“This island is fairly rare for the surrounding area, as you’ve probably already noticed,” Victor explained. “While it isn’t too uncommon to find places in or around the Northwestern coast of Florida with fresh-water springs – in fact, there are some beautiful, clear, deep, fresh-water springs that people can even scuba-dive in, all throughout the state of Florida – it is unusual to find an island here with an actual spring that borders on a rock formation and creates a waterfall. As I’m sure you know, the great majority of Florida is comprised primarily of level beaches or depressed swamp-land, with very few granite deposits to speak of. It’s just the way the world was created billions of years ago.
“There are some trundling slopes and rocky outcroppings up near the border of Alabama, but typically you never find that on any of the local islands. Hurricanes, relentless ocean breezes, and tidal waves of years past, have pretty much turned almost every other single island out here into a plot of land as flat as a pancake. The closest thing you’ll ever see to a hill on one of these atolls is usually a cluster of rolling sand dunes. Some islands do have fresh-water springs such as this one, with plenty of flowering trees and shrubs and abundant wildlife, but I’ve never seen one in a setting as beautiful as this.”
Looking up from the spilling cascade, to the thick column of sparkling liquid, down to the lapping rivulets that gushed out in circular waves from where the waterfall crashed into the pool below, I acknowledged that he was surely right. I didn’t know much about the geography of Florida as a whole. But I did know that all the other islands we passed on the way here seemed to be singularly flat; the trees and dunes being the only things that broke up the level planes of land. This gorgeous waterfall with the stone-lined thirty-foot or so wide basin beneath it, surely had to be an aberration. I was simply glad it was here.
Not only was it lovely, but it would be a great place to get a cool drink of water, or even to take a bath and wash off in, since the current would quickly cleanse the water until it was fresh and pure once again. And since the water initially came from a spring up above, it would’ve already been filtered through many, many feet of bedrock and limestone before making it to the top. You couldn’t get much cleaner water unless you went to the continent of Antarctica and melted ice that had formed before pollution had ever even begun to take place.
I was still kneeling on the ground at the rim of the water (which right here was a mixture of verdant, silky dirt and brownish-sand), between some leafy green ferns and two slabs of sparkling-gray granite. The entirety of the edging around the gorgeous, clear pool was comprised of either a ring of lush greenery, or flat rocks. Staring down into the water, I realized then that it was so damn clear, I could actually see all the way to the bottom. Glancing further out, I quickly realized that it was much deeper in the middle than I had initially realized.
“It’s just like Ginnie Springs,” Victor said softly from behind me. I looked questioningly at him over my shoulder and then he grinned as he elaborated. “Ginnie Springs is a beautiful vacation spot back east a bit here in Florida. It has some of the clearest water known to man in which to go diving. It’s deep, warm, and has miles of incredible underwater caves and caverns you can explore year round. In fact, the water stays a constant 72 degrees regardless of the time of day or even the season.”
“It has miles of underwater caves?” I asked, glancing askance back at the grotto beside me. Was it possible this place here was similarly large?
“Yes. You can literally get lost in there and never be found again. Here, I’ve done quite a bit of exploring. I’ve been scuba-diving in this spring at least two dozen times, and I’ve still yet to find the end of the caves.”
I peered back into the shadowy depths of the sparkling, subtly-mysterious water. “Where are they? The caves.”
He pointed over my shoulder to the far left side. “About ten feet down under that small red boulder right there is the main entrance. There’s another one, about twenty feet over, but that cave doesn’t go very far. The big one, it’s about 4 feet in diameter starting out, but once you get past the opening and go in about forty feet or so, it opens up into an interlocking set of immense limestone caverns that seem to go on for miles. One day, I’ll explore all of it. But so far, I always end up running low on air and having to come back before I ever get to the end.”
