He’d been sure he would die, it had been that good.
Rubbing his face, he dragged himself back to reality, yanking open his collar in search of a cool breeze to take his libido down a notch. They were flying over the waves, skipping at a light angle, demanding he pay attention, but all he could think was, how could he be this aroused again? She’d drained him dry. They’d collapsed into unconsciousness, utterly exhausted from making love.
He’d woken soon after, sweaty and thick with recovery, wanting her again.
When he’d shifted, she’d grumbled without opening her eyes, “Don’t move. My hip hurts. I need to keep my leg propped.”
He didn’t doubt it. His joints had protested his rising from the bed, and he’d never crashed and burned in a roadster. He’d substituted a pillow under her thigh and watched her settle back into sleep before taking his insatiable libido for a cold shower in a spare cabin.
Then he’d made a decision he was still second-guessing, but it was done. She was his.
I love everything you do to me. The power of that statement unexpectedly exploded in his mind again, but that first bit, I love...
He scratched his chest where a sensation gathered like sweat trickling. The tickle was behind his breastbone, uncomfortable and impossible to erase. It’s just chemistry, she’d said as he’d been reeling from a depth of pleasure he’d never experienced before.
He’d agreed with her, clinging to that simple explanation, but it was harder to blame chemistry when he’d found himself unable to wake her and send her on her way.
Why not? Why was his response to her, on every level, so much more intense than it had been with the woman he’d loved, the one he’d pledged to marry? He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t deny it.
He and Luiza hadn’t had the luxury of time and privacy to soak themselves in sexual intimacy, though. Their bond had been forged by shared secrets and ideals. She had loved him when he’d had no one else. Her vision had become his.
She’d died before her dream could become reality, but he was still striving to make it come true. There was no reason to suffer pangs of infidelity just because he wanted to play out an affair with a particular woman for a little longer than a weekend.
He clenched his hands on the wheel, telling himself that the fact Tiffany had been a virgin weighed into his decision to extend their association. No man wanted to be a woman’s first and her worst. He owed her more time and consideration than the average jaded socialite.
And she happened to have a sexual appetite to match his own. He kept mistresses when it suited him for that very reason. This was still a temporary arrangement, and Tiffany understood that’s all he ever intended to have with any woman. His heart belonged to Luiza. If he couldn’t marry her, he wouldn’t marry anyone.
Having relegated Tiffany to her rightful place in his mind, he was ready to see her again. He nodded at the first mate, and the young man swung the sail to catch more gust.
* * *
Tiffany was falling out of bed.
She woke with a cry and a start, arms splayed to orient herself on the mattress. The room glowed a brassy yellow, the bed was a wreck and her body felt as if she’d been thrown down a flight of stairs. She held very still, trying to come to grips with the odd feeling the boat was not just bobbing in its slip, but moving.
It was. They were at sail!
She’d been on sailboats, but unlike the sharp angle that resulted in stumbling around to grip her way across a deck, this catamaran was only a hair off level, allowing her to rush the window and snap up the blind. Yep. Not another boat in sight. Just a speck of land on the horizon and glittering waves in every other direction.
“What the hell, Ryzard?” she said aloud.
Glancing around for her clothes, she caught sight of herself and cringed. Her hair was naturally straight, and all that sweaty sex had weighed it down into a droopy haystack. The side of her breast felt raw where it had been abraded by stubble and when she turned her nose to her shoulder, she could swear she smelled Ryzard’s unique scent on her skin.
An odd, sexy feeling overcame her, making her want to loll in bed and call him to her, but she gave herself a firm shake. Where the hell was he taking her?
A very quick shower later, she dressed in her pants and sleeveless top to go in search of him. She forced herself not to be so cowardly as to wear the mask, but she still peered around corners, avoiding his staff.
She found him lounging in the shade of the aft deck, taking up all the cushions of the built-in sofa as he read his tablet and sipped a drink made with tomato juice. A stalk of celery rested against its salted rim. He set it down when she appeared.
“I thought a few sharp turns might shake you out of bed,” he said.
“Are you familiar with the term kidnapping?”
“I have business in Cuba.”
“You’re taking me to Cuba?” She gave a wild look around. Nope, not one hint of assistance in sight.
“Much as I’d love to anchor somewhere private and shirk my responsibilities, I can’t. My weekend was booked for Q Virtus, but now we’ll have to carve out our time around other commitments.”
“Commitments like the one I made to get on a plane with my brother two hours ago? He’ll be frantic.” Dumbfounded, she braced a hand on her forehead trying to gather her scattered wits enough to formulate a plan.
“My staff spoke to him when they collected your things.”
“Your staff collected my things. And brought them here?” She pointed to the deck, so astounded she could barely form words. “After they informed my brother that I was carrying on with you?”
“They’re discreet enough to simply say you’re my guest. Naturally he needed to be told why you weren’t meeting him as arranged. Why are you upset? Relax. I realize you avoid the sun, but you can enjoy the view from the shade. I have a masseuse aboard, if you need.”
“Ryzard,” she said with a ring of near hysteria in her tone. “You said we’d stay in dock.”
“For a few hours. We did. You overslept.”
“You should have woken me! Not said things to my brother. He doesn’t need to know about this. No one does. It’s nobody’s business but mine!” She splayed a hand on the place in her chest where he was taking up way more room than he should. Where he was lodged very close to places no one was allowed to go.
“When you called me your dirty little secret, I didn’t realize you meant it,” he replied stiffly.
Oh, she would not feel guilty. Maybe she was overreacting, but he didn’t realize what kind of firestorm he would have set off with her family. This was bad.
“You should have asked me,” she insisted. “And let me talk to my brother. Is there some way I can contact him?” Panic gripped her.
“If your mobile doesn’t work, ask the captain for the ship to shore.” He still sounded stung, but dealing with Ryzard came second to smoothing things over with Christian. What would he think of her?
She’d left her mobile in her room at the club and found it in her purse in the cabin where her things had been unpacked. Not Ryzard’s cabin, she noted, but a separate one—and why did that bother her? She was upset with him, not supposed to be mooning about what it meant if he set her up to sleep apart from him.
Keying her code into her phone, she saw that her brother had left her a dozen messages.
“What the hell, Tiff,” were his first words when she reached him.
“I know.” She closed her eyes. She really should have thought this through before dialing. She was just so frantic to undo what had been done. But how?
“How does something like this even happen?” he demanded.
His askance reaction crystallized the confused self-consciousness inside her, so she felt very fragile and very brittle all of a sudden. Ryzard, despite his assumptions and autocratic ways, was not the villain. The problem with her family knowing about their affair, she realized, was the impossible vision she was supposed to live up to.
“You’re the expert on picking up women. You know how it works,” she retorted. “He came on to me with a great line. I fell for it.”
The door clicked and Ryzard entered in time to hear most of what she said.
She averted her gaze from his darkening expression, prickling as her brother said, “You’re too smart for that.”
“Am I? Maybe I’m weak and desperate. Maybe I’m grateful for attention from any man.”
In her periphery, Ryzard’s arms folded and he said in an ominous undertone, “Is that true?”
“I knew it. He’s taking advantage of you.”
She sucked in a jagged breath, more hurt than words could express, but it was the ugly truth they’d all been dancing around since her accident. She wasn’t worth a man’s attention.
She flashed a look of resentment at Ryzard, angry that he was witnessing her humiliation. At the same time, she wished he didn’t look so thunderous. She was desperately in need of backup. Instead, he’d probably leave her on a sandbar somewhere, but that was almost better than sending her back to the bosom of her kin.