Travis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Tonight, after a day that began at dawn?”
“Uh-huh,” she said absently, thinking about her schedule. “But I don’t have to start this minute. Later.”
He was glad that her back was turned to him. He had a feeling that his expression would have sent her running. He had never met anyone so obsessed with work.
With money.
Yet not once had she even hinted to Travis that his money would be a welcome relief.
Grimly Travis realized that every moment, every breath, he expected Cat to ask him for money. The fact that she hadn’t made him wary . . . and hopeful.
Don’t be a moron, he told himself savagely. She’ll get around to asking for money. They always do.
And if she’s too coy, I’ll bring it up. This nonsense about just liking to be together has got to stop.
Travis didn’t mind helping Cat out with some cash gifts. She certainly needed a break more than any woman he had ever met. But he did mind pretending that their relationship was anything other than what it was—a simple, adult business transaction.
He had learned the hard way that not nailing down all the details was a good way to find yourself fucked without being kissed.
For a time there was only silence and the small groans of pleasure Cat made as Travis soothed the aching muscles of her back.
“When are your days off?” he asked finally.
“No such animals,” she said, fighting a yawn and losing.
“No weekends?”
“No. Price of being self-employed.”
“Do you always work this hard?”
She shook her head. “You just had the bad luck to meet me during a cash crunch.”
Travis’s hands went still.
Too late Cat remembered his contempt the first time she had mentioned her money difficulties.
“But that’s my problem,” she said quickly.
She leaned forward and reached for a towel. His hand closed over her arm.
“It’s mine, too, if it keeps you away from me,” Travis said.
“So lean on Energistics,” Cat retorted, looking at him over her shoulder. “They owe me fifty thousand.”
He didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “That’s a fair chunk of change.”
“Yes,” she agreed coolly. “I do rather well for myself, all things considered. I earn my keep.”
Travis heard the echo of Billy’s cruelty and was reminded of what drove Cat. Yet he still wasn’t satisfied that the past was motive enough for the price she was paying in the present—no time for anything but work.
“Self-respect is very cold comfort,” he said. “It took me years to learn that. Let’s see if you’re smarter than I was.”
As Travis spoke, he turned Cat in his arms. Before she could say anything, his mouth closed over hers in a demand that she knew she should resist. But she couldn’t deny him, not when his tongue began to probe her lips and his breath was sweet in her mouth. She sighed and let herself melt into him, enjoying the sensations that came when her breasts rubbed across the wet mat of hair on his chest.
A shudder went through Travis as he felt her nipples harden against him. “Cat, witch, woman, sail with me, just two days, Catalina Island and back. You can spare two days for me, for yourself, for us.”
His husky whisper shimmered over Cat’s nerves, making her breath stop and then come back in a ragged surge of desire. She wanted the time with Travis as much as he did.
No, she wanted it even more.
She knew that someday very soon he would step aboard his ship and sail over the edge of the world. In-the-Wind Danvers, never ashore more than a few weeks at a time.
“When?” Cat asked simply.
“Tomorrow.”
She closed her eyes. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I . . . can’t.”
Travis hadn’t really expected Cat to pick up and go off with him before a price had been agreed on, but it angered him that she kept pretending she didn’t have money in mind at all.
“Can’t?” he asked. “You mean you won’t. All you care about is measuring your self-respect by the amount of money you make.” He stood and grabbed a towel. “Well, I sure as hell won’t get in your way.”
Cat watched Travis with eyes that were too bright. She blinked back exhaustion and frustration and tears.
“That isn’t true,” she whispered, because a whisper was all she could force past the tightness of her throat.
Saying nothing, Travis climbed out of the tub and began drying himself. He didn’t look at her, yet she couldn’t look away from him, each muscle and tendon outlined in honey-colored light, water drops sparkling and sliding down his strong body. He was the most beautiful, most powerful thing she had ever known . . . and she would surely lose him.
“Why?” she asked. “Why couldn’t I have met you in January, when we might have had a chance to love?”
Then Cat heard her own words and realized what she had said, what she had revealed. Anger finally came to her, driving out exhaustion, giving her strength.
She reached blindly for a towel, stood, and fumbled with the thick cloth, unable to control her fingers long enough to tie a simple knot. She didn’t look at Travis again, couldn’t, because if she did, she knew she would cry.
She hadn’t cried for seven years. She had no intention of starting now. Certainly not over another rich bastard.
Travis watched Cat make a muddle of tying the towel and knew that whatever monetary agreement they would eventually reach, she wasn’t ready to be realistic tonight.
And neither was he. Not if it meant watching her walk out on him.
“Cat,” he said quietly, “you’re so tired that you’re coming apart, but you won’t even let me hold you together.”
She put her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear Travis’s words melting her anger, his concern making her want to run to him, trust his strength, love him.
“No, oh God, no,” she said in a strained voice. “Not that. Not now!”
“Not what? Cat, what’s wrong?”
She looked at Travis wildly, then put her face in her hands and looked at nothing at all. Her body shook with the force of her effort to control her emotions.
