From The Deep Read online

  Finally he grabbed her hands and forced her to open them since she’d clenched them into fists. She’d cut herself trying to find a way to clean the fish. Ugly red abrasions covered both palms. Her otherwise elegant fingers were bruised, the nails ragged and torn.

  She snatched her hands away but not before he’d rubbed a thumb across the sensitive palms. “You put yourself in danger simply to get some fish,” she accused him.

  He shrugged, his green eyes blazing from beneath shadowed lids.

  “What if you hadn’t come back?” The tremor in her voice surprised her. She turned away from him, unwilling to let him see the fear that had been her companion since she’d awoken and found him gone.

  “I did come back, Marianne. I’d not abandon you.”

  She took a deep breath, struggling for control. “Next time, please don’t fish in the night. It’s too dangerous.”

  When he didn’t reply, she turned to him. “Well?” she asked.

  “I’ll not promise that, but I will be careful.”

  “I suppose that will have to do.” She rubbed her hands over her face and got a healthy dose of fish smell from them. “Ugh.”

  “Do you swim?” Jonah asked.

  “Not since I was a child.”

  “You’re hot and in need of cooling off. Why don’t you bathe in the ocean? It’s not deep close by. You’ll be refreshed when you come out,” Jonah suggested.

  Marianne glanced down at her nightgown which became more dirty and ragged with each passing hour. The memory of the way he’d looked at her yesterday, as if her gown had been transparent and he could see her nakedness beneath came back to her.

  “It wouldn’t be seemly,” she said primly, though in truth she longed leap into the beckoning waves.

  “Seemly?” He laughed. The sound sent shivers running down her back. “I know the state in which you found me. That wasn’t quite seemly, either.”

  Heat rushed into her face as she remembered his nakedness and the way he’d felt beneath her hands. “I was afraid you were injured.” She pursed her lips. “Why on earth did you remove your clothing anyway? It’s not like you could have gone far from shore for these fish.”

  He raised an brow muscle and she saw that green gleam again. “I prefer to keep my clothes dry. Besides, bathing is best done naked, as is other activities. Don’t you agree?”

  “Other … oh, you are no gentleman,” Marianne gasped as she understood his meaning.

  The image of naked bodies--hers and his--entwined in coupling like married people popped into her head. Heat flooded her body as she wondered what his body would feel like rubbing against hers. Her husband had never undressed to complete the marriage act and she’d been such an innocent. Now she wondered if she might have gotten more pleasure from it had they indeed disrobed before engaging in such intimacy.

  But she wasn’t married now and what Jonah suggested had her curiosity growing. Widows had more freedom of action than married women or the unmarried.

  She looked at him from where he sat under the shade of his shirt. His chest gleamed, his bare feet caressed the sand, and his hands supported his body making the muscles in his arms bulge.

  The look in his eyes dared her. She made up her mind.

  “I believe I shall bathe,” she said. “But you must promise not to watch.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would be unseemly for you to see me all wet like that.”

  He waved a hand in front of him. She couldn’t read his expression but thought he might be making fun of her. “You’ve seen me in all my glory. What difference will it make?”

  Though shocked that he would remind her of that, she sniffed and said, “It’s not the same, now, is it? No, you will turn your eyes to the woods and you will not turn back until I tell you to.”

  “And how do you intend to dry off?”

  She hadn’t considered that. “Well, I’ll, um, I’ll have to….”

  “You’d best leave your gown on the sand and go into the sea the way nature intended.”

  Dare she? Dare she strip naked in front of this man and bathe unclothed? It was wrong by everything she’d been taught and by all the rules drummed into her head. It was wrong to want to swim in the sea, wrong to want to take off every last stitch of clothing in front of a strange man, wrong to be naked under the bright sun.

  A small laugh escaped her. To the devil with wrong.

  “Turn towards the woods,” she told him.

  Without waiting to see if he complied, she turned her back on him, pulled her gown over her head and dropped it onto the sand. Then she stretched her arms high up over her head, sniffed in the heady aroma of sun on water, and ran to dive into the waves.

  Chapter Seven

  When the water closed over her head, Marianne opened her eyes wide. The sudden enjoyment of the silky water skimming her body took her back to the day as a child when she’d run into the surf without fear. She burst up out of the water in a laughing splash, happiness bubbling from her as she let her feet find the floor of the cove.

  She looked back to the beach half expecting Jonah to be watching her even though she’d asked him not to. His back was decorously to her, though she noticed that his head was cocked as if he was listening for something.

  She dived again, amazed at how natural the weightlessness made her feel. It was as if she’d known how to swim and move from birth. Again she wondered why she’d been in such a panic the night of the storm. Then she pushed that memory away. She’d been afraid and alone until Jonah had saved her. Now here she was making memories of her first adventure as a woman of independence.

  When she opened her eyes under water she saw a new world under the sea. The colors intrigued her, some were muted by the waters, others brought out in bright shades. The tiny fish wore vibrant blue stripes. She spied a dark shape moving along the bottom and recognized is as a lobster, somehow blown away from its deeper element. No matter, it would make a tasty meal.

