Chapter Twenty-two
PROPPED UP INbed with Mitchell’s arm around her, Kate watched the night sky giving way to dawn. When they’d returned from swimming, they’d showered and then discovered they were famished. The remnants of their shared feast of strawberry crepes and eggs Benedict were on the coffee table.
Afterward, they went to bed, but sleep was not what Mitchell had in mind. The fierce, demanding urgency of his earlier lovemaking was gone, and now he made love to her with slow, torrid sensuality, driving her steadily toward a final climactic destination, while detouring on previously unexplored erotic routes to get her there, whispering directions and encouragements that were as arousing to Kate as the things he was doing with her. By the time he finally let her finish, Kate was writhing wildly in his arms, frantically whispering ,” over and over and over.
When the last spasm had shaken her, he changed the tempo of his strokes and Kate’s limp body suddenly arched up like a tightly strung bow, straining toward him of its own volition while he poured himself into her. Kate heard herself moan, and she clung to him, caught up in a moment that was not only tumultuously sexual but almost fiercely spiritual.
Later on, when she looked back on it all, she might have seen herself as a na student who’d just been tutored by a consummate, perhaps less involved master—except that afterward, he’d gathered her against his full length and kept their bodies clamped tightly together with his face buried in the curve of her neck for a very long time, as if he’d been profoundly affected by their lovemaking, too.
Even now, as they watched the sunrise, his hand was curved around her arm, his thumb caressing her skin. They were both drowsy, the periods of silence between them growing longer, but as the sky continued to lighten, the dawn of a new day was banishing Kate’s quiet euphoria and filling her with worry and fresh guilt about Evan.
She’d waited to return his phone call yesterday until she was getting dressed for the casino, because she knew Evan would be playing tennis at his club by then. She’d left him a voice mail message assuring him that she wasn’t at all angry with him, that she was having a lovely time visiting neighboring islands, and that there was absolutely no need for him to worry or feel guilty about anything. Everything she told him was true, but the things she did not tell him made her message a tawdry, unforgivable deception. On the other hand, she couldn’t possibly break up with him by phone, not after the years they’d been together, and especially not after he’d just brought up marriage. There were only four days left of their planned ten-day trip. If his case dragged on another day or two, he’d surely decide there was no point in flying back down to Anguilla.
Sensing her change in mood, Mitchell glanced at the woman who was responsible for the most exhilarating, fulfilling sexual experience of his life. Her red curls were in wild disarray, tumbling over her shoulders and the tops of her breasts, and her porcelain cheeks were still slightly flushed from their lovemaking, but her expression had turned very pensive. Mitchell assumed she was probably thinking about her boyfriend and wondering whether he was going to arrive that day. He’d been thinking about the same thing.
thoughts?”
She turned her head on the pillow. really. Not about you, anyway,” she amended. After a moment, she smiled and said, you ever been married?”
Ordinarily, that question in this particular location would have evoked a wary reaction in Mitchell, but they’d been lying there asking each other desultory questions off and on since they finished making love. They were, after all, two people who had intimate carnal knowledge of each other, and they had feelings for each other, but they had no facts. And since they’d already traded information about favorite pastimes, favorite foods, least favorite politicians, and so forth, her question seemed perfectly reasonable to Mitchell. , have you?”
,” she said.
This, unlike all their previous questions and answers, she clearly thought required some amplification, because she lifted her brows and looked at him expectantly.
was married to Stavros’s daughter, Anastasia, for three years,” Mitchell added to satisfy her. It didn’t satisfy her. Rolling onto her side facing him, she reached up and pressed her finger across his sealed lips. “If I die of curiosity in this bed,” she warned, will have a lot of explaining to do to the hotel management.”
Mitchell tried to scowl, but a lock of her soft hair was brushing his cheek, her finger was brushing his mouth, and her smile was irresistible. was Stavros’s youngest child and only daughter,” he explained in defeat. “He kept her under his thumb and in his sight by preventing her from having any money of her own to spend.”
thought Greek heiresses ran wild.”
did Stavros,” Mitchell replied drily. the time she was twenty-one, she was so desperate to have some freedom and to ‘experience life’ that it was almost pitiful. Marriage was her only ticket out of bondage, but Stavros wouldn’t let men near her—except for a couple of them who suited him but not Anastasia.
’d known each other since we were kids and we understood each other. We also liked each other. So we made a deal. We got married and I allowed her to accumulate all the life experiences she wanted.”
went wrong?” Kate asked, searching his features.
decided she wanted one life experience that I refused to allow, one that she’d expressly agreed to forgo before we ever got married.”
was it?”
.”
divorced her because she wanted to have your children?”
, I let her divorce me.”
Warned by his tone that the topic was now closed, Kate dropped her gaze, wondering whether she ought to try to get more information. She decided she wasn’t likely to succeed right now, and she didn’t want their mood spoiled any more than it had been already.
She sought for an innocuous question to ask and after a moment decided to ask about the tiny scar on his right arm. did you get this scar?” she asked, touching it with her fingers.
He looked down to see what she was talking about, and his tone lost its edge. I was fifteen, I bumped into a rapier.”
would have been my first guess.”
His blue eyes warmed with laughter and a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Lifting his hand to her face, he brushed his thumb over what he thought was a cleft in her chin and teasingly asked, “Where did you get this cute little dent in your chin?”
I was thirteen, I bumped into a U.S. mailbox.”
Mitchell laughed at the joke and started to kiss her chin, but she shook her head and said, ’m serious.”