Heat from the fire blasted the soles of Jack’s feet, but he didn’t care. Now he understood how a person could walk over hot coals. He could do it if he thought about Gen naked. He could do anything if he thought about Gen naked, even put up with a hard-on the size of a battleship while he concentrated on this follow-up business.

Follow-up should be slow and easy. She’d told him that without saying so, by the way she was kissing him, like she was savoring an expensive dessert. So he’d kiss her the same way, and it was working out great, because he could show her without words how lucky he felt to be here. He was most definitely savoring her.

Most of all, he felt incredibly happy to know that sex with Gen, at least so far, was a big deal for him. There wasn’t a single so-so thing about it, which meant that he had as much sexual drive as the next guy, and that was a huge relief. He just needed the right motivation, and the right motivation was, at this very moment, sticking her tongue in his mouth.

And lacing her fingers through his. And guiding his hand down until something feathery tickled his knuckles. His heart boomed like cannonfire when he realized what that feathery stuff was.

Her kiss stopped for a millisecond. “More,” she whispered against his mouth. Then her tongue went to work again.

He could do more. He so could do more. Jack the Orgasm Man, that was him.

She let go of his hand, probably to see if he could manage on his own. He was up to the challenge, but still, the concept of what he was being urged to do blew his circuits. She wanted his fingers in there. He still couldn’t believe she was letting him do these things.

Somehow he got past the wonder of it all and shifted a little to the side so he had a better angle. That put his feet closer to the fire, but he didn’t care a bit. Any guy whose hand hovered over paradise while his tongue was deep in bliss couldn’t let a little thing like hot coals bother him.

He remembered how she’d liked the back-and-forth movement on her breast, so he started by brushing his hand lightly over her springy curls. She started breathing faster, so he figured he was good to go. Resting the heel of his hand just above the border of those curls, he slid his middle finger slowly down until he reached…omigod. She was juicy, plump, and furnace hot. His penis ached, his balls ached.

But she hadn’t invited him to play that game yet. She wanted follow-up.

So that’s what she’d get. What sweet torture. He added a second finger, and the deeper inside he went, the harder his penis became. She moaned. He moaned. And then he got to work, deciding that if this was the order of things for her, he’d follow it or die trying.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to work very hard. A few strokes and she threw back her head, gasping and crying out as her spasms rippled past his fingers. As she quivered in the aftershock, he supported her with one hand around her shoulders and the other buried in her center of gravity. Maybe she wanted him to stay right there. Maybe she wanted him to do it again And he would. Whatever she said, he’d do, even if his equipment ended up with permanent creases from being compacted so long.

“Take off…your pants,” she said, gulping for air. Music to his ears. Music to his penis, too. Slowly he withdrew his fingers.

“Ahhh,” she whispered, sounding regretful as she closed her eyes.

He didn’t want her to be regretful. “I can do that again.”

“I know. Maybe…later.” She sank slowly back on her heels and looked at him with glazed eyes. “I want you to stand up now and take off your pants.”

He wondered if he could stand. He was shaking pretty badly. Somehow he managed it, although the sand bit into the tender soles of his feet. He wondered if they were blistered, but he forgot all about that when she reached for his belt buckle. He wondered if she remembered what she’d said in the plane about blow jobs. He would never forget it.

She undid the buckle, worked the button loose, and started unzipping his fly. “I’ll bet you’re ready to go off like a bottle rocket,” she said.

He didn’t say anything. He was too busy trying not to go off like a bottle rocket.

“Here’s my idea.” She shoved down his pants and his penis cantilevered the soft cotton material of his Jockeys so his underwear resembled the prow of a schooner. She glanced at the display and smiled. “I need to relieve that pressure before we settle in on that towel, don’t you think?”

His response was a very unsophisticated gurgle of excitement.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Now step out of your pants.”

He started to follow her instructions and nearly fell on top of her.

She grabbed his hand and placed it on her shoulder just in time to save the day. “Brace yourself on me. Use two hands.”

Beneath his hands her shoulder bones seemed small and delicate. He hesitated to put any weight on them for fear she’d go down.

“Lean on me,” she said. “I’m stronger than I look.”

