by K. C. Falls
"I wasn't taking anything out on her."
"She thinks you don't like her."
"How the hell do you know what she thinks?"
"We're buddies. I can tell by how quiet she is that you've hurt her feelings."
"You're lying. I haven't hurt her feelings. She just smiled at me."
"She smiles when she's nervous." I stroked the soft fur on her back sympathetically. Of course I was making it all up, but I had seen Lara's soft spot for the mini-simian the day before. I was ready to use whatever I could to break the ice. And, man, there was a chill in that room.
Lara put out a timid hand toward my shoulder and touched Mrs. D.’s fuzzy head. "Awww, I'm sorry Mrs. D." My little girlfriend jumped from my shoulder to Lara's in a split second.
"Is there a treat I can give her?"
"She'd sell her soul for a vanilla wafer."
"Will she go to the kitchen with me?"
"Mrs. D. is a sugar slut. I'm sure she'd turn me in to the ASPCA for cruelty if I stopped her daily ration of gummi bears."
Lara turned a moonbeam smile at the animal. By the end of the day, by god, I was going to win one of those for myself. There was sugar under all her salt and the more I saw of her, the more I wanted to know that sweetness.
I wasn’t going to push it and I wasn’t going to beg, but dammit her lips belonged on mine. I couldn't forget the taste of her mouth.
Chapter 13—Lara
I was being cold. Downright bitchy, really. He made me nervous. No, that's a lie. He terrified me because of the way I felt when I was near him. Every fiber of me strained to connect and intertwine with him and every brain cell in my head screamed: Don't DO IT! There was a war going on inside me. When he was near me, I wanted the animal, the wild, the fuck-it-all side to win. When he was out of sight, the rational me fought back, inch by inch.
I tried to put him in the Asshole Chef box; the box where I kept my most heinous mistakes. He could go right in there with the chef and Nathan the Vomit King. I had another place for poor Jake. He was the only occupant of my not terrible mistake box.
It was the immature hormonal response of a horny twenty-year-old to a man who took the word gorgeous and rewrote the definition. That's all it was. That's what I wanted to believe. But the fantasies wouldn't leave me alone. Over and over I replayed the sight of his naked body bathed in the blue glow of the galley lights. Over and over I watched two gorgeous girls respond to the expert touch of his hands and his mouth. I know faking it. I've done it too many times not to recognize it when I see it. Those two broads had been played like a couple of electric guitars until they wailed out a song of complete and honest rapture. It was the kind of ecstasy I had never known.
Even though I hadn’t had a guy in quite some time I took care of myself. Of course I did. I'd lived over a porn shop for two years. They had more instruments to make my pussy sing that I had ever known existed. Plus, the owners loved us. We got most of our toys as gifts. It was a bonus for them that two young women paraded up and down the side stairs of their store. Worth a few hundred bucks in freebies just to give the customers some eye candy. Not that I considered myself such. But Rachel, for sure. Me . . . I was young and slim. Maybe that was enough to make the single bucks think the place was all that.
But with a man? Never. Not once. I don't even think I came close. Maybe I was one of those women who had to be in love to experience orgasm with a man. I wouldn't know until either I'd had casual sex that rocked my world or fell in love and had sex that rocked my world.
Was I curious? Damn right I was. I didn't want to go to my grave without experiencing what it felt like to crash into someone in that mighty moment of pleasure and release. I wasn't setting any particular emotion as a pre-requisite, either. Lust would do as long as it eventually resulted in me coming in a mind-blowing flash of the little death.
I sighed out loud and Mrs. D. gave a sympathetic little cluck in my ear. I found the vanilla wafers and her interest turned instantly from me to the unopened box. She started clucking and squealing as I walked through the kitchen and got the scissors. The second I gave her the cookie she jumped up on one of the pot racks and started to eat it.
