‘Yes, please!’
He claimed her and they rode the waves of their mutual desire to a peak of ecstasy.
They came down from the peak slowly. Their bodies were dewed with sweat and Maggie clung to him as if she were drowning and he was her rock.
‘That was… that was…’ she said hoarsely, but couldn’t go on.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed and kissed her eyelids. ‘That was something else. No…’ he pushed himself up on his elbow ‘… pain?’
Her lips trembled into a smile. ‘Only the opposite, thanks to you.’
He considered. ‘Well, maybe the gymnastics had something to do with it. It’s very active.’
‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘it was—always you, like the song.’
He grinned. ‘OK, I won’t argue with you. But if you have any plans to get up and go back to the resort tonight, forget ’em.’
‘It was the furthest thing from my mind,’ she said dreamily and snuggled up to him.
They slept for a while, then got up and showered, and he made a light supper.
They ate it on the veranda and watched the moon. Then he was struck by an idea. ‘Muslin,’ he said musingly and picked up her sarong still lying on the veranda floor. ‘Anything like this?’
Maggie sat up alertly. ‘That’s voile and silk, but it’s very fine, like muslin—it might just do the trick.’
He looked from the sarong in his hands to the Guettarda Speciosa just beyond the veranda railing with the perfume of its night flowers wafting over them in a light breeze. ‘How do we anchor it?’
‘Clothes pegs?’ she suggested.
He nodded and disappeared inside to get them and between them they spread the sarong over the top of the tree.
‘Morning will tell,’ he commented as he applied the last peg.
‘The morning after the night before,’ she said with a humorous little glint in her eyes.
‘There is that too,’ he agreed. ‘In the meantime—’ he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her against him ‘—how about back to bed?’
‘That sounds like a fine idea to me,’ she whispered.
He tilted her chin and looked into her eyes. ‘You know what’s going to happen, though, don’t you?’
She licked her lips. ‘Another fine idea by me,’ she said softly.
‘But what you may not realize,’ he temporized, ‘is that I suddenly feel like a starving person deprived of a feast.’
She slid her hands around his waist and up his back and pressed her breasts against his chest. ‘Who’s depriving you of anything?’
He groaned and picked her up.
This time their lovemaking was swift and tempestuous, as if he had felt truly starved of her, but Maggie matched him every inch of the way as the barrier of never having done it before lay behind her and she could express her need of him with a new sureness of touch.
The bed was a tangled mess when they came down from the heights this time, but Maggie was laughing as she caught her breath. ‘Wow! I see what you mean.’
He buried his head between her breasts. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s just call it our epiphany.’
He looked up with something in his eyes she couldn’t immediately translate. A tinge of surprise coupled with admiration, she realized suddenly, and it gave her a lovely sense of being on equal terms with him that carried her on to sleep serenely in his arms, once they’d reorganized the bed.
But the next morning it all caught up with Maggie in an embarrassing way.
All her life she’d suffered from a digestive system that took exception to too much excitement and too much rich food.
She woke up feeling pale and shaken and distinctly nauseous. Then she was as sick as a dog.
At first Jack was determined to drive her into the nearest doctor at Proserpine, but she explained between painful bouts of nausea and other complications what the problem was. ‘On top of everything else I should have gone easy on the wonderful Mornay sauces and marinades,’ she gasped.
He was sitting on the side of the bed watching her with concern. ‘Are you sure? You may have picked up a gastric bug.’