Page 10 of Poison Evidence

His voice was a low rumble against her ear, deep and masculine. She closed her eyes and could see the fight in her mind, the brutal beauty of it.

Jack Keaton was nothing like Patrick. Nothing like any man she’d ever dated. That was probably why he’d managed to wake a part of her she’d been certain was dead.

“You falling asleep on me, Ivy?”

She opened her eyes and met his gaze. His mouth was just above hers. She could so easily kiss him. “Maybe.” She dropped her gaze and took a sip of the drink she held loosely in one hand. She smiled into the glass. “This is delicious.” She pushed away from his side and sat straight. “I needed this. Thank you.”

“I needed it too.” He rolled his shoulders. “The adrenaline after a fight like that… I needed to come down.”

She gazed up at the starry sky to avoid seeing the blood on his shirt. His swollen knuckles. The darkening bruise by his right eye. They were quite a pair, battered as they were and sitting on a boat a mere seven degrees above the equator.

It was a sultry, beautiful, clear night, and the stars were a map across the sky. Grandpa Cam had taught her how to navigate by the stars when she was in elementary school. For many years, she’d believed she’d study astrophysics and still harbored a crush on Neil deGrasse Tyson. But then the siren call of GIS and Lidar had caught her at the age of seventeen and she’d gone into the family business after all.

The star map here was so very different from the sky in DC, but the North Star was still there, sitting on the horizon, barely visible above a finger of Babeldaob Island that jutted into the Pacific to the north. She had her compass. Her bearing.

She took another sip of the fruity drink. As long as she had north, she could find her way.

The night had been a trial, but north remained true. She finished her drink and stood. “I think I’m ready for that shower now.”

He followed her down the ladder and reset the security system while she filled her glass with water in the galley. In spite of the humid night, her throat was dry, and she downed the liquid in one long drink, then set the rubber-based container on the counter and stared out the window, seeing nothing, not even her reflection on the glass, as exhaustion won at last.

Sounds behind her told her that Jack had entered the room, but she was frozen in place, unable to even pour a glass of water for him.

An arm slid along her waist, and she felt his warm chest at her back. “C’mon, Poison. You need your shower.”

She smiled instead of protesting the silly, obvious nickname. Only fair that he’d dubbed her Poison when she’d been mentally calling him Death Valley for days.

He was right about the shower. Her skin itched with dried mud, and her back ached where the machete had struck her.

“I’d blame the vodka, but I’m not usually such a lightweight.”

“Adrenaline crash. I expected this twenty minutes ago. The fruit juice bought you time.”

She leaned against him, looking up. He was taller than her by at least five inches, which she found comforting in her exhausted state. She remembered the feel of his smooth skin against hers when he’d kissed her, and she reached up and stroked his jaw.

Too bad that kiss hadn’t been real. He was good at it, and she could use a kiss right now. That fake kiss was her first since the divorce. She missed kissing.

She missed sex too, she realized. That was new. She hadn’t really missed it before. Aloud, she said, “The mud itches.” She wasn’t so far gone she lacked a verbal filter.

He nodded and steered her across the galley to the head next to her stateroom. He released her and lifted the hatch in the floor to open the shower drain and pulled the curtain that would prevent the spray from hitting the toilet and the counter, then he turned on the water, leaving his hand in the spray to check the temperature.

The silk adhered to her skin, glued by the dried muck. She tried to reach the zipper at her back, but her arm was sore. The blow from the machete. She closed her eyes against the memory. “I can’t…I can’t get my dress off.”

He nudged her into the tiny shower stall, dress and all. The dress was beyond ruined anyway. She relaxed into the hot spray. The water felt heavenly on her skin, washing away the slime and smell. Mangroves might be vital habitat, but they stank to high heaven.

Jack slipped off his shoes and emptied his pockets, removing the gun and cell phone. He then stepped into the shower with her and pulled the door closed.

He took the massage showerhead from the cradle and sprayed her down, gently washing away the mud glue. She closed her eyes, enjoying his tender touch combined with the spray. The shower was so small, her body pressed to his even as he washed her.

He replaced the wand, then unzipped the back of her dress. He spread the split wide, then let out a low grunt. “I should have hunted them down.”

She must have quite a welt across her spine.

His touch was gentle as he probed the mark with his fingers. She opened her eyes and saw his arms planted on either side of her on the wall. Not his fingers, then.

His lips. He caressed her abused skin so gently with his mouth, heat unfurled in her belly.

Exhaustion left her as adrenaline surged anew. Her body woke with the feel of his soft lips.

---