Eye of the Storm (2 page)

The ferry she’d taken over from Port Charlotte this afternoon had brought only a handful of guests who were staying for tomorrow’s ceremony, and most of them had finished dinner and taken off to watch the sunset or stroll along the sandy Gulf side of the tiny barrier island. Couples. All couples. Not a single unattached guy who might help her keep her mind off ancient history. Marcy glanced down toward the dock and noticed a small, sleek cabin cruiser being secured beside a couple of larger boats.

“Sam’s coming, Marcy.”

Oh God. Pain cut through her as though it had been weeks, not years since she’d tossed him out. “When?” With any kind of luck at all, he’d blow in for the ceremony tomorrow morning and hightail it right back to Tampa and his precious patients.

“I’m not sure. He told me he was coming down by boat.”

It took only a glance toward the dock and a brief perusal of the buff, chestnut-haired guy in faded
cutoff
jeans for her brain to process that Sam was already here…and that Ileana must have meant he was literally walking toward them, not that he was coming in the morning for the wedding. Marcy swallowed the alarm that had her wanting to run away, avoid facing the painful memories. Damn it, why did he affect her like this now? She clamped down on wayward emotions and tried hard to ignore the sudden gush of moisture from her pussy that made her want to launch herself into his muscular embrace.

So he could shove her away again? Not in this lifetime. “I think that’s Sam now,” she commented, turning back to Ileana and Josh. “From the looks of that boat of his, I’d say the fertility business must be pretty good.”

“I always wondered what went wrong between you two,” Ileana said. “You seemed so perfect for each other.”

“What went right?” Marcy wasn’t about to air old, dirty linen period, much less to the prospective bride and groom. “Anyway, it’s ancient history. We’ve been divorced five years now.”

“Sorry. It’s just that I liked both of you. Felt bad when I heard you’d split.”

“Ileana, sweetheart, it’s obvious Marcy doesn’t want to talk about this.”

Score one for Josh. Marcy’s feelings for her friend’s fiancé just moved up another notch. The guy obviously knew how to read between the lines.

Marcy drew in a breath of damp sea air tinged with a light aroma of stone crabs and the seasonings that made them taste so good but tickled her nose. Damn, what was it about this place, these people, that had her stomach doing somersaults as though she were sixteen and head over heels in love again? Why the hell was her pussy clenching at the sight of a man she’d hardly thought about since their divorce? The man who now was headed straight for Ileana…and, however coincidentally, her.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t run into Sam once in a while, for God’s sake. She’d even exchanged a few words with him, introduced him to her man-of-the-moment and smiled at whatever woman had been clinging to his arm at some social or civic function. So why was she creaming her panties now? Why were memories of good times flooding her mind, keeping the bitter ones at bay? Marcy tried to look away, but it seemed her eyes had other ideas because they remained glued on Sam. He’d filled out more since they’d split, developed impressive
lats
and biceps she hadn’t noticed when he wore a suit or tux. They were
mouthwateringly
evident now, when he was naked except for snug
cutoffs
that emphasized his narrow waist and powerful thighs.

Shit. His bad luck that Marcy was sitting at the same table with the bride. Looked as though she’d left her latest squeeze back home too. Sam willed his cock to relax when he felt it stirring. No way was he volunteering to fill the void. She’d probably already made plans to scratch her famous itch sometime during the wedding festivities.

He squared his shoulders and approached the table. “Ileana. And Josh, I assume.” He held out a hand, smiling at the man’s firm grip. Then he turned to his former wife. “Hello, Marcy.”

“Sam.” She met his gaze, her deep green eyes full of challenge—and something else. Desire? Not likely. Not that he was interested anyway.

“Mind if I join you?”

Marcy shrugged. “It’s a public restaurant.”

She didn’t used to be so brittle. Her smiles used to light up her pretty face and make her eyes soften to a tone not unlike the smoky gray-green of the Gulf. For a moment Sam mourned the loss of love. Of friendship and trust. Not just hers but his. They’d once been kids in love. Kids who’d grown older and busier and left the magic behind.

