Into the Blue

by Robin Huber

  “Kellan,” I whisper, practically begging him, but he slowly kisses his way down my leg and kneels at my feet, flashing his sea blue eyes at me as he finally removes my panties.

  He hooks his thumbs in his pajama pants and slides them down his thighs, and I gaze up at him kneeling between my legs, the hard masculine lines of his body softened by the morning light. His smile sends a burst of excitement coursing through me that settles in my cells as desire. I lean up to greet his lips with mine and my hands follow the slope of his back down to his muscular bottom. I pull him against me and feel him between my thighs. “Kellan,” I pant, urging him, but he pauses and stares into my eyes, and through the thick fog of desire that blankets us, I see something else...something more.

  He kisses me slow and deep, and then pushes into me until our hips meet. I moan softly at the sensation, at the heaviness of him, as he glides out of me and pushes back in, giving me a hit of the drug I crave. He feels...so...good. His voice is deep and husky as he mumbles something unintelligible, but when he clearly says, “Makayla,” I grip the sheets and tighten my legs around him. He makes a low groan that I feel in his chest as he moves on top of me...within me...with me. His tongue sweeps over mine in unison with our movements, and I savor the feeling of his heavy body pressing down on mine. He drops his hand to my leg and cups my thigh, bending my knee up as he rocks into me, and the movement makes me cry out. I rock my hips up to meet his deep thrusts, panting against his ear as I start to slip away. “Kellan,” I say, barely audible. He releases my leg and holds my hand, kissing me deeply as I disappear into a blissful oblivion, crying into his mouth. He groans and I feel his body shudder as he thrusts into me, sending sensations reverberating through my trembling body.

  He rolls off me and we lie breathless for a few silent seconds. Then he stretches his arm across my hips and lays his head on my stomach. I look down at him adoringly and run my fingers through his dark wavy hair.

  After a couple of minutes, he lifts his head and places a soft kiss on my stomach. “I’ll go get your coffee.”

  “I knew you’d give in.”

  “Get dressed. We’re leaving soon.”

  I get up and get dressed, and follow Kellan outside with my coffee, which I sip all the way to the lagoon. He parks the Jeep in front of the little house and I help him get the surfboards out of the back. We carry them around the side of the house and down the sandy path that leads to the beautiful crescent-shaped beach.

  As we walk toward the tranquil blue water I see dark patches of coral in the distance beneath the clear blue surface, and waves that break beyond that. “Is that how far we have to go out?” I ask hesitantly.

  “It’s not as far as it looks,” he assures me.

  “Okay.” I follow him to the water’s edge where he kneels down to attach the long black Velcro tether to my ankle.

  He slides his hand along my leg as he stands up. “You ready?”

  “Yep.”

  “Let’s go.” He smiles and it lights up his face.

  I smile and wade in beside him with my palms flat against the board, guiding it over the small swells until I’m thigh-deep in the water. He lies down on his surfboard and begins paddling toward the breakers. So I lie down on mine and paddle after him. I watch him dip the front end of his board under the rolling waves, spraying water into the air, but I’m not as skilled as him. I get a face full of saltwater every time a wave rolls past me.

  He stops and sits up and I sit up on my board beside him, letting my feet dangle in the water next to his. “This seems pretty far,” I say, glancing back at the beach.

  He rubs my thigh with his wet hand. “I know it can be intimidating at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

  “You’re awfully confident. You may be overestimating my affection for the sea.”

  He smiles and narrows his eyes at me. They’re the same color as the water, almost turquoise, gleaming in the bright sun, outlined by his dark wet lashes. He runs his hands through his hair and the water beads down his arms and glistens off his tan stomach. He leans forward on his board and his shorts pull in the back, showing the tan line just above his crack. I bite my lip and stare at him shamelessly, lulled by the rocking waves beneath me. He watches the horizon, but there aren’t any swells that I can see.

  I glance back at the beach again. Everything seems so quiet and still. The palm trees blow silently in the breeze and millions of tiny sparkles dance on the waves that roll slowly to the shore. I close my eyes and breathe in the salty air, feeling the warmth of the sun on my shoulders. I exhale a cathartic breath and look at him. “Okay, I get it now.”

