Free Hours to Cherish by Heather Graham

clutching his shoulders.
    Suddenly he drew away from her, taking his wonderful pulsing life away. “Please,” Cat gasped with confusion, but she felt his hands and lips covering her again, finding, seeking intimate spots that were now easy access. She hadn’t the power to protest, not that he would have allowed her quarter anyway. And then she was begging, and wondering how she had ever thought this anything but rapture.
    He filled her again, a passionate drive that was but an answer to her mad twists and pleas. Her need had become voracious, his hunger something she could appease. She learned what it was to float, to soar, to forget everything but the moment of wild magic. A moment that culminated in staggering ecstasy held her spellbound even as the feelings sweetly ebbed to contentment. It left her feeling exhausted but shiveringly pleased with the dual explosions that shook her body and yet suddenly unable to face the man beside her.
    He was watching her. She forced her eyes to his. He was studying her, his dark eyes intently enigmatic.
    “I’d better get you home” was all he said. But his hand touched her cheek once more, lightly tracing her body from throat to abdomen.
    Then he was gone, striding from the cabin, oblivious to his nakedness. Why should he worry, Cat wondered, he must know he has the body of a Greek god.
    She bit her lip then. Was this it? This feeling so intense it eradicated all others, and then the absolute misery of feeling bereft? She shivered, closed her eyes. God, how she adored him. …
    She finally managed to stand, swaying dizzily for a moment as she realized how achy she was. She kept her eyes from the sheet, and winced slightly as she returned to the deck, feeling naked and awkward.
    He stopped her as she reached for her sea-soaked dress, pulling her back into his arms for a brief moment. “You are beautiful, Cat. Simply stunning.” He smiled at her for a moment, brushing damp tendrils of hair from her face. “I wanted to make it good for you,” he said softly.
    She blushed. Surely he was well aware from her shameless moans and whimperings that it had become wonderful beyond description.
    He kissed her lips, gently, then both her breasts. “I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Cat,” he murmured, and then he was helping her replace her clothing.
    Alone in her room that night she had tossed and turned, burning with the memory her body wouldn’t allow her to forget. She alternated between joy and fear. She would die, surely die, if she didn’t see him again, and again. … And he hadn’t really wanted her. He had tried to stay away from her.
    But the next morning her fears were dissolved. Her father informed her that Clay had been in at the break of dawn to ask Jason’s approval for an immediate wedding. No bride was ever more ecstatic, more beautiful, more passionately in love.
    But although the ardor of the physical side of their relationship increased—and Cat rapturously learned that her husband was as enamored of her sensuality as she was of his—the very temperaments that had brought them together drove them apart.
    Clay wanted no interference in his life. He spent hours with Cat’s father; he spent hours pursuing the sea himself. And he was, as always, appealing to other women
    And then came the day when Cat overheard a conversation between two women of the lodge staff.
    “The girl’s beautiful … surely he couldn’t have married her only because of Windemere’s wishes—and sea charts.”
    “Well if he did,” came the other woman’s chuckle, “he’ll wind up sorry. He’s in for a lot more than he bargained for. She’s known as the Temptress of the Isles throughout half the Caribbean and Gulf. An independent and feisty lady, our Miss Cat.”
    It was that same night that Clay told her he would be leaving on a salvage trip. And unfortunately, he happened to be leaving with his two financiers—a brother-and-sister team—and the sister, it seemed, had little