Fascinated, he watched the speculation grow in her eyes, realizing that he’d willingly torment himself just to see the emergence of a siren. “And I only hope,” he muttered, unconsciously completing the thought, “that I’m not creating a monster.”
It was a game he was suggesting, Sarah told herself. A stray thought crept into her mind to cause an instant’s wavering. Once on Kadeira, his game would be impossible. But that was later. They had time for a game. Just a game. And she didn’t think he’d fight too hard not to be caught. She didn’t have to be experienced to know that Rafferty quite definitely wanted her. So why not up the stakes to make it more interesting?
That’s what she told herself. Just an extra incentive to keep Rafferty from giving in too easily. A heady recklessness seized her, and Sarah heard her own voice emerge with nothing more than faint surprise.
“You upped the ante; now it’s my turn.”
Looking into her eyes, Rafferty suddenly knew what she was about to suggest. He knew, and surrendered happily to the gleeful fate that had pointed at Sarah and announced, “She’s the one!”
“Want to raise the stakes, huh?” He smiled slowly. “All right. I’m game.”
“You said that anything I catch, I keep.”
“That’s right.”
“I say, if I catch you, the world has to know about it.” She lifted her left hand, where the diamond and the gold wedding band glittered, and her ring finger moved gently.
“A ring and a promise?” he asked.
“No. A ring and a vow. The whole ball of wax.”
Rafferty lifted his glass and clinked it against hers. “Deal. You catch me, and we’ll make it legal.”
A part of Sarah’s mind told her that she’d passed reckless minutes ago and had now reached madness. She knew that, but she didn’t care. No matter how the game ended, she intended to enjoy it. Her common sense told her no sane man would bet his future as Rafferty had just gambled his, but she didn’t really think about that.
The new Sarah didn’t want to think at all.
Setting her glass aside, she said gently, “You know, I doubt we’ll have separate berths on the Thespian. So we might as well get used to sharing a bed, don’t you think?”
He glanced through the doorway into the bedroom, then lifted a brow at her. “Testing my fortitude?”
“Well, you certainly can’t sleep on the couch, and I refuse to. So it has to be the bed. I prefer the left side, by the way.”
“I can make do with the right side,” he decided. “Pillow between us?”
“Oh, I think we can trust each other not to hurry the game along. Don’t you?”
“Certainly,” he said, silently damning his own bright ideas and wondering just how long he could manage not to be caught. He’d be lucky if he lasted the night.
“It’s late. I’m going to turn in.”
Rafferty watched her go into the bedroom and turn back the covers of the king-size bed. It was then that he discovered he’d definitely been wrong in thinking she wore nothing at all beneath the terry robe. She was dressed all right, as he saw when she removed the robe and tossed it across a chair.
Dressed in a teddy of gleaming peach silk, with a plunging neckline and extraordinary brevity everywhere else. The neckline was edged in lace, thin lace straps alone held the bodice in place, and her golden side showed beautifully through the lace there.
And Rafferty, who had seen quite a bit of seductive sleepwear in his time, watched her slide gracefully into the bed and counted to five before his heart started beating again. Sitting up, she gazed through the doorway at him and lifted a brow questioningly. “Coming?”
He tore his gaze away long enough to look down at his empty glass, then looked back at Sarah alone in the wide and inviting bed. “I think I’ll have another drink first,” he managed.
“Fine. Good night.” She reached to turn out the lamp on her nightstand, then lay back and pulled the covers up to her waist. Turning on her side, she closed her eyes, smiling.
Out in the sitting room, Rafferty fixed himself another drink. Upon reflection, he made it a double.
When Rafferty slid into bed beside Sarah, he didn’t expect to get a bit of sleep; that he slept deeply was entirely due to the fact that he had worked long hours the past week in order to accept this assignment from Hagen. So he slept.
