Bird of Paradise (15 page)

And still he kissed her.

Pressed against each other, they moved together in
the waves, their bodies gently swaying with the rhythm of the water
around them, but everywhere his body touched hers, she felt as if
she were on fire. Unable to stop herself, she let her fingers
sculpt down the long planes of his back, reveling in the sensation
of his sun warmed, sea-dampened skin that lay like velvet over
thick ropes of muscles.

He was so beautiful, and she was so—”Stop!” she
cried, suddenly pulling back from him, tearing herself from the hot
lure of his mouth.

“No,” he said, his voice a low rumble that echoed
deep within her, touching all of those magical little places that
only a man could touch. He tangled the fingers of one hand into her
wet hair, and tipped her head back until her lips were offered up
as a sacrifice to their passion.

“You can't…I don't want…” The words came out jumbled
in between gasps of air, but he had no mercy.

“Yes, you do, just as much I as I want to. Have you
ever made love in the water, Hero?” Her eyes widened as he leaned
down to nip her lips. “I promise you it'll be something you won't
soon forget.”

He took possession of her mouth once again, and this
time it was too much. She couldn't keep fighting him, fighting the
need that she had for him, fighting her love. With a groan that
came from her soul, she dug her fingers into his shoulders and
pushed his tongue from her mouth, only to invade his. He moaned as
she writhed against him, tasting him, teasing him, nipping at his
lips and sucking his tongue, aware that his hands were busy
stripping the swimsuit from her upper body, but for once uncaring
because she knew that as long as they stayed in the water, she
would not be entirely exposed to his view.

“Oh, Hero, my beautiful Hero, how can you think you
are anything but desirable?” Adam kissed a hot path down Hero's
breastbone, setting her skin alight. “You are a goddess, meant to
be worshiped and venerated.”

His hands tugged on her swimsuit until suddenly she
stood free of it, her bare skin surrounded by warm water on the
back side, and Adam on her front. He tossed the wet garment into
the boat, and stifled her protest with his mouth.

Flames licked from his fingertips as they danced
down her spine, the fire heightened, not extinguished by the soft
caress of the sea on her sensitive flesh. His hands were
everywhere, stroking her behind, swooping along the curves of her
hips, teasing her breasts until her nipples were hard and aching in
the heat of his palms.

“Talk to me,” he murmured in her ear as he kissed
and suckled the spot behind her ear. Hero moaned in response. “Tell
me what you're feeling.”

“Can’t. No air.”

He chuckled as he pulled away from her long enough
to kiss her waiting lips once more. “I know the feeling. There
doesn’t seem to be enough air on this beach, does there?”

She frowned at him. “Why is
it
you
can still
talk while I’m completely witless? I must not be doing something
right.”

“Oh, baby, you’re doing everything right,” he
crooned, his fingers hard on her hips as he pulled her to him,
plundering her mouth for another one of those brain-numbing kisses.
She arched her back against him, her breasts rubbing sinuously
against his wet chest, and realized what it was she was doing
wrong. “Honey, you couldn’t possibly be any
beh…beh…behhuuuUUUUUUUUHHH!”

She smiled at the look of
astonishment and absolute bliss on Adam’s face as she stroked his
Speedos, curling her fingers into the waistband and tugging them
off. She could almost hear the
boing
as his penis—more erect than
she thought humanly possible, visions of the redwood forest coming
immediately to mind—sprang free of the skimpy material.

“So, it wouldn’t please you at all if I did this?”
she asked, grasping his heated length with both hands and mapping
out every bump and contour.

“Haaaarng,” he groaned, swallowing hard.

He was so hard and soft at the same time, velvety
smooth skin riding over steel. Hot steel. Hot steel that spasmed
quite a bit.

“I suppose, then, you wouldn’t like it if I were to
do this, either?” She reached lower, dipping at the knees to take
his balls in her hand, gently scratching her nails along the tender
flesh at the same time she took one insouciant brown nipple in her
mouth.

