Courting Carolina (17 page)

Jane scrambled out of his way. “Wait, you’re not wearing pants.”

“Then I suggest you close your eyes,” he hissed, deciding that if he didn’t stand up now he might not stand at all. So he rolled to his knees, braced his good arm on the jagged wall of the grotto, and pushed himself to his feet—only to have Jane jump up and try to steady him even as she tugged down the hem of his shirt.

“I’m okay,” he assured her as he straightened, finding that breathing was a lot easier standing upright. He spotted his backpack. “Just hand me my thermal bottoms before ye go for a walk down the beach while I…ah, do my morning rituals.”

Keeping her eyes locked on his—even though his shirt hung to midthigh—she stepped away and gave him a mutinous glare. “You end up flat on your face and I’m leaving you right where you fall.”

He ran a battered finger down one of her flushed cheeks. “I’m okay now that I’m standing, and I’ll loosen up once I start moving around. Why don’t you and Kit go see if any driftwood washed ashore beyond the point before the tide comes back in? You might be able to gather enough for a small fire tonight.”

She strode to his pack at the rear of the grotto, dug out his thermal underwear bottoms, and came back and handed them to him—her gaze never straying lower than his chin. She strode to the pack again, pulled the small folding wood saw out of the side pouch, and headed past him toward the beach.

Alec dropped his pants to snag her arm on the way by. “A fire’s not worth risking your neck over, Jane. So I’m
asking
that ye please not hike to the top of the cliff.”

“I don’t take foolish chances, and I know my limits.” She canted her head. “If our positions were reversed, would you not do everything in your power to keep me comfortable while I healed?”

“Not worrying about your breaking your beautiful neck is all the comfort I need.”

Up went one of her brows. “So it’s okay for you to dangle from a thin cable beneath a helicopter as it flies over the treetops, but it’s not okay for me to walk up a hill and toss down branches?”

“That’s different,” he growled, feeling heat creeping up the back of his neck. He took a steadying breath. “I knew what I was doing because I’ve done it dozens of times before, and the risk was minimal,” he said more softly.

She turned away to stare out at the water, but not before he saw the spark of challenge leave her eyes. “Yes. I see. You men always know exactly what you’re doing, and we women are clue—are to be protected and cared for.”

Dammit, if she fell he might not be able to get to her in time. “Please don’t go.”

She pulled in a breath and held it for several heartbeats, and Alec didn’t release his own breath until he saw her shoulders slump. “I won’t climb the cliff,” she said softly, walking out of the grotto and turning to follow the beach around the cove, Kit dutifully walking beside her.

Alec bent down and picked up his thermal bottoms, then slipped them on with a muttered curse. Christ, he couldn’t have wounded Jane more if he’d kicked her. But he’d rather hurt her feelings than have her break her beautiful neck—because then they’d both end up dead when he killed himself trying to reach her.

And he’d be damned if he was letting Jane Smith die a virgin.

*   *   *

Not about to add insult to injury, Alec had very nobly refrained from telling Jane to watch for boats on the fiord when she’d headed out again after dumping an armful of neatly sawn driftwood next to the grotto entrance. And he’d merely smiled and nodded when she’d politely asked if she could strip the frame off his backpack, and had handed her a granola bar as she’d left carrying the frame and a short length of rope. He might be a bastard, but he wasn’t an idiot. If the woman wanted to gather enough fuel to build a bonfire that could be seen from space, who was he to stop her?

Certainly not the king of her, that was for sure.

Hell, he wasn’t even king of himself at the moment.

Alec absently blew on the steam wafting up from the cup of soup he’d heated on the stove, and stared at the shrinking beach across the cove as he wondered if it was his throbbing side or the goddamn bus sitting on his chest that was making it hard to breathe. When in hell had his innocuous dream of messing around with a beautiful, not-missing woman for a few days turned into a raging desire to possess her completely?

Dammit, he didn’t want to care.

No, that wasn’t true; he
couldn’t
care.

Carolina Oceanus was so far out of his league that they might as well be living in different universes. And Jane Smith was definitely beyond his reach, because he’d bet his very life that the sexy, intelligent woman had never once dreamed of being devalued by a child murderer.