  As she swam down to retrieve it, a current of icy water touched her toes making her look back. It was darker there, but nothing lurked waiting for her. Even so she made for the surface where she gasped for breath and looked around. She was much farther out from shore than she’d realized. She saw Jonah standing on the edge of the beach keeping his toes safely out of the water. He’d lifted a hand to his brow, no doubt looking for her. She waved at him and giggled as he frowned back.

  One more wave and she dove again to pick up the lobster. Holding it far enough back on its body to avoid the hard pincers, she swam back towards the beach until she could stand. Cool wavelets lapped the top of her shoulders and vied with the warmth of the sun for her attention. But it was the man who stood just beyond the water who took her breath away.

  His arms were crossed over his muscular chest. She could see his strong legs where the material of his trousers was torn away. The look of anticipation on his face had her blushing.

  Anticipation thrummed through her because she knew that this adventure of the physical would not end when she emerged from the water. Rather, she boldly chose that she would continue it with Jonah. Indeed, she didn’t see how she could possibly hold herself back from him. Her body ached for him to hold her. She melted at the thought of him kissing her again.

  Water sluiced off her as she waded closer. She stopped when it just barely hid the tops of her breasts. Jonah didn’t move, didn’t speak.

  What if he didn’t want her the same way she wanted him?

  She stood taller so that the rosy tips of her nipples rose into the air. They pebbled and sent an answering thrum to her belly. Jonah stared at her. If it could be said that his eyes gripped her, then she was already within his grasp.

  A movement at her side had her looking down. She’d forgotten about the lobster and now she had a hunger that one lobster would not satisfy. She tossed the creature over her shoulder, back into the deep, and took a few more steps towards Jonah.

  This time she stopped when the water w
as just below her waist. It covered the soft curls hidden beneath. Her hair, loosened from its braid, dripped in a shining cascade over one shoulder to her hips. Jonah watched her slow emergence as if she were a goddess moving out of the water of her birth. His loins grew hot and hard as her languid movements made his breath hitch in his chest.

  Something had changed in her between the time she first dove in and now. A sense of confidence, of self, radiated from her. Perhaps she’d let the waters of the world bathe away the veneer of civilization that she’d worn along with the silly nightgown.

  As he stood there watching, waiting for her to blush and run, she bent over and filled her hands with water. In a movement so slow and sensual that it took his breath away, she raised her arms and let the handfuls of water fall over her face and body. Then she ran her hands where the water had gone.

  He couldn’t move. He wanted to touch her, to sink into her so badly that he was afraid that if he made any movement at all that this sensual creature would disappear, fade away and become the staid, prudent widow with whom he’d been marooned.

  So he stood and waited to see which reality would come all the way out of the sea to him.

  Her pearl white teeth gleamed in a small smile as she walked the rest of the way to where he stood. She stopped a heartbeat away from him. Her body pulsated with light and water. He felt the heat of her even through the coolness of the damp left on her skin.

  Just when he thought he could bear it no longer, she closed the distance and lifted her mouth to his.

  Her full, soft lips feathered across his, and that motion gave him knowledge. She was just as unsure of what he wanted as he was of what she wanted. He groaned as he took her face between his hands and opened his mouth on hers to claim her.

  She turned her head to give him better access. Her tongue darted into his mouth, touching his teeth, stroking the sides of his tongue, setting his mouth on a fire of need. His loins felt as if they would burst into flames at the desire that threaded through him.

  He let his mouth find the corner of her lips and kissed her there. He found the pert tip of her nose and kissed, as well as the corners of each eye and the lobe of her left ear. In each place he kissed, he tasted the salt of his kingdom. She tilted her head back so that he could nibble at her neck as she darted her tongue along the outer shell of one of his ears and caressed his skull as if it were a priceless pearl.

  When his mouth found first one nipple then the other her moan set him on fire. All of a sudden his already ragged clothing was too constricting. As if she could read his mind, Marianne reached for the buttons of his trousers and unfastened them. Her fingers trembled and fumbled, but he held his impatience in check until she had released him.

  His couplings with other human females had been frantic and brief. Always in some shore front inn, always simply a way to assuage lust. This was different. He wanted Marianne to savor each moment. He wanted to savor each moment.

  She gasped when his tongue traced a line to her belly. When he found the sensitive bud hidden under the curls between her legs, he was afraid she’d collapse right there.

  “Come,” he growled as he lifted her.

  Her warmth and softness nestled against him. It was all he could do to not take her there, in the sand. But it wouldn’t do, not for her.

  After he carried her to the slight shade of their camp he hurried back for her gown and his trousers. She’d smoothed a bed of sand and he placed the clothes on top of it.

  When he hesitated, she knelt and beckoned to him. “Don’t make me wait,” she whispered. “I’ll lose my nerve.”

  “Madam, you have more courage than a host of sailors,” Jonah murmured as he joined her.

  She blushed as he reclined next to her. Their bodies brushed lightly. At each point of contact, a small flare shot through him. He leaned on an elbow and watched her mobile features, the lips swollen from his kisses, the tips of her nipples rosy and tight.

