The Widows of Sea Trail-Tessa of Crooked Gulley Read online

  It gave me pause to think. I knew what I wanted to do, but what was it that I should do. “I’m conflicted,” I admitted.

  “Elaborate.”

  “Well, if I stay here, I could be wearing out my welcome. And my body,” I added. “If I go back, I’m sure I’ll regret not spending every moment I could with you, but silly me, I’m thinking this is a chess game and wondering which move you’re expecting.”

  “I am expecting you to be honest and tell me what it is you want. I want you to stay with me. I want you to sleep tucked under my arm, I want to wake up with you still there, ready to make love with me before I have to get up and go to work.”

  “Won’t that make for a complicated morning for you?”

  “Not any more than usual. I’ll just have to drive you to the airport before I got to the Port Authority Office. All I have to do is call to arrange your flight to the Paradise Island Airport. You’ll need to get a taxi to the ship, it’s very close, but I’d rather you not walk alone in that area, it’s not the best.”

  “And I’m doing all this in my swim suit, which is where by the way, at the bottom of the pool?”

  “Probably.” He reached over and pulled me into his lap then nibbled on my ear lobe while he informed me that, “I bought you a few things, they’re in the closet.” His hand stroked down my leg to my anklet, which he fingered in a very loving manner. “I want you to stay,” he breathed into my ear.

  When his tongue delved inside, I moaned, “Okay, okay, I’ll stay.”

  “Good,” he picked me up and carried me inside. “How would you feel about a little oral sex on the couch? My turn this time.”

  “You’ll have to teach me.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No, I’ve never done it.”

  He gave me a huge grin. “Well, there’s nothing I like more than teaching a woman exactly how to pleasure me. You sure you’re up for the challenge?”

  “I believe in paying my debts.”

  He laughed uproarishly as he dumped me onto the playpen-sized sofa.

  Chapter Six

  An oral test It was decided we’d try this with me sitting down and him standing up. He said he could control things better that way. At the time I hadn’t realized he meant to use my head as a gearshift.

  Roman stood between my thighs and encouraged me to become acquainted with his steely shaft that interestingly enough was sheathed with what was akin to velvet skin, I had almost forgotten what these wonderful things felt like, but his was, well . . . it was quite different from the norm.

  “Not circumcised,” he said nonchalantly as if to answer the unasked question.

  “Ahhh, any special instructions?”

  “Just be gentle,” he crooned, his melodic voice husky and thrumming with desire. He reached down and showed me how to push the foreskin back. It was soft and smooth, malleable like warm putty, but beneath was a rod of steel covered by tight flesh that was pulsing with crisscrossing purple veins. His penis was granite hard and jumping to meet my hand with what could only be construed as excitement on its part. Like a puppy, it was happy for any attention and was showing appreciation for each caress.

  I stroked it from root to crown, bunching and unbunching the folds of skin. With my other hand I delighted in the feel of his hairy sac plumping in my hand. After a most thorough introduction that was apparently driving Roman crazy as he was feigning sobs, I finally put my lips to the moist tip. I thrilled to the sound of Roman’s gasp, from it and others like it, I soon realized that I was pleasing him and not hurting him. With his encouragement I became emboldened and eventually took most of it into my mouth, and per his instructions, I licked and sucked at the head. That’s when his hand cupped my head and I became a Ferrari doing time trials. I can honestly say that from this point it did not take long, but I can also honestly say that the last part was not thoroughly explained to me beforehand. I did revel in his enthusiastic response though. Roman seemed to go through a lot of emotional gesturing just before ejaculating, grimaces of pain and hisses between teeth being the most prominent, and then it was over—he was exhausted, and I was a mess. I ran to the bathroom to clean up while he recovered what he said was his sanity.

  When I returned a few minutes later he was sprawled on the sofa, his arms stretched along the back. Shamelessly naked, with his limp member resting on his thigh, he was grinning hugely. “I find it hard to believe that in this day and age that ol’Tom was not into that.”

  “It was against his religion.”

  “I wasn’t aware that this,” he motioned between him and me, “was forbidden in any religion.”

  “If you’re a by-the-book Christian, then you would believe it wasteful to spill your seed upon the ground. It has to go inside a woman or you don’t do it.”

  “What about the man you had an affair with, you didn’t do it with him?”

  “Must be why he chose his wife over me,” I said. “Trust me, I’ve only had bread and butter sex. You appear to have sophisticated tastes, I’m almost afraid of what you’ll suggest next.”

  He laughed and I looked over at him and he smiled wickedly back. Naked, with his black and white hair mussed, his impressive hair-covered chest expanded in mirth, and his symbol of maleness jutting out from his lap, he looked like a god. He reached out his hand to me and when I took it he reeled me in. “Let’s go out for dinner, I want to show you off to my friends.”

  “Dinner? We just ate a little while ago, omelets, remember?”

  “Oh, I could eat. I need to refuel for the night. Besides, it’ll take a while for us to get ready. You may have the bathroom first, I’m going to take a swim and get your suit from the bottom of the pool. Check out the closet and see if there’s something there that you’d like to wear.” His lilting voice with its masculine, throaty burr sent vibrations through me. Never before had a man’s voice had this kind of effect on me.

