Gently he spread her thighs wider and moved his body around so that he knelt between her legs. “Gorgeous.”
The head of his massive cock throbbed against her knee as he leaned forward. Annie’s excitement escalated. Unbearable. She couldn’t stand it. She’d never felt such desperate pressure.
His big fingers caressed her clit as his tongue probed the folds of her labia. Her eyes slid closed so she could savor what he was doing to her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
His tongue captured her clit.
“Oh, God.” Never, in all her life, had she been pleasured this way. It was ecstasy. He seemed to know exactly what she wanted, what she needed from him. Knew it even better than she did. He reveled in her and she had never felt so cherished. It was dangerous territory, these tender feelings. But she couldn’t stop them. They were part and parcel of what was going on.
While he suckled her clit with his mouth, he slipped a finger into her slick, wet pussy. The walls of her vagina sucked at his finger, gripping and kneading him in rhythmic waves, pulling him deeper and deeper into her.
Sound was altered and she existed in the delicious void. Floating, without a body, it seemed. She was total sensation. Aware of everything. Her entire being a giant throbbing clit of energy.
“You are so damn hot.”
She rode the sensation of his tongue, got lost in it. She hovered on the brink of orgasm, but he would not let her fall over. A steady strumming vibration began deep in her throat and it emerged as a wild moan.
“Please,” she begged. “Please.”
“Please what, babe? You have to ask for what you need.”
“Please make me come.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear.”
He let loose then. Gave her his all. His tongue danced, his fingers manipulated. She let go of all control. Let go and just allowed him to take over. It seemed he was everywhere. Over her, around her, in her, outside of her. He was magic. He was amazing. He played her with accomplished precision. She was his instrument, tuned and ready.
“More.” She thrashed her head. “Harder.”
He gave it to her just the way she asked for it. Pumping his hand into her, while his thumb pressed her clit, the secret button of her release.
“Come, babe, come,” he coaxed.
She came. Exploded into great, writhing pleasure. She screamed. Her voice echoing across Dead Man’s Island. Slapping against the rain. Bouncing off the confines of the overhang. Sating her soul for the first time in five years.
5
Annie was limp in his arms, drained, sated. Duncan gathered her close, nuzzled her neck, nibbled her earlobe. Her delicious feminine aroma surrounding him. She smelled of the sea he loved, salty and rich and verdant. Hungrily, he inhaled her. Stunned at how intensely she stirred him.
So personal was her smell, so tuned in was he to her fragrance, that if he were blindfolded in a room with a hundred women he could pick her out by scent alone. Yearning clutched his throat, squeezed his heart. Whether she knew it or not, she had him on the ropes. One frown from her and he was jumping to turn it into a smile. One smile and his day was made.
Duncan stared at her sleeping form and his heart was stone in his throat. What was going to happen, he wondered, when they got back to civilization and she learned the Siren’s Call was a fake? That he’d orchestrated this whole expedition because he’d known it was the only way she would allow him to make love to her again.
Guilt had him snared tight in its teeth. He should tell her the truth, tell her now, face her anger, and beg for her forgiveness.
But she was sleeping soundly and he could not bring himself to disturb her. He wished he could sleep. He needed to sleep if he expected to keep up with his insatiable woman.
His woman.
Duncan cradled the back of his head in his palms and smiled up at the rocky overhang above them. If he had to use sex and the Siren’s Call to hang on to her, then that’s what he would do. She was his woman, and he was determined that this time he was never going to let her go.
* * *
When Annie awoke sometime later, the rain had stopped and Duncan was gone.
For a minute, she felt the same treacherous flash of panic she’d experienced five years earlier, on the morning after they’d first made love and he’d blithely announced he had signed up as a salvage diver on a ship run by the most beautiful and sexually aggressive woman in St. Augustine. The betrayal of that long-ago morning was so fresh in her mind she could feel the sting of it, could smell orange blossoms blooming on the trees from the field near Duncan’s houseboat.
