5
" Aren’t you going to ask me what kind of boat I own?” he asked.
“Sure. What kind of boat do you own?”
“A sailboat.”
“That’s nice. The coals are ready. I’ll just dab some herb butter on the swordfish and we’ll be eating in no time.”
Travis shook his head at Cat’s lack of interest in the possibilities of sailing with him.
“Are you sure you like sailing?” he asked.
“I love the ocean,” Cat said as she spread a sheen of butter over the swordfish. “I don’t know beans about rag sailing. So if you’re one of those avid sailors who expects me to care about sloops and catamarans and jibs and the six thousand boring shapes of canvas you can hang from masts, you’re going to be one disappointed puppy.”
Travis smiled ruefully. “I learned a long time ago that my love of wind, sail, and water isn’t something most people give a damn about.”
“Like me and photography. I could go on for hours about light and texture, shape and weight and shadow and—Get the door for me, would you?”
He opened the door and followed Cat out to the back deck. Her hands were full of fresh swordfish. His eyes approved her unconscious grace as she bent over the grill.
“But I’m more than willing to listen to you talk about wind and all,” she said without looking up. “I’ll even make soothing noises, as long as there isn’t a pop quiz at the end.”
He laughed out loud. “Some other night, maybe. I won’t ask that much of a sacrifice on our first date. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
7
" You’re awfully quiet,” Travis said, glancing up from the road. “Are you falling asleep on me?”
“Not yet.” Cat swallowed a yawn. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“This and that. Mostly that.”
Travis smiled. “Sounds important.”
Cat gave up and yawned openly. “Nope. You’ve unraveled my brain.”
He changed lanes to pass a huge motor home that belonged on the multilane interstate highway, not on Laguna’s crowded street.
She enjoyed watching him control the car with ease and precision. When he downshifted, sunlight ran like gold water over the tawny hair on his arm. As he transferred his grip from gearshift to steering wheel, the tendons on the back of his hand moved beneath tanned skin. His fingers closed firmly over the leather-sheathed wheel.
Cat remembered the intense pleasure Travis could give to her with a simple caress. Sudden, stark need coursed through her, leaving her shaken. She wanted to touch him, taste him, take him so deeply into her body that she could feel every wild pulse of his release.
“If you keep looking at me like that,” Travis said, “I’m going to pull over to the side of the road and do things to you that will get us arrested.”
His husky drawl did nothing to cool Cat’s blood. She looked away from his knowing hands to his lips smiling beneath his tawny mustache. She remembered the feel of his beard sliding down her skin, the exciting silky roughness against her neck, her breasts, her stomach. She wondered what it would be like to feel him . . . everywhere.
With a small groan Cat closed her eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I’ll pull over so we can find out.”
“Not a good idea.”
“Chicken.”
“Cluck cluck. I can’t afford bail.”
“I can.”
“They’ll put us in separate cells.”
“Damn. I didn’t think of that. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
8
" Go back up on deck,” he said huskily.
“Why?” Cat asked, her voice as dazed as her eyes.
“If you don’t, I’ll take off your clothes and taste every bit of you until you’re hot and wet and crying for me with every breath you take.”
Hunger shook Cat, a need to equal his.
Travis saw it. The certainty of her welcome was a fire in his veins.
“The hell with it,” he muttered, reaching blindly behind him for the door. “I’ll just have to keep my head enough to muffle your screams.”
But before he could find the door, Diego was calling to him.
“Captain? Are you still belowdeck?”
The sound of footsteps descending the ladder was very distinct. Travis swore softly and spun around with his back to Cat. His body blocked the doorway, concealing her flushed face and misty, hungry eyes from Diego.
“What is it?” Travis asked curtly.
Diego stopped just outside the open cabin door and looked at Travis a bit warily. “Some official wants to know how much longer we’ll be anchored here.”
“Does it matter?”
Diego grinned. “Not to me. I think the man just wants a guided tour of the Wind Warrior.”
“So give it to him.”
“When?”
“For the love of God,” Travis snarled. “Now, Diego! Give it to him now!”
“Si, Captain. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
9
" 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?”
“Si. 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. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
12
" Cat worked tirelessly, absorbed in the subtle changes of light and texture and composition. She darted around Travis like a fire, taking photos of the captain and his ship from various angles.
Travis didn’t interfere or require her conversation. He could sense the excitement of creation flooding through her as clearly as he felt it in himself when elusive details of hull design would condense in his mind.