He had no business messing with her at all. And if he had anything resembling a conscience left, as soon as he could make the climb he should drag her up the mountain and dump her at Nova Mare before she suddenly vanished in a thunderstorm when she finally figured out what a bastard he really—

Alec stilled at the soft, electronic chime coming from the front of the grotto, only to realize that Jane was using a tiny solar panel to recharge her iPad. After glancing toward the point of land, he set down his soup and carefully got to his feet, slowly walked over and unplugged the iPad from the
charger, then hobbled back to the sunbathed boulder. But instead of sitting on it again, he carefully lowered himself to the sand and leaned against the rock instead.

He found the power button and turned on the tablet, grinning when the screen lit up with a picture of a beautiful ocean sunset. He studied the device, having been contemplating getting himself one when he went home this fall. The sleek tablet was definitely lighter than his laptop, and he figured an iPad was his next step on the technology ladder, since TarStone Mountain had wireless Internet in the hotel and lodge, and even up at the summit house.

He gave another glance toward the fiord, then slid a battered finger across the screen to unlock it and grinned again when a variety of icons appeared. Not the least bit contrite to be snooping through Jane’s virtual world, since being nosy was probably the least of his sins, he lightly tapped the e-book icon—then softly whistled at the sight of her extensive library of books on nuclear fission, quantum physics, sustainable energy, and solar and hydro and wind power.

Jane Smith was into some heavy reading.

His eyes widened as he continued scrolling through the virtual bookcase:
The Joy of Sex
…
The Happy Hooker
…
Kama Sutra
…
The Idiot’s Guide to Oral Sex
…

Seriously? Somebody had written a book on oral sex?

And Jane had
bought
it?

Alec wiped his sock-wrapped hand over his face. Well, that should teach him to snoop. Except instead of having learned his lesson, he kept right on snooping—only to nearly drop the iPad when he tapped the movie icon.

Holy hell, the woman had an equally extensive
video
library of pornography!

He stared out across the cove, more confounded than shocked. Why would Jane have downloaded a bunch of dirty movies and sex manuals? He understood the energy and physics books, since she obviously was into that kind of stuff, but
The Happy Hooker
and
Debbie Does Dallas
? What sort of mind mixed pornography with quantum physics?

Alec snorted. An intelligent and inquisitive mind did,
especially if it belonged to a sheltered princess with dreams of being more than a wife and mother and beautiful asset to some power-hungry husband.

But
The Happy Hooker
? Was Jane studying up on how to lose her virginity?

For the love of Christ, she was learning about sex from a prostitute!

Kit suddenly came barreling up the beach, spraying Alec in a shower of sand when the wolf slid to a halt, dropped a large piece of driftwood, and looked at him expectantly. Really? The killer whale wanted to play fetch?

“You’re an orca,” Alec muttered, picking up the driftwood. “You’re supposed to be terrorizing helpless seals.” He awkwardly tossed the stick toward the water, only to immediately regret the action and cradle his ribs on a hiss of pain.

“Kitty, I told you Alec is too sore to play,” Jane scolded as the wolf raced past her after the stick. She stopped at the entrance and slid off the pack frame—that probably had forty pounds of driftwood lashed to it—then rushed onto the beach. “Kitty, no!” she cried, catching the wolf by grabbing one end of the stick and bracing her feet to stop him. Using her grip on the stick, and apparently not the least bit worried when Kit gave a protesting growl, Jane got right down in the wolf’s face. “I only showed you that game so you could show your pod—you’re pack mates,” she whispered, darting a glance at Alec to see if he’d caught her mistake, only to straighten with a gasp when she saw him holding her iPad.

The woman should be blushing to the roots of her wind-tangled hair, Alec decided as he gestured at the boulder near the entrance. “It started beeping and…ah, I’ve thought about buying myself one, so I…” He snorted and held the iPad out to her. “Do they come already loaded with all those books and movies?”

Her complexion went from pink to dull red as she hugged the tablet to her chest, even as her chin lifted defiantly. “It’s not a crime to be curious, and I’ve always been interested in various energy sources.”

