Homeport

  “This is more fun, and quicker. See?” He replaced the knife, opened the door. “Damp,” he said, and took out his penlight to shine it around the large lower room. “Yet cozy.”

  The walls were paneled with old-fashioned knotty pine that reminded him of a suburban rec room from the fifties. Various shapes were tucked efficiently under holland covers, and a small fireplace, layered with cold gray ash, was built into the far side.

  He thought it was a shame that whoever had designed this area had chosen to build in the walls to square them off rather than going with the round.

  “So, is this where Grandpa entertained his ladies?”

  “I imagine.” She pulled the jacket more securely around her shoulders. The air inside was chilly and stale. “My grandmother detested him, but she stayed in the marriage, raised my father, then nursed her husband through the last two years of his life. She was a wonderful woman. Strong, stubborn. She loved me.”

  He turned back, skimmed the back of his hand over her face. “Of course she did.”

  “There’s no of course when it comes to love in my family.” Because she saw the flicker of sympathy in his eyes, she turned away. “You’d see more in here if you wait for daylight.”

  He said nothing for a moment. He remembered he’d once thought she had a cold streak. It was rare for him to be so completely wrong when analyzing a mark. She’d been a mark then, and now . . . That was something to think about later.

  It wasn’t coldness inside her, but a well-built defense against hurts of a lifetime. From neglect, indifference, from the very coldness he’d believed lived in her.

  He walked around, pleased when he spotted both an oil lamp and candles. He lighted both, appreciating the eerie glow they gave the room. “Spooky.” He put his penlight away and grinned at her. “You ever come in here as a kid and look for ghosts?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Honey, you had a deprived childhood. We’ll have to make up for that. Come on.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going up.” He was already climbing the metal tight-winder stairs.

  “Don’t touch anything.” She scurried after him as the lights he carried sent bobbing glows and shadows against the walls. “It’s all automated now.”

  He found a small bedroom, with little more than a stripped mattress that looked inhabitable and a scruffy chest of drawers. The grandmother, he decided, had likely pirated the place of any valuables. Good for her.

  He walked over and admired the view from the porthole-style window. The sea raged, sliced by the light, churning under it, through it. Small islands, like humped backs, brooded off the ragged coastline. He caught the sway of buoys, heard the hollow bong of them punch through the sweeping crash and suck of sea.

  “Great spot. Drama, danger, and challenge.”

  “It’s rarely calm,” she said from behind him. “There’s a view of the bay from the other window. “Some days, or nights, the water there is as smooth as glass. It looks as though you could walk on it, all the way to shore.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Which do you like best?”

  “I’m fond of both, but I suppose I’m usually drawn to the sea.”

  “Restless spirits are drawn to restless spirits.”

  She frowned at that, brooding after him as he moved out of the room. No one, she thought, would term her a restless spirit. Least of all herself.

  Dr. Miranda Jones was stable as granite, she thought. And often, too often, just as boring.

  With a vague shrug she followed him into the pilot room.

  “Amazing place.” He was already ignoring her order and touching what he chose.

  The equipment was efficiently modern and hummed along as the great lights circled overhead. The room was round, as it should have been, with a narrow ledge circling outside. The iron rails were rusted, but he found them charming. When he stepped out, the wind slapped at him like an insulted woman and made him laugh.

  “Fabulous. Damned if I wouldn’t have brought my women here too. Romantic, sexy, and just a little scary. You ought to fix it up,” he said, glancing back at her. “It’d make a terrific studio.”

  “I don’t need a studio.”

  “You would if you worked on your art, the way you should be.”

  “I’m not an artist.”

  He smiled, stepped back inside and closed out the wind. “I happen to be a very important art broker, and I say you are. Cold?”

  “A little.” She was hugging herself inside the jacket. “It’s very damp in here.”

  “You’re going to have rot if you don’t deal with that. That would be a crime. I’m also an expert on crime.” He put his hands on her arms, rubbing to warm her with friction. “The sea sounds different from in here. Mysterious, almost threatening.”

  “During a good nor’easter, it would sound a lot more threatening. The light still functions to guide ships and keep them from coming too close to the shallows and the rocks. Even with it, there were a number of wrecks off the coast last century.”

  “The ghosts of shipwrecked sailors, rattling bones, haunting the shore.”

  “Hardly.”

  “I can hear them.” He slipped his arms around her. “Moaning for mercy.”

  “You hear the wind,” she corrected, but he’d managed to draw a shudder out of her. “Seen enough?”

  “Not nearly.” He lowered his mouth to nibble on hers. “But I intend to.”

  She tried to wiggle free. “Boldari, if you think you can seduce me inside a damp and dusty lighthouse, you’re delusional.”