"You've got quite the life, don't you? You're a spoiled little girl that's for damn sure." I could tell that until the last crumb was gone I was getting no more of her attention so I put all my prep work away and sat down on one of the stools to wait for her descent. Morgan was right; I had little to do other than putter around wasting time all afternoon.
I entertained Mrs. D. with some measuring spoons and decided I would try to enjoy an afternoon swim on deck with my incredibly edible boss. That's the way I thought of him. Starting with the warm mouth that just asked to be nipped and pulled into my mouth, past the hook tat above a suckable nipple, down the trail fur to tickle my nose to the cock I'd twice seen at attention and twice wanted to take as deep into my mouth as it could go. That was a new feeling. I couldn't remember a time when I had a fantasy about giving a blow job. But I'd seen him. Holy shit I had seen him and the deliciousness of all his parts was unreal.
"Uhmm, uhmm," I said out loud at the mental image. I dangled the spoons in front of the monkey's grasping hands. "Did you get to have wild monkey sex before they took your wild monkey parts, Mrs. D? I'd like to try that sometime."
"Did you have anyone particular in mind?" Morgan asked.
He had once again padded into the kitchen on those weirdly sexy bare feet. So many men have such ugly feet. His could have been on a Reef ad for high dollar flip-flops. I realized I had developed a habit of mocking up advertisements featuring Morgan. Maybe I'd do a collage someday."You know, you've got a terrible habit of sneaking up on me. I wasn't talking to you." How embarrassing. I had to hand it to Morgan, he'd given me more reasons to want to crawl under the nearest rock than anyone I'd ever met, including Chef Asshole.
"Mrs. D. never had the pleasure. She was spayed before she had the chance, poor thing."
"It might be a blessing for her."
"I feel sorry for her. She's got no one of her own kind to play with."
"Can't you get her a friend?"
"Too late for that, I'm afraid. So, what about it? Who's going to join you for this simian sexcapade?"
"I was just babbling." I hoped it sounded casual enough to be convincing. I very much had someone in mind. Him. "I haven't had a lot of experience entertaining a monkey."
"But you do it so well." He tapped his shoulder and Mrs. D. jumped up to her perch.
"Thanks. I guess."
"See you on the foredeck at two." And he was gone.
***
The sun started to move behind us as we headed east. By the time I got up to the pool deck, there was a sliver of shade for me to hide my pale body in. My bikini was nearly brand new. I hadn't had many chances to use it since I bought it over a year before.
Morgan was already in the pool. He was sitting on one of the underwater ledges, long legs extended way into the center of the small pool. To my utter horror, he had ditched the board shorts and wore a European style bikini. In South Florida only gay men and foreign tourists appeared in public in one of those things. 'Course it wasn't South Florida. Maybe being so far out to sea qualified him as a foreign tourist anyway. I tried not to look at the pouch under the water. I think the reason most women can't take Speedos is that it's impossible not to look.
He watched me wordlessly as I positioned a deck chair under in the only available shadow.
My bathing suit is pretty modest compared to many, but I was so conscious of the state of my body that I felt more naked than not; being with him and all his flesh seemed way more intimate than innocent.
I pulled a tube of sunscreen out of the bag I'd brought with me and started rubbing it on my legs.
"You'll have to tell me what kind of stuff you're using there. It has to be pretty potent to keep you that white."
I laughed. "I haven't been to the beach during the day time for more than a year."
"Uh, no. I can't remember when I bought it. Couple years ago."
Morgan quickly got out of the water and picked up a big bottle from the poolside table. "You're going to fry like a piece of baitfish in the sun, then. Sunscreen has a short shelf life."
"I didn't know that," I said as I put up my hand to take the bottle.
He moved it away from my reach. "Uh-uh. My sunscreen. I get to put it on you."
I rolled my eyes at him.
"Oh, please. Lighten up, would ya? It's just some suntan lotion."
But it's in your hands, I thought as I reluctantly rolled onto my stomach. At least I wouldn't have to look at his incredible face for most of the process.
