With a helplessness born of conflicting emotions, she dropped down onto the cushion-covered lockers as they followed the tortuous channel out the inlet. Once on the other side of the breakers, she felt the engines slow, and when all motion except for the slight roll ceased, Kiel strode lithely forward and she heard the hum that signaled the lowering of the forward anchor. She waited fatalistically while he lowered the stern anchor, and then, when he nodded to the hatch, she got up and followed him below.
“Fight all gone? You must be either hungry or seasick,” he remarked as he opened the refrigerator and took out a slab of pink fish.
Silently she watched the preparation of the meal. If she had suspected him of deliberately cultivating a few culinary tricks to capture her interest in the beginning, she knew she was wrong. He moved too surely as he went about the business of grilling the fish, tossing a simple salad and pouring the wine on the gently rocking sailboat without spilling a drop.
From time to time as they ate, she felt his eyes on her in a speculative way and she ignored him, pretending absorption in her food, although for once she was totally uninterested in what was on her plate. The tuna was something to be pushed around with her fork as her mind raced frantically in circles, always coming out at the same place. She knew with a dreadful sort of fascination that after tonight, nothing would ever be the same.
Finally, he stood up and said, “All right, Willy. No point in punishing your plate with your fork any longer. Get in there.” He nodded to the door behind her, which she knew led to his stateroom. Inside the compact, well-designed space was the V bunk and little else, and she raised stricken eyes to him.
“Kiel . . . not this way, please,” she whispered, still sitting rigidly in her chair at the convertible table.
“Then what way, Willy? In your apartment? In a hotel suite? You name it, you’ve got it,” he told her bitterly, moving toward her relentlessly so that she had to stand or be overrun. “What’s the matter? You were interested enough not too long ago. Is it that fellow at the hotel?” His voice was filled with contempt and something that sounded strangely like hurt . . . which was impossible. “I’ll match my material possessions against his and give you something he can’t match, Willy. Ten years and a wedding band. How’s that for a bargain?” He flung at her, forcing her in through the narrow door so that she stumbled and fell against the bunk.
She closed her eyes against the hard accusation she saw in his, and when she felt his hands on her hips, she turned away from him, but he pulled her back, catching her under the knees and throwing her legs up on the triangular mattress. Something inside her was crying and she had no idea the sounds were escaping until she felt the cool wetness on her face.
There were sounds from behind her and she heard the rasp of a zipper and then he was beside her, turning her over so that he could open her dress down the back.
She was beyond physical resistance, but she whispered, “Please, Kiel, not when you hate me so much.”
The laugh that tore from him was not a pleasant thing to hear. “Hate you! God, how I wish I could! Can you imagine what it’s like to despise someone and love them at the same time so that you end up hating yourself for your own weakness? That’s what you’ve done to me, Willy Silverthorne.” Her dress had been pulled aside roughly and now he lifted her and tugged it from under her and threw it aside. “I came down here prepared to show you up for what you were and prove to Melanie once and for all that she had nothing to worry about. You can imagine how I felt when I fell under the spell of your own particular brand of sex appeal within days! I told myself a man could afford to like his work and still do a good job, but when I lost all perspective and began doubting the things I knew were true about you, then I should have had the sense to get the hell out and let Melanie sort out her own problems.”
His hands had commenced that hypnotic stroking now, and as she felt Ms touch on her throat and down her shoulders to her breasts, Willy knew she had to say something before matters went any further.
“Kiel . . . about Jasper. You don’t understand,” she began hesitantly.
“Oh, I understand, all right. A man like that, thinking he’s over the hill and then getting the come-on from a girl young enough to be his daughter—”
“But that’s just it, Kiel! I
am
his daughter! Jasper’s my father!”
The hand stopped. It was as if all life ceased for a moment of suspended animation, and then the breath was ripped from his lungs as if she had struck him in the middle. “Oh, God, Willy, don’t play these games with me. Please, girl.” His voice was a hoarse parody of his usual assured tones and Willy turned and caught him up in her arms. “Please,” he groaned, “you’ve got me where you want me—that is, if you do want me. I’ll marry you, I’ll do anything you want—only, Willy, from now on I’m the only man in your life. I’ll take care of any needs and wants you have, regardless of what they are, is that understood?”
