DANIEL TUGGED GENTLY on her knee and turned her toward him on the seat.
“Should I take my sandals off?” Cate asked.
“Leave them on. I like ’em. The skirt has to go, though.”
She undid the button and zipper and slid out of it, then tossed it in the back.
“That’s right,” he breathed, running his hands down her thighs and calves. His hands were so warm, and her skin felt so shivery and alive. “You have the greatest legs in the western world.” He positioned himself between her legs and licked the sensitive skin on the inside of one knee.
It felt delicious.
It felt even better on her inner thigh, where the cool air off the ocean contrasted with the hot slickness of his tongue and his breath against her skin.
Her spine seemed to melt and the sky spun a little as she relaxed back onto the bench seat. Chevrolet had done women everywhere a disservice when it had begun to put bucket seats into its cars, she thought in some faraway corner of her brain as Daniel hooked his fingers in her lace panties and pulled them over her hips, thighs, and finally off altogether. With a flick of his wrist, he fired them past her and they draped themselves on the stick shift.
He bent to the work of torturing her again. She stopped listening for the hum of an approaching car and instead found her concentration narrowing to that glorious inch or so of Daniel’s mouth as it traveled inexorably yet with excruciating slowness up her thigh. His tongue swirled on her skin. His teeth nibbled gently. And all the while the anticipation built until her entire body silently begged him to hurry. Even her fingers and toes were making tiny, convulsive movements, as if beckoning him in. Come on…come on….
He paused at the very apex of her thighs and she nearly screamed. “Are you ready for me, Cate?”
She’d never been so ready for anything in her life. Not to mention the fact that any of the cars driving past might decide to stop and take in the scenery at any moment. The urgent need to have what she wanted before someone came along to deprive her of it gave an added dimension to the force of her desire.
“Yes! Please…you’re killing me.”
He wasted no more time. She felt his gentle fingers exploring, parting, smoothing the way. And then…oh, then…he stroked her first with one long movement of his tongue and she came right up off the seat with a cry.
“Easy. Easy, sweetheart.” Warm hands on her inner thighs pressed her back down, opening her wider for the sensual attack of his mouth. His tongue was hot and slick and absolutely unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She couldn’t control him—couldn’t direct him to do anything because this was completely new. He traveled with slow precision over each of her folds, culminating at the apex with her clit, where he settled down to serious business.
It was excitement, it was pleasure, it was sensation in its purest form—and she adored it. Sparks seemed to fly in the deepest parts of her belly, and she felt the pleasure peak and wane, then peak again, stronger. Then she felt her orgasm coming with the force of a tidal wave and she called out, “Daniel!” as it crashed over her and still he didn’t stop and she was writhing under his mouth, screaming his name and it was coming again under his relentless tongue, harder and faster this time and she grabbed the dashboard with one hand and the back of the seat with the other and let it take her, pummel her, throw her up into the endless air and set her down, as gently as a feather lands on the water….
DANIEL LIFTED HIS HEAD.
Cate lay helplessly on the seat, her head thrown back, gasping and laughing at once, with tears on her lashes. The flavor of her, creamy and musky and utterly unique to this remarkable woman, lay on his skin and his tongue like a fine wine.
He knelt on the outer edge of the seat and propped himself over her. “Cate?”
She could hardly speak. “My God, Daniel. That was…wonderful. Oh, my God.”
What kind of jokers had she dated who had never given her this pleasure before? Not that he minded. He was damned happy that it was him enjoying this moment, giving her all he had and sharing a slightly wicked taste for exhibitionism that he never would have suspected lay under those tidy white blouses and slim, proper skirts.
The need to tear his jeans off and plunge into her while she was gasping and wet and sprawled open for the taking swamped him, but he controlled it with a formidable exercise of will.
She sat up, and he relaxed into a comfortable kneeling position on a handy tussock of grass. “What about you?” Her eyes were soft and hungry and satisfied, all at once, and her mouth had that slack sensuality that begged a kiss.
He pulled her head down and gave it to her. “I can keep.”
“I don’t think so.” She reached down and fondled him through his jeans, and the touch of her fingers sent a rocket blast of sensation through his engorged erection, rocking him back. “Feel how hard you are.”
“I do, don’t worry. Can you blame me? That was amazing.”
“You are amazing.” She kissed him this time, her hair falling forward and tenting their faces for a few brief moments before the breeze caught it and blew it back. “I never had any idea. I’d read about it, of course, but never thought it would be like that. Thank you.”
Her eyes were still wet. Had he ever made a woman laugh and cry at the same time? Somehow, he didn’t think so. If he had given her a gift, then she had given him one, too—the knowledge that what they’d done had shaken her and perhaps even touched her in some deep place inside.
