She gasped against his mouth, drawing more of his air when he tugged at her bikini bottom, pulling the fabric between her legs to the side. Paul drew a sharp breath of his own, and then stilled when he placed He against the bare skin she usually kept private. With a quick stutter of breath against her mouth, he carried her to the surface for another lungful, holding the same pose.
“Is this what you want?” he said, his voice nothing but a harsh rumble.
He’d towed her far enough under the shop that he could set his feet down, in the silt, and stand. With one hand, he guided her legs to wrap around his hips.
“Because I’m taking it.” He slid himself along her seam and his eyes clouded over a bit, but their intensity didn’t lessen. He could be so intense. “You have two seconds to say no.”
She bobbed her head in short, quick nods, watching him carefully, too stunned to speak, thinking through the blur of the last few seconds, and wondering how they’d ended up here. Without breaking eye contact, she tightened her hold around his neck, and squeezed him to her with her legs.
He kissed her again, hard, and without dunking her. They were no longer under water, but she still had trouble breathing because—because of how he kissed her, and how fast he’d connected them. Her mouth flew open and she drew in a breathy, staccato gasp at the sudden invasion to her body.
He seemed to take pleasure in her reaction, chomping down on his lower lip, scrunching up his nose, watching her with a mix of lust, lingering anger, and adoration, all at the same time. She wondered, briefly, how his glacial eyes had such power to burn their way right through the resolve she’d worked so hard to build the last few days, but it was gone, and she didn’t miss it one bit.
He smashed his mouth against hers and took what he wanted from her lips, and with his hands, before he began taking elsewhere. This wasn’t like any of the other times. Paul was not like he’d been the other times, his movements so much more forceful and aggressive.
“I can’t believe you groined me,” he hissed, moving his mouth to her jaw.
“I can’t believe you tried to drown me,” she answered back, breathlessly.
He responded, not with words, but with a change of angle and a growl that made her suck in a breath through her teeth.
“Tell me you’ll forget about Barton.” He panted the demand into her neck, nipping her sensitive skin with his teeth.
“Yes.” She winced from the pain with each bite, but didn’t tell him to stop. She hung even tighter against him, lifting her head, exposing more skin for him to bite.
“Yes, what?”
“I won’t see him.”
“Ever! Promise you’ll never mention, or even think about divorce again.” His eyes met hers, challenging her, as his teeth had made it to her bottom lip, and sunk into the tender flesh.
She bit his top lip in response.
“Yes.”
“What was that?” he demanded, but his voice shook, giving away how close he was. “I didn’t hear a promise.”
“I promise,” she sputtered as she started to lose herself too.
“You promise what?” He clenched his teeth together, hanging on, making it last, but only barely.
“I promise to never mention, or think about divorce again.”
“Good girl.” He kissed her. “I love you.”
“I lov—” She lost the ability to speak, and he grinned his satisfaction before letting go himself.
They convulsed together, clinging to each other, sucking in air. Paul covered her mouth with his, trying to keep her quiet, not an easy task for either of them, coming down from such a raucous round of hot, steamy sex, but he didn’t want to share this with anyone, the feel of her, the taste, even the sounds she made. Rhees was his, and only his, and would forever be, only his.
They couldn’t have held each other any closer and neither of them appeared to have plans to try anytime soon.
“Aw Dani Girl,” Paul whispered, his lips plastered against her cheek. “You are so beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” She huffed a quiet laugh. “How do you come up with the word beautiful after that?”
“Are you kidding?” He pulled away, just far enough to see her. “I finally got to see you—feel you. Mm!”
She smiled, and it lit up his world.
“Well, one that I wasn’t too drunk to remember, or too worried about hurting you to truly enjoy. I’m never getting drunk again. I prom—” She smashed her mouth against his to shut him up.
“Don’t say it. Don’t make that promise.”
“You’ve got to be like the first wife in the history of marriage who doesn’t want her husband to promise he won’t get drunk.”
“Because you’re a runner, Paul. You need an escape route, and I’d take a plastered Paul over a no Paul, any day of the week. I thought I’d lost you. I don’t want to go through that again.”
His expression morphed between so many emotions. At first, he didn’t believe her, then he did, then he realized she was right, regret, remorse, and then . . . something else.
“All right. I won’t promise not to,” he said as his mischievous grin stretched over his mouth. “But do you think that sometime . . . hopefully, in the near future, that maybe, just once, we could just . . . make love? No booze, no temper tantrums, insults, or even angry sex. As much as that was excellent, I still really, really, really want to just make long, gentle, tender, sweet love to you, in a bed, the way it should have been our first time, pleeease?”
“Yeah, maybe. Someday.” She giggled, but buried her face into his neck. “I’m sorry. I can only plead insanity.” She realized what she’d just said and pulled away again to look at him. “But don’t even think about committing me.”
