Summer Mahogany (5 page)

Even though she hated him, Gina sought the soothing comfort of his embrace. The racking sobs stopped inside the circle of his arms, reduced to sighing gasps. She lifted her head slightly as his mouth touched her temples, his breath warm against her skin. His lips encountered the first trace of tears along her cheekbone and Rhyder began kissing them away.

His hand curved along her slender throat, turning her face toward him. She seemed to stop breathing, not needing air as long as he continued exploring every inch of her face. When his mouth closed over her parted lips, she could taste the saltiness of her own tears in his kiss. The pressure of his hand near the small of her back arched her toward him.

Through the wetness of her swimsuit she could feel the solid beat of his heart. The mahogany hardness of his chest flattened her breasts. Where once there had been only the coldness of humiliation, a warmth began to spread.

Gina stopped passively accepting his kiss and began to return it. Her response deepened the kiss and the pressure of his mouth hardened in demanding possession. Gina answered as much as her limited experience allowed.

Rhyder lifted his head a fraction of an inch, their breaths mingling. "Open your lips, Gina," he instructed huskily.

She did, and his hard male lips claimed hers again, showing her the sensual fullness of a kiss between a man and a woman. Wildfire raced through her veins at his exploration. Her bones seemed to melt with the heat he was generating inside of her.

His weight was pressing her backward. It didn't ease, not even when gritty sand was beneath her shoulder blades. The heat of his sun-warmed body seemed to induce a languor that lifted her to a dreamlike state.

Tangy ocean salt clung to his skin, mixing with his musky male scent to make an intoxicating aroma. Her hands spread over the rippling, hard muscles of his back and shoulders, trying to evoke the same pleasure his stroking caress was giving her.

The knot of her swimsuit halter was digging into the back of her neck, an uncomfortable lump in an otherwise satisfying bed. She moved against Rhyder in relief when his exploring fingers encountered it and loosened it, pulling the straps away.

When Rhyder dragged his mouth from hers to explore the slender column of her throat, she felt a giddiness she had never previously experienced. She tipped her head back to expose every inch for his inspection.

Delicious shivers danced over her skin as he roughly nibbled at the lobe of her ear, then trailed over the sensitive cord to investigate the pulsing vein in her neck.

A thousand sensations assaulted her mind when he pushed the top of her swimsuit away and his hand glided over the curve of her breast. Fleetingly it occurred to Gina to protest against this liberty, but the firm, yet gentle caress of his hand erased her momentary apprehensions.

His warm mouth left the hollow of her throat, drawn to the pointed thrust of her breast. Primitive desire exploded within her at his possession of this previously private area. The fierceness of the emotion nearly overwhelmed her but Gina fought her way out of the whirlpool of uncontrolled passion, stiffening in fear at the wanton longings his fiery touch was arousing.

Immediately Rhyder shifted his attention to her lips. His burning kiss led her back to the whirlpool and reassured her she had nothing to fear in the drowning eddy of passion. Again her flesh became pliant to his touch, her limbs boneless. The moment of resistance had been conquered masterfully.

As her fingers started to curl into the wavy thickness of his black hair, Rhyder ripped himself from her, rolling away, turning his back to her as he knelt sitting on his heels. For a stunned moment, Gina lay where he had left her, staring dazedly at his slumped shoulders and bent head. She could see the effort he was making to try to control his erratic breathing.

"Rhyder?" She murmured his name in confusion and scooted into a half-sitting position.

Her trembling legs were curled to the side. She drew the top of her swimsuit over her nakedness, holding it in place with a shaking hand, and started to move toward him.

He either sensed her intention or heard her movement. "Don't come near me." His taut voice trembled huskily, but the tone was unmistakably commanding.

"Why?" she whispered, in a mute appeal to have him make her understand.

He raked a hand through the side of his hair and answered roughly, "If you have any sense, you'll leave me alone for a minute."

"But—'"

"Fix your swimming suit," ordered Rhyder, as if giving her something to do.

Shakily Gina did as she was told. Her rounded gaze of uncertain green never left the point between his shoulder blades. The wet straps of her swimsuit weren't cooperating with her efforts to tie them together, but Gina didn't really care.

"Did I…did I do something wrong?" she asked hesitantly, betraying her youth and inexperience as she tried to find out why Rhyder had so abruptly terminated the embrace.

There was a slight movement of his head in a negative answer. "
You
didn't do anything wrong," he said in a sigh heavy with self-disgust.

"Then what is it?"

"What is it?" Rhyder laughed harshly as he turned to look at her over his shoulder.

He stared at her for a long moment. His savagely taunting laughter ended at the sight of her. Gina didn't realize that the effects of his lovemaking were still in her face. Her lips were parted and sensually swollen by his possessive kisses. In the bewildered green of her eyes, there was still a fiery glow of desire. The softness of surrender was in her features.

His eyes darkened to a midnight blue. For a moment Gina thought he was going to gather her again into his crushing embrace, but a mahogany mask stole over his features, carving them with hardness.

A series of fluidly combined movements turned him to face her as he rose to his feet, his hands gripping her arms to draw her with him. She would have swayed against him, but iron muscles kept her an arm's length away.

"Don't you want me, Rhyder?" she asked, not meaning the question in a carnal way.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. He released her and bent to retrieve her towel from the sand. "You shouldn't ask such questions, Gina," he growled with taut control.

A crimson heat stained her cheeks as she realized what she had asked. Then, crazily, she knew she had to hear him say that she did attract him sexually, man to woman. She lowered her head, ignoring the towel he held out to her.

"Do you?" she persisted quietly in a strained voice.

