Betina Krahn (10 page)

She glanced at his mouth, then away, and became suddenly aware of the threads of moonlight piercing the clouds drifting overhead, the
shooshing
sound of the waves breaking on the nearby rocks, and of the fact that she was very much alone with him on the dock.

“I was merely referring to the old saw: ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,’” she replied, dismayed to find her voice breathy.

“Were you, indeed?” He cocked his head and eyed her.

It took her a moment to realize that he meant her knowledge of human males probably came from more immediate sources, which, of course, meant that he believed she knew more than she should about—
That again!
When only a moment before she was thinking that there actually could be a human being buttoned up somewhere inside that stuffy, overbearing—

“Knowing the facts of dolphin life and reproduction does not make me an immoral person, sir,” she said hotly. “No more than poking about in a dead shark’s belly makes you an expert on the feeding of large fish!”

She grabbed the mallets, scrambled to her feet, and slid the ropes that held the sheet of tin up and over the posts.

“I believe it has yet to be established that you know the facts of anything, Miss Ashton.” He stood up and brushed his trousers. “What happens if the dolphins appear and we’re not here to see them?”

“Then they will simply wait until morning.” She raised that unwieldy sheet of corrugated metal and shoved it against his chest.

“
Hey!
” He barely caught it before it bit into the toes of his well-polished shoes. By the time he straightened and bettered his grip on it, she had already retrieved the lantern and was making her way around the boathouse. As he started along the ledge, both she and the light disappeared at the far end. Balancing the sheet of tin against him as best he could,
he pressed his shoulder blades against the boathouse wall and slid his feet along the ledge, which felt even narrower than it had earlier. He was nearing the end, muttering furiously to himself, when she reappeared with the lantern and glowered at him.

“There you are. I was beginning to wonder if—”

A sharp crack occurred underfoot as he shifted to face her. He felt himself sinking, dropped the metal, and scrambled for purchase on the ledge. Failing that, he grabbed wildly at the rough boathouse wall for something—anything—to hold on to. Then one foot went through a rotted board and he began to fall.

“
Aghhh
—”

The light disappeared and the next instant his coat caught on something and checked his fall. As he straightened, he felt Celeste Ashton seize his wrist, and realized belatedly that it was she who had caught hold of his coat. “I’ve got you,” she called. Steadied, he was able to slide one foot onto a sounder board and pull the other free of the broken wood. Then with a lunge, he reached the main dock and safety.

His heart hammered, he could barely catch his breath, and a burning throb was developing in his foot. But what filled his awareness, as his senses cleared, was the feel of Celeste Ashton pressed tight against him … so close that he could feel her heart was beating fast, too.

That wave of adrenaline drained, leaving in its place a confusing flush of heat. He looked down into her upraised face—luminous skin, delicate features, generously curved lips … Soft, she was so
soft
against him … everywhere … his chest, his loins, his thighs, his arms. And everywhere she was touching him, something seemed to be melting … his resistance to her, his clothes, his very skin. It should have raised an alarm in him, but as he looked into her large, dark-centered eyes and felt the warmth of her body seeping into his chest, he couldn’t think of a single reason to let her go.

She looked up into his face—those bold, angular features,
penetrating eyes, and expressive mouth—and a wave of unexpected pleasure broke over her. Her first thought was that he was surprisingly flat and hard wherever she was pressed against him … her chest, her abdomen, her thighs. She had no idea that men had such firm and planar bodies. It was like being held against a wall.

When he lurched onto the dock and grabbed her, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to open her arms to steady him. And now that she could feel the satin back of his vest beneath his coat, the heat of his waist, and the intriguing thickness of his shoulders, she was caught hard in the grip of discovery and hadn’t the slightest thought of removing herself.