But he dreamed. Green eyes that had been shy and nervous at first glance mocked him gleefully even as they seduced, and he kept reaching for satin skin that somehow eluded him. He felt annoyed at the elusive siren, reaching out again and again to try and draw her close. Then, finally, with a throaty murmur she allowed him to capture her, and he held her tightly.
She was warm at his side, the fragile curves of her body pressed to his. Her hair was silk and his fingers tangled among the strands possessively. His. She was his.
He woke with a start to see daylight brightening the room, and he didn’t have to look to see that his dream had become reality. She was snuggled close to his side, one leg thrown across his and her hand lying warmly on his chest.
He gazed down at the spill of bright red-gold hair that was like caged fire, and since the covers had fallen away during the night he could also see just how well the silk teddy fit her petite but richly curved body.
Rafferty knew he should get up—get away from her before he lost his head and lost the damn “game” by default. Instead, he rested his cheek against that bright silky hair and considered the night before. It didn’t take his mind off his desire, but it did help.
It occurred to him that between the two of them, he and Hagen had somehow changed Sarah. It had been, he decided thoughtfully, a joint effort. Hagen had pried her loose from her safe world and dumped her in an unfamiliar one, and Rafferty had sparked unfamiliar feelings with his own wild passion, and then issued a challenge. He smiled a little. The result should be interesting—to say the least.
Moving very carefully, he eased away from Sarah’s side without waking her and left the bed. He stood there for a moment, gazing down at her. What kind of woman, he wondered, had been jolted to life by this situation? In spite of danger and uncertainty and the fiction of the game they were playing, Rafferty was eager to find out. Everything he felt told him that she was his woman; all that remained was for them to discover just who she was, and if she could feel the same for him.
He dressed and shaved, distracting his mind from thoughts of her by wondering if Hagen’s assignment was as simple as it appeared on the surface. Everything he knew of Hagen made him doubt that, yet there was no way to be certain. He was reasonably sure only that he and Sarah would find a few surprises waiting for them in Kadeira.
Finding her still sleeping, he went into the sitting room and closed the door, then made a few phone calls. The first was to Zach, whom he reached on the West Coast and woke out of a sound sleep.
“You’re what?” Zach asked sleepily.
Rafferty, who liked to admit to folly no more than the next man, sighed and repeated himself. “I said I’m working for Hagen.”
More than three thousand miles away, Zachary Steele sat up in his hotel room and rubbed his eyes, then peered out at the blackness of predawn. “Where are you?” he demanded.
“Trinidad. And on Monday I board a yacht called the Thespian and set sail for Kadeira.”
Zach was silent for a long moment. “I see. My condolences.”
Rafferty winced. “Is it that bad down there?”
“It’s hell,” Zach told him, not mincing words. “No place for Americans—especially when they’re rich enough to afford a yacht. I gather that’s your role?”
“Something like that.”
“What’d Hagen do, blackmail you?”
Rafferty sighed. “Never mind. I know I was a fool. But I’m in this now, and I only have a rough idea of the situation in Kadeira. I need to know as much as possible. Can you find out a little more for me?”
It was Zach’s turn to sigh. “Sure. Just give me a
few hours.”
“I’ll call back tonight.”
“Hey, be careful, will you?”
“I will. Thanks, Zach.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Rafferty cradled the receiver and sat thinking for a few moments, then made two more calls. The first was to his law partner to check on the progress of a couple of cases. The second was to Lucas Kendrick.
Sarah woke in the strange bed and sat up abruptly, staring around her at a strange room. It only took her a second to remember where she was, and the muffled sound of a male voice speaking in the next room told her whom she was with. Glancing down, she realized she was on his side of the bed.
Frowning, Sarah rose and began dressing, but her frown faded within moments. Half afraid that the night before might have been only an interlude of insanity, she was relieved to discover that she was still of the same mind, be it sane or insane; she wasn’t sure which. In all truth, she had never felt so wonderfully awake and aware, and if there would be regrets later at least she felt none now.
