The Pleasure Of His Company

Truly, he had no intention of seducing her on the snorkeling trip. But his body didn’t believe what his mind was saying. He hardened at the thought of her, an inexorable arousal that left him winded.

He pressed his palm against the tile while steam rose around him, water running down the muscles of his back, his butt and his thighs. No, he had no intention of making a move on her. But he wanted. Oh, he wanted. And it was with that want sizzling through his veins that he allowed the greed for her to move his hand low and squeeze the breath from his lungs until he was painting the tiles with the hot spurt of his satisfaction. Breathless from the water that still ran over him, the release only made him want the real thing even more.

Kingsley hissed as he touched his sensitive flesh and imagined her mouth. Her body. Her everything.

He groaned and dropped his forehead against the tile, not even the least bit satisfied by his self-delivered orgasm.

Tomorrow, the devil at the back of his mind said. Tomorrow you can have her. Kingsley groaned again, and the sound echoed back to him, torture and pleasure, in the enclosed room.

* * *

The next evening, he wasn’t sure she would come. Yes, he had invited her. Yes, she wanted him. But there was no certainty. So when he got to the lighthouse, the other three people set to go on the snorkeling trip already waiting down by the beach and having their own pre-sunset party, he only half-expected to see Doe Eyes.

But she was there, wearing a one-piece swimsuit, jean shorts and a short-sleeved shirt partially unbuttoned over it all. His breath stopped at the sight of her, then started again. She stood at the base of the lighthouse, talking to one of the vendors selling coconut water and smoothies. The straps of a backpack hung from one of her shoulders.

She was early by nearly half an hour, the sun barely beginning to fall toward the horizon. The bright sunlight haloed her with the bowl of the green coconut in her hand, as she took occasional sips from the straw sticking up from the coconut. The vendor, old enough to be her father and missing several teeth, laughed when she said something, and she made a face before joining in his laughter.

Damn. She was so gorgeous. Body sleek and compelling in the shorts that barely contained the splendor of her behind. It was hot, much warmer than even the previous days, and the winds weren’t nearly as strong. Sweat lined her forehead, the soft skin of her throat. From where he stood, Kingsley could even make out the swell of her breasts under the loose, short-sleeved shirt and bathing suit.

Okay, now he was being creepy.

He cleared his throat and took a single step toward her, still keeping a respectful distance. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so ridiculously horny over a woman, a near stranger at that. He shoved his hands in his pockets, as much to appear casual as to hide the beginnings of interest his body already showed.

“Doe Eyes.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, still laughing, then turned back to the man to say her goodbyes before sauntering over to Kingsley with the coconut in her hand.

“Don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to keep calling me that?” But she didn’t look offended in the least. Instead she looked amused, smiling again in a way that teased, not open and friendly but with a corner of her mouth pressed between her teeth as if she was keeping part of her amusement to herself.

“Until I know your name, I think that suits you just fine.”

She shook her head and opened her mouth like she was about to say something, maybe even her name, but something over his shoulder must have caught her eye because she gasped. Kingsley turned. All he could see was the restaurant, the view of the water and the sky turning to a fiery amber.

“This place is beautiful...” she said with breathless wonder.

Her face glowed with the excitement of what she saw, her eyes widening and the curve of her mouth unfurling to shape a real and complete smile for the first time since he’d met her.

“It is very nice.”

“I...I guess I just haven’t been paying attention.” Her eyes were still focused on the lowering sun and the colors streaming across the sky. “I’ve had a lot on my mind,” she said in a low and faraway voice.

By the look on her face, all those things that had occupied her thoughts just got burned away by the flaming splendor of the sky. She was gorgeous. And watching her, Kingsley wondered if at any point during his many trips to Aruba whether he’d ever taken the time to appreciate the beauty of the island like this. But the setting sun was nothing compared to the woman with her wide doe eyes, drinking up all the colors flaring overhead.

The others going on the trip—Carlos, Steven and Annika—were down on the beach, sipping their beers and talking around a small fire they’d made in the sand. Their boat was anchored in the small cove nearby and sheltered from the rocks. They were waiting for Kingsley to return with the woman he’d told them about. But he could afford to let Doe Eyes appreciate the sunset for a few more minutes.

“We can go closer,” he said.

She murmured something that might have been her assent, and he guided her carefully toward the overlook with a plaque detailing the history of the lighthouse and the ship that had smashed itself to pieces on the rocks more than a hundred years before on its way somewhere else.

Doe Eyes leaned against the railing, watching the sky and occasionally blindly seeking the straw in the coconut with her mouth. For the first time since he’d seen her watching him, she was completely unguarded. It suited her.

He smiled at the way she seemed to unconsciously lean into his shoulder with her eyes trained on the horizon, watching the slow fall of the sun into the sea. The flash of light grew increasingly dim until the sun fell completely in the water and the sky glowed with the remnants of its flame.

“I could see this every day,” she breathed.

“We have similar sunsets in Miami,” he said although he didn’t know where that came from.

“Similar but not the same.”

“Similar but not the same,” he agreed.

Miami was unquestionably striking to him. Just the way that Jamaica, the island where his grandparents were born and where his immediate family returned year after year, was the most beautiful place in the world to him. And he’d been around the world enough to see most of the competition.

“You should see Jamaica if you haven’t already,” he told her, pressing his shoulder into hers. “The sunsets there will make you cry.”

She laughed and turned briefly to him, the sunset’s colors brushing her face in shades of amber. “Have they made you cry?”

“Not yet, but I’m a hard sell.”

She laughed again; this time he could see the distance in the smile that lingered, that her attention was no longer on the sky and the joy it made her feel.

“You ready to get going?” he asked.

She bit the corner of her lip. “Yes.”

He waited for her to finish the coconut; then took her down to the beach where the others waited. She walked just ahead of him, watching his three friends sitting around the fire with a mixture of wariness and relief, obviously having suspected that it would just be the two of them after all.

“We didn’t think you’d make it back,” Carlos said in Spanish. With his cropped hair, thick beard and full-sleeve tattoos, he looked like a typical hipster.

“I can see why,” Annika said in Dutch, smiling widely at Doe Eyes. “She’s pretty. How did you manage to find such a hot woman to play with after being on the island only a few days?”

Steven, serious and slender in his designer T-shirt and matching shorts, watched all the action like someone at a tennis match, gaze moving back and forth between the players.

Kingsley shook his head. “English, guys.” Then he laughingly introduced her as Doe Eyes, enduring his friends’ inevitable teasing that the woman he wanted hadn’t even told him her name.

“I speak a decent amount of Spanish,” Doe Eyes said. “If it makes you feel more comfortable speaking your own languages, it’s okay with me.”

Annika laughed. “We love her!” she crowed in English, then jumped up from her cross-legged seat near the fire to hug Doe Eyes, who grinned widely and hugged Annika tightly in return.

“Hi!”

“I might just love her, too,” Carlos said, this time in Dutch, as he watched the two women, dark and light, as they hugged.

“Pervert,” Kingsley muttered.

“Not at all, just a lover of women.”

Steven greeted her in his subdued way, squeezing her hand before sinking back down into a graceful lotus on the sand. He wrestled a beer from the depths of the cooler and gave it to Doe Eyes.