‘She’d like you.’
Blue eyes danced. ‘Doesn’t she usually like your boyfriends?’
She sent him an old-fashioned look. ‘If you’re asking me if I have one, the answer is no.’ She had a fleeting thought for Eliot, but dismissed it.
‘Good,’ he pronounced gruffly, and her heart flipped over. Almost in the same instant she yawned, and Hunter looked at his watch. ‘Do you realise it’s gone one o’clock? I’d better get you back to the hotel. You need your beauty sleep,’ he declared, releasing her hand only to come round and help her to her feet, handing her her purse and draping her shawl about her shoulders.
‘Funny, but I don’t feel in the least bit tired,’ Reba pronounced, and immediately yawned again.
Hunter helped her down to the jetty with a laugh. ‘Something tells me Maurice won’t be pleased if you end up with bags under your eyes. I don’t want him deciding to use another boat. Then I’ll hardly get to see you.’ He slipped his arm round her shoulders and urged her towards the shore.
Reba decided she had never felt so secure. ‘Do you want to see me again?’ she asked, half teasing, half serious.
‘Only all the time,’ Hunter admitted wryly, and prompted a confession which had been bubbling inside her all day.
‘You’ll think it’s crazy, but I feel as if I’ve known you all my life.’
Hunter came to a halt, raising her chin with his hand so that their eyes met. ‘It’s not crazy, Reba. I feel the same. The minute I saw you, I knew you were different,’ he said, and brought his mouth down to cover hers.
It was a gentle kiss, offering much in its infinite tenderness. It was a promise of things to come, a seal on words unspoken. It took her heart away, and returned it to her irrevocably altered.
He released her with a shaken sigh. ‘This is uncanny. This morning I was a normal, level-headed man. Now I don’t seem to know which way is up any more.’
Oh, she knew just how he felt. Nothing had prepared her for this. Nothing ever could. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Hell, no! I’ve waited all my life for you; I’m not going to run away now.’
Her heart seemed to swell in her chest. It didn’t matter that they had only just met. Something that was destined to be could take five minutes or fifty years, but it would happen. She knew in her soul that they had been meant to meet.
Hunter left her at the hotel entrance, driving her there in a beat-up Jeep which had been parked behind one of the waterfront bars. Not wanting the evening to be over, Reba turned to him just as he was reaching for her, and this time the kiss was different. It sought a response to a passion held in check. Tasting her, learning her, he took her breath away and sent her blood pulsing through her veins. That unspoken awareness which had been between them all evening came to the surface at last, and she gasped, feeling nerve-ends come alive which she hadn’t even known existed. There was no way of not returning the kiss, and no way of hiding her groan of dismay when it ended all too soon.
Hunter’s breathing was ragged too, as he ran a finger over her tingling lips. ‘Momma should have told me it could be like this,’ he said huskily on a broken laugh, breaking the nerve-twisting tension, and Reba sighed, relaxing.
‘Do you realise you haven’t asked me about my girlfriends?’
Somehow the thought didn’t worry her. ‘How many have you had?’
His chuckle did wonderful things to her pulse-rate. ‘Plenty—in the past. Now there’s only you, and I want you all to myself. Do you mind?’ Hunter sounded possessive, and it sent a thrill along her spine.
‘No.’ She didn’t want to share him either. She wanted to be alone with him, close to him. A minute without him would seem a minute wasted.
‘Don’t leave with the others tomorrow. Stay aboard, and we’ll sail up the coast. What do you say?’
She smiled. ‘Yes.’
Hunter groaned. ‘The way you say that! It’s going to be a hell of a long day.’
Laughing, she climbed down from the vehicle. It would be a long day, but eventually it would be over, and then there would be just the two of them. She liked the sound of that. Liked it very much indeed.
They were both right; it did seem to take forever, but finally, after a successful day’s filming, the crew and the models were packed up and ready to leave. Reba had wished them gone a thousand times, because she hadn’t been able to speak to Hunter above twice all day. Every hour the need had grown inside her to be near to him, to touch him. She’d never really understood why couples felt they had to be glued together, but now she knew. It was a compulsive need to make contact, even if that simply meant holding hands.
‘They’re gone,’ Hunter declared from behind her, and she spun round, not having heard him come down to the cabin which they had been using as a changing-room.
A lump constricted her throat as she finally came face to face with him. There was a glitter in his eyes, and a teasing curve to his lips which made her heart flip. ‘I thought they’d never go!’ she exclaimed, wanting to go to him, yet strangely held back. She didn’t realise how vulnerable she looked in jeans and T-shirt, with her face free of make-up.
‘Come and kiss me, Reba, before I go quietly insane,’ he ordered huskily, and she knew then that he had suffered as much as she had.
She positively flew across the room and into his arms. All day she had been longing for his kiss and, from the hunger in his own lips which fused with hers, she knew she hadn’t been alone. Lord, she hadn’t imagined it, this tingling pleasure that sent pulses to every corner of her body, bringing it alive as never before. He was holding her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe, but it was wonderful.
Hunter reluctantly lifted his head before they suffocated. ‘I needed that,’ he groaned feelingly, and his fingers curled into her hair, bringing her head down on to his shoulder.
She could hear his heart thudding wildly, and revelled in it. ‘I missed you.’
He laughed. ‘God, this is crazy. We’re behaving like a couple of teenagers!’
Reba laughed with him, a bubbling sound, feeling almost drunk with happiness. ‘You know something? I don’t care.’
‘Neither do I. Come on, let’s get under way.’
They worked together as if they had always been a team. Reba didn’t need to be told what to do, jumping to each task with pleasure. It was hard work, but she enjoyed every aspect of sailing, even the most mundane job. When the sails were set and they were skimming along, leaving a creamy wake behind them, she joined Hunter at the wheel, slipping her arm through his.
He bent and pressed a kiss to her wind-blown hair. ‘You look at home here.’
It felt like the greatest compliment, coming from a man who seemed at one with the craft and the sea. ‘I love sailing, but I’ve never sailed a yacht as lovely as this. She handles beautifully—it makes me itch to have a go.’
He grinned, stepping back. ‘Then she’s all yours.’
With a cry of alarm, Reba sprang for the wheel, bringing the yacht’s nose into the wind again, watching the sail billow out. ‘That was a nasty trick!’
‘I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t trust you,’ Hunter returned, laughing. ‘Keep her on that course and try not to hit anything!’
She poked her tongue out at him, then laughed, buoyed up by his compliment. The wind tugged at her hair, and the spray caught her face, but she was on cloud nine. As far as she was concerned, they could