“I … oh, I see.”
Jeopard kissed her forehead. “Not to worry. I won’t let you down.”
“Jep, I’m not worried about that You just seem so intense.… ”
He pressed her down on the bed and kissed her until she couldn’t even think about talking anymore. By then he’d finished his preparations, and he slipped his hand between her legs again, stroking first one thigh, then the other.
“Spread your legs for me, Tess,” he whispered.
She burrowed her head into the warm hollow of his shoulder and moaned. “Your wish is my command.”
“That’s it, Tess. You feel so hot and smooth.”
He slid his fingers inside her, and Tess’s world exploded in response. Everything she felt, everything she was, centered around the sweet destruction he brought to her restraint. She arched her hips and opened her mouth against his throat, calling his name.
Jeopard stroked her harder, adding ecstasy to ecstasy, and she squirmed desperately. Tess began to lick his throat with fervent movements of her tongue, like a wild, loving animal.
He shuddered from head to foot and immediately rolled on top of her. Tess slid her arms around his neck and cried out at the feel of his strong, hard body pressing her down into the mattress and angling between her thighs.
He cupped the back of her head to his shoulder and slid one muscular arm under her. Holding her almost fiercely, he nuzzled his face against her neck and thrust into her wetness with one smooth stroke.
Tess felt as if he had consumed her totally. She was so deeply wrapped in his embrace that she rocked with every quick, forceful movement he made.
His breath shattered against her neck, harsh and fast. She tried to turn her face to kiss him, but his grip kept her from it.
His embrace was overwhelming. It controlled her; it put her at his mercy. Something about his fierceness touched a small chord of distress inside her, and she kissed his shoulder tenderly, wishing that she understood what provoked him.
Her kiss drew a long shudder through him. He raised his head and gazed down at her with hooded, passion-filled eyes. Tess forgot everything except the raw sensation his gaze ignited in her body.
It amazed her—one look from those searing blue eyes and she rose under him like a magnet drawn to steel. She called his name again and dug her fingers into his lower back. Jep. Oh, Jep.
She shut her eyes. The blood rushing in her ears so harshly that she felt deaf. Tess dimly heard him groan and knew that he was watching the uninhibited expressions of pleasure on her face.
He was waiting for her pleasure to crest. She could only imagine what the wild contractions inside her must be doing to him. A second later she knew.
As she clung to him, trembling, he put his head on her shoulder and arched into her so deeply that he seemed to be entering her womb. Again and again he drove into her, then shuddered to a stop, holding her to him as if he’d never let go.
His release was so powerful and erotic that tears of awe came to her eyes. He dragged his head up slowly, like a man just roused from a deep trance and still groggy.
When Jeopard saw her glittering eyes he leaned his forehead against hers and laid his hand against her cheek. His thumb brushed over the moisture on her lower lashes.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“No. Oh, no.” Tess stroked his head, raking her fingers through the thick blond hair. “You were wonderful.” She hesitated, smiling while a big tear ran under his thumb. “You make me feel so incredibly lucky.”
After a second he put his arms around her and rested his cheek on her head. She laughed gently.
“Jep, I’m not an oyster. You can’t pop me out of my shell.”
“Too tight?” His arms relaxed little.
“There. That’s perfect, Sundance.”
Tess relaxed inside his warm, possessive embrace. It might be more difficult to understand Jeopard Surprise than she’d originally thought, but she didn’t doubt that he’d be worth the effort.
CHAPTER 5
TESS STOPPED READING out loud for a moment and looked at Jeopard with amused disgust. Resting in a white lounge chair on the yacht’s upper deck, he reminded her of a lazy cougar. His eyes were shut, and even in relaxation his face was very private. She suspected that he was asleep.
He lay on his back with his hands behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles. He wore nothing but a pair of low-slung white swim trunks. The sky behind him was as blue as his eyes.
If he’d had his eyes open.
