Crazy for You (20 page)

Tasha’s eyes shot open. Taking in the
expression in her eyes, he watched as she threw her arms back over
her head and laid fully across the deck. With her arms stretched
overhead, she lazily closed them again. Her breasts were thrust
upward into the increasingly warm afternoon sunshine. Lifting one
knee slightly off the dock as she continued to stretch and arch her
body like a cat, Andrew’s eyes were drawn down the length of her
body from the tips of her fingernails to her toes, momentarily
lingering on each significant and luxurious body part in between.
And he knew, at that moment, should she decide to open her eyes and
peruse his own sexuality again, she would know exactly what was on
his mind.

“The orientation session was right, you
know,” Tasha spouted again from her languid position beside him,
her face still tilted toward the sky. “I’ve never in my life felt
so relaxed, so uninhibited, so full of a sense of self. So terribly
free. I never dreamed that simply by removing my clothing and
bearing all my bodily imperfections to the world that I could feel
so—”

Andrew had had just about all he could stand.
Imperfections, hell! There wasn’t one single flaw on that gorgeous,
sensuous body! Didn’t she know that? Didn’t she realize she was
driving him crazy?

Reaching over, he grasped her chin in his
hand and dipped his head closer to hers. As he pulled her closer,
he watched her eyes fly open in surprise. But before he would allow
her even a whimper, he crushed his lips down on hers.

“Don’t...you...ever...shut...up?” he growled
between nibbles and quick thrusts of his tongue against her
lips.

“Sometimes,” she breathed and brought her
hands up to his neck, pulling him closer into her.

Andrew leaned forward to partially cover her
body with his. He felt her left leg snake up the side of his thigh
and rest against his right side. Desire, deep and apparent to them
both, coursed through him to her, heating their flesh in every
place their skin touched. Which was just about everywhere. The
gentle rolling of the dock rocked them both into the cradles their
bodies made for each other. Andrew moaned, then dragged his right
hand down from her chin to her neck, lingered on one breast, gently
thumbing the peaked nipple, then lower to the small curve of her
belly. And again lower, until he reached the place he sought.

Her sexuality. What set her apart from him.
The hot and tender, moist and yielding center of her body. He
cupped her; she moaned, her lips still connected with his. He
penetrated her with a finger; she trembled, a hot breath exiting
her mouth against his cheek. He found what pleasured her and firmly
grasped her there, molding the shape of her into his palm, kneading
her with his fingertips. She arched into him, gasping his name
between her frantic hot bursts of breath and the clutchings of her
hands into his shoulders.

“Tasha...” he whispered into her hair. “Do
you realize how long I’ve needed to touch you like this?”

She nodded and moaned back her answer.

Forgetting everything, he flung one leg over
her lower body, his hand still cupping and caressing his prized
possession; his other arm pillowing her head to cradle her closer
into him so he could capture her lips, her eyes, her cheeks and
ears and neck with his mouth.

Ah, his sweet Tasha...

He felt the fingernails of one of her hands
dig into his shoulder as his ministrations below caused her lower
body to tense.

“Let it go, honey,” he whispered into her
hair as he found the sweet spot behind her ear. “Let it go. Flow
into me, baby. I want to make you feel more alive and free than
you’ve ever before felt in your life.”

****

Tasha was wrong. Being nude wasn’t the most
freeing experience she’d ever had. Being nude and making love with
Andrew, out in the open air with the baby blue sky above and mother
nature all around was the most exhilarating, intimate, passionate
oneness with nature she’d ever dared to experience.

She’d lost herself the moment he touched her,
forgetting all her earlier fears. His fingers, his hands, his lips.
They were everywhere, sending her into tremoring waves of lustful
desire for him that could never have been described to her before
this. Never before had she felt like this....

Never.

He whispered into her ear and she heard
herself moaning back at him incoherently. He stroked her, and the
banked fire within her ignited, burning, scorching his palm, she
knew. She was on fire and he had done that to her. He had set her
free, had ignited a passion so deep within her, she’d forgotten it
was ever there. Or perhaps, it never was there. And as the fury
grew, she clutched and clawed at him, lost in the moment and the
flood of emotions and feelings...only wanting more...more of
him.

