Bride in Barbados (7 page)

His tongue flicked sensuously into the hollow at the base
of her throat where a pulse jerked crazily. By the time his mouth
returned to savor her lips again, she was quaking with sensations that
had lain dormant for a long time. The lazy sensuality of his kiss built
a fire inside her, and with a will of its own, her body arched and
shaped itself to his.

With a soft moan, he lifted her as easily as he might have
lifted a child and carried her to the bedroom. Susan lay in a
languorous daze as he undressed her, her body totally compliant. Dark
lashes fluttered down and she watched through their fringes as he
shrugged out of his clothes with an easy litheness.

Then she was covered by the solid, warm length of his
naked body. She locked her arms around the bronze hardness of his neck
and lifted her soft mouth eagerly for his plundering kiss.

He made love to her with a deliberate slowness, keeping
the boiling passion in himself within rigid bounds until she was
brought to a sensuous arousal that was overwhelming in its need. No man
had ever made her feel like this before. Raging fire and unbearable
tension built inside her until her fingernails were digging into the
rippling muscles of his back, and her body was arching against him in a
plea for release.

His desire burst its bounds then and his thrusting body
answered her unspoken plea with the same deliberate slowness that took
her higher and higher, to the brink of human sensation, lifting her,
lifting her with him until she plunged over the edge in a shattering
explosion of feeling that vibrated in the very depths of her soul.

Sunlight trickled through an opening in the coarsely
textured curtains and settled in a golden puddle on one side of
Travis's sleeping face. Susan stirred languidly and turned her head on
the pillow to look at him. The night just past now seemed only a misty
phantasm, but the solid bulk of him beside her, the sheet a snowy
contrast to the dark hair springing from the taut, tanned skin of his
chest, assured her that she had not dreamed it.

Her eyes took in the thick tousle of black hair, the wide
forehead, the heavy brows and lashes, the strong nose and dark-stubbled
chin, the prominent cheekbones with the slight hollows beneath. The
virile beauty of him filled her senses and made her breath lodge in her
throat. The feelings the slow appraisal stirred in her were too lovely
to resist, and she touched his cheek with tenderness, smoothed the
disordered strands of hair back from his forehead.

He murmured an incoherent guttural sound, and a smile
touched the sensuous outline of his mouth. His lids came open slowly
and slumberous gold-glinted brown eyes looked into hers.

"What time is it?"

"I don't know. Very late, I think." Her hand shifted to
his hard chest, the fingers working themselves slowly in among the
curling black hairs. She wanted to touch him everywhere, to trace the
outlines of the body that she had learned during the night so that its
imprint would be impressed into her fingers and palms as it was burned
in her brain. The knowledge that very soon he would walk out of her
life and she would never see him again was a leaden weight in her
chest. "What time does your plane leave?"

His eyes traveled lingeringly down the smooth curve of her
cheek, over the ivory satin skin of her neck and shoulders to the soft
mounds of her breasts half-covered by the sheet. He tugged at the
sheet, exposing her, and she saw the slumbering passion in his dark
eyes glow and catch fire. His hand molded itself to her rib cage and he
buried his face in the cavity between her breasts, burrowing sensuously
with his tongue.

"What plane?" The husky words were muffled by the
burgeoning fullness of her flesh, and his breath heated her skin
deliciously.

She placed both hands on his head, her fingers entangled
in his hair, and pressed him into her with a soft sigh. "Oh,
Travis—Travis."

He was brushing her with his lips and his wondrous strong
and gentle hands, and her pores were coming to life under his touch,
opening and quivering with melting warmth.

"You are too beautiful to be real," he said thickly as he
lifted her to lie on top of him. She felt the firm length of his
thighs, the pulsing hardness of his desire and the way her soft breasts
were crushed against the solid roughness of his chest.

