Strangers in Paradise (20 page)

“Let me just say this. I like you both very much.”

“But, Gene!” Alexi protested softly, loving him. “Liking us both doesn't make us right for each other!”

“Haven't you been?”

She didn't answer him, and he went on. “I've lived a long time, Alexi. A long, long time. And I've known thousands of people. Thousands. And out of that, only a handful could I really call friends, could I really admire. I learned to know people from the soul, Alexi. Appearances mean little; even words can mean little. What's in a man's heart and what's in his soul, those are the important things. Rex—he just doesn't like crowds. But then, well, I'm not so fond of fuss and confusion myself.”

“He has an awful temper,” Alexi supplied. “And he has a way of being horrendously overbearing.”

“Does he now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you have a way with you yourself, Alexi. You can't listen to good sense if you've got your mind set. Oh, here comes Rex now.”

Alexi glanced up. Rex, so dark and arresting that even in his jeans and polo shirt he was drawing fascinated glances, was coming back toward them, a thoughtful expression knit into his features. He scowled, though, as he saw Alexi's eyes on him. She felt a little chill run down her spine. He was still ready to kill. She might have added to Gene that he didn't seem to be a bit forgiving. But then, of course, maybe she deserved his anger for what she had said. Even for a male ego that wasn't particularly fragile, that might have been a low blow.

I just want you to love me! she thought, watching him. Love me forever, believe in me, trust in me...

A pretty brunette in very short captain's shorts suddenly jumped up from a table, barring Rex's way. She had one of his books in her hands—a hardcover text. Rex paused, gave her a devastating smile and signed the book.

Alexi looked down at her plate again. She wasn't the jealous type. Things like that would never bother her—normally. But she couldn't help wondering what Rex was thinking as he looked at the young woman. Was she someone that he would want to call once Alexi had returned to New York?

“Before I forget,” Gene was saying, “I thought you might enjoy this.”

“Pardon? I'm sorry.”

Alexi returned her attention to Gene. He was handing her a small, very old and fragile-looking book that had been carefully and tenderly wrapped in a plastic sheath.

“What is it?”

“Eugenia Brandywine's diary. She left it to me—I was always such a pesky kid. Interested in war and life. I thought you might enjoy it. She made entries after the war, but an awful lot is about Pierre, meeting him, running away with him. Very...romantic.”

“Oh, Gene!”

Alexi stared down at the little book. She would enjoy it; she would treasure it, just as she treasured the old house and the very special history Gene had always given her. She looked up at him again. “I can't take this. It's a family treasure—”

“Alexi, you are my family.” He patted her hand. “Eugenia's family. Keep the book. Take good care of it.”

“I will!” Alexi promised. She leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Thank you so much.”

He smiled at her, covering the softness of her hand again with the weathered calluses of his own. “No, Alexi, thank
you
.” He stood then, abruptly, an amazingly handsome man of immense dignity. “I've got to go.”

“Go?” Alexi echoed hollowly.

“Good heavens, yes. I have a chess match with Charles Holloway in less than half an hour, and I'll be damned if I'll let that youngster catch me napping.”

“Youngster?”

“A mere eighty-eight,” Gene told her. “Kiss me again, Alexi. It's an old man's last great pleasure.”

She kissed his cheek. By then, Rex had finished with his fan and reached the table. He shook hands with Gene.

“Have a good sail, now,” Gene said.

A streak of stubbornness flashed through Alexi. If Rex had been over at the other table, planning his future dates, then he should already be asking one of them out on the boat.

“I don't think I'm going, Gene.” They both stared at her. She certainly had their attention. She smiled serenely. “Maybe I'll scout some nearby kennels for a good German shepherd.”

“Alexi, you know that you are making me insane,” Rex said softly.

“Really? Then I'm quite sorry.”

“Alexi, you're going on the boat.”

“Rex, I am not.”

He looked as if he wanted to explode. At the moment, it was nice. He couldn't possibly make a move against her. They were in a public restaurant, and Gene was standing right beside him.

Rex looked at Gene. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Gene shook his head. “Women. They're very independent these days.”

“Yes, but is a man supposed to let one get herself killed?”