It was a start. He was the kind of guy who enjoyed the journey as well as the destination. The process as well as the prize. With Cate, the journey was promising to be exciting and full of prizes along the way.
“Daniel, you have to let me satisfy you,” Cate insisted. She looked so cute in her summer tank top with nothing on but sandals south of its hem.
He leaned over and picked her undies off the gear shift. “You will,” he promised. “But for now, let’s not push our luck.”
It wasn’t exactly easy to move as he hopped back into the driver’s seat, as aroused as he was, but he managed it. Which turned out to be a lucky thing, because a second later, a California Highway Patrol vehicle came around the curve and signaled a left turn.
“Daniel!” Cate yelped. “He’s coming over here!” She tried to yank her underwear on, but it twisted into a delicate little rope around one ankle. With a frantic glance at the car coming to a stop ten feet away, she grabbed her skirt, but there was no time to pull it on and do it up. She laid the skirt flat on her lap and casually leaned back, pressing her elbows against the side seams so they would lie flat against her thighs.
The patrolman got out of the car. “Having problems here, folks?”
Cate made a sound something like a squeak.
Daniel felt himself deflating so fast his jeans had become almost comfortable again. “Not at all. We were just taking in the view.”
The cop glanced at the car, parked backward, and at the two of them, facing the scrubby slope opposite. “Uh-huh. Just so you know, it’s not safe to park there. I’ll need to ask you to move along. Wouldn’t want you going down.”
Another muffled sound came from the passenger seat and Daniel covered it up smoothly. “We were just doing that. Have a good day, Officer.”
He started the engine and was about to put the car in gear when the officer laid his hand on the hood. Cate scooted a little farther into the corner of the seat.
“Say, you look familiar. Aren’t you that explorer guy? The one who was on Jah-Redd last week?”
Daniel let out the clutch and rolled forward, so that the door was no longer pinned against the rock. He stretched out a hand. “Daniel Burke. And yes, you’re correct.”
The officer grinned. “I bought your book for my dad. Damn. I wish I had it with me so you could sign it.”
“Give me your card and I’ll send a signed bookplate to your office. How’s that?”
“Thanks.” The cop dug a card out of his pocket and handed it over. “Have a pleasant day, Mr. Burke.”
“You, too.”
Daniel pressed the accelerator and turned onto the highway, keeping his speed to the limit in case the cop decided to give them a police escort all the way up the coast. He glanced at Cate, who still had her elbows pressed into her sides and was gasping for breath.
“Good thing you didn’t talk me into anything naughty back there. The only autograph he would have had is my signature on a ticket for public indecency.”
Then he realized she wasn’t hyperventilating at all. She was whooping with laughter as she pulled her skirt on properly, then shook out her underwear and pulled it on as well.
“Hey, it’s not funny,” he complained.
Cate wiped tears from one cheek with the flat of her hand. “All through high school I never got the chance to neck with a boy in the back of a car and get busted by the local cop,” she said, buckling her seat belt. “And here I am, twenty-eight and in broad daylight, when it finally happens.”
“We’re damn lucky he took an extra minute at lunch today. Otherwise he’d have caught me…er, going down. And not over any cliffs, either.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “And here I thought this conference was going to be so dull. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
As soon as he found them a place to stay, he was going to take great pleasure in showing her.
The Egret Inn, which they discovered an hour later just south of the town of Santa Rita, was a huge, spreading Victorian mansion painted white with gray gingerbread and green trim. It was situated on the high ground between the sand dunes that fronted the ocean on the west and a wetland bird sanctuary to the east.
“Look at the egrets!” Cate dropped her bag on the ground next to the car and jogged to the edge of the parking lot, where the slow-moving water was nearly white with a flock of the stork-like birds. Daniel grinned at her delight.
“I forgot how you are about things with wings.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, her hair blowing across her face in the breeze, her eyes lit with enjoyment. “They’re lovely.” She pointed out into the marsh. “And there are Canada geese here still. I thought they would have migrated north by now.”
“Maybe they’re California geese. Too laid-back to travel. All they need are some shades and a margarita.”
“Ooh, I could use one of those.” She collected her abandoned bag, and in a few minutes they were registered and Daniel was holding open the door of their room so she could roll her bag in.
“This is nice.”
The Egret Inn was evidently meant for the honeymoon market. The bed was comfortable and wide, the cushions on the window seats were thick, and the plank floor was covered by a rug into which his feet sank. Picture windows looked out onto the bird sanctuary, and he wondered if that was a mistake. He didn’t want Cate on the window seat, spending all her time watching birds who didn’t know when it was time to go home. He wanted her on the bed, on the rug, in the shower—anywhere but on the window seat.
Call him a selfish bastard, but he had a plan, here, and no bird was going to get in the way.
Naturally Cate headed straight for the window seat.
