Her First Vacation (15 page)

She apparently did too good a job of it because he started
to lean forward to kiss her again, and she was caught trying to figure out a
way to tell him no without hurting his feelings. Nature intervened at that
precise moment, however, saving her the trouble. He jerked,
then
slapped a hand at the back of his neck. He muttered an oath,
then
pulled his hand away and she could see the tiny smear of blood on his palm. She
frowned up at him.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, something just stung me,
that’s
all.”

“You’re not allergic to bees are you?”

He shook his head. “I’m not allergic to anything. It’ll be
fine.” He turned to reach for her again. “Now, where were we?”

CHAPTER NINE

Claire opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t think it
would be a good idea to pick up where they’d left off, but he suddenly blanched
white. A few seconds later he was scrambling away from her and emptying his
stomach into the grass. She went to kneel at his side. He’d barely stopped
heaving when it hit him again, and he retched a second time.

“I think we need to get you to a doctor.”

He didn’t argue. The truth was
,
he
couldn’t stop trying to vomit long enough to do more than mumble a few words.
She gathered up their things,
then
helped him stumble
back to the boat. The hike had been pleasurably taxing on the way in, but it
was sheer agony for Garret on the way out. He kept heaving every few minutes
even though there was nothing left in his stomach to come up. Claire had never
seen anyone have such a violent reaction to a bee sting. She’d had kids in her
classes that were allergic, some severe enough to require immediate
administration of epinephrine to keep them from going into anaphylactic shock
if they were to be stung. But Garret wasn’t having any trouble breathing. He
was just horribly ill. As soon as they were close enough that she felt it was
safe to leave him for a few minutes, she ran straight to the dock and found
help. When they reached Garret, he was still lying on the bench where she’d
left him. But he wasn’t alone. Colin was there, and he helped the people from
the dock get Garret back to the launch. Once they reached the ship, Garret was
taken straight to the infirmary. The doctor there looked at the bite on his
neck, checked to make sure he wasn’t having any difficulty breathing,
then
gave him something to help with the nausea that also
made him sleepy. Claire finally left him there and went back to her room to
shower and change for dinner.

Colin pulled the razor across his cheek and worked hard not
to grin like a fool. He couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of Garret’s moans
as he endured the involuntary spasms of his stomach. It was a long way from the
justice Colin wanted to see brought to him, but it was an amusing little
punishment for what he’d been trying to do to Claire. The smile faded from
Colin’s face. He’d been close enough to get a good look at the two of them
while they ate and talked and laughed. He hadn’t been able to hear what Garret
was saying to Claire, but he’d seen the expression on her face, and it had made
Colin want to “accidentally” show himself. He knew Garret was skilled at being
supremely charming when it suited him, and he must have been laying it on thick
because Claire not only let him kiss her, she kissed him back.

He cursed as his razor took off a piece of skin along with
the hair. Seeing Claire with another man’s hands on her body had damn near
killed him. Knowing that she might soon be flat on her back with Garret on top
of her had been more than he could take. Colin had been a breath away from
doing something stupid when things had turned. He’d spent a sizeable portion of
the night trying to come up with some way to protect Claire from Garret without
totally blowing his cover and the job he was there to do. Openly screwing up
Garret’s plans for Claire, even by supposed accident, would likely be enough to
sour Garret on him. So Colin knew he had to come up with something else.
Something that couldn’t be tied back to him in any way.
It
had hit him while he was pacing the floor of his room. Garret didn’t do
anything half-way. He’d said he was planning a picnic for Claire. Colin knew
that it wouldn’t be anything as common as sandwiches. He’d want to impress her,
so he’d have something a lot more elegant. Sure enough, a bit of snooping led
him to the special meal Garret had ordered for them. Colin had no doubt that
the grin on his face was evil as he scanned the menu.
Cold
chicken and potato salad, along with wine and dessert.
Only Colin knew
Claire didn’t like potato salad. It was one of those random things that had
come up in one of the breakfast conversations. Garret, on the other hand, did
like it. Colin had seen him eat it more than once while on the cruise. It was a
simple matter to intercept the meal before it got to Garret and lace the potato
salad with something that would knock Garret for a nasty loop. Colin was
starting to worry about the length of time that it was taking for it to kick in
as he was forced to watch Garret make a move on Claire. She hadn’t put up any
resistance to Garret’s advances. Maybe she’d wanted him to lay her back on that
blanket and strip her naked. Colin didn’t want to believe she was that
gullible, but he had no way of knowing what was running through her mind. The
bug bite or sting must have sent an adrenaline surge through Garret, though,
because the vomiting kicked in right after that. Colin would have laughed at
Garret’s obvious misery if watching Claire fret over him hadn’t been so damned
frustrating.