“That's up to the man, I suppose,” Gene mused.

Alexi, who had been watching the interplay between them, suddenly gasped. Rex caught her arm and dragged her out of the chair and threw her over his shoulder.

“You can't do this!” Alexi wailed. “We're in a public restaurant! Gene...?”

The world was tilting on her. Rex was walking quickly past tables and waitresses and startled customers.

“Have a good time, Alexi!” Gene called.

“Rex, damn you, you can't—”

“Alexi, most obviously,” he promised her, “I can.”

And, most obviously, he could. They were already out in the bright sunlight again, and Rex was hurrying down the dock toward a beautiful red-white-and-black sloop with the name
Tatiana
scripted in bold black letters across her bow.

Chapter 11

A
lexi was dizzy. He was walking so quickly that her chin banged against his back and the ground waved beneath her feet. She spat out his name, then swore soundly. But he didn't seem to hear a thing—he didn't even seem to notice that she was ineffectually struggling to rise against his sure motion. “Rex—”

He swung sharply—and made a little leap that seemed to Alexi like a split-second death plunge on a roller coaster.

“Rex!”

They were on the boat. He still didn't stop. Alexi had a blurred vision of a chart desk and a radio and a neat little galley with pine cabinets. They quickly passed a dining booth and a plaid-covered bunk and a little door marked Head. Then Rex barged through a slatted door and dumped her down on something soft. For such a tiny cabin, it was a big bed, built right into the shape of the boat and full of little brown throw pillows to go with the very masculine brown-and-beige quilt that covered the bed.

“This is absurd,” she told him, curling her feet beneath her and trying to rise to a dignified position. She got high enough to crack her head on the storage shelves that stretched over the bed.

“Small space,” he warned her. “And you're absurd. Yes, no, yes, no—dammit, use some common sense and don't act like a school kid.”

“Me?”

“You!”

“You have the nerve to say something like that to me when you're acting like a Neanderthal?”

“It's better than behaving like a jealous child.”

“What?”

“This one all started because I gave out a lousy autograph.”

“Oh, you know, Morrow, you really do overestimate your charms. I just don't want to be here.”

He touched her face with his palm. “Don't worry, sweetie. There's nothing to be afraid of out here. You won't need to sleep with me. You can have the cabin all to yourself.”

“I—”

Her rejoinder froze on her lips because—despite his bitter denunciation—he was slipping his shirt over his head. Still staring at her in a cold fury, he kicked off his shoes, then started to slide out of his jeans.

“What—what are you doing?” Alexi gasped out, pained.

“Oh, don't get excited,” he tossed back irritably. Naked except for his briefs, he turned from her, bronzed and supple and so pleasantly muscled. He opened a drawer, pulled out a pair of worn denim cutoffs and climbed into them, smiling at her sudden speechlessness. “Eat your heart out, Ms. Jordan,” he told her. And then he was gone, slamming the slatted door in his wake.

Alexi, numb, stared after him for several seconds. A moment later, she heard the rev of a motor and felt movement.

The cabin was lined with little windows. Alexi bolted to the left to look out and saw that the dock was fast slipping away from them.

“Why, that... SOB!” she muttered. They were passing the channel markers to the right and left and heading for the open sea. She was off with him for the duration—with or without her agreement.

She threw a pillow across the room in a sudden spate of raw fury. He couldn't do this. He really couldn't—she had said no. But he was doing it anyway. He deserved to be boiled in oil. Someone needed to tell him quickly that this was the modern world. That he couldn't do things like this.

It wouldn't matter, she decided grudgingly. Rex would do what he wanted to do anyway.

After a moment, Alexi realized that the hum of the motor had stopped. She could hear footsteps above her.

And she could hear Rex swearing.

She smiled after a moment, realizing that he had turned off the motor to catch the wind with the sails. And he was having a few problems. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bunk, smiling. He'd planned on her giving him a hand with the sails, she realized. And now, of course, he was presuming that she wouldn't move a muscle on his behalf.

“Right on, Mr. Morrow,” she murmured.

