Renegade Player (9 page)

They went out under bare poles, in water that caught the glint of a late sun, silhouetting dozens of small boats against a pale-gold haze. Kiel explained that the channel wasn’t wide enough to negotiate comfortably under sail with the wind in that quarter but that once they gained deep water off the northern end of Hatteras Island, he’d hoist sail.

Willy didn’t care. She was unreasonably happy, almost choked with a sort of expectant joyousness, and she told herself firmly that she was only along because Dotty needed another woman with her and Dotty was only along because Kiel had planned to make the trip anyway.

So don’t build on it, my girl, she warned herself sternly. She had no trouble finding her way about, for she had known a few harbor sailors who used just such yachts for entertaining, seldom, if ever, leaving port. She had gone to several yacht parties with Luke and Jasper until Jasper began to notice the attention she received from his male friends, and then the invitations had suddenly stopped coming. Which suited her just fine. Hard-drinking, poker-playing, wife-swapping sophisticates weren’t her idea of good company, anyway, and she had been slightly surprised that Luke went along with the crowd. Of course, that was before she understood that he was Jasper’s hired man.

Enough of the past, she told herself, making her way up forward to sprawl facedown on a sun-warmed deck. It felt good on her bare skin, the contrast between hot teak and cool breeze with a hint of spray thrown in for added zest. She had sailed in small boats when she was younger, but nothing in this class. When Kiel cut the engines and hoisted the main, she rolled over onto her back and raised her arm to shade her face, gazing up in rapt admiration. The sight of all that translucent white dacron against a deep blue cloudless sky was enough to bring tears to the surface of her eyes and she chided herself for a silly fool.

But then Willy also cried at parades and airports, something that had driven her father wild. He had no use for tears, calling all the softer emotions sloppy sentimentalism; however, she supposed one didn’t harness the amount of power and wealth Jasper Silver-thorne had by indulging in weaknesses.

Why did she keep on thinking of her father? She sat up and shoved impatient fingers through her hair. It must be the yacht and the fact that she was back again in the rarefied atmosphere of money after months of living on a tight budget, learning to love her shabby, makeshift furniture. Surprisingly enough, she had not once missed the quiet elegance of her father’s home, where everything moved on well-oiled wheels. There had always been a uniformed figure hovering in the background of her life, in case a Silverthorne wanted something, and she could remember from the time she was six, when Jasper—he had been Daddy then—had moved her there with his second wife . . . she remembered being driven down that long, curving driveway between double rows of white-boled royal palms. It had been a Corniche and the chauffeur’s name had been Astin and he had never smiled. She remembered that.

She had been Mina then. Little Mina Silverthorne, Jasper’s homely little heiress, made much of by his women friends until she had suddenly shot up to her full height; then she was kept in a succession of expensive, cloistered establishments until she had outgrown them as well.

That had all ended quite suddenly when she had discovered that she had a will to match her father’s, and since he was in no position to argue, with his latest marriage on the line, she had had her own way and now she discovered that she quite enjoyed cooking her own meals, swatting her own mosquitoes and strolling into a waterfront cafe to see the admiring glances cast her way.

“From wistfulness to grim determination to smug satisfaction; what is causing that remarkable array of expressions, I wonder?” Kiel asked from directly above her. His deck shoes had made no sound and now she looked up to see that he had changed into navy trunks and a white windbreaker. The glowing ball of sun turned his skin copper.

“Maybe I’m just hungry,” she suggested lazily, smiling up through a curtain of hair.

“You know what has to be done, then, unless you’d care to take the helm while I do the honors.”

She sat up with a graceful economy of movement. “Not unless you want to be painting
Good Tern the Third
on another transom.”

“Warning duly noted. Actually, she’ll sail herself in all but the most extreme conditions, but I’d as soon not risk it as we near the cape. Pity you won’t be able to see the stream in the dark, but we’ll see it tomorrow and Sunday.”

“Want to hear something silly? I always thought we owned the Gulf Stream ... we Floridians, that is.” She took the hand he extended to her and stood up, finding herself altogether too close to him.

