Eye of the Storm (3 page)

Being inside her felt like heaven and hell, her inner muscles squeezing and taunting him as he sank inside her to his balls. Shit, he was going to come, and he desperately didn’t want it to be over. “How many cocks have you had here?” he asked as he retreated then slammed back into her welcoming heat.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does. This pussy was mine. All mine. The idea of sharing it doesn’t work for me.” It worked in one way, all right. Thinking about the other lovers cooled his jets, kept him from flooding her immediately with his come.

Sinking onto her, he took his upper body weight on his elbows, rubbed his chest against her hardened nipples, fed the jealousy that let him maintain control. “Do you like all those other cocks? Do they make you come the way I used to?” He lifted his hips, changed the angle of penetration so his pelvis ground into her swollen clit with every hard, punishing stroke. “Do you get as wet for them as you do for me?”

Something like rebellion flashed in her eyes, but she licked her lips and shot him a saccharine smile. “Sometimes.” When he fucked her harder and faster, she gasped, “If I tell you all about my lovers will that get you hot?”

“No, baby. Your cunt has my cock about to burst. Come for me. Let go and come the way you used to. Claw and scratch and scream for me until you forget all the others. Until there’s only room for me.” Increasing the pace, he pounded into her, the friction driving away his resentment, banishing everything but the primal need to come. To fill her with his worthless semen.

“Oh God, Sam. Oh
yesss
. Fuck me harder, faster. Damn you, you’ve always made me melt inside.” Her cunt clenched around his cock, milked him, constricted flesh already about to burst. As her shouts turned to whimpers and the contractions of her pussy slowed, he shuddered above her. His entire being concentrated in his cock, his balls, and he came in long, staccato bursts born of long denial. Coaxed out by the one woman who’d fed his adolescent dreams. And joined him on a trip to ecstasy…pain…and betrayal.

What the fuck was he thinking about, getting rock hard over ancient history? Imagining taking her,
plowing
ground a hundred other men had visited? Disgusted with himself, Sam stalked to the bunk where he’d pictured himself fucking her. He had to do something about this raging hard-on.

Dropping his pants and stepping out of them, he lay down, took his aching cock in hand and pumped away. Nothing. Nothing but a dull ache in his balls and an erection that was going nowhere. Damn. Maybe… Closing his eyes, he tried to picture Joanne, but all he saw was Marcy.

Marcy’s pale hair, her full, sensual lips…her cunt sucking, squeezing, milking him… Oh God, why had she suddenly invaded his head again after all this time? Sam’s balls tightened painfully. Then he came, the scalding hot semen spurting on his belly for what seemed like hours.

Yeah, he still wanted her, for what that might be worth.

Chapter Two

The last person on earth she’d wanted to see this morning was Sam, standing in the cockpit of the
Lucky Lady
, watching her with his intense hazel eyes until he disappeared into the cabin. Marcy strolled along the shoreline, enjoying the abrasive feeling when she dragged her toes through white, powdery sand. Sam reminded her of an ancient god, standing shirtless at the helm of a golden prow, the dawn light catching the wavy chestnut curls she used to love
tunneling
through with her fingers. Rippling muscles of a mature man who took pride in his body had replaced the lanky lines she remembered from long ago.

Why did Sam have to have gotten better, not just older? It would have been easier to ignore him if he’d developed a paunch or his hairline had started to recede. A lot easier. Her belly tightened, and the thong bottom of her bikini chafed her swelling pussy. She should have asked Cam Willis…or Todd…anybody…to come with her to this wedding. If she had she’d be in bed now, welcoming the morning with a lover, not staring into the rising wind and salivating over the last man on Earth she should be wanting to fuck.

Bringing anybody but Sam had seemed somehow obscene, though, for all her memories of Ileana
centered
around him and the dreams they’d once shared with such optimism…such love. To have brought another lover, particularly one for whom she felt nothing but quickly sated desire, would have somehow sullied memories of happy times she’d always cherish.

