Promises in Paradise

by Sandra Kitt

  Until that night with Hale when she’d teased and challenged him. And he’d taken her up on it.

  Diane snuggled closer to him, entwining their legs, playing footsie.

  “I guess you want a full disclosure about why I was so nasty to you.”

  His hand glided back and forth across her stomach. His fingertips lightly drifted through her pubic hair. Close enough for Diane to want him to explore further.

  “I just gave you the thrill of a lifetime. I think you owe me a lot more than apologies. But go for it. I’m listening.”

  For a moment all Diane could think of was all those years when Hale was under her father’s tutelage, denying herself…them…the chance to develop an honest passion for each other.

  Maybe.

  Diane twisted her head to kiss the arm that cradled her head.

  “We weren’t from the same kind of background.”

  “I got that part,” Hale drawled. “You used to piss me off with your attitude.”

  “And I thought you didn’t care what I thought of you. And then there was another thing that was happening to me. You made me hot.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know what I mean,” she murmured. “On the one hand, I wanted to hate you. On the other, I was so attracted to you. I used to have the most…incredible fantasies about you. The two of us, together.”

  He said nothing for a few seconds and then Hale began to laugh softly.

  “I didn’t think it was so funny,” she complained.

  “You could have had me if you’d acted right. I would have scratched your itch. You could have done the same for me.”

  “Well, we did…”

  “Yeah, the night Adam and Eva went out. Suddenly you’re all over me.”

  “I had nothing to lose, but you didn’t know that. My virginity was not the issue. I was having wet dreams about you.”

  Hale grunted, his hand pushing further between her legs. “Testing me, huh?”

  “Something like that.” She sighed, shifting her legs to give him room.

  “Well?”

  “I wasn’t disappointed. You went far…”

  “And below…”

  “The call of duty.”

  “Glad I finally got your attention…”

  He wasn’t angry about it, and it was a revelation that they could even talk about it now, openly, without ill feelings but real surprise. At least, on her part.

  Diane wondered if she hadn’t acted so imperial with Hale back then and pulled her Princess Di act, if she’d given him half a chance, how different their relationship might have been.

  Or not.

  Then came the inevitable comparison with her ex-husband Trevor.

  She cringed. Not a good idea. Trevor was everything that Hale was not. But the reverse was also true. Trevor had been the acceptable black man model. He was from the right kind of family and attended the right schools. He had the right social contacts and was one of the few successful black financial brokers in D.C. He had manners and standards, and would have been put off by even the idea of doing what Hale had done for her. Twice.

  She now realized and accepted that the failure of their two-year marriage was her fault. Her expectations had never been on the same page with her desires. Not having them met by Trevor had forced her into work and more work for solace…leaving him behind. She had been stunned when Trevor had walked out. His action had embarrassed her.

  Diane suddenly shivered as another thought exploded into her awareness. If she’d been honest as a young woman she might have recognized that it was not someone like Trevor she wanted. But someone who shaped up to be more like Hale…and the man he’d become.

  She absently let her hand glide up and down his torso. His skin was warm and she was absorbing his body heat. Her fingers teased at one of his nipples and then played in the hollow of his navel. He shifted slightly under her hand, and she felt his erect penis touch her hand.

  Diane let her hand stroke him slowly, tickling and titillating the shaft, down through the hair. He lay and let her explore, his body responding to her every move. She heard a faint grunt.

  “Are you going to do something about this or just torture me?” he murmured, his voice strained.

  Diane came up on her elbow and tried to look into his face. Her hand continued stimulating him. His hips beginning to undulate at her touch.

  “I think we’ve put it off long enough, don’t you?”

  With her words he placed his hand behind her head and brought it down so they could kiss. The meeting of their lips and tongues immediately brought her to a state of arousal. Hale moved, forcing her to release him, and he put her on her back, all the while kissing her until she felt that lazy drifting of her mind and the taking over of her senses.

  Suddenly he dragged his mouth free, muttering an oath of frustration.

  “Listen…sorry about this. I’m not prepared…”

  “I am,” she managed. “On the deck. The bag…the plastic bag…”

  Hale lifted himself away, and a wave of night air washed over her skin.

  Hurry, she said to herself. Hurry…

  “Got it,” Hale said, rummaging through the contents of the bag. Soon he was returning to her.

  Diane reached up her arms to him, welcoming him. They began to kiss again and Hale settled between her legs as her knees fell open. They were panting, but almost as if by mutual consent they didn’t want to rush. Hale’s urgency quickly became apparent. He’d been waiting longer than she had for satisfaction.

  He came forward with his hips and unerringly lodged himself, smoothly sliding deep to complete their connection.

  They moved together, perfectly matched and fitted, their bodies in rhythm as they strived for release from their raging delirium. Diane clung to him, her mouth searching for him. The intensity of her kiss and his sensitivity finally reached the tipping point.

  Hale uttered something primal and guttural as he pulsed and climaxed within her. The rocking of his hips set off the fireworks within her and she peaked again.