Her hair was a curtain of silvery blondness enclosing
their faces as she looked deeply into the musteline depths of his eyes.
She lowered her lips to his, touching gently at first, tracing the warm
contours with the moist tip of her tongue. He groaned, the intimate
warmth of his breath entering her mouth, and his arms tightened around
her, pulling her harder against him as if he wanted her body to meld
into his, to be a part of him. The kiss deepened, and his hands moved
over her back and the curve of her hips to lift and press her even
closer, and finally, easily, the ultimate closeness was accomplished.

Their bodies were moist with the mingled heat of their
desire. Susan wanted to wait, to draw out and savor the sweet spasms
that were filling her. He was a part of her and all around her, and she
wanted it never to end. But she couldn't stop the pressure that was
building in both of them as they moved together in the perfect rhythm
of love. She felt as if all of her life had been leading up to this one
shattering moment when her yielding softness became one with the
unleashed power of this man.

There was a moment of suspended stillness, a moment out of
time, and then with a plunging feeling all else was drowned in an
overwhelming rush of sensation that was like the sun exploding, the
melting of the elements.

"Susan!" Her name sounded as if it had been torn from the
deepest well of his being. Then, more quietly, unsteadily, "Ah,
Susan…"

They lay still, their bodies entwined, their eyes closed
as their labored breathing slowed. After a few moments, he settled her
against his side with her head tucked under his chin, and one leg lying
across both of his. They lay together like interlocking pieces of a
puzzle as his hand moved down the length of her back, molding her
closer.

"You have filled me and drained me all at the same time,"
he whispered softly. He pressed his lips against her forehead and with
gentle fingers smoothed back the moist tangle of her hair.

She wrapped an arm and a leg around him and pressed her
face into his neck, inhaling the musky masculinity of his skin. She
felt his body relaxing and heard the measured slowness of his breathing
and thought that he had fallen asleep. She lay very still so as not to
awaken him. When he awoke he would leave. He would leave—oh,
please, no…

A wave of wrenching sadness rose in her and she pressed
her eyelids tightly closed for long moments to keep back the hot tears.
It wasn't until he spoke that she knew he hadn't been asleep at all.
Even then she believed briefly that she had fallen asleep, must surely
be dreaming.

"Marry me, Susan."

At first she did not move, did not want to dispel the
dream. She felt the warm sunlight on her body, saw the blank whiteness
of the far bedroom wall through the dark screen of her lashes, and
comprehension uncurled in her. She lifted her head and looked into his
face, a frown of disbelief knitting her brow.

"What did you say?"

A slow smile lifted a corner of his mouth, partially
exposed the even line of white teeth. "I asked you to marry me."

She sat up abruptly, tugging at the sheet and tucking it
tightly around her at her armpits, succeeding at the same time in
draping one end of it over him below the waist.

She managed a shaky laugh. "You have a weird sense of
humor, you know that?"

"I'm not joking."

"But you can't
mean
it."

He lifted his head to support it on one hand and looked at
her. "Of course I mean it."

She stared at him, searched for a hint of teasing in his
expression, but could find none. "We—we don't even know each
other very well."

A devilish glint flashed in his eyes. "We know all the
important things." A muscle at one corner of his mouth twitched. "Oh, I
get it. You don't respect me anymore."

There was no hope of being reasonable while he was so
close to her, teasing and looking at her like that. She left the bed,
taking the sheet with her and clutching it about her. Suddenly she felt
as if she needed its protection.

He lay back, arms behind his head, unabashedly naked, and
laughed at her. "Isn't it a little late for modesty?"

"I can't think when I'm… uncovered."

He watched her, amused, as she wrapped the sheet more
carefully about herself and tried to comb some of the disorder out of
her hair with her fingers. Finally she met his look and said gravely,
"I'm going to take a shower. I—I want you to
know—I'm aware that a person might say things he doesn't
really mean when he's feeling… close to someone
and… vulnerable. I'll understand if you're gone when I come
back." She turned away from him and padded across the carpet, a corner
of the sheet dragging behind her like a train.

In the bathroom, she turned on the shower, adjusting it to
a warm, hard spray before she stepped in. She just stood for several
moments, letting the water hit her with its force and run off her in
streams. Gradually, her body began to relax and she felt slightly
calmer. But her mind continued to go in circles.

