Intimate Strangers Affair

  “Maybe,” I grumbled. “Although what’s the point? You seem to know everything all the time anyway. It’s like living with a fortune-teller. Pretty soon there won’t be any secrets at all. You’ll know all my mysteries.” I wrinkled my nose and rolled off of him. “Which reminds me. What was with the telegram you received this morning? You seemed pensive after reading it.”

  His eyes slipped over my shoulder. “It was a telegram from the major,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “Oh? What about?”

  “He says that you are released. He understands…the value of discretion.” Miguel’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

  Good. Major Moore hadn’t bothered us until recently, and then we’d been forced to remind him that we knew all about his liaison with Miss Hollinger. It felt slimy to stoop to extortion, but sometimes you need to think and act like a snake to deal with a snake. I mean, I didn’t care who slept with who, as long as they were fair about it. Blackmail. One size fits all. And it fit Major Moore like a glove.

  “That old hypocrite.”

  Miguel looked back to me. “Enough of this. I have a surprise for you.” That irresistible sensual glimmer reappeared in his eyes, and just like that warmth spread in my lower abdomen. How could he do this to me every single time?

  “Oh? What kind of surprise?” I tried to keep my voice normal, but his tiny smile told me that he knew the effect he had on me.

  “You’ll see,” he said mysteriously.

  Suddenly, the silence around us hit me. There was always some kind of noise on the ship; sailors chattering, some singing, or just arguing over poker games. The ship seemed empty, the deck curiously cleared. There was no one on watch. How strange. “Where is everyone?”

  “Shore leave.”

  Oh. The fire spread even lower in my body. “So we’re—”

  “Completely alone, Señora Cabrillo,” Miguel’s eyes twinkled.

  It was still pleasantly warm and balmy, so different from our chilly San Francisco evenings. The sky was changing colors in the west, orange and salmon and the deepest rose red. And the sun had turned dark gold like an old coin, slowly sinking behind the streaks of clouds until its rim just hovered over the horizon.

  Miguel stood and swooped me up in his arms, tossing me over one shoulder. Upside down, my head dangled somewhere near the curve of his butt.

  “Put me down! Oh, Lord!” I felt the first swaying deep in the pit of my belly as he started climbing the rigging. I swallowed hard as the deck retreated, growing smaller by the second. “Miguel. I’m going to be sick.”

  “Go ahead,” he said calmly, not even breathing hard from his exertion. He climbed onward, carrying me as if I weighed nothing. We went higher. Then higher still. The barrels on deck looked like little brown dots.

  “Oh, my God.” I moaned, pressing my cheek into the soft lawn of his shirt. “I can’t look. I can’t.”

  “Then don’t,” he said simply.

  It took forever to reach the main rigging, some forty feet up. The eternal ascent. My eyes were jammed tight until my lids ached. I clung to him like a limpet until he climbed into the crow’s nest. He gently set me down, and my knees crumpled against soft velvet cushions. I buried my face in my hands. “You are insane,” I muttered.

  “Quite possible.” Wire twisted, and cork squeaked as it rubbed against something. There was a pop, fizz, then the festive sound of liquid pouring, bubbling into two glasses. He pressed a glass into my hand and guided it to my lips. “Drink,” he said.

  Humoring him, I took one begrudging sip. It was chilled to perfection. Not too sweet. Just the way he liked it. My eyes flashed open. “Hey, mister. This champagne was already here. Cold. And the glasses…these pillows. What are they doing here? You…you planned this. Already.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, don’t think you can just get me loopy and do whatever you want with me, because that won’t cut it. It won’t…” My words died on an uneven gasp when his hands swept over me with a devastating thoroughness. He traced a trail from my chin to my belly button. The fabric of my swimming suit whispered upwards, inch by torturous inch. Murmuring, he replaced the silk of it with the silk of his hair and the hot wet silk of his mouth.

  “Don’t think,” he said, his chin resting at my apex, his lips brushing the jut of my hip. “Just feel. This. And this.”

  I arched into his words, then arched even higher. “Miguel…”

  His thumb skimmed over the tops and along the sensitive skin of my thighs to where everything verged, twisted. And still he teased me, withholding what I wanted, blowing softly. He stopped. Just stopped, hovering there. Right there. And me, right there too. How could he? My pelvis tilted, but he didn’t take the hint. My hands fisted his hair. I looked down, and I could see his ferocious eyes staring up at me. One brow lifted.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “Ah. The magic word.” And then, smiling, he showed me some magic of his own. The barest sleight of hand, and I levitated. His breath became the wind, carrying me out of my body, away from the ship and up, up, high into the sky. I flew. And as I sailed like a bird, vertigo was the furthest thing from my mind. I was full of Miguel. Only Miguel. His lips, tongue, and fingers loved me in the most torturous way, until I exploded into millions of stars.

  After I caught my breath, I reached and ran my thumb along the ticking muscles of his chest. Miguel’s eyes closed as I fumbled with his swimming suit. He tried to help me, but impatience made us both clumsy. Our fingers tangled together, interlocked, skin sliding along skin. Warm, smooth, groove to fit. Just that simple touch and need stabbed straight under my ribs again, into somewhere deep, some place vital. It hurt so…so good. My palm spread over his taut belly. His muscles rippled, his breath caught as though he felt the same exquisite pain too. Then greed flashed through me and I drowned in the rush to touch, to assuage, to come together at last. I had waited my whole lifetime for this man. Waited and never known I’d been waiting. And now that I did, I couldn’t wait any longer. Waiting was agony. Impossible. I moved hungrily. Fast. Fierce. Furious. Everything he did, I did for him. I returned every caress, every lick and touch, made bold by my curiosity, my need to discover, to taste. I wanted to learn. Everything.

