by Amy Andrews
‘Okay, Vasco,’ she said, her breathing still not quite normal. ‘Untie me now.’
Vasco shook his head and the gleam in his eye was positively wicked as he unlaced his breeches.
‘I’m just getting started.’
THE next week flew by. Between long nights—and sometimes long days—below deck they made it to Micronesia, sailing into Weno in Chuuk State where they restocked and sorted out the official paperwork.
Chuuk, home to a giant lagoon, the final resting place for over a hundred ships, planes and submarines that had perished during fierce World War Two battles, was a magnate for wreck divers worldwide. Time and warm tropical waters had seen the wrecks bloom into breathtaking coral gardens and artificial reefs sporting a kaleidoscope of colours.
But they headed beyond that to the lesser known outer reefs fringing the deeper waters of the Pacific where Nathan had been convinced Inigo’s boat had gone down in bad weather. The islands of Micronesia had once been part of the Spanish East Indies and, Nathan believed, a rich hunting ground for a pirate who wasn’t picky or patriotic when it came to loot.
The fact that a veritable maze of two thousand plus, mainly uninhabited islands lay at his disposal, providing the perfect cover to lay low in between raids, had no doubt also been a plus for Inigo Alvarez.
The weather stayed calm and visibility was excellent as, for the first six days, Rick and Stella island-hopped, diving the area Nathan had deduced from his lifetime of research was the most likely resting pace for The Mermaid. It was about a hundred nautical miles square so they divided it up into a grid and painstakingly explored each segment from sun up to sundown.
Had they been in the Persephone or one of the other boats in the salvage fleet, they would have had all kinds of equipment to help them in their quest. But this was just a basic exploratory—old-fashioned treasure hunting at its best. Like they were kids again, pretending to find Spanish galleons while their fathers undertook their latest salvage operation.
And neither of them would have had it any other way.
The deepest water was ten metres but it still took a couple of dives for Stella to gain her confidence. Ever since she could swim, Stella had dived, and she’d held her open water diving certification for many years, but she hadn’t been in a wetsuit for some time now.
Rick, used to diving much, much deeper, enjoyed the slower pace and took time to admire the magnificent underwater scenery, including the curvy little water nymph in a wetsuit that left nothing to the imagination.
At night she wrote, more inspired than ever by being back in the water again, and he reviewed the data from their dives.
And then they burned up the sheets.
On the seventh day they rested. They anchored off one of the many sandy atolls, loaded up the dinghy and motored the short distance, beaching the little runabout high above the tide level. They lolled in the shallows, making love as the water lapped gently around their legs. They sunbathed nude and ate sandwiches and drank cold beer for lunch. They dozed under a stand of coconut palms.
Three other islands could be seen nearby, towering out of the glittering ocean, and in the distance another boat, probably a dive charter, slowly traversed the horizon. It was a reminder that they weren’t the only two people in the world, which had been an easy assumption to make these last idyllic days.
‘Maybe we could just move here?’ Stella said sleepily.
Rick smiled as he rolled his head to look at her. ‘Sounds good to me.’ If he was going to be stuck on a deserted island with anyone, she would be his preference. ‘What happens when the laptop runs out of battery?’ he teased.
Stella smiled too. ‘Don’t be practical,’ she murmured as she drifted off again.
When she woke the sun wasn’t as high overhead and Rick was lying on his stomach propped up on his elbows beside her. A sea breeze ruffled the papers he was reading. She lay there for a few minutes listening to the swish of the waves against the beach and the rustle of the wind through the palm leaves.
I could get used to this.
She rolled up onto her elbow, dropping a kiss on his bare shoulder. ‘What if it’s not here?’ she asked. ‘What if The Mermaid is like Atlantis or El Dorado?’
Rick turned his head and nuzzled her temple before returning his attention to the research material he’d printed off the web just prior to leaving the boat this morning. He’d pored over everything he could get his hands on since deciding to undertake this voyage and he’d come across some more potentially useful information last night.
‘It might not be here but I think your father’s research definitely supports its existence and his reasonings for The Mermaid being in these waters are very sound.’
Stella nodded. She hoped so. It would be good to know that something her father had committed so much of his time and energy to might be realised. They’d both been aware, subliminally, that this voyage had been a pilgrimage of sorts. A way to pay homage to Nathan and his dream.
Neither of them wanted to return empty-handed.
‘I’m going for a snorkel,’ she said. ‘You want to join me?’
Rick shook his head. ‘Maybe later.’
Stella kissed his shoulder again. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘I’m going naked.’
Ah, now that got his attention.
He smiled at her before kissing her hard on the mouth. ‘Temptress,’ he muttered as he pulled away. ‘Be off with you.’
Stella laughed. ‘Okay, fine,’ she said, standing and stripping off her bikini where she stood, throwing it down on the papers he was reading.
Rick chuckled as he picked it up and looked over his shoulder to find her naked, hips swaying seductively as she sashayed down to the shoreline, a mask and snorkel in one hand. Her skin was a light golden brown from all the sun she’d been getting and as she turned and gave him a wave he copped a magnificent side view of full breast and tiny waist before she waded into the ocean. He levered himself up, turning to sit, papers still in hand, watching as the warm tropical waters slowly swallowed her up.
