In the next instant he was gone, sitting up beside her.
Elizabeth blinked in shock, uncertain what had happened or why he had pulled away so abruptly. She lay there, her eyes open but unseeing, trying to assimilate her senses. Gabe never hesitated. He caught her arms just above her elbows and jerked her upright so that she, too, was sitting, although not quite as steadily as he. It took a lot of effort not to flop down. She felt boneless and flushed and limp. Mute, she stared at him.
He gave her a grim, somewhat apologetic look and then she heard the motor. They both turned to stare at the entrance to the lake.
Seconds later a small fishing boat similar to the one they had used rounded the bend into the cove. Two older men, goofy hats hooked with a variety of lures perched on their heads, concentrated on the long fishing lines they had dragging in the water. Their voices were barely audible over the steady drone of the trolling motor.
They looked up in surprise when they noticed Gabe. Almost as one, their gazes turned to Elizabeth, and she felt herself turning pink with embarrassment. Good grief, could they tell what she and Gabe had been doing? Would they be able to look at her face and see it all?
Gabe moved, leaning forward to block her from view. He waved at the men, who waved back and continued to stare at them until their boat nearly went aground. With a disgruntled curse, the man in the back redirected their course and they puttered out of sight.
Gabe turned to her, his gaze probing and direct. Unable to look away, Elizabeth thought how unfair it was that he could completely snare her with just a look. Eyes so light and clear a blue should have appeared cool, not fiery and passionate.
His fair hair shimmered beneath the sunshine, mussed from his swim—and from her fingers. Every muscle in his tensed body was delineated, drawing her eyes. He watched her so intently, she almost flinched.
Swallowing hard, Elizabeth tried to think of what to say. It was nearly impossible to muster a straight, businesslike face after that…that… She didn’t know what to call it. It was certainly far more than a mere kiss. Admittedly, she lacked experience, but she was certainly not stupid. She knew the difference between kissing and what they’d just done.
It wasn’t easy, but she reminded herself of her original purpose, her continued purpose. All her life she’d struggled to deal with the idiosyncrasies of heroism, why some had those qualities and some did not. Having heroism gave you the ability to change lives, lacking it could leave you forever empty.
She met Gabe’s eyes and cleared her throat. “Well, after that, I expect an entire explanation for my thesis.”
She hadn’t meant to sound so cold and detached; what she really felt was far different from those simple emotions. She’d only meant to stress the point of what they were doing and why.
Gabe’s eyes darkened, narrowed, the heat leaving them as if it had never been there. His jaw flexed once, then stilled. He stared at her mouth and said, “You’ll get it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
HE WANTED to shake her, to… God, he’d never had the inclination to do any more than make love with a woman, laugh with her, tease. But Lizzy had him crazed.
He’d all but taken her on the damn dock, out in the open, on the lake, for crying out loud.
And she’d have let him.
He sensed it in his bones. He knew women, knew how they thought, what they felt, when they were turned on and how to turn them on. Little Red had been wild. She’d bit his bottom lip, sucked on his tongue, lifted her hips into the thrust of his… She’d strained against him, trying to get closer, and her fluttering heartbeat had let him measure each new degree of her excitement. She’d been on the ragged edge. He could have slipped his fingers past the leg band of her suit and stroked her over the edge with very little effort.
But now she watched him as though it had never happened, demanding answers to questions that were beyond stupid.
“I need to cool off.” With no more warning than that, Gabe went over the side of the dock. He swam down until he touched the bottom, feeling around for a shell. When he surfaced, Lizzy was hanging over the edge, watching for him anxiously. He pushed wet hair from his face and forced himself not to eye her breasts.
“You scared me!” She stared at him in accusation, looking like a wild woman. Thanks to his hands, long strands of hair had escaped her thick braid in various places, giving her a woolly-headed look, like a damn red thistle. Her smooth cheeks were flushed, making the freckles more pronounced. Her lush mouth, which had felt so hot and hungry under his only moments before, was pressed into a severe line.
Gabe almost laughed. Hell, she wasn’t even pretty, not really, and she sure as certain didn’t have the right temperament to lure a man. So why had he reacted so strongly?
“Here.” He handed her the shell, watched her sit back, bemused, to look it over. “It’s just a mussel. The bottom of the lake is littered with them. I dated a girl for a while who used to find live ones and eat them raw.”
Lizzy’s head jerked up, and she dropped the shell. Her lip curled in a way that made her look ready to vomit. No, she looked far from pretty right now.
Gabe laughed out loud. “Gross, huh? I couldn’t quite bring myself to kiss her again after that. I kept thinking of what had been in that mouth. Have you ever seen a live mussel? They’re sort of slimy and gray.”
She covered her mouth with a hand, swallowed hard, then sat back and glared at him some more. “Are you going to stay in there, or will you get out and answer my question?”
“Answer one for me first, okay?”
Her blue eyes widened, and he had to admit that they, at least, were beautiful. No matter her mood, her eyes were a focal point in her face, vivid and filled with curiosity and intelligence. He liked the color, dark and deep, unlike his faded, washed-out color. With the sun reflecting off the lake, he could see green and black and navy striations in her irises, lending richness to the unique color. As he studied her eyes, her pupils flared, reminding him how quickly she’d gotten aroused with him.
Arousing Little Red was fun, indeed. And from what he could tell, she could use a little fun in her life. Maybe it’d take some of the starch out of her spine and some of the vinegar out of her speech.
He propped his crossed arms over the edge of the dock, facing her and smiling into her stern face. “Where’d you get that suit?”
Bemused, she looked at herself, then at him. She plucked nervously at the material by her waist. “I…well, I hadn’t owned a suit before this. You insisted we needed to swim, so I had to go get one last night. But I couldn’t see spending a lot of money on one when this would likely be the only time I wore it. So I grabbed the cheapest one I could find.”
“The cheapest one-piece?”
Her lips trembled, fascinating him. “I’m not exactly the type to wear a bikini.”
“Why not?” His voice dropped despite his effort to sound dispassionate. “You have an incredible body, Lizzy.” He was serious, but he could tell by the way her eyes darkened and she looked away that she didn’t believe him.
“Lizzy?” She wouldn’t look at him. His heart