“You don’t worry, going down under there?” I asked. I, myself, would be terrified out of my mind that I’d lose my way. Taking twists and turns underwater is nothing like following a maze through the woods. If you get lost in the forest, the worst thing that can happen is that you might end up spending a few nights out in the cold before a rescue party finds you, or you finally wind your own way back home. But if you lost your way under there, with only a limited amount of oxygen…I shuddered just thinking about it.
“It’s nothing to be afraid of,” he told me then. “You’ve never been scuba-diving before, have you?” Of course he already knew the answer to that, as he knew just about everything else about me. Growing up in Colorado, the opportunities to dive were scarce, and Victor knew me well enough to realize that I wouldn’t have sought it out in the cold waters off the coast of Washington, either.
“No,” I said softly. Looking at the rippling surface and thinking about how silent and still and peaceful it would be under there, I felt an undeniable pull. I may not like to go deep into the endless, dark caverns that spread out around us, but I would maybe like to go down to the entrances of the caves sometime; where the sun still sparkled, the fish lazily swam, and the rocks glittered gaily through the wavering water. It reminded me of back when I was young and I fantasized about being a mermaid – well, back before I grew up too fast, and all my silly little-girl dreams were shattered like a hammer smashing glass.
I stood up abruptly, pulling Victor’s shirt more tightly around my body. It was still hot out, so hot the sweat was dripping down my back between my shoulder blades. And yet still, I shivered.
“What demons chase you?” he asked me softly, and I looked up quickly and saw something in his face that stopped me cold. What did he know? Because there was something there in his eyes. He couldn’t possibly know the truth about me – about what I had done. But if he could’ve paid a private investigator to track me down, he could’ve certainly paid someone to dig up all the dirt on my family. If so, I guess he thought my mother was a murderer, then. If only he knew the truth.
I tried to turn my back on him, but he grabbed me. “Talk to me,” he said, his voice fierce. I looked up at his intense, black onyx eyes, realized that they were quickly boring a hole straight through to my soul.
“Let me go,” I told him as I twisted sharply to the side. But his hands tightened on the arms of the shirt, and he used his iron grip to hold me in place.
“I said talk to me,” he repeated. He wasn’t going to let me push away from him. He wasn’t going to let me escape from this. All of a sudden, I felt like I was suffocating, drowning even though I was still one step away from the water. Sensing the best way to break his hold on me and flee the situation entirely, I dropped into a crouch, slipped out of the shirt, then ducked under his arm and dove into the clear pool, leaving him holding an empty piece of fabric and gazing after me with his calculating, razor-sharp, penetrating eyes.
I was upset now, choking back tears, although I couldn’t really and truly even explain why. All I knew was that somehow, someway, thoughts of long-ago horrors had come back to claim me. I felt like I had to run from my past, run fast and run hard: but there was simply nowhere to go. So, I swam.
I swam fast, over towards the other edge of the cool, deep pool, figuring I’d climb out, jump up, and then take off into the woods; cowering in the bushes until the old terrors had finally left me.
As I propelled myself through the crisp, clean water, its cradling buoyancy soothed and calmed me. Yet even so, hot tears trailed down my face. Thank God, this beautiful pond was helping to hide them. I didn’t want Victor to see them
– to know – to realize. I didn’t want him to have any suspicions or ideas about me.
I was almost at the other edge, my mind playing a riotous stream of disconnected images. They were of agonizingly-cryptic flashes, flickering glimpses of old and painful memories. It was like three separate symphonies were all playing at once, my thoughts so jumbled and confusing they may as well have been transcribed into Chinese.
My emotions were out of control, a jangled, chaotic mess, when out of the blue; a big, strong arm wrapped itself around me. I pushed and struggled, trying to force my way through the water and away from the hot, rigid wall of flesh behind me, but it was no use. Victor hauled me back against his chest, pinned me there, and then swam with me – away from the bank that I was headed to, and over towards the waterfall instead. It had flat, smooth rocks along both sides of it; a perfect place for an afternoon rendezvous.
I found myself yelling and thrashing and scratching him, without any real cognizant recognition of what I was even doing. Why was I so upset? Why had I completely lost it?