The wind whipped at her hair, and the eastern sky had an ominous tone. Gray mottled with the orange of dawn in fast-moving clouds that foretold danger. Not the storm the news had predicted, but a mirror of her own jumbled emotions. Warm, damp air swirled around her, but the tempest lay within her as much as in the increasingly forbidding sky.

Still Sam’s image stayed with her as she circled to the Gulf side and stared at strong waves breaking over the barrier reefs. Damn it, she had to banish it. And she knew just how.

She had to dredge up painful memories, remind herself what an asshole he’d been and why she’d thrown him out. Remind herself how he’d pampered every one of his patients but muttered a
halfhearted
, “Sorry, babe,” when she’d lost their baby that she’d wanted so much. Recall his chilling accusation that the baby hadn’t been his.

Arrogant bastard. He’d been that then and he still was, now. Holier-than-thou, certain he had every answer, every right to dictate to her as he did to his adoring patients and their desperate spouses. Certain he couldn’t have fathered the flawed
fetus
she’d miscarried and unwilling to believe her when she’d sworn no one but him had ever stuck his hard cock into her pussy.

The salt spray stung her eyes. It couldn’t be tears. She’d cried buckets of them years ago, until there were no more to come and she’d still held the anger, the hurt, the resentment…and the deep-down love that wouldn’t die. It hadn’t died in the arms of what seemed like a hundred faceless lovers and probably never would.

Marcy squared her shoulders. For Ileana’s sake, she’d get through this wedding celebration. She’d make it a point never again to put herself through this—to avoid her former husband like the plague and do whatever it took to sweep away the pain…the love…the desire that held her in its grip despite all that had gone down before.

* * * * *

By eleven o’clock, the wind had whipped the sheltered waters of the cove into a gray-white froth. Palm trees swayed drunkenly along the long expanse of beach. Sam glanced toward the grotto where the wedding would be held in half an hour, noting with satisfaction that the lush vegetation there seemed not to be affected by the rising wind.

Concerned when the waves rocked the
Lucky Lady
against the dock, he checked the lines again. An oppressive damp heat permeated the lightweight linen of his slacks, settling uncomfortably in his gut.
Kellen
hadn’t veered south across Cuba and into the Gulf as everyone had expected. He was headed straight across Florida toward them. Fighting the fierce wind, he made his way to the grotto where the wedding was to be held.

“You’d better be ready to get everybody out the minute this wedding’s over,” he said to the resort manager, who stared through the canopy of dark-green leaves and orchids at the darkening sky.

“I will.
Kellen’s
still a Category Two, and it seems she’s headed straight for us. I’ll take the guests on the launch. Think you and the others who brought boats can make it to the mainland?”

Sam followed the man’s gaze, then looked back at the churning water. “The
Lucky Lady
’s a deep-draft cruiser, and she’s got two Volvo V6 inboards. She can make it. You’d better talk to the others, though, especially the guy with the sailboat. Wind’s going to go against him, and his motor doesn’t look any too powerful.”

“Will do. Hate to put a damper on the festivities, but we’d better hurry if we’re going to get everybody off this island.”

Doing his best to put the storm out of mind for the moment, Sam glanced around the heavily shaded grotto. It reminded him of a
chuppah
, covered by Nature instead of with the draped cloth and roses he remembered from his and Marcy’s wedding. Ileana stood, looking every bit the bride in something creamy white and filmy, next to Josh, whose gaze focused on his bride-to-be.

The manager, who apparently was also a justice of the peace, stepped up to them and said a few quiet words. Then he invited Ileana and Josh to say their vows.

Sam couldn’t help looking at Marcy, who hung back with the other guests on the opposite side of the clearing and resolutely refused to meet his gaze. Sam remembered how she’d looked the day they’d married with the reluctant blessings of families who’d thought they should have waited. Their parents had said marriage and attending universities didn’t mix. They’d been wrong. As students, they’d been blissfully happy. It had been after she graduated from law school and he finished his residency that the troubles had begun.

