As Gordan’s hungry gaze caressed Cassy through the frosted glass, he did not consider the right or wrong of what he was about to do. After easing damp, snug-fitting, navy briefs down his hips and his legs, he opened one of the built-in vanity drawers to remove a foil packet. He took a deep breath before he opened the stall door and stepped inside.
Standing with her back to the door and her head down, Cassy jumped when she felt his mouth at her nape and his hands on either side of her waist. She did not need to turn around to identify Gordan, for she knew his touch, yet she turned to face him nonetheless.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. For a brief moment, she thought she’d conjured him up. She’d been wanting him so badly. But Gordan was no figment of her imagination. His chest was firm and hot against her palms. And she could feel his hands on her spine, holding her close.
As if he had every right to be there, he picked up a honey-and-pine-scented bar of soap and began soaping her throat, down her back, over the ripe curves of her hips.
“Gordan!” she gasped, as he caressed and squeezed her before he moved lower.
His mouth was so hot—hotter than the temperature of the water cascading over them. He took kiss after kiss, each deeper than the last. When he broke the seal of their lips, he scorched a path with his tongue down the length of her neck to the scented base of her throat.
She tried and failed to formulate a protest. She could barely stand, let alone manage more than a small gasp, which was swallowed beneath the onslaught of yet another tongue-stroking kiss. The kiss went on and on as her tongue slipped into his mouth, and she stroked his.
“Cassy...,” he groaned, dropping his head to lick the ultrasensitive place behind her ear. His soapy hands slid up and down her back as he whispered, “I need you. I’ve missed you.”
He spread her thighs with one of his until her mound, covered by thick, ebony curls, brushed the heat of his own body, his shaft against her stomach.
Trembling, Cassy told herself she needed to regain her equilibrium, ignore his drugging kisses and the sizzling hot pleasure of his muscular frame pressed against her from chest to hips. She even managed to wedge some space between the wide expanse of his brown chest and her hard nipples.
“We can’t.”
“No?” he questioned, as he kissed her again and again. “You’re not enjoying this? What about this?” With soapy hands, he cupped and squeezed her breasts, then gently tugged her aching nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Then he dropped down to lick each full globe, lingering on the underside of each breast.
“This...isn’t...a...solution,” she barely managed to get out.
“It is our only answer,” he rasped huskily, before he licked one plump, dark-chocolate-brown nipple repeatedly, then took it deep into the heat of his mouth to suck. Cassy cried out. The suction was strong and unrelenting, just the way he knew she liked it. If he had not been holding her she would have fallen.
“Ooohhhh...” she cried, cradling his head in her hands. But he did not stop until she was a mass of nerves, whimpering from the pleasure. Only then did he turn his attention to the other taut nipple. He seduced her with the hot magic of his mouth.
Her caressing fingertips moved from his shoulders to the hardness of his flat, dark nipples. When he looked into her eyes, she kissed him then gave him the same kind of enjoyment that he had given her. She tugged one small nipple while she licked the other one. She enjoyed his responsive groans. Pausing to soap her hands, she moved down his back, reacquainting herself with his lean waist and firm buttocks.
Relishing in his deep, throaty moans, she closed her eyes and indulged her sense of feel. Her small hands soaped his hard concave stomach before moving through the thicket of hair surrounding his sex.
He shuddered with pleasure as she caressed lower and lower while inhaling his wonderfully male scent.
“Cassy.” He caught her hands, placing them on either side of the throbbing length of his penis. “Stroke me, baby.”
Cassy could feel the tremors in his large frame and feel the pounding of his heart close to her ear, where her cheek rested on his chest. She needed no instructions—she knew how he liked to be touched, the exact pressure he enjoyed. No, there was no mystery, but many erotic memories of shared pleasure.
Small, soapy hands trembled as she cupped and gently squeezed the heaviness below his shaft before moving to encircle him. She stroked her hands from the broad, sensitive tip of his sex to the thick base.
“Cassy!” he called out in pleasure, then he was forced to still her slippery, sweet caresses. “It feels so good—too good.”
Gordan held her against his chest with his eyes closed while he waited for his breathing to even out and his heart rate to slow. Close to her ear, he whispered throatily, “Do you want me, baby—want me inside of you?”