Fuck if he didn’t still wonder from time to time what specific thing he’d done that had caused her to have his belongings packed up and set on the porch of the home they’d bought together—the house where she still lived. Since he’d asked her a hundred times and she’d closed him out, he chose not to give a damn anymore. Determined to ignore Marcy as fully as she seemed to be ignoring him, Sam turned to Josh and began making idle conversation.

* * * * *

By the next morning the clouds started rolling in. Waves broke noisily against the sides of the
Lucky Lady
, waking Sam and sending him on deck to survey the situation. Nothing too alarming, only a little more wind than he’d have liked to see. With any kind of luck, the rain would hold off until after Ileana and Josh had said their vows. The fact that the only transmissions he got over the ship-to-shore radio were spits and crackles didn’t particularly concern him. Reception was always lousy in protected coves like this one on the eastern side of Cabbage Key.

Sam glanced at his watch. Five a.m. Too early for breakfast, or to socialize with the couples he’d met last night. Habit, he supposed, had caused him to awaken when he could as easily have slept. Dipping his head to avoid the doorframe, he headed back into the cabin. His bunk beckoned more insistently than the fish that might be biting in the deep channel that led into the cove.

Then he saw her through a porthole. Marcy, strolling along the narrow stretch of sand. Gusts of wind tossed her pale blonde hair and
molded
something silky-sheer and hot pink to her gentle feminine curves. Curves he found as arousing now as they’d been twenty years ago when she’d flaunted them in a JV cheerleader outfit. There was something sad, something singular about the picture she made, staring out across the Intracoastal Waterway toward Port Charlotte as though looking for something…someone?

Wasn’t he looking a little sad himself, staring out a porthole at the woman he’d written off five years ago? Yeah. He didn’t often acknowledge it, but he was lonely.

Damn it, why did he still want Marcy? He fought off a compulsion to go to her, enfold her in his arms, drag her back here and assuage the loneliness. His as well as her own. He’d hold her, take her, make her admit that what they’d shared had been better than her hundreds of casual fucks, a hell of a lot more meaningful than the few scratches of a mutual itch he’d shared with someone he called friend.

Still a little sleepy, Sam’s mind wandered. The present began to mesh with old memories and latent dreams.

He strode quickly, quietly, behind her on that stretch of beach backed on one side by white-capped waves, on the other by deep-green sea grapes and gently swaying palms. When a gust of wind brought her familiar scent to his nostrils, his breathing turned ragged. His heart pounded in his chest when he finally overtook her.

Settling his hands at her slender waist, his fingers
molded
to flesh as familiar now as if he’d caressed it each night for the last five lonely years. When she turned at his touch, she murmured, “Sam.”

Gently, for she seemed weightless, he lifted her, took her mouth. God, but she tasted as sweet as she had every time before, in reality and in his restless dreams. “I’m going to take you, fuck you, wipe out your memories of every man but me,” he whispered against her slack lips when he broke the kiss.

She
tunneled
her fingers through his hair and sighed, then wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and shoulders. “Like old times.”

“Not quite.” No, this time he’d put his mark on her soul as he’d once put it on her body years ago, when he’d realized she needed to give over control in this if not any other aspect of her life. “This time I’m not asking. I’m telling you what I want.”

Her nipples tightened visibly beneath her skimpy bikini top and the silky cover-up, telling him more clearly than anything she might say that the thought excited her. By the time he’d carried her back on board the Lucky Lady, they’d hardened and elongated and were pushing insistently against the fabric that contained them. His nostrils flared at the musk of her desire that surrounded her when he set her down inside the compact cabin.

Hands on her shoulders, he slid away the gossamer wrap. He’d never felt skin so satiny smooth as that in the hollow between Marcy’s richly rounded breasts. And in the soft indentation around her navel. She stirred his senses as much now as she ever had. “Take off the swimsuit.”

