Daughter of the Reef (33 page)

Two men wearing loincloths emerged from the underbrush. It took her a moment to recognize Matopahu. She did not know the other man.
 

Enraged by the prank, Tepua tossed a few rocks, but the men dodged them nimbly and splashed toward her through the stream. “Is that how you greet us?” Matopahu asked with a grin.
 

“I do not greet you at all.” She picked up another stone, ready to use it if he tried to come closer.

“You made a pretty sight climbing with those ropes,” he added.

“You watched?” Her cheeks burned at the thought.

“My lookouts warned me a large party was coming. I did not expect to find you among them.”

“
Did not expect me
? Aitofa sent me to you! And for someone in exile, you look surprisingly cheerful.” The man she saw now, clad in rough cloth and a simple turban, seemed to have changed once again. Evidently the life here suited him. His broad, beaming face showed no trace of his woes.
 

“You, on the other hand, look in need of a bath,” he chided, laughing.

She pitched the rock at him and picked up another. “And you hope that I will bathe while you watch. Well, that is not my plan. Aitofa ordered me to give you a message, so I came. After that I am going back to the Arioi.”
 

“I am listening,” he said, his expression suddenly sober.

She glanced at the other man, who was older than Matopahu but apparently equally fit. “No one else must hear it.”

Matopahu nodded toward the other. “This is Eye-to-heaven, my
taio
.”
 

Tepua frowned. The other man was his sworn friend, and this was all silly play. Even so, she would not disobey Aitofa.

“All right,” said Matopahu, when she remained silent. “I will come closer so you can whisper in my ear.”

Tepua lifted the rock again. “Put your hands behind your back,” she insisted. “I know how fast they can move.”

“There is a
tapu
against hitting the chief's brother with a rock,” said Matopahu with a wink. “Is that not right,
taio
?” He glanced at his friend. “Eye-to-heaven is a priest. He will tell you.”
 

Priest
? Tepua took a step back and narrowed her eyes.
 

“Do not think that all priests are against me,” said Matopahu hurriedly, his mood serious again. “We are both in exile. Eye-to-heaven confirmed my prophecy, but Ihetoa overruled him.”
 

She stared once more at the other man. He was shorter and stockier than Matopahu, with a round pleasant face. He was broad of shoulder and well muscled, his belly protruding gently above his loincloth. She thought he seemed too amiable to be a priest.
 

“I am waiting,” said Matopahu softly, and now she realized that he had come up just in front of her, his ear cocked toward her lips.
 

“When—” She cleared her throat and began again. What a child's game this had become. But Aitofa had told her to say these words: “When the ghosts stop walking.”
 

“That is all?”

She had repeated the phrase in front of Aitofa until she knew it better than any Arioi chant. “When the ghosts stop walking, the eye must start.”
 

“Ah, that is the news we have been Waiting for,” Matopahu exclaimed. Then his arms went around her and he was pressing his nose gently against hers.
 

“
Eye
!” she said, making a halfhearted effort to wriggle free. “That is your friend's name. Now the message makes some sense.”
 

“I will explain it all to you. Later.” He bent down, clasped her by the legs, heaved her over his shoulder. She felt wildly dizzy as he carried her toward deeper water. “I thought you had something to take care of upstream,” he called jovially to the priest while Tepua thrashed in his arms.
 

“Yes,” answered Eye-to-heaven. “I will get nothing done if I sit here enjoying these games.” Tepua caught a glimpse of him vanishing into the shrubbery.
 

“My cloth is getting soaked!” she complained. Matopahu's answer was to unwrap her, throwing the garment onto the bank. She took that opportunity to slip from his wet grasp. Diving under him, she grabbed his feet and toppled him into the stream. “Now we will both have our baths,” she said, spitting cool water as she came up.
 

Matopahu stripped off his own waist cloth and tossed it aside. He came after her, but she was too quick for him, splashing through the shallows and then into a deeper pool. She realized that she was laughing like a child.
 

Suddenly she caught herself. This game could only lead to one thing, and she was not sure she wanted it. After Rimapoa's betrayal ...
 

Matopahu plunged in after her, and she held him off with a barrage of splashing. He stood, grinning, with his arms open, as the water cascaded down his broad, glistening chest. Then he reached up onto the bank and broke off a long banana shoot. “Do you know what this means, daughter of coral?” he asked as he waved the leaf. “It is our sign for peace and friendship.”
 

“I am not feeling friendly,” she answered, trying to keep her tone serious.

“I cannot afford to have more enemies.” He reached up and plucked another shoot. “Here. You hold one, too. Then we will discuss the terms of truce.”
 

His eyes shone with reflected sunlight. Droplets danced on his cheeks. His mood was so cheerful that she could not hold herself back. Her hand reached out and took the stalk he offered.
 

With his free hand, he drew her closer. This Matopahu was nothing like the man she had scorned so many days before. She wanted to trust him. She wanted far more than that.
 

When he gave her the nose kiss, she did not try to pull away. He rubbed his cheek against hers, then against her shoulder, then her breasts. Gently he lifted her, carrying her to the bank, setting her down with her feet trailing in the water.
 

She lay on cool springy moss while she felt his gentle touch moving over her, his fingers across her belly, his lips along her thighs and in the hollows behind her knees.
 

He picked a creamy petal from a flower on the bank, then touched its softness to her belly. She realized that all thoughts of resisting him had fled. She felt so comfortable now that she parted her legs when his fingers moved lower. He began to stroke her inner thighs with the petal, pausing once in a while to add a caress with his nose or his lips.
 

The stroking sent little tickles of pleasure up between her legs. Matopahu brought the petal to his nose and closed his eyes with blissful enjoyment.
 

