foot, and Sloan felt a thrill of nervous excitement, but instead of heightening the passionate exchange, he slowed it down. He kissed her until she was twisted into knots of desire—long, languorous kisses, followed by hard, demanding ones, while his hands explored and caressed her, matching the intensity of each kiss.
Sloan felt his fingers at the zipper of her gown just before he lifted his mouth from hers. He stepped back abruptly to pull off his tuxedo jacket, and the strapless gown slid to the floor at her feet. Automatically, she reached down to pick it up.
“Don’t,” he said, his gaze lingering on her rosy breasts, his hands swiftly unfastening his shirt.
He obviously had no inhibitions about undressing in front of her, but Sloan felt self-conscious enough for both of them.
When she turned away to finish undressing, Noah realized simultaneously that she was embarrassed and that her nude body was a miracle of ripe curves, slender limbs, and glowing skin. He unfastened the studs from his shirt cuffs while he watched her reach up to pull the pins out of her hair. With her hands raised and her head slightly bent like that, she reminded him forcibly of a painting of a nude that was hanging in the Louvre. When the last pin was out, she gave her head a hard shake, and her hair tumbled onto her shoulders in a waterfall of shining gold.
She was stunning, Noah thought with a surge of undiluted lust.
She was shy, he reminded himself.
He came up behind her and slid his arms around her, drawing her back against him. “You take my breath away,” he whispered against her neck. In response, she shivered. He turned her around and brought her down onto the bed; then he stretched out beside her and leaned up on his left arm, his hand resting beneath her nape.
Sloan waited with mounting anxiety while his gaze traveled over every curve and hollow of her body. When his gaze lifted to hers again, there was no mistaking the reckless glitter in those heavy-lidded gray eyes. His hand tightened, lifting her face, and she braced instinctively for a quick assault. Instead, it was a soft stroking kiss, as feather-light and relaxing as the slow stroking of his fingertips against her nape. A very reassuring kiss.
Reassured, Sloan turned into him and kissed him back, and as soon as she did, his right hand slid over her shoulder to her breast, cupping it, his thumb slowly circling her nipple. It was a teasing touch, a tantalizing touch.
Tantalized, Sloan spread her hand over the solid wall of his chest, sliding her fingers through the short, dark matting of hair. His skin felt like hot satin over steel, his nipple hard and small as she lightly grazed it with her palm. His arm was bunched muscle, his throat a corded column. Beneath her exploring fingertips, his jaw was chiseled from granite, his cheek carved from marble. He was magnificent, she realized achingly. And he was hers. For now. The hair at his temple was smooth . . .
To Sloan these touches were a poignant discovery; to Noah they were caresses so delicate and unexpected that they were profoundly stirring. He lifted his mouth from hers, watching her in tender disbelief while she sent desire pounding through his entire body.
Oblivious to the effect she was having on him, Sloan brushed her fingertips over his mouth. His lips were sculpted from a wondrous material that was firm and warm and mobile. His brows were thick and straight; his beautiful eyes were—open.
Startled, she looked up at him. His face was hard and dark with passion, a muscle moving spasmodically in his throat. She understood what she saw; she didn’t care how she’d caused it. Curving her hand around his nape, she closed her eyes, arching against him, and felt the gasp of his breath against her mouth when she kissed him.
His mouth opened over hers, demanding and urgent, his tongue stroking intimately against hers while his hand slid down her body. His fingers tangled in the tiny, springy curls between her thighs and gently gained entry. Sloan writhed beneath the sensual onslaught of fingers stroking deep inside her and the intimate stroking of his tongue against hers.
He tore his lips from hers and slid his mouth down her neck to her breasts, and by the time he returned to her lips, Sloan was clutching his shoulders, her fingers biting into his back.
His hands cupped her bottom and pulled her up against him, fitting her to his length; then he drove into her with enough force to make her body arch. Each slow, demanding thrust pushed her closer to the edge; then without warning, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled onto his back, carrying her with him.
She stared at him in disbelief, seated on top of him, and Noah chuckled at the startled expression on her flushed face. If she had been anyone else, he would have finished without doing this, but he wanted her to experience as much as his body would allow before he lost control. At least he told himself that was why he was doing it, but in some part of his passion-drugged brain, Noah knew his reason was somehow connected with her other two lovers. They had been clumsy and inept. He was neither. And he wanted to be absolutely certain Sloan knew that when they left this room.
Reaching up, he threaded his hands through the sides of her hair. “You are exquisite,” he whispered. His hands slid down to her breasts, then reluctantly released them and settled on her hips, helping her to start.