He wanted out of those pants, and his passion-clouded brain couldn’t think of alternatives, so he used her for support while he extracted his feet from the slacks. She held under his weight.

“Good.” She gazed up at him, looking directly into his eyes. “You might want to keep hold of me, to steady yourself.” Her cheeks grew pink. “It could get a mite intense.”

He nodded. Nodding was the best he could do under the current circumstances. His blood hammered in his ears and he wondered if he might pass out from excitement. There was only so much a guy could stand. But passing out would be such a lame thing to do when he was about to have the most excellent experience of his entire sexual life.

Dropping her attention to those misshapen briefs, she tugged them down in one bold move. “Bless my ever-loving soul,” she murmured. “Thumbs don’t lie.”

He didn’t understand what thumbs had to do with anything, but who cared if she made sense? Who cared if she started speaking in pig Latin? But she didn’t speak at all. Instead she wrapped both hands around his penis. She looked like a rock star holding a mike, ready to belt out that first note.

If she didn’t hurry up, it would be a very short song.

When she started playing around with quick swipes of her tongue, he gasped and clutched her shoulders, sure it was all over. But by gritting his teeth he managed to stave off a climax that might have blinded her. Ah, this was incredible. He had to make it last somehow, so he closed his eyes and started reciting the square root table in his head.

That worked until she slipped her mouth down over the tip. He had only a nanosecond to warn her. “Gen—”

She tightened her grip on the base of his penis, which staved off the inevitable a second longer. Slowly she slid her mouth free. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her breath cool on his wet skin. “Let go. I’ve got you.” Then she was back, just in time, holding him firmly in one hand, stroking his balls with her other hand.

He emptied his lungs in a roar as he emptied his come into her mouth. He saw stars, planets, the entire universe. If he hadn’t been anchored so firmly to her wonderful mouth, he would have taken flight, rising into the sky like a helium balloon.

Gradually his head stopped buzzing, but his legs were like licorice whips and even her support soon wouldn’t be enough to keep him upright. Fortunately she released him about that time, because he needed to get down on his knees before he fell.

Kneeling on the sand, he was still weaving a little as he held on to her shoulders and stared into her beautiful face, the face of a goddess. “Th-thank you.”

She smiled. “Kisses make a nice thank you, too.”

What a terrific idea. He leaned forward and touched his lips to her mouth, the very mouth that had sent him to Pluto and back. Hot damn, she tasted of sex, and what started out as a thank-you kiss turned into a wet, sloppy tongue-fest that soon had him stroking her breasts and her fondling his penis again.

In no time at all he was recharged and ready to take that South Park beach towel for a magic carpet ride. He’d never rebounded that fast, not even at seventeen. He was a stud. He was a manly man. He was Jack.

He lifted his mouth a millimeter away from hers. “Ready to unwrap one of those condoms?”

She laughed softly and squeezed his rigid penis. “I guess you’ve been saving up.”

For you, he wanted to say, but thought better of it. “You bet. Just hoping I’d be stranded on a desert island with a willing woman and a suitcase full of condoms.”

She laughed again. “Next you’ll be telling me Nick did you a favor.”

“He did.” He cupped her breast, memorizing the silken weight of it so he could have memories in his old age. “But the thing is, he meant to kill me, so I don’t think I’ll bother to thank him.” There, that was a good comeback, the kind of comeback that a guy by the name of Jack would make. “And that’s as much time as I want to waste talking about Brogan.”

* * *

Goddamn sonofabitchin’ rain! Nick Brogan huddled inside a crevice that wasn’t nearly adequate to shield him from the storm. It wasn’t bad enough that his pickup men hadn’t shown up on schedule, or that he was fucking starving to death, or that he’d lost his Ziploc bag before he could get the gun inside.

No, he also had to put up with getting rained on. He used to be dying of thirst, too, but now that was solved. He could tilt his head and open his mouth and have all he wanted to drink. Too bad it wasn’t raining Scotch.

Quenching his killer thirst was the only good thing about this damned rainstorm that had blown in without warning, totally not part of his brilliant plan. He should be well on his way to sipping Dom Pérignon instead of sucking drops of rainwater out of the sky. God knew where the idiots were who were supposed to show up hours ago.