  He rubs his palms over his knees. “There’s something about being out here.”

  I nod in agreement. “Where did you learn to surf?”

  “California. I was stationed at Camp Pendleton for a while and some of the guys grew up surfing in the area. They’d get up at the crack of dawn on our days off and head out to the beach. I went with them a couple of times and I’ve been hooked ever since.” He squints at the horizon. “I don’t know what it is, but when you’re out here, all of your problems just sort of go away.”

  I smile softly. “It’s your white noise.” Just like he’s mine.

  “What?” His eyes crinkle at the corners.

  I laugh quietly to myself and shake my head. “Nothing.”

  He looks up at the horizon and then flashes a smile. “You ready?”

  Shit. My skin pricks with anxiety when I see a low wall of water racing toward us.

  “Follow me.” Kellan leans forward onto his stomach and starts paddling toward it, so I paddle after him. He turns his board around so that the nose is pointed toward the beach, and I do the same. “When the swell gets behind you, start paddling as hard as you can. When you feel your board lift, pull yourself onto your feet. Don’t worry about standing up yet. Just get your feet under you.”

  I can’t do this! I’m not ready!

  “Okay?”

  No! NOT ok!

  “Makayla? Okay?”

  “Okay!”

  The swell gets closer and I feel the current pulling me backward, but I can’t take my eyes off Kellan. His arms and back are all lean muscle, flexing under glistening tanned skin as he paddles. Seconds later, he’s standing on his board and water is pouring down his long muscular body.

  Ow! Shit! I’m tumbling in circles under the water. I open my eyes, but only see swirls of white and blue. I tumble again and again. I see a gleam of light, but it’s beneath me. I flip myself over and kick toward the light, gasping for air once my head breaks the surface. But panic strikes when I reach for my surfboard and have nothing to hold on to.

  “Kellan?” My feet kick frantically beneath me and I scream, “Kellan!”

  “It’s okay, I’m right here.” He pulls my surfboard around me and I hurl myself up onto it with shaking arms. Saltwater burns my nose and throat.

  “Are you hurt?” He lowers his head and scans me.

  I shake my head and wipe my watery eyes and nose. “No.”

  “Was there coral? Are you cut anywhere?” He lifts my arm so he can see my ribs.

  “No. I’m fine. I just got scared. I couldn’t find the surface or the surfboard and I didn’t see you.” The words spill out of my mouth, bringing warm tears that I quickly wipe away.

  He rubs my leg. “Makayla, don’t cry.” He wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me onto his board, so that my legs are draped over his hips and I’m facing him. He holds my face and wipes my cheek with his salty hand. “What happened? Did you fall trying to stand up?”

  I shake my head. “No. I didn’t get that far.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention when the wave got to me. I was distracted.”

  “By what?”

  I fight a smile and admit, “You. When you stood up on your board, you looked kind of amazing. Like a Greek god,” I say, laughing softly. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
/>   He shakes his head and shows me his gorgeous smile. “Well, I hope it was worth it.”

  I raise an eyebrow and smirk, and he laughs and leans to the side, tipping us into the water.

  “Kellan!” I squeal as we splash into the shallow water we’ve drifted into, but my feet find the ocean floor.

  I dunk him playfully and a game quickly ensues. Kellan chases me and I kick away from him squealing, but he catches my ankle and yanks me through the water, pulling me back to him. I struggle to get away, but he holds me against his strong body.

  “Let go of me!” I say, stifling a laugh.

  “No.” He raises his free hand and wipes the water from his face, which is suddenly serious, and I can tell that the game has ended.

  I stop struggling.

  He tucks my wet hair behind my ear and wipes the dripping water from my nose with the back of his finger. His blue eyes burn into me and I lose myself in them. I take his scruffy face in my hands and pull his mouth to mine, tasting the salt on his lips.

  “You are Aphrodite,” he says softly against my lips. “Goddess of passion and love, born from the sea, radiant and shining.”