“So you’re from Florida originally. Then chances are you’ve sailed before?”

He made it a question but she refused to be drawn. “Small-boat stuff,” she allowed, dropping down into the cockpit and making her way below.

Dotty raised her head and slid her glasses back up on her nose. “Getting about time to eat, isn’t it? I can’t see to read much longer, anyway.”

“I don’t see how you can go on reading down here without getting sick as a dog,” Willy said, opening the compact refrigerator to see what Kiel had provided.

“I’ve got a cast-iron stomach.”

“You’re telling me!” Willy cracked. She had lunched with her friend often enough to deplore the consumption of cardboard sandwiches and plastic desserts washed down by quarts of cola.

The refrigerator held a treasure trove and Willy decided to try something simple for her first shipboard attempt: filet of beef with parsley potatoes and a simple salad with a really good dressing. Calling up the companionway, she asked Kiel his choice of wine to go with the steaks and then located the French red he suggested. There was a creamy Italian Mezzanello for afterward, and she shaved off a sliver and put it in her mouth as she went about familiarizing herself with the ingenious cooking facilities.

By the time they came abreast Cape Hatteras Light, the sky was like diamond-studded black velvet and Kiel announced his decision to anchor in the bight until the next morning. “I don’t particularly want to try Hatteras Inlet at dead low tide, and besides, we’ll be a lot more comfortable out here with a breeze than we would on the inside in the lee of the island.”

Dotty cleaned up after the meal as her share, still effusing over what she called the cutest kitchen. She said she wanted to get to bed so she could be up extra early in the morning, and so Kiel showed her how to arrange the shower wall and assured her that there was plenty of fresh water.

Exploring the teak and holly counter and the clever storage compartments, Willy had discovered a supply of tapes and a deck, and so she had selected several of her favorites and put them on. An hour or so later, the last one ended while she and Kiel were relaxing on the two outside benches, and now there was only the creak of the rigging to break the stillness of the night. By the intermittent sweep of light from shore, Willy watched Kiel’s silhouetted profile, reading in it a strength and toughness that was not as apparent when one was distracted by his surface attractiveness. Again she was reminded that this was a man, not a boy to be put off with a smile and a teasing kiss.

“Sleepy?” he asked, his voice keyed to the unearthly beauty of the night.

“Not really,” she replied as softly. “Know what I’d love to do? Go swimming.”

“Now?”

“Mmmmhmmmm. Could I?”

“Au naturel?”

She caught her breath. “If you mean in the raw, then no, thanks. I don’t think it’s really wise, do you?” “Swimming at night never is, no matter what the circumstances,” he replied dryly. “Go put on your suit.”

Perversely, she reminded him, “We’ve just eaten.”

“Over an hour ago. Besides, I’ll stick with you. You’re not a very energetic swimmer at the best of times, are you?”

“You know me,” she drawled, ambling the few feet to the door of the cabin she was to share with Dotty. “If there’s a wave, I’ll ride it; if not, I’ll float.”

By the time she was ready to go over the side, it looked terribly dark and she hung back, thinking of all the things that could be lurking under the surface. This was no safe pool, with Astin standing by with his chrome-plated rod.

“Second thoughts?” came the mocking baritone behind her.

She took a deep breath and dived, coming up from the surprisingly warm water in time to see Kiel slice through without a splash several yards away. He joined her then as she trod water and suggested a leisurely swim around the hull as a constitutional, and she tried and failed to suppress a rising sense of excitement. She eased into a slow, graceful Australian crawl, a stroke that she had discovered to be much less energetic, and he kept pace with her, his leg occasionally brushing against her own.

They went around the darkly gleaming hull twice, swimming under bow and stem lines, and when, winded and laughing, she caught at the boarding ladder, Kiel swam up beside her and reached around to cover her hand with his. The move brought him in bodily contact with her and she felt the buoyant saltwater float her feet up so that her legs tangled with his and he caught her in a scissors grip and turned her to face him, keeping them both afloat with one hand on the ladder.

