She watched the transformation, as one would watch the rippling of subtle muscles beneath the gleaming skin of a caged tiger, with wonder and fascination but no fear. It was not a trick of light, she thought dimly, but something else, some momentary revelation of what lay beneath his civilized exterior. He had hidden that part of himself, and she wondered why it had escaped now, never realizing that she had looked at him with naked hunger for the first time.
The hand against her cheek trembled slightly even as the last of the sunlight vanished, and Rafferty’s face was his own again. Almost his own. There had been a subtle alteration during the moment of blazing light, leaving that inner core of him nearer the surface, more exposed. The deceptive layer of easygoing softness seemed to have been partially stripped away, and he was visibly more powerful, stronger, tougher.
She wondered, vaguely, if men would underestimate him now.
She didn’t think so.
“Sarah …” He drew a ragged breath, as if his lungs were starved for air, and in the deepening twilight it was easy to see he was shaken. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” she murmured, still fascinated by him.
Hoarsely, he said, “Like we’re in bed together with nothing between us.”
After a moment, she slowly moved back away from him. It was not a rejection, or even a denial of his words. She was smiling a little, unconsciously sensual. “I think I’ll go—wash away the sand and salt.”
He swallowed. “I’ll be along later.”
Rafferty moved slowly to the bow, welcoming the cool, brisk wind on his face. His entire body was throbbing, slowly and heavily, and he stared at the darkening horizon without really seeing it.
There were a hundred things he should have been thinking of. The coming poker game with Sereno, danger, the presence of his friends, Josh’s cryptic message. But what he thought of was Sarah, and the question branded in his mind was whether the interlude on the island had truly freed her, strengthened her.
Gripping the chrome railing, Rafferty acknowledged to himself that the answer to that question made little difference now. It was clear she wouldn’t “fight” him, wouldn’t resist the passion between them. Only time would tell if that decision was wise, and the right one. Only time would tell if Sarah was indeed in control of her destiny.
Rafferty didn’t know how long he stood in the cooling wind, but at the same moment he became aware of darkness and of a presence at his side. And he tensed, an instinctive recognition of power, feeling physically what he had only sensed before now.
“Mr. Lewis?”
Danger. Siran was dangerous. In the darkness especially, he was dangerous. “Yes?”
“Harry asked that I tell you dinner is served.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Rafferty felt rather than saw Siran vanish, and he was both elated and bothered by that. Elated because this newfound instinct boded well for the coming foray into Kadeira. And bothered because he didn’t know what had unleashed it. He knew only that he had never felt so aware, so acutely sensitive to his surroundings.
Rafferty made his way below deck and into their cabin, surprised to find the lighting dim and the room apparently deserted. And then she spoke, from the shadows.
“Harry’s serving dinner in a few minutes; I told him you’d probably want to take a shower first.”
“You were right.” He cleared his throat, not seeing her clearly, but very aware of her presence. She was still and silent now. After a brief hesitation, he headed for the shower.
When he returned to the main cabin, wearing slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms, he found a table set for two, the dishes under silver covers and wine chilling on ice. Harry was absent, and when Sarah came forward and into the faint light, Rafferty realized that she had planned this.
“Pushy lady,” he murmured, but his gaze was moving over her hotly. Obviously, Sarah had decided that subtlety was a waste of time. Her hair, falling loosely over her shoulders, gleamed richly, and her creamy skin was a perfect foil for the stark black creation she had chosen to wear.
The negligee was silk, shimmering in the half-light. The sleeves were long and full, caught tightly at her wrists, and they were fashioned of lace that allowed the warmth of her flesh to show. The negligee fell straight from her shoulders to the floor, and beneath it her gown boasted a deep V-neck and was gathered tightly beneath her breasts. Her every movement caused the thin fabric to mold itself against her, outlining the delicate curves of her hips and thighs.
“We were interrupted on the island,” she said softly, her eyes glowing with the mystery of a cat’s. “But not tonight. Harry has his orders.”