That was then and this is now, she told herself. Totally different circumstances. Then, she’d been a shattered kid. Now, she was fully in control of her own destiny.
She sat up. Should she go search for him? Or simply wait for him to return?
Waiting idly by for him to return was too passive. Too much like she’d given up and just let him have his way. Besides, it was his turn, and she was in the driver’s seat.
She put on her bikini. Her body was sore and achy from his lovemaking. Grinning, she wandered down to the beach.
When she reached the clearing, she saw he’d made a fire on the beach. How had he managed that?
He came strolling from the sea, naked as the day he was born. His harpoon in one hand, a large fish in the other. Annie had never seen a more compelling sight.
Duncan stalked toward her, his cock, jutting proudly in the air, already hard for her.
She was so excited her pulse banged through her veins. “You caught a fish.”
He shrugged as if providing for her was expected, not exceptional.
“And built a fire.” Annie gestured.
“I had matches in my waterproof emergency diving kit,” he explained. “You hungry?”
“Starving.” She followed, watching him as he fashioned a makeshift barbecue spit, cleaned the fish, skewered it with a stick, and stuck it over the fire to grill. He did it all while he was still hard as a rock.
Poor baby. He’d given her a rousing orgasm without ever coming himself. How selfish of her. How thoughtless. She should even the score.
“Duncan.”
The expression on his face was so intense she could feel it deep down in her soul. He looked so good. So manly. Muscles bulging, he stepped closer, encroaching on her personal space.
“Annie, we need to talk.”
“Shh,” she hushed him. “Not now.”
Then without another word, she dropped to her knees in the sand, took his big, thick, beautiful cock into her hand, touched her lips to him.
“That’s it, babe,” he gasped and a shudder went through him. He cupped the top of her head in his palms, channeling her in his preferred rhythm. “That’s right,” he cried, his voice gravelly as ground rocks. “Suck me.”
As she took him in her mouth, she realized she’d never felt more powerful in her life.
* * *
Annie’s lips were on his cock, her fingers digging into his buttocks. Duncan had never felt anything so damned wonderful. He couldn’t believe what she was doing for him.
He thought he’d had her figured out. Thought he knew her through and through. But this was not what he’d been expecting. A blow job. On the beach.
She took his breath.
He looked down at her dark brown curls and his heart contracted. This wasn’t right. He didn’t want her on her knees subservient to him. He was the one who revered and treasured her. He was the one who was guilty and wrong. He was the one who’d made all the mistakes.
But it felt so incredible, and he understood that she was trying to give to him what he’d given to her earlier that afternoon. He stood beneath the sky as the sun went down, and the woman he loved made him feel more like a man than he’d ever felt in his life.
Her mouth was so hot!
And she was doing things with her tongue, twirling it up and down along his shaft at the same time she sucked
him. He had to reached down and grip her shoulders to keep himself from toppling over.
She held all the power. She was in control. He was putty. He was liquid. He was both nothing and everything in her willing hands. God, he’d missed out on so much! He’d missed out on five years of Annie.
Stupid fucker.
But he couldn’t keep berating himself. Not when the things she was doing made him forget his own name.
Back and forth, she went. Sliding her mouth up and down his shaft. Duncan’s knees tensed and when she reached up to cup his balls in one of her hot little hands dusted lightly with sand, he let out an explosive groan.
Annie made a noise of pure feminine satisfaction. She loved what she was doing to him. The minx. Duncan could not even think. He was swept away by sensation. Pressure, tension, and Annie’s amazing tongue. His head swirled. He was a piece of debris caught in a water spout, tossed across the sea.
The tension built and built and built. Just when he thought he was going over the edge, she stopped moving.
“Wah … wah?” he gasped.
“Just thought you should see what it feels like to be tortured,” she chuckled.
He let out a strangled cry.