  “Is that a dare?” He nipped around to the side of her neck.

  “No, it’s a fact.” But the muscles in her thighs were already going lax. He had the most inventive tongue. “There’s a perfectly good bedroom in the house, several in fact. They’re warm, convenient, and have excellent mattresses.”

  “We’ll have to try them out, later. Have I mentioned what a delightful body you have, Dr. Jones?” His hands were already busy exploring it. Those quick and clever fingers flipped open the hook of her slacks, drew the zipper down before she could do more than gasp out a protest.

  “Ryan, this isn’t the place for—”

  “It was good enough for Grandpa,” he reminded her, then slowly slipped his fingers inside her. She was already hot, already wet, and he kept his eyes on hers, watching them go blind and dark and desperate. “Just let go. I want to feel you come, right here. I want to watch what I do to you. Take you over.”

  Her body gave her no choice. It hummed like a well-oiled machine toward one purpose, one goal. The long, deep thrill slid through her, a sudden tangling of circuits, a sparking of nerve ends, then a long liquid wave of pleasure that swamped the system.

  Her head fell back on a moan, and he moved in to ravage the exposed column of her throat. “Still cold?” he murmured.

  “No, God, no.” Her skin was on fire, her blood pumping like a hot river beneath it. Gripping his shoulders for balance, she rocked against his busy hand.

  Now, when his mouth came back to hers, she answered the demand with one of her own. Time and place were nothing against the hard and driving need.

  Her slacks pooled at her feet, the jacket slipped from her shoulders. Pliant as softened wax, she molded against him as he braced her on the counter where equipment whirred efficiently to send the light circling the sea.

  “Lift your arms, Miranda.”

  She obeyed, her breath snagging on every inhale as he slowly slipped her sweater up. He watched nervy pleasure flicker over her face as he used his thumbs to trace her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra.

  “No wine tonight to blur the edges.” His fingers skimmed lightly over the swell above the simple white silk. “I want you to feel everything, to wonder what you’ll feel next.” He nudged one strap down with a fingertip, then the other, lowered his head to nibble at her bare shoulders.

  It was like being . . . sampled, she thought as her
heavy eyes shut. Savored, lavishly savored. His tongue licked lightly over her flesh, his teeth grazed, and his fingertips slid up and down, up and down the sides of her body, gradually, thrillingly lowering the thin swatch of cotton at her hips.

  He stood intimately between her spread legs while she gripped the edge of the counter and understood what it was to be completely under someone else’s control. To want to be. To crave it.

  Everything he did to her was a shock, a jolt to the ruthlessly ordered pattern of her mind, that only seconds later was desired again and welcomed.

  A part of her brain knew the image she made, almost naked, skin flushed, body arched in surrender while the man who handled her was fully dressed.

  But when he slipped the bra aside, lowered that skilled mouth to her breast, she didn’t care.

  He hadn’t known she could be like this, or how powerful an arousal it was to have a strong and cautious woman yield to him completely. She was his, utterly, to take pleasure from, to give pleasure to. But the thrill of that, rather than dark and edgy, was almost unbearably tender.

  The backwash from the great light slid over her, turning her skin to brilliant white; then it was gone, leaving her glowing gold in the flicker of candlelight. Her hair, so recently chased by the wind, tumbled like silken fire over her shoulders. Her mouth, soft and swollen, parted under his.

  The kiss deepened, warmed, and delved beyond the heady desire neither had anticipated. For a moment they clung together, staggered. And trembled.

  It was like a dream now where the air was thick and sweet. Hot candy, melted over slow heat.

  Neither noticed the damp or the chill. They lowered to a floor that was layered with dust, that was hard and cold, and drew together as gently as a couple on a feather bed.

  Without words, she removed his shirt, her hands steady. And she pressed her lips to his heart, lingering there because she knew that somehow he’d stolen hers.

  He wanted to give her tenderness here, the compassion in mating as well as the thrill. So he was gentle with his mouth, with his hands, loving her in a way that gleamed with emotion as well as need.

  A murmur, a sigh, a long slow arch toward warm waves that cradled rather than battered.

  So when she wrapped around him, pressing her face into his throat, he stroked, he soothed, he gave himself the gift of that same tenderness.

  When he shifted her over him, cupping her hips until she took him in, took him deep, she knew what it was to love her lover.

  twenty

  M iranda awoke beside Ryan for the second morning in a row, and on another continent. It was an oddly thrilling experience that seemed both carelessly wicked and decidedly sophisticated.

  Sinning in style.

  She had an urge to comb her fingers through his hair, play them over his face, explore that dashing little scar over his eye. Foolish, sentimental little strokes and pats that might lead to slow and lazy morning sex.