  “Slow down,” he said huskily.

  “No.” I squeezed harder, felt him move harder into my palm. One stroke, two.

  He shuddered, pushing my fingers away. He pulled me up to him, his hands curving around my hips, cupping my buttocks. His palms burned my cool skin.

  “Like night,” he said. “Mon Dieu.” His thumb ran down inwards where I was soft, sensitive. “Like night and day.”

  His hands circled slowly across my inner thighs. I bit his shoulder, wanting to punish him as he was punishing me. My hips rocked to his touch, his fingers gradually, finally converging at my center. Cajoling, opening, stretching. Fingers, then his heat.

  “You feel so good, Nathalie. Why do you feel so right?” His eyes closed with bliss as he slowly pushed deeper. I enveloped him, my hips setting a rhythm of their own. He stopped suddenly, his progress halting. His eyes snapped open, astonished, almost glaring at me. “Slowly…”

  I shook my head. I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Something flickered and coiled inside me. I had to catch it, just within reach. But his body jerked in protest. He gritted his teeth and started to move away from me, that lovely sensation starting to disappear.

  “No.” My fingers trapped his lean hips, clutching, pulling him back. I closed my legs around him and pushed down. Hard, sudden, chasing the feeling down. The magic returned, blossomed.

  Miguel groaned, and I clamped tighter with all my muscles. I felt his reflex and my answering ripple. “Ahhh…” I smiled. There. A drop of joy fell. Then another. Sprinkling enchantment, delight raining down on me.

  His mouth loved mine as we rose and fell. Sweetness sharpened, gathered into rivulets that joined from one part of my body to another. Joining, growing. He touched me in secret places. Here.
There. Higher. I moved again, arching, forcing him where I needed him most. His mouth parted with surprise, his head thrown back as if something had snapped. Then suddenly he gripped my shoulders like I was his only anchor, and he plunged forward. Deep. Surging. Everything he’d been holding back broke through the cracks in the ice, pushing past the last barriers, gushing forth. He became a river running free under my hands, running wild through me. Each sensation tumbled over the next like rocks caught in a deluge. Everything seemed fast, heady, turbulent. Shooting the white water rapids. I didn’t care if I drowned, if we drowned together. My breath came short, a terrible pressure jamming, building…until finally I burst. Release flooded through me, Miguel following, spilling over into the wide vast sea of our joy.

  The polished wood felt cold and slick under my cheek. I don’t remember when I landed or how, but I slowly returned to myself. I could feel the oak floor, silk tassels, the rougher silk of his beard and hair. And around us was the intoxicating perfume of tropical flowers, champagne…and us. Our scent. I was half-sprawled, with Miguel lying over me, his head propped on one hand.

  He looked up, sliding over me. His hand brushed the hair off my face. “How do you feel?”

  “Huh?” I blinked, feeling drugged. My voice sounded drunk. He was so perfectly intoxicating. Straight to my head. Worse than Pisco punch. “I’m fine…hot.”

  “Yes, very hot,” he laughed softly against my lips before kissing me, showing me how much hotter it could be. Beyond degrees. Beyond measurement. I felt like I was falling into the sun itself, taking him with me. We were burning up together. Suddenly, he lifted me so that I was standing, my hand gripping the rail in front of me, his muscular strength behind me and between me: moving, supporting, increasing. I reached backwards, adjusting him, feeling him move to my touch, his impatience building until it equaled my own.

  Then eventually his hand stilled mine and he muttered, “Stop.”

  No. Now, my body said. I opened, accepting, feeling his slow easy glide, facilitated by my moisture, by his. What was heaven, if not this? And if this were hell, I’d gladly stay here with him. Stay until all the seas ran dry. I braced my legs, pushing back, smiling when I heard his low sounds of approval. Miguel murmured his love in my ear as he pushed. We moved together, sailing on the momentum, riding it forward, backwards, then side to delicious side.

  He reached around me and laid his hands over mine so that we both gripped the rail. “Open your eyes, mi amor. Look. See,” his voice gritted into my ear. “See the water, the land. The whole world’s before you. At your feet. You’re on top of the world. Here, with me. If we go, we go together. I am with you. Always.”

  I curved my back so that I could lean into his kiss. We connected above and below. And for the first time, when I looked down from the heights, something other than terror gripped my heart. Something else made me senseless. Totally senseless. Miguel. Always.

  The waves rocked our ship, and our passion rocked me. Our rhythm and the sea’s rhythm matched, mated, built. We moved faster, surer, racing toward that place where the sky meets the sea, where two souls meet and become one. The beginning and the ending. Infinite. Unending delight shot from nerve to nerve as I watched the ocean swallow the sun, and I felt Miguel shout into me.

  Shuddering, he rested against me. His lips touched my back. He kissed my shoulder blade. “Madre de Dios,” he muttered.

  “No,” I said. “Just me.” I looked over my shoulder at him, at the cool green ice of his gaze, and the passion burning just underneath it. A passionate fire still burning for me as I still burned for him. The eternal flame. Love. He was the pulse of my heart.

  Breaths brushed as we drifted into a kiss as gentle as light. Milkweed fluff. His soft sigh puffed against my lips, down my cheek. Something burst free, sending seeds of joy that took flight. Scattering, lofting into the wide blue sky where there were no limits. I floated in the air, somewhere in his arms.

  “Nathalie,” he whispered. Only he could make my name sound like a love word, like a blessing.

  His love was the only thing I ever needed. It was just right. It always would be.

  END