Eyes of Fire (15 page)

“Well, only as really nice ghosts,” Adam assured her.

“Even if they
were
thrown in here,” Liam Hinnerman said, “the currents probably carried them elsewhere, and then the sharks probably ate them up right after their carcasses got tossed into the drink anyway.”

“Liam!” Jerry North—slicked down beautifully in suntan oil—moaned.

But Darlene laughed. “Mr. Hinnerman, you are
very
pessimistic!”

Nellie's Reef was a nice dive, but it seemed almost anticlimactic after the Steps.

When the divers were all aboard the
Sloop Bee
after their second dive of the day, Sam realized just
how
compelling the Steps had been when Jim Santino said, “Great day, dive mistress! But let's do the Steps longer, maybe tomorrow or the day after? That was the most fascinating dive I've had in a long time. Don't you all agree?”

A chorus answered him affirmatively.

“Jerry will even go in if we go back,” Liam said.

Sam glanced at the blonde, who looked miserable. “Jerry, if you hate to dive—”

“I don't hate to dive. And if you decide to go back to the Steps…” She shrugged. “I guess I'll join the party.”

“See, Sam!” Joey Emerson said, his arm around his wife. “Even Jerry will dive.”

“Well, we'll see,” she murmured.

Adam was staring at her. She returned his stare. What the hell had he been holding in his hand?

When the
Sloop Bee
returned at last to Seafire Isle, the guests were quick to disembark and disappear.

Except for Adam. He helped Jem rinse down equipment as if he'd been doing it every day for years. The two men worked naturally and well together. Sam watched them broodingly for a while, then felt Adam's eyes on her.

Like a touch. Just like a damned touch.

She turned away, then started along the path to the main house and her own cottage.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

She turned to see him standing on the dock, his hands on his hips. He was barefoot, wearing just his swim trunks.

Damn. She wasn't breathing again.

He was sleek and toned. Bronze muscles rippled along every hard inch of his body.

She threw up her hands, exasperated with him and with herself. “To bathe and change,” she said.

“Not alone, you're not,” he told her.

She arched a brow. “Oh?”

“Damned right, oh.”

“Well, I'm going. So if you're coming…”

She turned and started along the path again. Fine, she decided. If he was going to follow her, he could tell her what he'd had in his hand.

She didn't look back, but she was certain that Adam and Jem had exchanged a look assuring one another that women were indeed cantankerous creatures. A man couldn't live with one, but then, he couldn't shoot her, either.

It didn't matter. She knew he was behind her. She could almost feel his breath, sense his warmth.

She unlocked the door to her cottage and stepped inside. She left the door open.

She knew that he had followed her into the living room of her cottage, that he'd closed the door behind himself and carefully locked it. All too aware of him, she started down the hallway to the bathroom.

“Sam—”

She stopped, dead still, staring at him. “What?”

“Sam, you can't stay alone.”

“What did you find at the Steps, Adam?”

“Nothing.”

“You're a liar, Adam.”

“I can't leave you alone, Sam.”

Can't leave you alone….
What exactly did that mean? He couldn't leave her alone because she might be in danger, or he couldn't leave her alone because he was caught in the same tangle of emotion—and lust?

Maybe it was a little bit of both.

It didn't really matter. She had lost. Lost what, though, she wasn't quite certain. A battle with herself, she supposed. Longing was rising over dignity.

“Sam, you've got to realize, I can't leave you—”

“Fine.” She turned again, peeling down the straps of her damp blue bathing suit as she went.

She stepped out of it completely in front of the bathroom door and left it lying in the hall.

He couldn't leave her alone. Well, if he was going to be with her constantly, she couldn't bear it if he left her alone.

He never attacked without an invitation. Well, now he had his damned invitation. She stood in the hallway for a moment with her naked back to him.

Then she walked into the bathroom and into the shower, turning the spray on full, allowing it to sluice through her hair. She moved mechanically, scrubbing her body, then her hair, rinsing, not opening her eyes, hearing only the thunder of the water.

He was there, she thought. He'd followed her. Into the bathroom. He was near her, now.

Because he couldn't stay away.

Because he'd been invited….

And any minute, he would step in beside her. He would touch her.

He was near.

Wasn't.

Was….

Oh, God…it was wrong, she tried to tell herself. What she was doing was wrong. Justin Carlyle had taught her all the right things about life. He had taught her that love was the greatest emotion. He had taught her to be considerate, caring, fair and honest. He had taught her to see the world through the eyes of others, to be just and understanding. He had taught her that sex wasn't something to be engaged in lightly. He had taught her that it was an expression of love to be shared between two individuals when there was commitment and caring between them.