“Sundance, are you listening?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then why do you have your eyes shut?”
“That black temptation you call a swimsuit distracts me. And I enjoy meditating on the sound of your voice—makes me think of English gardens and tea with crumpets. It’s hard to concentrate on Cherokee history.”
“Oh.” Smiling, she pulled her sunglasses down and eyed him rakishly. “I don’t feel the least bit guilty for distracting a man who cheats at cards the way you did this morning.”
“I got you flustered and you made a mistake. That’s a legitimate tactic.”
“Rubbing your bare toes over my thighs is not a legitimate tactic.”
He laughed, the sound low and rich. Tess shifted on her lounge chair, rearranged her history book on her knees, and bit her lip to keep from smiling at him.
As usual he made her feel languid and warm inside, like a flower just waiting for the sun to open it again. More important than that, he had won her trust and friendship completely.
He took pleasure in everything she did, even trivia such as the prim-and-proper way she brushed her teeth—a boarding-school regimen, she informed him. He wanted to know her favorite foods, her favorite books, her favorite everything. He was as fascinated with her as she was with him.
As a result, during the past few days the world had shrunk until only she and he were left in a cocoon filled with shared sensation and experience. Lord, she wasn’t certain what she and Jeopard indulged in more—long conversations or making love. He was wonderful in both areas.
But Tess noted sadly that his view of the world was as dark as her view was light. That realization had become clear to her the previous night, when they’d discussed Paris. They’d both visited the city several times. Jeopard recalled only terrorist bombings and leftist politics; she recalled the restaurants, the architecture, and the art.
Tess sighed and shook her head. She was working on his cynical attitude and already making progress. Today he seemed almost jovial, and the guarded contentment in his face enchanted her. She smiled to herself. If she hadn’t known him for an entire week—and thus gotten a bit accustomed to being enthralled—she would have thrown her history book down and pounced on him.
How could she help it? The man provoked her with tender kisses, affectionate smiles, and a husky way of saying her name.
“I was listening to you read,” he assured her again. “Don’t stop.”
“Ahem. If you’ve been listening to me, sir, then summarize what I’ve just read.”
He retaliated with a parrotlike recitation. “In 1838 the Cherokees who didn’t want to be driven from the Sun Land, as they called their ancestral territory in the southeast, ran to the mountains of North Carolina and hid in caves there.” He paused. “Where they developed a subculture of bat people.”
“Be serious!”
Hearing the wistfulness in her voice, he stopped teasing. “Where they stayed until the federal government gave up trying to find them. A lot of them died from starvation. Those who survived helped form the eastern Cherokee band, and today they have a reservation in the same mountains where they took refuge a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Very good!”
“We should catch a quick flight up to San Francisco tomorrow and find your great-great-grandparents’ graves.”
“Would you mind?” she asked. “You must be bored by this personal-history quest of mine.”
&
nbsp; He rose, stretched, then came to her and tilted her chin up with a caressing hand. “No, I want to learn everything about you and your past.”
Tess turned her face and kissed his palm. It didn’t matter that he was learning a great deal more about her personal life than she was learning about his. He just needed time to open up.
“I’ll make the arrangements,” she murmured against the warm hollow of his hand.
“I’ve already made them.”
Tess looked up at him quickly, a pleased smile on her face. He touched his fingers to her lips and winked at her.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE a good sense of humor usually have a good sense of humanity and of life, an aborigine shaman had once told Jeopard.
The man was a friend of Millie’s husband. Brig McKay. In terms of outlook and personality Brig resembled a real-life Crocodile Dundee, and his Aussie friends were as eccentric as anything ever shown on a movie screen.
The shaman, enjoying an extended visit to Millie and Brig’s home in Nashville, wore bib overalls and played the harmonica. He owned a grocery store in Brig’s Australian hometown, Washaway Loo.
Not exactly a child of nature. Jeopard had thought.
