Strangers in Paradise (14 page)

He lifted her again, carrying her against the waves until they had just reached the shore. He laid her there and quickly stretched atop her, burrowing his weight between her thighs, kissing her hastily again, stealing breath and strength and protest from her. Kissing her so quickly, again and again. Her lips, her throat, her breast, her belly, her thighs, the very core of her, deeply, so deeply...

“Alexi.”

He was above her, his eyes on her.

“Watch,” he whispered. “You can. We can.”

He touched her so erotically. And she watched. And she gasped again, crying out with the sheer pleasure of it, and he slowly, completely, insolently, possessively...electrically sank his body deep within hers.

Chapter 8

“M
e and thee and a jug of wine.”

There was the most wonderful, laconic smile on his face. He was still stark naked and not a bit bothered by it. Flat on his back, Rex lifted his hands to the heavens and sighed with contentment.

Alexi had no choice but to smile, too, curling on her side to watch him. The moon was high overhead and the stars were shimmering over the sand and the water, and she had never imagined that night could be so beautiful. She leaned on an elbow and drew a tender line down the length of Rex's cheek.

“We haven't any wine,” she reminded him.

“Ah, true. Me and thee, then. In Eden. This is heaven.” He drew her on top of him, lulled and sated to an exquisite point where he could pause now and savor and appreciate each little nuance of her, of the things that passed between them. He could feel the sand, gritty against his back, cool, fascinating. He could feel the sand she brought with her, those tiny pebbles against the endless silken smoothness of her flesh. She leaned against his chest, slightly flushed. Her eyes were as brilliant as gems, more wondrous than all the stars in the heavens; her beautiful lips were curled into the most awkward little smile. Her hair was still soaked, a tangled mane swept clean from her flesh now, yet it showed off the elegant lines of her delicate, exquisite features. He leaned on his elbows, laughing as she went off balance and then pouncing on her as she lay on her back in the sand, touching her cheek because he had to and studying the length of her in the moonlight because he had to do that, too.

“Helen of Troy,” he murmured softly, “the face that beyond a doubt launched a thousand ships. Face and form...” Softly, tenderly, with an awed fascination, Rex explored her length with his fingertips as well as with his eyes. Breasts this lovely had never graced the pages of a fold-out magazine, he thought, then corrected himself. Well, all right, maybe they had once in a long while, but not often. Long, lean torso, slim waist, the most feminine flare of hips and buttocks...

Even her kneecaps were glorious.

“Sweetheart.” He grinned at her. And then he groaned softly in mock agony. “Had they seen her body, too, they could have launched a million ships.”

“Rex, stop!” Alexi protested, but he had her laughing and she couldn't help it. She laughed until his head dipped over her and his face brushed her nipple. Then he took it into his mouth, sliding his teeth, and then his tongue, gently around it. She felt a sharp sizzle of desire strike her anew just from that action, and her breath caught as she threaded her fingers through the deadly-dark wings of his hair, trying to draw him to her.

His eyes, darker than the sea at night, far darker than the midnight sky above them, met hers.

“I'm not, you know,” she murmured. “I'm not anything like a real Helen of Troy at all. I'm...”

Quite ordinary.
Those were the words she was looking for. She never had a chance to find them.

“No, you're not Helen of Troy. And you're not fantasy.”

Rex smiled as he leisurely stroked his fingertip over her lower lip. She was really so beautiful that night. And maybe it was part fantasy. They were on the beach, and there was nothing on the horizon, nothing at all. They might have been the last man and woman on earth, or the very first. The breeze was gentle and balmy and the water was warm and the earth seemed to cradle them and blanket them in some welcoming, tender embrace. And she really didn't look like the Helen of Troy image at all; she was all natural. All...divinely natural, from wet hair and face to her gloriously naked body. Her eyes, her expression, the beauty in her features...were all innocence. The curve of her body was wanton and lush. The combination was nothing less than magical.

Rex dipped his head to kiss her mouth. He raised himself just a breath away from her.

“No, you're not Helen. You're Alexi Jordan, and I—”

He broke off abruptly.

And I love you very much.

Those had been the words he had been about to say, he realized. They stunned him; they shocked him. He'd known he'd wanted her. Any male over the age of twelve who lived and breathed would have wanted her. He'd known that he could enjoy her company, that she could be fun and feisty and proud and temperamental, and even soft at times.