“How wonderful are the perfumes of love—the aroma of flowers and the scent of a desiring woman.”

He put the petal in the stream and let the rivulets carry it away while he stroked her inner thigh again, this time with the tips of his fingers.
 

“Your skin here is so soft and smooth,” he whispered. “Softer than the petal. I have a place like that.” He moved up, laying his stiffening member against her. The silky tip rose and he moved his hips so that it traveled down the sensitive area where he had been stroking, across the little nest, up the inside of the other thigh, then down again.
 

She could feel herself growing engorged with desire as the tingles became intense waves of pleasure, rippling up from her inner thighs into her loins. She breathed out a low moan and began slowly rocking her hips.
 

“No, not yet,” he whispered, laying his cheek along hers. With his nose and chin, he laid a trail of caresses from her throat down between her breasts to her belly. Aglow now with desire, she clasped his head against her belly, winding her fingers in his curly hair and pushing her loins against his chest.
 

His hands massaged her, spreading their warmth over her flanks and belly, then briefly reaching to her breasts and stroking her nipples. She was astonished at the joy surging through her at that touch.
 

She thrust with her hips, searching for that hard member that had teased her. “You are merciless!” she cried, until at last she felt the silky spear pressing at her entrance, gliding inside with a smooth, long thrust.
 

She thought then that he would start moving and that she would find joyful release, but he stopped, holding himself as deep as he could. She felt him trembling, saw how his head strained back as he leaned on his hands.
 

Inside, she could feel him expanding into her deepest recesses, growing until she became deliciously tight about him. She lay, eyes closed beneath him, wanting this to last forever, wanting him to keep getting larger until he completely filled her.
 

She thought she was already climbing the peak to ecstasy when he started to move in easy gliding strokes. The pearl of her womanhood became an intense center of blue-white fire that radiated into every part of her body...
 

Then it exploded. She knew dimly that she was wiggling, kicking and shouting in abandonment, caught in an eruption of fire that consumed all else.
 

When she regained her senses, she still felt gentler waves of pleasure sweeping over her. Now Matopahu was nearing his own release, thrusting deep into her moist slickness, tossing his head wildly, clenching his hands into fists. His eyes wide and bright with need, he withdrew from her then plunged in again, giving a great groan as shudders racked his body.
 

He collapsed atop her, then rolled to the side, still giving little shivers of pleasure. She stroked his neck, starting in the damp hair behind his ears, drawing her fingers down across the bronzed cords of muscle in his neck.
 

They dozed awhile, and when they woke they strolled upstream to where the flow narrowed and the water ran faster. They joined again, this time atop a smooth, flat rock, with the stream rushing past them. The chill of the spray on Tepua's skin only heightened her excitement and she reached climax with rainbows dancing about her head.
 

He swung her up and carried her out of the stream into the shade. She felt languid, golden. She could not imagine a satisfaction deeper than this.
 

But another part of her still felt distant, even resentful. He had teased her, pushing her to the extremes of desire. He had held her entranced, withholding himself for as long as he wished.
 

He could do exactly what he wanted with her, she thought, and he knew that. She looked at him as he lay on his side, his head propped up on one elbow, his spent member lolling along one thigh. Reaching out, he ran the back of his hand along her jawline and raised his eyebrows.
 

She looked down, away.

“My loving is not good enough, pearl woman?” He paused. “Or is it too good?”

Her face warmed. How was it that he somehow knew her thoughts even before she spoke them?

Did he have some unspoken command over her, some ability to draw her to him? She rebelled at the thought. After joining the Arioi and setting her own course for her life, she had hoped that no man would ever rule her, either by force or by charm.
 

She brushed back her hair and tossed it over her shoulder, watching him narrowly.

“Woman, what is it? You cannot say that I gave you no pleasure. Your cries were loud enough.”

She gave him a level look, letting a slight, scornful smile touch her lips. “I think you have lost your turban, brother-of-the-chief.”

 

The sun had passed noon by the time Tepua finished washing herself in the stream. She slowly put on her wrap, aware that Matopahu had been staring at her the entire time. “I think my business here is finished,” she said, forcing the unkind words. “I have done everything that Aitofa sent me for.”
 

Matopahu, sitting on the bank, groaned and slapped his forehead. “You still believe that I conspired with Aitofa to lure you here!”
 

“Why else would she have chosen me, except at your request?”

“If she thought to please me, it was her own idea. Perhaps there was some other reason she sent you.”

Tepua answered in a quiet voice. “I had to go away awhile, and she thought I could stay here. But you are not the only one living in the highlands. I heard today that a group of Arioi has a temporary settlement near the base of the falls. I can stay with them.”
 

“What is this? You are also in exile?”

“For a foolish mistake. I will make amends to the gods somehow. It is not for myself that I grieve—” Tepua felt a catch in her throat. She had not intended to tell anyone about Fenaa Ura. Now, suddenly, she could not hold back. It did not matter if he despised her for taking up with a fisherman, or laughed at her folly. She sank down beside him and spoke until her tears ceased to flow.
 

“That rascal!” said Matopahu when she was done. “At least you are rid of him now.”

“But the priests cannot kill him!”

Matopahu rested his chin in his hand. “Maybe not, but he will be put on some small, distant island, where nobody will ever see him again.”
 

Her voice fell. “Then he will die anyway.”

“Perhaps. In that case it will be the gods' doing and not the hands of men.”

Tepua felt slightly relieved. Wherever Ihetoa sent him, so long as the sea was nearby, Rimapoa could probably catch something to eat.
 

“Come now. After all that, you surely do not care what happens to him.”

“I should not care,” Tepua said angrily, but tears threatened again.