The Morning After

Annie nodded and so did he. ‘Good. So you know what to do with these.’ He handed her a pair of flippers and a snorkelling mask. ‘Give me a minute to get into the water and I’ll help you out of the boat.’

Surprisingly it turned out to be an enjoyable hour. With César leading the way they snorkelled over the tip of and between narrow canyons of coral, treading water regularly when one or the other saw something interesting beneath them.

They saw brightly coloured cardinals and butterfly fish and spotted drums. Pretty blue parrot-fish swam in and out of the coral, and a couple of big groupers hurried away when they saw them coming. At one point César grabbed urgently at her hand, demanding her attention then pointing over to a deeper point on the coral where she could see a long, sleek silver fish with a pike-like face. Barracuda! she recognised instantly, and tried to turn and swim back to the boat.

But César stopped her, holding onto her arm and grinning at her through his mask. Firmly he pulled her off in the other direction, where they found an octopus sitting on a rock, his bulbous body swaying to and fro in the lazy current.

Then a dark brown moray eel slid its ugly face out from between two rocks and Annie decided with a shudder that she’d had enough. She turned swiftly before César could stop her and swam quickly back to the boat.

‘Yuk!’ she exclaimed as they both bobbed up beside the boat. ‘Did you see that moray? He has to be about the ugliest creature alive in the sea!’

‘Don’t let Mrs Moray hear you saying that,’ César warned teasingly. ‘She may take offence and bite off your toes.’

The fact that Annie had just removed her flippers and thrown them into the bottom of the boat, leaving her toes very vulnerable, meant that his remark was well timed. She shrieked, and made a lurching dive for safety, almost managing to drown them both as she landed in a flail of arms and legs against his big, strong chest.

One of his arms closed instinctively round her while the other hand grabbed at the side of the boat, his amused laughter filling the air.

Then he wasn’t laughing, and Annie had gone perfectly still because it had happened, just like that. Quick, strong and undeniable. Awareness—hot and stifling. Skin sliding wetly against skin. Bodies remembering—recognising the pleasurable potency of the other.

His arm was tight around her slender waist, his eyes burning fiercely into the wide, shocked depths of hers.

‘Please, César, no,’ she pleaded when she saw his gaze drop to her mouth.

‘Why not?’ he murmured huskily. ‘Why not, when you know it is what we both want?’

‘No.’ She shook her wet head, fingers curling tensely into the rigid muscles in his shoulders.

‘A kiss. Just a kiss.’

‘No.’ But she felt the muscles deep in her body tighten in sweet expectancy.

‘Yes,’ he countered, his eyes darkening languorously, his mouth taking on a soft, sensual curve. ‘Yes, dammit, yes.’ And he moved to angle his lips against her own.

Annie shied away, twisting her head and stretching her body as she made a desperate grab for the boat with both hands. The action set the little boat rocking precariously, and for a moment she hung there helplessly, because César did not immediately concede defeat and let her go, his arm remaining a possessive clamp around her slender waist. Her heart began to pump, tension in the muscles around it making each heavy thump painful. She closed her eyes, wet lashes spiked and trembling against the soft skin covering her high cheek-bones.

If he pulls me back…she thought tensely. If he pulls me back I’ll give in to him. I know I will!

Then the arm was slackening, and instead of imprisoning it became two hands on her waist, helping to lever her into the boat.

She didn’t look at him as he joined her there, and though she felt his eyes on her she let the tense silence grow. The afternoon was spoiled now anyway, the brief period of easy pleasure they had found in each other’s company ruined by a torment that simply refused to go away.

César must have been thinking along similar lines, because instead of getting them under way he sat back and let loose a heavy sigh. ‘Refusing to acknowledge it will not make it easier,’ he said gravely. ‘It simply makes it worse. Believe me, I know.’

‘The voice of experience?’ she flashed at him bitterly.

He grimaced then shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, though she suspected that he didn’t want to.

‘You are a complete stranger to me.’ Grimly she stared at the gold band encircling her finger. ‘A week ago I didn’t know of your existence. Three days ago we met and parted without my even learning your name. Forty-eight hours ago…’ Almost exactly, she then added as a bitter, silent adjoiner as her gaze drifted out to the steadily dying day. ‘You were throwing insults and threats at me and vowing to ruin my life!’

‘And two hours after that you were lying in my arms,’ he added, ‘getting to know me as intimately as a woman can. What does that tell you, Annie,’ he prompted gently, ‘about the insults and threats that preceded the passion?’

It told her that they were a front to what had really been erupting between them. Memories crowded in—hot, turbulent memories that darkened her eyes and thickened her breath. Then came the shudder of shame—the shame of knowing how easily and thoroughly she had surrendered to the morass of desires raging through her that night.

‘Instant physical attraction is not uncommon between the sexes, Angelica,’ César inserted quietly. ‘It happens all the time.’

Not to me it doesn’t, she thought. ‘You are still a stranger,’ she said. ‘A man who set out to trap and manipulate me from the first moment we met.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He heaved an impatient sigh. ‘I have learned to regret my original intentions. What else can I say?’ His green eyes glinted at her in helpless appeal.