Safe Harbor (26 page)

Please, let's be lovers. That was her plea.

He sighed. "Ah, love
.
..."

In the distance he heard the moan of the foghorn:
be warned... be warned.

Was he headed straight for the rocks? Very possibly. But somehow he didn't care anymore. Her song was far more compelling than any Siren's, an irresistible coupling of innocence with ecstasy. He was suddenly desperate to hear it at closer range.

"Holly
... sweet, unheeding Holly
..."

Lost in her allure, he released her wrists, then caught the hem of her top in his hands, lifting it up and over her head and tossing it aside. Her shudder of acquiescence thrilled him to the marrow: she truly did want to be his.

Humbled as much as he was emboldened, he lowered his head to her bare breast,
kissing
and nipping gently, reveling in the sweetness of her surprised gasps, driving them up to the level of moans.

Not enough. He wanted her to beg for more, to cry out his name. He pulled her to her feet and pounded her with kisses, aware that it was madness, aware that they might be caught in a spectacularly compromising position. They could go to jail. Did he care?

Not enough. He groped at her zipper, then—grateful for a looser buttonhole this time—undid the fastener of her jeans. "Here
... on this berth," he said, easing her onto her back.

Madness.

She said, "I'm not forcing you, am I?" and he laughed out loud, sending her into a fit of answering giggles. Laughing, kissing, hushing one another, they hurried through their disrobing and lay down side by side on the narrow berth. No room for acrobatic loveplay here: Sam relished her breasts, small and firm and cool, up against his chest, but she had
to put up with his rock- solid hard-on jamming her stomach. He repositioned himself so that his parts would lay against her parts in the right places, murmuring giddy endearments the whole time to this most endeared of all God's creatures.

She was a delight, hot and coy and easy and teasing at the same time, stroking him lightly
,
still giggling between kisses, her giggles dissolving into deep, labored moans as he began to work his fingers against the warm, wet flesh at her entry.

Sam had never enjoyed seeing enjoyment so much in his life. She was bliss to make love to—uninhibited without being histrionic, deeply emotional without being theatrical. The artist in her made everything intense, and the innocent in her made it even more so.

He was in awe of her.

"Come in me now before I die," she murmured in his ear
.

"Oh, sweetheart—oh, yes," he said, swinging a leg over hers and positioning himself to come in. "I thought you'd never ask."

Another burst of giggles, joyous and giddy and—on the
Vixen
—outrageously dangerous.

"Shh, shh," he begged her. "Sweet, goofy darling
...
concentrate."

"Aye, aye, sir," she whispered, and somehow the phrase made her go suddenly all quiet.

She sighed and took a deep breath, and when he slid into her, her moan of pure pleasure took his own breath away. Sam's senses were acutely heightened, and he heard everything around him: the siren at the end of the breakwater, the horn at West Chop, the low gurgle of an outboard as some skiff picked its way through the fog. He heard it all, but what he would remember for the rest of his life, what he would carry in his heart around the world, was the soul-satisfying sound of that moan.

He began a slow move to ecstasy, back and then forward at a controlled pace, straining at the reins of his self-imposed discipline, even as he savored the whimper of her ragged breathing. Her body arched underneath his as she dug her heels into the narrow berth, creating a deeper entry. The sound of his flesh slapping against hers as he stepped up the rhythm made his head spin, impelling him into an ever faster, deeper rush to fulfillment.

Making love to her on her father's impounded boat was surely the most foolish thing that Sam had ever done, but if they came after him with handcuffs swinging just then, it wouldn't have made any difference: he wanted this woman at this moment in a way he'd never wanted anyone before.

Not even
Eden
.

He increased the pace to a furious pump, slamming the breath out of her in staccato grunts as she kept pace with him thrust for thrust. Everything about her whipped him on as they raced in tandem to the finish. His mind reeled, his ears rang; he began to see bright colors flashing before his closed eyes.

And then, because he was being so willful, tak
in
g Holly on a berth in the
Vixen
; because he was thinkin
g of her and not, for once, of
himself; because he didn't want her to dwell for one split second on the possibility of having to make a wrenching choice if this should be her fertile time—because of all those things, and because he cared for her in ways that he couldn't begin to understand: he pulled out of her, a single heartbeat before he came.

****

"No-o-o
," Holly cried, and at the exact moment that Sam withdrew from her with a wrenching groan, she felt herself go over the edge in a climax so dizzying that she blacked out, if only for the briefest of eternities.

They lay together in exhausted silence for another, longer eternity, until Holly took a deep, deep breath, letting it out in moan of satisfaction. If they were in a hut in
Tonga
, she couldn't have felt more spent.

"That was
... unbelievable," she whispered.

"I'm having a hard time believing it myself," Sam said. He did sound stunned.

"But
... I wish you hadn't pulled out."

She felt him nod agreement against her. "I didn't know if you were protected," he said. "We were a little spur of the moment."

"I'm not on the pill," she admitted. There hadn't been much need; her sex life had been depressingly low-key lately.

"Holly, I'm—"

"You're not sorry, are you?" she said quickly. Somehow he sounded as if he was going to be sorry.

He nuzzled the curve of her neck and dropped a light kiss on her damp skin. "I should be, God knows. But right now
... Holly, right now, the only place on earth I want to be is in your arms."

And if she had her way, he was going to stay there the rest of their lives.

They lay there for a dangerously long time, and then Sam said, "Much as I hate to say it, I don't think we should compound our folly by hanging around."

He smiled at his choice of word. Folly? A folly was a pretty little structure in someone's backyard. What Sam had just indulged in was pure and indulgent madness.

Holly groped around in the dark and came up with some paper towels, which Sam used to wipe up the puddle he'd left on the berth of the
Vixen.
Part of him—the old, ironic, cynical part—thought,
Is this symbolic or what
? But the bigger part, the newly joyful part, stuffed the paper towels in his hip pocket and said to Holly with a grin, "Let's get the hell out of here."

In absurdly comical silence they tiptoed out of the cabin, slid the dropboards back in place, locked the padlock to which Holly had a key—big oversight on someone's part—and stepped off the boat onto the dock. Joyous or not, Sam breathed a sigh of relief; at least they wouldn't be nabbed
en flagrante.

Holly was ready to make a mad dash, but he pulled her back and caught her in his arms for a long, delicious kiss.

"Let's go home," he said after he released her.

"Oh, God, yes," she said, sounding tired and happy. She looked up with a shyly wicked smile. "My diaphragm's there."

They began retracing th
eir steps down the long, still-
deserted dock. Sam looked out to the east and was convinced that he saw dawn nudging its way through the fog; they had been aboard the
Vixen
for what had seemed like hours. He lit his watch and was amazed to see that it was only three forty-seven.

Morning light would be a long time coming.