As she brushed her hair, she gazed at herself in the mirror, wondering what had happened to the timid creature who had walked into this hotel. She was gone, it seemed, abandoned like an old skin because the new one had grown in. Whether it would be a fragile new skin or a tough and strong one remained to be seen. Too intrigued by this new version of herself, Sarah still wasn’t prepared to question that.
And Rafferty …
She turned and headed for the sitting room, anxious to make certain he was still of the same mind, and simply eager to see him again. When she opened the door she saw he was on the phone, and she hesitated a moment as his end of the conversation sank into her mind.
“You heard me, Lucas.” He was facing away from Sarah, and didn’t see her enter the room. “Well, I hope it isn’t necessary; you know I don’t like carrying guns. But, to be on the safe side, I think I’d better. Since you’re back in New York, you can find something suitable and ship it down here. Right. Yeah, I will.”
The menacing reminder of why they were there should have disturbed Sarah. It didn’t. So when he turned away from the phone, she said only, “Is Lucas your partner?”
Rafferty got to his feet slowly, staring at her. “No, but he works for Josh Long too. He’s a private investigator. Good morning.”
“Good morning. You’ve decided to arm yourself, then?”
“It seemed like a good idea.”
“I agree. Hagen said you were a marksman. Where did you pick that up?”
Rafferty was beginning to look a little amused. “You’re taking the situation much more calmly today, I see. Any particular reason?”
“I slept on it. Answer the question.”
“All right. I shot a man once. By mistake. I meant to frighten him. I didn’t want it to happen again, so I learned to use guns. Now I hit what I aim at.”
“I see.” She looked at him searchingly. “Did the man die?”
“No. He’s serving a life sentence. For murder.”
“One of the bad guys.”
Rafferty grinned, able to look back on that past episode now with rueful humor. “I’ll say. He nearly shot me right out from under my white hat.”
Sarah smiled at him. “Then you don’t regret it. Good. You should never regret things.”
“Like challenges issued during a storm?”
“Just like that. You don’t, do you?”
“No. Oh, no. In fact, I’m looking forward to the game. I even managed to get a good night’s sleep in preparation.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “That doesn’t say much for my powers of seduction.”
Rafferty was tempted, but decided not to tell her that she’d nearly awakened in his arms—and would have if he hadn’t gotten up first. “That would have been blatant,” he told her, injured. “Against the rules.”
Sarah suddenly came closer, looking up at him with an innocent air belied by gleaming eyes. “But I have to try to seduce you,” she reminded him.
He gazed down at her, thinking that what she was wearing—white slacks and a print blouse—wasn’t meant to be seductive, but somehow … it seemed to be. “Just tell me something honestly,” he said. “Is this an act? Or a part of you even you’ve never seen before?”
“The latter,” she murmured, reaching out to fasten a button of his shirt that had come undone. Her hand remained on his chest. “I really don’t know where she came from, but I like this Sarah. I think she … woke up out on the beach.”
Rafferty caught her hand firmly and removed it from his chest. “No seduction before breakfast.”
“Another rule?”
“We’ll call it that.” He sighed, trying to slow his increased pulse and having little luck. “Room service, or d’you want to go out for breakfast?”
“Well, if you’re going to be a spoilsport—”
“Out,” he decided.
Although that day and the next tried his self-control, Rafferty admitted to himself that he enjoyed the experience. The most drastic change in Sarah had occurred when she’d accepted his challenge; she made no overt effort to seduce him during those first two days. And although her sleepwear continued to be decidedly enticing, and he woke to find her in his arms in the morning, she dressed casually and did nothing so obvious as to walk around their suite half-dressed or ask him to wash her back in the shower.
Yet Rafferty very soon realized that this time he really had fashioned a hell for himself. He knew only too well that this new Sarah was a tenuous emergence, vulnerable even if she didn’t realize it. A too rapid resolution of their “game” would send her out of his reach forever; he knew that, knew it with every instinct he could lay claim to. She seemed eager to try her new wings, but any threat of real danger before she got used to those wings would undoubtedly send her flying back to the emotional sanctuary of her caution.