He nudged me over to make room to sit on the edge of my lounge chair. His hip rested against mine. Every time he had been close enough to touch me I felt like a compass and every direction was his mark. I didn't know this territory. It didn't feel or look like anything I'd ever experienced before.
I heard him rub his hands together briefly and then they were on my back. He slid his palms over the small of my back, spreading the sunscreen out in both directions from my spine. Gentle fingers massaged the cream into my skin.
"This stuff is the bomb," he told me casually. Evidently he couldn't see that my very cells were melting under his touch, torched with the atomic blast of his attention. "You'll never burn with this, but eventually, you'll tan a little bit. Just a little healthy bit."
I turned toward the knee resting at one side of my head. Time to say something—anything—nonchalant. "You've sure got a healthy tan."
"Yeah," he agreed as he began the top half of my back, "it makes me feel good. I spent a lot of years looking as ghostly as you do. But not by choice."
"Were you in prison?" I wanted to make a joke, even a lame one. His hands were doing things to me. I was ready to roll over, jerk that sorry excuse for a bathing suit off his body and fuck his brains out.
"You could say that." The tone of his answer backed the bitch in heat part of me down a few notches. He'd said something important. He'd said it into my back and I couldn't see his eyes, but I knew all the same that there was a clue there. I rolled over and looked at him.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I was pretty much locked up for a lot of my childhood. It's a long and complicated story."
"I've got a lot of time on my hands right now." He avoided my gaze and went to work on my legs.
"Maybe another time."
Curiosity was eating me alive but I kept quiet. There are times to push and times to back off. I didn’t always know the differences but this time, thankfully, I did.
He worked the lotion into my thighs. The sun had to be getting jealous of the radiation coming from me. I felt his thumb slide over the line of my bikini no more than an inch or two from my clit. I could feel myself swelling, hardening and weeping with want. It was a miracle he couldn't smell the musk of my desire. I shifted up to my elbows and watched him linger just a few more seconds on the sensitive flesh of my upper thighs. Then his hands moved down the length of my legs, carefully covering every inch of each one.
"You get a double dose of rays when you're out at sea. The water reflects them back at you so it's really important to protect every little bit."
He took my left foot in his slippery hands and started to massage it with his slick hands. Oh God, I thought, not the feet. My feet have always been one of my secret erogenous zones. Not that any man had ever known that. I just knew how good it felt when a good beautician gave me a real foot massage. Connected to a pair of hot male hands, the tootsies nearly made me come unglued. A small groan of pleasure escaped, I couldn't hold it back.
"Sensitive feet?"
I gave him a mute and sheepish nod.
"Mine are too." Then he smiled at me, all impish and child-like, as if he'd made a great secret confession. It made me laugh out loud and move a little bit closer to jumping off the edge. Abruptly he slid off of the chaise and into the water. When he surfaced he turned toward me, arms over the edge of the pool. "Sorry, I had to get in. I was . . . overheating."
If that was code for getting a hard-on I didn't want to know. I was losing the logic war fast. The battle could have easily been won at the toes.
Chapter 14—Morgan
I had to get in the water fast. It needed to be a lot colder than it was to do the job, though. I leaned up against the side and kept my promise to myself. I was not going to pressure her. I was not going to push. Down boy, down!
Talk to her. Talk. To. Her. Pretending she was someone other than who she was struck me as a grand idea. She could be a guy or someone's mother in my head. I fought to think of what I might say to a person who wasn't Lara. Small talk is what I was after. Small talk would magically make me small where I desperately needed to be. I couldn't risk having her see my angry tool practically busting a hole in my swimsuit. I made a note to self: mankini = bad, bad, bad idea.
I cleared my throat and threw up the first thing that came to mind after 'what do you do?' 'Cause I already knew what she did.
"Did you grow up in Ft. Lauderdale?" She was sitting up rubbing the sunscreen into her arms, finishing the job I started.
"Boca."
