Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel (11 page)
Read Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel Online
Authors: Alissa Adams
I shook with excitement. I had to get my hands on auto-pilot just to make it through lunch. Dylan snatched a sandwich from the platter I had ready to dumb-waiter down to the crew. I threw him a questioning look.
"A little plastic meat and cheese sandwich isn't going to kill me today." He leaned into my ear so that Angelo couldn't hear. "No pool today. Come to my stateroom. Leave Angelo to finish." The vibration of his words and the warmth of his breath brought goose bumps to my flesh. "I can't wait, Rene. Hurry."
I showered quickly. The clothes I chose were meaningless. I knew he'd have them off of me without ever noticing I'd worn anything at all. I was right. As soon as he locked the door behind us, he began to unbutton my blouse as he kissed me over and over again.
I couldn't do anything but yield, happily, to his mouth. His kisses were soft and commanding at the same time. He teased at the tip of my tongue. Then he possessed my mouth in earnest making me shudder at the intensity of my reaction. I was all his.
He slid my shorts and panties down to my feet and I stepped off of the pile as he ripped his shorts down his powerful legs. Then he held me at arm's length.
"You're too beautiful for description." I loved hearing the words. I wanted to believe them. I wanted to believe the way I felt when I heard them.
We stumbled toward the bed, pawing and kissing and touching everything and everywhere. He laid me back against the bed and stood towering at the foot, all muscle and manhood and all for me.
I was holding nothing back. He could have me, take me, do what he wanted to with whatever I had to offer. He started his journey at my feet. He must have filed away my admission that they were a responsive part of me.
When he ran his tongue along my instep I arched and moaned. He kissed the tips of my toes and shifted his attention to the other foot where he performed the same sexy ritual. He was the first man to ever pay such lavish attention to my feet. It was so sensual, so intimate. I had the feeling that Dylan was going to teach me more than one thing about my body. And he did.
This man knew me. He knew my body as much as I knew it. He read my desires without my ever giving them a voice. We tried to take it slow, but passion fueled our lovemaking. Soon there was nothing left in the room but the fire we had set.
We collapsed onto the bed, panting and utterly spent. His weight felt solid and comforting against my back. After we caught our breath he climbed over me and drew me next to him on the big bed.
We looked at each other for a long time, just studying each other's face and smiling goofy smiles. It was easy in the afterglow. We traded tender kisses that left questions unasked. The gratitude of desire well sated gave tenderness to the moment.
We drifted off, wrapped around each other and when we awakened the desire was back. We moved less urgently, more delicately, but it was equally satisfying for us both. I reluctantly pried myself from his arms late in the afternoon. Duty called. I left him sleeping on wrinkled, sex scented sheets.
***
Dinner came and went with no sign of Dylan. Finally, after we'd cleared everything up he padded into the kitchen dressed in only his shorts and looking very much like a rumpled kid who'd overslept.
"Hi."
"Hi." I didn't know what was expected. It wasn't a date. I couldn't go home gracefully. I
was
home.
"I guess I missed dinner."
"I can get you something."
"No. I think . . . I think I'll just have a drink." He reached into the cooler and got out his bottle of Grey Goose. I looked at him, trying to ask him without asking him if anything was wrong. It wasn’t a good time to go all 'needy' on him, of that I was very sure. He saw the questions bubbling up in my face in spite of my attempts to hide them. He came over to me, tilted my face up to his and brushed my lips with a sweet kiss. "It's okay, Rene. It was beautiful. But . . ."
"But?" What was the 'but' about?
"I'm not used to this. It's me. I don't quite know what to do next."
I understood. I didn't know either. "It's okay. I know the feeling. Let's just get some rest."
He looked relieved. Too damn relieved. I could feel the bile of shame gurgling at the back of my throat. Too much, too soon. The siren cry of a big mistake.
I deliberately lightened the tone. There was no need to play drama queen with him. I forced myself to suck it up and accept our little ‘thing’ for what it was—just another score for a player and a girl who was a genius at choosing poorly. "I guess you and Stephen are setting some marlin baits in the morning?" A neutral question was my brave attempt to pull off my charade. He could have easily seen through it. He chose not to.
"Uh, yeah?"
"He told me there'd be an early start tomorrow. I'll have the coffee hot and ready."