His own desire grew with every hour that passed, and only the fascination of getting to know Sarah even as she got to know herself helped to keep him reasonably in control of his baser urges.
But on Monday, when they stood at the marina gazing out at the yacht Thespian, he began to wonder if he should have taken advantage of the privacy behind them. It was obvious they’d have little privacy on the luxurious and expensive yacht. And there was the captain, Siran, a lean, dark man in his thirties with an enigmatic gaze and a strangely dangerous smile. He could have been any nationality, and had a very gentle, polite voice that was like a velvet scabbard hiding a steel blade.
The two men who “assisted” Siran—as he put it—were both large, strong men with faces that looked as though they’d encountered unfriendly fists from time to time. They were as alike as bookends, and their names, said Siran with his quick smile, were Tom and Dick. Harry proved to be the cabin “boy.” He was all of sixty, with grizzled hair and bright blue eyes, and he assured both Rafferty and Sarah that he was a fine cook, and that they had only to ask for anything they wanted. Anything at all.
Left alone at last in their cabin, they looked around, and both, at the same moment, sighed.
“Did somebody say something about separate berths being unlikely?” Rafferty asked dryly. They stood in the middle of a cabin that was every bit as large as the sitting room in their hotel and the bed they could see in the adjoining cabin was full-size. Sarah looked at him with a smile. “Well, there is only one berth, so to speak. Shall we unpack now, or go up on deck to wave good-bye to Trinidad?”
They heard the muffled sound of engines then, and Rafferty said, “On deck is my choice.” As they were making their way topside, he added in a low voice, “Does this yacht belong to the agency? And what about the crew?”
“I have no idea. Want to ask Siran?”
Rafferty glanced in the captain’s direction as they moved forward. “Not really.”
“It isn’t good procedure,” she agreed, sitting on a padded bench on the starboard side. “If he isn’t Hagen’s man, we could give the show away. And if he is??
?Oh, he has to be. We may have to leave Kadeira in a hurry; surely Hagen wouldn’t trust a hired captain and crew with this assignment.”
“I hope you’re right.” Rafferty sat beside her as they both gazed out on the colorful marina. “Judging by what Zach found out, we’ll be lucky if we escape Kadeira with our skins, let alone the information.”
He had explained all of it to her after he had called Zach back as promised, and Sarah chewed her bottom lip absently as she thought about their situation. She felt Rafferty’s gaze on her, but wasn’t quite able to straighten out her expression fast enough.
“What is it?” He took her hand, looking at her steadily and smiling a little. “What is it that you weren’t supposed to tell me?”
The Thespian gathered speed as they left the clutter of boats behind, and Sarah drew a deep breath. “I don’t think you’re going to like it. And I wanted to tell you … Hagen told me not to until we reached Kadeira.”
“But you’re going to tell me now.” He knew then that his forebodings about this assignment had been on target. True to character, Hagen had once again decided not to tell everyone everything.
Sarah drew a deep breath. “Actually, it isn’t bad. Not really. You see, we probably won’t have too much trouble staying in Kadeira as long as we need to. We don’t have an invitation, but we do have a kind of special pass.”
“Which is?”
“Me.”
“Hey!” Lucas Kendrick made a wild grab for something solid to hold on to, only just managing to keep his balance. “Keep both eyes on the road, will you?”
Zachary Steele, whose gaze had not left the clear blue waters of the Caribbean, swung the wheel a bit further to starboard, his own feet planted as solidly as the roots of a great oak. “It isn’t my fault you have lousy sea legs,” he observed mildly.
Lucas glared at him. “I’m half asleep and suffering jet lag, not seasickness,” he stated. “If you weren’t made of granite, you’d be dead yourself. You’ve come three thousand miles farther than I have.”