No Risk Refused

Talk, he told himself. And then he thought of her fantasy and whispered in her ear. “I’m a pirate. For weeks, I’ve watched you from my ship. Every day you come down to the rocks to bathe and then rest in the sun. I’ve watched you, fantasized about you, wanted you.”

“Yes,” she breathed in his ear.

“You’ve felt my eyes on you.”

“Yes.” She nipped his earlobe, and Cam nearly lost his focus again. “I’ve wanted you for so long. Kiss me again.”

Not yet. He didn’t dare. Carefully, he negotiated the waterfall and they reached the shallower water that bordered the cave. “Today I couldn’t resist you any longer, so I swam ashore to make love to you. To make you mine.”

Finally, his foot hit a rock ledge and he found enough balance to shift both of them onto the floor of the cave. She lay beneath him now just as she had in the foyer the night before. He could see her eyes, the dark gleam of them and nothing else as he lowered his mouth to hers.

Now he could explore all those flavors that he’d only sampled before. But as he tasted her, as the flavors poured into him, he felt as if he were drowning again.

And he couldn’t seem to get enough. Each time he changed the angle of the kiss, he discovered something new. Beneath the incredible layers of sweetness, there was the darker flavor of desperation. The richness of her tastes, the depth of them, ignited a fire in his blood that started in his gut and radiated to the tips of his fingers. Fingers that trembled as they drew away the wet material that still clung to her breasts.

Her body arched up, offering more, and he had no choice but to take. He told himself to go slowly, to savor when what he craved was to devour and possess. Her skin was slick and so hot that it burned his lips as he moved them down the slim column of her throat. Using teeth and tongue, he lingered at her breasts, teasing, tormenting, taking. He felt her heart beat against his lips and his own nearly stopped.

Each time she shuddered, each time her nails dug into his shoulders, a fresh thrill threatened to shatter his system. Wherever he touched or tasted, her response was so generous, so beyond his experience, he could never have imagined it. Ever.

“Cam.”

He could barely hear his name above the rush of the waterfall and the pounding of his blood, but he knew she thought only of him. The power of that nearly pushed him beyond reason. But each time he thought he had to end it, he found more to tantalize him. Lured by the slim line of her torso, entranced by the dip at her stomach, he journeyed lower.

When he found himself blocked by the strings of her bikini, he ripped it away.

“Cam.”

Adair had no idea whether she said the word aloud or whether she’d only managed to shout it in her mind again and again. It echoed through her, streaming through her veins, filling her. The story of the pirate and of the woman who’d waited replayed in her mind. Their longings, their needs, couldn’t possibly be as great as hers. She’d waited so long for Cam. For this.

Too long.

No one had ever made her feel this way. The need he’d triggered was primal and raw. It terrified her. Electrified her. And just when she thought he couldn’t possibly take her further, he did. Each press of his fingers, each scrape of his teeth showed her how much more there was. And when he used them on the skin of her inner thigh, she cried his name again and arched her hips upward. And he pressed his mouth to her core.

The orgasm tore through her, erupting again and again in aftershocks that only left her craving more. There was only Cam, the taste, the smell, the sight of him. When he rose above her again, she fisted her hands in his wet shirt and ripped it apart. Buttons flew.

“Again,” she demanded. Then, as desperate as he to taste, to touch, to devour, she rolled with him across the floor of the cave. Legs and arms tangling, they struggled to pull down his wet jeans and strip off his shirt.

“Hurry,” she demanded.

“Trying to.”

But when she would have dragged him back on top of her, he sat back on his knees and shifted her so that she was straddling them. Then he dug his fingers into her hips to hold them still. They were eye-to-eye, nearly mouth-to-mouth. “Protection,” he managed to say.

He dug his fingers into the pocket of his jeans and they fumbled with the condom together.

“Hurry,” she said again.

He watched her eyes and nothing else as he lifted her hips and plunged inside of her. She was all he knew, all he wanted. And in that moment, she was everything. They moved together then. And when she climaxed, clamping those long legs around him and crying out his name, power and triumph, heady and sweet, streaked to his core.

Then he built the pleasure again, for both of them. Her nails raked his back as he fought against the mists that threatened to blur his vision. He wanted to see her. Had to see her as they both rode a new and towering wave of sensations. Her face beaded with water, her eyes, witch-green, were fastened on his. They trapped him as surely as the lust. He felt something inside of him that wanted to break out, something strong. He tried to hold it back but her name broke free from his lips as he took her with him over the edge.

9

AFTERWARD THEY CLUNG like wet rag dolls against the wall of the cave. They didn’t speak. Adair wondered if her vocal cords might have been cauterized by the heat they’d created. She’d known that Cam would be different for her, but nothing in her experience, nothing in her imagination had come close. No one had ever done the things he’d done to her. And she’d never even dreamed of the things she’d done to him. They’d gone so far beyond her fantasies.

And they were real. She’d never felt like this, so weak, so feminine. So totally satisfied.

She sat snuggled on his lap, her arms and legs wrapped around him, her cheek pressed cozily against his. She would have been content to stay just as they were for a very long time.

But that would be dangerous. She’d outlined their relationship quite clearly, and he’d been ready enough to agree there were no guarantees. The important thing would be to stick to the plan she’d outlined and enjoy what they could have together as long as it lasted.

When Cam turned his head and met her eyes, something fluttered right under her heart.

“You know, I have to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t think we did that right.”

She stared at him. “We didn’t?”

“You said you wanted buddy sex—convenient, no harm, no foul. And you nearly killed me.”

The mocking note of accusation in his voice caused a laugh to bubble up and break free. “It was your idea to jump off the ledge. You’re the one who nearly killed us both.”

“Well, maybe we just need more practice. I’m sure we’ll get better at it.” He was about to prove his point by actions when he heard his cell phone beep. He managed to keep hold of her as he finessed it out of his jeans.

“How did your cell phone survive?” Adair asked.

“Special CIA issue. Waterproof,” he said as he glanced at the text Daryl had sent.

Fingerprints of the man who ran a Scalzo-like scam in Oregan match Lawrence Banes’s. I’ll be joining you soon.

“Important?” Adair asked.

“A friend of mine is close to tracking down an old enemy.” What was good news for Daryl was definitely going to be bad news for Adair’s wedding on Saturday. But he couldn’t even warn her until Daryl was sure. That worry faded from his mind when he glanced up and noticed movement on the other side of the falling water. Lowering his head, he spoke close to her ear. “Don’t move. We may have company.”

Easing Adair onto a ledge of rock, he pulled up his jeans and found his shirt. Someone standing on the shore of the pond couldn’t see into the cave because of the thick fall of water and the darkness. But he and Adair could get at least a blurred image of anyone who came into the clearing.

Two people had. Cam crawled to the far side of the falls where there was a narrow gap between the crashing water and the side of the cave. Pressing his face against the rock, he peered out.

Because of the spray he still couldn’t get a clear image. Two men stood at the far end of the pond. One had his back to the falls and stood with one foot propped on a rock, his forearm resting on his thigh. He wore slacks and a white shirt, and he was tall and broad-shouldered enough to partially block the other man’s face. That one held a camera with a telephoto lens. He, too, wore city clothes—slacks and a golf shirt. He was shorter and on the chunky side, with longer hair and a mustache and beard.

And they were not happy.

Though it was impossible to overhear their conversation, they were clearly arguing. The man with the camera used his hands in staccato gestures. The other one shook his head vehemently.

“Let me see.” Adair pitched her voice low as she wiggled in front of him.

He eased back so that she could try to see through the narrow gap between water and rock. “Recognize either one of them?”