“One…two…three…”
Her griping came to an abrupt end and he could hear her moving strongly through the water. His diminished vision had heightened some of his other senses, and so he could tell by the sounds exactly where she was. At the water’s edge, coming up the beach, grabbing her clothes. It took a will of absolute iron to not turn and take a small peek.
Her scent caught him. She was right behind him. She smelled of the sea, but also sweet and clean. Delicious.
She could, of course, pick up her clothes and run, but she didn’t. He heard her struggling into them, the dry cloth catching on her wet skin.
“All right,” she said regally. “You may turn around.”
“Close your eyes,” he ordered her softly.
“Humph. No description for the authorities.”
He turned and looked. Her eyes were obediently screwed closed. She was beautiful up close, her face unmarred by life. Her cheekbones were high; her small nose tilted regally toward the heavens. Her wet hair was plastered against her head, the color of dark gold. It would be lighter in color when it was dry, in the sunlight, and for some reason he was pleased that it was not full of the streaks and dyes dictated by current fashion.
The swimsuit cover was not anything dictated by current fashion either. It looked much worse on than it had off. It had the shape and style and coloring of a gunny sack. But it was clinging delightfully to some of her wetter curves. Her figure was slightly fuller than it had been, and it reminded him she was a woman now, not a girl.
It reminded him he did not know her at all. Not now.
But her mouth was as glorious a creation as he had remembered, generous, the bottom lip plump and full.
“What would you report, anyway?” he asked her, softly, trying to strip some of the harshness from his voice. “A kiss bandit?”
“Just get it over with,” she said icily. “And if you taste like cigars, I’ll probably puke on your shoes.”
He gazed at her a moment longer and then leaned toward her. He touched her lips with his own.
He tasted the sweetness and innocence that he had suspected from her earlier words. And despite her claim that she would be repelled by the lingering taste of the cigar on his lips, her mouth remained soft underneath his, pliable, almost inviting.
How could she be both? Sweet and innocent? And yet inviting a deeper kiss with a strange man?
“Will your husband be coming to even the score with me?” he asked. He had to know. It wasn’t enough to guess.
“I’m not married,” she said, and her voice held the quiver of that kiss. “I’ve never been married.”
“Ah.”
He pulled back from her, saw her eyes begin to flutter open and resisted the urge to see them once again. Her eyes had been her glory, a mix of gold and green and brown that was intoxicating. He covered them quickly with his palm.
“Good night, sweet lady,” he said, turned swiftly and walked quickly away through the sand.
He had accomplished nothing that he had set out to, least of all revenge. He felt terribly unsettled by the touch of her lips, by this midnight encounter with an old love.
He turned on the edge of the palm-lined walk that went back toward the main resort and looked back at her.
She stood frozen in the night, a hand lifted to her lips. A faint breeze had kicked up, and the swim cover was molded to the beautiful ripeness of her breasts, the strong, slender length of her upper legs. Strands of her wet hair lifted and whipped around the soft profile of her lovely face. In dark silhouette, she looked like a goddess who had walked out of the sea.
The scars on his face ached, a painful and ruthless reminder that he was the man least likely to have anything to offer a goddess.
Chapter Two
Cynthia stood, her hand to her lips, looking at the empty space where the darkness had swallowed the stranger. He had disappeared completely, almost reminding her of how wild creatures could melt into invisibility.
The wind off the ocean caressed her wet body and lifted the heaviness of her hair. She felt a wonderful surging power, as if she were a goddess standing on that beach embraced by darkness.
“Wild creatures and goddesses,” she muttered derisively, broken from her trance. She stooped to pick up her towel. Still, she felt reluctant to leave the image of herself as a woman of such seductive powers that she could tempt a perfectly sane man into participating in that encounter.
Because for all that it had been bizarre, she had been left with a sense that he was not. His lips, when they had touched hers, had not been hard or grasping. The kiss had not been creepy. In fact, far from it. His lips had told her secrets. They had told her he was a man of solidness and strength, a man who did not make it a habit to kiss strangers on the beach.
“Cynthia,” she told herself primly, “you did not lure!” For heaven’s sake, she had been accosted by a complete barbarian. Why was she making excuses for him? Who in this day and age demanded a kiss in return for civilized behavior?
And got away with it, she reminded herself with an attempt at stern disapproval.
The problem was that she didn’t feel the least little bit accosted. Try as she might, Cynthia could not seem to whip herself into the frenzy of indignation the encounter deserved! She had just come away from a bad deal with the devil. She had actually agreed to trade a kiss for a moment’s privacy. The man was a pirate.
“I’ve been victimized,” she told herself, kicking up the sand looking for her shoes. The words totally lacked conviction. If she was honest, she would admit it felt as though she was trying to manufacture the way her mother would have wanted her to feel.
She gave up the search for the shoes and headed across the sand toward the beautiful twisting pathway that would lead her through an exotic world of tropical plants back to the safety of her room. But rather than hurrying back to that sanctuary, she found herself dawdling. She was aware of how delightful the sand felt squishing up between her toes and then of the warmth seeping through the pavement into her bare feet. She was aware of the scent of the night, the sea smell mixed with the wild abundance of colorful and aromatic flowers that bloomed in well-groomed beds. Most of all, she was aware of the night air on her cool, damp skin, sensuous as a touch.
He had touched her, the palm of his hand rough and masculine against the softness of her cheek as he had guided her lips to his.
Why hadn’t she pulled away?
“A deal’s a deal,” she told herself righteously, “even if it is with the devil.”
But she knew she was lying to herself. She had not lingered over that kiss on the flimsy excuse that she had made a deal. No, she had been drawn into the unsavory deal because his mouth had tasted faintly of cigars, and, unlike her vow, the taste had not given her the least desire to upchuck on his shoes.
No, there had been nothing repelling about the taste on his firm lips—smokey