“What do I have to do to convince you?” He rolled his eyes with a chuckle. “I should have taken you with me, but I ran out of here so fast, so worried about you, I didn’t think. It took three days to get all the results back from my tests. Anyway, I decided I didn’t want to risk coming home before I knew, so while I waited, I went to check out Keene’s place. It’s a nice spa-like facility, a retreat. Not an institution!”
“If you’d said, ‘Come to Texas with me’, I’d have told you where to go.”
They both laughed.
“You know,” he said, sobering. “There is another reason we should’ve waited. A very valid reason—not just an excuse—as opposed to, ‘I don’t desire you’.” He gave her a pointed look. “I didn’t wear a condom just now. Thank goodness I’m clean, but you do understand, we may have just made a baby, right?”
“Maybe the salt water will act as birth control.”
“Maybe that’s what the fifteen-year-old girl thought when she got pregnant at Sea Camp.” When Paul saw the look on her face, he quickly added, “With one of the other boys. It wasn’t me . . . that time.”
“Oh.” She looked relieved.
“I’m not worried about it,” he said, “are you?”
“You’re not worried I could be pregnant?”
He shook his head, and Rhees tried to smile, but he could tell she didn’t believe him.
“What’s with the new bikini, all of a sudden . . . without the clever tankini lookalike idea?”
“Oh, you noticed.” She feigned innocence. “I honestly didn’t think you did.”
“I noticed,” he said dryly. He hesitated, carefully thinking through his next question. “On a scale of one to ten, how important is it to you to wear a bikini around all day, without a cover-up? I mean, I don’t want you to feel like I’m being too bossy, or controlling, or like I’m holding you down, but—”
“Uhhh . . . Are you sure about that?” She smiled slyly. “Cuz I distinctly remember you holding me down—just a few minutes ago. You were pretty bossy and controlling too.”
<
br /> “And I’ll have no problem doing it again, if you don’t watch that smart, beautiful mouth of yours.”
“Promises, promises.”
She winked at him and he chastised her with his eyes before he smiled like a lunatic.
“The thing is, marrying you—no, it started before that—just knowing you, for some reason, it brings out the Neanderthal in me. I really, really like that you waited, and that I’m the only—and I know that isn’t fair, given my history, but I’m surprised at how . . .” He paused again, humbled. “I wish I hadn’t cheated on you.”
Her smile fell.
“No! Not like that—I mean—I wish I’d saved myself for you the way you saved yourself for me. I am overwhelmed with the thought, knowing we were meant to be together, our whole lives—I wish I’d waited, and I’m sorry I didn’t. It touches me more than you can know, and I really, really don’t want other guys ogling what’s mine.”
“Zero.”
“What?”
“On a scale of one to ten, zero. I’ll never wear just bikinis again. I prom—” She decided to add a stipulation. “I promise with one exception. If you ever see me wearing one, it means I’m feeling ignored. You’d better remedy my need for your attention, pronto, or the cover-up gets tossed, got it?”
She kissed him when he smiled at her answer.
“With great blessings, come great responsibilities.” He wriggled his eyebrows up and down. “I promise to perform my husbandly duties with the utmost diligence.”
He pressed her palm to his lips for a kiss but noticed her skin.
“You’re a prune.”
“We’ve been in the water a while. I also snorkeled for a long time before you came barreling down the Plank.”
“Come on. Let’s get you out of the water, send everyone home, and spend some alone time, together as a boring, married couple.”
She’d forgotten about their spectators and a horrified look crossed her face. He gave her a crooked grin.
“Another very valid reason for waiting, as opposed to, ‘I don’t desire you’.” He gave her a smug, smiley kiss before they separated.
“I love you.”
“Of course you do!” He gave her a confident grin. “Duh! Gosh planted a seed—”
“I get it.” She pretended to smack him, and he laughed. He swung her around to hang on to his back while he swam to the ladder and helped her up.
oOo
Rhees climbed the ladder with Paul right behind her. It surprised them to find the deck void of the spectators they’d anticipated.
“Thank you Claire!” Paul exclaimed, even though she wasn’t around to hear.
They ordered delivery and had just finished sharing a romantic dinner in the gazebo, sitting across from each other. They usually sat together, side by side, but that night, staring at each other across the table like love-struck newlyweds, felt right.
“Do you think that maybe . . .” Rhees looked away and felt nervous about proposing her suggestion.
“You know you can ask me anything.”
She nodded, but it took a few more seconds.
“Instead of paying for vacations, every month for the next twenty years, that we don’t plan to really take, do you think we could send Ginger some of that money, to pay her medical expenses, and make sure she’s comfortable?”
Paul looked guilty, but nodded.
“I’m already on it.”
“I figured that.” She tilted her head and gazed lovingly at him with a small smile on her lips. “I just wanted to make sure you knew I was okay with it.”
“I figured you would be. I did plan to mention it.” After another minute of gazing, he said, “I . . . uh, while I was in Texas, waiting for the results, I spoke to the guy who sold us The Tow’d.”
“You did?”
“I rented a car and drove down to pay him a visit.”
“After the runaround he’s given you all this time, did you finally get to talk to him?”