She had believed him. And she had been deeply in love with Adam O'Connor the first time she had ever made love with him.

Now…

Now, she just remembered.

The way he'd touched her.

The way he'd made her feel.

Now…

Now the man had scarcely come back in her life, and here she was, fantasizing. He didn't know what her past few years had been like, and she didn't know about his.

Of course, she could guess….

But that didn't matter. The things her father had taught her didn't matter. The look Adam had given her in the water did.

Just as her early years had been too sheltered, her last years had been too isolated. She wanted Adam. She didn't want to think about right or wrong. She didn't want to assess her feelings for him, and she most certainly didn't want to think about the emotional hell she would endure once things were over. Her every action seemed to be ruled by her nearly desperate desire for him. She wanted to be held. Touched, stroked. More….

She opened her eyes at last, feeling the water pouring over her head and hair and shoulders.

He was there, standing just outside the shower door, arms crossed over his chest, silver-gray eyes hard on her. She stared at him. He opened the shower door, still in his trunks, stepped into the stall and stood before her. For long moments the water splashed and poured and rioted around them as he continued to stare at her.

She could tell him to get the hell out, and he would go.

But she had nothing to say.

Neither did he.

Suddenly he pulled her into his arms. His lips ground down on hers, hard, with the same anger that had radiated from him all day. It didn't matter. She was just as angry. And she was glad of the rough feel of him, of his hands, hard as they moved down her back, crushing her shoulders closer, then her hips, then rounding over her buttocks until she was so intimately close against him that she could feel the rise of his erection through the material of his bathing briefs. He drew her even closer, kissing her all the while, openmouthed kisses, as hot and wet as the water streaming around them. Finally he stepped back ever so slightly, and his hand slipped between them to thrust her thighs apart, his fingers moving supplely over the riot of short red hair at her pubis, then drawing a gasp from her as they thrust inside. His lips remained on hers, his tongue moving within her mouth, his fingers within her, his thumb rubbing a tender nub of outer flesh. Weakness pervaded her, sensation spilling through her like the burning rays of the sun. She clung to his shoulders, nearly shrieking aloud.

His lips parted from hers, but his hands remained on her.

His eyes demanded, challenged or mocked, she wasn't sure which. It didn't matter. She still didn't have anything to say.

Neither did he.

She leaned her head against his soaking chest, afraid that she was going to fall.

He whispered to her at last. “How many times do you think we made love?”

“I don't know…maybe thirty, maybe—”

“Let's make it thirty-one.”

“I…”

“Yes?”

“I thought we were already doing that.”

“Getting there,” he murmured. He slammed the faucet, and the cascade of water came to an abrupt stop.

She stared at him, hoping she wasn't going to have to stand too much longer. She couldn't breathe at all. Rivers of liquid heat were flooding her limbs. Her throat was dry, her knees incredibly weak.

Pathetic! she taunted herself.

Seduced.
Needy.

“I thought—” she began.

“We're both just too damned tall for a shower stall,” he said.

And then she didn't have to stand any longer, because he picked her up.

And she was in his arms, her eyes on his….

Pathetic behavior, she warned herself.

No. Just…
hungry.

God, yes.

Just so
hungry….

T
here was absolutely no question of thinking about what she was doing.

Maybe she had already done all the thinking.

And maybe all the thinking and logic in the world didn't mean anything now.

Adam had returned to her life just the way he had come the first time, becoming the very center of it simply by being there. Adam was here, and she wanted him. Just as she had before. And his touch…

Just as she had wanted it before.

She was barely aware of being carried from the shower to her bedroom. Peripheral perceptions of tile, then carpet, as he moved, and nothing more. They were both still wet when he came down beside her on her bed, the room in shadow because the sun was starting its crimson fall into the west, and she'd left the drapes half closed, as well. There were a few streaks of light filtering in, rays upon which dust motes danced in a slow, magical swirl.

Her hair was soaked, splayed across the pillow. She would have been cold if not for the inferno of heat that seemed to exist between the two of them. She shivered at first, waiting for that heat to radiate through her limbs.

She was still seeing the fused silver of his eyes, so intent upon her own, when he moved against her, the dampness of his body covering her, the pressure of his lips against her throat. The fullness of his body covered hers; the stroking of his hands warmed her.

The focus of his mouth shifted from her pulse to her right breast. Caressing, tugging, rubbing. His knee intruded between her thighs. His hand followed suit. Fingers stroked, caressed, probed.

She shivered no more.