She hadn’t been lying about her lack of experience, Noah realized a few minutes later as he suppressed a laughing groan. She had no idea how to gauge the tempo for him; she slowed it when he wished she would go faster, changed it when he wanted her to sustain it. He couldn’t predict the next moment or depend on her next movement, and because he couldn’t, she now had him in a sustained state of excited suspense that was more arousing than it would have been if she had known what she was doing.
Just when he decided that, she began to watch his face and adjust to the pressure of his hips, and Noah’s amusement died. The passion he thought he had under control was surging through his loins with enough force to make him grasp her hips to stop her. Pulling her onto his chest, he struggled to stop the rampage, and when he couldn’t, he rolled her gently onto her back. He shifted on top of her, his hips pinning her to the bed as he began to thrust deeply inside of her. He dragged his mouth roughly across her cheek, longing to imprint himself on her mind as he was embedding himself in her body. “Open your eyes,” he said, his voice reduced to a raw whisper.
Her long russet lashes flickered open. Silently, her eyes begged for release, and silently, he promised it to her. His shoulders and arms rigid with the strain of holding back, he began to
increase the force of each stroke.
Sloan felt the pulsing beginning deep inside her. It quaked through until it finally exploded in a burst of extravagant pleasure that tore a low whimper from her throat. Noah drove into her one more time, his body shuddering with the same pleasure he’d given her. His head fell forward, his breathing labored. Wrapping his arm around her hips, he moved onto his side with her.
Sloan lay there, too shaken by what she’d felt to think, glorying in the simple thrill of being held in his arms. As sanity slowly returned, however, it became obvious to her that the man who had just made love to her had perfected the technique, undoubtedly through a great deal of practice with a great many women. On the other hand, she didn’t think he’d found her so completely inexperienced that she bored him and he wouldn’t want her again. If that were so, surely he wouldn’t be holding her so close now, his hand lazily rubbing the curve of her waist. As a precaution, she decided to say something to him. “Noah?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m a very quick learner,” she said earnestly.
Noah tipped his head down to see her beautiful face, and his lips quirked in a tender smile. “I noticed that,” he whispered.
“What I mean is, I’ll get better with practice.”
The bed shook with his laughter as he snatched her into his arms, burying his face in her neck. “God help me.”
Noah’s laughter faded, but his lighthearted mood lingered as he held her against him. Normally an orgasm left him feeling relaxed and then energized; it did not leave him feeling absurdly happy. He could not understand why the woman in his arms had such a profound effect on him in bed and out of it. She could make him hot with a glance, cheer him with a smile, melt him with a touch. She was without greed, vanity, or guile.
She was also without dinner, he realized. He turned his wrist and looked at his watch. He’d wanted her aboard early to see the sunset, and the evening was still delightfully young.
He smoothed her heavy hair off her smooth cheek, and she looked up at him. “The evening’s entertainment includes dinner and a tour,” he teased.
She gave him a slumberous smile, her long fingers idly spreading on his chest. “Was that included in the price of the ticket, or is it extra?”
“Don’t look at me like that or you’ll get something besides dinner and the tour.”
“Really?” she asked. “What?”
“Dessert.”
To avoid further temptation, he reached for the telephone and instructed that dinner be served in a half hour; then he reluctantly got out of bed.
• • •
They dined by candlelight in formal attire with music playing softly in the background, but the atmosphere between them was different. Without the distraction of unfulfilled sexual desire, they were able to talk like new friends getting to know one another.
By the time dinner was over, she was so relaxed that she thought nothing of answering his question about Carter and her mother. “My mother won a beauty contest when she was eighteen, and the prize was a trip to Fort Lauderdale and a week in the best hotel,” Sloan explained. “A photographer from the Fort Lauderdale newspaper was taking her picture on the beach. A cocktail party was taking place nearby—part of a rehearsal dinner for a wedding that Carter was attending—and he wandered over to see what was happening. He was wearing a white dinner jacket. My mother was dazzled. And that’s what happened.”
“That can’t be all that happened,” Noah pointed out as a joke.
“That’s nearly all that happened. My mother had been raised by her grandmother, and she was as naïve as she was beautiful. She spent the remaining three days of her trip with him in her hotel suite. She gave him her virginity, and Carter gave her Paris. She went back home, completely convinced they were in love and that he wanted to marry her—as soon as he could win his socially prominent family in San Francisco over to the idea. Naturally, Mom was a little surprised when she never heard from her ‘fiancé’ again. She was even more surprised when the doctor told her that she wasn’t sick with the flu, she was pregnant.”
Noah lifted his wineglass, watching the emotions play across her lovely face. She was trying very hard to sound offhand, but her voice softened when she mentioned her mother and it hardened almost imperceptibly when she mentioned Carter. “Then what happened?”
