Key West (9 page)

He still wasn’t quite clear about exactly
what
had driven his hot little angel away last night, but he had a feeling he could relate to it better than she knew. He hadn’t been a Key Wester all his life—not by a long shot. He knew about suburban American values and expectations. And he didn’t think there was a damn thing wrong with those values and expectations. But they weren’t for everybody, and he knew from personal experience they had a way of molding you into whatever your little segment of society found acceptable. If there was something else inside you, well, sometimes it just stayed trapped. He had a feeling Carrie had just started releasing the other stuff inside her—and that it had scared the shit out of her. He needed to make her understand it was okay—more than okay. He needed to show her just how good it was to follow your instincts, to be who you really were.

“Jake!” he called, and the youngest member of his crew headed over. “Set the auto-pilot for me and keep an eye on the GPS,” he instructed, abandoning the wheel.

At that moment, Shay appeared by his side, grabbing tight to his arm. “Which one?”

Fortunately, Carrie’s back was to them. “There.” He pointed. “The leopard bikini.”

Shay raised her eyebrows. “Cute.”

He grinned. “I think so, too.”

Shay had been an occasional lover but was now a friend—a close friend—and he’d told her about Carrie over breakfast. Shay had immediately pointed out that while he’d accepted the advances of more than one girl while on
Party Barge
detail, he didn’t usually find himself thinking about them the next day, waiting and hoping to see them again.

“She’s different,” he’d tried to explain. “In one sense, really shy and prim. But there’s a total animal beneath the surface and
I
got to see it.”

His friend had grinned. “And you want to see more.”

“
Oh
yeah.”

Now Shay was looking at Carrie the same way he was. “A shame she’s so shy,” she said, without needing to expound. Shay was the wildest girl he knew, as into girls as she was guys, and always on the lookout for a new playmate.

He couldn’t help chuckling. “I’d say
I’ll
be damn lucky to get anywhere with her again.
You
, sweetheart, don’t stand a chance.”

She gave a teasing, affronted look.

“Not that you’re not hot—you know you are. But trust me when I say this girl will
not
be into other girls.”

Shay lowered her chin and pinned him with a look of challenge. “Care to make a little wager on that?”

He laughed. “Tempting…but I can’t. It would be a shitty thing to do, because I really like her.”

She tilted her head. “Just from one lap dance, huh?” She looked amused and intrigued.

“Yeah,” he said, not quite understanding it himself.

“Well, good luck, Romeo. And if she blows you off, send her
my
way.” She grinned widely before sashaying away, her ass swaying nicely in her sunny-colored bikini.

Taking a deep breath, Chris headed over toward Carrie and sat next to her, glad the woman seated there before had gotten up to keep an eye on her wandering kids.

Carrie looked up and blinked. “Shouldn’t you be steering the boat or something?”

He flashed a grin. “Don’t worry, angel. It’s taken care of.” He nudged the fins sitting in front of her with one bare toe. “Have you snorkeled before?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“When we reach our snorkel site, I’ll show you the ropes. I know where all the best fish hang out.” He ended with a wink.

“You don’t have to stay here? On the boat?”

“Nope.” Just then, Scott walked past, so Chris spoke a little louder. “I have underlings for that.”

Scott cast a faux look of warning. “Watch it, dude.”

Chris only chuckled. Ever since Scott had joined his crew, he couldn’t resist giving him a hard time, especially since Scott was every bit as good a sailor as he was.

Drawing his eyes back to Carrie, he noticed her skin turning pink already. “Did you bring sunscreen, angel?”

She nodded and reached in her bag to pull out a bottle of SPF 15.

He flashed a skeptical look. “Nothing higher? The sun’s pretty damn hot here.”

“I tan well, so this should do.”

He grinned and removed the lid. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it. Turn your back to me.”

He started by massaging the lotion into her shoulders and down her arms, slowly easing his hands across her soft skin. She tensed slightly beneath his touch, but that only meant she really
felt
it, exactly as he wanted her to. He rubbed more of the coconut-scented lotion down her back, not hesitating to slide his fingers beneath the tie of her bikini top to make sure he didn’t miss any spots. When he reached the small of her back, it arched reflexively inward, and when he leaned around to see her face, he found her biting her lip, eyes closed.

Damn, he wanted to go further. He hardly even cared that he was surrounded by the customers that kept him in food and clothing. He longed to graze his fingers down into her bikini bottoms, massage her ass, then sink his fingertips into her warm pussy. He wanted to slide his hands around to close over her full breasts, looking so damn pretty today, their soft round slopes exposed by her top, her nipples looking hard as pearls through the leopard print.

It was all he could do not to lean into her from behind and kiss her neck. Where was the free-wheeling
Party Barge
when you needed it?

When he’d finished her back, he closed the bottle and reached around to hand it to her, but she still sat with her eyes shut, seeming lost in his caresses. He leaned to whisper in her ear. “I’d offer to do the front, too, angel, if there weren’t so many people around.”

The words brought her green eyes open, her long lashes framing them beautifully. “Oh.” She turned to lean back in her seat as she took the lotion from his hand. “I, uh…”

She looked nervous, her face coloring with a pretty blush. He only smiled and gave his head a short shake. “You don’t have to explain. I’ll see you in the water, angel.”

* * * * *

Carrie eased down the wide steps into the ocean, one by one. Jake was instructing her, assisting people as they got in, and Scott was at the bottom, already in the water, in case people needed help once they took the plunge.

Pushing off from the last step, she found herself immersed up to her neck, the ocean warm and buoyant around her. Her legs mingled with Scott’s beneath the water—a soft, lingering, brushing sensation against her calves and thighs—until she managed to swim a few feet away. “Sorry,” she said.

He grinned. “No problem, honey.”