“Damn it,” he said tightly. “You’re working yourself into the ground! Can’t you see that?”
Travis wrapped Cat in his arms. Her tension vibrated in every line of her body. Silently he cursed himself for pushing her too hard, too soon. She simply wasn’t as experienced in the mistress game as the women he was used to.
And he was much more impatient than he had ever been in the past.
“It’s all right,” Travis said gently. “Tell me what’s bothering you, sweetheart.” His voice coaxed her and his body warmed her cool skin. “If you want to talk about money in any way, any way at all, I won’t get angry.” He kissed her eyelids lightly, warmly. “Tell me, little Cat. Let me help you.”
“No,” she said in a rough voice, turning her face away from him.
Fiercely Cat held on to Travis, wanting him and at the same time afraid if he made love to her again, she wouldn’t be able to keep from loving him. She couldn’t afford that.
Rich man.
A man who didn’t know how to love.
“I don’t want to love you,” she said bleakly.
There was such desperation in Cat’s words that it took a moment for Travis to understand what she had said. When he did, he stopped thinking about money and women and business.
Knowing he would regret not setting out the rules of their relationship, yet unable to stop himself from bending his own unbendable rule, he lifted Cat’s face and kissed her until she was hot and supple against his body. His hands slid from her shoulders to the towel wrapped around her breasts. When she stiffened, he stopped.
“Cat . . . ?”
She shivered, cold and hot at once, caught in a trap she didn’t know how to escape. Or
maybe it was simply that she didn’t want to escape.
And then she knew it didn’t matter. She couldn’t lose more of herself to Travis than she already had.
“Yes,” she whispered, “yes.”
Without another word Travis picked her up and took her into his bedroom. He unwrapped the damp towel from around her and replaced it with a silk comforter. She shivered continuously as he got in bed and covered both of them with the quilt. He held her until he felt warmth return to her skin.
Finally Cat gave a shaky sigh and relaxed against Travis. Once again he became aware of the dark hollows beneath her eyes, the paleness beneath her tan, the bones pressing against her skin. He wanted her until he couldn’t think, but she was so tired. She needed rest more than he needed sex.
“Sleep, Cat.” Travis brushed a gentle kiss over her cheek. “You’re exhausted.”
Her arms slid around his waist. She kissed the hard muscles of his chest. Her tongue lingered to tease his flat nipples into tiny hard buttons. Though he was rigid and ready against her thigh, he made no move to caress her in return.
“Travis?”
“You’re too tired,” he said simply. “You wouldn’t be able to enjoy making love.”
“Try me.”
Cat’s cool fingers kneaded against his chest until her hands became like him, very warm. She teased his nipples again, then his navel.
Travis shuddered and caught his breath. “On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Stay with me tonight. No more working for you.”
He saw her frown and knew that he had guessed right. Cat had been planning to go right to work after she got home tonight.
“Deal?” he asked.
When she didn’t answer immediately, he caught the peak of one breast between his fingers and squeezed gently. Her back arched in helpless response.
“No fair,” she said breathlessly.
“Sue me.”
He bent over her, rubbing his bearded cheek between her breasts. Her hands slid down to his hips. He caught her wrists in his fingers just before she would have captured him.
“If you put those hot little hands all over me, I’ll take it as an unqualified yes,” Travis said.
“Yes,” Cat sighed, closing her eyes.
“Good. I’ll make this as easy on you as possible.”
“What?”
“This.”
His mouth caressed her breasts until she moaned and moved blindly. He smiled and traced the flush spreading across her body. Even exhausted, she responded to him.
“Now, the second condition,” Travis said.
Cat groaned. “Unfair. You said just one.”
He laughed and shifted his weight in a fluid movement. His mouth slid down her like warm water until his hands held her hips in a hard embrace. Gently he sank his teeth into the smooth curve of her thigh.
“Travis . . . ?” Cat whispered.
He raised his head just enough to meet her eyes. Her breath wedged in her throat. The look in his eyes was a sensual threat and an exciting promise.
“It may shock you, my red-haired Scots witch,” Travis drawled, “but I’ve wanted to do this since I carried you off that rock, and I’m damned if I’m going to wait any longer.”
Breath held, Cat watched as he kissed her thighs and belly and nibbled along the edges of the dark mahogany triangle that shielded her soft core. Deliberately he nuzzled through the warm thatch. Then his mouth opened and heat shot through her.
Whatever shock she might have felt at the love play didn’t survive the first wave of pleasure that swept over her. When the second wave hit she made a choked sound and gave in to the subtle pressure of Travis’s hands separating her thighs. With a rippling breath of surprise and pleasure she opened herself to his intimate kiss.
Travis rewarded her with a hot, hungry caress that made her cry aloud. The changing pressure and texture of his lips, his tongue, his teeth, moved over her slowly, completely.
Cat tried to say his name, to tell him the exquisite pleasure he was giving her, but she had no words, only her body twisting and melting, her voice crying with need of him.