“Um, yeah.” Paul didn’t look her in the eye. “He wasn’t happy to see me. Told me I waited too long to talk to him about it, and I was out of luck.”
“Are you kidding?” She knew how many times Paul had tried to contact him.
“But I adapted, and applied my knowledge and experience from the old days, working for dad, and explained how disappointed I’ve been in his product. I gave him a few . . . pointers on providing better customer service for future reference. I’m pretty sure he now knows how important it is to have a happy, satisfied client.” Paul wrung his hands, favoring the knuckles on the right. She only, just then, noticed the bruises.
He caught her staring at his hands and hid them under the table.
“Anyway, he finally admitted that he gave my brand new boat to another customer who’d purchased The Tow’d, but brought it back because of all the problems. They gave it a tune-up, and a onceover, then shipped it down to me, thinking I’d never notice. He swears he didn’t know it was as bad as it is.
“Long story short, he’s sending a new boat down, should be here sometime next month.” Paul perked up. “He even told me not to worry about sending The Tow’d back. I thought we could scuttle it, and make a new dive site. We could call it, The Lying Ton of a Bitch.”
“Is it possible,” she said, thinking about his battered hands, and not ready to celebrate just yet, “that someone might wind up in jail over this?”
“Baby, no one will go to jail over scuttling a piece of shit boat.”
“I’ll have to trust your judgment.” She smirked. “But I have a feeling you won’t be able to step foot in Texas again, and I promise, I won’t be getting anywhere near that place without you.” She watched to see what he’d do with the ball she’d thrown in his court.
“I’ll never bring up Keene or his facility again. If you don’t feel you need his help, then I’ll have to trust your judgment.”
Paul almost made her cry. She held it in, but she knew her eyes glistened.
“So, if you are pregnant,” he said, to change the subject for her. “Do you want to keep it?” He’d brought his hands above the table again, revealing his apprehension.
“I could never do that!” She sounded panicked, like she thought she was in for a fight.
“Me neither,” he said, grabbing her hand across the table to try and convince her. “I’m glad.”
“So will you throw up again?”
“That was just sympathy vomit.” He chuckled, but then the embarrassment about the truth was too much, and he had to drop his head. “Even though I never saw myself getting married, I still had this vague picture of myself having kids.”
“How, in your picture, did you figure that would happen?”
He raised a brow and was about to tease her about being too naïve to know the answer to that, until the truth hit again, and he frowned.
“You know, you should probably prepare yourself.” His frown had turned into a full scowl. “Given my history, there’s always the possibility that some woman from my past could turn up, claiming that I’m the father of her child.”
She thought about that for a minute, her expression unreadable.
“I wouldn’t care,” she finally said. “But after getting to know Ronnie, and learning there are girls like her out there, I’d recommend a paternity test.”
“I didn’t think you’d care, not for one second.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “A paternity test would be a good idea, just in case. Although that, and the fact you often refuse to see me for the way I really am, makes me worry you wouldn’t really believe I could be guilty. You have to understand, God wasn’t the only one spreading his seeds around back then.”
“I can’t believe you said that.” She giggled. “Kind of takes away from your whole
romantic analogy speech.”
“Aw, come on, are you really that surprised? That I’d say something like that, or that I didn’t even realize my story was romantic?”
She smiled, knowingly, and he couldn’t believe the love that radiated from such a simple expression. He still didn’t understand why, but she really did love him. He’d been thinking again, and he’d found a major flaw in his seed theory.
He’d internalized the fact that Rhees had done fine without him. Remodeling his apartment, making it her home, getting the shop up and running again after he’d trashed it, the fact that she’d delivered the fatal shot to the hijacker—she’d saved his life when he’d been sure it was over.
Thinking back to what she’d done under the deck not long ago—he’d tried, unsuccessfully, on multiple occasions, to get her to try and hurt him during his self-defense lessons, but today, she’d had no reservations about groining him. If it weren’t for her being a lousy swimmer, she’d have gotten away.
Yeah, he realized his revelation was defective, and he didn’t understand how he’d misread the signs. It had all seemed so clear before. He needed her, like the tank on his back when he dived, she was his air, but Rhees had grown up. She didn’t need him anymore.
That sobering thought blew his theory about balancing each other out, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe the only other explanation. There was no way God had orchestrated everything on his behalf—Paul didn’t deserve that much attention or care.
He said a prayer in his heart, asking God for an explanation, why he’d been given such a strong glimmer of hope, short-lived as it was, and then he asked for forgiveness, because he hadn’t changed, and never would. He planned to keep Rhees, even though he knew he’d been wrong about her needing him.
“Okay. So, if you’re not pregnant, this time,” he said before he teared up, “do you want to try again, or would you like to wait a while before starting a family?
“I mean, I would like to wait a year or two. I’m a selfish man,” he winced, trying to ignore the battle against his conscience, “and it would be nice to have you all to myself for a little while, but I’m good if you want kids right away. Do you know how many you want?”
Wet Part 3 Page 44