Her pussy fluttered, even as inelegant as she felt wearing her mask and flippers. Maybe because she had the feeling Scott was remembering how she was yesterday rather than concentrating on what she was like today.

“Good to go?” he asked, putting back on his work persona.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then go forth and snorkel,” he said with a smile.

Upon their arrival, Chris had pointed out to everyone the area in the turquoise blue waters that appeared slightly darker, more shadowy, indicating it was the reef. Carrie swam toward it, following the other snorkelers. She hadn’t traveled twenty feet when a warm hand closed around her ankle. “Wait up, angel.”

Looking back, she blinked behind her mask, surprised Chris was already in the water. “How’d you get here so fast?”

“Secret maneuver.” He grinned. “I jumped off the side.”

She smiled in reply. “Well, where are those great fish spots you bragged about?”

“Follow me.”

He was a good, swift swimmer, and Carrie had trouble keeping up with him until she grabbed onto the bottom of his dark green trunks and let him pull her along. When they reached the reef, she followed his lead, putting her snorkeling tube in her mouth and immersing her face in the water. The simple act opened a whole new underwater world as her eyes fell on mounds of brown and golden coral growing up high from the ocean floor. Fish of all sizes swam beneath them, some darting about haphazardly, others looking as if they were out for a leisurely journey. With the help of Chris’s pointing finger, she saw countless tropical fish over the next hour or so. She spotted a number of beautiful fish in iridescent rainbow colors. Schools of yellow and black fish swam just beneath them repeatedly, followed by a large green one that ducked in and out of coral arches in search of smaller fish to eat. Her favorite find was a lobster crawling across the ocean floor, which she’d never have noticed without Chris’s help.

Of course, just feeling his presence next to her in the water kept her sexual nerves on edge, and the instances when they bumped together in the water were like wonderful little teases, tastes of what might be to come. Even as she enjoyed the snorkeling, she found herself thinking of later, wondering what would happen—if anything. But given all the attention he was paying her—not to mention his sensual application of sunscreen—she had a feeling something more
would
occur, and this time she’d welcome it without worry.

Still peering down into the gnarled coral, she followed Chris’s pointing finger to something that looked like…a shark.

She grabbed his muscled arm, hard. He looked up.

“
Was that a shark?
”

He nodded, and she panicked, her every nerve going spastic as she threw her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his torso, as if she could somehow climb up his body to safety.

His arms closed warm around her waist beneath the water, but he didn’t even look worried. “Just a nurse shark, angel. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

“What do you mean, nothing to be alarmed about?” she spat, still clinging to him.

“Look at me. Do I look worried? Do you see me screaming ‘Shark! Shark!’ to the other snorkelers? Everything’s fine. That little shark won’t hurt anybody—we see them all the time.”

Pulling her even closer, he seemed to realize just how intimately embraced they’d become. “Not that I mind you climbing all over me. In fact, I like it.” He flashed the seductive grin she was getting used to and she realized his cock was growing hard against her pussy, which somehow felt supercharged as he rubbed against her beneath the water. She forgot all about the shark when he began caressing her hips, his hands soon kneading her ass. Instinctively, she raked her breasts over his chest just beneath the ocean’s clear surface—glancing down she saw her nipples, hard and grazing his skin, the water seeming to cocoon them now. Everywhere the water touched her felt like a small, light caress—it felt more as if they were wrapped in velvet than H
₂
O.

She wished like hell she wasn’t wearing her silly flippers or mask. Reaching up, she yanked the mask off her face, looping it around her wrist, then did the same for him. Ah yes, so much nicer to look into those blue eyes without anything in the way.

Disentangling her fins from his, she drew her legs back. “Fins are in the way,” she murmured. His mouth was so close, she wanted to kiss him.

“Mmm,” he said. “That’s all right.” He slid his thigh between hers, beginning to rub her cunt through her bathing suit, sending waves of pleasure echoing out through her body like sonar. Her leg naturally ended up between his as well, and she relished the feel of his hard shaft against her thigh.

Without her permission, her body began to respond, moving against him, riding his leg. She drew in her breath, wishing she could stop.

“Don’t fight it, angel, if it feels good.”

“But…the people.”

Chris looked around them, so Carrie did, too. Fortunately, no one was nearby, and they were fairly far from the boat, which made her think maybe she
could
kiss him, maybe she
could
ride his thigh to hot ecstasy, until…

“Hey, Chris!” Jake yelled from on board.

“Shit,” he murmured, but he didn’t disengage from her, only looked to his crew member and yelled, “What?”

“Fifteen minutes!”

“Okay, thanks.” He looked to Carrie, his big hands still gently caressing her hips, back, ass. “It’s almost time to call everybody in.” He let out a sigh. “Which means I need to head in
now
, to help take gear and get lunch ready.”

Carrie nodded, waiting for him to separate from her and end their sexy water play. But he didn’t.

“Come to the Lazy Lizard tonight.”

“The what?” she asked.

He flashed his usual grin. “The Lazy Lizard. It’s a bar just off Duval, a block up from the Conch Train Depot. I tend bar there a couple nights a week.”

She blinked, incredulous. “How many jobs do you
have
?”

He laughed. “Several. But payments on that thing,” he said, pointing to the boat, “aren’t cheap.” He looked back at her, his face serious again, his blue eyes filled with slow heat. “Anyway, come to the Lizard tonight. I don’t get off ‘til two, but Monday nights are slow, so I might be able to leave early. Either way, we can hang out and…” With both hands, he slowly squeezed her ass tight, his fingers thrillingly close to her tingling pussy.

“And?”

He glanced down at her breasts and ran his palms gently up her sides until his thumbs stroked the outer curve of her sensitive mounds. “And remember, on the party boat, how I told you I couldn’t touch you there?”