Victor turned me around to face him, and I continued raging at him, hitting him, kicking out at his legs and gouging his chest with my short nails. I raked my hand across his skin so hard, I drew four thin lines of blood that were quickly soaked up and then rinsed away by the crystal-clear water. Still, the dark-red furrows remained. I’d never hurt him physically before, in fact, other than my own father – I’d never hurt anyone. The sight of his gashed flesh stopped me cold. I paused for only one single second, but it was all he needed.
Pushing me back against a warm rock at the edge of the pool, Victor took both my wrists in his palms. Bringing my arms down behind me and then pinning them beneath the water, against the small of my back, he leaned into me and kissed me. I kicked at him as he did so, but I missed, and it simply gave him the perfect opportunity to move in between my legs. And that’s when I realized that he’d shed his shoes and shorts before diving in behind me. Beneath those khakis, he’d been naked.
Right now he held me tight, pressed into me, and as the rock-edged wall behind me ground into my shoulders, he pushed his erection up against me and thrust his tongue in my mouth. He claimed me totally, completely, utterly. There was no room left for confusion or misconceptions. He was going to have me, all of me. He was going to take me, like it or not. And oh, dear God, but I think I liked it.
At first, I fought against myself as much as I fought against him. Pushing out with my hips, wiggling, and biting him. He moved his tongue out of my mouth in time to save it, but once again I bit his lip so hard I drew blood. Now he had blood on his mouth and his chest, but the more I tore into him, ravaged him, hurt him, the more I wanted him in me. My passion had finally hit its breaking point. Still, I would fight him damn-near to the death. Not because I didn’t want him anymore; because of how much I did.
I whipped my head to the side so he couldn’t kiss me again, and he pushed both of my wrists into his heavy left palm, easily anchoring them in place with the use of just one of his hands. With his free right hand, he grabbed my jaw, pulled my face around, wrenched my mouth open. He went in to kiss me and I felt my tongue automatically become poised, ready to taste him, waiting almost eagerly for his assault. But it didn’t come. Instead, he bit me back, capturing my bottom lip between his shiny, straight white teeth and holding it there. Then he began to lick and suck it.
I tried to jerk my head away but it barely moved; his grip was just too strong. I moaned a little as his hard, fierce lips suckled against me, wanting his tongue in my mouth instead, but those dark thoughts were still swirling in my brain. It wasn’t enough. I needed more.
I brought my leg up, so nimble and flexible, I easily moved it into position. He was focusing on my face now, on keeping my jaw pried open and finally plunging his tongue back inside me, his hard cock pressing up insistently and hungrily against my stomach. So, I used that opportunity to back my ass up towards the rigid rocks even more, and then surreptitiously wiggle my knee between us. I just needed to wait until the time was right.
Abruptly, though, he pulled back. “Tell me,” he whispered.
My greenish-blue, stormy eyes fixated on his. The flecks of gold around my irises were undeniably flashing in barely-subdued anger and mind-numbing fear. “Tell you what?” I asked carefully.
“Tell me everything. Tell me who hurt you, tell me what hurt you. Tell me what it is that makes you whimper and cry every night.”
“What do you mean?” I gasped.
“The tossing, the turning, the sobbing in your sleep. I wrestled with it for five long months. I’m not a fool. Come on Tempest, trust me. Let me in. Let me know your secrets.”
Oh no, he did know, then. He obviously knew everything that had been in the news, and beyond that, he suspected much, much more. Fuck!
I had no idea that he’d been aware of the dreams all along. My current roommate slept all the way at the other end of the house, and I’d had yet to share a bed with Charlie. So I wasn’t quite sure if, even now, those horrible dreams persisted. But back then, back when I’d been in college, they’d plagued me every night. My old roommates had quickly gotten earplugs, or even gone to sleep with their iPods on full-blast.
