He swept her up into his arms and she clung to him while he carried her through the silent house, up the stairs and to his room. There, in an eddy of silver moonlight, he laid her down on his bed and undid the sash of her robe.
“How beautiful you are,” he said as he drew the lapels of the robe apart.
She felt the sigh of his breath against her breasts, and then the warmth of his lips. She cried out when he drew back and slowly circled her nipple with his fingertip.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, and he bent to her again and drew a waiting nub of flesh into his mouth.
The heat of his lips, the silkiness of his tongue, shot from her breast to her belly, coiled there like fire, then flamed out to heat her blood and melt her bones.
“Grant,” she whispered with a desperate catch in her voice. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists and held them gently in one hand.
“Wait,” he said softly. “Let me taste you and kiss you first. I’ve waited so long.”
A soft cry broke from her lips as his hand moved between their bodies, over her belly and between her thighs.
“You’re so hot,” he whispered, “God, so hot and wet and ready for me.”
Crista lifted her hips, moved blindly against his seeking hand.
“Yes,” she said brokenly, “oh yes. Please, Grant, please…”
He groaned, kissed her deeply, then rolled away from her and stripped off his denims.
“I can’t wait,” he said hoarsely. “Sweet Crista, I wanted to make this last forever, but—”
She had one sight of him as he loomed over her, his body beautiful and virile in the moonlight, and then she held up her arms.
“Now,” she whispered, and he came down into her waiting embrace and, with one velvet thrust, made her his.
Hours later, a soft, early-morning breeze rustled the curtains.
Grant stirred and awakened slowly from a deep sleep.
He lay still, his eyes closed, trying to get his bearings. He was in a strange room, in a strange bed, and there was a woman in his arms.
And then he remembered.
He turned his head carefully and looked down at Crista. She was asleep, her dark head on his shoulder, her hand curled lightly against his chest. Her lips were slightly parted; he could hear the faintest whisper of her breath.
He felt an almost unbearable tightening in his throat.
How beautiful she was. Everything about her was perfect. He loved the way her long lashes lay against her cheeks, the way her hair cascaded over her bare shoulder. He loved the curve of her brow, the tiny indentation above her upper lip, and the line of her jaw.
She sighed in her sleep and snuggled closer to him, her hand opening against his chest. Carefully, so as not to wake her, Grant put his free hand over hers, smiling when her fingers instinctively laced with his.
It was going to be a perfect morning. The breeze was warm, the air sweet, and the early-morning light had the clarity of a fine Rembrandt. And he was lying in a wide, soft bed with Crista in his arms.
In his arms? Grant’s smile tilted. That was a first. And she had surely been in his arms all these hours, now that he thought about it. His shoulder ached just a little, where her head lay against it.
Had he gone to sleep holding her? But he never did that after sex. Not that he was a thoughtless lover. On the contrary. He knew women liked to be held and he always obliged—but not to the point of discomfort. Besides, falling asleep with a woman in your arms was too intimate. More intimate, somehow, than the act of sex itself.
Grant frowned. The act of sex. What a way to describe what had happened in this bed. That instant when he’d first sheathed himself within Crista’s satin flesh, her incredible tightness as she’d closed around him, her soft cry as she’d wrapped her arms around him and taken him deep inside her…
Just remembering made his body harden.
It might almost have been her first time. It wasn’t, of course. He knew that. But if it had been, if he’d been Crista’s first lover…
His frown became a scowl. Why in hell would he have wanted that? He wasn’t a man given to scoring on virgins. Hell, no! If anything, he’d made it a point to avoid entanglements of that kind. He had no wish at all to become some wide-eyed innocent’s romantic fixation.
And yet—and yet, he couldn’t help thinking that it would have been wonderful to have been Crista’s first lover, to have been the first man to have made her cry out beneath him, the first to have made her whisper “yes, oh yes, oh please…”
“Dammit,” he said, muttering the word softly from between his teeth.
Carefully, he eased his arm from beneath her head and sat up.
What was the matter with him this morning? He’d slept with Crista and it had been terrific. It had been incredible.
But sex was all it was.