  She lay beneath him, enjoying his weight and warmth, feeling protected. The irony of the two of them together like this did not escape her. Diane thought of how her father and Eva had honored her wishes to not talk about Hale, and so she had missed not only his coming of age, his maturity, but him. By insisting that they not share any of her life with him, he’d not seen nor experienced that she’d tried very hard to overcome his scathing indictment of her as a self-centered “Princess,” not for his sake but her own.

  She hugged him and kissed the side of his neck. She felt the still-rapid pulsing of a vein.

  “Can you imagine if we’d waited any longer?” she conjectured, her tone languid and drowsy, and amazed.

  “Shoot me now,” Hale muttered against her shoulder. He grew flaccid and slipped out. “Consider that rain check paid in full.”

  They stood on the veranda and waved as the Jeep reversed in the small parking area and then headed down the driveway.

  “We’ll see you in a little while,” Diane shouted.

  “Not me,” Adam added.

  Diane and Eva laughed, as her father had made it perfectly clear that he was just about holiday-companied out. He intended to do nothing for the rest of the day but watch some TV and sleep.

  Hayden had already been picked up by a local friend who was going out fishing with his father and brother. Hale had already called to say he was hanging out on the sloop for most of the day. He’d brought down work to do. He was working on an important brief for a hearing coming up early in the new year. It seemed to Diane that there was not going to be an opportunity for them to be together today and she was disappointed.

  Unlike the day before, Diane reminisced, when just the two of them had taken the Zodiac and skiffed over to a small cay between Trunk and Cinnamon Bay to swim and picnic. Hayden and Adam had gone to pick up supplies from a boat shop in Coral Bay. Eva had settled on the veranda with a book, and the girls had sle
pt late, limiting their options to join any of them, for which Diane had been grateful. Simon had decided to hang around Cruz Bay, have breakfast and explore the small town.

  The beach she and Hale ended up on was small…and deserted. They’d anchored in the shallow surf and explored the secluded area for other accesses to the beach. There were none. Diane had been thrilled that she and Hale had it all to themselves.

  “I think my father used to come here to collect samples,” she told Hale as she stripped off her cover-up. “Eva said he taught her to snorkel here, and she didn’t even know how to swim.”

  Hale had come up behind her, his strong arms circling her waist and pulling her back against his chest. He kissed the back of her neck.

  “While we’re here I have something else in mind.”

  She turned in his arms to look into his face. She decided he had the most beautiful mouth. She ran a thumb over the surface of his lips as he stared at her, his gaze hooded and filled with warmth. She could already feel herself getting moist, wet, in that place where he’d so effectively used his mouth and tongue on her the night before, under the stars. The look in his eyes had completely changed in less than twenty-four hours. That wary look of suspicion and distance was, magically, gone.

  She’d kissed him briefly and pulled away.

  “You’ll have to wait. I want to swim first.”

  They’d frolicked and swam in the aquamarine water until they were tired and hungry. Under the low-hanging canopy of a sea grape tree they’d had a lunch of Eva’s homemade chicken salad, raisin pecan rolls, brownies and strawberry iced tea. Full and warm and sleepy, they’d spread out the towels in the shade. Assured that they were alone, they relieved each other of bothersome swimsuits and made slow, sensual, heated love until their bodies were sleek with sweat and further satiated with pleasure.

  They’d drifted off to sleep spooned together, risking discovery, and awakened almost an hour later to drowsy arousal. After making love again they’d cooled off in the bay before putting their suits back on and heading back to Chocolate Hole.

  But that night had not given them an opportunity to repeat their adventure of the night before. Still, Diane had had one of the most restful sleeps she’d experienced in months, with dreams that were fanciful and romantic….

  The memory made Diane smile secretly. It would have to sustain her for the day, not knowing for sure when they could be together again. She was already preparing excuses for slipping away later.

  She didn’t hear a word Eva was saying as they headed back into the house. Adam had already disappeared to entertain himself.

  “…sure if he believed me,” Eva murmured, going to get her purse from the sofa.

  “What?” Diane asked, doing the same.

  “I said, your father didn’t understand why you and I didn’t go with the girls and Simon. He wanted to know why we’re meeting them later.”

  “What did you tell him?” Diane asked, frowning. She understood Eva’s desire that Adam not know of her medical concerns.

  “I had to lie, of course, and I feel terrible about that. I didn’t tell him you thought I should have a sonogram. I told him you wanted to see the cardiac department at the hospital. That you were curious what the facility preparations were in case of a serious emergency.”

  Diane cringed. “That’s a little close for comfort,” she said.

  “I thought it was better to stay close to the truth. That way I won’t forget what I said in case he starts asking questions later.”

  “Well, the possibility of fibroids is all I think we’re looking at. But I understand how you feel.”

  After the visit to the hospital Diane drove them into Cruz Bay to meet up with Bailey and Courtney for lunch and shopping.

  It was Eva who ended the excursion into Cruz Bay with the simple announcement that she was ready to go back to the house. The girls, worn out from the crowds and walking, did not put up a fuss. Diane offered to drive them back, knowing without being told that her brother was already planning his evening. But he surprised her when he suggested she return in the evening, maybe with Hale, and they’d have dinner together. Somewhere they could listen to music.