"That's right, I forgot FAU was in Boca." I'd forgotten just about everything at that moment in time. I tried a slightly less stupid question next. "Did you ever consider going to FAU?"
"Not really. I was anxious to get on with my life. Leave the nest. My parents were great, but . . ."
I could see that she was struggling to find the right words. "But?"
"I hate to sound ungrateful. My parents loved me—love me—a lot. But I'm an only child. I have a couple of PhD. parents. Sometimes my childhood felt like one long seminar. I used to hate being an only child. Other people had siblings to share all that attention."
"Yeah. I understand. I would have been lost without my sister."
"Clarissa?"
Having Lara say my sister's name startled me. I must have looked shocked.
"I Googled you. That first night. I couldn't sleep after our little encounter in the ki—galley. “ She smiled. “See? I am trying to use the right ‘nautical’ words.”
"And you’re doing so well at it! I never apologized to you for that shock in the galley. What a way to start your job, huh?"
"It was unique, for sure."
"Well, I am sorry."
"It's okay. It's your boat . . . your home. Rachel and I never bothered to put clothes on to get a drink from the fridge in the middle of the night."
"Rachel?"
"My roommate in Lauderdale."
"I've never lived with anyone. I think I'd be difficult."
"The best roommates are opposites, I think. At least that's what I think makes Rache and I work."
"What's she like?" I figured if Lara thought of Rachel as her opposite, I could get a pretty good idea of what Lara thought of herself. I considered that important information.
"First of all, she's drop dead gorgeous."
Doesn't consider herself gorgeous. I noted this without surprise. It was easy for me to tell when a woman thought of herself as a real beauty. There were plenty of clues. Lara gave off none of them. It made her that much more desirable, that much more beautiful. Lara’s beauty wasn’t the head turning kind. It was the kind that tiptoed up on cat’s paws and took your breath away.
"She's very practical and calm."
Thinks of herself as impractical and anxious. Not as expected. I'd noticed a little nervousness, but then I kept walking in on her and surprising the shit out of her. But the impracticality? The most impractical thing in the world would have been for her to kiss me back when I came on to her on the sea deck. Instead, she did the 'logical' thing and pushed me away.
"She's very grounded. She knows what she wants."
Confused. That was interesting. My impression was that Lara knew precisely what she wanted and went for it.
"An
d she's got a great sense of humor."
That one really threw me. From what I'd seen so far, Lara seemed to have a fine sense of humor. When she wasn't being an ice princess, that is.
"How long were you roommates?" I prompted.
"We're still technically roommates. On what I'm being paid, I can afford to keep my half of the apartment."
"How much is that?"
She looked at me in shock. "You mean you don't actually know what you're paying me?"
"No, because I'm not the one paying you. I explained all that to you before."
"I didn't really believe it."
"Well, believe it." I sucked in some air. I was about to take a chance I'd never taken. I was going to try to win points with a woman by blowing her away with how much I didn't have. "If you Googled me you know about my father. He's one rich motherfucker. But he's made it his mission in life to see that I have just enough of his fortune not to embarrass him. I take care of this boat and he gives me enough to get by. I own nothing. I control nothing."
Her mute response told me I had gotten my point across. I was a vastly different person than the one she wanted distance herself from. Granted I hardly clawed my way up from the projects but I didn’t think that was the kind of background that would appeal to her either.
"I may well inherit a fortune, but don't get any ideas. My father is a robust sixty-one years old. And the Wolf family is known for the longevity of its members. My grandfather only recently died. He was well into his nineties." So you see," I smugly concluded, "you were wrong about me."
"Only partially. You're not rich . . ."
"And I'm not a spoiled brat! Believe it or not this boat is a lot of work."
"It is, but you don't do the work. Even I know that if you were managing the operation you'd know what your people got paid."
"That's not fair. My father has an accountant for that." Then I remembered more of what she'd said. The bit about not accomplishing anything. "You're right, though. I'm a glorified caretaker. It isn't much of an accomplishment."