Chapter Four

      Dutch’s room was nothing like Dani’s. It overlooked the bay, and its quiet elegance would have suited royalty. She watched him lock the door, and nervously went to stand on the balcony where she could see a lighted ship in port.

      The wind blew her hair and her dress, and she felt like a voyager on the brink of a new discovery.

      “One of the passenger ships,” he remarked, nodding toward the brilliantly lighted vessel. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

      “Yes. I don’t know much about ships, but I like looking at them.”

      He lit a cigarette and smoked it quietly. “I used to sail,” he said unexpectedly.

      She turned, looking up at the stranger who, in less than twenty-four hours, would be her husband and her lover. “Did you?”

      “I moved to Chicago about eight years ago,” he said. “I have an apartment on the lake, and I had a sailboat. I got drunk one night and she turned over with me. I let her sink.”

      Her eyes narrowed uneasily as she stared up at him, and he stared back, unblinkingly.

      “I’m not an alcoholic,” he said gently. “I probably sound like one to you, with these veiled references to the past. I don’t drink often, but there are times when I get black moods. I won’t drink around you. Ever.”

      It sounded as if he were willing to make any compromise, and something warm and soft blossomed inside her. She went close to him, her eyes trusting, quiet and deep. “I can make compromises, too,” she said quietly. “I’ll live anywhere you like.”

      He searched her eyes. “I don’t mind readjusting.”

      “Yes, I know, but your work is in Chicago, I gather, or you wouldn’t live there.”

      “My work is international,” he said, and scowled. “I don’t work out of Chicago. I live there because I have friends there.”

      “Women friends?” she blurted out.

      He only smiled. He finished the cigarette, tossed it into an ashtray and drew her gently against him. “You’re going to be the first woman I’ve been with this year,” he murmured with a mocking smile. “Does that answer the question?”

      She felt and looked shocked. “But…but don’t you need…?” She couldn’t find a delicate way to say it.

      “I thought I was beyond all that, until you came along,” he confessed. “I can’t even remember the last time I felt this way about a woman.”

      “Are you sure you want to marry me?” she asked.

      “Don’t worry so,” he told her, bending to kiss away the frown. “Yes, I want to marry you. I’ll still want to marry you in the morning, too. That was no lie to get you in bed with me.”

      Part of her had thought that, and she lowered her eyes to his collar.

      “Second thoughts?” he asked.

      Her fingers toyed with the buttons on his shirt. “I’m afraid.”

      “Yes, I imagine so,” he said matter-of-factly. “The first time was hard for me, too. I was nervous as a cat.” He laughed.

      “I can’t imagine you being nervous,” she said.

      “It was forever ago. But I haven’t forgotten. I’ll go slowly.” He bent and touched her mouth with his, very gently. “I just want you to remember two things. The first is that there are no set rules in this—it all depends on what pleases the people involved. Will you try to keep that in mind?”

      She swallowed. “Yes.”

      “The second thing is that I’m not superhuman,” he said softly. “Inevitably, there will come a moment when I lose control absolutely. Hopefully, I can bring you to that point before I reach it. But if not, I’ll make it up to you afterward. Okay?”

      “It all seems so mysterious,” she whispered, as if even the night had ears.

      “It won’t by morning.” His gaze went slowly over her, from head to toe and back up again, and his breathing began to change. “Rosebud,” he muttered softly as he suddenly swung her up into his hard arms.

      She relaxed a little and burrowed her face into his warm throat. He smelled of expensive cologne, and she loved the strength that made her seem so light in his embrace.

      He laid her down on the bed gently. She expected him to start undressing himself or her immediately, and she lay there uneasily, a little frightened.

      But he sat down beside her and laughed gently at the look on her face. “What are you expecting, I wonder. That I’ll strip you and take you without preliminaries?”

      Her eyes filmed. “I’m sorry….”

      He touched her mouth with a hard finger. “Think about how it was on the beach, when I bent you back into the sand and kissed you, here.” His fingers traveled down to her soft breasts. “And you threw back your head and moaned and begged me.”

      Her lips parted as she remembered vividly the sensations he’d aroused.

      “That’s how it’s going to be now,” he said, bending to her mouth. “Except that this time I’m not going to let you go.”

      His mouth opened hers with practiced ease, and his warm, callused hands were on her bare back, caressing it slowly and confidently, while all her inhibitions melted slowly away.

      Seconds later the dress began to ease away from her body, and she felt his lips follow its downward movement. But she couldn’t protest. The fires were burning again, and she moaned as his mouth covered her breasts, nipping at them with a tender pressure that was more arousing than frightening. His mouth followed as the dress merged with her tiny briefs and then was swept downward along with them. Shockingly, she felt his lips on her thighs, on the soft inner skin of her legs, and her body moved as the edge of his teeth followed the same path. Incredible, she thought through a fog of anguished desire, incredible that people could survive this kind of pleasure!

      She wasn’t even aware of what he was doing anymore: she was all sensation, all aching hunger. Her eyes were closed, her fists clenched beside her arched neck as his mouth searched her hips and her flat stomach. At the same time he was lazily divesting himself of his own clothing, making it so much a part of his seduction that she didn’t even realize he’d done it until finally he slid alongside her and she felt him.

      Her eyes flew open and went helplessly down the length of his body before she realized what she was doing. And then it was too late; she couldn’t look away. He was glorious. Absolutely the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen, tanned all over without the slightest streak of white, as if he’d sunbathed in the nude