CAT AWOKE from a daze that was more like a trance of exhaustion than true sleep. Dawn poured over her bed and filled the room with light. Automatically she looked through the open curtains toward the radiant sea.
A man’s black figure cut across the shimmering waves, swimming powerfully, leaving a shadowed wake behind.
She watched while emotions warred in her and questions hammered her like hail.
Is Travis thinking of me?
Is he still angry?
Does he wonder if I’m watching him swim like a god through the heart of dawn?
Why did we have to meet now? Given enough time, I would have gotten past his cynicism to the man beneath, the man I could love.
The man who could love me in return.
Cat didn’t like hearing her own fierce longing put in words, even in the silence of her own mind. She swept off the tangled covers and shot out of bed, buoyed by a surge of adrenaline.
The floor was cold beneath her feet. She shivered and rubbed her arms, remembering last night and the chill that even a steaming bath hadn’t been able to ease. But she didn’t want to think about last night. It had taken her three hours to get to sleep. Three hours of trying not to care, not to remember.
Yet even in her sleep there had been no peace. She had endured four hours of fragmented dreams, dreams that dragged her to the brink of consciousness only to let go of her at the last instant, sending her spinning back down into troubled darkness.
Dreams of cameras that didn’t work, broken lenses, slides warped and torn . . . hell presided over by a shadow figure whose power was exceeded only by his grace, a voice as compelling as the heat that radiated from him; he was smiling, touching her, and she was burning.
Grimly Cat yanked on her clothes. She had had enough of her dreams last night. She refused to be captive to them in daylight. Anything was better than that.
Even trying to figure out how she was going to get her cameras off the Wind Warrior.
At least Travis had gotten home, even though she had driven off and left him without transportation. That meant she wouldn’t have to confront him on the ship when she went to pick up her camera gear.
Cat tried to be grateful that she wouldn’t be face-to-face with Travis again, but gratitude wasn’t what she felt. She felt used up, spent, baffled, exhausted. The spurt of adrenaline that had goaded her out of bed was already gone. She was fresh out of anger to keep herself going.
With dragging feet she went to the kitchen, hoping that a cup of tea would put energy back into her. The first thing she saw was the blinking light on her answering machine. Even as the swift hope came that Travis had called to apologize to her, she slapped the thought aside.
He had been as angry as she was. Besides, he didn’t see that he had done anything to apologize for. A simple business transaction, that’s all.
Cat hit the play button and listened. Diego’s clear, apologetic tenor lifted into the silence, saying her name. Her neck prickled. She doubted that she would like what she was going to hear next.
“Captain Danvers instructed me to tell you to pick up your camera equipment at nine o’clock this morning on board the Wind Warrior. If that is not convenient, please call the following number and make an appointment.”
Staring out the window, trying to work up energy to replace emptiness and aching, Cat barely listened to the number Diego gave her. She kept telling herself it shouldn’t hurt that Travis was as eager to avoid her as she was to avoid him. Being hurt didn’t make sense. But she felt pain just the same, gnawing away at her, bleeding what little strength she had.
Cat couldn’t see Travis anymore. He was a shadow lost among other shadows, and the colors of dawn flowed like wine over the ocean waves.
Breathing raggedly, she tried to shake off the pain and unhappiness that whipsawed through her. She should be out shooting now, when the light was best, taking pretty pictures for the pretty poet with the skim-milk mind.
But her cameras were out of reach. Like her heart. Locked up on an elegant black ship owned by a pirate who didn’t know the value of love, only money.
Beneath the hot sun, Travis paced the length of the Wind Warrior wearing only swim trunks, a dark T-shirt, and deck shoes. The sun had taken forever to crawl above the ragged line of the land into Southern California’s empty sky. Time was moving like it was chained to the deck. Yet even time in chains had to pass somehow. Eventually.
He looked at the shadows cast by the sun and knew that Cat would be coming soon, lured by the damned cameras that meant more to her than anything, most especially Travis Danvers. He was tempted to meet her out on deck, but didn’t trust himself. Or her. He hadn’t forgotten her swift, graceful dive from the ship’s stern.
The memory of it still made him furious. He hadn’t laid a finger on her, yet Cat had fled over the railing as though he was no better than the drunken wife beater she had married before she was old enough to know better.