She trembled in his arms, her mouth against his throat. He played in the curls covering her plump mound. She moaned his name as he caressed then parted the fleshy folds, before he slid a soapy finger deep inside, stroking her. When she was slick, burning for him and whimpering his name, only then did he use a fingertip to rub the tiny pearl at the top of her mound.
Cassy quivered in his arms as she approached climax. He didn’t stop until she fully embraced that release and shuddered in his arms as she called his name. Before she could compose herself, his lips were on hers and he kissed her again and again.
Only then did he tongue her earlobe and tell her how she pleased him, and how desperately he wanted her sweetness. Cassy was barely able to breathe, let alone think, when he returned his attention to the aching tips of her breasts worried them with his fingertips, then sucked.
“Please,” she whispered, as she stroked his jutting shaft. “Please...please.”
He placed her hands on his shoulders, then lifted her leg and bent his knees in order to position himself between her silky smooth thighs.
“Look at me,” he insisted.
When her sultry, dark eyes met his, Gordan pushed the crown of his sex between her wet folds and into the opening of her incredible tight heat. He growled from deep in his throat, gritting his teeth against the sheer pleasure. He was almost where he needed to be—nearly a part of her. Ignoring the thundering beat of his own heart and the demands of his body to take what was his alone, Gordan waited.
Panting, he said, “Is this what you want?”
Cassy was beyond speech, breathless and eager for him to give her the one thing she had denied herself for so long—the full hard length of his manhood. She wanted it. She wanted all of him.
“Is it?” he groaned.
“Yes...oh, yes,” she sobbed.
She locked her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. His mouth covered hers to seal in her scream as he filled the emptiness deep inside of her. Cradling her hips with eyes tightly closed, he concentrated on nothing more than giving them the utmost pleasure. He needed this—he needed her. His thrusts were deep and continuous while Cassy’s face was against his throat. She tongued the strong brown column of his neck as she clung to his powerful shoulders. He threw back his head, relishing the feel of her as she gave him the most erotic of caresses.
When she tightened around him, he said through clenched teeth, “You feel so good—so good.”
He covered her mouth with his, stroking her tongue as deeply and as expertly as he stroked her deep inside. Only the need for air caused him to raise his head. He looked at her as he loved her. She had never looked more beautiful to him. There was nothing to compare with what she gave him.
“You filled my heart,” he said, around a shudder. As he quickened his thrusts, he whispered close to her ear, “Feel... feel how much I need you.”
All Cassy could focus on was the all-encompassing pleasure mounting inside of her, as he gave with every powerful thrust of his body. Her head was filled with his scent and her mouth relished his taste. She was surrounded by him, both inside and out. Her chest was pressed so close to his that even the flow of water could not come between them. They were one.
When he rolled his hips and surged even deeper, Cassy contracted around him, convulsing as she reached one shattering climax after another. Gordan shouted hoarsely as her final release triggered his, and he drove himself as deep as he could inside of her. Numbing pleasure overwhelmed. By slow degrees, their awareness of each other and their surroundings returned.
The water was cooling as Cassy lowered her legs to the tile flooring. She inhaled deeply, turning her back to him and her face into the spray. Hoping to collect herself and her mixture of feelings, she retrieved the soap and began cleaning her skin.
Gordan’s large hands took over the task, and he massaged her neck and shoulders, down her spine, her buttocks, her thighs and calves, even her feet. She was so weak that she leaned her head against the tile, her eyes tightly closed. She gasped when she felt his soapy fingers enter her tender sheath from behind. She considered protesting but couldn’t muster the strength. Her legs felt rubbery, barely able to support her.
Gordan soaped her front, caressing her throat, her breasts, down her ribcage to her stomach, and on to her mound, before moving down her smooth thighs. When he began cleansing his own body, she could do no more than rest against the shower wall. She also could not look away from him, as if she were memorizing him—categorizing him in her mind. Nor could she fail to notice that his manhood was once again thick, heavy with desire.
After switching off the water, Gordan stepped out of the stall and collected bath sheets from a heated towel bar. He quickly wrapped Cassy inside the thick folds. As he dried himself, he watched as she sank onto the closed lid of the tank.
“Ready?”