Probably lost, wandering around clueless, the jugheads. He’d known they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer when he’d hired them. Initially that had worked to his advantage, because they’d been too stupid to ask a bunch of questions he didn’t care to answer. They didn’t even know his name and they had no idea what he was up to.

They’d seemed perfect, needing money to fix the broken radio in their boat and buy new fishing gear so they could continue to take out charters. Even the busted radio had played right into his hands, because he hadn’t wanted them to communicate with anybody during this exercise.

He hadn’t expected a lot out of them, but he’d hoped that even their midget IQs would enable them to find this beach again once he’d pointed it out. Apparently not, and from the size of the waves hitting the shore he’d bet the Coast Guard had issued a small craft warning by now. Besides being dumb as sand fleas, his pickup men were also cowards, so once they heard of a small craft warning, they’d scuttle all plans of looking for him until the weather cleared.

Whatever he’d agreed to pay them, it was too damned much. Not that he’d planned on actually giving them the money. Shooting them and dumping the bodies overboard was a hell of a lot cheaper and less risky.

Before this caper began, he’d wondered if he’d have the nerve to kill anyone, after all. Now he knew the answer. Nobody was getting between him and that those millions. Nobody.

So he’d be safer to eliminate the pickup guys from the equation. Even stupid men might end up saying the wrong thing to the right person, although that wouldn’t have been a big worry if everything had happened the way he’d envisioned. He should have been gone by now, on his way to Tokyo via a rattletrap cargo plane whose pilot wouldn’t ask bothersome questions.

Now he was late, and he wasn’t sure how to fix that little glitch. He hadn’t wanted to risk using a cell phone on this operation, for fear the signal would be picked up by somebody he didn’t want listening in. So here he was, pinned down on this lousy scrap of real estate, helpless until the brainless morons he’d hired managed to stumble upon him.

On top of all that, his gun had salt water in it now. Maybe he should use some of this blasted rain to wash out the gun. Yeah, he’d better do it, although that might screw up the chamber even more. He hadn’t anticipated this and didn’t know for sure what to do about the wet gun. They hadn’t covered that during his gun owner’s course last month.

He hated it when things didn’t go the way they were supposed to. At least the deal with the plane had come off like a dream. The only two people who knew that he wasn’t at the bottom of the ocean were dead. From that standpoint, the plan had worked to perfection. Now he just needed to get the hell out of here.

* * *

Matt made a pig of himself eating baked ham, turnip greens, and mashed sweet potatoes. He hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in forever, and besides being sexy and damned good to look at, Annabelle was a great cook. It was a bonus to the trip he hadn’t counted on, and he was looking for all the pluses he could find.

On one hand he felt guilty chowing down on the food Annabelle fixed, because she wasn’t eating much of it, but on the other hand he reasoned that it would be an insult not to enjoy her cooking. And he wasn’t alone in the glutton department. Lincoln’s appetite had come back and he seemed determined to replace everything he’d upchucked a couple of hours ago.

Matt was reasonably sure Annabelle wasn’t still seasick. No, she was simply heartsick. Lincoln might be worried, too, but he didn’t have the burden of responsibility that his mother had, and besides, it took a hell of a lot to cause a normal fourteen-year-old boy to go off his feed. Watching Lincoln eat made Matt feel better, so he could imagine how it cheered Annabelle. Some things, at least, were the same.

Lincoln reminded Matt of how he’d been at that age—a bottomless pit. Sitting next to Lincoln on the longer side of the L-shaped bench seat, Matt had a chance to observe the kid up close and personal. Under the constant scrutiny of his mother down at the end of the table, Lincoln made a real effort to mind his table manners, but he still ate like a teenage boy, wolfing his food and washing it down with milk. Matt wondered if the food remained on his tongue long enough for all the wonderful flavors to register. Probably not. But then, he might not see this meal as anything special, considering that he ate his mother’s cooking all the time.

Matt spent the meal asking the clichéd questions most adults asked kids—about school and sports. Lincoln responded with good grace, although Matt wondered if he was mentally rolling his eyes. Annabelle added a few bits of information that Lincoln might rather have kept under wraps, like the poetry contest he’d won last year and the part he’d been asked to play in the school musical. Oh, and by the way, Annabelle had said casually, Lincoln was on the honor roll.