"Oh. Right."
"Well then . . . you need some sleep. Don't do too much damage to that Goose tonight." With that I raised myself onto my tiptoes and gave him what I hoped was an appropriate—not pouty, not needy, not desperate—kiss.
Then I went into my room and cried myself to sleep. Stupid me making my favorite mistake again.
I went back to my room and got drunk as possible as quickly as possible. I drank fast and hard until all the confusion just melted into a puddle of alcohol induced numbness. It was cowardly but efficient.
When I had awakened from my nap and she was gone I panicked. It was irrational. It was crazy. But the first feeling I had was abandonment and it scared the shit out of me. Literally. I had to run for the head where my bowels emptied in a sick rush of watery sludge. I doubled over on the commode, clutching my belly with the pain so intense I broke into a cold sweat.
Deep breaths, man, deep breaths
. I concentrated intensely on the rhythm and pattern of my chest slowly moving to my will. It was a technique I’d learned years before from a shrink who told me that it was similar to what women are taught when they go for natural childbirth. I could believe it. If labor was as painful as what my gut did to me during an anxiety attack, I think I’d opt for major drugs.
Irrational never grows up. A person doesn’t reach sixteen, eighteen or twenty-eight and suddenly wake up and say—“Well, gee, I’m glad that’s over!” There’s a process to healing. In my optimistic moments, I believe I’ve come a long way.
In moments of panic I am eleven years old and the one warm soul in my and Dawn’s life has vanished. Or I am thirteen and my sister—the best friend I ever had—is gone. I am as scared and stricken with inconsolable grief and loss as a person—young or old—could ever be. It terrified me that Rene could evoke such feelings.
She brought me to a place where I wanted her to know me as a better man. I wanted her to see the man hidden inside me. I didn’t want to show her the man who postured and pretended to be greater than he was. I wanted to give her the truth. I wanted to be, for her, a man who was all he could be. And I wanted the sum of me to please her, fundamentally and deeply.
And when I woke and she was gone, my half sleeping mind thrust me into the terror so profound it overwhelmed.
When I looked at her sweet face in the kitchen I saw that she was ready to understand anything. She was there for me in all the ways a woman could be there for a man. She had given me the precious gift of her body and her expression told me that she was more than ready to give me the rest—her trust, her affection and, yes, most likely her heart.
I felt like an idiot for pushing her away. Make that a childish idiot. A damaged child and certainly not the man I wanted to be. It was cowardly not to trust her when she was so clearly worthy of that trust. Me? I run away and hide in a bottle of vodka.
When the alarm woke me the next morning, the fog of the hangover I so deserved lifted just enough for me to drag myself to the table in the dining salon. She brought me a cup of coffee and I couldn't meet her eyes.
I had a vague understanding that Stephen was already setting the lines and there was a faint possibility that we might get lucky and hook up. For the first time in my life I wished it wouldn't happen. I wanted to crawl back into my cave and hide.
Rene eyed me warily and tiptoed around. She was walking on eggshells and didn't know what to do with me. I knew it; I just didn't know how to make it right.
What kind of small talk do you make when your special hell is swirling around your head and you can't make sense of it yourself, let alone share it?
"Breakfast?" she ventured.
"Not just yet, but thanks." I wanted her to stop being so nice. It wasn’t her fault I was so messed up. I was giving her every reason to believe that her first instincts had been right about me. I
was
a mistake, but she didn't know why.
She'd blame herself and it wasn't her fault. Not at all. I was a bad choice but not because of anything she had done. I had to try; somehow, to make her see that is wasn’t her. That much she deserved.
“Rene . . .” Her ‘yes’ came too quickly. It was a yes that made me squirm. It was a yes that begged for an answer. “I don’t want to give you the impression I didn’t enjoy last night.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t doubt that you enjoyed it. You supplied evidence.” She smiled a half-sexy, half-sad little grin.
“But my behavior left you confused.”
“Why? Do you think that I expected roses and a diamond ring? I’m a grown woman, Dylan. Eyes wide open and all that.” Her body language turned the temperature in the room below zero.
“You don’t have to turn hostile and cold. I told you last night—you’ve taken me by surprise.”
“I wasn’t trying to be hostile, just realistic. Surely you don’t believe that I imagine I’m the first girl you’ve had in that stateroom.”