She buried her face in his throat and once more the tears forced their way out from under her lids from a heart that was unbearably full. “Oh, Kiel, as if I could ever even look at another man, as if I had ever really had a chance after that first time you showed up with a measuring cup in your hand.” She laughed shakily. Her hands were stroking his back and he insinuated himself closer so that she was aware for the first time that he had on as little as she did.
His mouth captured hers and all the pent-up emotion was there for her to read and answer, and as her lips parted under his own, he began to tell her in a hundred ways that did not require words how much he needed her. She was busy answering him with her lips, her hands and her whole body, and outside there was only the sound of the waves caressing the hull of the
Tern
and an occasional creak as the boat moved with the currents.
After a while, he drew slightly apart from her overheated body, laughing unsteadily from deep in his chest. He caught her hands and held them both in his and he whispered, “Behave yourself, you wanton creature. Who taught you these things?”
With a self-satisfied little purr, she answered him. “You did. I couldn’t sleep nights for thinking what I wanted to do to you and what I wanted you to do to me, and so now all I need is a willing partner to practice on and I’ll be as good at making love as I am at selling real estate.”
He rolled her over and applied a hand smartly to her bottom. “Don’t go searching one out, girl, or you’ll land in more trouble than you can wade out of. I think you’d better tell me more about this Jasper character for a starter.”
She did, and his reaction was all she could have wanted. After the first moment when she almost thought she heard a tremor in his voice, Kiel told her all the thoughts that had gone through his mind when he saw her drive off with the attractive man in the racy-looking sports car. “I knew then that regardless of what you did, you were going to have to settle for me or I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. I reasoned that a girl who had been around some would be ready and willing to settle down if a man offered her a wedding ring and I was willing to take a chance on holding you.” “Oh, darling, except for a silly farce where I ended up with my pride hurt, I’ve never been even faintly interested in any man other than as someone to go out to dinner with.”
“Oh, I can guarantee you three meals a day and as many snacks as you think you can handle.”
“Kiel, you know all about my past limitations, my lack of experience where men are concerned—” Willy began hesitantly.
“A lack which I intend to rectify immediately, if not sooner,” he put in.
She caught her breath, determined to get through with what she had to say, and then go on from there. “Kiel, what I mean is—well, Melanie. I called, you know, that morning after—”
He hooted. “Was that you? Honey, what you must have been thinking!” Leaning over to brush the tumbled hair from her face, he smiled warmly into her eyes. “Precious, Randy and Melanie came back and stayed at my house until they could leave for Atlanta. I slept on the porch and didn’t ask any questions about what went on inside, but I can tell you right now, that miss wasn’t any too happy to be waked up before daybreak.”
“It wasn’t before daybreak,” she protested. “At least, not much before.”
Settling her head in the crook of his shoulder, Kiel went on to tell her something that made her heart grow almost too large to be contained. “Sweetheart, there hasn’t been a woman in my bed since the day I met you, a fact that hasn’t done much to improve my disposition, but if you want to keep me sweet and happy, then you know how to go about it, because from now on you’re the only woman in the world who can do the job.”
“Oh, Kiel, you do know, don’t you, that you’re the first man ever to open the box my heart came in? I was scared to death you were going to keep the wrappings and throw away the gift,” she gurgled into the firm flesh of his throat.
“I’ll have to admit that the wrappings were what first caught my fancy, woman. And incidentally, what about this father of yours? How’s he going to take having a full-grown son sprung on him, especially after I trailed him up and down the beach by that car of his and then did my damnedest to find out who he was . . . not to mention kidnapping his only child in broad daylight.” She laughed aloud. “Oh, he’ll adore it! He’s something of an old pirate himself, and just the other day he was telling me he had all but given up trying for a son and was ready to settle for a grandson.”
Growling low under his breath, Kiel suggested that they see if they couldn’t manage to present him with his heart’s desire about nine months hence, and that brought on a reaction that left them both trembling breathlessly. “Oh, God, I love you, Willy Silverthorne —Willy Faulkner. I’ll promise to feed you in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed, and sooner or later you’ll learn to get as big a thrill from wind and water as you do from handling a fast car, but your biggest pleasure will be—”
She laid a finger over his mouth. “My biggest pleasure will always be you, darling. I’ve been saving my appetite for a dozen lifetimes for you, and from now on I plan to feast!”