Smiling, he watched his lover, enjoying her intense concentration on her work. She handled cameras and lenses with the same total familiarity he handled wind and sail. When her determination to catch the sunlight on the rigging made her forget he was alive, he sat cross-legged on the deck and began splicing rope, not at all upset at being ignored.
When Cat realized that Travis wasn’t nearby anymore, she lowered her camera and looked around for him. She found him halfway back on the deck, sitting in a pool of sunlight. His head was bent over some task. Sun glinted over his tawny hair like a miser running fingers through gold.
Her heart hesitated, then beat with redoubled strength. She set aside her camera and went to Travis. Without a word she took the rope out of his hands and started pulling off his T-shirt.
“What are you doing?” he asked, surprised.
“Taking off your shirt.”
He blinked, then relaxed beneath Cat’s hands with a pirate’s smile of anticipation. She smiled in return, the serene smile of a sorceress, and threw his T-shirt aside. Then she put rope back into the hands that were reaching for her and picked up her camera once more.
“Come back here and finish what you started,” Travis said.
“I’m finished.
“What about my pants?”
“They make a nice contrast with the deck.”
“Well, damn.”
Disappointed, Travis made a face at the camera, then resumed splicing rope. Cat photographed him as he worked, seated like a god in the center of a golden cataract of light. He watched her with intense, blue-green eyes, measuring her progress around him while she climbed the rigging and the sailing in search of a perfect angle.
At one point she miscalculated. He came to his feet in a single motion and snatched her off her perch before she could fall. She laughed and let herself slide down his body, her hands savoring his supple, sun-warmed skin. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
14
" If Jason loses this in the surf," Travis said, touching the little sailing ship, "I'll make another one for him."
"The surf! Over my dead body! This little beauty is going inside a glass bottle just as soon as I can figure out how to squeeze it past the neck."
Laughing, Travis eased his fingers into Cat's soft, autumn-colored hair. The scent of lemon shampoo and the warmth in her eyes intoxicated him.
"It doesn't work that way," he said, caressing her scalp.
"You sure?"
"Uh-huh. Trust me."
Cat smiled slowly at Travis, remembering just how exquisite it was to trust her body to his keeping . . . and to take his in return.
"You keep looking at me like that," he said in a deep voice, "and Jason will find us on the kitchen table. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
16
" Where is everyone?” Cat asked, looking around the deserted ship.
“Shore leave,” he said laconically.
“What about us?”
“If it’s urgent, we’ll just have to swim.”
Cat yawned and stretched languidly, feeling boneless from Travis’s loving and a long, wonderful nap. “Swim? Ha. I’d go down like a brick. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
Travis tilted her face up and kissed her swiftly. “Remember that, witch. You’re mine.”
Her eyes widened into misty silver pools. She looked up at him through dense lashes that glinted red and gold.
He smiled.
“You really are a pirate, aren’t you?” Cat muttered.
“Where you’re concerned, yes.”
The sensual rasp in Travis’s voice sent echoes of ecstasy shimmering through her. His smile was rakish and utterly male, reminding her of what it was like to have him deep inside her.
It was all Cat could do not to simply stand and stare at her lover. In the slanting afternoon light his eyes had a jewel-like purity of color. His skin was taught, deeply bronzed, and his beard was spun from dark gold. Beneath his faded black T-shirt and casual shorts, his body radiated ease and power.
“Don’t move,” Cat ordered, heading back to the cabin.
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t move!”
She raced below deck, grabbed the two camera cases she used most often, and ran back on deck. While Travis watched her with a lazy, sexy gleam in his eyes, she pulled out a camera and a small telephoto lens. When she retreated a few feet back along the deck, he moved as though to follow.
“No,” she said. “Stay right where you are. You’re perfect.”
“Cat,” he said, amusement curling in his voice, “what are you doing?”
“Taking pictures of an off-duty buccaneer.”
The motor drive surged quickly, pulling frame after frame of film through the camera.
“You’re supposed to be taking pictures of the Wind Warrior,” Travis pointed out.
“I am. You’re part of the ship. The most important part. Creator, owner, soul.”
She caught the sudden intensity of his expression, an elemental recognition of her words. The motor drive whirred in response to her command. After a few more frames she lowered the camera and walked back to him.
“Get used to looking into a camera lens.” Cat warned Travis. “I’ve been itching to photograph you since the first time I looked into those gorgeous, sea-colored eyes of yours.”
Laughing softly, he snaked one arm around her and pulled her snugly against his side. "
― Elizabeth Lowell , To the Ends of the Earth