  Diane was the last one to enter the house behind the girls, who’d stampeded up the stairs, and Eva, who had immediately gone in search of her husband. Eva found him stretched out on the sofa, reading Time. Diane pretended not to witness their loving greeting, warm and palpable after mere hours apart.

  That’s what I want, she said plaintively to herself. And she had an image of being on the beach with Hale. Of having him awaken her with a sleepy kiss before they’d made love again. There had been this feeling inside of her, this…euphoria, because he was being so loving and gentle.

  That’s what I want.

  Chapter 8

  The rain added an unexpected calm to the evening. Unintentionally, it also put the holiday into perspective, as well. All the exuberant partying that had been going on for a week on the island was winding down. The seemingly endless days of sunshine and blue skies and tranquil seas were also at an end. At least for the evening. Everyone was anticipating New Year’s Eve to be perfect. The year was going to end on a warm tropic breeze.

  But tonight was a date night, suggested by Simon. It felt good to Diane to be just with people her own age. It was wonderful to be having a real date with Hale.

  Diane sipped her wine, sitting back in the wicker lounge chair at the pool bar of the Westin Hotel with her legs crossed. Hale was next to her, cool and handsome in startling white linen slacks and a black short-sleeved loose shirt tucked into the waist. He was addressing remarks to Katie, a pretty black woman who managed a gallery near the pier, and whom Simon had met and invited to join them just hours earlier. Katie was wearing a gauzy black sundress with an elastic waistline that emphasized her tiny middle. Her medium-length hair had been two-strand twisted and then released, giving her a bushy do of corkscrew curls that complimented her heart-shaped face. Diane listened and watched her brother in action with his date, at his charming best.

  How does he do it? she wondered, amused.

  She liked Katie. She left Houston after a nasty divorce and escaped to lick her wounds with an aunt and uncle who lived on St. Thomas. That had been three years ago and she was not yet ready to return to the mainland.

  “I guess I’m the only one here who’s never been married and divorced,” Simon commented, ordering another round of drinks.

  Diane’s attention swiveled quickly to Hale. She raised her brows at him as if to say, “excuse me?”

  He held her gaze, composed and easy. “I don’t think I’d count being divorced as a badge of honor exactly. It’s painful and it’s hard. It’s a part of my experience that I failed at.”

  She said nothing, realizing she could hardly call Hale on the fact that she had no idea he’d been married. He had known about Trevor.

  What else didn’t she know about him?

  “I’m too young,” Simon said blithely, causing everyone to laugh.

  “I agree,” Diane added, hiding her surprise at the revelation about Hale but merely smiling at him. Beneath the marble cocktail table between their chairs he reached for her hand to hold. She welcomed it but her curiosity did not abate.

  “Simon tells me you’re a doctor,” Katie said to her. “That’s great. My dad’s an internist. They used to call them family doctors.”

  “Everyone specializes now.”

  “He’s always complaining about the HMOs and the pharmaceuticals. There’s so much pressure to do things a certain way if you want to make a decent living.”

  Diane looked at her. “What things?”

  Katie made a vague gesture with her hand. “Oh, I’m sure you know. The sample drugs to give to patients. The extra tests. And then there’s the kickbacks from the drug companies to prescribe their brands. One of my father’s colleagues had his license revoked for doing that. He can’t practice for five years.”

  Everyone grew quiet, not
sure what to say about the dark side of the medical business.

  “Our station did a three-part special on the problem about two years ago,” Simon commented. “It’s pretty widespread.”

  “There’s a lot of money involved,” Hale added. “I know. I used to work for Carlyle when I finished law school.”

  “You did?” Diane found herself asking.

  “Yeah, my father talked about Carlyle. Not an honest company.”

  Hale chortled. “No, they weren’t. But for a while they were pulling in serious bucks.”

  The conversation got swept away quickly from the subject of drug companies to Katie’s anecdotes about some of her father’s patients.

  But Diane only half listened, still caught up on Hale’s confession that he’d worked for a company that had had repeated criminal charges filed against them. All she could think of was those pills that Eva had been taking that another company had produced and tried to pawn off on unsuspecting and trusting consumers.

  He didn’t seem embarrassed to admit he’d worked for such a place. Now she really wondered what else about Hale’s background he had not told her. Her father always insisted that Hale had turned his life around, had seriously changed from the young teen he’d been when Adam had first met him. But it was also said that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  The rain not only continued, it became heavy, pelting the walking paths and the roof of the overhang where they sat, protected. It created a shimmering gray curtain that cooled the air and, one by one, the couples around them finished and left.

  “I think I’d better get Katie back or we’ll end up having to swim,” Simon said, now signaling for the check.

  But Hale beat him to it, settling the tab and thanking Simon for suggesting the evening.

  “I was going to take Di out anyway, but this was great. A really nice evening. Good to meet you Katie,” Hale said with a smile for the other woman.

  “Hearing all of you talk about your lives back in the States…well, it made me think for the first time, maybe I should get back to the real world and a real life,” Katie said wryly.