  He reached and held the weight of one breast in his hands, stroked the fullness with his thumb. As if she could no longer deny her need, she lay beside him and stroked her hand down the length of his body. She stopped midway to stroke his maleness until he was hard as centuries old coral and pulsating with the heat of a magma breach.

  With another long kiss that left them both breathless, he rolled her onto her back and spread her legs. He kissed the hollows between her thighs and smelled her wetness as she moaned her desire.

  “Please, Jonah,” she said, her hands pulling him up the length of her body until he was poised over her.

  He prolonged their combined agony by stroking her slickness with the head of his erection until she bucked up and forced him against her. Then he sank his shaft into her and simply reveled in the tight wet heat of her for an instant that felt like heaven.

  Her eyes opened wide before they rolled up and closed. She tightened her legs around him as he thrust within her. The tightness in his loins, in his belly, and in his brain increased until he felt sure that his body would explode. Then he felt her release as she cried out his name over and over. His control fled, his body pulsed, and his orgasm overtook both of them.

  “By Poseidon’s trident,” he swore when he could breathe again.

  His weight was comfortable on her, though when she looked down the length of their connected bodies she felt an undercurrent of embarrassment that she’d acted so unladylike. She’d screamed out his name, for heaven’s sake. It had been the most glorious experience she’d ever had. The marital act had never been a pleasure with Silas, just a grunting imposition to be endured. But this, how did one characterize this? Could it always be like this?

  He rolled off of her leaving her chilled even in the heat. “Why?” he asked.

  She sat, pulled her knees to her chin, and looked at his profile. When he turned his intense gaze to her, she forced herself to meet it evenly, though the gleam in his eyes turned her insides to mush. She understood his question but didn’t know how to answer it without sounding like the loose woman that she no doubt was. After all, staid New England widows did not go around seducing sea captains and making love in the sand. How could she explain to him?

  “My mother died when I was born,” she said, though this wasn’t what she planned to tell him. “Father never got over missing her. Something about my birth made him love me but made him hold back at the same time. I never understood. I miss him.”

  She stared out to the never ending horizon, trying to gather her thoughts together before continuing. When she looked at him again, he’d turned his eyes to the sea. It made it easier to speak.

  “He protected me but wouldn’t let me run free.” She shrugged. “Like most fathers, I suppose. But the year after he made the mistake of letting me go to the ocean, he started planning my future, a future away from my home. When I begged him to tell me why, he said it was for my own good. He had to send me away or chance losing me forever.”

  “What did that mean?” Jonah asked.

  “I’m not sure, but it had to do with his mother. You see, I’d always heard that my grandmother had given up everything to marry my grandfather. When he died, she simply walked into the sea one day and never returned. Father lost his mother to the sea. For some reason he was afraid I would be lost there, too.”

  She stretched and arched her back. The freedom from clothing made her a bit lightheaded, or perhaps the lovemaking was the culprit. She didn’t know. Jonah was staring at her feet. He took her hands in his and spread her fingers, touching the sensitive webbing between them. She shivered at his touch and knew that they would make love again and soon. Heat pooled between her legs.

  “These,” he said as he stroked the webbing. “And between your toes. Did your mother have them? Or your father, perhaps?”

  She sighed when he stopped stroking her. “I noticed you share the trait. But yes, they are a legacy from my father’s mother, as is my eye color. Perhaps,” she grew chill at the thought but had to continue the way her mind was going, �
��we, you and I, are related somehow.”

  Jonah shook his head. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the opened palm. Tremors shot through her as he nibbled the sensitive skin. “It is impossible,” he murmured.

  She reached her free hand up to trace his ear, let her tongue follow her finger’s path. “You taste of the sea,” she said.

  “You didn’t tell me why?

  She looked into his eyes and saw depths within that she couldn’t reach. She hoped for his understanding but could only count on him hearing her words. “Because I wasn’t alive until I set foot on your vessel. Because I want to feel alive and make a memory that will last even when you’ve sailed out of sight.”

  “And?” he probed as if he knew her well.

  “And because I am free to do what I will.” She felt giddy and a little frightened of the words that expressed her new found independence. Her hands shook as they gathered her hair against her neck then dropped it to fall in a curtain over her face so that he couldn’t see her.

  He knelt and pushed her hair away and dropped a kiss on her closed eyelids.

  Then he pushed her back and kissed her again, on her mouth, on her neck, on her breasts. He didn’t speak. He simply touched her and aroused every instinct she had to be the woman to this man. His mouth found her private place and pleasured her there until she felt she would melt with the agony of need. Then he plunged into her again and again until they both shuddered to a perfect release.

  Chapter Eight

  Her wanton manner surprised Marianne with each bout of lovemaking they enjoyed all that long day. She swam in the sea and cleaned the smell of Jonah from her body only to find that his scent had become hers by the time the sun was setting in a molten ball into the purpling sea.

  Jonah refused to bathe in the sea, but he did go back to the spring to wash and bring them water to ease the thirst that lovemaking brought them. As they moved from sun to shade during the day, they spoke little except to say, touch me here, taste me there, and complying.