And then her mouth was on him again, slick and velvety hot. Building him up only to let him down a second time.
He was crazy at this point. Lost to everything. He reached for his cock, but she slapped his hand away.
“No, no,” she scolded. “This is my job.”
Then back she was again. Rocking forward in the sand, sucking, licking, gobbling him up.
“Stop, stop, I’m about to come,” he said.
But she ignored him, kept sucking him until he was within an inch of crazy.
Duncan shot his load into her mouth. Hot and quick.
He let out a sound of complete destruction. Dammit. He hadn’t meant to do that.
“Annie,” he cried.
He looked down at her and she was looking up at him, a wicked grin on her face, cheeks puffy, a drop of his semen on her bottom lip, gleaming wetly in the waning sunlight.
She winked at him.
And then she swallowed.
* * *
They dined on the roasted fish Duncan had caught and shared a small bottle of water from his emergency dive kit.
He had carried the bed of palm fronds and wetsuits down to the campfire. They’d decided to spend the night on the beach instead of at the overhang in case their boat driver decided to return to the island for them.
“Why do you suppose the driver left us?” Annie asked.
Duncan shrugged guiltily. No doubt he felt responsible for choosing such an unreliable boat captain. “You were right. The locals are afraid of Dead Man’s Island. Our driver must have gotten spooked while we were diving and took off.”
“But to leave us out here alone.” She shook her head. “That’s pretty cowardly.”
He met her eyes. “People often have reasons for things we can’t always understand.”
“Do you have any plans for how we’re going to get home?”
“Someone will come for us soon,” he reassured her.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Your grandfather knows where we are. Plus, I filed a dive plan with the dive shop in Key West.”
“You’ve thought of everything,” she said, impressed by his thoroughness. Annie realized there was absolutely no one else in the world she’d rather be stranded on a desert island with than this man.
Duncan added a fresh log to the fire. It was still damp and it smoldered for a while before it dried out and began to snap and crack. Sparks shot skyward. They sat there for a long time in companionable silence, leaning against each other, gazing into the fire.
“What about this guy you’re unofficially engaged to?” Duncan asked her. “This corporate lawyer. Tell me about him.”
“Nothing much to tell,” she said uneasily.
She did not want to talk about Eric. She’d already come to the conclusion, before she’d ever set on foot in the ocean with Duncan, that she was going to break up with Eric. Being back home, seeing Duncan again, had her examining the path she was on, and she’d realized it was taking her farther and farther away from the things she loved.
“So you’re really going to marry him.”
“I had planned on it,” she said. Even if she was breaking up with Eric, she had no idea where she stood with Duncan. She wasn’t giving away any more than she had to. Not until she’d gotten away from this island and the pull of the Siren’s Call and sorted out her true feelings.
Duncan growled low in his throat. “Are you still planning on it? After what we just did together today?”
“The Siren’s Call was responsible for what happened today. It was just sex.”
“But how can you have sex with me and still love this other guy?” Duncan’s voice was tight.
Annie didn’t answer. She realized she’d never really loved Eric. She thought she loved him, but now she knew she’d only loved what he represented. Stability, safety, security.
“Are you still going to marry him?” His eyes drilled into her.
Annie hesitated, anxious about revealing too much to him.
He closed his big hand over hers and prompted, “Annie?”
“No.”
Relief slacked his features. “Really?” he asked hopefully. “Why not?”
She shrugged, stared into the fire, unable to meet his gaze.
“Is it because of me? Because of us?”
“There is no ‘us,’ Duncan,” she said, terrified to acknowledge the truth.
“Don’t lie to yourself. There’s never been anything but ‘us,’ and you know it.”
“Great oral sex does not a permanent bond make.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know.” She picked up a stick and poked the fire.
He clamped his fingers around her wrist, forced her to stop stirring the coals. “No. No I don’t.”
“We can’t go back in time, Duncan. We’re not the same people anymore.”
“I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward.”