Hell, the way she acted, you’d think I had taken a whip to her. All I did was offer her enough money that she wouldn’t have to work herself into the ground. Enough money that she would have time to enjoy life a little. With me.
Granted, he hadn’t made the offer with much finesse. But she hadn’t exactly made it easy. Every time he tried to talk about how much money she needed in order to make room in her life for him, she acted as though she was deaf. Or she got angry.
Travis had been telling himself all night that Cat must have been holding out for marriage; that was why she had been so coy on the subject of money. But even as angry and frustrated as he was, he couldn’t fully convince himself that marriage had been on her mind. Unless she was a staggeringly good actress, the look of shock on her face when he had accused her of trying for a gold ring had been as genuine as her outrage when she stormed out of the cabin.
Then screw yourself, T. H. Danvers—if you can agree on a price!
Warily his mind circled around the dangerous, alluring possibility that had made his night a hell of restlessness. What if Cat wasn’t an actress? Did she really want to be with him for no other reason than the pleasure of his company?
Prickles of unease snaked coldly through Travis. If he had learned nothing else last night, he now knew how much he wanted to take Cat at her word. The depth of his hunger to believe in her shook him. He couldn’t trust his judgment. Not where she was concerned. He wanted her too much.
Needed her even more.
She said she didn’t want marriage. Hell, she insisted on it. So why not just do it her way? Nothing said. Nothing nailed down. Nothing paid. Just enjoy each other and take the days as they come until there aren’t any more days.
Then I’ll step into the wind and sail to another place, another time, another . . .
But for the first time in his life, Travis couldn’t imagine another woman in his bed. Anger and an uneasiness that was barely a breath away from outright fear warred within him. Before he could discover which was more powerful, the sound of the Zodiac’s engine ripped across the water toward him.
Soon Cat would be here.
He was damned if she would find him hanging around like a lovesick teenager.
Other than a polite greeting, Diego didn’t offer conversation to his passenger. Cat was grateful. It was all she could do to control her nerves. Small talk was beyond her. She was too worried about running into Travis on the ship. She didn’t have the energy to face him now. She felt frayed, fragmented, no more strength than a handful of sand.
Travis won’t be there, she assured herself quickly. Even if he is, he won’t bother me. He wants to buy a woman and I won’t be bought.
Yet Cat’s hands trembled as she climbed aboard the ship. She felt as faded as the cutoff jeans and blue work shirt she wore.
“This way, if you please,” Diego said. “Your equipment is in the captain’s cabin.”
Her throat closed and her stomach flipped, but nothing showed on her face as she followed Diego down to Travis’s cabin. Her camera bags—all five of them—were lined up neatly on the bed. Next to them, on the pillow, lay a pen and sheets of paper covered in angular printing that fairly shouted of T. H. Danvers’s male hand moving furiously across the lines.
“Please read these,” Diego said, “and then sign where indicated.”
“What?” Cat asked, startled.
Diego’s eyelids flinched, but he said nothing more. He simply handed her the papers and stepped back.
She flipped through the sheets. They contained a summary of the contents of each camera bag, down to serial numbers where appropriate. She didn’t understand why Travis had bothered until she read the last page. There, in slashing block print, was what she was supposed to sign.
I, CATHERINE COCHRAN, DO AGREE THAT THE AFORE MENTIONED EQUIPMENT WAS RETURNED TO ME IN THE SAME CONDITION I LEFT IT ABOARD THE WIND WARRIOR. AT NO TIME IN THE FUTURE WILL I SUGGEST OTHERWISE, OR ATTEMPT IN ANY WAY TO RECEIVE PAYMENT FROM T. H. DANVERS FOR ANY OF THE EQUIPMENT LISTED ABOVE.
There was more. It was like a slap in the face.
I, DIEGO MATEO RAFAEL DE LORENZO Y VELASQUEZ, WITNESS THAT MS. COCHRAN PERSONALLY CHECKED EACH PIECE OF HER EQUIPMENT TO VERIFY ITS CONDITION.
Cat turned on Diego. Her gray eyes were narrowed and glittering at the unmistakable insult.
“Does he think I’m some little slut he picked up who can’t wait to go through his pockets?” Cat said in a raw voice.