“The usual,” she said with a jaunty, sideways smile. “My mother went to the library and located the father of her baby by looking up his family’s name in Who’s Who.” When Noah didn’t smile at her attempt at humor, Sloan sobered and said lightly, “She was still so certain that he loved her and that his family must be being unfair to him that she took the rest of her prize money and bought a plane ticket. She arrived on Carter’s family’s doorstep at night, with her suitcase—also part of her contest prizes— but they told her Carter was out. She explained that she was his fiancée and asked if she could wait for him there. You can imagine the rest.”
“Probably,” Noah said, “but I’d like to hear it from you.”
“You’re awfully persistent,” Sloan joked. Instead of being dissuaded he cocked a dark brow in inquiry and waited for her to go on. Helpless to ignore his silent command to continue, she sighed and said, “In a very few minutes, they got the whole story out of her, and they were furious.” She paused, trying to think of a way to phrase the rest of the story. Carter was his friend and Paris’s father, and she didn’t want to needlessly tarnish his image. “They naturally felt he had done a wrong thing, and when Carter came home, he accepted responsibility and left with my mother—”
He mocked her attempt to gloss over the truth. “That’s not going to fly, Sloan. I knew Carter’s mother and father when they were older, and they couldn’t have changed that much. What really happened?”
A little unnerved by his bluntness, Sloan straightened the napkin in her lap and finally met his unwavering gaze. “Actually,” she said with a sigh, “when Carter came home that night, he was drunk, and his parents were already furious with him for a long list of transgressions. They threw him out and my mother with him. It must have been a sobering experience for him; he stopped in Las Vegas and married my mother before they went on to Florida. He had enough money left somewhere to buy a sailboat, and for the next two years he chartered it out. Paris was born; then I was born.”
“Then what?”
“Then Carter’s mother arrived one day in a limousine to tell him that his father had had a stroke. She told him he was welcome back in the family fold and she told him to bring one daughter with him. They left that same day with Paris.”
“Courtney is under the impression that you and your mother weren’t well provided for in that deal.”
“My mother was given a modest settlement,” Sloan said vaguely.
“How modest?”
“Modest,” Sloan said stubbornly; then she smiled and shook her head. “It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been much larger. My mother is so naïve and so sweet that she would have given it away to anyone who asked her for a loan or been swindled out of it by some phony ‘financial adviser.’ ”
“Is that what happened to the settlement she got?”
“Most of it,” Sloan confirmed.
“You never refer to Carter as your father, do you?” he asked.
She gave him a laughing look and rolled her eyes. “He isn’t my father.”
Noah slowly lowered his wineglass. “He’s not?”
“Not in any significant sense.”
“What, specifically, do you class as ‘significant’ here?”
“He is my biological parent, period. A ‘father’ is so much more than that. A father is someone who dries your tears when you’re little and looks under your bed because you’re afraid a monster is down there. He makes the school bully leave you and your best friend alone. He goes to PTA meetings and your softball games, even though you’re too little to play and they keep you on the bench. He worries about you when you’re sick, and he worries abo
ut boys getting intimate with you when you’re a teenager.”
Noah grinned at the insight she’d unwittingly provided. An image of a little blond girl in a softball uniform, sitting on a bench, drifted through his mind. Her big violet eyes would be sad because they wouldn’t let her play. “You played softball?” he asked, trying to remember if he knew a single woman who’d played softball as a child, rather than tennis or field hockey.
“I would be exaggerating to say that,” she said, her laugh touching his ears like the soft tinkling of bells. “I was so little for my age that if I played in my own age group, my teammates mistook me for grass and ran over me. I was in my teens before I finally hit a growth spurt.”
“It wasn’t much of a spurt,” Noah said tenderly.
“Oh, yes it was,” she assured him, laughing.
On second thought, Noah decided, it must have been one hell of a maturation process, because she had a gorgeous figure, perfectly proportioned for her height. Perfectly proportioned in every way for his body . . . The mere thought made him harden, and with a mixture of exasperation and amusement, he said, “I promised you a tour.”
He stood up and walked around to pull out her chair; then he draped the stole she’d brought over her shoulders.
• • •
Sloan was fascinated by the tour; she’d been on boats many times, but Apparition was more like a cruise ship than a boat. She explored the spotless engine room and then the galley, and when he realized she was truly interested, Noah got out the keys and showed her places he would normally have skipped, stopping to open corridor doors that concealed everything from cleaning supplies to spare nautical equipment. “I love boats,” she confessed to him with glowing eyes.
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