In every way....

Then she erupted against his hand, the flames
licking high within her; his body arched into hers, holding her
close. He held her and cooed into her ear, caressingly, slowly
bringing her back to awareness.

Finally, Tasha stirred against him, burrowing
closer. Andrew sighed, pulled her close, and smoothed the hair
falling down her back.

Smiling, Tasha nuzzled closer. “You told me
the other day I was about to explode,” she whispered against his
chest. “I think I just did.”

Andrew cupped her delicate face into his
hands so he could see every expression on her face, thankful of the
simple gift they had just shared. The closeness, the intimacy.
There was no comparison. Ever. And he would never forget it.

Reaching up, she traced the outline of his
cheekbone. “Now it’s your turn,” she breathed back at him.

Andrew groaned, then rolled over onto her
fully.

Oh God, how he wanted her.

A wild yell screeched out over the lake’s
calm, breaking into the quiet afternoon, startling them both.
Within another second, Andrew and Tasha shifted and turned to see
what was going on, while intermittent shrieks and yells added to
the commotion. Every bird in the surrounding trees took flight at
the intrusion.

“‘Ey look, mon, tourists!”

Andrew and Tasha froze.

Startled, Tasha jumped to her feet. Andrew
quickly followed, then stepped slightly in front of her, shielding
her body from full view of the scene before them.

“Oh, hell...” Tasha whispered behind Andrew’s
back. “There goes the neighborhood.”

“Sh,” he ordered quietly. “Let me handle it.
Do exactly as I say. I don’t think they’re going to come all the
way after us or anything. I think we’re safe out here. Just keep
quiet.”

“I hope you’re right.” She burrowed into his
back, glad for once she could rely on someone to protect her.

A bevy of giggles and guffaws echoed from
bikes.

Interspersed with wild laughter and howls of
delight, loud bursts of reggae music and chortling motorbike
engines, a couple of local kids ran over Tasha and Andrew’s picnic
lunch, the blanket, and their clothing—grinding them all into the
sandy earth.

Then they circled one last time and stopped,
pointing the noses of their bikes toward Tasha and Andrew.

“Jump!” she called out and then both of them
slipped into the water.

****

Tasha and Andrew held tight to the ladder
behind the dock, searching each other’s faces. They had waited a
few minutes, heard the bikes and the music fade away, and were
hoping their visitors were gone.

“Do you think they’ve left?” she
whispered.

Shrugging his shoulders, Andrew started up
the ladder. “I’ll look.”

He was back down in a second. Tasha wasn’t
sure she liked the look on his face.

“Well...?” she prompted.

“They’re gone.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded.

“So let’s get out of here, okay? I keep
getting this creepy sensation all up and down my spine.” She
started to ascend the ladder herself.

Andrew grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

She turned to him, eyes wide. “What?”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

“What?” she repeated, a more puzzled
expression on her face.

“They took...some things.”

“Things?”

“Yes. They took...our clothes.”

The look she gave him then was one of pure
shock—eyes round, brows arched, lips clamped together in a firm,
thin line. She wasted no more time climbing up and out of the water
to the top of the deck.

Andrew followed and they stood there looking
out to the beach.

In another second, she was running for the
edge of the dock and dived into the water.

Reaching out to pull handfuls of water toward
and away from her, Tasha churned at the water until her feet
reached the smooth, mossy bottom. Finally, she reached the sand,
jogged up on the beach, and confirmed Andrew’s words. When she
heard Andrew’s labored breathing behind her, she turned to him.

“They took our clothes!”

Andrew’s face grew frantic. “I know!” His
head bounced around the area before and behind them, searching. He
paced back and forth across the hot sand. He looked into a garbage
can a few feet away and then behind the big palm that had shaded
them earlier. He was definitely agitated about the whole mess.

“They’re gone, Andrew. Give it up.”

“My glasses! I need my glasses!” Then he
stepped on something, leaned over and picked it up and held it out
in front of him.