Rafferty glanced at the table awaiting them, and he knew he’d never force food past the tightness of his throat. He looked back at her, watching her as she moved closer, and he could hardly breathe. But he managed a last reluctant, automatic protest.
“This is—definitely blatant.”
Sarah halted barely an arm’s length from him, smiling. “No more rules,” she reminded him. “You stopped that game, remember? So you have nothing to lose.”
Rafferty tried to think of practicalities. “Sarah, I can’t protect you. I just haven’t been thinking—”
Her eyes softened even more. “Don’t worry. It’s a requirement for female agents on field assignments. He might not know much about the human element, but Hagen does anticipate some human failings.”
Not even conscious of moving, Rafferty watched as his hands came to rest on her shoulders, feeling the silk and the warm flesh beneath. “I love you,” he murmured huskily as the last thread of his willpower snapped.
They stood as they were for an eternal moment, as if each was giving the other a last opportunity to draw back, to stop before anything irrevocable happened. But neither drew back. Instead, Sarah stepped closer, lifting her face, long dark lashes shadowing her gleaming eyes. Rafferty’s head bent, and his lips touched hers. At first his kiss was a whisper, a gently tentative caress, but that wasn’t enough for either of them.
Sarah felt his fingers tighten, and her own hands lifted to slide around his waist. The heavy ache inside her intensified, spreading throughout her body, and she pressed against him suddenly in an attempt to ease that hurt. Her mouth opened to the fierce demand of his, and all her senses whirled at the thrusting possession of his tongue.
What she felt was still new to her, wonderfully unfamiliar, yet Sarah recognized what was born in her then, and accepted the inescapable, overpowering need to belong to him. There was no future, no past, there was only this night. And it was not fatalism that bred her need, but rather something far deeper and utterly feminine.
His hands slid down her back and to her hips, shaping the rounded flesh and pulling her closer, until she could feel the swelling demand of his body. Her hands clutched at his back unconsciously, and she gasped when his mouth left hers to trail fire down her throat. Her head fell back to allow more room for his exploration, her heart hammering out of control.
The slight motion of the boat, which had been before just a sensation in the back of her consciousness, seemed to fill her now with a rhythm that surged and eased and throbbed, until her entire body seemed in motion. She was dizzy and breathless, and hollow with the need for him.
With a sudden impatient sound against the warmth of her throat, Rafferty lifted her into his arms and turned to stride toward their cabin. Sarah felt an instant’s panic in that moment, a purely instinctive fear of the unknown, and pushed it aside fiercely. When he set her on her feet beside the turned-down bed her hands lifted to fumble inexpertly with the buttons of his shirt, and she concentrated on that task, and on the desire she felt, to keep the fear at bay.
Rafferty pushed the robe off her shoulders, his lips caressing her soft skin, and Sarah pulled her arms free of the lacy sleeves before struggling with his buttons again. She tugged the shirt from the waistband of his pants and slid her hands beneath the material, touchin
g the smooth flesh covering his ribs. He seemed to tense even more at her touch, and his head lifted. Darkly flaming eyes gazed into hers, and the hard need in his face was softened into gentleness.
His hands caught hers and drew them to her sides, and his lips touched hers softly, again and again. “You’re afraid,” he murmured. “I don’t want you to be afraid, my Sarah.”
She realized only then that her hands were cold, that not even overwhelming desire could completely obliterate nervousness. She wanted to deny what was obvious, to reassure him of her own need, but no words could emerge past the tightness of her throat. She tried to tell him with her lips, responding eagerly to the touch of his, but the unknown was a watchful presence and they both sensed it.
Rafferty eased her back onto the bed, ignoring the trembling tension of his own body. One of his hands lay on her stomach, undemanding, and he stroked her hair back delicately with fingers that traced her face, her features, with a soft touch. His lips moved featherlight over her flushed skin, pressing her closed eyelids, grazing her cheeks, teasing her lips apart with gentle insistence.