He just hadn't known that he was falling in love with her. Nor was it a particularly bright thing to have done. She was Helen of Troy, right? A woman who would be returning to a certain world. A woman who probably needed that world, had to have a certain amount of adoration in her life. She'd stay awhile, and then she'd go, and then he'd...

He'd spend the rest of his life missing her.

“Rex?”

Something in her tone was very soft and vulnerable. He'd forgotten. She'd come to him after a bad finale to a bad marriage, and she was as delicate as the fine marble she so resembled. He had to fall out of love with her. But not now. Not tonight.

“Alexi Jordan,” he whispered, “is far more beautiful than Helen of Troy could have ever been.”

“Flatterer,” she said accusingly.

“Mmm-hmm,” he agreed. His one leg lay cast over her. The prickly hairs of his chest tickled the soft flesh of her breasts mercilessly. He casually cupped her cheek and murmured huskily, “Think you want to go again?”

His were bedroom eyes if she'd ever seen them, and this dusky velvet patch of earth and water was the most erotic bedroom she had ever known. She smiled, wondering at the infinite tenderness in the man. He'd known exactly what to say, and when. And he'd known exactly what to do, and when. She'd never known a man more the epitome of the male, and she'd never begun to imagine that such a man could show so much sensitivity.

“Think you can?” he asked.

She gazed into his eyes and stroked her fingers over his cheek, savoring the shaven flesh. “Piece of cake,” she told him, and she set both palms against his face, bringing him down to her. She reached for his mouth first with the tip of her tongue, rimming his lips with that delicate touch before she molded her mouth to his. She felt the great rush of his breath and the fascinating hardening of his body, muscles tensing and stretching and tautening with his growing sexual excitement.

Earth, wind...and fire. It was Eden.

She felt his touch against her, her breasts, her hips, the curve of her buttocks, the soft flesh of her inner thigh. His kiss seared her, and when his lips left her flesh, the breeze came to kiss it afresh. He whispered words that meant nothing and everything, and she knew that she whispered in return, like a breath of the sea, like the cry of the waves. Each cry, each whisper, was fuel to the fire, and each fire was a lapping flame creating sensation anew, a heightened tension. She dared anything. She touched him intimately; she exulted in the swell and pulse of him. She soared to the heat and thunder of his rhythm, and she felt the tiny little piece of death that blacked out the world with the wondrous force of the climax that he brought to her upon the beach just as the very first touch of dawn burst upon it to bathe their Eden in beauteous magenta.

Floating as if she were indeed adrift upon the waves, Alexi returned slowly to the earth beneath her, feeling again the fine grit of the sand and the coolness of the ocean at her feet. His arms went around her, and she rested on them. Only then did she shiver, watching the sky as the first tiny arc of the sun peeked out over the horizon like a shy young maiden.

“It's morning,” Rex murmured.

“It certainly is,” Alexi agreed. She shifted up onto her elbows. Rex stood and walked into the water, hunching down to splash water against his face, then standing again to stare out at the rising sun.

Alexi smiled, biting her lower lip. The sun was beautiful—but not nearly so magnificent as the man who stood before it, a tall, strong silhouette against that golden arc. She liked the whole of him very much, she decided, from the breadth of his shoulders to the muscles of his buttocks and thighs. She wondered if there was any more wonderful way to meet a lover than to come to him in this Eden, as he termed it.

He turned back to her. At her expression, he arched a brow.

“I'm deciding,” she told him.

“Oh?”

“Mmm.” She hesitated just a moment longer. “Can't decide. I like the frontside as much as the backside,” she told him at last.

His dark brow arched higher. “Saucy wench, aren't you?”

“I tell it like it is.”

He laughed and reached a hand down to her. She took it and stood and slid her arms around his neck and enjoyed kissing him in the light bath of sunlight. She loved feeling their naked, sandy flesh brush together.

He loved the feel of her breasts and hips against him, the feel of his sex against hers....

No, no, no, no, no, he thought. He could fairly well guarantee the privacy of his Eden by night, but not by daylight. God alone knew when the meter reader might decide to show up.

He broke away from her, found her dress and slipped it quickly over her head, then hurriedly searched for his trousers.