But Garret was going to be out of the picture for at least
twelve hours. The compound worked fast and faded fast. By morning he’d be over
the worst of it.
Which meant Colin only had tonight to try to
convince Claire that staying away from Garret would be in her best interest.
He met his own gaze in the mirror. No problem.

Claire walked into the dining room and immediately spotted
Colin. He was at the table with Janine was so close to him that she was
practically sitting in his lap. Normally, Colin appeared to enjoy her obvious
interest. Tonight he was leaned back in his chair, putting as much distance
between them as he could manage. When she reached out to lay a hand on his arm,
Claire clearly saw the way his jaw tensed as if he wanted to pull away from her
but was forcing himself not to. That wasn’t like him. In the two weeks that
she’d known him, she’d never seen him look remotely uncomfortable with a woman’s
attention or touch. Just about then his head jerked around, and his gaze seemed
to zero in on hers instantly. Janine was still talking, but he pushed back his
chair, got to his feet, and started walking toward her. For some reason she
felt butterflies burst into frantic movement in her belly. There was a look in
his eyes tonight that she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen before. It was primal and
vaguely predatory, and it made her feel trapped, somehow. Before she could make
herself turn and run, he’d reached her and was speaking.

“You look beautiful, as always.”

It was a line, but it didn’t sound like one. In fact, if
she hadn’t known better, she would have believed it was the utter truth. Oh,
she might be attractive now, but she’d never been truly beautiful, and she
never would be. The way he looked at her made her want to believe him, though.
The intensity of his gaze made her want to believe anything was possible. She
cleared her throat and jerked herself out of whatever daze she was falling
into. This was Colin, and she already knew how skilled he was at portraying
whatever image he chose to invoke.

“Thank you.”

She stepped around him, continuing on her path toward the
table. He somehow managed to get there first, without looking like he’d had to
hurry. He pulled out her chair, and she dropped into it with another murmur of
thanks. He leaned over so that she was forced to look up into his eyes.

“No problem.”

There it was again.
That mad fluttering
in the pit of her stomach.
It was his eyes, she knew. The way they
locked onto her made it feel like everyone and everything else in the world had
dropped away. As if the two of them were completely alone in the universe. The
heat that hit her at the thought of being completely alone with Colin was
shockingly intense. She felt her eyes widen just a fraction and saw that he
noticed. What was worse, she felt positive that he knew exactly what had caused
the reaction. She felt herself blushing and dropped her gaze from his. He moved
to his own chair, though not without touching her first. It was the tiniest
brush of his knuckles across the back of her neck. She’d worn her hair up
tonight, and the sweep of his fingers against her nape could easily have been
nothing more than an incidental contact as he moved behind her. It didn’t feel
incidental, though. It felt unbearably erotic. She felt a hot little shiver and
reached out to pick up her water glass with a hand that was shaking. She used
the glass as a cover while she waited for the flush to fade from her face.