The old song said it best. Birds did it. Bees did it. And he did it—heaven knew he’d bedded enough beautiful women in his life and, if they were to be believed, none of them had left his bed unsatisfied.
He was, with all due modesty, a man who understood the pleasures to be found in sexual passion without ever being foolish enough to wax poetic about them.
So why was he sitting here, spinning drifts of purple prose in his head?
Why could he remember each touch, each whisper? Why did he ache with wanting to kiss Crista awake and then make slow, heated love to her again? There was no logical reason for it…
Maybe there was. His liaison with Crista had not been illegal but it had certainly been immoral. He’d violated his own code of ethics last night. That was why what had happened had seemed so special—because it had been wrong.
Forbidden fruit was always sure to taste sweeter.
Suddenly, the warm air seemed uncomfortably humid, the scent of the sea acrid and unpleasant. Grant rose, glanced at his watch as he put it on, and stepped into his denim cutoffs. He zipped the fly, then walked slowly to the window.
It would have been better not to have given in to temptation and slept with her, but he wasn’t a man to waste time on regrets. The thing to do now was put the mistake behind him. He had a couple of appointments this morning, but nothing that wouldn’t be finished in plenty of time for them to catch their return flight to New York. By this evening, Crista would be in Sam Abraham’s charge. And this time in his life would be history.
He felt as if a weight were lifting from his shoulders as he looked out at the sea. It was calm again, and the sun was a bright yellow disk in the cloudless blue sky.
Everything was back to normal—and so was he.
Crista lay in the bed, watching as the morning sunlight lit Grant’s stern profile.
A moment ago, she’d awakened to a feeling of such happiness that she’d almost flung herself from the bed and raced across the room to where he stood. But then she’d seen the tension in his shoulders, the look of cool disapproval on his lips, and the joy in her heart had died.
It didn’t take any great effort to figure out what he was thinking. He’d wanted to make love to her from day one, but he’d fought against it.
Now he was regretting last night’s lapse, and trying to figure out how to handle what might be a potentially disastrous “morning after”.
A lump rose in her throat. It had all seemed to be perfect. Nothing she’d ever read or heard or even dreamed had prepared her for such joy. The happiness she’d found in Grant’s arms had been indescribable, not just when they’d made love but even when he’d simply held her close, kissed her gently, and whispered of the pleasure she gave him.
Had it all been an illusion?
Maybe—maybe she was misreading the signs. She was embarrassingly new to this. How did she know what to expect from a man who’d just made love to a woman for the first time? Grant was simply standing at the window, staring out to sea. For all she knew, his thoughts were a million miles away. He could be thinking about a business deal back in New York, or all the work that needed doing on this
house, or the appointments he had scheduled this morning.
She took a breath, sat up quietly, and wrapped the sheet around herself. Then she rose from the bed and started toward the window and Grant, but he turned toward her before she’d gone half the distance.
“Good morning,” he said. His tone, and his smile, were the polite ones people give strangers.
“Good morning,” she replied. Silence stretched between them. “What—what time is it anyway?”
Grant looked at his watch, then at her. “Almost seven.”
“Ah.” She nodded foolishly. “Almost seven. I thought it was later.”
Silence engulfed them again, and then Grant cleared his throat.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Oh yes,” Crista said, “yes, I slept like a log. It must have been…” Her cheeks colored. “It must have been the sea air.”
“Yes. I suppose it was.” A faint furrow appeared between his eyes. “Crista. About last night…”
She looked at him and she waited, and, at last, she knew she had to face the truth.
“Yes,” she said, her head high, “about that, Grant. It was—it was—”
“It was—terrific.”
“Terrific,” she said, and shot him a bright smile. “Exactly. But—but—”
“But it was a mistake. My mistake entirely.” His mouth narrowed. “I know an apology is useless, but—”
“Please. Don’t—don’t apologize. What happened was—it was just one of those things. And—and—”
“And now we can get on with other things,” he said briskly. “Our business here, and then our flight back to New York—”
“Good. Good.” Horrified, she felt a sudden constriction in her throat. “I, ah, I think I’d like to take a shower, if you—”