Sarah was only vaguely aware that they lay in a pool of faint light spilling in from the other room, and she barely felt the softness of the bed beneath her. All her consciousness was focused on his lips, the nearness of his body, hard and warm. She couldn’t breathe but didn’t much care, and she was deeply grateful to the man she loved for the soothing caresses that were quieting her nebulous fears.
She tentatively lifted a hand when his lips reached the pulse pounding in her throat, touching his forearm and then his shoulder, understanding then that his care was costing him, because his muscles were tensed, rigid, and his skin was feverish. That more than anything partially laid her fears to rest, and her touch became firmer, stroking his shoulder and back compulsively, probing the taut, rippling muscles.
Rafferty murmured something low in his throat and gently guided her arms back to her sides, and she understood by his action that his control was strained unbearably by her touch. Obediently she lay still and restless, watching his face through desire-dazed eyes. Her fingers curled tightly into the sheets and she bit her lip to hold back the mindless sounds rising from some flaming core within her.
He was pressing kisses over her breastbone, and the lace straps of her nightgown were pushed slowly off her shoulders and down her arms. Then his hands slid up over her narrow ribcage until the swelling flesh of her breasts filled them, and she gasped at the intimate touch, losing what little breath she could still claim when his mouth found a pointed crest and closed on it hotly. The searing, wet caress shattered her senses and she moaned, the empty ache in her body growing and torturing her as his mouth teased.
Her breasts felt almost painful, abnormally sensitive, yet the hot suckling of his mouth and the rasp of his tongue was a pleasure beyond anything she’d ever known or imagined. She writhed with jerky, restless movements, unable to be still.
“Beautiful,” he uttered thickly against her skin. His hands slid the nightgown down past her instinctively lifted hips, past her legs, and he tossed it aside. “You’re so beautiful, my Sarah. So perfect.” His rough palm swept down her side, curving over her hip and then sweeping back upward. His mouth remained on her breast, and he stroked her quivering belly in a gentle, circular motion.
“Rafferty …” She barely had the voice to speak at all, and his name was little more than a whisper. Her hands lifted again, desperate to touch him, and when he again refused to allow that she almost sobbed aloud with frustration. “I—I want to touch you.”
“I know.” His voice was raspy. “And I want you to. But not now. I can’t—” He lifted his head, and the inferno within him flamed in his eyes. “Not just yet, darling. Close your eyes and let me love you.”
Sarah obeyed, feeling an abrupt and almost savage wave of love for him sweep over her. She wanted to tell him, wanted to cry out her love, but her body’s tension was growing and a sweet ache was building inexorably.
She could feel his hands on her thighs, caressing, guiding, and the hollowness swelled with his touch. She did cry out then as a surge of sheer pleasure lashed through her, heating her body as if her veins suddenly ran with fire. She was hardly conscious of his deep murmurs, all her senses concentrating on his intimate, incredibly pleasurable touch.
Her eyes snapped open, searching wildly for his face, focusing on it as he burned the already heated flesh of her breasts with his lips and stroked the throbbing, slick softness between her legs with a touch that was sure and heart-stopping. Tension spiraled within her and she moaned again, her body moving of its own volition.
In some dim corner of her mind Sarah prepared to meet death, certain that it was impossible to feel this intensely and not die of the feeling. But there was no fear, not even fear of the unknown, and she could not have halted her body’s instinctive, headlong rush toward release, no matter what.
She whispered his name over and over as ripples of pleasure grew ever stronger and stronger, until she had no voice left at all, until a sudden burst of sheer delight shattered the tension, and her body was gripped in waves of ecstasy that carried her somewhere she’d never been before and left her limp and trembling and stunned.
As she whispered his name, she became aware that he had left her side, and then she felt his hard, feverish body against her. He had, she realized, shed his clothing. In the faint light he was golden and powerful and beautiful, and a new infusion of strength and desire drove the weakness from her body. As badly as she had wanted him before, her desire now instantly climbed to new heights. Her ragged breathing matched his, and her body trembled as his warm, rough hands moved over it.