Cassy could barely manage a nod, feeling both physically and emotionally drained. One part of her told her to run—to get as far away from him as she could—yet, another part of her insisted that she stay at his side, where she had been longing to be, for as long as he would have her.
He swept her up into his arms and carried her into the cabin. And she let him, not offering even a whimper of protest. He had flung a towel around his neck and, after he put her down beside the king-size bed, he used it to dry her hair.
“Baby?” He handed her a wide-tooth comb.
“It was wrong,” she said, looking away from him. But she could not say, “I should not want you or this,” as she worked the comb through her thick, wavy curls.
“It was what we needed,” he insisted quietly, pulling back the spread and top sheet.
Cassy kept her back to him as she worked the comb through her hair, hoping to find some answers—some understanding as to why she still wanted him so badly.
He pulled her up and into his arms. He waited until her beautiful, sad eyes met his, before he said, “I love you,” an instant before he took one slow, deep kiss after another. “And you love me.”
“I can’t...” She could not finish. Whispering out of a sense of sheer desperation, she said, “There are other considerations.”
“None more important than what we feel for each other.”
He pressed a series of sizzling-hot kisses along her shoulders, lingering at her collarbone, his open mouth at her throat. “I can’t express to you how much I’ve missed you.”
Pushing away the towel that had been tucked between her breasts, he replaced it with his mouth, tonguing that scented hollow. Then he lifted her and placed her in the center of the bed.
“I don’t want this,” she said, with lips wet and swollen from his kisses. “It solves nothing.”
“Then prove it to me,” he said, following her down onto the bed. He licked the sensitive place behind her ear before he took the lobe inside his mouth to suckle.
Cassy was a trembling mass of nerves. “Once was...”
“Not nearly enough,” he finished for her, then moved down to lick one of her pointy, hard nipples. He took his time and laved the aching tip again and again, before he drew it into his mouth to suck as if the peak was as sweet as a drop of chocolate. Gordan was not content until he performed the same hot magic on the other nipple.
He lingered in the hollow between the swells of her breasts to bathe her skin with the heat of his tongue. Cassy was gasping for breath by the time he moved down to lick her navel. He placed wet kiss after kiss there before he moved down past the thick curls covering her femininity.
“Is it enough?” he crooned, as he paused to look at her.
With eyes tightly closed, Cassy didn’t respond because she could not find the words. When he caressed her thighs, she parted them for him. He pressed his lips along the length of her leg, tantalizing her first with the warm sweep of his lips and beard and then with his tongue. He licked the tender inside of her thigh, close enough but not touching her woman’s center.
He hesitated. “If you want me to stop, tell me,” he said, his voice heavy with desire.
When his hot, dark gaze locked with hers, there was no doubt in her mind that he wanted to taste her as desperately as she wanted him to. She could not control her tremors, nor could she deny him any more than she could deny herself.
“Let me ...”
“Yes,” she whispered, dropping her thick lashes and biting her bottom lip in anticipation.
There was no reluctance as he cupped her mound, then worried the soft petals of her sex with the blunt tips of his fingers. She moaned when he opened her and dropped his head to sample her sweet essence with first his lips then the hot caress of his tongue.
Cassy gasped his name, unable to contain the pulsating pleasure that spiraled out of control. Then he drew the sensitive pearl at the top of her mound into the heat of his mouth to suckle. Pleasure went on and on until she couldn’t seem to get enough air in her lungs, yet she screamed as she climaxed, feeling as if she were shattering into a million tiny pieces. She cradled his dark head in her hands, stroking his hair. Gordan did not move until she was calm, comforting her with tenderness.
When he rose to position himself over her, she could not stop touching his large, dark frame. There was no way she could even pretend that she had not wanted him—missed him in this way.
He dropped his head and licked the place where her shoulder and neck joined. He rasped in her ear, “I can’t get enough of you.”
She could feel the pressure of his manhood against her side. She pressed her mouth against his bearded cheek, sliding her tongue inside his mouth. “Love me...”
Gordan paused long enough to sheath himself in a condom before he surged into her damp heat and filled the emptiness. His unrelenting steel hardness overwhelmed her.
“Take me...all of me,” he demanded, balancing his weight on his forearms.