  “Why did you buy clothes for me?”

  “Because I was planning on ripping off whatever you were wearing when I carried you away. Bathing suits don’t rip very easily though.” Again, that voice. Ummm, what had I gotten myself into?

  “Go, get dressed before I change my mind. I like playing teacher, and I definitely like you playing student.”

  It was my turn to laugh as I turned and made my way to the bathroom and the promise of a hot shower to do its magic on my body. I was running on endorphins with the dial pegged on max, so I was not tired so much as weary. My body had never been through all this in one afternoon before.

  I pulled his robe tightly closed around me and went into the kitchen for some water. When I came out he was in the pool. The sun was setting and it was dusk; a purple haze coated the hillside and lights were beginning to twinkle in the harbor below. The pool was lit with lights on the bottom so it was easy to see his long, lean body moving through the water. Each powerful stroke propelled him almost halfway across the pool so he made many laps. I admired his broad shoulders, his trim hips and waist, his firm butt, and his long, long, legs. He looked younger out of uniform and it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how old he was. Was he younger than me? Was it just the white in his hair that made me think he was older? And what if he was younger? What if he was older? Certainly he was one or the other as it was hardly likely we shared the same birth date. I took my wet bathing suit from where he’d draped it over a chair and my glass of water to the bathroom and went to see what I could do to put myself back together without my blow dryer, curling iron, and with only the makeup I had in my beach tote, namely pink lip gloss with a high SPF.

  When he joined me in the bedroom after he had showered in the guest bath, I found myself looking at him in the mirror while we dressed. Naturally, it was intimate when lovers undressed together, but I had not expected it to be so erotic watching him dress. I had chosen a dress in a lovely leopard print with long, dramatic slashes that were cut into the fabric giving teasing glimpses of hip, thigh and chest, nothing revealing, but clear
ly suggestive. It was as if it were made for me, it fit me like a designer gown.

  As I played with my hair, scrunching it with the mousse I found on a shelf in his linen closet, I focused on him buttoning his black silk shirt and then tucking it into his trousers. He looked up and met my eyes in the mirror. We both stopped what we were doing to acknowledge the other and stare into the mirror. His eyes spoke volumes—he wanted me. The appreciation was there in his eyes; in the way his gaze swept me from head to anklet.

  “You are lovely. I knew that dress would suit you, and you it.”

  “It’s exactly my size, how did you know?”

  “I saw it in the store window after you left yesterday and it just called out to me.”

  “I don’t recognize the label, it’s in another language.”

  “It’s Gaelic, it mean’s The Cat’s Pajamas; the store is called Cat Eyes. I was drawn to the dress. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to get it for you.”

  Chills ran up my spine. At the same time I felt the warmth of that cat’s eye marble in my hand, the one I had found by that tree that dreary day we’d chanted the spell for me to find a mate. No, it couldn’t be, things didn’t happen like this. Not to me.

  “This caught my eye, too. I thought you’d like to have it as well.” He opened a drawer on the teakwood dresser and took out a small box. From it, he produced a necklace that he drew out of the box inch by slow inch. The man knew how to draw out anticipation to enhance pleasure.

  “It’s lovely,” I murmured as I turned to look at it straight on. It was a long gold chain, the links overlapping each other, separated by flat semiprecious stones the color of amber every two inches. I saw the clasp as he took it apart and noted that it was two halves of a topaz slashed with lines of onyx that when put together formed a tiger’s eye. I instinctively knew that this was an expensive piece of jewelry.

  He moved behind me to put it on. His fingers grazed my skin as he brought it around my neck. It was a caress as lovely as the necklace itself.

  “I can’t keep this, it’s far too costly.”

  His eyes steeled and when he finished with the clasp, he backed up and looked at me in the mirror. I knew I had angered him.

  “If I couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t have bought it. So don’t worry about the bloody cost.” His voice was clipped and harsh. I had offended him although I hadn’t meant to.

  My hand went to the necklace, now lying on my chest. I fingered it and turned to the light admiring it. “It is the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’ve ever worn, if you’re sure . . .” I let my voice show the reluctance I felt because I really didn’t want to take it off.

  “I’m very sure. Here these go with it,” he pressed a small box into my hands and left the bathroom. Inside the box were matching earrings—flat discs that mimicked the clasp of the necklace. I knew he had left because he didn’t want me to have any opportunity to refuse them. I put the posts into my earlobes, secured them with the tiny gold backs, and admired myself in the mirror. Stunning. The whole effect was stunning. I had a soft rosy glow from being out in the sun despite all the lotion I’d used, and my hair, happy with a male version of Finesse shone and behaved. The color of the dress brought out the blue of my eyes and the jewelry finished the look in a most amazing way. I had to admit I looked lovely, sexy, and thoroughly sated—for now.