  It was so odd, all these feelings crowding inside of her, taking up room she hadn’t known she had in store, warming up places she’d assumed would always stay cool and uninhabited. So much more inside her now, she thought, than that first hot gush of lust. Too much more, and it left her completely vulnerable.

  And that was terrifying.

  So instead of touching what she wanted to touch, she eased out of bed and tiptoed into the shower as she had done the morning before. This time, however, she’d barely dunked her head under the spray, when arms slid around her waist.

  “Why do you do that?”

  She waited until her heart had dropped back in place. “Do what?”

  “Sneak out of bed in the morning. I’ve seen you naked already.”

  “I didn’t sneak.” She tried to wiggle free, but his teeth clamped lightly on her shoulder. “I just didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I know a sneak when I see one.” He lifted a brow at her mutter. “And saying ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ doesn’t apply. I have never sneaked out of a woman’s bed. In yes, out no.”

  “Very funny. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to shower.”

  “I’ll help you.” More than willing to assist, he picked up the soap, sniffed it, then began to rub it over her back. It was, he thought, a very excellent back.

  “I mastered the art of the shower years ago. I can do it solo.”

  “Why?” Because her voice had been delightfully prim, he turned her around, snuggling her wet, slippery body against his.

  “Because it’s . . .” She could feel her color rise and hated it. “It’s personal.”

  “Oh, I see,” he said, tongue planted in cheek. “And the sex wasn’t personal?”

  “It’s different.”

  “Okay.” With his eyes laughing into hers, he skimmed his soap-slicked hands over her breasts. “We’ll compromise and combine the two.”

  It was far from the brisk and basic hygiene she’d had in mind.

  When she was gulping in steam and quaking from the aftershocks, he nuzzled at her throat. “That,” he said, “was personal.” Then he sighed. “I have to go to Mass.”

  “What?” She shook her head, sure there was water in her ears. “Did you say you had to go to Mass?”

  “Easter Sunday.”

  “Yes, yes, it is.” Struggling to keep up with him, she shoved dripping hair out of her eyes. “It seems like an odd line of thought, under the circumstances.”

  “They might not have had the benefit of indoor plumbing in biblical times, but they had plenty of sex.”

  She supposed he had a point, but it still made her vaguely uncomfortable to think of religion when his wet hands were sliding over her wet butt.

  “You’re Catholic.” At his lifted brow she shook her head. “Yes, I know, Irish and Italian, what else could you do? I didn’t realize you practiced.”

  “Mostly I’m lapsed.” He stepped out of the shower, handed her a towel and got one for himself. “And if you tell my mother I said that, I’ll swear you’re a dirty, rotten liar. But it’s Easter Sunday.” He gave his hair a quick rub, then draped the towel around his hips. “If I don’t go to Mass, my mother will kill me.”

  “I see. I feel obliged to point out that your mother isn’t here.”

  “She’ll know.” He said it mournfully. “She always knows, and I’ll go straight to hell because she’ll see to it.” He watched her align the ends of the towel, wrap, then neatly tuck them between her breasts. The efficiency of the gesture did nothing to detract from the sexiness of it. The room smelled of her—clean soap with woodsy overtones. Abruptly, he didn’t want to leave her, not even for an hour.

  The realization had him rolling his shoulders as if he needed to displace a sudden and uncomfortable weight.

  “Why don’t you come with me? You can wear your Easter bonnet.”

  “Not only don’t I own a bonnet, of any kind, but I have to get my thoughts in order.” She took a portable hair dryer from the cabinet beside the sink. “And I need to talk to Andrew.”

  He’d been toying with the idea of afternoon Mass so he could slip the knot on her towel. But he put that aside now. “What do you intend to tell him?”

  “Not very much.” And it shamed her. “Under the circumstances, as long as he’s . . . I hate that he’s drinking like this. I hate it.” It shamed her too that when she drew in a breath it was shaky. “And for a minute last night, I hated him. He’s all I’ve ever had, and I hated him.”

  “No you didn’t. You hated what he’s doing.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” But she knew what had bloomed inside her when she looked up and saw him weaving at the top of the steps. “In any case, I have to talk to him. I’ll have to tell him something. I’ve never lied to him before, not about anything.”

  There was nothing Ryan understood more than family ties, or the knots they could tie themselves into. “Until he deals with his drinking, he’s not the man you know, or one you can trust.”

  “I know.” It was eating at her heart.

>   In the bathroom in the next wing, where the smell of stale vomit still hung in the air, Andrew leaned on the sink and forced himself to study the face in his mirror.

  It was gray, the eyes bloodshot, the skin pasty. His left eye was a sunburst of bruising and above that was a shallow cut perhaps