“It’s no big whoop to be on the honor roll.” Lincoln broke into her litany. “Everybody’s on it.”

“Everybody most certainly is not,” Annabelle said. “You’re the only one of your friends who made it.”

Lincoln shrugged. “I got lucky.”

Annabelle opened her mouth as if to contradict him. Then she closed it again, glanced at Matt, and smiled. “Then you must be a mighty lucky boy,” she said.

Matt smiled back, enjoying the cozy moment in which he and Annabelle silently shared the knowledge that Lincoln was trying his hardest not to be labeled a nerd who cared about grades. Funny how this little meal in the cabin of a rented boat felt more homey and comfortable than any Matt had shared in that big old house with Theresa. Twenty years ago he’d thought it was reasonable to want a nice wife, maybe a couple of kids, and a job he could enjoy.

The job had turned out okay, but Theresa hadn’t been a nice wife. Kids only would have mucked up the situation, so he was glad they hadn’t had them. But that meant he didn’t have a fourteen-year-old basketball player/poet around the house. Multicolored hair aside, Lincoln was the kind of boy any man would be proud to call his son. Matt was curious as to where the guy was who had that right.

Finally Matt had stuffed in as much as he could hold. Maybe the food comforted him, too. He wished he could figure out a way to comfort Annabelle short of holding her, which wouldn’t be happening.

He placed his napkin beside his plate. “That was delicious, Annabelle. Thank you.”

She gave him a brief smile. “I’m glad it set well with you.”

“It did. Great meal.”

“Uh, Mom?” Lincoln eyed the food still on her plate. “Are you going to eat that, or what?”

“You probably should try,” Matt said. He wanted to say something about keeping her strength up, but that sounded too dire, so he didn’t.

Annabelle shoved her plate toward Lincoln. “You go ahead and have it.”

“You’re sure? ‘Cause if you’re gonna eat it, then—”

“I’m not, so no sense in letting it go to waste.” She gave the plate another little push in her son’s direction. “Go on. Otherwise I’ll scrape it in the garbage.”

Full as he was, Matt would have finished her meal rather than see it go in the garbage. Once he was convinced she wouldn’t eat it, he was relieved when Lincoln pulled the plate in front of him and dug in.

Lincoln was chewing away, his mouth full, when he glanced up and apparently realized that both his mother and Matt were sitting there watching him eat. “Hey, like talk among yourselves, okay?” he said.

“Lincoln, don’t speak with your mouth full!” Annabelle recoiled in horror.

Lincoln swallowed loudly. “Somebody has to talk. You’re freaking me out, like watching me eat is the entertainment.” He glanced at his watch. “I know what! The TV works, right?”

“It should,” Matt said.

“Then let’s watch the Cubs and the D-backs. I almost forgot the game was on.”

Matt stood. “I’ll see if we can bring it in.” He flipped on the television mounted in a wall cabinet opposite the table. He even knew the right channel, because had the evening turned out differently, he would have watched the game himself. Considering he’d decided to take a break from Celeste, he couldn’t very well go to the bar tonight, so that had left cozying up to the TV.

“Oh, wow, a triple!” Lincoln said. “Gonzo is so totally awesome.”

“He’s good.” Matt watched Luis Gonzalez pull off his batting glove as he stood on third.

“Yeah. My friends are all Gonzo’s the bomb.”

“I’ll start on the dishes.” Annabelle slid from her seat and started collecting plates and silverware.

“No, you won’t.” Matt turned away from the television and walked back to the table. “I’m not much of a cook, but I’m a damned good dishwasher.”

She met his gaze. “It’ll give me something to do,” she said quietly. “I’m not much of a baseball fan.”

He understood her reasoning, but he didn’t like the idea of turning her into some kind of galley slave, while the two guys bonded over baseball. Too bad he couldn’t invite her for a little walk, but it was raining. Or was it? After crossing back to the television, he turned down the volume and listened. No rain.