“Not as many as you’d think. Lady D. isn’t fond of strange women.” Her frankness unnerved me. I swallowed hard and said, “You’re right, though. But this is the first time—I swear it—that I’ve ever awakened thinking that I’d just ‘made love’ to someone.”
“That’s quite a statement.”
“It’s the truth. And, for reasons I’m not ready to talk about, it scares the living shit out of me, okay?”
“Ooookkkkaaay. I’m not sure what you want me to do with that information.”
“I just need some time.”
“Looks to me like you can take all the time you need. I can’t exactly pack up my toys and go home to Mommy.” She straightened herself to her full five foot nothing. “Dylan, I don’t mean to scare you. Can’t we just have a good time together? Really. I’m perfectly fine with everything.” The smile was convincing and made me miserable.
I put my head in my hands and stared into my steaming mug. She was right of course. ‘I’ll call ya, babe’ wasn’t exactly an option. Not that that was an option I wanted to take.
I watched her body move as she lined up a few more mugs for the guys out on deck. There was an awkward stiffness to her normally easy movements. I knew what I had to do and there was no better time than that moment, hangover or not. She deserved the truth—ugly and sad as it was. It was gut spillin’ time.
She moved toward just slightly past the table, I reached out to touch her arm and guide her into the seat beside me. I needed to explain, at least a little, why I had been such a jerk.
Then I heard it.
"Fish on! FISH on! FISH ON!" They were urgent words I only half understood.
Dylan's ice-crystal eyes flashed at me for the briefest moment. He sprang up from his seat at the table and knocked the tray out of my hands. Cups crashed on the floor as long urgent strides carried him toward the salon door. The predator in him came alive and I thrilled to witness the beast awake. He seemed almost comatose only moments before.
The mess of broken china and the brown coffee stain spreading over the polished hardwood could wait. The awkward conversation that we needed to have could wait. The door was just closing behind him when I pushed my way through on his heels. Captain Stephen came flying down the ladder from the bridge. His feet never touched the rungs; he just slid, fireman style, down the side rails.
The two men vaulted the transom in unison. "Right rigger, Boss," the mate announced. It was hardly necessary. Even my untrained eye could see the bent rod and the whizzing reel playing out yard after yard of line.
Dylan grabbed the pole and steadied his feet on the dive platform that jutted out from El Loco's stern. Captain Stephen grabbed a wicked looking contraption and strapped it around Dylan's waist and between tensed thighs. Then both men jockeyed the notched end of the rod into the gimbal on the fighting belt. The rod rose from his crotch singing with the release of line as Dylan adjusted the drag.
He seemed calm but perspiration beaded on the taut muscles of his neck. Soon the inky curls above his collar began to droop with the weight of his sweat. The spooling line slowed and the tip of the pole bent ever so slightly.
Dylan leaned back and pulled the tip of the rod high over his shoulder. "Set," he told Stephen.
The Captain was peering off into the distance. I assumed he was looking for the fish, hooked at line's end somewhere far in the distance. Dylan wasn't looking. He was bringing back line as fast as he could put it on the reel. He pulled the tip of the rod up as far as his strength would allow. Just when it seemed that the rod was bent to the breaking point, he would furiously reel back line as he lowered the rod. He repeated the arc time and again.
I was mesmerized by his display of force and finesse. There was a grace in it that made his movements seem like a dance. Of course, that didn't surprise me.
"Shirt!" He growled at Stephen. The Captain stripped Dylan's torso with a few expert strokes of his knife. Apparently, the prey was more important than a shirt, however expensive it might be.
His naked back shimmered with sweat. I watched each sculpted muscle ripple with the to and fro of battle. His back was chiseled and tight. The trapezius muscles strained in steely resistance each time he pulled up and reeled back down.
He turned to follow the fish's desperate attempt to escape and his chest undulated under bronzed skin. His pecs looked ready to pop from his chest, nipples clenched and hard as the teak under his feet. His flat abdomen pulled taut, folding into his slim torso every time he heaved himself into one impossible show of strength after the other.
The shorts he was wearing drifted well below his navel and revealed the line of fur that pointed down. I fought the fish with him in my mind. I felt the arousal of the hunt and the desperation of the hunted all at once. Lust for blood fogged the air. Lust for him crashed like breaking waves inside me. He was a magnificent animal in his element. I forgot my confusion and my hurt. The drama in front of me wiped everything else away.