Looking up into his darkened eyes, she watched his face lower toward hers, degree by tantalizing degree. Her lips parted as his head tilted. The moist warmth of his breath bathed her lips, sending trickles of expectation wending along the underside of her skin. Another inch. Just one more inch and their mouths would meet in a …

He felt her quiver of anticipation, felt it migrate into his body. He was finally going to know if those lips really tasted like ripe cherries. That wayward but tantalizing hypothesis had lingered at the edge of his awareness since the first moment he set eyes on her. Red and lusciously moist, bursting with a tart sweetness—

His lips closed over hers and he finally knew; she tasted of honey mingled with salt … like the nectar of seaside flowers … like salty, sun-warmed apples. He absorbed the satiny resilience of her lips as they molded to his, discovering the provocative wet heat between them as they parted. He traced that tantalizing crevice with his tongue, exploring her ripening response and the lush sensations of sweetness and warm flesh and intimate oral contact. He pulled her tighter against him, absorbed in the way her body seemed to fit so naturally against his … her curves filling his hollows, her softness molding to his strength.

Against the background of the pounding surf and the soft
silver moonlight, it was all so perfect that he felt not the slightest disappointment that she didn’t taste quite like cherr—

Cherries?
The thought intruded, then doused his overheated passions with an icy blast of reason. He was
tasting
her?

His eyes widened with recognition, focusing on her face, her closed eyes.
Kissing her
. He jerked his head up, breaking that alarming contact.

Sensing his withdrawal, she pulled from his arms and lurched back a step.

He tugged at his vest then shoved his hands into his coat pockets; she brushed at her skirts then thrust her arms behind her.

“Really, Miss Ashton,” was all he could think to say at first, and disdainful was the only tone he could seem to say it in.

“Really, Professor,” she echoed, her face brightening in moonlight.

“That was … most …” Then his speech mechanisms kicked into gear and began to run on by themselves, without any interference from his brain. “In future, Miss Ashton, please find another subject on whom to practice your repertoire
of human
mating rituals.”

“Practice my—” She fell back a step, then glared at him as if he had just crawled from under a rock. She turned and made straight for the beach.

Pain shot up his leg when he tried to follow.

“Infernal dock is a death trap—damned lucky I didn’t break something.” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and hobbled down the path. “Perhaps that’s her plan … lame me and then lavish me with tender mercies so I’ll be—”

So he would be what? Agreeable? Beholden? He scowled. He felt something in his pocket and drew it out. It was a crumpled piece of newsprint … that picture from the
Gazette
portraying Celeste Ashton as a sensuous siren of land
and sea. Even in the moonlight he could make out the suggestive outline of her body, the invitation in her posture, and the challenge in her expression.

She was a woman who knew the facts of life, that picture said, and who used them to get what she wanted.

The devious little piece! Dragging him down to the dock—alone, in the dark—on the premise of looking for dolphins … she wasn’t trying to lame him, she was trying to
seduce
him. Thinking of the way she had flashed him a peek at her “flippers,” thrown herself at him bodily, then kissed him within an inch of his sanity, he groaned.

How dense could a man be? She probably didn’t have a clever plot or a prime bit of fakery in mind—she didn’t expect to need one. Why should she go to such trouble if she could get his urges and desires to do her work for her? Once embroiled with her in some tawdry carnal escapade, he’d have a devil of a time exposing her fraud without exposing his own indiscretions.

He winced at the ease with which she had managed to get her arms around him, at how brazenly she had melted against him, and at just how close he had come to sampling her opportunistic charms. Fortunately, he had had the presence of mind and the moral fiber to interrupt her little game before she managed to inveigle him into a compromising position.

He stuffed the picture back into his pocket and limped toward the cliff.

She might be clever, his slippery Lady Mermaid, but he had made a career out of dissecting bigger fish. It wouldn’t be long before he had her pinned to the board before him, her secrets bared and dubious claims exposed.

I
T WAS A LONG
and sleepless night for two of the inhabitants of Ashton House. When dawn finally broke, Celeste slid with relief from her bed, pulled on her clothes, and hurried down to the cove. She was disappointed to find the rolling
blue-green waves undisturbed by dorsal fins and airy white “blows.” Thinking of the long morning in store if she couldn’t produce a few dolphins to verify her claims, she went out to the dock, rescued her makeshift: drum from the rocks bared by low tide, and began rapping out her call once again.