But then her smile faded, because she was remembering how cute he had looked, stripping out of his jeans to don his cutoffs—then indignantly denying her suppositions about him. Maybe “cute” wasn't the right word. Not for Rex. He was too deadly dark, too striking, too mature, too dynamic.

No...at that moment, “cute” had been exactly the right word.

Maybe she
had
been acting like a schoolgirl, and, at the end, maybe she had balked and refused the trip because of pure and simple jealousy. No—there was definitely nothing pure and simple about it. Painful and complex. She didn't know where she stood with him. And she was afraid to make any attempt to find out.

Something dropped with a bang. She could clearly hear Rex muttering out a few choice swear words.

Alexi sat up and smiled slowly and wistfully. They were far from shore; they were together, and alone with the elements. Maybe she wouldn't exactly offer a white flag, but...

Alexi hopped off the bed and hurried through the door. The boat pitched to the right, and she had to grab the wall to keep from falling. “I hope I don't get seasick,” she muttered to herself. She steadied herself and hurried down the hallway, past the head, past the neat-as-a-pin little dining room and living room and on through the galley to the short flight of ladder steps that led to the topside deck.

“Watch it!” Rex snapped, annoyed, as her head appeared.

Standing on the top step of the little ladder, she ducked as the boom of the mainsail went sweeping past her. “Grab the damn thing. Help out here!” Rex called to her.

He was at the tiller, leaning left, trying to control the wayward sail at the same time.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Trim the sail.”

“What?”

“The sail!”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

He paused. The wind ripped around them, pulling his hair from his forehead, then casting it back down again. “Come on, Alexi—”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I've never been out on a sailboat in my life.”

“You were born a rich kid!”

“And I play tennis and golf, and I've even been on a polo field or two, but I've never been on a sailboat!”

Rex stared at her for a long moment. “Damn!” he murmured. Then he ordered curtly, “Come over here.”

She shook her head. “I don't know how to steer, either.”

“Just keep both your hands on her and don't move!” he bellowed. “Alexi—”

There was something so dangerous about the way he growled her name that she decided to comply. She slid next to him on the hollowed-out seat and set her hands on the long tiller. “Don't move it!” he warned her.

He jumped up, leaving her to watch as he nimbly maneuvered around the boat. Barefoot, in cutoffs, he seemed every inch the bronzed seaman. He quickly brought the sail under control. Red-white-and-black canvas filled with wind. Alexi had to admit that it was beautiful. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and stared out at the horizon. It seemed endless. If she looked to her right, though, she could see the coast, not so very far away.

Rex jumped down beside her. He slipped his brown hands over hers. “Thank you,” he said curtly.

“Aye, aye, sir!” she said mockingly. She stood, glad she'd left her sandals below so that she could present a facsimile of coordination when she climbed forward, holding on to the mainmast, to look out at the day. With her fingers tightly clenched around the mast, she closed her eyes and inhaled and decided that the air was wonderful. The wind, alive and brisk, felt so good against her face. If only she weren't at such odds with the captain at the moment.

She decided that for the time being, no action was her best action. She went back below, and for almost an hour she immersed herself in Eugenia's diary. She was amazed to discover that Eugenia's plight could actually make her forget her own.

But she hadn't really forgotten. She set the book down pensively. She would finish it later, maybe that night. Rex hadn't tried to talk to her. Alexi realized ruefully that she was more concerned with her own life than Eugenia's.

Alexi went back topside. She pretended to ignore Rex and sat on the fiberglass decking and leaned her head against the mast. The sun beat down upon her while the breeze, salty and fresh, swept around her. Talk to me, Rex, she thought. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth.

She must have dozed there, for when she opened her eyes again, the sails were down and the boat was still except for a slight rocking motion. Twisting around, she could see that the anchor had been thrown and that they were just about twenty or thirty feet off a little tree-shrouded island.

Rex was sitting at the bow, a can of beer in his hand, wearing mirrored sunglasses, his skin and hair wet from an apparent dive into the sea.

Alexi stood and stretched and hopped down to the scooped-out tiller area and then down to the ladder. She was sure he heard her, but he didn't turn. She went on into the galley and opened the pint-sized refrigerator to find a can of beer. She smiled, popped the top and crawled up the ladder again.

