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‘No...I’m fine.’ She gulped. His face was very close...disturbingly close. She could see every line and pore and vein in his deeply tanned face...every separate eyelash fringing the piercing blue eyes...the sooty shadow of regrowth on his chin and jaw. Another tremor shook her.
‘You are cold.’ With his free hand, he began to massage her bare legs. Under the soothing stroke of his palm, her skin felt suddenly burning hot, anything but chilled. ‘Not that you feel cold,’ he murmured. ‘Your skin’s as warm as...a new-laid egg. And as smooth. Silky-smooth. Not a single goosebump.’
Her breath seized in her throat, the provocative words affecting her as much as his gently stroking touch. If he wanted to stop her trembling, he was going about it in quite the wrong way!
‘It’s just the chill from the ice!’ she croaked, not wanting him to think she was trembling because of him. Even if she was.
‘Is it too cold?’ he asked, adjusting the pack slightly. ‘How’s that? Or do you feel you’ve had enough?’
‘No! I mean...I think I could take a bit more,’ she assured him breathlessly. ‘I’m sure it’s helping.’ She wanted to keep him close for a bit longer, wanted him to go on stroking her legs, wanted him to go on talking to her in that tantalisingly intimate way.
Wanted him to want her as much as she was beginning to want him.
Flustered by the startling thought, by the erotic images swirling through her mind, she blurted out another question. ‘How long will it be, Jack, before you come back to Australia?’
His eyes swam over hers, and she had a sensation of drowning—pleasantly this time, not with fear in her heart, as she’d felt earlier in that treacherous rip.
‘Maybe sooner than I thought,’ he said softly, only to draw back, as if he’d startled himself by the admission.
‘Tell me, Kate,’ he added in a lighter vein, making her wonder if he’d changed the subject deliberately, ‘have you always wanted to be a doctor?’
Her breath whispered out in a faint sigh. She would far rather have heard why he was thinking of coming home sooner than planned. ‘No...not always,’ she admitted. ‘I once dreamed of being an artist,’ she told him honestly, giving a brief laugh as she said it, to show him the dream was well and truly behind her.
‘An artist?’ His gaze veered towards the sketchbook she’d dropped on the grass beside her beach-bag. ‘What kind of artist?’ he asked curiously. ‘Landscapes? Modern art? Still life?’
‘Portraits.’ She felt herself blushing under the cold pack, and hoping fervently that he wouldn’t take it into his head to snatch up her sketchbook and peek inside. But he would never do that. Not without her permission...
Would he?
‘So...it’s faces and figures that interest you.’
Figures... The heat in her cheeks intensified.
‘I...it was just a childish pipe dream,’ she told him, dismissing the once burning passion. ‘I used to draw a lot when I was younger. I loved it. But in my final year at school I...decided to do medicine instead. Art’s just a hobby now,’ she said with a shrug.
She blinked away a sudden image of her sister...the sister who’d been so determined to follow in their famous father’s footsteps. Charlotte’s death had changed everything. Taking up medicine, as her sister had, had seemed the best way to ease her parents’ pain...to make them proud of her, as they’d been of Charlotte. She’d hoped to make up in some small way for their tragic loss.
But she was going to be a decidedly pale shadow of her sister, she was sadly aware, because she intended to be a simple, ordinary GP, like her mother, not a prestigious heart surgeon like her father...like Charlotte had hoped to be. Her father, she knew, still had hopes that she would specialise, but her mind was made up. She wanted to be a more down-to-earth, patient-oriented doctor, like her mother—dealing with the whole of a person, mind, body and soul, not just focusing on one small, if vital part.
‘So you chose to do medicine...just like that.’ The piercing blue eyes glimmered under her gaze. She wasn’t sure if it was in admiration...or amusement. ‘You must have been a bright student, Kate. It’s some switch...from art to medicine. What brought it about? Family pressure? Peer pressure? Parental expectations? You have doctors in your family?’
She sat up abruptly, causing the ice-pack to spin from his feather-light grasp and land in her lap. Snatching it up, she pressed it into her bruised flesh with fingers far less gentle than his.
‘No one pressured me...I wanted to do medicine!’ She couldn’t meet Jack’s eye. She was afraid that if she did, it would all tumble out...how and why Charlotte had died...how shattered her parents had been, her father in particular...how her father had vented his fury on his daughter’s absent ex-lover, tearing up the note of condolence Jonathan Savage had sent from America after Charlotte’s death, and throwing it away in disgust.