The funny thing was that I never even remembered the nightmares in the morning. I had no idea what they were about, or how they ended. I just woke up with the unmistakable feeling that something precious and yet also painful, had been irretrievably lost. But for some silly reason, I’d naïvely assumed that I’d felt so safe, so protected with Victor, that I hadn’t had those nightmares there with him. Especially since every morning, I’d woken up happy and secure in his arms.
Quite apparently, however, I’d been dead wrong. Only what did he know? What had I said in those late-night ramblings? Victor suspected something terrible, for certain. Whether he had it all figured out or not, I didn’t care to guess, nor did I even really want to know.
He was leaning into me. I felt his hardness pressing, pressing. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to turn. Nowhere left to run anymore.
I didn’t want him to remind me of that time, that thing that I had done – that act that had almost broken me. I wanted just the opposite. I wanted him to fuck me so hard and so long he pushed those thoughts away. I wanted him to damn-well pound that darkness out of me, drive the memories out of my soul. It may only last for a few moments, or a few hours. But I would take it. I needed that release now more than ever.
The only way to stop him from questioning me, probing into my memories, my thoughts, my shadowy past, was to incite the animal lust that lurked within him. I was halfway there already. It wouldn’t take much.
“You want me to let you in?” I breathed. “Where? Here?” I moved up, pushing against the rough, bumpy edge of the pool behind me until my hot cleft was right against the swollen tip of him. My one knee was still up, against his ribs. I was wide open for him.
“Tempest,” he growled. So I leaned forward, brushed my hard nipples against his chest. Never before had I been so brazen. It damn-near took his breath away. I felt his cock grow harder, felt it pulsing, could practically sense his heart-beat through the tiny bit of contact from skin to skin. I was getting to him.
His grip on me was easing. I leaned forward again, straining against the tight muscles in my thigh as I fought to keep my leg in place. When I was close enough to him, I slowly licked the bloody wounds on his chest from where I’d raked him. Then I pushed up higher and licked his lower lip. He groaned and thrust me against the wall.
“What in the hell are you doing?” he breathed into my mouth before claiming it, plunging his tongue between my lips and ravaging me. His rigid control slipped a little. He began kissing me in a way that was unlike anything else he’d ever done before. All those other times, he’d been in complete and utter mastery – of himself, and of me. His every reaction planned, his every movement orchestrated. Suddenly, somehow, I was the one calling the shots. He still was bigger, stronger, overwhelming, prac
tically possessing every inch of me. But for the first time ever, I was making the moves, directing the action, turning him on.
It felt good. I had the insane thought that I would love to fuck him without any limitations, both of us taking, violating, using each other – both of us losing control. I knew that he would always be the aggressor, always be the conqueror, always be the one pushing me, pleasuring me, taking me. But how far would he go?
If I were to truly allow myself to break free from all of my normal restraints and hang-ups during sex, to then show him the boundless and limitless sensuality that I’d always kept hidden somewhere deep inside me…just how far would he take it? If his firm and unyielding control slipped, if that absolute discipline that so tightly bound him somehow got fragmented, temporarily shoved past the point of no return; would he end up hurting me? Would he drive me - my body, my limits, my endurance - even farther and harder than he had thus far?
Suddenly, I felt him reigning himself back in, like a coiled spring winding itself tighter and tighter. He was onto my ploy. He was going to pull back from me, pull back from this, and then go back to questioning me about my dreams, or worse, about my earlier emotional outburst. I couldn’t allow it. I needed to push hard, and push now. Push with all I had.
I began to kiss him softly, sweetly. I relaxed my body, let him feel my resistance waning, and instantly I sensed his grip on me begin to loosen. As he reeled his own physical reaction back into check, he was also dialing down the physical domination. That would work to my advantage. I gave him another moment of capitulation, let him think that I was absolutely compliant, and I felt his entire body begin to ease. That was when I shoved with my knee, hard. It drove him back a little, giving me more room, so I brought my leg up higher and thrust with all I had, trying desperately to force him further away from me.
Rapture Island (The Captive Bride, III) Page 5