“I can’t make you any promises.”
“Why’d you take up with a guy like Hammond? What’s the appeal?”
She drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. Because he isn’t you. “I needed someone stable that I could depend on to be there. Especially after the way you screwed with my head. Leaving town the morning after you’d bedded me and stole my virginity like it meant nothing.”
“I’m sorry for that.” His voice cracked painfully. It sounded as if the words had been savagely ripped from his throat.
“Yeah, well, so am I.” She looked at him then and it hurt her to see that his eyes were haunted, and in that moment she realized he had suffered as much as she.
“I think you’re kidding yourself,” he said after a long time had passed, with no sounds breaking the silence except for the whoosh of the surf and the crackling fire.
Annie was thinking about the past, the way they used to be, about all the things they’d shared. All the things they could share again, if she were brave enough to take a chance. “What about?”
“I don’t think you wanted someone stable and secure. I think you wanted someone you knew you wouldn’t fall in love with. You can’t fool me, Annie Marie. You make out like you want an intimate relationship, but the truth is you’re terrified of commitment. Scared as hell that if you let yourself feel true passion you’ll end up like your parents.”
“I’m not afraid of commitment. You’re projecting your fears onto me. You’re the one who jumps from woman to woman, like Tarzan swinging from vine to vine.”
“You want to know why I went from woman to woman?”
“Yes, please, enlighten me.”
“Because I couldn’t have you.”
“What in the hell are you talking about? I threw myself at you. Time and again.”
“First, you w
ere too young. And then I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and after your parents died, I was your shoulder to lean on. I couldn’t take advantage of that. You were so vulnerable. I wanted you more than you can possibly know.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” Annie held her breath, wanting to believe him, but afraid.
“I had nothing to offer you. I came from nothing. I had nothing except for what your parents had given me. I had to make something of myself before I could tell you how I felt. But then you kissed me on your twentieth birthday, and all those years of holding myself in check just fell in on me, and I couldn’t stop myself from making love to you even though I knew the timing was bad, that neither of us were ready for it.”
“You hurt me bad, Duncan,” she said, finally telling him what she’d longed to say for years. Emotion clogged her throat. She looked at him and saw tears glistening in his eyes. That rattled her clean to her soul.
“I know and I’m so sorry.” He raised a hand to his mouth. “I was stupid and immature, and I didn’t feel worthy of the precious gift you’d given. I thought there had to be a catch. That if I let you love me before I deserved it, I was bound to lose you.”
“Oh, Duncan.” She swallowed hard. “I thought you left me because I wasn’t pretty enough for you.
“Dammit, Annie, no. Are you bloody insane?”
“Then why? Why did you wait until you took my virginity before you told me that you’d signed up to crew with Ginger Jones and were off to dive the seven seas? Why did you leave me?”
His eyes met hers. “I saw the letter.”
“What letter?”
“Your acceptance letter from Harvard. The morning after we made love I got up to cook breakfast for you. Your purse was on the kitchen counter and I accidentally knocked it off. The letter fell out. I shouldn’t have read it. Damn, I wish I hadn’t read it, but read it I did.” He stared at her hard. She squirmed under his scrutiny. “You lied to me, Annie. You told me you didn’t get into Harvard.”
“Because I didn’t want to go,” she said. “Because I wanted to stay in St. Augustine with you and Jock.”
“I knew that,” he said. “I also knew you were too smart to waste your opportunities running your grandfather’s dive shop and being the wife of a salvage diver. You’ve got book smarts, Annie, and I never even finished high school. You deserved the best life had to offer, and I couldn’t give it to you. So I did what I had to do to make you go to Harvard. I lied and told you I’d already hired on with Ginger Jones. I promised myself that I would become the best salvage diver in the world. That I would find the Siren’s Call for you. And then I could come back when you were finished with Harvard and ask you to marry me.” He laughed harshly. “I sure fucked that up.”
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