Her fingers bit into his shoulders; her body burst into heat. She shifted, trying to avoid the exquisite pleasure of his touch, then shifted again, eager for more of it. Climbing, rising, feeling the hot spiral that burned at the center of her sex, feeding her limbs, being fed in turn. She closed her eyes as thought momentarily intruded.

No, no, no…

Yes, yes, oh, God, yes…

His lips fed on her left breast. His free hand plunged into her hair, and then his mouth was covering hers, tongue invading so hotly, completely, wetly. In, out, around, decadently, like the motion between her thighs. Cries rose within her throat; she could bear no more, yet she was desperate for more.

Suddenly he drew away, staring at her as he ran his palms down her thighs, then lower. She met his gaze and tried to reach out, to caress him, to hold him intimately, to torment as he had done. To arouse him.

He pressed her back.

Rose over her.

Came into her….

Absorbing the pleasure of him, she briefly remembered words Yancy had said to her once, Yancy spilling out her own desperate emotions, laughter, love, pain….

Sometimes men wanted to be touched.

Sometimes they wanted to get right to it.

Oh, God.

He was getting right to it.

Her arms encircled him; her limbs embraced him. She clung to him, fingers digging, releasing, digging once more, as her breath was swept away again and again. Their bodies dried from the heat emanating from within them, sheened over again from that same heat. She felt him. In her. Deeper. Deeper. More a part of her than ever. Touching, rubbing, stroking. Harder, filling her, arousing her. In, out, she couldn't think, could barely feel, had to, had to…

Suddenly he was gone completely. Her eyes had been closed, but now they opened, met his. Now his lips touched hers again. She made some sound of protest, but it didn't matter. He was stroking her again, kissing her again. Her lips, breast, throat. Her abdomen, the curve of her hip, the soft skin of her inner thigh, higher, circling, never really touching, never touching…

Sam shrieked, twisting, writhing, struggling, constricting, soaring to a pinnacle with passions she thought could crest no higher. Yet he was atop her again, and the fire she felt within was stoked again, maddened, hardened, driven to a wilder, more urgent, desperate level. She was keenly aware of the force of his body, scarcely aware of anything else, the sheets, the dust motes on the air. She knew only the slickness of her flesh, of his, their bodies moving, ever moving, against each other. She could hear the wind, but it wasn't the wind, it was her own breath, the husky, erotic whispers that complemented the scent, taste, the feel of their loving as he urged onward. At last a fountain of light and shadow seemed to erupt, and she heard the keening of the cries that exploded from her lips as the climax seized her.

He slid to her side, gasping for breath. She instantly and instinctively curled against him, her head on his chest so she could listen to the thunder of his heart. This was where she had wanted to be, this was what she had wanted to feel, since she had seen him, heard his voice, touched him. He'd gone out of her life, and sheltered as she might have been, she'd known that what they'd shared had been vivid, that someone to love so fiercely, someone who lived so determinedly and passionately, came along but seldom.

For long moments Sam simply breathed, inhaling deeply, trying to still the wild, erratic beating of her heart. She could still feel his body warmth like a blanket that swept over her in comforting waves.

They'd had sex,
she tried to tell herself. Something as physical and natural as the simple breathing she was now trying so hard to achieve. Nothing miraculous, nothing unusual, nothing that wasn't shared millions of times a day across the world. She had no right to look to the past, to make more of this relationship than what existed. She'd done that before, never realizing what a fool she was being. She couldn't blame him for the way things had ended, not completely.

It had never been right between them.

No, it hadn't been right. But it had been nearly perfect.

She didn't want to think about the past right now. About the emotions she'd felt. The things she had done. The life she had been living.

But, oh, dear God, when it was nearly perfect, it was wonderful. Every part of it. The sweetness of wanting, of reaching. Flying higher and higher, savoring sensations, wanting them to go on forever, desperate to reach the climax.

Then the aftermath. The
breathing
. The intimacy. The wonderful closeness that could only be shared in the intimacy following lovemaking. Words could be so awkward, but also personal, reflecting the very uniqueness of being together, that special intimacy.

She felt his fingers on her chin, lifting her face to his. She offered him a slow smile, waiting to hear tender words that would envelop her more fully in the blanket of intimacy that was wrapped around them.

His eyes were sharp, his features taut, his jaw twisted at an angle.

“Tell me about you and Hank Jennings,” he demanded.

 

The phone rang.

The newly showered diver picked it up quickly, looking furtively over one shoulder.

“Yes?”

“We've got real trouble.”

“And that is?”

“There's someone on the island who's missing from elsewhere. Get that? Someone is missing from where he's supposed to be. Escaped to the island.”