“I am sorry. I tried to talk him out of it, but . . .” Diego shrugged gracefully. “You do not know the captain when he is truly in a rage.”
Then Diego looked again at Cat’s pale face and swore under his breath in Spanish. Obviously she had seen Travis in one of his famous tempers.
“I regret,” Diego said quietly, “but I cannot release the equipment to you until you have checked each piece and signed that paper. The equipment is very valuable, I’m told. More valuable than anything else you have. It is your life, yes?”
She stared at Diego’s firm, apologetic expression for a long moment, then at the pieces of paper that were headed “CATHERINE COCHRAN’S PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT.”
Savagely Cat turned to the first case and began examining the contents. Ignoring Diego, she worked quickly, efficiently, handling each lens and camera body with the familiarity that only came from long experience. When she finished the first case she closed it, set it aside near the door, and went to work on another, and then another.
Somewhere between the first and last camera case, her anger diminished, soothed away by the cool curves and familiar weight of cameras and lenses. They were old friends, loyal friends, her magic windows on the soul of the universe.
And Travis was correct. The equipment was very valuable. To replace it would cost at least fifty thousand dollars. Yet if she sold it, she would be lucky to get a quarter of that. It was the old story of secondhand not being as valuable as new, even though the pictures were the same regardless of the age of the camera.
Behind Cat, Travis silently walked into the cabin. He gestured, and Diego left.
“You know,” Travis drawled, “if you need money so damn bad, you could always sell some equipment. You’ve got enough for three photographers.”
Cat’s heart stopped, then beat so frantically it made her dizzy. She might have been prepared for Travis’s presence, but she wasn’t prepared for the casual suggestion that she sell off her very life.
He didn’t understand. He never would.
Rich men didn’t know how to love anything but themselves.
Trying to control the waves of hot and cold coiling through her stomach, Cat put the last lens in its nest, closed the fifth case, and set it aside. She straightened but didn’t turn around to confront Travis. She didn’t trust herself. She had no idea what she was going to do next—scream or weep or claw him like a cornered animal.
Travis’s legs brushed past Cat, stopping only inches from her as he leaned against the bunk. A tanned, strong hand shot out and scooped up the papers she hadn’t signed.
Yet even now, even when she was gripped by anger and hurt, the sight of Travis made her want to run her palm over his arm, to feel his warmth, to savor his strength. Her weakness frightened her.
“I’d no more sell my cameras than I’d sell my children,” Cat said harshly.
Then she heard the echo of her own words . . . my children, my children. A soft, anguished sound broke through her control. She looked up at Travis, her eyes blind, and when she spoke her voice shook.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Cat asked. “I’m passionate, poor, and sterile. That makes me great mistress material but not worth more than a few nights in the sheets, not worth really caring about, certainly not worth loving.”
Travis flinched at the pain he saw in her. He felt it as though it was his own, a razor of anguish slicing into him. Then he saw her look toward the door. Her desire to escape from him was as clear as the white lines of grief bracketing her mouth. She started toward the door.
“If you go overboard again,” he said, “I’ll throw your goddamn cameras in after you.”
Cat stared at his face and knew that he meant precisely what he said. Fury literally vibrated in him. She had never seen a man so angry, hadn’t even known that such anger could exist without physical violence. Yet he made not one move toward her.
She looked at her cameras, then at the door that had never seemed farther away. Numbly she looked back at Travis. He was watching her as though he hated her.
No doubt he did. He would have to in order to look at her that way.
“The papers,” Cat said, looking away because she couldn’t bear to see Travis’s contempt anymore. Her throat ached from the strain of not screaming. “I haven’t signed them.” She held out her hand, not looking at anything except the camera cases lined up by the door. “I’ll sign, then I’ll take my cameras and go.”
Hard fingers closed on her chin, snapping her head around to face Travis.
“Last night you wouldn’t stay on board for love or money,” he said coldly, “but you’ll meekly stay for a few piles of metal and glass. What the hell kind of woman are you?”
Cat flinched and went white before color returned in a desperate spurt of anger and adrenaline.
“Tired, beaten, and cornered,” she said, her voice as ragged as her nerves, “that’s what kind of woman I am. My cameras are all I have left since you tried to buy what I’d have given you for a few gentle words, a touch, your warmth in the cold center of night. . . .”