“Yeah, right; you—” Alec snapped his mouth shut when the last of her sentence sank in. She was embarrassed he’d discovered that she read
science
books? “I wasn’t referring to your scientific library,” he drawled, “but your collection of pornography.”

“Oh, that,” she said with a smile of obvious relief. She waved a hand in dismissal and sat down across from him to lean against the grotto wall. “No, the iPad doesn’t come with any books or movies on it. You not only have to buy the pornography, but you have to download the app you wish to use based on which online store you plan to buy from.” She beamed him a saint-tempting smile. “Then you go to that store and simply type in
SEX
and
thousands
of books and movies pop up.” She shook her head. “Some of the titles are really quite comical.” She held the tablet toward him. “You’re welcome to peruse my libraries while you’re recuperating if you wish, and that way you can decide if this is the brand of tablet you might want to purchase.”

Was she
serious
? Alec gestured for her to keep the tablet and took as deep a breath as the bus sitting on his chest would allow. “Jane,” he quietly began, despite not knowing where he was going with this conversation, “you can’t learn how to make love from reading books about sex or watching a bunch of actors going at…pretending to…Pornography is misleading.” He nodded curtly. “Yeah, it’s nothing but fantasy.”

She arched a brow. “So the reason it even exists is…”

Well, she had him there. Alec disguised his urge to grin with a snort. “It exists to keep beautiful women safe from lust-blinded idiots.”

“And only
men
experience lust?” she asked, her eyes lighting with challenge. “And women mustn’t be curious about such things?” She canted her head. “Tell me; would you expect a doctor who hadn’t spent years studying the human body to operate on you? Or would you send a soldier into battle without any training?”

“Sex isn’t a battle,” he growled. “It’s a natural, spontaneous occurrence between two people.”

Her eyes crinkled with amusement. “So are you saying
that if neither person has any experience, they will both still find pleasure?”

Damn, her smile was contagious, and Alec finally gave his grin free rein. “Well, okay. It helps if
one
of them knows what they’re doing.”

That brow lifted again. “Preferably with the man being the experienced one?” She sobered. “Knowledge is power, Alec. And ignorance about sex puts a woman at a disadvantage—and at a man’s mercy.”

Alec scrubbed his face in his hands, wondering what had possessed him to get into a conversation with her about sex. “Okay, point taken. I suppose if I were running around audition—looking for an ordinary man to marry, I’d at least want to know how to keep things from getting out of control. But,” he rushed on when she started to say something, “pornography has absolutely nothing to do with lovemaking.” He gestured at her iPad. “Those movies are visual exaggerations, Jane, aimed at a
male
audience. Did you see any displays of affection when you watched them? Or tenderness, or any real emotion? Hell, they don’t even kiss.”

She looked down at her lap, her cheeks darkening. “No, I saw no affection.” She lifted uncertain eyes to his. “But if those movies are designed for male entertainment, couldn’t a woman watch them to learn what men like?”

“Men like women to be themselves.”

She looked down at the iPad again, although not quickly enough for him to miss the wistful look in her eyes. “But everyone appeared to be having such a good time,” she murmured, more to herself than to him, he suspected. She stood up, took a deep breath, and gave him an overly bright smile. “Thank you for explaining it to me, Alec, as I did wonder at some of the things I saw in those movies.” He also didn’t miss the sparkle that returned to her eyes as she turned away. “Particularly some of the positions. Now, I believe I’ll build a fire and cook the fish that Ki—um, that I found trapped in a tidal pool.”

She set the tablet down on the boulder next to him, then went over and pulled several long thin saplings from the
firewood lashed to the pack frame, as well as the already gutted fish dangling from it. She walked over and handed him both the saplings and the fish—that appeared to have teeth marks in their sides—and yup, that was definitely a sparkle outshining her smile. “If you don’t know how to whittle a spit to roast the fish on, I believe there’s a book on my iPad that explains how to do it.”

For the love of— She’d studied up on camping, too?

Well of course she had, because Jane Smith had wanted to be prepared when she got into trouble and came running to the biggest schmuck on the planet. “Thanks, but I think I can manage,” he drawled, taking his knife when she handed it to him.