Rachel started to smile, but it froze into place as he suddenly heaved her away from his body. Her hands lost their hold on his neck. For a second there was the sensation of being suspended in air, followed by the shock of cool water encapsulating her body.
Something else hit the water close by her as Rachel kicked for the surface where light glittered. She emerged with a sputtering gasp for air and pushed the black screen of wet hair away from her face and eyes. There was no sign of Gard on the stone bank.
Treading water, Rachel pivoted in a circle to locate him, realizing that he must have dived into the pool after he’d thrown her in. He was behind her, only a couple of yards away. Laughter glinted in his expression.
“It wasn’t so traumatic, was it?” mocked Gard.
“A little warning would have been nice,” she retorted. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have swallowed half the pool.”
Now that she’d gotten over the shock, the water seemed pleasantly warm and refreshing. Striking out together, they explored the boundaries of their quiet pool, discovering a small cave hollowed into five feet of solid stone. Its floor was underwater, and the ceiling was too low to allow them to stand inside it.
They stayed in the rock pool for more than an hour, swimming, sometimes floating and talking, sometimes diving to explore the clear depths. Gard climbed out first and helped Rachel onto the stone slab, made slick by the water dripping from their bodies.
Although there were towels in her beach bag, neither made use of them. Instead they sprawled contentedly on the sun-warmed rock and let the afternoon air dry them naturally. Her body felt loose and relaxed as she sat and combed her fingers through the wet tangle of her black hair. She felt tired and exhilarated all at the same time. When she leaned back and braced herself with her hands, she gave a little toss of her head to shake away the wet strands clinging to her neck. It scattered a shower of water droplets onto Gard.
“Hey!” he protested mildly. “You’re getting me all wet.”
“Look who’s complaining about a little water,” Rachel mocked him playfully. “You’re the same man who threw me into that pool an hour ago.”
“That’s different.” He smiled lazily and raised up on an elbow alongside her.
“That’s what I thought.” She shifted into a reclining position supported by her elbows. “You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”
“It depends on what’s being served,” Gard corrected and sent an intimating look over her curving figure, outlined by her wet and clinging bathing suit. She felt a response flaring within at his caressing look, but it was wiped from his expression when his gaze returned to her face, a dark brow lifting. “Which reminds me—we never did get around to having lunch.”
“That’s true. I’d forgotten.” Food had been the farthest thing from her mind.
“Are you hungry?”
Rachel had to think about it. “No,” she finally decided. “But considering how much I’ve eaten since I’ve been on the cruise, I don’t think my stomach knows it didn’t have lunch today.” And she had tried to make a practice of skipping lunch so she wouldn’t find herself overeating, but it seemed only fair to put the question to him. “How about you? Are you hungry?”
Her lavender swimsuit was held in place by straps tied around her neck. One wet end was lying on the ridge of her shoulder. Taking his time to answer her question, Gard reached over and picked up the strap, studying it idly as he held it between his fingers.
“Don’t you know by now, Rachel”—his voice was lowered to a husky pitch, then his darkening gaze swung slowly to her face—“that I’m starving. I don’t know about you, but it’s been one helluva long time between meals for me.”
When he leaned toward her, Rachel began to sink back onto the stone to lie flat, her hands free to take him into her arms as he came to her. His mouth settled onto her lips with hungry need, the weight of his body moving onto her.
She slid her hands around his broad shoulders, melting under the consuming fire of his kiss. The hard skin of his ropey shoulders was warm and wet to the touch, sensual in its male strength and alive in its silken heat. There was a stir and a rush of blood through her veins; the beat of her heart lifted.
His fingers hadn’t lost their hold on the end of her bathing suit strap. In an abstract way Rachel felt the slow, steady pull that untied the wet bow and relieved the pressure behind her neck. But it was the taste of him, driving full into her mouth, that dominated her senses and pushed all other sensation into secondary interest. It was the hot wetness of his mouth, the tang of tobacco on his tongue, and the salty texture of his skin that she savored.
Her hand curled its fingers into the damp, satin strands of his russet hair and pressed at the back of his head to deepen the kiss so she could absorb more of him. Soon it ceased to matter as his mouth grazed roughly over her features, murmuring her name and mixing it in with love words. There followed near delirious moments when Rachel strained to return the rain of kisses, her lips and the tip of her tongue rushing over the hard angles of his cheekbone and jaw.
Then Gard was burying his face in the curve of her neck, nuzzling her skin and taking little love bites out of the sensitive ridge of her shoulder. His tugging fingers pulled down the front of her bathing suit, freeing her breasts from the confining, elasticized material of her suit. Behind her closed eyes Rachel could see the golden fire of the sun, but when his hand caressed the ripe fullness of a breast, that radiant heat seemed to blaze within her. She was hot all over, atremble with the desires shuddering through her.
She dug her fingers into the hard flesh of his shoulders as his mouth took a slow, wandering route to the erotically erect nipple. He circled it with the tormenting tip of his tongue. Rachel arched her body in raw need, driving her shoulders onto the unyielding rock slab and feeling none of the pain, only the soaring pleasure of his devouring mouth. A building pressure throbbed within her, an ache in her loins that couldn’t be satisfied by the roaming excitement of his skillful hand.
Sounds came from somewhere, striking a wrong chord in the rhapsody of the moment, only beginning to build to its crescendo. Rachel tried to isolate it from the beating of her heart and the sibilant whispers of her sawing breath.
The discordant sounds were voices—high-pitched, laughing voices. She moaned in angry protest and heard Gard swear under his breath. The weight of his body pressed more heavily onto her as if to deny the intrusion while each tried to will it away
. But the voices were becoming clearer, signaling the approach of someone.
When Gard rolled from her, he caught her hands and pulled her up to sit in front of him. His broad chest and shoulders acted as a shield to conceal her seminudity in case anyone had come close enough to see them. He struggled to control the roughness of his breathing while the unbanked fires in his eyes were drawn to the swollen ripeness of her breasts and their state of high arousal.
“It sounds like we have a bunch of adventurous teenagers exploring the cascade,” he said as Rachel fumbled with the straps of her suit and pulled the bodice into place.
In her passion-drugged state she lacked coordination. There was a languid weakness in her limbs and a heaviness in her eyelids. None of the inner throbbings had been satisfied, and the ache of wanting was still with her.