Matt adjusted the volume again, then located the remote and handed it to Lincoln. “Tell you what. You keep tabs on the game, and your mother and I will take a walk on the dock. We won’t go far, so if you need anything, just come out and get us.”

“Sure.” Lincoln nodded, his attention focused on the screen. “Oh, geez. They stranded him.”

Matt didn’t spare a glance at the TV. Instead he looked at Annabelle, who stood with the dishes still in her hands as she stared at him in obvious shock. “Wouldn’t you like a little fresh air?” He tried to make the suggestion sound casual, although he didn’t feel at all casual about it.

She hesitated, as if making a really tough decision. “I…I reckon I would,” she said at last.

He could get used to that little hillbilly twang that crept into her voice now and then. “Gonna take the dishes with you?” he teased, to see if she’d lighten up any.

She looked down at the dishes as if she’d never seen plates and forks before. “Uh, no.” She turned to set them on the kitchen counter, but not quickly enough to hide her blush.

That splash of color in her cheeks was the best thing Matt had seen all day. He’d actually succeeded in flirting. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d tried to flirt with a woman. By the time he and Theresa had split the sheets, they’d been years past the flirting stage. As for the episode last night with Celeste—she’d done all the flirting while he’d gone along for the ride. He also thought it would take quite a lot to make Celeste blush.

No matter how much an evening with a twenty-something woman had stroked his ego, he’d never felt completely comfortable with Celeste. Annabelle was his generation, his value system. She might be a tigress when it came to her kids, but she wasn’t bold with men. If anything, she seemed wary. He kind of liked that, because that probably meant she wasn’t any more sophisticated about the game than he was.

But he was way ahead of himself. She’d agreed to a walk along the dock, not a romantic rendezvous. Damned if he wasn’t looking forward to having a little time alone with her, though.

She rinsed her hands in the sink and dried them on a towel. Then she walked toward Matt, ducking when she came between Lincoln and his ball game. “You’re more than welcome to start on the dishes after you get finished eating,” she told her son.

“Huh?” Lincoln glanced up, clueless. “Did you say something, Mom?”

“I…oh, never mind. I guess we can worry about it when we get back.”

“Okay. Whatever.” Lincoln turned back to the game. “You kids have fun.”

Matt chuckled, but Annabelle stopped in her tracks and stared at Lincoln. “What?”

Lincoln looked at her with a sly grin. “I’ve been waiting at least a trillion years to say that. But you, like, never go out, so I’m all, When can I ever use that line? I figured this might be my big chance.”

Annabelle seemed to be at a total loss for words, so Matt jumped into the breach. “Okay, we’ll take off now. And don’t try to sneak a beer while we’re gone. I counted the bottles.”

Lincoln gaped at him. “We have beer on board?”

“No, but I’ve always wanted to say that, and I’ve never had a kid to say it to, so I guess we’re even, huh?”

Lincoln laughed, obviously pleased with the little interchange. “We’re so even, dude. Later.”

“Later.” Matt motioned for Annabelle to go ahead of him up the steps to the deck.

They didn’t speak until after he’d helped her climb from the stern to the dock, which was shiny with rain in the soft mercury lights lining the row of berths. The night was warm and moonless, and the only sounds came from the creak of boats whenever a swell rolled under the dock.

“You’re being mighty kind to my son.” Annabelle lifted her gaze to his. “And I thank you for it. This is a sorry mess we’re in, but you being nice to Lincoln helps.”

“He’s a good kid. I’ll admit when you insisted he had to come along I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I’m getting a kick out of him, multicolored hair, earring, and all.” He gestured to their right. “Why don’t we walk down to the end of the dock and back? We’ll be able to see the boat the whole way.”

“All right.” Annabelle fell into step beside him, her arms crossed over her middle, as if feeling the need to protect herself.

He hoped she didn’t feel the need to protect herself from him. “Are you cold?” The line came right out of his college dating days, back when he’d looked for any excuse to put his arm around a girl. In the pale light, Annabelle looked like a college girl, and he wouldn’t mind having a reason to put his arm around her.

She glanced at him, a hint of a smile in her eyes. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

He knew she’d recognized the line for what it was. “That meal was awesome.” He hadn’t been able to say that in college, where they’d all lived on fast food. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do. I, um, enjoyed watching you eat it.”