No...she couldn’t bring herself to tell Jack all that. She was afraid tears would tumble out along with the words, and she didn’t want to cry in front of Jack, didn’t want to bring a sad note into their brief time together...or, worse, make him uncomfortable. Some men tended to back away from tragedy and emotion...from emotional females in particular...and she didn’t want Jack backing away from her.
‘But you still find time to do some sketching...’ Jack’s voice splintered her fevered thoughts.
She peeked up at him through her lashes, relief whooshing through her that he hadn’t pressed her for an answer, that he’d switched from the subject of medicine. He was eyeing her sketchbook again, she noted, with a rush of heat to her cheeks.
‘May I take a look?’
Alarm flared in her eyes as he reached down and picked it up.
‘No!’ she cried, her cheeks positively flaming now. The ice-pack, forgotten, slipped from her fingers onto the grass. ‘Please, Jack—’
He laughed. It was obvious he thought she was just teasing him, or being coy. ‘I won’t criticise, I promise. I can’t draw a straight line myself.’ He flipped it open before she could stop him.
Dismay, humiliation, washed over her as a slow smile spread across his face.
‘So...you did see me.’ His lips stretched wider. ‘From more than one angle, it seems.’
She wished she could sink through the banana lounger into oblivion. She’d more than just ‘seen’ him—she’d memorised every powerful sinew and tautly packed muscle of his fantastic body. She’d never been more mortified in her life!
‘They’re very detailed sketches.’ He eyed them clinically. ‘You have...an amazingly acute eye.’
‘You said you wouldn’t criticise,’ she whispered faintly.
‘I’m not criticising. I have nothing but praise.’ He glanced up at her, pinning her with the glittering force of his gaze, a self-deprecating smile curving his lips. ‘I’m commenting from a purely artistic point of view, you understand, not on the subject matter. You’re good, Kate. Very good. You have talent.’
‘You said you know nothing about art.’ she reminded him, brushing off the unwanted accolade.
‘I said I couldn’t draw a straight line, not that I knew nothing about art.’
‘Please, Jack...give it to me.’ She plucked the sketchbook from his fingers and closed it firmly. ‘It was just a bit of fun, and—and you were the only one on the beach...’
She flung her legs over the side of the lounger, glancing at her watch as she sat up. ‘Is that the time? I’d better fly,’ she gabbled. ‘The police must have been and gone by now and my—my friend could be looking for me.’ She snatched up her beach-bag and scrambled to her feet.
Jack rose too. ‘I could do with another run. I’ll come down to the beach with you...if that’s where you’re heading. You could introduce me to your friend.’
He wanted to meet Diana? Kate was shocked—disgusted—at the flash of pure jealousy that knifed through her. Diana was closer to Jack’s age, and a sophisticated, high-powered woman of the world. Compared with a lowly medical student, not yet twenty...
‘I—I think I’ll head back to the house,’ she gulped out. ‘Di will probably still be there, cleaning up the mess.’ If there was a police car parked outside the house she could always turn back...and hopefully meet up with Jack again down on the beach. Alone...just the two of them. ‘Jack...thank you.’ She turned to face him. ‘I...my eye’s feeling a lot better. Is it still swollen?’
She raised her face for his scrutiny. And felt a tingling weakness in her legs as his gaze scorched over her flushed skin.
‘Not as much,’ Jack assured her. His voice, warm and velvet-soft, brushed over her like a physical caress. ‘But I think you should get a story ready, if you don’t want your friend knowing that a strange man walloped you in the face while you were caught in a dangerous rip.’
She gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘At least—thanks to you turning up, Jack—I won’t have to tell her I went swimming on my own.’ She could hardly hide the fact that she’d been for a swim—one glance at her damp, tangled curls would give her away. ‘I know it’s not quite the truth, but...’ She reached out involuntarily to touch his arm. ‘Thank you, Jack, for—’ she caught her breath at the feel of the smooth, hard flesh under her fingers ‘—for saving my life.’
She felt her gaze swallowed by a blue more brilliant than the sea. ‘The pleasure was all mine.’ He took her uptilted chin in his hand, bent his head and kissed her. Full on the lips.
