Authors: Kathleen Creighton
So this is love, Julie thought again, awed. She wanted to soothe his hurts, take away his pain, protect him, comfort him, give—just
give
—to him. Purely and simply, she wanted to give him
love
, but since she didn’t dare tell him so, either with words or with telltale shining eyes, she gave the only way she knew he would accept. Stirring within his arms, she nuzzled the hair on his chest, discovering the crisp–silk texture with her lips. Her tongue found his nipple again and began to stroke it, laving it in gentle circles as it contracted and hardened in the warmth of her mouth.
"Julie," Chayne said hoarsely after a moment, "what are you trying to do?"
"I’m
trying
to…" She hesitated only a fraction of a second and then finished, "…make love to you."
He
had used that phrase—insisted on it, in fact—so it was safe for her to do so. "Am I succeeding?"
A chuckle rumbled up through his chest. "Admirably."
"I want to make love to you," she whispered against his skin, and then, swallowing her shyness, lifted her head and said fiercely, "I want to give you pleasure, Chayne."
He caught her head between his hands and held it while his eyes burned and fused with hers. "You do," he said huskily. "Believe me." Slowly he pulled her head down.
"No, I mean—"
His lips, already parted for the kiss, curved in a smile of understanding. He stopped, waiting.
Julie lowered her face to his, watching his eyes close before she gave a tiny, inaudible sigh and closed her own. Her lips touched his, felt them move slightly beneath hers, felt his moustache brush and tingle across her upper lip. His hands lightly cupped her head, neither urging nor restricting her, while she traced the outline of his mouth with her tongue.
"Julie." She felt her name rather than heard it—a soft expulsion of breath. "You’re trembling."
"I know. I’m not very good at this."
"You’re wonderful. Don’t be afraid. Kiss me, Julie."
She teased the inside of his lips and was rewarded by a low groan of frustration. Instinct took over as she burrowed her fingers through his hair and melded her mouth to his. His mouth opened to welcome the shy offering of her tongue; she felt him quivering with restrained passion and knew he was trying not to take the lead away from her. The knowledge that she could affect him so deeply went to her head like champagne, making her brave.
She became aware of her naked breasts flattened against crisp hair and resilient muscle and, without lifting her mouth from his, moved sinuously against his chest. Another deep–throated groan rumbled through him as his hands, vibrant with the strain of self–control, molded the sides of her body from armpits to hips, gripped and then smoothed over the taut mounds of her buttocks.
Lifting her mouth from his at last, Julie licked her lips, cleared her throat and said in a blurred voice, "I want to make it good for you, but, um… I’m not—I don’t know what—"
"Julie," Chayne said, his voice thick with laughter and passion, "you know all you need to know. Believe me. If you make me feel any better, I may resort to rape after all."
"I thought you said you’d never—"
"There’s a first time for everything."
"Hmmm," Julie murmured, growing confidence dropping her voice to a sultry growl. "Is that a threat?"
"No," he whispered, eyes blazing. "A promise."
"I’ll remember that." Julie chuckled deep in her throat and pressed her lips to the triangular hollow at the base of his throat. "Tell me if I do anything wrong."
She kept her voice light, her words playful, knowing that if she wasn’t careful she might blurt out the words that sang in her heart:
I love you, Chayne. I love you…
In exploring his body she lost herself; she had meant to give to him unselfishly, but as the tide of excitement and passion grew in her, she wondered who was pleasuring whom.
Chayne’s hands dipped beneath the elastic of her panties to smooth lightly over her bottom, and then her waist, her back, the sides of her breasts as she slid downward, blazing a trail of kisses over his chest and across the ripple of his ribs. Finally he cupped her head almost reverently, his fingers burrowing through her cotton fluff hair to trace the bones of her skull while her tongue followed his scar to where it dove beneath the waistband of his jeans.
"Julie, I—" His hands dropped away from her, going to the metal buttons just beneath her chin.
"Shh…be still." She pushed his hands away and replaced them with her own, dealing with the last impediment to her exploration while her tongue quivered over his belly, impatient with that denim barricade.
She sucked in her breath, surprised by the surge of primitive exultation that swept her as she realized the extent of his arousal. His body was a furnace; she marveled now at the self–control that kept him so still.