“Oh...yes,” she whimpered, lifting her thighs to his waist, opening herself completely to him. There was no part of herself that she could hold back. She needed him. “Hurry...”
He groaned with deep appreciation, for she had taken his entire pulsating length. But that appreciation was short lived as she tightened around him, demanding he complete what had only just begun. He slowly withdrew, only to return, again and again. His hard thrusts caused her to quiver in his arms as she moved with him stroke for stroke. Her hands smoothed over his deep chest and wide shoulders as she responded, without question, to him.
“Gordan...,” she begged, tightening even more around him as she felt her climax building.
He shuddered as he rotated powerfully against her. “Now ...,” he insisted. “Come with me now.” His movements insisted as his body quivered. “Cassy...now!”
Cassy gasped his name, convulsing with him as dazzling white-hot shards of pleasure engulfed them. They held on to each other, breathing heavily.
As her body gradually cooled, only then did she realize that his body was still very much a part of hers. Her eyes were tightly closed as she finally accepted what she had let happen. She released a breath when he disengaged their bodies and eased down beside her on the bed.
She turned on her side, needing to understand. Physically, she was satiated, but her thoughts were in turmoil. Sex was obviously not the answer, for if it was, she would have never left him in the first place.
Gordan pressed a tender kiss against her nape, his legs tangled with hers and one arm around her waist. He said, “What do you think about spending a few weeks in Bali? Just the two of us—no business, no family, no interruptions. Huh?”
Suddenly, Cassy was moving. She was off the bed before Gordan had a chance to blink. He watched as she collected her bag from the armchair and disappeared inside the bathroom.
“Baby?” When he turned the knob, he discovered it was locked.
Cassy did not emerge until she was completely dressed. Gordan had also dressed in a pair of jeans and short-sleeve shirt. He paced while he waited.
“What’s up with the door?” he said.
“Gordan, I clearly wasn’t doing much thinking when I went to bed with you. Maybe I hoped that you would change your mind. That you actually understood me and what I wanted and needed.” She laughed, but at her own stupidity. How could she be so gullible where he was concerned? He kissed the right place and her brain stopped. She had no self-control with him.
Scowling, he snarled, “What the hell happened here? I thought that we just reconciled.”
She snapped, “We did what we always do after being apart for a time.”
“I don’t get it! Weren’t we close to reaching a compromise?” He did not like having his best efforts thrown back in his face.
“Your idea of a compromise is a few weeks in Bali, followed by back to more of the same. No way!”
“We love and need each other!” he yelled at her.
“There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.” She glared back at him.
Smoothing a hand over his hair, he let out a rush of air. “Okay, okay. If we can just...”
“I should not have let you anywhere near me, feeling as I do. I apologize for that.” Cassy was dangerously close to breaking down. She could barely look at him. “I’d like to go back to the hotel. Now.”
“Is that your answer for everything? Walk away and pretend it didn’t happen?” he asked, furiously.
“What I’m doing is finally facing some facts. I refuse to keep banging my head against this same brick wall. I want marriage and babies of my own. I want to come first with my husband. What I don’t want is to be romanced in some exotic place, unless it’s on a honeymoon.” She lifted her chin. “I will matter in a man’s life—just not yours, Gordan Kramer.”
His fists were balled at his sides as he stared at her. “You know why I can’t remarry. Why can’t you ask for what I can give you? Like my love. Why do you keep putting us through this?”
“News flash! Gordan, I’m not putting you through anything, darlin’. How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not after a reluctant bridegroom?”
“You’ve made it clear that you don’t want things to be as they once were between us. You don’t want me in Atlanta or the Caribbean while you’re in Oakland. Baby, I don’t want those things either.” Gordan took her hands in his. “Just listen to me. If you moved in with me, we could be together. Let Sarah run the inn. If you like, I’d be happy to buy you out and send staff to handle the day-to-day operations in order to free you up. We want the same thing—to be together, always.”
Cassy almost screamed as she said, “No!” It took all her self-control not to slap him. She yanked her hands free. How was it possible that one man could be so stubborn?
Gordan cupped her face in his wide palms, when he said, “I could not love you more. You mean more to me than any corporation—more to me than anything else in the world. In fact, I would give you the world if I could.”