He’d never forget how beautiful she’d looked in her mother’s gown of white satin and lace. Her tiara had sparkled with crystal beads, and her veil had kissed the floor. Remembering that veil made him think of tropical islands like this and netted beds like the one they’d shared on their honeymoon in the Bahamas. Oh yeah, he remembered, and it hurt—but somehow reminiscing felt good too. Today she wore something green and clingy. Silk, probably. The
colors
should have blended into the setting, but then Marcy didn’t blend. With her pale hair and flashing eyes, she stood out against any background, this grotto included.

The vows he heard Ileana and Josh make now came from the heart. Personal, sincere, different yet inherently the same as age-old promises he’d made to Marcy and she’d made to him, promises set forth in the contract they’d signed before the rabbi and their parents and repeated in the presence of several hundred guests.

Vows not meant to be broken, intended to cement a man and woman’s lives into one. Vows that, though severed, lay deeply buried in his heart, keeping him from seeking another love.

When he looked at Marcy again, she was staring at him, the look in her eyes as sad as any he’d ever seen. As if she were regretting their split as much as he was. As soon as the celebrant declared Josh and Ileana man and wife, she tore her gaze away.

* * * * *

No way could Marcy stand any more of this celebration. Not when it meant seeing Sam and longing for what could never be again. She had to take a few minutes to collect herself before she could put on a happy face again. Drifting away from a crowd that headed for the docks and the reception Ileana and Josh had relocated to a restaurant on the mainland, she moved back into the grotto. It was as though something compelled her to stand where Josh and Ileana had stood, experience vicariously some of the joy that had radiated from them when they joined their hands and their lives.

The wind caught the full skirt of her short silk dress, whipped it up around her hips and plastered the fabric hard against the hills and valleys of her breasts and belly. A tempest not unlike the whirling dervish that had her heart beating faster, her whole body aching, seeking… God, she didn’t know.

It had taken Ileana ten years to love again after she lost Ben. Ten years without seeing him or hearing him or feeling the weight of his flesh pressing into hers. Ten years, and Ben had been dead, beyond any hope that somehow fences might be mended, new bridges built to span chasms too deep and too wide to be conquered by words or deeds alone.

It might take Marcy forever, seeing Sam occasionally the way she did. Comparing other lovers to him in her mind and having them fall short every goddamn time. She didn’t want to grow old, always seeking yet never finding the kind of emotional commitment she once had with him.

Shit, she wanted the impossible. Hot, committed sex, mastery by her beloved, as well as a love with whom to share a life, not lovers sharing only a moment’s passion. No matter what he thought of her, she wanted Sam. She’d been innocent of the accusation that had driven them apart, but she’d made up for that these past five years.

Caught up in her daydream, she barely noticed the warm rain that began to fall, caressing her softly through the dense canopy of trees and vines. Soon, the soft drips became a deluge, and the wind tore at the natural protection overhead, breaking limbs like twigs and sending them flying about like whirling dervishes. As though Nature were giving her a warning too fierce to be ignored.

A boat whistle pierced the air. Damn, she had to hurry or they’d leave her.

The air grew heavier, the dampness more oppressive. Lightning crackled in the darkening sky, thunder clapping as furiously as Marcy had ever heard it. The soaked silk of her dress clung to her like a shroud. Who knew? Maybe it was. Perhaps it was her destiny to die here, victim of Hurricane
Kellen
. But she wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

Struggling against the fierce winds, Marcy tried to make her way to the docks as the brackish waters rose among the sea grapes and mangroves, soaking the sandy ground and catching the stiletto heels of her
Manolo
Blahnik
sandals, driving her to her knees. She stumbled, losing precious time trying to extricate herself from the muck that held onto her shoes as if it were glue. Finally she pried her feet out of them and started moving again.

“Damn it. Wouldn’t you know I’d pick five hundred dollar shoes to wear during a fucking storm.” Sand caught in the folds of her dress, on her bare legs, even in her hair. And there wasn’t a fucking boat in sight by the time she’d fought her way to the dock. They’d left her as surely as she’d abandoned the ruined shoes. Trying hard to stay calm, she forced herself to move away from the water, toward high ground—the restaurant and cabins at the top of the rise.