Her First Vacation (19 page)

Her gray eyes were dark, her lips wet. Colin pulled her
forward and took her mouth, needing to taste her. Their tongues met and clashed
as she leaned into him. He covered one breast with his hand and kneaded it with
far more strength than he should have, but she didn’t flinch away. Instead she
groaned low in her throat, and he jerked away from her before he shot his load
all over himself.

“We need another condom.”

She turned to look around and spotted the pile of packets
lying on the floor beside the bed. She bent and grabbed them, depositing the
stash on the bed. She lifted one of the packets and he snatched it, tearing it
open. It took him seconds to sheathe himself,
then
he
was reaching for her. He pulled her forward, holding her gaze as he spoke.

“Straddle my hips.”

She gave him a slightly surprised
look
,and
he smiled. “That’s right. This time you get to be on top.”

He could see that the idea intrigued her. It embarrassed
her a bit as well, but she didn’t let that stop her. She threw a leg over him
and positioned herself right over his erection. He leaned back, propping
himself up on one elbow while he reached for himself with the other hand. His
breath was already coming too fast when he spoke.

“Go on, honey.”

She braced her hands on his chest and slowly lowered
herself down. The moment she felt him nudging her opening she felt a wild surge
of heat and dampness. She sank lower, taking him inside a bit. Colin fell back
flush against the mattress and brought his hands to her hips. Suddenly she
couldn’t bear the thought of going slow. She sank down onto him, taking him
inside her with a swiftness that made her gasp. His hands on her hips tightened
until his grip was almost painful. She dropped her gaze to his face and saw the
sweat that had popped out on his forehead.

“Don’t move.”

It was spoken through clenched teeth and she knew that he
was finally at that point of lost control she’d so wanted to bring him to. She
felt a smile touch her lips as a purely female sense of power surged through
her. She was the one in control at this moment. She had all the power. And she
chose to use it. She ignored his command to remain still as she rocked her hips
against him. The motion put pressure on her clit, and she felt a hot shiver
work through her body. Then she lifted herself as far as his iron grip would
allow and sank down again. She rose and fell and rose and fell until her legs
began to tremble with the strain, and all the while Colin kept telling her to
slow down, to give him time to get back in control. She didn’t have the breath
to tell him that she didn’t want him in control. She could only move and feel
and reach for the stars.

Colin finally gave up trying to make her understand that
she was driving him insane. She was riding him with a wild abandon that was
straight out of a thousand porno flicks. She had her head thrown back, which
thrust her pert little breasts straight at him. He let go of her hips as his
gaze focused on those twin orbs. He had to touch her, to drive her as hard and
fast toward the edge as she was driving him. He closed his fingers over her
nipples, rolling them, then flicking them and she groaned in response. She
rocked against him, pulling him so deep inside her that he couldn’t believe it
didn’t hurt her. He brought his hands to her hips
again,
desperately trying to stop the tidal wave of release he could feel building
inside him. It was a lost battle, though. With one final flex of her hips he
felt himself explode inside her. She cried out at the same time and her muscles
tightened around him, milking him for all he was worth. Finally she collapsed
across his chest, their bodies still joined, their hearts beating wildly
against each other. Colin desperately prayed that the emotion making his heart
ache was nothing more than a byproduct of the best sex he’d ever had. It
couldn’t be anything else. He wouldn’t allow it to be.

Claire wasn’t certain what woke her. The room was just
beginning to be bathed with the first lightening of the coming dawn. Colin was
standing by the bed, shrugging into his jacket. He was fully dressed and
clearly in the process of sneaking out of her room. She felt something inside
her threaten to shatter and staunchly refused to allow it. He’d never made her
any promises. In fact, he’d been very clear about what he wanted. She felt
herself blush. He’d certainly gotten what he’d wanted from her. Her entire body
was aching this morning as a result. They’d gone through every one of his condoms.
On the bed, on the floor, in the bathroom with her sitting on
the counter and him standing in front of her.
They’d even done it in the
shower beneath the hot water. He’d warned her that she would be sore but she
hadn’t cared. She supposed she’d known that it was the only chance the two of
them were going to have. She’d known he wasn’t interested in anything permanent
or even temporary. So why was it that she knew she was going to burst into
tears the moment he was out the door?