Even though he held her close, she could not look at him. It hurt too much. She had been wrong to come to Martinique. Finally, she had no choice but to accept that in their case love was not the answer. The hurt of losing him would go on and on. But somehow, she would get past it. She had to.
“There is no other solution for us. I won’t give up being a wife and mother, even for you.”
Gordan closed his eyes against the pain. Resisting the urge to shake some sense into her, he said, “You’re willing to throw what we have away as if it has no meaning?”
“I can’t be happy your way. We’ve been lovers for over four and a half years. It hasn’t worked. Stop worrying. And I don’t want you to marry me. How could I when I know it isn’t what you want? Gordan, we’ve grown apart. It’s something we have no control over, and it’s something we both have to accept. It’s over.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek beneath his bearded jaw when he asked, “What about what happened in that bed? Does that also have no meaning for you, Cassy?”
If only she could shut out the anguish she heard in his voice, but it resonated throughout her system and deep into her heart. She had hurt him, but she was also hurting. It was the last thing she wanted but she could not go back. She could not. Because she believed in the end it would eventually destroy them. It would take all her courage, but she had to say it. She had to.
“It means what it has always meant. You’re a wonderful lover.” She watched the way his body stiffened as if she had slapped him, then she made herself say, “It feels good to have you inside my body, Gordan. But it won’t ever be enough.” Her voice nearly broke around a sob when she said, “We’ve always wanted two different things from life, baby. Always.”
“And I’m supposed to do what?”
“I know you’ve tried to show me that you care for me. And that you’ve taken valuable time away from business for me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, because I do. But, Gordan,” she sighed heavily, “next week or the week after that, you’ll be caught up in some new business challenge. That’s your world. And things are bound to go back to the way they’ve always been with you—you moving from hotel to hotel, one business deal to the next, while I’ll be cooking and helping my sister manage the inn. We live separate, completely independent lives.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way!”
“But it does. I’m looking forward to watching my niece and nephew grow up. And, with God’s blessing, I’ll have a baby of my own to nurture and watch grow.”
“I can give you a child.”
“No!” Cassy, shaking violently, screamed the word at him.
“You prefer to have some other man’s baby inside of you?”
She had grown a measure of control over herself when she said, “It has to be that way. I won’t drag you or any man kicking and screaming to the preacher man. I’ll get what I want.”
“Only, without me.”
“Exactly. I would like to return to the hotel. Please.”
He swore bitterly before he faced her with eyes cold as ice crystals. “It’s your way or the highway. No compromises—no consideration for how we feel about each other!”
“None. We are done here. Take me back,” she insisted.
Gordan did not say another word. He turned and walked out.
Cassy listened to his feet on the stairs, then waited until she heard the motor hum. It was then that she collapsed into the chair, dissolving into tears. She stayed where she was until the boat docked.
The trip back to the hotel was an uncomfortably silent one. Before Cassy could reach the elevators, Gordan caught her hand and held it.
She shook her head and then whispered, “We’ve said it all. Please, let me go.” Unable to hide lids swollen from tears, she held her breath, not knowing what he would do.
Gordan stared into her eyes, his body ramrod straight. He caressed the inside of her wrist with his thumb, then abruptly let go and walked away.
Cassy told herself that she should feel relief. She walked away, knowing there were no options left for them—knowing the pain she had seen in his eyes matched the wound in her heart. She did not look around nor did she hesitate as she walked inside the elevator and pushed the button for her floor. Finally, it was over.
With rigid control, she closed the door to her room and hurried over to the telephone. Her first call was to the airlines to arrange for a seat on the afternoon flight leaving for California the following day.
It was going to be a very long day. Her flight would be leaving Martinique for San Juan, then she was scheduled to change planes in San Juan to go on to Dallas/Fort Worth. She would not arrive in San Francisco International until 11:46 pm, nearly twelve and a half hours later.
Her next call was to her sister to let her know her change in plans. Cassy did not go into the details. She could not talk about it, not yet, not even with her sister. Her last call was to Adam, canceling their tennis plans in the afternoon and to say her goodbyes.
It was very late before Cassy finally fell asleep, her eyes burning from unshed tears. As badly as she hurt, she would not let herself cry again. What good would it do? She had gotten what she wanted. She had won, but the last thing she felt like doing was celebrating.