“I think you found them,” Tasha smirked,
looking at the mangled wire. “Do you need them that badly?”

After a moment, Andrew shook his head, then
flung them aside. “I can live without them, for a while, at least,”
he grumbled.

He turned back to his search.

“Ah-hah!” Andrew waded into waist high grass
behind the tree to retrieve something. “I’ve found something!” But
when he pulled it out, it was the blanket, not their clothing.

“Come out of there, Andrew! You’ll have bug
bites up to your—”

Up to your delicious little behind, you
idiot.

“You’ll be sor-ry,” she sang out.

“I’m going to find our clothes, dammit,” he
called back to her as he went thrashing through the grasses and
weeds. “Don’t you see what a predicament this is?”

Tasha walked to the edge of the sand. “I see
perfectly well what the predicament is. A: we’ve got to walk back
to the resort. B: we’ve got no clothing to wear. C: we don’t really
know where those scoundrels are who took are clothing and if they
are coming back. And D: you’re going to be scratching from here to
kingdom-come if you don’t get your cute little behind out of those
weeds. Oh, and E: your back is really red. I think you are getting
a pretty nasty sunburn.”

His head popped up out of the weeds where he
was thrashing about. “All the more reason for you to get your fanny
out here and help me,” he glowered at her.

“Andrew...”

He turned to her again, eyes desperate.
“Don’t you see? They took my clothes. My clothes. What am I going
to do?”

Shaking her head, Tasha stared back at him.
“We’ll figure out something. We can go shopping when we get
back.”

“When we get back? What about getting from
here to there! That’s what I’m most concerned with.”

He stopped thrashing in the weeds and looked
up at her. “Look, Are you gonna help me, or what?”

Tasha huffed and settled her hands on her
hips, forgetting the tiny niggling voice. Forgetting everything but
their present predicament. “If you think I’m stepping one foot into
those weeds, Andrew Powell, then you’ve got another thing coming.
I’m not particularly fond of chigger bites on my—”

“Yow!” Andrew jumped up like a shot. Within
seconds, he was back at her side, thrusting his hand out to her.
“Get it off!” he shouted. “Get if off, now!”

Tasha grasped his hand to hold it still. “Be
still,” she ordered, looking down at the bee still partially
attached to its stinger which was imbedded into the fleshy part of
Andrew’s palm. Glancing down at her feet, Tasha stooped down to
pick up a flat rock. Andrew was bouncing from one foot to another.
“Hold still,” then with a quick flick of her wrist, she swiped the
rock against the bee and the stinger, removing both of the
offensive objects from his hand.

She looked into his face. “You allergic to
bees?”

“I don’t know,” he grimaced.

“You don’t know? What kind of reaction have
you had to bees before?”

“None. I mean. I’ve never been stung
before.”

“What?” Tasha found that hard to believe.
“Not even as a kid?” He shook his head. What a sheltered life,
Tasha thought. She squeezed the flesh around the wound and scraped
it again with the rock just to make sure none of the stinger was
left, also hoping to extract any of the poison.

“Yow!” Andrew jumped back and shook his hand
away from her.

“Go wash it out in the lake,” she told
him.

“It will be all right.” He examined it
again.

“Go wash it out. At the very least the cold
water might help keep the initial swelling down and wash some of
the poison away. Go do it.”

He stubbornly did.

When he returned, looking slightly less
sheepish than before, Tasha had already decided what they needed to
do. Wadding up the blanket he’d found, she approached him.

“It’s getting late. We need to start back for
the resort.”

Andrew lifted one eyebrow at her. “But we
have no, no—”

“Clothing, I know. I think we can stay off
the beaten path as much as possible. I’m sure we can avoid the
masses. Hell, Andrew, nudity is not such a big thing around here.
If we stay in the trees, I think we’ll be okay. And we can wrap
this blanket about us if we run into anyone.”

Andrew threw up his hands. “Oh, yeah...and
that wouldn’t look suspicious at all would it? People walk around
wrapped in blankets all the time, don’t they?” His head bobbed up
and down at her as he spoke, obviously quite put out with the
entire situation.