One of the mates handed down a fighting chair that was quickly mounted onto the center of the platform. Dylan shifted the pole to the slot on the chair between his legs. His body shook with exertion as he brought in the line. I stood above him against the transom but I caught the scent of salt and man. I studied the movement of his arms and watched the patches of hair in his armpits grow wet with his effort. My heart beat quickened as the utterly masculine dance played out in front of me. There was heat spreading through me that had nothing to do with the blazing sun above our heads.
Stephen ladled water from a bucket over his shoulders and mopped his brow with a bandana. Occasionally the Captain would massage the straining muscles of Dylan's shoulders as he worked the line. Having never caught anything more exciting than a catfish in a lake, I wasn't prepared for the marathon the fight became. It seemed to me that a normal human being couldn't possibly continue to pump and pull for so long. But Dylan wasn't a normal human being; continue he did, hour after grueling hour. He'd turn his head and Stephen or the mate would fill his mouth with water. After the first hour, I was sent back to the kitchen for some Gatorade and he downed bottle after bottle. Dylan had been fighting the fish for more than five hours when he finally brought it close enough to the boat for us to get a good look at her. According to the Captain, she was a 'grander'—a behemoth of at least a thousand pounds. I had witnessed her many acrobatic leaps above the water as she fought for her life. She exuded raw bestial power against a predator who wielded what seemed to me an impossibly fragile stick against such a creature.
Every movement morphed into cinematic slow motion as she made a desperate final jump across the dive platform. Dylan was at the bitter end of the line the angry fish was trying with all her might to lose. She was glowing—'lit up' the men called it. Her skin wore a miraculous palette of iridescent shades of blue—electric blue to dark deep indigo. She slashed her massive head back and forth with such force that we could hear the sound of her rapier through the air. When the sharp sword of her bill viciously bit into Dylan's leg she won her freedom. Blood fountained from the huge gash in his leg and his hands dropped reflexively to his injury. She sounded, rod and reel trailing behind her and was gone.
***
Blood formed a sickening pool on the island's granite counter top. The inky slick spread out and started to seep over the edge.
His blood. The red of life.
Captain Stephen and two of the mates maneuvered him into the middle of my kitchen. He passed out by the time they got him into position. That was a blessing.
Short hours before puff pastry for last evening's meal of shepherd's pie stretched over the cinder colored marble of the work island. The polished surface was perfect for keeping butter nice and cold. For a gravely injured man? Not so much.
My shaking hands ripped through the first aid kit and I could barely get the gloves over my clammy fingers. I found compresses I needed to slow the blood so I could get a look at the jagged tear in his muscled thigh. His gorgeous leg had been carved up by a dull knife in the hands of a bad chef.
The mate mopped away the mess under him and the Captain hailed a medical team on shore. The wound was serious. The fish's bill had sliced nearly to the bone. Fortunately for Dylan, she had hit the front and side of his leg. The bleeding was profuse, but I knew that if her slashing had found the femoral artery it would have been deadly.
My trembling eased as I realized how vital it was for me to stay in control. I'd been hired as the chef, but I also had the most advanced first aid training on the crew. Pushing my emotions to the back of my brain, I forced myself to deal with the crisis mechanically. The pale, still body under my care was Dylan. Dylan, the man who scared me with delicious fear. Dylan, who made me feel alive. For his sake, I needed to forget who he was, at least for the moment.
A steward fetched pillows from the salon and so we could elevate Dylan's legs and feet. Stephen peppered me with questions from the doctor on the radio. How long was the cut? How deep? Could I see evidence of cut tendons? Was the patient in shock?
The fight for the fish was enough to exhaust even a man in the shape Dylan was in. Most men couldn't take an hour of what he'd been doing for five. I had watched him pit himself against the beast and it awed me. He gave himself to the fight in every way a man can—his mind and body and, yes, his soul too—engaged in an epic struggle. It was Ahab against the whale, the old man against the sea.
Only this was no embittered one-legged captain. And Dylan was certainly no old man. But still, add a traumatic injury to the exhaustion and probably a terrific hangover and you had a recipe for serious shock. He was undoubtedly dehydrated in spite of all the fluid he'd consumed. I relayed his blood pressure and pulse to the doctor.
