to happen? What did you expect me to do? Or say?” He looked at her then, opened his mouth to reply, but again she rushed on.
“Like—you getting divorced just…erased everything? Hey—maybe getting a divorce erased your marriage, but it didn’t erase anything else, you understand?”
She was gazing fiercely at him but tapping her own chest with an angry finger; that, and the stark anguish in her eyes told him what he knew she’d never say: You hurt me, Pearce. Nothing can fix that or take it away.
“No, you’re right,” he said stiffly. He wanted to swallow, to cough, do something to relieve the tight, raw feeling in his throat. “That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done it. What you said to me—I deserved that.”
She didn’t answer. He heard a faint creak as she, too, leaned her hip against the railing. Beyond it—and utterly wasted on the two of them, Cory thought—the sea shimmered in the light of an almost-full moon like a tropical hideaway ad in a honeymoon brochure.
After what seemed like a very long time, he heard her say in a soft, bleak voice, “Anyway, it wouldn’t have worked, because nothing had changed. That was the thing, you know. It still hasn’t. I still am a…pilot. I have a career that…well, you know. And you want…”
“Yeah,” he said, straightening abruptly. What in the hell did he want? He wasn’t sure he knew himself, anymore. He’d once thought he did, and look how wrong he’d been.
Right now, all he knew was what he didn’t want, which was to stand here talking about it with the one thing he wanted and couldn’t have—a woman he’d been craving like an addict and hadn’t even known it…a woman he wasn’t allowed to touch. His whole body, every muscle and nerve and sinew in it, quivered with the strain of denial.
He turned and lurched for his door, at the same time plunging a hand into his pocket and pulling out his room key. It was the old-fashioned kind, the metal fit-into-a-lock-and-turn kind, and while he was struggling with it, he felt Sam come up beside him. Felt her warmth like a tropical breeze on his skin…her womanly scent like an intoxicating drug. His head swam.
The key turned and he shoved the door inward. It was all he could do to say thickly, “Look, I’ll see you in the morning, okay? Shall we say…whoever gets up first, rouses the others?”
“Fine with me.”
He stepped into the room and turned toward her. Instead of backing away, saying good-night, she followed him in.
Hell. He’d forgotten the maps.
His overnighter was on the floor beside the door. He unzipped the outside pocket, took out the folded maps and handed them over without looking at her. “I’ve marked the rendezvous point and the location of the airstrip.” His breath felt meager, his chest tight.
She nodded—he could see that much as he flattened his back against the open door, making room for her to slip past him. Then she moved, and he had time for one surprised breath before she stepped close, slipped her arms around his neck, lifted herself and pressed her mouth against his.
Oh, no, she’s still the same. Still Sam. The confidence, the certainty, the sheer possession in the way she kisses me.
She knew him so well…knew just how and where to touch him…how to slide her body against his…melt her mouth into his. Fire squirted through all his veins; his thoughts turned to vapor, his bones to water.
Oh, God, she’s still the same.
“Sam,” he said feebly when at last she pulled away, “I promised I wouldn’t—”
“You promised,” she said in her old, familiar, arrogant way. “I didn’t.”
She patted his chest once with the folded maps, then went away and left him standing there.
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