  I close my eyes and let out a silent breath.

  He squeezes my bottom beneath the water and kisses my neck and jaw, and the corner of my mouth. “I want you,” he groans softly against my lips.

  “Tell me in Spanish.”

  “Te quiero,” he whispers in my ear, and my breath leaves me in a rush.

  I’ll never recover from him.

  * * *

  Kellan tugs the tether that’s attached to my ankle and pulls my surfboard over to him. “Ready to try again?”

  I peek over my shoulder at the horizon and see a low wall of water edging toward us. I nod reluctantly. “Yes.”

  “Don’t watch me this time.” He grins and begins to paddle.

  I laugh and lean forward on my board and paddle behind him until we’re facing the beach. When I feel the current pulling me backward I begin to paddle against it as hard as I can and the back of the board lifts with the swell.

  Suddenly I’m propelled forward.

  I grab the sides of the board, lean forward on my elbows, and pull my knees under me. I feel steady, so I pull one knee up until the pad of my foot is planted firmly on the board. Then I let go and rock back on my other foot, and carefully stand up, holding my hands out for balance.

  Holy shit. I’m surfing.

  I look down at the nose of the board cutting through the clear blue water and adrenaline courses through me. I squeal with excitement as I move across the surface of the ocean and I hear Kellan yell too.

  “I’m doing it!” I call to him as the wave carries me to the shore.

  I jump off the board into the shallow water, feeling like I’m vibrating. “Holy crap! I surfed!” I say as Kellan wades over to me with a smile on his face. I jump up into his arms. “That was so much fun. I want to do it again!”

  “Okay.”

  We paddle out past the breakers and wait for our next set, but the ocean is calm and quiet.

  “Will you teach me Spanish?” I ask as we bob over the small swells that roll past us, and he gives me an amused look. “I studied American sign language.” I shrug.

  The corners of his mouth turn up. “Well, I know you can say hola. What else would you like to know?”

  “Maybe a few things that I can say to the locals?”

  “Okay. How about, cómo estás?”

  “Co-mo-es-tas,” I repeat.

  “Cómo estás,” he says again, slower.

  “Cómo. Estás.”

  “Perfecto,” he says, crinkling his eyes.

  “What does it mean?”

  “How are you.”

  “Hola. Cómo estás?” I say to him with delight.

  He smiles softly and replies, “Maravilloso cuando estoy contigo.”

  I raise my eyebrows and wait for him to translate, because there’s no way I can repeat what he just said.

  “I’m wonderful,” he says softly, “when I’m with you.”

  I exhale a quiet breath and repeat the only word I remember, “Contigo.”

  “With you.”

  “Contigo,” I repeat, liking the way the word rolls off my tongue.

  “Contigo,” he says, reaching for my hand, and his dark lashes cascade over his turquoise eyes.

  “I like that one, but I’m not sure it will help me much with the locals.”

  He laughs and releases my hand. “Okay. Gracias por tenernos.”

  “Gracias.” I got that one. “Por-tu-ner-nos.”

  “Gracias por tenernos.” He rolls his tongue slowly through the last word and I feel it somewhere deep inside. “Tenerrrrnos.”

  “Tenerrrrnos,” I repeat.

  “Yes,” he says, smiling softly. “Now faster. Tenernos.”

  “Tenernos.”

  “Perfect. It means, thank you for having us.”

  “Gracias por tenernos,” I say, nodding my head graciously.

  “Very good. You want to keep going?”

  “Maybe I’ll just practice those for now.”

  “Okay.”

  The waves roll past us and glitter under the fading sunlight. It won’t be long before the looming clouds have consumed the sun entirely, but I’m not ready to paddle in just yet. I want to draw out our date on the ocean a little bit longer.

  “What’s your middle name?” I ask him.

  “It’s terrible.”

  “What is it?”

  “Edward.”

  My eyes light up.

  “Make one comment about Twilight and I’ll dunk you.”

  I purse my lips over a smile. “Kellan Edward James. I like that.”

  He smiles softly and glances up at the billowy gray clouds that are rolling on the horizon. “What’s yours?”