When she thought she could bear it no longer he came to her in a rush of power, filling her, answering her with his own elemental need until neither of them knew who gave and who took, for giving and taking couldn’t be separated from the ecstasy that consumed their interlocked bodies.
When Cat woke up, she was still in Travis’s bed. The light of another beautiful day was flooding the room.
And she was alone.
“Travis?”
No answer came.
With a feeling of unease, Cat sat up, looking for a clock. She found one, but couldn’t read the time. As though Travis had known that her first thought would be of time, he had taped a note across the face of the clock.
Gone sailing.
I wanted to take you with me.
TWELVE
THE WIND Warrior flew before the southern storm like the great ocean bird she was. Normally the crew would have enjoyed the chance to try their ship under a clean, strong wind, but not much about the past five days had been normal.
Nothing pleased the captain. Not the new sail designs, not the wind, not the clever rigging he had designed to go with the sails, nothing. Travis stalked the decks like a caged cat, snarling at anyone careless enough to get within reach.
“We will outrun the rest of the tropical storm before we get to Laguna,” Diego said.
Travis grunted.
“The new sails have performed well,” Diego said. “Only a ship as strong and well made as this could carry so much wind.”
Travis grunted.
“The crew has learned quickly how to manipulate the new rigging,” Diego added. “Don’t you think?”
Travis grunted.
“Your conversation, my captain, leaves much to be desired.”
Travis caught himself before he grunted again. Overhead, the sails quivered with wind, filled to the point of groaning. The ocean parted with a long, continuous hiss around the bow of the ship. The slant of the deck and the creak of rigging told of a ship doing what it had been designed to do, skimming powerfully over the timeless face of the sea.
The captain had absolutely nothing to complain about.
With a muttered curse, Travis raked a handful of fingers through his windblown hair and faced the dark eyes of his first mate.
“The men have done very well,” Travis said evenly.
“They would like to hear it from you.”
“What am I, a cheerleader?”
Diego winced.
“Hell,” Travis muttered. “I’ll tell them at mess tonight.”
“Thank you.”
Travis had the grace to look uncomfortable. “No thanks needed. The men have done a fine job.”
“They would not have dared to do less,” Diego said dryly. “Their captain is, as they say, on a rip.”
Travis’s lips twitched in a smile. “That bad?”
“Sí. That good, too. We have done two weeks of work in less than five days and we are on our way back to harbor where beautiful women wait. No one is complaining about that!”
Travis smiled rather grimly. “Only five days, huh?”
“Less.”
“Seemed more like five weeks.”
“Next time bring your red-haired woman along. Then time will run at its usual pace.”
Travis gave his first mate a look.
Diego held up his hands in surrender. “Jurgen wins the pool, I see.”
“What pool?”
“The one trying to guess what put you out of temper and what it will take to bring you back to your normal, smiling self.”
“Normal? Smiling? In their dreams,” Travis retorted.
“I am shocked, Captain. Simply shocked. You are a man of most even disposition.” But Diego’s wry smile said just the opposite. “The men are proud to work under a captain who demands their best. The only time they
grumble is when their best is not appreciated.”
“I know how they feel,” Travis said, thinking of Cat, who had turned down a few days at sea with him as though the days they had shared ashore were . . . nothing.
Anger shot through him again, the same anger that came every time he thought of how much he had enjoyed Cat and how little she must have enjoyed him.
Cat, witch, woman, sail with me, just two days, Catalina Island and back. You can spare two days for me, for yourself, for us.
Travis had never expected to be reduced to begging for a woman’s company. But to be on his knees and still end up sailing alone baffled him as much as it infuriated him.
Next time he wouldn’t be put off by Cat’s protests about too much work, too many responsibilities, and all the rest of the excuses. Next time he would do what he should have done five days ago. He would put their relationship on the only kind of footing that was reliable, predictable, and comfortable. Money, pure and simple.
Part of Travis wondered what Cat’s price would be. Most of him didn’t care. Money had to be good for something.
Dr. Stone studied the results of Cat’s most recent blood tests and sighed. Over the rim of her reading glasses, she glared at her patient.
“Your red cell count is too low,” the doctor said flatly. “You’re strong, but you haven’t learned the working woman’s truth: You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”
Cat grimaced. “I’m not crazy. I know I can’t do everything.”
The doctor’s smile took years off her age. “But do you practice what you know?”
Cat looked at her hands and said nothing. In the five days Travis had been gone, she had worked herself mercilessly. She spent the long hours of darkness choosing images for her Swift and Sons show, sorting and resorting slides until her eyes refused to focus on the dancing colors.
Only then did she go to bed. If sleep wouldn’t come or didn’t continue until dawn, she got up in darkness and began the endless round of bookkeeping that went with running her own business.
When dawn finally came she looked out over the ocean and remembered . . . and tried not to ask herself why she had thought Travis was different, why even now her body longed for him, why the sound of his laughter haunted her sleepless hours, why she could not forget the first time he had held her and taught her that peace as well as pleasure could flow between a man and a woman.