Charlie's Dad. Alexandra Scott
of the dark beard, looking up through half-closed eyes. ‘Of course you know the mermaid is really the manatee—the sea cow.’ A heavy sigh. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered.’
‘Mmm.’ His voice was drowsy as he pulled her closer to the curve of his body. ‘The sailors were at sea a long time in those days, but, yes. You are meant to be flattered. I was talking about the mermaid of legend, the siren. That’s what you reminded me of. You seem to treat the ocean like your natural element. But your skin...’ He slid his palm the length of her back, his touch so sensitive it seemed every nerve-ending in her body responded. ‘Your skin is like silk, and your hair...’ His voice deepened to one of self-parody. ‘Your hair is like gold moidores.’
She was more than ready to join in the joke, even if it was at her own expense, and her lips barely touched his, parted in a tiny giggle. ‘The only ones you seem likely to encounter on this expedition. And even they are fake.’
‘What?’ Soporific and relaxed in the afternoon shade, with the sound of surf crashing on the distant reef and, closer, the soft, soft lap of waves on the shore all enhancing the feel of enchantment, he put his mouth on hers and murmured the drowsy question. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
She had not regretted having her long hair cropped before leaving Sydney, but the impulse which had prompted the colour change had been less successful. The pale gold did nothing for her, while sunshine and salt water on top of bleach was causing havoc. ‘It means I’m all illusion, unreal.’
‘Well, I really never believed in mermaids.’
While you, she assured herself in dreamy satisfaction, are the one I always believed was waiting out there for me. Somewhere. And now I’ve found you I mean never to let you go. With a sigh she rested her head against his chest, rubbing the warm skin, the brush of his silky hair a new and ridiculously exciting experience. ‘Have you ever been to Australia, Ben?’
‘No, I never have.’ He mocked her faint accent. ‘But I promise, it’s now top of my list of places I mean to visit.’
For a moment she detached herself, brushing some sand from the rush mat. ‘What are you planning to do when you leave here?’ Having been told that he and another member of the group had sailed down from Florida, she was toying with the suggestion that he might follow her to England. But they had known each other only a matter of days and he was bound to see her as trying to rush him into some kind of permanent relationship. She would do nothing to jeopardise the fragile budding attraction, and besides, she sensed something, a reticence which was hard to understand.
‘We’ve been planning to take her—’ he nodded vaguely in the direction of the yacht, which could just be glimpsed round the headland ‘—through the canal and into the Pacific. We have permission to spend some time on the Galapagos Islands collecting scientific data, then back up the West Coast and home.’ Gazing down, he traced the outline of her mouth with his forefinger. ‘One of my ambitions is to take her on a solo round-the-world, but this time Dan is coming with me. The solo will have to wait. Have you done any sailing, Helen?’
‘Not really.’ Regretfully she shook her head. ‘In fact, not at all. In the diving club we always used power boats—much more practical than sail.’
‘But much less romantic. But, look, why don’t I take you out now, so you can have a look round? You might find you would want to persuade me that solo was not such a wonderful idea.’
When he pulled her to her feet and stood there, the narrowed eyes and that half-smile challenging her, she found herself hanging onto every ounce of self-control. With a rueful expression and with fingernails pressing hard into her palms she shrugged casually. ‘I might. But I very much doubt it. But, since you’re so keen to show off your toy...’
The rest of that lazy afternoon they spent diving from the deck of the small sleek yacht into the shimmering clear water, and when the sun began to dip below the horizon they settled on towels spread on the deck, deliciously idle, occasionally sipping ice-cold drinks, watching as the ocean gleamed with every fiery colour in the spectrum.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Ben, perched on one elbow reached out to touch the back of her hand, stirring fine sensitive hairs and a thousand barely controlled emotions. ‘You ready to come beachcombing with me?’
‘Mmm.’ Impossible for her to speak when she was fighting to understand why that particular touch... light as a moth’s wing... should... Yes. She wanted to yell aloud. Yes, please. But she knew enough to recognise a rhetorical question when she met it, and had no wish to embarrass him. Or herself. How devastating if she were to agree then have him back off. Besides, for this moment it was enough to be with him as she was now. And to know that if he showed the least sign of wanting to go further, there would be no holding back.
As if sensing her feelings, he leaned over then and touched his mouth to hers, murmuring her name in a tone of such frustrated longing that she had no further thought of restraint. Her lips parted for him, hands twisting in his hair as she pulled his weight down.
‘Helen, you’ve no idea...’ His voice was low and hurried, and for the first time she was aware of sexual power. ‘You’ve no idea how I feel.’
At that she allowed herself a faint smile, and watched through half-closed eyes as she passed fingertips over the warm contours of his torso. Her voice was consciously sultry. ‘What makes you think I don’t know?’
‘You know where this is going to lead?’ His dark eyes had a heady, slumbrous look, and their entwined bodies were dark-gilded by the setting sun.
‘Mmm. What is there to stop us?’ Her heart was hammering against her chest. Or was it his?
‘Is it all right?’ The significance of that query occurred to her much later, but she knew that even fully aware her answer would have been the same.
Begrudging every inch that separated them, she reached up, biting gently but with fierce impatience on his lower lip. ‘Everything will be all right, if only...’ And in an attack of sudden modesty she murmured against his ear.
And he laughed. A deep, growly sound which resonated in his chest, primitive and satisfying in a way she could not describe and which she could never forget.
It was hard, at this distance, to understand how they had been able to keep their affair from the others during the next few days. Possibly because they had been similarly preoccupied, and it had not occurred to either Helen or Ben to flaunt what they’d felt for each other. Or at least what she’d felt. Time seemed to prove that for Ben Congreve it had been little more than a holiday romance, passionate and exciting while it lasted, a very enjoyable interlude, but one that was easily forgotten once he sailed off to another continent. To another life—where he had a fiancée waiting, the preacher booked and the wedding gown ordered.
But of course she had known nothing of those when he had first made gentle and skilful love to her, nor on the subsequent nights, when things had grown still more intense and passionate. And even if she had known, she was uncertain the knowledge would have been a deterrent.
It had been a long time before she was able to admit as much—after she had passed through periods of desolation and anguish. Only then was she honest enough to admit that nothing would have kept her from him. And in one way at least she had never regretted it. Oh, for heaven’s sake, why be coy? There was no way she regretted what had been the definitive experience of her life.
But that was not to say she hadn’t been deeply wounded when, one evening after he had sailed off, after all his promises, she’d overheard the casual conversation between two of the American girls who had known him well.
‘Yeah.’ The tall blonde straightened up from the bowl where she was scrubbing at the deposits on some old pottery lids. ‘In the fall, I understand. They have known each other for ever and Ben’s parents are delighted with the engagement. She’s a year or two younger—about twenty-three or four—and filthy rich, of course. But those are the circles they move in, so I imagine...’
Unwilling to hear any more, Helen walked