  “Grace.”

  “Makayla Grace,” he says, tugging on my tether to bring me close to him again. “That’s beautiful.”

  “It was my mother’s middle name. She was Alexandra Grace.”

  He reaches for my hand and laces his fingers with mine.

  “She would have liked you,” I say, smiling over the tight feeling in my chest.

  Thunder rumbles in the clouds that are moving faster now and tiny droplets of cool rain begin to land on our sun-soaked shoulders.

  “We should head in,” he says, but I don’t let go of his hand, and he doesn’t let go of mine.

  The rain falls harder, splashing into the ocean around us, but we just stare at each other, passing silent exchanges back and forth, until we’re cloaked in a blanket of desire that shields us from the storm.

  Kellan pulls me onto his board, tugging my legs over his hips, and kisses me passionately, pressing me against his warm body. My heated skin flames against his, making me forget the cool rain splashing down on us as his tongue moves over mine. I hold onto his arms as the waves gently rock us, moaning into his mouth when the thunder rolls softly in the clouds above us, because I know that he’s going to release me. When I feel him move, I hold him tighter and kiss him harder, but he pulls his mouth away and drops his forehead to mine. “We have to go in,” he says hoarsely.

  “No,” I say, lifting my lips to his again, but something catches my eye in the distance—a dark shadow on the shore.

  “It’s dangerous, Makayla. We have to go in.”

  I peer through the heavy rain over Kellan’s shoulder. It’s a person. “Someone’s watching us,” I say, alarmed, and Kellan whips his head over his shoulder to see. “There”—I point to the moving shadow—“do you see them?”

  He doesn’t say anything, but I feel his muscles tense beneath me and suddenly every cell in my body is on alert.

  “What should we do?”

  “It’s probably just one of the locals,” he says calmly, but I feel his grip tighten on my arm. Thunder rumbles again, reiterating that it’s likely more dangerous for us out here. “Whoever it is, they’re leaving,” he points out, and I wat
ch the shadow disappear. “Come on, we have to go in.”

  Chapter 11

  Kellan

  Heavy raindrops pelt the windshield and thunder crashes loudly in the darkened sky as we make our way back to the house. I didn’t take the time to put the top on the Jeep before we left the lagoon, even though there were no signs that anyone was still there. But then, I didn’t do a lot of investigating. I just wanted to get Makayla out of there.

  I pull over when I see her shivering and we race to get the top on in the rain. I unravel the canvas roof and shout, “It hooks there.”

  She secures the roof latch opposite of me and then we unroll the back window as best we can over the surfboards and fasten it in place. I hand her a plastic window for her door, which she quickly zips shut before jumping back inside.

  We’re dripping with water and so is the Jeep, but at least we won’t be pelted with rain the whole way back. It pounds on the hood and thunder crashes loudly, followed by a bright flash of lightning.

  “We better get back,” I say, glancing in the rearview mirror for the tenth time, but I don’t see anyone following us. It was probably a local, I try to convince myself, even though my gut says it wasn’t. I’m almost certain it was a man, at least six feet tall, wearing black. The locals tend to wear lighter clothing. But they are very curious about us. It wasn’t Dominik—I didn’t see any tattoos on his bare arms. Maybe someone else? Maybe someone who doesn’t belong here. Whoever it was, he was blatantly watching us.

  “Yeah,” she says nervously, “it’s getting pretty bad.”

  I reach for her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze as I drive through the storm.

  When we arrive back at the house we get out and run through the rain up the slippery steps to the covered front porch. It’s dark when we walk inside, but there’s a glowing light flickering in the kitchen. Adam and Grant are sitting at the table across from Mia and Jason and there’s a deck of cards between them.

  Adam looks up at us. “Poker by candlelight?”

  “Generator’s out,” Mia says, with an exasperated look on her face.

  “You two look like a couple of drowned rats,” Grant adds, but I see comprehension flash across his face when he sees the look I’m giving him—a silent exchange, that doesn’t convey what’s wrong, only that something’s wrong.