"Do you still think you’re no good at this?" Chayne rasped, his voice wry. And then he gasped in surprise as she touched him with her lips. "Julie—good God—"
After a moment she lifted her head, and he raised himself on his elbows to look at her. She was awed and a little frightened by the fierce light in his eyes, but she gave him a slow sweet smile and moved sideways, taking her weight off of him so that she could help him divest himself of his clothes.
"I think," he croaked when she touched him again, "that I’ve had about all the ‘feeling good’ I can stand."
Julie gave him a look of wide–eyed innocence and sat back, demurely folding her hands in her lap. "Oh—do you want me to stop?"
"Stop? Come here—I’ll show you
stop.
" He caught her around the waist, pulling her against him and deftly stripping the virginal white panties down and off. "You’re the demon, Julie Maguire," he growled, sending sharp electric shocks into her ear with the tip of his tongue. "A witch…a sorceress. You don’t know what you do to me."
She gasped and squirmed in his grasp, wriggling even closer into his embrace. He gave a low primal growl and met her mouth with his, driving his tongue deep inside her. The urgent rhythm of his mouth matched the pulses that throbbed through her body, and she clung to him, glad to relinquish the initiative into his experienced and sensitive hands.
"I’ve always wondered," she gasped as he bore her over onto her back, "how people do this without getting all full of sand."
"Oh, you have, have you?" His belly jerked with laughter. "Is that the sort of thing you wonder about, Guerita? No wonder you’re such a natural wanton. It’s very simple. Shall I show you?"
"Trust you to know a thing like that," Julie retorted breathlessly, nipping his earlobe.
Chayne chuckled softly, kissing his way along her jaw to her mouth. "Do you want to discuss my past sins right
now?"
"No…show me. Please."
"All right, Julie—hang on." He rolled onto his back, pulling her over and astride him. "Now…relax and let me guide you. Do what I tell you."
"Don’t I always?" Julie whispered weakly, and then gasped as his hands cupped her buttocks, carefully adjusting her to meet the thrust of his penetration. His eyes seared into her soul with blue flames while his body filled hers with fires of another kind. Heat turned her bones to melted honey, and after that it was all she could do to breathe, let alone talk.
"Now then," Chayne whispered, brushing lightly over her back as she lay upon his chest. "See? That worked all right, didn’t it? No sand at all."
"Mmm–hmm." Julie settled herself even more comfortably, adjusting her body to the bumps and hollows of his, drowsy and content with the warm sun on her back and the steady cadence of his heart beneath her cheek. "I guess you do know what you’re talking about."
"Yeah, I do," Chayne murmured, touching his lips to her temple. "See what happens when you trust me?"
* * *
Dear God, please let me remember him just like this: Standing in the prow of a boat, feet wide apart and braced on the gunwales, a figure of dark and savage beauty in bold relief against a cerulean sky…
Julie shifted the bucket in her hands and stayed to feast her eyes on Chayne, while Rita, Linda, Juanita and Carlito moved on across the tide flat. They were digging clams this morning, while the men worked to repair the storm–damaged boats.
How wild he looks—how free!
Dressed as usual in tattered jeans rolled to the knee, chest bare and gleaming coppery in the sun, dark hair bound by that strip of bandana, he looked like a pirate—no, more primitive still, an aboriginal man unspoiled and ungoverned by civilization.
Wind stirred through her hair as she turned to walk on, her bare feet plopping in cool wet sand. It’s this place, Baja, she thought for the hundredth time, swinging the bucket so that it brushed lightly against her bare legs. It was such a harsh and lonely place, so far removed from civilization. It was easy to forget that there was another world out there, easy to fall into a basic pattern of existence as old as mankind, where the only things of any importance at all were food, shelter and human companionship.
Look at me, she thought in amazement.
I’ve gone as native as he has.
Her skin was dry and brown, scorched and scoured by sun and salt water, her hair an unruly tangle. She wore a skirt of Rita’s, and a flowered shirt knotted under breasts unconfined by a bra. The skirt was too long for her, and she had tucked its hem into its waistband, leaving her legs bare to mid–thigh.
How far away it all seemed—San Diego, the Border Patrol, her friends at the station, even her family. The things she had considered necessities—refrigerators and telephones, grocery stores and hot running water—none of them seemed to matter here.