Colin was reaching for the door when she said his name. He
closed his eyes for a moment. Damn, but he’d hoped to get out before she woke
up. He should have left last night after she fell asleep. It would have been so
much more profound a slap to her face if she’d woken up, and he’d simply been
gone. Now he was going to have to watch her as he broke her heart. He turned
around and watched as she sat up on the bed. She was still naked, and it took
too damned much effort not to respond to the sight of her bare breasts. He
jerked his eyes off them and met her gaze.
Her teary, sad
gaze.
He opened his mouth, but she shook her head.

“
It’s
okay, Colin. I knew what you
were when I let you in my bed.”

Her words stunned him into silence. It wasn’t just the
words, though. It was the expression in her eyes.
The
defeated, world-weary look that shot straight into him and gripped his heart so
hard that it hurt.
He had to clench his hands to keep from reaching for
her as she gripped the sheet and covered herself. She stood, taking the sheet
with her. He damn near choked when she came to him and lifted her hand to touch
his face.

“Thank you.”

He blinked. “What the hell for?”

“For showing me the truth about myself.
For forcing me to face up to it.
And for being the
first man to teach me how good it can be between a man and a woman.”

Her utter honesty was going to be the death of him. He
reached up and caught her hand, pulling it away from him.

“Don’t make me out to be some kind of saint, Claire.
Everything I’ve done has been for purely selfish reasons.”

She smiled then, and it tightened the band around his heart
another notch.

“I know. But I benefited from it, too, so I suppose it all
evens out in the end.”

Just like that, she accepted that he’d used her for sex and
nothing else. For some reason he couldn’t begin to fathom, he was ticked that
she so readily believed the worst about him. Damn it, couldn’t she see that
she’d touched him as no other woman ever had? Didn’t she understand that it was
killing him to walk away from her? The answer to all the questions was simple.
Of course she didn’t see or understand. He was too damned good at his job, at
lying. She’d believe whatever he wanted her to believe. She pulled her hand out
of his grasp.

“I won’t keep you here any longer. I know you’re eager to
go.”

God, how he wanted to deny it.
He
wanted to push her back to the bed and sink into her body until nothing in the
world could touch the two of them. He couldn’t do that, though. He didn’t dare.
So he forced himself to nod as he reached back to grasp the doorknob. He was
just starting to turn away from her when he stopped himself and forced the
words he knew he had to say out of his mouth.

“There’s just one thing, Claire.”

She met his
gaze ,and
he saw the
flash of hope in her eyes. He ruthlessly refused to let it sway him in the
least. “Stay away from Garret.”

She blinked, clearly shocked by the command.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stay away from him. He’s…not what he appears to be.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he pulled open the door
and slipped through it. She watched it close quietly behind him. For a few
seconds she just stood there, puzzling over his last words and praying that
he’d come back through the door and tell her that he couldn’t leave her. Not
like this. But the door didn’t open, and she felt the tears beginning to slide
down her cheeks. Finally she gave in to the need to sob, turning to crawl back
onto the bed as the dam burst inside her. She curled into a ball, and let it
all go.