Her mind drifted back to the sea-softened darkness, the fascination of watching Titus Thorne’s hands wield the mallets, and the unexpected delight of being held against his body.

A swirl of warmth and ocean sound and moist lips recurred in her senses. She had been kissed, really kissed, for the first time in her life. And it had been marvelous. Soft and slow and deliciously compelling … For years she had observed and catalogued dolphin mating behaviors, and had wondered what it was like for humans. The closest thing to a description had come from the few “romantic” novels she had secreted from her grandfather’s library. She knew all about sexual activity from a scientific standpoint, but hadn’t a clue how it truly felt, until last night.

Then Titus Thorne had ruined it all by accusing her of “practicing” on him. The wretch.

She thought about that for a moment. What was so wrong with exploring the pleasures of human mating? If a body had to live as a human, her grandfather had said long ago, he or she might as well know the basics of how they came to be one. With her grandfather’s and grandmother’s sage instruction, she had learned those basics in theory. Her dolphins, who mated frequently, eagerly, and shamelessly, had taught her the more practical applications.

Everything in nature seemed to be sorted into mating pairs … including humans. Surely a man of science would understand the natural process of—

A man of science. She shook the lingering sensual fog from her mental faculties and made herself look at it logically. Titus Thorne was a man of reason and intellect, a man too absorbed in delving the secrets of the universe to bother
with trifles like mating and pleasure. She thought of his pride and superior airs. No doubt he considered himself above such nonsense.

But then, a more empirical bit of evidence intruded. He hadn’t
felt
like a juiceless prig when he pulled her tight against him, slid his hands over her body, and teased her lips with his. True, she was a novice at such things, but at the time, he seemed to be enjoying it as much as she did. And if afterward he was appalled … why would a man dislike having made pleasure, if it felt good?

Because he didn’t like the person with whom he made that pleasure.
Her
.

She propped her chin on her hand and scowled as she looked out to sea. He believed she was either a fraud and a liar, or a young, idiotic female who confused her days with
daydreams
and infused her observations with all sorts of ridiculous female longings … neither of which would appeal to a man of logic and reason, who considered himself the guardian of the Gates of Truth. The thought caused a hollow, empty feeling in her chest and she sent a hand to massage it.

A moment later that telling motion annoyed her and she jerked her hand away. She was a scientist, for heaven’s sake. Why was she spending precious time and energy worrying about what would appeal to Titus Thorne? She didn’t have to have his approval or his blessed kisses; she only had to have his verification of her work. In writing.

Glowering, she took up her dolphin call again.

I
T WAS WELL PAST
dawn when Titus sprang up in the middle of his bed, wild-eyed and sweating, feeling the sting of phantom fish tails against his face. He’d been dreaming again. After a night of tossing and turning and finding every lump and button on that torture rack of a mattress, he had finally sunk into exhausted slumber just before dawn. And he soon
found himself entangled in both damp sheets and disturbing dreams.

It wasn’t the first time fish had appeared in his dreams. In London, the morning after he first encountered Celeste Ashton, he had awakened with his hands flailing about his face, pushing away the fish tails that were swarming around him. Virtually every night since, his beleaguered mind conjured up some strange vignette or other involving fish, whose tails usually ended up in his face.

Last night there were fish eating other fish. The big ones that were doing the eating turned and winked at him. Then they blew him kisses with huge, cherry-red lips. When he didn’t respond, they grew irate and began to chase him. The chase ended when he stumbled and scraped his leg, and they all took turns swatting him in the face with their tails.

“Damned silly dreams,” he muttered, hauling himself out of bed and throwing open the window for a bit of fresh salt air. His injured ankle was too tender for his usual morning calisthenics, so he settled on the floor for a few push-ups instead. As he completed twenty, he realized he was doing them in rhythm … five quick ones … and a longer, slower one. He paused and sat for a moment, hearing that same infectious rhythm he had drummed out last night, and thinking for a moment that it was his heart beating that way. Grabbing his chest in alarm, he soon realized that it was coming from
outside
, not inside.