He realised after looking up for the tenth time in ten minutes he was too distracted to read. The reef was close to the shore so she was only a couple of metres out and he could see the bobbing of her naked bottom as she lazily circled back and forth across the surface, occasionally duck diving and blowing water out of her snorkel when she reappeared.
When a coconut fell beside him, missing him by about an inch, he decided it was time to give up and just enjoy the view. He absently picked up the coconut and shook it, hearing the swish of milk inside. He grabbed his diver’s knife out of his backpack and, being an old hand at husking coconuts, quickly did so.
By the time the outer shell was peeled away and he’d removed the stringy bark, revealing the hard smooth surface, Stella was emerging from the ocean like something from a James Bond film.
Except nude. Her blonde hair slicked back from her face, clinging to her naked back like a sheath of honey-gold silk.
Like a mermaid.
He brought the bald nut to his face and inhaled the sweet earthy aroma as he watched her walking towards him. The fragrance was pure Stella.
A fragrance he’d become quite addicted to.
Her bell tinkled as she drew closer, his erection increasing with her every footfall. When she threw the snorkel and mask down beside him his mouth was as dry as the powdery sand beneath him.
‘Do women practise that little hip swing or is it just part of their DNA?’ he asked, looking up into her face. Water droplets clung to her eyelashes and ran down her body.
Stella laughed as she deliberately reached behind her to wrap her hair around her hand and squeeze out the excess water. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She grinned.
‘Oh, yeah?’ he growled as he threw the coconut down and gently tum
bled her to the ground.
Stella went down laughing, clinging to his shoulders as she settled against the soft sand. He straddled her, looming above. The grains felt warm and powdery beneath the cool skin of her back, as did the sun on her face, their formerly shaded position now mostly in light as the day grew later.
‘I’m going to have sand everywhere,’ she grouched good-naturedly.
‘That’s the plan.’ He grinned as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips and the curve of her waist were cool to touch. ‘Water cold?’ he asked as his tongue lapped at the water droplets still clinging and cooling her throat.
Stella shut her eyes and angled her neck to give him wider access. ‘A little.’
Rick smiled against her neck. He sat and groped around beside him. ‘Let’s see if we can’t warm you up.’
Stella opened her eyes just in time to see him holding a coconut and his diver’s knife over her abdomen. As a teenager she’d often watched him husk a coconut, the muscles of his back and arms way more fascinating than they should have been.
She quirked an eyebrow. ‘Been busy?’
He grinned as he struck the coconut with the handle of the knife right between the eyes. It capitulated easily, cracking in half, clear fluid running out over his hand and dripping onto her cool belly.
He eased it apart, gratified to hear her gasp as he poured most of the warm milk over her belly and breasts. Her nipples ruched before him and his erection surged. He groaned as the aroma of ocean and her wafted up to him and he bent his head to her.
‘I want to taste you here,’ he muttered. His hot tongue swiped over puckered nipples and she arched her back. He removed every trace of the warm juice before moving on.
‘And here,’ he said, going down, following the trail of liquid that had puddled in her belly button. He heard the suck of her breath as he lapped it up. She tasted sweet and salty. Like the ocean, tropical breezes and the soft sugary nirvana of coconuts.
He sat back on his haunches, watching her, waiting for her to open her eyes. When her eyelashes fluttered open he picked up the half-coconut that still had a little milk remaining.
‘And here,’ he murmured, trickling it between her legs, as he had done with the mango, supressing a groan as she licked her lips and panted, her thighs parting, the sunlight glistening there so he could see it coating all of her.
He tossed the shell aside, swooping his head down, his hands gliding up her body to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing across the nipples.
It was then, as he used his elbows to push her open to him more, that he noticed it for the first time. The sun shone like a spotlight and it was suddenly obvious.
A tiny blemish. A pink birthmark.
Exactly where Lady Mary had hers.
He stared at it, as he tried to think past the pounding of his heart.
So...she was Lady Mary?
But the heady aroma of her drowned in coconut juice was rendering his thought processes useless. He wanted to ask her. Needed to know.
He should stop and demand that she tell him the truth.
But she was making those little noises at the back of her throat again and as another waft of coconut headed his way he actually salivated.
Stella rotated her pelvis as the anticipation built to breaking point. Rick liked to tease but this had gone on long enough. She knew the touch of his mouth was coming and every second he made her wait, she could feel herself get wetter.
‘Rick!’ she begged, unable to bear it any longer. ‘Please,’ she whimpered, lifting her hips involuntarily. ‘Please.’
It was the whimper that did it—just as it always did. There would be time enough for questions later. So he shut his eyes and gave her what she was asking for, licking that cute strawberry mark just as Vasco had done, savouring the sweet coconut essence of her, pinning her to the sand with his tongue and not letting her up until her climax rent the air.