What was wrong with her? She knew what Colin wanted from
her, what he apparently wanted from all women. The kind of sex he’d so glibly
described to her was hardly something she hadn’t known existed. But it
definitely was something she knew she wanted no part of. Passion was all fine
and well. No doubt it could be incredibly stimulating. She wasn’t looking for
strictly physical stimulation, however. Even in an affair, she knew she would
need more. There would have to be some kind of emotional connection, some
measure of feeling between herself and the man. She wasn’t capable of anything
less.
Which was why she ought to feel nothing at all when she
looked at Colin or when he touched her.
He wanted her body, nothing
more. And she knew she’d never want to be used like that. Not again. So why was
it that she couldn’t quite manage to quell the trembling in her hands?

Colin watched Claire as she fiddled with her water glass,
her napkin, her silverware, just about everything in reach. She was looking for
anything at all that would keep her from looking at him. He felt a smile touch
his lips. She didn’t want to be attracted to him, but she couldn’t help it, and
it was scaring her to death. Scared was good. It would make her even more aware
of him. By the time the night was over, she’d be so conscious of him that she
wouldn’t be able to stand it. That was when he’d push her over the edge.

Claire barely managed to make a pretense of actually
eating. She did her best to take part in the conversation, but every time she
tried she found that Colin monopolized her attention. He was very good at
managing the group, and he always succeeded in somehow stirring them to a point
where he and she were doing all the talking. It forced her to focus on him, to
meet his gaze, and every time she did, she felt that fluttering in her stomach
increase exponentially. Even when she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel his
eyes on her. His focus was relentless. He virtually ignored everyone else at
the table, yet somehow managed to keep them from realizing what he was doing.
Even Janine didn’t appear to notice that he had eyes only for Claire. Desert
had barely been served when she finally had more of it than she could stand.
She dropped her spoon and backed her chair away from the table.

“If you all will excuse me, it’s been a long day, and I
think I’ll turn in early.”

She expected Colin to try to stop her. She refused to meet
his gaze as she left the table, though she could feel his eyes follow her out
of the dining room. She was running again, and she knew it, but this time she
couldn’t make herself stop. There was something different about Colin tonight,
and she couldn’t help the fact that it scared her to the core. She’d never felt
the kind of nervousness his attention generated. Nor had she ever felt her body
respond like it had tonight. He’d barely touched her once, yet she was aching
to have him do it again.
And not just a tiny brush of his
fingers.
She wanted to feel his hands on her
body,
she wanted to feel him touching her in places that she could barely stand to
name even in her own mind. Her breasts felt heavy and swollen, and there was
definitely more moisture between her legs than was typical. She might not be
greatly experienced when it came to the art of lovemaking, but she knew very
well that everything she felt was her body’s way of letting her know it very
much wanted Colin’s touch.

She hurried down the hallways, telling herself that there
was no reason to be embarrassed by something that was merely a physiological
response. It didn’t mean anything. But there was a little voice in the back of
her mind that argued with her. She’d made a point of insisting that she didn’t
want a strictly physical relationship with Colin or anyone else. What she was
feeling now was entirely physical, however. There was no emotion involved. Her
body wanted his, pure and simple, and that was almost too shocking to bear. She
reached her room, and slipped her key into the door. She hadn’t even turned the
handle when she felt him behind her. She gasped as she spun around. He stood
barely five feet away. The look in his eyes made her flatten herself against
her door.

“What are you doing here?”

“Chasing after you.”

She blinked in surprise at the blatant admission,
then
shook her head. “There’s nothing left for us to say to
each other.”

His smile was mocking, though it somehow seemed to be
directed at
himself
as much as at her. He took a step
forward. “Oh, I think there’s a lot that needs to be said, but we aren’t going
to say it.” He took another step forward, and Claire felt her heart kick into
overdrive. He was so close that she could feel the heat of his body. His mouth
was achingly near hers. She couldn’t stop her gaze from dropping to it as he
spoke again. “We’re going to be too busy to bother with heart to heart talks.”