"Dammit!" He reached out to jerk her a foot closer to him.

Her face lifted to gaze at the impatient anger in his expression. Rhyder's attention became focused on her mouth. The parted softness of her lips was an irresistible lure. He pulled her within an inch of his own.

"Dammit, yes," Rhyder muttered brokenly, and claimed her lips once more as his personal possession.

His arms circled her in an iron band to crush her against the naked wall of his chest. The sun-bleached hair on his legs chafed the smooth skin of her thighs as he molded her to his length. Arched roughly against him, Gina felt the thrust of his male hardness and, for the first time in her young life, knew the answering, primitive ache within herself.

With a muffled groan, Rhyder pushed her away, shoving the beach towel into her hands. Gina didn't protest this time. She was shaken by the discovery that his touch could completely make her lose control, something she thought happened only in romantic novels. The realization was sobering.

"Go home, Gina," Rhyder ordered tersely. "Go home to your grandfather before…" He clamped his mouth shut without completing the sentence.

"I…" She wanted to say something. She didn't know what. She didn't need any pictures drawn for her.

Rhyder turned away, massaging the back of his neck. "For God's sake, don't say any more," he said thickly.

Bowing her head, raven hair falling across her cheek in a silken tangle, Gina took a step toward the rocky path leading from the beach, then hesitated.

She glanced back at him. "I'm sorry," she murmured, without really understanding for what.

"You're sorry!" Rhyder breathed out roughly, the blue lance of his gaze piercing her. "The disgusting part is that I'm not!"

A cold chill ran down her spine. Her knuckles were white from the death grip on the beach towel. A chasm seemed to he widening between them and it frightened her. "Will I…see you again?" she whispered.

"Not if I can help it," he muttered.

"Rhyder." She issued a broken plea for him not to mean that.

"Are you so young that you don't realize what's happening?" He tipped his head to one side, the line of his mouth uncompromising and grim.

"I don't care." The tortured words were torn from her throat.

"You damned well should," snapped Rhyder.

Gina flinched. "Are you leaving?"

A heavy sigh broke from him and he paused before answering. "Not right away," he admitted grudgingly.

"Then I will see you again?" she persisted in breathless hope.

"I suppose it's inevitable."

Rhyder walked away toward the ocean waves. He didn't look back as Gina slipped on her sandals and took the path up the headlands. She felt caught in a vacuum, between boundless love and despair.

Chapter Three

"ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS left today," Nate Gaynes announced blandly.

Really?" Uninterestedly, Gina stabbed at a pea on her plate.

"Aye," her grandfather nodded. His hair had once been as dark as hers, but age had liberally streaked it with iron gray. The years hadn't dimmed the perception of his eyes. They gleamed now keenly at Gina across the table. "The coast guard got a hold of him this mornin'. There was some emergency in his family and he flew home."

"He?" Until that moment Gina hadn't been paying attention to what her grandfather was saying.

Now it was undivided. Initially she had thought he was talking about a school friend going off on vacation, but that wasn't whom he had meant.

"That's what I said." He bent over his plate.

"From the
Sea Witch
?"

"Aye."

"Which one left?" Gina held her breath. "The sunny-haired one."

Relief washed through her. "That's Pete."

"That could have been his name," he conceded.

Gina fell silent, the possible implication of her grandfather's announcement racing through her mind. Since the afternoon on the beach, she had seen Rhyder on three different occasions. Each time Pete had been present, unknowingly acting as a chaperon. Rhyder had said little to her. Most of the conversation had been between Gina and Pete.

The meetings hadn't been all that satisfying, although a couple of times Gina had caught Rhyder watching her as she talked to Pete. Naked desire had burned in his eyes, only to be quickly veiled when he became aware that she had noticed. Not once had he attempted to be alone with her or indicated a wish to be.

But Pete had left. He wouldn't be there anymore to keep them apart. Hope flamed with new vigor. Another thought occurred to her before the renewed fire got out of control.

"What about Rhyder?" she asked suddenly. "Will he be leaving?"

"I shouldn't think he'd be goin' anytime soon, unless he's a fool. Strikes me he'd be smart enough to hire him another deckhand before fightin' his way up to Boston. Either that or wait for this Pete to come back, if he's comin' back." Nate Gaynes leaned back in his chair and took a pipe out of his pocket.

Silently Gina agreed that Rhyder wasn't a fool. It wouldn't be easy for him to find a deckhand, either. Most of the men in the immediate vicinity were already employed. It would take at least a couple of days, if he were lucky, to find someone to replace Pete.

Gina glowed with the knowledge that she'd be able to see Rhyder again—alone. There wasn't any way he could prevent it. And she believed that secretly he didn't want to, not really.

"You're sure lookin' happy as a clam about somethin'," her grandfather observed, holding a match to his pipe and puffing until the bowl of tobacco glowed.

Gina flushed slightly and began stacking the supper dishes. "Really, gramps, I don't know what you're talking about," she shrugged offhandedly.

"Harrumph!" he snorted in disbelief. "You've been moonin' around this house for the better part of a week. The last person I remember behavin' that way was your daddy. It was back when he was seein' your mother before they was married. Trouble was, she was seein' the Wilkes boy, too. He was actin' about the same way you been."

"I'm surprised you can remember back that far, gramps." Gina kept her face averted as she teased him in an attempt to change the subject.

"I do." The pipe was clamped between his teeth, the fragrant aroma filling the kitchen. "I notice you ain't denyin' it."

"Denying what?" She tried to sound blank and indifferent.

"That you admire this Rhyder feller."

"What are you talking about?" Gina carried the dishes to the sink and turned on the taps to draw the dishwater.