‘It’s not every day a fellow has the chance to pluck a golden mermaid from the sea,’ he drawled as he drew back.
She couldn’t move or speak for a second. She could feel her face burning, her heart thudding, her lips tingling from the brief, unexpected touch of his lips. Warm, firm, yet deliciously sensual lips, the kind of lips you wanted to go on kissing you for ever.
She saw something in his face, a fleeting glint in his eye, a deepening of the sharp blue, as if he’d surprised himself by kissing her. Or by feeling the same spark of awareness that she’d felt?
‘I thought your eyes were grey,’ he murmured with a slow smile, his voice breaking the spell. ‘But they’re green...as green as the sea on a wintry day.’
Was that what had surprised him? The colour of her eyes? She felt a ripple of disappointment. Maybe he’d felt nothing at all.
‘And as beautiful,’ he added softly, his fingers caressing the soft skin of her throat, his hypnotic eyes still holding hers.
Kate stared back at him, her lips trembling, parting under his gaze. She felt light-headed, breathless, as if she were floating. She couldn’t drag her eyes from his. Didn’t want to.
Caught up in the enchantment of the moment, dazed by a dreamy sense of unreality, she blurted something utterly unexpected, utterly unplanned. And utterly outrageous.
‘You realise, don’t you, Jack, that when you save someone’s life...you’re bound to them for ever?’
She caught her breath as the impetuous words left her lips, wishing she could snatch them back. Bound for ever? What in the world was she saying, thinking of? If there were any words more likely to drive a man away...!
She gave a startled jerk as Jack reached out to slide a hand round her neck under her curls, gently urging her face closer to his, his fingers warm and tinglingly intimate on her skin.
‘Then maybe we ought to seal those bonds between us... with a proper kiss,’ he suggested in a strangely husky voice.
‘Jack, I didn’t—’
His lips stopped her. Those warm, sumptuous lips that she’d tasted a moment ago and longed to taste again. Lips that she couldn’t resist, didn’t want to resist, that caused her own to melt under their gentle, seeking pressure, all thought scattering to the four winds.
Still kissing her, he slid an arm round her waist, pulling her against his muscled warmth, his powerful thighs brushing her bare legs.
Instead of feeling trapped, or in any way alarmed, she clutched at his arms and pressed even closer, elated and intoxicated by the increasing hunger of his kiss and the erratic beat of his heart against hers.
He drew back just far enough to murmur against her lips, ‘You’re not one of those irresistible sirens of the sea, I trust, who lure men to their destruction on the rocks?’
She gave a gurgle of husky laughter. ‘Oh, Jack, I’d never do anything to hurt you...ever. You saved my life!’ Gulping in a much needed breath, she whispered, ‘Maybe we were fated to meet.’
‘Maybe we were.’ His fingers threaded through her mass of golden curls, his eyes a dark glitter above hers. ‘You’re already threatening to turn my life upside-down... do you realise that?’
She was? Kate let out a dreamy sigh as his mouth captured hers again, preventing her from telling him that he was doing the same to her. As if he didn’t know it already!
Her mind spun as his tongue slid between her teeth and began an erotic dance with hers, his lips sucking, tasting, sending a delicious fire through her veins. So this was what a proper kiss was...this was how it felt. Nothing like the arrogant, insensitive assaults or the clumsy, eager smooches that she’d known before...none of which had affected her in the slightest, except to fill her with a mild distaste. This was so different...the way it made her feel...wanting more...far more.
Her breath quickened as she felt his hand brush over the swell of her breast, her body arching involuntarily, her senses reeling at the intimate touch, at the exquisite sensations flaming through her. She didn’t think of protesting, or drawing back. She was paralysed, lost to all reality, conscious only of the heady exhilaration of being in his arms, and the blinding realisation that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
As a shiver of pure excitement quivered through her, Jack wrenched his mouth from hers, almost brutally pushing her back, away from him. ‘My God, what am I doing? What am I letting you do to me?’
The magic spell shattered. Only the hands still holding her arms prevented Kate’s legs from sagging beneath her. Blood rushed to her face, tears of hurt and shame springing to her eyes. He didn’t want her after all. She was too fast, too easy. He was disgusted at himself for succumbing to...her feminine wiles. But not as disgusted as she felt at that moment—with herself.