She stopped because she couldn’t say more. She hated the tears burning in her eyes, choking in her throat, drowning her.
Travis stared at Cat for an aching moment before he closed his eyes, unable to take any more. She was tearing him apart, saying everything he had ever wanted to hear from a woman, love and need that had nothing to do with money . . . and she said it with grief and rage in her eyes instead of tenderness and invitation.
“Damn you,” Cat managed finally. “Give me my cameras and let me go.”
“Cat,” Travis said starkly. “Don’t.”
She shuddered. His voice hurt even more than her unshed tears.
“Don’t leave.”
Swiftly Travis put his arms around Cat and held her as though afraid that she would run away from him again and never return. And he was.
“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing Cat’s eyes, her cheeks, her hair, rocking her. “I didn’t understand. I couldn’t believe that there was a woman alive who didn’t want to be bought. I believe you now. God help me,” he whispered, “I believe you. Don’t leave me, my woman, my Cat. Stay with me . . . warmth in the cold center of night.”
Hearing her own needs, her own words, spoken in Travis’s shaking voice unraveled her anger, leaving her too spent to stand, much less to fight. With a ragged sigh she gave herself over to his irresistible strength, floating on him as though he was a wave rising up out of the sea, carrying her irresistibly to an unknown, beautiful shore.
Cat didn’t object when Travis lifted her onto his bed and lay down beside her.
“Hold me,” he said, sliding his arms around her again. “Just hold me for a minute. Then I’ll let you go. If you want to go.” He shuddered and whispered, “Don’t go, Cat. Please, don’t go. I need you.”
She felt the shudder that went through Travis when her arms circled his body, heard his broken sigh against her hair, and knew that he was drinking her presence as hungrily as she was absorbing his. The realization went through her like fine cognac, heady and powerful and swift, fire spreading through her, freeing her from the cold, numbing emptiness of last night.
Cat moved her head slightly and found Travis waiting for her, hoping for her to make the first move. With a low sound she opened her lips against his mouth, tasting his heat and sweetness. She kissed him deeply, pouring herself into him until she realized that she was shaking with desire.
And so was he.
She made an incoherent sound, telling him of the fire burning inside her. Her hands moved beneath his dark T-shirt, tugging upward impatiently, hungry for the feel of his naked skin beneath her palms. He shrugged out of the shirt with a muscular twist that made her breath shorten.
“You’re . . . beautiful,” Cat said.
Travis laughed and touched her lips. “Not likely. But you are. You make me ache.”
She just smiled and looked at him in the half-light of the cabin . . . smooth skin rippling over his male strength, tawny hair catching light, his face drawn by need and anticipation until his teeth were two hard white lines divided by the tip of his tongue.
He pulled her mouth down to his and filled himself with her taste. While she returned the deep kiss, his hands moved over her, pulling off her blouse and bra. At the first touch her nipples became hard, vibrant buds nuzzling his hands. He groaned and plucked at her passionate gift until she was writhing and twisting against him.
Liquid waves of pleasure slammed through Cat, a pleasure that built with each caress Travis gave her. Lost, she arched against him, her whole body drawn with a need only he had ever been able to create and satisfy in her.
He moved suddenly, turning over, taking her with him, pinning her beneath him. With a hoarse sound he tore his mouth from hers. Before she could protest the end of the kiss, she felt his tongue on one breast, his teeth closing around the hardened nipple. And then she was sucked into his hot, hungry, demanding mouth and caressed with a fierce thoroughness that made her want to cry out with surprise and intense pleasure.
Slowly Cat twisted against Travis, barely able to breathe for wanting him. Her hands raked down his chest to his swim trunks. She wanted to feel all of him, his strength and his passion and his arousal. That most of all. She loved measuring and pleasuring him with her hands, feeling the heat and tension of his rigid flesh.
When her fingers stroked him through the close-fitting trunks, his body tightened like a drawn bow. For a few seconds he thrust helplessly against her hands, his eyes closed, his lips thinned by the force of the desire raging in him.