She shot him a challenging look born, he supposed, of the vast experience she’d gained since their split. Apparently none of her affairs had lasted long enough for a lover to establish control over her. Her hands went to her back, though, and the stretchy fabric went slack over her beautiful breasts. He inhaled sharply at the sight of them, plump and white and tipped with brownish-pink, puckered nipples that tempted his lips. “Like what you see so far?”

Reaching out, he stroked first one tempting globe and then the other. “Yeah. Now strip out of the rest. I want you naked.” His balls tightened painfully, reminding him how long it had been since he’d found release. When he released the zipper on his jeans, his cock sprang free, hard as stone and throbbing with anticipation while she slithered out of the tiny thong, revealing a sleekly shaven pussy.

Shaved for some other man or men. For a moment his cock began to shrivel, before animal instinct overrode the surge of possessiveness, the momentary stab of betrayal. White-hot lust flooded every cell of his body, made him struggle for control.

Control. He wanted to control her as he had so long ago. Impose his will on her and make her love it, beg him for more. “Get on your knees and suck my cock.”

She’d hated giving him head when they were married, but now she knelt and caressed his swollen flesh with soft, knowing hands, taking his cock head between moist, velvety lips and swirling her tongue around. He tried not to think of how many cocks she’d sucked to get so good at it…whether they’d tasted better or worse or if they’d stretched her lips as much when their owners forced them down her throat.
Tunneling
his fingers in the pale strands of her silky hair, he made her take him deeper, and she swallowed convulsively around him.

Her little whimpers told him she liked sucking cock now. A lot. Her moist hot breath heated the skin beneath his pubic hair. “Stop now, baby. When I come I want to be buried in your cunt as deep as I can go. Just like old times.”

She let go of his cock, stared up at him with tears glistening in her eyes. “Are you sure you want it the way it used to be?”

“Yeah.” Except now she shaved her pussy and had let God only knew how many cocks inside it.

He lifted her to her feet and dragged her down onto the narrow bunk. “Hands behind your head, and spread those pretty legs.” Kneeling between them when she complied, he first donned a condom, then stroked the satiny folds of her labia, her plump
mons
. “Be still,” he ordered when she began to squirm.

“I can’t.”

“Don’t talk. Just feel.” Deliberately, he stroked the wet, slick inner lips of her pussy, avoiding her hard little clit. “Feel my fingers slide over your silky
mons
. Your labia. They’re swollen. Wet. Slick with your honey. No. Don’t move. I’ll give your pretty clit some attention soon enough.” He’d often wondered when he examined women who shaved or waxed their pubic hair, but of course it would have been highly unprofessional to ask. He felt no compunction about asking Marcy, about whom he’d never felt the slightest bit professional. “Tell me, what does my touch do to you? Does shaving make you feel hot? Sexy?”

“It makes me feel good. Clean and satiny smooth and ready for whatever you have in mind. Haven’t you ever wondered how it would feel to have a woman suck your cock and balls without all that tangle of hair getting in the way?”

“Would you like it better?” He took his cock in one hand and rubbed its head along her hot, slick slit, pausing when he reached her anus. “Would you like it if I fucked you here?” He’d been first to breech her cunt, but he had no illusions that her ass still remained untouched. She’d been too hot, too adventurous with him to have saved that hole for five long years, even though she’d been too scared after they’d tried it once and it had hurt her…until near the end, when they’d bought anal probes in graduated sizes to stretch her for his cock…ones they’d never used because neither of them had wanted to once she’d found out she was pregnant.

“I love fucking with you. Always have. Guess I always will.” Against his command, she lifted her hands, framed his cheeks between them, traced the seam of his lips and the lobes of his ears. “Have you missed me, Sam?”

He had, but he wasn’t about to say so. Wasn’t going to give in to the urge to gather her in his arms, take her with love the way he had so long ago. “I told you to keep your hands above your head. Now do it. I want to concentrate on making you come for me.” Bracing himself on his hands and knees, he plunged his cock into her cunt, tried not to feel as though he’d just come home.