What was she doing, letting a virtual stranger kiss her like that, touch her like that? As for telling him they were bound together for ever, just because he’d saved her life... She’d only just met him, for pity’s sake! She didn’t even know his full name.
‘I’m sorry,’ she croaked, blinking furiously. ‘You—you must think—’ She gave a choked sob and tried to tear herself free, clawing at his gripping hands with wild fingers. But his strong hands simply tightened round her arms, dragging her back to face him.
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Kate.’ His voice was a throaty growl. ‘Just be grateful I didn’t take advantage of you. Heaven knows, I was tempted.’
He was? She swallowed, her bewildered gaze fluttering to his. Was he saying it was because he liked her so much—because he respected her—that he’d pushed her away? Were there still men like that around?
‘Will—will I see you tomorrow?’ she faltered, hiding the burning hope that she was sure must be there for him—for anyone—to see.
But what if Diana wanted to go home first thing in the morning—or even tonight—now that her beach-house had been burgled? Or what if she wanted to visit a different beach tomorrow—a safer beach for swimming? Or what if she didn’t want her young friend meeting up with Jack again—a stranger she’d met on the beach? What if she wanted to keep Kate to herself?
As she waited for Jack’s answer, Kate felt a sick ache in her chest at the thought of never seeing him again, never having the chance to know and experience more of him, never again feeling his gentle, heart-stopping touch, those powerful arms around her, those warmly sensual lips on hers.
Worse...what if she and Diana did meet him on the beach tomorrow, and he had eyes only for Diana?
She gave herself an impatient shake. If he was that fickle—if he could transfer his affections so easily—Diana was welcome to him! But in her heart she didn’t believe he would be...not her Jack. Not the man who’d risked his life to save hers, and who’d taken such good care of her since...who’d even told her she was threatening to turn his life upside-down.
Not the man who’d had the chance to take advantage of her, who’d been tempted to, but hadn’t.
‘There’s a woman crossing the sandhills,’ Jack said suddenly, diverted for a second. He was looking beyond her through the trees. ‘Is that your friend?’
Kate turned her head, following his glance. Her heart gave a flutter as she recognised the tall, slender woman striding across the grassy sand dunes...heading back from the beach, not towards it. It was more a flutter of guilt than dismay. Guilt that she hadn’t been down on the beach when Diana had come looking for her. Guilt that she’d been enjoying herself with Jack while Diana had been dealing with the police and the aftermath of the robbery.
Guilt that she could actually have been jealous of Diana, even for a second! She liked Diana. Very much. In many ways, she liked her better than she’d liked her own sister. Besides, jealousy was such a futile, destructive emotion.
She leapt away from Jack with a gasped. ‘Goodbye, Jack!’ and broke into a run, leaving him standing. ‘Di!’ she called out, waving a hand as she emerged from the trees. ‘Here I am!’
‘Where have you been?’ Diana shouted back, adding as they came closer, ‘I thought you’d been kidnapped!’
Kate reddened. She had...in a way. ‘Sorry, Di.’ Her teeth tugged at her lip as she came to a halt, facing the older woman. ‘I...er...met someone down on the beach.’ She raked her fingers through her hair, deliberately dragging her tangled curls over one eye. Her black eye. The longer she could hide it from Diana the better. She hadn’t thought of a convincing story yet.
‘And there I was, thinking you must have gone for a long walk...on your own.’ Diana’s dark eyes twinkled. ‘Male or female?’ she asked.
‘Male.’ Kate flushed. ‘A real gentleman,’ she said righteously. An incredible hunk with the strength of a tank, the sexiest lips in the world, and the gentlest touch she’d ever known.
A man she would trust with her life.
She had trusted him with her life.
‘He wouldn’t happen to be sun-tanned, dark-haired and built like an Olympic athlete, by any chance?’ Diana was looking past her now, her eyes blatantly admiring.
Kate’s head spun round, her cheeks blazing hot. Jack was heading their way, on his way to the beach.
‘Er...yes, that’s Jack.’ She would have to explain a few things, quick smart. ‘I...we went swimming,’ she babbled, ‘and he accidentally bumped me on the cheek and gave me a black eye and he—he insisted on putting an ice-pack on it, back at his...his... Have the police been yet?’
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