Then Travis shifted without warning, peeling off the rest of Cat’s clothes. His hands moved almost roughly over her soft skin. His mouth searched hungrily over her, touching every part of her, making her whimper with pleasure. Yet even that wasn’t enough for him. He had to know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
He slid one hand between her thighs and turned it, opening her legs. The steamy heat of her licked over his fingertips and then over his hand. Waves of pleasure curled tangibly through her to him, a sultry feminine perfume that made him feel dizzy and incredibly powerful at the same time.
She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
“No more talk about leaving,” Travis said thickly.
Slick fingers stroked and probed, claiming Cat with deep caresses that didn’t stop even when rhythmic waves of pleasure curled and broke, shattering her, transfixing her soft flesh.
Smiling narrowly, wild and fully controlled at the same time, Travis lowered his mouth to taste his lover’s climax.
“No more running from me,” he said.
His teeth closed with ravenous delicacy on her, sending yet another wave of ecstasy ripping through her. He tasted it, tasted her, and then he fed on her climax, driving her higher, wilder, until she cried out and convulsed again.
Only then did Travis shift until his hips lay between her thighs, opening her completely. One of his hands tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck in a claiming as fierce as the passion burning behind his eyes. He held her motionless while his other hand caressed her shivering, sultry flesh, his fingers sliding deeply into her heat, retreating, returning, probing, until she moaned and arched bonelessly into his touch and he smiled, watching her.
“You’re mine, sweet Cat, my woman. You’re mine and I’ve only begun to touch you. . . .”
She saw the hunger and stark need in his eyes, and felt it in his touch, in his fiercely erect flesh like a burning rod against her belly. Fire ate at nerves still quivering with the shocking ecstasy he had given her. She wanted to do the same for him, to feel him succumb helplessly to a passionate storm of her making.
Calling his name, she cried out and reached for him, wanting only to give him a pleasure to equal what he had given her. Her hands kneaded down his body, savoring him with palms and fingertips and delicate raking nails.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted to taste him, to know him as passionately as he had known her. She pulled at his swim trunks, but her hands trembled too much to peel the stretchy fabric away.
Laughing with sheer pleasure at Cat’s hunger for him, Travis finished undressing himself with a few swift motions.
“Let me—” she began.
His mouth closed over hers and the world narrowed to the feel of his tongue moving over hers, his fingers between her legs echoing the slow rhythms of love.
Waves of pleasure went through her, pleasure she shared with him, melting over him while she made small, reckless sounds at the back of her throat. When he finally lifted his head, she was covered in a fine mist of heat, her eyes wide and almost wild. She whispered his name, her hands and eyes asking for something she didn’t know how to put into words.
“Yes, my woman?” Travis said thickly against her throat, his hand still buried in her hair, holding her while her body arched and quivered. “What do you want? Tell me and I’ll give it to you. Anything.”
“I want—” A shudder moved over her, tightening muscles inside her body in a reflex as old as passion and as new as her next ragged breath.
Travis smiled, his teeth a vivid flash of white against his tawny beard.
“What is it that you want, little Cat?”
He lowered his head until he could lick the mist off her breasts with quick, light strokes of his tongue. She made a ragged sound and shuddered again. His mouth moved, enjoying her.
“Do you know how good you taste?” he asked.
“Travis,” Cat began, only to have her voice unravel into a moan. “That’s what I want, only—” Her nails dug into his shoulders as another wave of pleasure broke over her.
“Only what?” he said, his blue-green eyes burning as they watched her lifted by a wave of pleasure.
“I—” Cat took a deep breath as the wave passed, giving her back her body and her voice until the next wave would come, claiming her. She touched his erection lightly, longingly. “You once said I could touch you anywhere, any way I wanted to. Did you mean that?”
His lips curved in a smile that took her breath. “Yes.”
Her fingers traced the length of his body, lingering over his heat and maleness.
“I’ve never been touched the way you touched me,” Cat said, hesitantly. “I’ve never wanted to touch a man the way I want to touch you. Let me touch you. Please.”
Travis’s hand tightened almost savagely in her hair, chaining her for an instant while his lips drank the pulse beating rapidly in her neck.
“Whatever you want,” he said hoarsely.
He released her, letting her slide down his body, a wild, sweet fire licking over him.
She flexed her fingers like a cat, rubbing her palms down his chest and stomach and thighs, teasing him by just avoiding his aching, sensitive flesh. She let him feel the sharpness of her nails and the softness of her tongue, then looked up and found him watching her with eyes that burned too vividly to be real.