“You exerted yourself too much,” he murmured against her dripping hair. “Your heart’s about to jump out of your skin.” As if to prove his point, he ran a hand up over her stomach to her breast, not stopping to cup its roundness, but splaying it over her chest so that his fingers touched the base of her throat. Then the hand moved around to the back of her neck, and after a brief fumbling she felt the tension of her bra strings ease. She closed her eyes in silent appeal, knowing she was powerless against the suffocating sensation that was washing away all her resistance. When he untied the strings at her back and she felt her breasts float free on the warm water, she almost sank below the surface and then he tossed the scrap of cloth up into the cockpit and drew her close against the hard length of his body. “My exercise had even more of an effect than yours,” he whispered, taking her hand and bringing it up to his chest.

Her fingers combed through the thatch of soft, wet hair and closed convulsively on the throbbing flesh and then she felt his hands at her hips. “Kiel . . . don’t do that!”

“You knew this would happen when you suggested swimming.” The words were spoken against her pulsating throat even as he drew away the last barrier of defense and tossed it after her bra.

She began to struggle in his arms, her head lifted frantically above the surface of the water, but her struggles were ineffective because she had to hang on to him to keep from sinking. Warm, vagrant currents swept her legs up between his and he held them there, throwing her far off balance. She was acutely aware of every single movement of his body, both voluntary and involuntary, and when his mouth closed over hers, she was drowning in a sea of sensations.

His tongue seduced her languorously, in tune with the silent currents that swayed their two entwined bodies and she felt her breasts crushed against the sensuous mat that covered his broad chest. She heard the thunder of his heart through her very skin, through her probing nipples, and then, with one arm supporting them both, he allowed the other to stroke through the warm, dark water, sliding over the satiny skin of her back to mold her to him so that there was nothing, no vestige of separation between them, and when he spoke, his voice was a strangled whisper, almost unrecognizable. “God, Willy, help me get you on board or I’ll drown us both trying. I’ve never made love to a woman underwater before, but if you aren’t aboard that boat in the next five seconds, I’m warning you, I’m going to do it!”

He lifted her, dragging her agonizingly close to his cool nakedness as he brought her up within reach of the ladder. Her own wet hip brushed against his shoulder and then she was clinging to the rungs as his hand closed over her foot and placed it securely.

“Go, darling . . . hold on now,” he cautioned her, and then she was over the side, standing in the starlight with the water streaming down around her and he was poised like some dark nemesis on the rail, devouring her with his eyes.

“You’re so unbelievably lovely,” he whispered hoarsely as the sweeping beam from the lighthouse limned her naked form. He reached for her and she drew back, overcome by some irrational fear; and when she turned and fled precipitately to the tiny compartment where Dotty lay sleeping peacefully, she leaned against the thin door and heard the accusing silence behind her. And she ached with a terrible longing.

She wanted him; more than anything else in the world, she wanted Kiel Faulkner, not for just a night, but to the edge of beyond; and she knew instinctively that if she gave in to him, that would be the end of it. He had pursued her with the single-mindedness of a man challenged, and once that challenge was gone, he’d be gone as well.

The crack of sails awakened her and Willy sat up and blinked, completely disoriented for a moment. Then she looked across to see that Dotty’s bunk was already made up into its daytime guise. She tossed off the sheet, not unduly surprised to see that she was nude, for on hot, sticky nights, she often slept bare, but as the circumstances of her going to bed returned to her, like the feeling in a limb that’s been asleep, she groaned softly and pressed hard against her eyes. Then, wrapping the sheet around her, she padded to the compact head and stared at the hollow-eyed specter in the mirror.

Ten minutes later she felt half-human again. The smell of coffee drifting through the cabin was enough to galvanize her into action and she dressed quickly in white shorts and a navy halter. Stepping into her deck shoes and pulling her hair back carelessly with a cotton bandanna, she pulled back the folding partition and braced herself to face Kiel and pretend that last night had been a swim and a kiss and nothing more.