There were several bags of saline in the kit, but I wasn't trained for that sort of thing. I was petrified that the doctor across the ocean would ask me to get an IV going. I looked at Dylan's large, elegant hand and wondered if I could even find a vein with the needle. Thankfully, the calm voice on the radio told me just to concentrate on keeping pressure on the wound.
The blood flow from the gash finally began to slow. I followed the doctor's instructions to irrigate and sterilize the nasty cut before attempting to close it. Because it was inflicted by the marlin's bill, infection was a very real possibility.
To my great relief, he didn't even suggest that I suture the wound. Trussing a turkey or mending a hem is a far cry from sewing human flesh and the thought terrified me. I was instructed to close the wound with strips of duct tape. Carefully drying the surrounding skin, I taped the gash closed leaving quarter inch spaces between each strip as the doctor had instructed. Finally, I covered my 'surgery' with clean gauze and lowered myself onto a kitchen stool. I peeled away the bloody second skin of my soiled gloves and started to cry.
My tears didn't surprise anyone. I had earned them. I watched them plop onto my jellied knees and brushed them away. They felt hot against my clammy fingers. If anyone thought I wept for any reason but relief, they didn't let on.
Sooner than I could have hoped, his chest began to rise and fall in a far less ragged rhythm. When I checked his pulse, it was almost back to normal. I marveled at his miraculous strength and felt a rush of gratitude. The doctor advised us to let him stabilize further before we moved him to his stateroom.
In the panic, I hadn't heard Lady Delaney wailing on the other side of the kitchen door. I found the little monkey pressed up against the partition standing in a puddle of her own urine and feces. She leaped into my arms and tried to scramble over my shoulder to get to Dylan.
"Poor Lady D.," I told her as I let the door close behind me. "You can't be with him now. But he's going to be okay." I stroked her tiny head and let her whimper into my chest. As always, the capuchin seemed to understand whatever was said to her. "Let's get cleaned up. I can't blame you for having an accident. I almost wet my pants myself." I found someone to mop up the mess and took the monkey toward her stateroom.
It was comforting to clean and tend to his beloved pet. I looked around the monkey's stateroom and saw that it was sparkling as usual. Dylan had worked with Lady Delaney and a professional 'monkey whisperer' for months. With patience he hadn't known he possessed he was able to potty train her. Not only did she know how to use a toilet, but after he figured out how to adjust the mechanism to match her lack of strength, she could flush it too. Consequently, her room on board El Loco was as pristine as the rest of the boat, except around her food bowl. He hadn't been able to teach her to eat neatly.
I didn't want to leave her alone. I knew she wasn't going to be able to settle down until she was sure Dylan was okay. I dried her carefully and took her back to the kitchen with me intending to keep her in my room behind the galley while I showered and changed. I had blood all over me and monkey poop prints on top of the sticky clothes I had worn all morning through the fight with the fish. I held her loosely away from my body so she wouldn't get soiled again.
As soon as I pushed the swinging door open with my hip, Lady Delaney bounded from my grasp and onto the granite slab. She wrapped herself around Dylan's head and began cooing at him while she groomed his matted hair. His eyes fluttered open and he smiled weakly at his little buddy.
"Lady D." He raised his hand to stroke her. Then he tried to raise his head to see the rest of his body, but Stephen stopped him with a hand on Dylan's shoulder.
"Steady, Boss. Give yourself time to come around."
He found the monkey's hand and she circled his thumb in her tiny fist. His eyes closed and he slept again as Lady D. snuggled into the crook of his neck. His tender relationship with the little beast was so sweet and so out of character. He lavished her with warmth and understanding he rarely bestowed on members of his own species.
I left men and monkey on watch and slipped into my cabin, sliding my nasty garments into a pile that I pushed into a corner with my foot. The shower washed the grime and the blood away but couldn't erase the morning's memory. The porthole above my head said the sun was still blazing over a gentle sea. It seemed to me that it should have been the dark of night. Breakfast was a lifetime ago. I had watched an epic fight that nearly cost me someone I wasn't ready to lose. I leaned back and let the water take my tension down the drain. I could still hear the crackle of the intercom in my head announcing the deadly behemoth's arrival.