“Then someone is surely dead.”

“Bones and body parts make someone dead. Not missing. Missing is trouble.”

“All right, all right—”

“I want dead. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“A fucking head on a platter, you understand?”

“Yes, yes.”

“A head on a platter.”

“Yes.” Exasperated now.

“Soon. Damned soon.”

The diver hung up, shaking. It should never have come to this.

 

“What?” Sam demanded.

“What was your relationship? He came to study the
Beldona.
You apparently told him everything you knew. You went diving with him constantly.”

“Hardly constantly,” Sam said, her eyes narrowed.

“What was your relationship?” he insisted.

Sam tried to draw away from him, her temper so fierce that she seemed to be on fire again, her entire body shaking.

But his hold on her seemed fueled by a sudden rise in his own temper. His fingers gripped her arms, his leg, thrown over her lower body, seemed like an iron bar, blocking her.

“Why are you bothering to ask me? It seems to me as if you've already decided what my relationship with him was. Let's see. You think I had a baby with the man, but God forbid I should admit it. So I gave the baby to Yancy and insisted that she raise him. That's it. Hank came to the island, and I thought, wow, I never get a chance to have a relationship, and this guy has come to stay a while. Is that what you think? What the hell difference does it make to you? What right do you even have to ask?”

“I need to know!”

“Well, you know what? That's too damned bad, because I'm not telling you anything. Now, move. Just move. Get your leg off me.” She threw her hands between them, pressing, straining against his chest. He caught her wrists and rolled atop her to stop the rising impetus of her attack.

Her eyes met his. She wanted to kill him.

She wanted him again.

 

The sun was murder. Just murder.

Jerry North loved it, but she knew too well what it did to the skin. She'd showered, and now she stroked lotion over the length of her body.

She was in pain.

Not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

And, of course, she knew of no way to ease that pain.

She had made her own choices in life. She couldn't complain of rough beginnings, of having been an abused child. She couldn't blame her actions, her choices, on anyone but herself. She could only blame them on being young. Foolish. On not seeing the forest for the trees. And then…

Well, then it always seemed that one mistake led to another. That once a bad path was chosen, it led farther and farther into ruts and bogs, darkness…even terror.

And now…

Now she could lie down and cry for a week straight. Now she almost longed to die from the pain that filled her, the pain of what she had done and, worse, the pain of what could have been.

She wasn't evil. She knew that. But she had lived in the miasma of evil, and she had not remained unscathed. For her now, there was nothing left but the mechanics of going through day-to-day life. Washing, bathing, dressing. Eating, breathing. Responding.

Watching, and living in the hope that she could, having learned from her mistakes, perhaps keep the blood of evil from touching others.

Still wrapped in her towel, she sat at the foot of the bed, mechanically applying coral polish to her toes.

She realized suddenly that Liam had come into the room, that he was standing in front of her, his hands on his hips, staring at her.

“You're going to dive.”

She didn't reply.

“God damn you, bitch, you're going to dive!”

Jerry shrugged.

Then she gasped, stunned from her self-absorption as the back of his hand came flying against her jaw, the force stinging and powerful enough to send her flat against the bed, staring up at him.

Forgotten, the bottle of polish rolled to the floor.

Liam leaned over her, jaw locked, eyes cold. “You are going to dive. And you are going to get me to that ship.”

She tried to crawl away from him, but he caught her by the ankles, flipping her violently onto her back again. He smiled. Gripped her ankles harder to drag her closer to him. She didn't know if he meant to strike her again or force himself on her.

She didn't know if she saw much of a difference between the two choices at that moment.

Either way, he would hurt her.

And either way, he would be careful not to leave a bruise.

 

She lay sleeping.

Propped up on one elbow, Adam watched Sam, smiling bittersweetly. She had to be completely on edge, but Sam was tough, cool, independent. Life had to be taking its toll, but she just kept moving right through it.

But now her exhaustion was evident. Not that they hadn't expended a fair amount of energy between fighting and making love. It was just that the level of tension between them always seemed to remain so high.

Words were exchanged so heatedly. Okay, so maybe he was an ass. Maybe a great bout of sex shouldn't be followed up by a question about a previous lover. It was just weighing so damned heavily on his heart and mind. He was wondering on the one very painful hand just what had befallen Hank, and then on the other hand wondering what had gone on between Hank and Sam. And then there was the question of the baby.

No question. That child was Hank's. There should have been a question, he knew. Most babies just looked like little old men. Sometimes they were bald, sometimes they had hair, but they always had big eyes and round, creased faces. They didn't look like anybody.