“Look, there’s a raised boardwalk trail through the sanctuary.” She pointed. “You know, like they do in the Everglades. Let’s go, Daniel, before we lose the light.”
So much for the bed, the rug and the shower. “How long are you going to make me suffer, woman?”
She left the window and came into his arms. “Poor baby. Are you suffering?”
That was better. “Well, maybe not suffering. That cop scared my libido into the next county. It’s on its way back, though, in case you were worried.”
She grinned up at him and gave him a kiss. “That’s the last thing I’m worried about. Humor me and come for a walk.”
“At least it’s not a mall or something. I should be grateful.”
“I save malls for special people like girlfriends. They’re wasted on a guy.”
He’d been in wetland before—up to his hips in malaria-ridden, brackish water, fighting snakes and jungle insects on his way to the discovery of the Temecula Treasure. This one was a walk in the park—literally. The boardwalk wound through the sanctuary a couple of feet above the water, allowing things to swim around practically under their feet. By the time they were back on solid ground again an hour later, the bird geek at his side had identified no fewer than seventeen species.
He’d thought there were only five or so, but she’d pointed out his error in great detail. Some day he’d take her on one of those eco-tours to the Galapagos or something and really knock her socks off.
But in a way it was kind of endearing. At least when she got that beady look in her eye, it was over some kind of goldfinch, and not something gold. As in Tiffany or Harry Winston. He should count his blessings.
Cate went to unpack her suitcase and stopped next to the bed. She picked up the long-stemmed yellow rose that lay on the pillow. “Daniel, you think of everything.” She breathed deeply of the scent. “Thank you.”
He could have sworn that hadn’t been there when they’d left. “For the price of this room, I’d have expected a whole bouquet. But it is a nice touch.”
She looked at him quizzically, brushing the bright petals of the rose against her chin. “You mean you didn’t arrange to have them bring it? The inn does this kind of thing for its guests?”
He shrugged. “Guess so. You’ll find I’m more likely to bring you—”
“I know—”
“Rocks as big as diamonds,” she chorused with him. She filled the ice bucket with water and put the rose in it. “I’m starving. Let’s go see what the restaurant downstairs is like.”
He came up behind her and took her in his arms. “I just spent forty-five minutes with a bunch of birds for you, and now you want to go eat?” he teased. He was only half kidding. Even the scent of her hair and warm skin could turn him on, and he was more than ready to put dinner off until dark—or beyond. “We still need to even the score.”
She gave him a skeptical look and leaned into him. “Oh, come on. It can’t have been that long since your last starlet. You can last another two hours.”
A week ago he would have laughed and made a joke about it. Now the needlelike lance of pain surprised him. He couldn’t blame her for saying it—he hadn’t hidden his social life from the world. And they’d only been together for a couple of days. They were still getting to know each other. But when you were trying to convince a woman to think about you in a more flattering light, having your past tossed in your face got old in a hurry.
Turning her around to face him, he said, “Just how long do you think that has been?” Her gaze searched his, and she seemed to realize that he wasn’t joking anymore. “Let me tell you,” he answered for her. “The last time I made love to a woman was on March third, with Dulcie Cavanaugh, the National Geographic photographer. More than two months ago. The night before she told me she was taking an assignment to Antarctica and wouldn’t be coming back to L.A.”
“I don’t remember reading about Dulcie Cavanaugh,” Cate said faintly.
“The ones I really like don’t get into the papers,” he told her. “The ones you read about are usually studio setups or publicity stunts or whatever.”
“I have no idea how that world works.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
She leaned on him and looped her arms around his waist. “Were you hurt when Dulcie left?”
“A little.” He thought of the big-boned redhead with the boisterous laugh. “She was smart and well traveled. We met at a book gig and my publisher introduced us. I think he was hoping to get one of her photos for my next cover.” He looked into her eyes. “Which will be on a book I write myself. But if that was a roundabout way of asking whether I loved her, the answer is also yes, a little.”
Her weight on his chest got a little heavier, as though she had sagged, and then she adjusted her stance.
“And now?”
“Every relationship we have changes us, Cate. But that doesn’t mean a change for the worse.”
“That’s comforting.” Her voice held a smile.
“As far as you and I are concerned, every minute is better than the last one.” He paused. “Well, except for the near miss with that seagull outside just now. Can’t say that was one of my more romantic moments.”
As he had hoped, Cate laughed and the mood broke. She gazed over his shoulder at the window. “It’s twilight. Come on, let’s have dinner and then go over the dunes and walk on the beach afterward.”
“Do you always have this much energy?” he complained as he released her and went to find a fresh shirt.
She shot him a wicked grin as she opened her suitcase. “Oh, yes. I have every intention of wearing you out when we get back.”
“In that case, let’s go.”