The mere thought of becoming Travis's wife, of going with
him to Barbados and repeating the experiences of last night again and
again, made her feel weak with longing. But the well-developed sensible
side of her nature reminded her that sex—even the dazzlingly
glorious sort she'd shared with Travis—was not enough to make
a marriage work. She was insightful enough, too, to realize that her
own unhappy situation in Miami might be bathing the experiences of the
last few days in a rosy glow that would dissipate in the mundane
every-dayness of married life.

These thoughts did not keep her imagination from veering
off into wonderful daydreams of life as Mrs. Travis Sennett, though.
But all this confusion was probably academic, anyway, she told herself
scornfully as she turned her back to the spray and let it drench her
hair.

Travis would undoubtedly have had second thoughts by the
time she emerged. Even now he was probably scrambling into his clothes,
thanking his lucky stars she'd seen fit to offer him a graceful way
out of his impetuous proposal. He would be gone when she returned to
the bedroom, and she would never see him again. She made herself face
that, but the thought caused a sharp pain in her midsection that made
her gasp and she had to swallow several times to fight down the nausea
that rose in her throat.

She stayed in the shower for a long time and, when she
emerged to dry her body and wrap her dripping hair in a towel,
turban-style, she made herself linger for more long minutes to give him
ample time to vacate the apartment.

Finally she lifted her white terry robe from a hook on the
door and slipped it on over skin that tingled and glowed pink from the
sharp shower spray. She lapped the robe in front and tied the belt
snugly. She put her hand on the doorknob and drew several long breaths,
steeling herself to face the emptiness of the apartment.

When she stepped into the bedroom, Travis was sitting on
the edge of the bed in his trousers and shirt, smoking a cheroot. He
raked her with a thoughtful scrutiny before he said, "Do you always
take so long in the shower?"

The sight of him sitting there, solid and real, set off a
speeded up drumming of her heart. "I wanted to give you plenty of time
to get dressed and go."

"Not until I get an answer to my question."

She clutched at the lapels of her robe, pulling them more
closely together. "I—I don't know what to say, Travis. It
seems too fast. I don't want you to rush into anything you'll regret
later. Also—" She swallowed but made herself go on. "I think
you should know that I've lost my job. I'm in a pretty precarious
position right now. If I said yes, it would be only natural if you
thought I was marrying you because of that."

"Would you be?"

His dark eyes held hers gravely. She shook her head. "No,"
she said in a tone that was barely above a whisper. "I wouldn't do
that. It might not be easy, but I can get another job. I've no doubt of
it."

"Assuming that you are considering saying yes," he went
on, still holding her eyes with his as he stubbed out the cheroot in an
ashtray on the bedside table, "what
are
your
reasons?"

After a long moment, she said falteringly, "You're an
extremely attractive man, Travis Sennett. I think we both know that
last night was very special." She paused, seeing the fathomless
deepening of the brown eyes. She wanted desperately to say what she was
beginning to suspect, that already she was falling in love with him.
But it seemed so incredible, so unlike her to fall in love with a man
she'd known only a few days. Yet hardly as incredible, she thought
dazedly, was the fact that she was actually considering marrying
him—yes, wanted to marry him at this moment as she had never
wanted anything before in her life, and hang the consequences.

He took a long breath and got to his feet. Coming to her,
he touched her cheek tentatively. "Then I'll ask you again. Will you
marry me?"

She looked into his face, feeling bemused. She knew that
all the statistics were against such a hasty marriage, that she might
very well come to regret it. But she also knew that she wanted nothing
so much as to go with him when he left Miami, to be with him all the
time.

"It's impulsive and probably crazy." She hesitated, seeing
the hopeful expectancy in his expression, as if her acceptance were
truly vital to him. She thought of asking him to stay in Miami longer
so that they could spend more time together before taking such a
drastic step. But instead, she said, "Yes, I'll marry you. Oh, yes."