“Gwaaahhnan,” he burbled, his eyes rolling up in his
head as his hands spasmed helplessly. She bit gently, so very
gently on his tiny little nipple nub, and was rewarded with his
body going stiff.

“CONDOM!” he bellowed.

She blinked at him, then began patting herself down,
just in case a condom magically appeared on her person. Alas, the
condom fairies were busy elsewhere that day. “I don't have one!”
she wailed.

“Boat!” Adam said, maintaining his hold on Hero as
he lunged awkwardly toward the side of the boat. His arm flailed
around in the net bag sitting on the seat, then emerged with a
shiny silver packet in his hand.

“Hurrah!” applauded Hero, and leaned forward to grab
the condom from him at the same time he leaned forward to apply the
slippery bit of latex. There was an audible “thunk” as their heads
cracked together.

“Oh, Adam, I'm so sorry,” Hero apologized, rubbing
her forehead.

“Never mind that,” he snarled, “the condom's
escaping! Quick, grab it!”

Hero snagged the white object, then turned to apply
it, but as his penis was wet, and the condom was slick with
lubricant, and the beastly thing kept popping off him. All the
while she was trying to get it on, Adam twitched, groaned, and
sobbed pleas for her to finish before he died.

“Done!” she said at last, giving him a beatific
smile.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his jaw tense and tight
with strain.

“Pretty certain. Mostly certain. Maybe I should just
check it—”

“Now!” he bellowed, startling her.

“Now?”

“Now!!
” He
grabbed her by the hips and pulled her close to him and up in one
smooth move. Her breasts rubbed on his wet chest, the heat of him
suddenly sending the slow burn inside her into a raging inferno.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, digging her heels into the
hard muscle of his behind. She felt the hard, pointy bit of him
probing her, bumping against her, nudging her everywhere but the
spot she wanted him, craved him,
needed
him. He poked again, a whimper
escaping from her mouth as the touch of him drove the inferno
inside her into a veritable firestorm that threatened to burn her
up on the spot.

“Lower,” she cried, almost sobbing with frustration.
Why couldn’t the man aim properly? “No, up a little. To the left.
No, too far, back to the right. Now you’re too high again—”

“For the love of God, woman, help
me,” he pleaded, desperation mingling with desire and need and
something that looked so much like love that it made her want to
burst into
God Save the
Queen
. Help him? Help him? Of course! Why
didn’t she think of that? She reached between them and placed him
where he was guaranteed a heartfelt welcome, then slid her fingers
into his wet hair and groaned her pleasure into his mouth as he
sank into her.

They stood like that for a moment, savoring the
sensation of being joined, but soon Adam was pounding into her hard
and fast, all gentleness gone, but that was just fine with her. She
dug her heels into his behind, urging him on, clenching all those
inner muscles she rarely ever had a use for around him until she
squeezed a moan of absolute ecstasy out of his adorably manly lips.
She rocked against him, sobbing now with pleasure as the fire
inside her burned scarlet, then white hot, knowing that she was
going to explode into a thousand little fragments—sated and happy
fragments to be sure, but still she was certain she was going to
die from the rapture of their joining.

She didn’t die. She roared out his
name so loud Adam was deaf in the ear nearest her mouth for a week,
but he never once complained. The joy he found in her arms, in her
eyes, just plain
in
her was more than enough compensation for something as
meaningless as a functioning eardrum. Her body tightened and
shuddered around him, driving him on to find his own moment of
absolute pleasure, a moment that went beyond anything he’d known
and entered the realm of mythic eroticism. He came hard, arching
his back and pumping into her every drop of life he had to give,
filling her with his heart and soul and love and anything else he
thought she might want. He gave so much of himself, he wasn’t sure
he there would be anything left of him, but when the world stopped
spinning around him, when he regained enough of his wits to realize
that he was standing waist deep in the Caribbean ocean, the woman
he loved draped limp and wet over him, he knew that somehow,
everything would be all right. He had Hero, nothing else
mattered.