“All that talk and time to get my clothes off!” Alexi complained. “Now you're shoving me back into them!”

“I'm the jealous type,” he told her, stumbling into his briefs. Alexi, still searching for her panties but comfortably clad in her dress, had to laugh as she watched him. He cast her an indignant glare that offered a definite threat once he was capable of standing straight.

Alexi held out a hand in a defensive gesture but kept laughing. “Don't be offended. I was watching you before, and you were just wonderful. Primal man—Atlas in the flesh. You really were just beautiful against the rising sun.”

“Thanks,” Rex muttered. He glanced up at her as he zippered his fly; then he started to laugh.

“What?” Alexi demanded.

“Green hair.”

“What?”

“You have a lump of seaweed there. Left side—ah, you've got it.”

She stared at him reproachfully, then started to smile. He stretched out his hand again and said, “I could stay here forever. But I'm afraid we might have some company.”

Alexi nodded happily, curling her fingers around his. “Breakfast, Mr. Morrow? My place?”

“Sounds good. Let's pick up Samson first, though, huh? Emily went home yesterday, so he's been locked up all night.”

Alexi nodded, lacing her fingers through his. She smiled as they started walking barefoot over the carpet of pine that led to the beach. “My purse and shoes are in the car. It's morning and you can't hear a thing but the breeze and the seabirds. I really do love it here.”

Rex shot her a quick glance. Alexi, staring at the sky, didn't notice the penetrating quality of his gaze.

“Do you?” he said.

“Hmm?”

“No city lights.”

“Well, everyone likes the city now and then. But, Rex—” She paused, looking at him with a very slight but honest, open smile. “This is like Eden. Don't you imagine that Pierre Brandywine must have thought the very thing when he first built the house for Eugenia?”

“You're a romantic,” he told her.

“So are you,” she said challengingly.

Was he? he wondered. Surely not.

They had reached his house. Samson came bounding out when Rex whistled. Rex asked her to hang on a minute while he got some clothes. “I'm really into sand when we're playing in it,” he told her with a grimace, “and salt and all the rest. But I think I need a shower now, huh?”

“And where are you taking that shower?”

“With you.”

“Presumptuous,” she said with a sigh. But when they started out again, she had to stop. It was broad daylight now, with the bright, bright morning sun climbing higher in the sky. She stood in front of him, and she only hesitated for the fraction of a second. “Thank you, Rex. Thank you so very much. I—”

She hesitated again. Only the fraction of a second again, but the wheels of her heart and mind spun.

I love you.

The words almost spilled from her. Were they such easy words, then? she taunted herself. No, a heartbeat told her that they were not. She did love him. His smile, his dark eyes, the way he had looked, primitive and exciting and male, in the broad arc of the brimming sun. But that wasn't it. She loved him because he had been there. Hostile at first. Audacious at best. But he had been there for her in every sense of the words, sensitive, caring. Gentle and tender.

But he was good at that, she reminded herself. He was an accomplished lover. A good man, a practiced lover. Be his friend! she warned herself. Don't expect much; it will hurt too much if you let your feelings get out of hand.

Too late; her feelings were out of hand. She just had to take care not to let it show.

“You're very special,” she finished quickly, feeling the probing of his ebony eyes. She smiled and stood on her toes to kiss him quickly. “Very special.”

“Hey, I'm an obliging fellow,” he said lightly. “Come on—the kittens must need an outing as badly as Samson.”

“And the cellar will need a cleaning,” Alexi moaned.

Rex didn't argue the point. When they reached the Brandywine house, Alexi retrieved her things from the car while Rex opened the house. By the time she reached the door, she practically tripped over the kittens to enter. Rex had let them up first thing, it seemed. Alexi quickly scooped the pair of them into her arms.

“Hi, sweeties. Did you think that you had been deserted? I'm sorry!”

Samson came running out of the kitchen and slid down the hallway, barking enthusiastically. The kittens squirmed in Alexi's arms, and she set them down to bat away at Samson. Samson tried to make a hasty retreat, but it was too late. The kittens tumbled after him.

“You asked for it this time, Samson!” Alexi laughed.

She started off for the kitchen herself, smiling as she inhaled the aroma of the coffee. Rex had gotten it going quickly.