Colin leaned against her door, clenching his hands into
fists as he heard the muffled sound of her sobs. They weren’t just gasps for
air between silent tears. They were deep, gut wrenching cries full of so much
sorrow and pain that he cursed himself with every foul word he knew. He
listened to her cries for as long as he dared. Until he knew it was getting
late enough that he was risking being discovered lurking outside her door.
Finally he forced himself to turn and walk away, the echoes of her sobs ringing
in his ears long after he’d outdistanced the range of the actual sounds.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Colin wasn’t particularly surprised that Claire didn’t
appear in the dining room for breakfast. Nor was he expecting to see Garret.
Not yet. The toxin he’d been subjected to would have faded from his system by
now, but after the kind of gut busting vomiting Colin knew he’d been doing over
the past hours, it was unlikely he’d be in any mood to eat. Garret wasn’t the
sort to stay down for long, however. He’d be back before the day was over, no
doubt wanting to pick right up where he and Claire had left off. Colin didn’t
doubt that Garret would go straight for Claire once he was certain he was over
his sudden illness. He’d been all primed and ready to take her on the blanket
yesterday, and he’d want to finish what he’d started. It remained to be seen
whether or not Claire would be willing to accommodate him. Colin desperately
wanted to believe she wouldn’t. That she couldn’t after everything they’d
shared in her bed last night. He knew she wasn’t the kind of woman to give her
body lightly. She’d all but told him he was only the second man she’d ever
allowed to touch her. And after the way she’d been sobbing that morning, he
couldn’t imagine her deciding that another meaningless fling was something she
wanted.

He heard a mocking voice in his head calling him a liar as
the word meaningless flitted through his mind. What he and Claire had shared
was anything but trivial or insincere. He’d known more than a few women in his
life. There’d even been a time when he’d been more than willing to take one to
bed just to shore up whatever cover he’d been cultivating at the time. Back
when he was too young and stupid to see the truth of what those illicit liaisons
really meant for him. He’d told himself that he wanted it, that it was
necessary. And then one of the women he was taking to his bed wound up getting
caught in the crossfire when things went wrong. She didn’t die, though. In many
ways, he thought it might have been easier if she had. She’d just had a bullet
rip through her body, severing her spinal cord so that she would spend the rest
of her life in a wheelchair. He couldn’t even say he’d really cared for her.
She was just one more piece of the disguise he’d donned. Like a beard or fake
ID, she’d seemed to suit the character he was portraying, so he’d bedded her
and kept her around for show. And she wound up paying for his callousness for
the rest of her life. After that, he never could bring himself to use a woman
like that again. Not just because he finally realized how wrong it was to toy
with anyone’s emotions that way, but because he’d also finally figured out that
he was damn near prostituting himself for his job. The similarities seemed
glaringly obvious when viewed in hindsight. Which was why he’d been going
through a hell of a lot of trouble making it look like he was screwing half the
women on the ship when he hadn’t done more than put on a good show for his
audience.

He couldn’t quite manage to fully ignore the way his
stomach rolled at the thought. He’d been playing a part for Garret, trying to
make the bastard think he’d met someone who shared his total lack of moral
fiber. And what had it gotten him? Not one damn thing. He’d been Garret Palmer’s
shadow for more than two weeks now and the only thing he’d witnessed Garret
doing was a bad impersonation of Casanova. Even his pursuit of Claire hadn’t
slowed him down. He wined and dined her during the days and evenings, then
picked up any willing woman he could find and took her to his bed at night. Not
once during the entire trip had he done or said anything that might be
construed as even a hint of evidence of the crimes Colin knew he was guilty of.
Colin had an intense awareness of the fact that time was running out. Five days
before the ship docked back in the USA. Realistically, he knew that whatever
Garret had planned would have to take place in the next three days. They were
making their final stop before returning to the States tonight. They would be
staying for two days before leaving evening after next to make the final leg of
their journey. That gave Garret roughly forty-eight hours to make his meeting
with his contact. Somehow, Colin had to make sure he was present at that
meeting. Oh, he didn’t hold out any real hope that Garret would just up and
invite him. The man would have to be an idiot to take that kind of risk, even
with someone he was certain was as amoral as he was. But Colin did expect his
relationship with Garret to at least give him some forewarning about the
meeting. He and Garret had been spending a lot of time together. Hopefully
Garret would offer some excuse for why he was leaving the ship without his new
best friend at his side. That little bit of warning would be all Colin would
need to make sure things were in place to tag Garret’s contact and use him to
flush out the rest of the organization.