But the shaman could predict rainstorms and tell how long the summer would last, and two weeks before Millie noticed any change in her body he’d informed her that she was going to have a baby.
When Jeopard met the shaman, the man had looked into his eyes for a long time and said, “You will be your own destruction.”
That prediction had upset Jeopard more than he’d ever admitted. It came back to him even today, in the midst of a breezy, sun-soaked California afternoon while the ocean shushed peacefully outside the open windows of his cabin and sea gulls floated in the sky like small angels.
Jeopard knew the cause of his depression. He was going to make a phone call to Kyle while Tess took care of some minor chores aboard her boat. He felt sneaky, confused, and reluctant to tell Kyle anything ugly about Tess. All bad signs.
He was doing his job, doing it exactly as planned, and with any luck he’d get his hands on the Kara diamond in time for Olaf, pompous little ass and Duke of Kara, to unveil it for his subjects before his coronation ceremony. Olaf, who was the opposite of his popular aunt, the recently deceased Queen Isabella, apparently considered the diamond some sort of Holy Grail.
Olaf thought that getting the diamond back into the royal collection would improve his image. Jeopard smiled grimly. True. Everyone in Kara would then think of Olaf as a pompous little ingenious ass.
Jeopard tucked the phone into the crook of his neck and watched Tess come out of the Lady’s cabin. It was impossible to look at her without aching to hold her. Even thinking about her put him into hyper-arousal.
She’d changed from her black swimsuit into a peach-colored sundress with a halter top. Her skirt swung fluidly around her bare legs as she moved about the sailboat, polishing bits of its trim with an old rag. Her dark hair fluttered like curtains about her face and neck.
She turned toward the Irresistible as if she felt his gaze, though Jeopard knew that she couldn’t see into the dark interior of his cabin from where she stood. She smiled, raised a slender, honey-dark hand to her lips, and blew him a kiss.
Then she went back to her chores.
I could watch you for the rest of my life.
His phone connection went through, and Kyle answered.
“Hey. Kyle. It’s me, the brother you idolize.”
Kyle, a colorful talker, began a detailed and bawdy analysis of Jeopard’s faults. The point seemed to be that he’d expected a phone call long before.
“How’s it going with the seduction of the sea witch?” Kyle finally asked.
Distracted, Jeopard thought for a moment, then said, “She’s having me to tea tomorrow.” He cleared his throat. “Did you find out where the duke’s people got their information on her?”
“They’re vague. Kept saying they’d interviewed people who know her, but they wouldn’t say who. But I double-checked the background on the diamond, and that’s legit. It belonged to Queen Isabella, and it was stolen twenty years ago while she was visiting England.
“It was a hell of an embarrassment for the Brits, Jep. I talked to Edwards at Scotland Yard. He remembers the case. Royce Benedict was the prime suspect, but he had an alibi. They couldn’t nail him, though they felt sure he was responsible.”
Kyle laughed. “He was cocky. He’d stolen a million dollars in jewelry from Queen Isabella a few years before that. Served time in prison for it. The gems were recovered.”
“What was this guy—the royal thief of Kara?”
“Sounds that way.”
“Kyle, doesn’t it strike you as odd that nobody wanted the Blue Princess back until now?”
“Look, the thing’s not worth that much, as royal trinkets go. Apparently the Queen just wanted to forget the whole incident. After she died last year, Olaf decided somebody ought to settle the old score with Benedict. He’s the vengeful type, from what I’ve learned.”
“Good work, kid. I’ll remember You at Christmas.”
“Jep, Olafs people want the diamond before the end of the week. The duke needs a public-relations victory real bad right now.”
“Oh?”
“To put it simply, his future subjects think he’s a dirt-sucking scum bag. There’s a movement afoot in the parliament to kick him out and make the country a democracy.”
“Fine. I’d like that.”
“But they can’t without rewriting their constitution. It says Kara remains a monarchy as long as there’s a royal heir to the throne.”