  I thought it might just be the lighting as the sun was going down and the meager light coming in from the pool area was bathing the bedroom walls with a soft patina. The only lamps on were on the night tables, emitting a low, hazy lighting, the type most flattering to a woman. But when Roman came back to stand behind me and kissed the nape of my neck, followed by tiny nibbles trailing up to my ear, I knew I had a glow that was shining from the inside out. Life was good again. I fancied myself infatuated with this man. I felt like any woman who was being seduced by a charmer. And tonight I was up for being wicked; I wanted to be ravished by a scoundrel, do naughty things my mother wouldn’t approve of, and not be sorry about a damn thing in the morning.

  “Ready? Because if we don’t leave now, I don’t believe we’ll be leaving atall.” The way he ran the last two words together brought out his accent, which I was finding sexier and sexier as time went on.

  “I’m ready, and I’m actually hungry. I didn’t think I would be.”

  “Good, we’ll introduce you to some island cooking. It’s regrettable you can’t taste the lamb. They really do it right here. But the seafood,” he made a kissing sound against this fingertips, and murmured, “Moi bien!”

  I laughed as he led me from the bedroom and through the house. We got into his Jeep and, with the sun all but disappearing, a seam on the horizon at the edge of the harbor below, he drove us down the mountain and to the edge of an old fishing village where he parked in an ancient alley.

  As soon as he opened the thick battered oak door, and with his hand on the small of my back to lead me inside, I could tell this was a special place to him. People called out from the bar and from tables scattered around the perimeter, barmaids whisked by with loaded trays and winked when they thought I wasn’t looking, and the bartender bellowed a fond, “You ol’ skunk you, where you been?”

  “Your table’s on the deck, Rom,” a buxom waitress said as she lifted a tray of drinks from the bar. He acknowledged her with a smile and led me toward the back of the packed restaurant. I was introduced to no less than thirty people as we made our way to the deck that faced the harbor.

  “Lovely,” I said as he pulled out a seat for me. The view was spectacular. The harbor had white-hulled boats lined up to the left, and off to the right was the inky open bay. You could see lights from the cruise ships shining and reflecting in the obsidian water, and up on the hillside lights from scattered villas shone like torches.

  “ ‘Tis a nice eyeful, I’ll hand you that.” He waved and nodded to a couple at the table beside us as he lowered himself to his seat.

  “You seem to know everyone here.”

  “Mostly. This isn’t a tourist haunt, you have to know somebody who lives on the island to know about a place like this.”

  “Even with this view?”

  “Here, just about every place has a view. But few places have this kind of camaraderie. Been comin’ here a long time.”

  Two drinks were plunked down in front of us and the server who brought them disappeared without saying a word.

  “I’ll say. They must know what you like to drink.”

  “They know what I like my women to drink,” he said with a smile.

  I picked it up and sniffed, it smelled of pineapple and rum. “Okay, I’ll bite, what is it?”

  “Caribbean Romance. It’s light rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, amaretto and grenadine. Knocks them senseless so I can have my way with them.”

  I picked it up and tasted it. “Umm.” I held it up to toast him with his drink. “I think it’s a given that you can have your way with me, at least until tomorrow morning when I have to get back to my ship.”

  “To romance, Caribbean or otherwise,” he said as he winked at me.

  “They called you Skunk.” Along the way to the table as he’d shook hands and introduced me, he’d been referred to as Skunk, Rome, Cap’n, and Mate by the men, and Lovey, Rome Honey, Randy man and Heartbreaker, by the women. I didn’t take that as a good sign, this man was definitely a player.

  “It’s my hair, looks like a skunk’s back to many. Regrettably it’s a distinguishing mark so pronounced that I had to go into something reputable. As a bank robber, I fear I would have spent a great deal of time in jail.”

  “Have you always had it?”

  “Since I was a teen, one day it was just there.”

  “Is it hereditary?”

  “Don’t know for sure, my mum died very young and my da was not around much, and there are no pictures of my mum’s mum or my mum’s da. Never knew anything about his.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Truly. Well, let’s chec
k out the specials shall we?” he handed me a menu and I looked at the list clipped to the front of the menu.

  “On the cruise liner they referred to you as the Rooster.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement, but I was hoping he’d elaborate.

  He chuckled but said nothing.

  “Well?”

  “Surely you must know the answer to that.”

  “That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”

  He chuckled again then leaned forward to whisper, “I did tell you that in my off time that I liked to fuck, remember? At that date-a-thon thing I was coerced into?”

  “So you did. And I must say you’re quite proficient at it.”

  “Thank you. Now what say you to me ordering for the both of us?” he asked. I knew he wanted to change the subject. So did I. What woman wants to acknowledge she’s just one chick in a henhouse that spans the globe? I looked over at his incredibly handsome face; one countless women had obviously fallen for. Well, tonight was my night, and when the rooster crowed, I wanted to be the woman who was under him in his bed.

  I looked up at him and saw the mischievousness in his smile. I had to laugh. “Sure. Go for it. Just remember—“

  “I know, vegetarian. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Abeautiful waitress sauntered over, smiled at Roman and flicked him on the wrist. “We missed you last week.”

  “Got all the late shifts, too many guys on vacation this time of the year.”

  She flicked him on the wrist again.

  “What?”

  “I got engaged.” She flashed a lovely solitaire.

  Roman stood abruptly to give her a hug, lifting her completely off the floor. “Well congratulations! I told you he’d come back!”