I could be happy staying right here like this with him. I could be content just cooking his meals. Having his babies…
That thought produced an unpleasant jolt under her ribs. A vision came to her with stunning clarity, driving the cobwebs of fantasy from her mind: a packet of small white pills lying on gleaming tile beside a bottle of shampoo and a toothbrush. Symbols of the real world. Baja was a fantasy, full of mirages, of people who weren’t what they seemed. Reality was that packet of pills and the possible consequences of not taking them. Reality was a badge and a uniform, and the oath she had taken when she accepted them.
Reality was the unmistakable eggbeater rhythm of a helicopter’s rotors, coming steadily closer.
They all heard it and froze, listening. Carlito was the first to acknowledge it, shouting, "Helicopter, helicopter!" as he danced his delight and pointed skyward.
Rita, Linda and Julie all shaded their eyes and watched it change from a dot in the southern sky to that characteristic and oddly sinister insect shape. Only Juanita seemed oblivious, plodding on across the tidal flat, probing at the sand with her fork, stubbornly archaic in the face of civilization’s intrusion.
Julie looked toward the boats. The entire camp had become a tableau, it seemed, a film frozen in mid–frame, but all she saw was Chayne. Astride the gunwales of a fishing boat, upper body half–turned, arm raised to shade his eyes—oh yes, she would remember this scene for as long as she lived.
What is he thinking? How does he feel? Is adrenaline pumping through his veins, keeping him from feeling anything, keeping him from seeing buildings full of happy families and laughing children reduced to twisted, bloody chaos?
The helicopter settled with ponderous dignity onto the beach, its twin rotors stirring up sand, its racket deafening after the quiet. A small dun–colored figure dropped to the ground and moved quickly out of the rotors’ draft. Another followed, and another. Julie counted automatically:
Three…four…five…six…seven.
Seven. The last one wore a short–sleeved white shirt and blue pants, like a vacationing dentist.
Gabriel.
At Julie’s elbow Rita sighed and said with characteristic practicality, "We’d better get busy and finish this. We are going to have guests for lunch."
Julie skipped the midday meal, and supper as well. She felt guilty about leaving the work of feeding eleven hungry men to Rita and old Juanita, especially with Linda’s doubtful assistance, but the thought of serving meals to a squad of cold–blooded killers made her excuse of an upset stomach all too valid.
Anyone looking at them would have found it hard to believe what they really were. They were so young! And, except for a quality of aloofness and a certain dark intensity, completely ordinary. They were a breed apart, these young people so fanatic about a cause they would die for it, and take thousands of innocent people with them. Years of experience with lawbreakers of all kinds had taught Julie the folly of expecting criminals to wear distinguishing marks of some kind, but these men were different. They were beyond her understanding and experience. They made her skin crawl with their very ordinariness. Only Gabriel, with
his
comfortable paunch and shrewd greedy eyes, was recognizable to her. He was the mercenary here—a wholesaler of human lives. The quick, intensive once–over she received from those prominent black eyes didn’t trouble her. It was a familiar look, and he was a known quantity.
Seeing him made Julie realize just how far out of that mold Chayne was; he was no mercenary—she’d swear by every instinct she had that he wasn’t doing this for money. But if not for the love of adventure, and not for the cause or for money, then why?
Why.
Julie paced the confines of the darkening hut, beating her fists against her thighs in frustration and despair. How could he? He seemed like a decent, even a good person. The women here idolized him, the men respected him, and Carlito— Well, she’d seen him with Carlito, and…
Was that the moment I began to fall in love with him?
He seemed to care about people—the way he’d helped the old people with the ditch, and put up a roof for Carlito. The way he’d been with her.
Yes, with
her
. He’d been remarkably kind, in his way. He had a capacity for sensitivity and understanding beyond anything she had ever encountered in a man—and an equal capacity for ruthlessness.
He’d made her fall in love with him, against the opposition of every value and principle she had. He’d made love to her with unbelievable skill and genuine passion… but how did he
feel
about her? He seemed to care what happened to her. What possible motive could he have had for saving her life if he didn’t care about her? But he didn’t care enough to stop this insanity.