True, he staggered as he waded back to the beach,
her arms and legs still wrapped around him, but he figured she
wouldn’t hold that against him. Not even Superman would have been
able to walk straight after such an experience.

Hero stirred in his arms as he walked toward shore.
“Did I die? Is this heaven?”

He mustered together enough strength to move his
grin muscles into place. “Not heaven, just paradise.”

She kissed a lazy line along his jaw. “Mmm.
Paradise. With Adam. That must make me Eve?”

“Well…” He stopped long enough to kiss her silly. He
loved her when she was silly. “I think there are some apples in the
basket.”

“Good. You're going to need a lot of sustenance.
Adam?”

“Hmm?”

She bit his chin gently. “That girlfriend of yours
was dead wrong.”

He looked down at the woman in his arms. “She
was?”

“About you being a poor lover.
You're not, you're very, very….
mmmrowr
!”

He grinned. He'd never been
called
mmmrowr
before, with or without the implied italics. It felt good. It
felt damn good.

Hero suddenly pushed back from his chest, looking
around them wildly. “What are you doing?”

He grinned again. He loved her when she was bemused.
“I’m carrying you to the blanket in the very best romantic hero
tradition.”

She struggled against him, unwrapping her legs and
trying to drop down his body. “No! The water’s only up to your
knees! Stop!” Suddenly she went rigid, then slapped a hand over his
eyes, her legs wrapping themselves around his hips again. “No,
don’t stop! Take me to the towels!”

He laughed out loud. He even loved her when she made
no sense. “Baby, I can’t see where I’m going.”

“That’s not all you can’t see.”

He turned his head until her hand slid from his
eyes, saying nothing until he stood holding her over the
blanket.

“Hero—”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to bend down and let me
grab a couple of those towels before you let go of me?”

She was clinging to him like a limpet. He felt a
rumble of laughter start in his chest, but knew she would be
offended if he laughed at something that she did not find funny.
“No, I’m not going to let you cover yourself up. Hero, I love you.
I have since that first day when you ambushed me in the customs
room. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
I don’t care what you look like. You’re beautiful to me, all of
you, every last square inch of you, and if you’d just loosen the
stranglehold you have on me, I’d be more than happy to show you
just how much I worship you.”

She mumbled something into his neck.

“What?”

“There’s too many square inches of me.”

“No, baby, there’s not, there’s just the right
amount,” he said, but knew when he felt the hot tears on his neck
that it was going to take more than words to convince her. He sank
to his knees on the blanket with her still clinging to him, draping
a beach towel around the back of her until she grabbed the ends and
pulled it around her front. She slid off his legs, looking anywhere
but at him, trying to pull the towel down over her as she moved to
the far edge of the blanket.

He wouldn’t let her.

“Here,” he said, pulling her back to him as he
stretched out on the blanket. She frowned at him and clutched the
towel closer.

“You’re not wearing anything.”

“I know.” He ran a fingertip along the curve of her
breast before it disappeared into the towel.

Her breath hitched. “Don’t you think that’s a little
risqué? What if someone should see you?”

“No one can see us.” He rubbed his leg against hers,
leaning over her and throwing his heavy thigh over her legs.

She glanced over his shoulder. “Jesus is over
there.”

“Jesus has seen me naked before.” He started
nibbling on her neck, pushing aside her wet hair to taste the
sensitive flesh beneath it.

“But…but…”

“Hero, you are the most beautiful woman in the
world.”

She snorted.

“To me you are,” he said with a smile, then sat up
and ran a palm down her smooth calf. “Look at your legs, look how
shapely they are.”

“They’re stumpy,” she said with a mutinous glare. He
bent down to kiss a path down one calf, pausing to nibble on her
ankle, then kissing down the top of her foot until he reached her
toes.

“I could never love a women with stumpy legs,” he
murmured, sucking a toe into his mouth for a moment. She moaned.
“Your legs are long and muscled, and you have stunningly gorgeous
heels. I bet men fawn upon your heels all the time.”

She giggled as he turned back toward her.