Fear, vanquished by the earlier passion he had evoked, didn’t stir again even when he rose above her, and her body cradled him eagerly. She could touch him now, and did, her hands moving up his ribcage and over his chest, gripping his shoulders. He shuddered at her touch, his eyes closing briefly, and the strain of waiting made his face a taut mask. But even now, his every muscle rigid, Rafferty was gentle and careful.
He looked at her awakened face, and the utter trust in her eyes shook him badly, moved him unbearably. He was a moment away from shattering, all his instincts and senses raging in need. He wanted to bury himself in her, meld with her so completely that she would never be apart from him again. The slender softness of her body lay beneath him, inviting his possession with whispered pleas and a feverish heat, unknowingly chaining him to her with the unbreakable silken links of her trust.
He groaned harshly, scarcely aware of the sound, moving with exquisite care. He eased into her slowly, allowing her body to adjust to the alien touch, to accept him. Gazing into her widening eyes, he saw the flash of instinctive fear that was laced with wonder, and when the pain came he caught her soft cry in his mouth. He was still then, as her body struggled to accept him, and he waited until that inner tension gradually eased.
“Sarah?” His voice was hoarse, a thread of sound, and his body shuddered with the effort of control.
The hands gripping his shoulders slid up around his neck and her wide eyes searched his face for an instant. Then she moved against him, impatience driving away all else.
Rafferty groaned again and began moving, and the fierce control over his body somehow heightened the sensations he felt. The hot velvet of her body sheathed his, holding him tightly, and her silky legs wrapped around his hips with a sensual, peculiarly feminine strength that drove him to the edge of madness. He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t ease the burning need blazing in his body. Far beyond physical passion and the need to possess was the wild, driving desire to become a part of her, to be absorbed by her until the very cells of her body were his.
She was a wild thing beneath him, her passionate response hot and demanding. Tension was building again, sweet and torturing, and her body arched upward, primitive with need. There was nothing left of the shy, cautious Sarah he had first met, and with that stripped away, she was all woma
n, abandoned and mindless with hunger.
She gave him all that she had to give, and Rafferty gave in return. There was no gentleness now. There was only fierce desire and a joining that transcended the physical.
Sarah wasn’t aware of her own wild cries, and she was hardly conscious of the woman she had become. He was hers, hers, and she gloried in that knowledge. Her powerful ripples of pleasure caught him within her in an explosive release. A harsh cry erupted from his throat, and he held her tightly to him as his own body found a shattering ecstasy.
Sarah absorbed the wonderful, heavy weight of him as he lay fully on her, her shaking arms holding him, and she was awed to realize she had never been whole until now. The sweetness of that realization moved her unbearably, and she was unaware of the tears that flowed from her eyes.
Rafferty lifted his head, easing his weight slightly, and his golden eyes darkened. A warm hand cupped her cheek and his thumb brushed the shining wetness from her temple.
“Because I hurt you?” he asked huskily.
She shook her head, turning her lips to kiss his palm. “No. Because I never knew. Because I love you.”
He caught his breath, then kissed her gently. “I hope you mean that,” he whispered. “Because I’ll never let you go now.”
She held him tightly, sweetly protesting when he moved. But her disappointment vanished when Rafferty lifted her into his arms and carried her from the room to the intimacy of a shared shower. She learned his body for the first time as warm water cascaded over it, and when at last he carried her back to their bed, exhaustion was forgotten.
SIX
SARAH WATCHED HIM sleep. There was, even in sleep, nothing innocent about him. The strength she had first sensed was plain now. His long, lean body was relaxed but there was a curious suggestion of tautness, an aura of latent power in the hard planes and angles.
She remembered her tiger-in-a-cage analogy, remembered once seeing just such a creature. Sleek, graceful even in stillness, the cat had exuded a raw, vital strength cloaked in beauty. And when vivid yellow eyes had opened, instantly alert, thousands of years of feline pride and power had gazed from their topaz depths.