Hey, that was progress. She’d acknowledged paying attention to him. “Did you notice the total rapture on my face?”

This time a real smile appeared. “I did. You reminded me of Lincoln when he’s looking at Britney Spears on TV.”

“I’d take that meal over Britney any day.” I’d take you over Britney, too. But he didn’t think that was the thing to say. Not yet.

“Well, thank you. I miss cooking for a—” She caught herself and cleared her throat. “Another grown-up.”

“I miss eating dinner with a beautiful woman.” He looked over to see how she was taking that.

She was staring off across the water, like he’d gone too far and she was thinking how to change the subject. “You mentioned Lincoln’s hair a while back. You probably think I should have put my foot down about that.”

He didn’t want to push her, so he went along with the switch in topic. “I did think that at first. But he has such a good attitude compared to a lot of the kids I see that I’m revising that opinion. Maybe if you give kids a chance to rebel in the small ways, they won’t feel so determined to rebel in the big ones.”

“That’s what I hope.” She sighed. “But when you’re doing the raising by yourself, sometimes it’s hard to know what’s right.”

“Then Lincoln’s father isn’t a part of his life?”

“No.” She stopped walking and turned to him. “Listen, maybe we should get something straight.”

“Uh, okay.” The tone of her voice told him that the ground he’d gained earlier was slipping away. Her closed expression didn’t give him much hope, either.

“I think, with us sharing space like this, we need to talk plain to one another.”

“I agree.” If he were to talk plain to her right now, he’d say he wanted to kiss her and see if he could get past that barrier she’d thrown up. At least he couldn’t take her chilly behavior personally, now that Lincoln had announced she didn’t date. “You hate men?”

“I wish I did. But it turns out I love men.”

That was nice to hear. “From a distance?”

Still she wouldn’t look at him. “Oh, no. I’ve enjoyed them up close, too. Genevieve and Lincoln are the evidence.”

“I just meant—”

“You see, Genevieve’s daddy made me pretty promises and then left me pregnant. I did without men for a long time, but then Lincoln’s daddy showed up, and it was the same cock-a-doodle-doo, different rooster.”

Matt couldn’t help smiling, but he quickly controlled himself. She was deadly serious about this, and she didn’t think anything was strange about the little expressions he found so endearing. Plus, the last thing he wanted to do was make her self-conscious about the way she talked. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Not as sorry as I was, believe me. After that man hightailed it out of the Hollow, I made a vow that I wouldn’t have sex again until after my childbearing years, and I’m not there yet.”

Matt swallowed. Now that was a challenge any red-blooded man wouldn’t be able to leave alone. “Annabelle, do you have something against birth control?”

“Yes.” She looked at him, finally, and her eyes held no sign of compromise. “It’s not guaranteed.”

“Well, no, but the percentages are in your—”

“Then there’s that other problem.”

“Other problem?” He couldn’t believe they were standing out here discussing sex. And even in the dim light he could tell that her cheeks were getting pink again.

She took a deep breath. “When a man strikes my fancy, I lose all common sense. If he wants to do it right now, I do it. I don’t think about babies and scraping for a living because my man ran out and left me in the family way. It’s a failing, pure and simple. So it’s easier to do without.”

Matt was getting extremely agitated. Okay, he was getting horny. “It shouldn’t be all up to you. It’s a guy’s responsibility, too.” And last night he’d been unprepared. Celeste had taken care of the problem. He was still unprepared. So much for taking responsibility.

She held his gaze. “You see where counting on that has landed me.”

“Annabelle, all men aren’t like the two you hooked up with. In fact, most men aren’t like that. They try not to get a woman pregnant, but if an accident happens, they do what’s right.”

She regarded him silently, her set jaw indicating that she wasn’t buying a word of it.

“Let’s move the discussion to a personal level. I would take every precaution so that a woman wouldn’t get pregnant, and if she happened to, I would be there every step of the way, supporting her and the baby in any way I could.” He would welcome the chance. Until spending time with Lincoln, he hadn’t realized how cheated he felt because he’d never had a kid.

Annabelle’s expression had no give to it. “That’s what they all say.”