Cat smiled and Travis fought to breathe. She looked impossibly beautiful to him with her hair licking like flames around her naked breasts, her mouth flushed, her body sultry and shivering with the pleasure she wanted to share.
With a ragged sound Cat leaned forward until her hair fell over Travis in a silky, seething cloud. Hesitantly, then with increasing confidence, she explored his body, running her cheeks and mouth over the smooth muscles of his abdomen, enjoying the textures of warm skin, taut muscles, tawny hair that was hot and springy, the softer hair of his thighs and calves.
She savored him, fascinated by his male body, his strength and potency. When her tongue finally, tentatively, traced his arousal, the long muscles of his thighs contracted.
Travis made a hoarse sound. His hips moved sinuously, telling her without words that he reveled in the intimate caress.
Desire shook Cat as thoroughly as it shook him. To have the freedom of his body and to feel his uninhibited response was as exciting as any caress he had ever given her. With a small, reckless sound she bent to him, letting the rest of the world slide away. She forgot everything, even herself, in the violent pleasure of loving Travis as she had never loved any man.
“Cat—” Travis’s voice was unrecognizable, torn between a groan and a fierce cry of pleasure.
She escaped the hands blindly trying to drag her back up his body. Caught as completely as he was in the wildness building between them, she wanted only to continue setting fire to him with the changing pressures of her mouth.
For a few moments more Cat held Travis captive with her tongue and teeth. Then the world tilted crazily and she found herself imprisoned in the grip of a man whose strength she had only begun to measure. He was looking at her with hot blue-green eyes and a dark smile.
“Witch,” Travis muttered thickly. His hands shifted, fastened behind her knees, pulling her legs up, opening her completely. “I hope you want what you’ve been asking for, because I’m going to give you every bit of it.”
Cat arched her hips hungrily, seeking him, giving her newly discovered wildness to him, certain that he would enjoy it as much as she did.
With a deep male sound Travis took what she offered, filling her with a single savage thrust that undid her. Even as she convulsed he drove into her harshly, repeatedly. Each slam of flesh into flesh sent her higher, her world tearing, shattering, soaring, exploding into a glittering black where colors pulsed. Only his mouth over hers kept her from screaming as fierce ecstasy transformed her.
With a hoarse, grating cry, Travis ground his hips against Cat and pumped himself into her, his body corded and shuddering, his eyes glazed and wild.
It was a long time before the aftershocks of passion stopped shivering through their spent bodies. When their breathing no longer caught and broke, Travis forced himself to lift some of his weight from Cat’s body. She made an inarticulate sound of protest, not wanting to be separate from him. His finely scarred fingers framed her face.
“I’ve never lost control like that, even when I was a kid,” Travis said roughly, searching Cat’s misty gray eyes. “Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” She licked her lips, tasted him, and tightened her body, savoring the feel of him locked deep within her slick heat.
“Damn,” Travis said. He took her mouth almost hungrily, tasting her, tasting himself, tasting passion. When he finally lifted his head, his breathing was ragged. “The way you answer my questions could get you in trouble all over again.”
Cat laughed and rubbed her cheek against his beard. Her hands moved slowly over the muscles of his back to his buttocks, enjoying him with an intensity that was reflected in her warm gray eyes. He moved inside her, letting her know that she was playing with fire.
“Insatiable, aren’t you?” she teased.
“Not usually,” he said, his hands stroking languidly over her body, “not like this. This is new, Cat.” He buried his head in the fire of her hair. “Everything you bring to me is new. I want to make love until I can’t tell who is you and who is me.” His fingers rubbed through her hair in sensuous assault even as he moved inside her. “I want to fill you until you’ll be empty if I’m not there. I want you.”
“Yes,” Cat said, lifting herself against his strength. “Yes, I—”
Then her breath caught and she couldn’t say anything more, only hold on to Travis as he loved her with mouth and hands and body.
A shimmering wave of passion claimed them, swirling them around, tumbling them over and over until they dissolved into each other, holding back nothing. They were enclosed in a primitive, radiant world where nothing existed but the ecstasy they gave and took and explored until they had strength left only to lie spent, breath and heartbeat tangled, a single body shared between them.