Penthouse Suite by Sandra Chastain Page B

around. The clothes were definitely gone. He laughed. “Well, it looks as if we’ve gone back to nature in the most basic way.”
    “Not on your life, Robinson Crusoe. To the boat!” Kate started into the water.
    Max groaned in exaggerated remorse. “Shucks! And I was looking forward to dressing ourselves in fig leaves.”
    Inside the cramped cabin, Kate tried to avoid touching Max as she rummaged around for replacement garments. She took the swimsuit he offered her and fastened the top around her neck.
    “Ahhhh!” He groaned as if he were in deep pain.
    “What’s wrong?” Kate turned in alarm.
    “I seem to have a problem, Kate.”
    Kate glanced down at his hands, the hands that were trying to force a very small spandex swimsuit over a body that was refusing to cooperate.
    “It won’t fit, Kate. You’ve ruined me forever. I may never be able to wear clothes again. I’ll have to stay indoors, wear raincoats, and take cold showers.”
    Kate was trembling all over. For the first time in her life she couldn’t think. As he took her into his arms, she moaned. His lips brushed over her still-swollen breasts. His unexpected arousal pushed against her, making her mindless with need. She suddenly realized they were on the small bunk.He was kissing her, touching her, entering her once again. She gave herself over to sensation, knowing that she might never experience the wonder of such a happening again.
    They dressed silently afterward, each stunned by the intensity of their coming together. Max pulled her back into the water, and they played at washing each other until they were clean and the sense of awkwardness between them was gone.
    “Come with me, woman. I’m going to cover you with lotion.” He led her back under the edge of a stand of tall majestic pines, where he had spread the blanket beside the plastic cooler.
    “Sure,” she said, and laughed, no longer trying to separate herself from the island god she’d conjured up in her most erotic daydream. “Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.” She lay down on her stomach and folded her arms beneath her forehead. “Okay, have at it, Frankie,” she said. “Surf’s up.”
    “Frankie Avalon? Kate, don’t you watch any current programs on television?”
    Max poured sunscreen into his palm and began to rub it across her back.
    “There was a time when I didn’t. But I don’t watch television now. There are too many things I haven’t done yet. That’s why I don’t understand a man who knows exactly where he’s going. I’d rather be surprised. Tell the truth now, wouldn’t you?”
    “Surprised? I’d say that my life has taken on a definite quality of the unknown. Just look at me. I’m out here on a deserted island in the middle of the afternoon without a care in the world. You’re a very special lady, Kate.”
    “Nothing special about me, Max. I’m pretty ordinary,except for what I do for a living. And if I were a man, I’d be even duller.”
    “I don’t want to talk about work, Kate. I want to know about you. Tell me about your family.”
    Kate took a deep breath. “Okay, bossman. Here it is. I never knew my father. He came from a wealthy family. My mother got pregnant. He hit the road. I was born. She went back home, settled down and became the best waitress at Sam’s Diner in Pikeville, Kentucky. There wasn’t a lot to do in Pikeville then, and not much more now. It’s just normal, small-town America.”
    “Why didn’t you leave?”
    “I planned to. I’d just graduated from high school and enrolled in junior college when we found out that my mother had cancer. I had to go to work. We needed the money. Then came her surgery, chemotherapy, the works.”
    His hands had left her back and were working their way down her thighs. Her skin was beginning to be very warm, and she wasn’t at all sure that the heat was coming from the sun. She forced herself to continue. As long as she was thinking about her mother, she couldn’t think about