Perching just a few feet behind Rex, she watched his back. He turned around, arching a brow to her, but she couldn't begin to read his thoughts in the reflections of herself mirrored in his sunglasses.

She smiled sweetly and raised her beer can to him. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Solemnly he lifted his own.

He looked out to sea again, then stood and took a long swallow of the beer. Alexi set her can down and rose, too, slowly coming up behind him. She pressed her lips against the flesh at his nape, then followed along his spine...slowly. She slipped her arms around his waist and grazed her teeth against his shoulders. He tasted of salt and sun and everything wonderfully male.

“I thought you were angry,” he said gruffly.

“I am. Furious.” She got up on tiptoe to catch his earlobe between her teeth.

“Alexi—”

“You had no right to drag me out here. None at all.”

“I had every right! You don't use your common sense. You're a little fool. You need protection now, and I'm it.”

“I am not a fool!” She nipped his shoulder lightly, then laved the spot with her tongue.

“Alexi—”

“Will you please shut up?”

“Alexi—” He tried to turn and take her into his arms. Alexi pushed away from him, smiling.

She reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, then neatly shimmied out of her shorts. “Want to go skinny-dipping?” she asked him, casually slipping from her bra and panties. She offered him one sweet smile, then posed for a fraction of a second and dived into the sea.

She swam with long, clean strokes toward the island, then paused, panting slightly and treading water as she looked back toward the
Tatiana
. Rex was nowhere in sight.

She gasped, nearly slipping beneath the surface, when she felt a tug upon her foot. Then he was with her, sliding up from beneath the surface, his body—all of it—rubbing against hers. Next to the chill of the sea, he was vibrant warmth, his arms coming around her, his legs twining with hers, his desire hot and potent and arousingly full against her thighs. She saw his eyes then for a moment, dark and glittering with the reflections of the sun. Then she saw them no more. His mouth came to hers, sealing them together in a deep, erotic kiss that sent them sinking far below, into the depths. So wonderfully hot...his tongue raked her mouth with that fire while his fingers moved over her in the exotic world of the sea. She would die...in seconds she would smother. But his touch in the watery world was already a taste of heaven.

Rex gave a powerful kick, sending them both shooting back toward the surface, still entwined. As they broke the surface, Alexi cast her head back, gasping for breath and laughing. She had barely inhaled when his lips were there again, against hers. He alternately rimmed her lips with his tongue, then whispered things to her. She and Rex did not sink, for he held her tight against him, treading water. She swallowed, weak and dizzied, as he moved his hands in concord with the warning of his whispers, teasing her breasts, working along her lower abdomen, stroking her thighs, taunting her implicitly.

“Oh...” she whispered.

“Alexi.”

She leaned her head against him, closing her eyes, unable to reason against the sensations. She would sink again. Sink forever in the swirling realm of bliss where she floundered now.

“We've got to get back to the boat.”

“Yes.”

“Alexi.”

“Yes.”

“
Now
,” he laughed, “or I won't have the strength left to do us justice.”

“Oh!” Lost in the sensations of his loving, she realized that he had been doing all this while keeping them both afloat. “Oh!” she repeated, slightly embarrassed. She kicked away from him, hard, and began to swim. He caught her at the rope ladder by the motor at the back of the
Tatiana
. He raised her to the deck, then curled his leg around the ladder himself for balance. Alexi tried to rise. He stopped her, caught her foot and stroked the arch while he kissed her ankle.

“Rex!”

“What?” Tenderly he moved his mouth up along her calf.

“The sun is out and shining. We're in broad daylight. There's nothing to shield us—”

“And there isn't another boat around for miles,” he assured her. Her kneecap received his ministrations next.

She thought that she had died. Where he did not touch her, the breeze moved erotically over her wet body. And there, in pagan splendor beneath the captivating rays of the sun, he made very thorough love to her. He treated the length of each leg with the same exotic care as he did the juncture between them, with incredible, exotic savoir faire—so sweetly that she was nearly numbed, consumed again by tiny explosions of delight. She could scarcely move...but then agility came to her and she reached for him, eager—desperate—to love him as he had loved her.