* * *
Stella woke the next morning to a tight feeling at her wrists and a strange sense of foreboding. It was immediately allayed when she saw Rick, one knee planted on the edge of the mattress, his face hovering over her, smiling.
‘Morning,’ he murmured, kissing her.
She kissed him back. It wasn’t until she tried to move her arms to hug him that the foreboding returned. It only took a moment to figure out why. She looked behind her. Her wrists were tied with some kind of material to the posts of his bed. As were her feet.
She was naked and spreadeagled.
Her pulse leapt at the illicitness of it all. Was Rick going to enact the scene from Pleasure Hunt where Vasco had tied Mary to the bed?
She looked at him. ‘You do know that, unlike Mary, I am perfectly willing to ask you for sex and, not only that, but to tell you how, when, where and the number of times I want you to do me, right?’
Rick chuckled as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve noticed. You’re really not her, are you?’ he asked innocently.
Stella nodded as she averted her eyes to her ankle ties. ‘Is that one of my sarongs?’ she asked.
Rick grinned. ‘Sorry. I’m all out of eighteenth-century satin sashes and I thought it’d be gentler on your wrists and ankles than nautical rope.’
Stella pulled against the bonds to test them and had to agree. Even if she wanted to get out of them, which she didn’t, she knew it would be futile—sailors knew how to tie knots.
‘How on earth did you manage not to wake me?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Well, it took me a while and, thankfully, you’re a heavy sleeper.’
Stella nodded. That was true. ‘So, was there a purpose to this or are you just into bondage suddenly?’
Rick looked at her, naked and spread on his bed like a gift from Neptune himself. He was ragingly hard and pleased he’d decided to put on some boardies instead of being naked as he’d originally thought yesterday when he’d lain in post-coital glory on the beach beside her, formulating this plan to get a confession out of her.
He wasn’t sure why knowing whether she was Lady Mary was increasingly important to him.
It just was.
He’d often wondered if she thought about him. Knowing that she might have fantasised about them while he’d been training himself not to was beyond tantalising. Maybe it was ego, maybe it was something else he didn’t want to examine too closely, but he had to know.
And he’d known that there was only one way to find out.
He smiled down at her as he pushed off his bed. ‘Oh, there’s a purpose.’
Stella’s nipples hardened beneath his incendiary blue gaze as she noticed she was the only one naked. ‘You’re dressed.’ She pouted.
His smile broadened. ‘For now.’
Stella’s heart beat a little faster at the promise in those two incredible eyes the exact colour of the tropical waters surrounding them.
Rick prowled around the bed as Vasco had done, his gaze boldly running over every delectable inch of her. Blatantly lingering on her breasts and the strawberry mark he couldn’t see from this distance but he knew the exact location of—low and to the left of her centre. Their gazes locked as he roamed, dragging out the moment.
He stopped at the foot of the bed, shoving his hands on his hips. ‘I discovered something very interesting yesterday,’ he murmured.
The timbre of his voice dragged silken fingers across her skin. ‘Really?’ She hoped she sounded nonchalant, that the vibration of her madly fluttering heart wasn’t shaking the entire bed.
He nodded as he planted a knee on the mattress. ‘It’s intriguing to say the least,’ he continued.
‘Something to do with Inigo?’ she asked as she watched Rick prowl towards her, the light of a fictional pirate in his eyes.
He shook his head. ‘No. Something to do with you.�
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‘Oh?’ Her voice sounded high and breathy as he came right in close, his knees brushing her spread inner thighs.
Rick reached out and brushed his fingertips down her exposed centre. Stella gasped and bucked. He smiled. ‘You like that, don’t you?’
Stella bit her lip and nodded her head as the brush became something more purposeful. ‘Yes.’
The hammer of his heart was loud in his head as his finger followed the path of her heat and sank inside her. ‘And this?’
Stella whimpered. ‘Yes.’
‘You want more?’ he asked, sliding another finger home, using his thumb to rub the spot that was already tight and hard.
Stella was ready in an instant, balanced on a knife edge of anticipation. ‘Yes.’
Rick smiled. ‘Don’t you want to know what I discovered?’
She arched her back as he picked up the pace. ‘Yes, yes.’
Rick swallowed. She looked so bloody desirable at the mercy of his hand that he wanted to rip his boardies off and forget the damn birthmark but it was about more than the blemish.
Had she ever fantasised about them together? As he had despite Nathan’s unspoken law? Had she felt something more than friendship for him?
As he had.
He had to know.
He withdrew his fingers from inside her. ‘I found that you, too, have a birthmark.’
Stella felt her orgasm recede beyond her reach as her breath stuttered to a halt. She opened her eyes to find his blue ones glittering down at her.
‘Strangely enough,’ he continued, sliding his finger to the left, locating the blemish immediately, ‘in exactly the same spot that Lady Mary has hers. Coincidence, Stel, or are you Lady Mary?’
She shook her head vigorously. This was not what she’d expected. ‘No.’
What would he think if he knew? He’d already guessed too much about her fantasy life from Pleasure Hunt.
He quirked an eyebrow as he brushed his finger against the birthmark again. ‘Really?’