“I hope Olaf is the last of his species.”
“He is—unless he finds a woman with no taste who wants to have his kids.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“About finding a woman with no taste?”
“About getting the diamond, smart guy. if Tess has it. I don’t think she does.”
“You’re getting softhearted or softheaded or both. Kiss Tess Benedict a few times for me,” Kyle ordered cheerfully.
“You should get so lucky. And she uses her maiden name. It’s Tess Gallatin, not Tess Benedict.”
“She couldn’t wait to forget Benedict, eh?”
Jeopard started to say something in her defense, then frowned. He still didn’t know what had motivated Tess to marry a dying man old enough to be her, grandfather.
He glanced out the window and stiffened with concern. The two college boys—the ones from Royce’s rugby team—stood on the dock talking to Tess. From their downcast expressions he knew they were upset, and Tess looked distressed too.
They handed her a bulky brown grocery sack. She cradled it in her arms and looked inside at the contents. Slowly she turned her face away, and Jeopard could tell from the boys’ awkward, pleading looks that she must be crying.
“I have to go,” Jeopard said abruptly. “I’ll call back later.”
He hung up the phone on Kyle’s startled “But—”
Jeopard reached the dock in front of the Lady in time to hear one of the boys say, “I swear, Tess, the dog never did anything like this before.”
She looked from him to Jeopard, her eyes glistening, her expression sorrowful. “Hi.” She introduced them quickly, and the boys shook his hand. They squirmed, disgruntled to have anyone else see their misery.
Jeopard gazed at the bag, then up at Tess. “What’s wrong?”
“There was an accident with my scrapbook.” She gave the boys a sympathetic look. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
“My dog chewed it up,” one of the boys explained.
“Tess, we know how much it meant to you,” the other said plaintively.
“Guys, I understand. I really do. Forget it.” Her jaw clenched and she blinked rapidly, trying to smile. “If Royce were here he’d say ‘Why all the bloody nonsense over a heap of paper?’ ”
They smiled back wanly. When they left fifteen minutes later they were still apo
logizing.
Jeopard studied her carefully, torn between a desire to comfort and the need to interrogate her.
“Come on, we’ll see what we can do,” he murmured. Jeopard put an arm around her shoulders and they went aboard his yacht. Once in his cabin she sank down on the bed and spread out the remnants of the scrapbook. It had been thoroughly mauled.
Looking stricken, she gently arranged pieces of paper containing ripped photographs and newspaper articles. Jeopard sat down near her.
She looked up, her smoky blue eyes miserable. “I don’t have much that belonged to Royce. He brought very few mementos with him when he moved here from England. His daughters received the rest—rightly so, of course.” She touched the ruined scrapbook tenderly. “But that makes what I have more special.”
“I didn’t realize how much he meant to you.”
She tilted her head to one side and studied him quizzically. “Why do you think I married him?”
Tess, I can forgive you for being tempted by a five-million-dollar inheritance.
“My vanity wants to believe that you were lonely and vulnerable after your father died. Royce represented emotional security.”
She nodded. “At first. But he was hardly a father figure. He was quite a lady’s man—a bit on the retired side in that respect, but a lady’s man nonetheless.” Tess paused. “Your vanity?”
Jeopard smiled devilishly. Keep it light, he warned himself. “I hate competition. Tell me you married him for his money.”
She laughed. ‘Of course. Isn’t that why all young women marry older men?”
Jeopard watched her gaze at the destroyed scrapbook again. Tears pooled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. She wiped them away hurriedly.
“I’m an awful crybaby these days, I fear. Please don’t think I’m always such a faucet.”
Royce’s money wasn’t what made her cry over a whimsical scrapbook.
“You really loved Royce,” Jeopard said simply.
“Yes.”
He believed her, and another knot of worry unwound inside him. He was thrilled that she’d adored her husband. Sometime later he’d have to consider the irony of his feelings.