Authors: Joan Elizabeth Lloyd
Although it was after ten, Fran wasn't tired at all, so she pulled out her laptop, booted up her word processor and began to type.
Liza had borrowed the condominium from a friend. It was on the north shore of the island of Puerto Rico with direct access to a long stretch of beach. She had taken quite a bit of convincing, but her friend Lynn had finally explained that if someone didn't inhabit her parents' condo, everything would rust shut and get covered with mildew. Trying to recover from a bad relationship and having a week off from work, Liza finally allowed Lynn to press the condo keys into her hand.
Now she had been there for six days and the following morning she was packing and returning to the cold of January in Illinois. So, for a final evening, she put on her two piece bathing suit, grabbed a towel and let herself out through the gate with her key and walked onto the condo's beach. Lynn had warned her about the beach at night, but for several nights Liza had swum in the ocean in the dark and there had been no trouble. There had been no one else around.
She had been in the warm Caribbean water for about twenty minutes and, with the condo in plain sight she relaxed and bobbed in the sizable full-moon-driven waves.
“Mi querida.”
The melodious, crooning voice whispered in her ear, as though someone were swimming beside her. As she started to turn to see who was talking to her, hands touched her shoulders, keeping her back to her mysterious visitor.
“Mi querida
. I have seen you here every night and I have yearned to be here with you.”
Liza was unable to speak. She reached for the rocky bottom with her toes and was just barely able to stand. Saying anything, she reasoned, would only encourage whoever it was, so she started toward the shore. But the hands prevented her, holding lightly, yet firmly to her shoulders.
“Mi querida,
I would never hurt you. Don't go.”
She continued to try to make her way to the strand, but was unable to get a firm purchase on the rocky shelf beneath her feet. The hands and the waves combined to keep her from making any progress. She tried to turn but she was held fast. Each time a swell forced her to float, she lost her foothold.
“Please,” she said, breathlessly. “Please leave me alone.”
The mouth was on the tender spot below her right ear. As they floated together, he licked her there, the spot that Ray, the jerk, had always told her was her “hot button.” Almost reflexively, she tipped her head to give him better access. Then she caught herself and straightened. “Please. No.”
“If you really mean no, I will leave,” the voice said, releasing the hold on her shoulders. The voice had a sweet Spanish lilt and somehow she really believed that, if she said so, he would leave. “But I hope you don't really mean it.” He licked again at the spot below her ear.
She sighed and trembled, and said nothing.
“Ah,
mi querida,
you are an honest woman.” Hands. His hands were on her breasts, holding her through the top of her two piece swimsuit. “So full and soft.” His fingers found her nipples, already erect. “Yes,” he purred. “Oh yes.”
Part of Liza's brain was still functioning. He wanted her. Of that there was little doubt. But he was a stranger. She didn't know who he was or whether he was some rapist or murderer. But as he sighed in her ear, and nibbled her lobe, she didn't believe that he meant her any harm. They bobbed together in the moonlit swells, his hands kneading her breasts, his lips now on the tendon at the side of her neck.
She drifted, losing control over her mind. She couldn't think anymore. She wanted to feel wanted, needed, hungered for. Suddenly she burned for this anonymous stranger. She covered his hands with hers, cupping her breasts.
“Ah,
mi amore.”
The hands untied the back of her bikini top and allowed it to float held only by the strap around her neck. He cupped her now-bare breasts, pinching and pulling at her nipples, all the time nipping at the top of her shoulder.
She admitted to herself that she wanted terribly. She was a grown woman and she could do as she pleased. He wasn't going to harm her. How and why she was so sure of that, she didn't know, but she was.
She wanted his mouth so she took his hands from her breasts and held them as she turned in his embrace. Still without a foothold on the bottom, she kicked to keep herself afloat and used her hands to caress his face. She wanted to see him, to know what he looked like, but despite the full moon, she couldn't make out his features, just dark shadows and light planes. She could see that he was dark, his hair and his eyes, coal black in the moonlight. She knew his cheeks were clean shaven and he had a mustache. As she moved her fingers to his mouth she found it bristly against soft, warm flesh. She pressed her hot mouth against his, telling him with her kiss that, for this moment, she was his.
With her hands on his shoulders, she felt him tremble. He was as caught up in this moment as she was. Tomorrow she would be back in Chicago, and the following morning she would be back at her desk, but for tonight, this was where she belonged.
He was obviously taller than she was since he now held her and was able to walk toward the shore. As they got into shallower water Liza looked up and down the beach, but there was no one in sight. The man carried her toward a blanket she assumed he had spread before going into the water. Gently, he set her down on the soft material, and she lay down feeling the hard-packed sand against her back.
“You are so beautiful in the moonlight,” he whispered, his Spanish accent romantic and enticing. He pulled her bathing suit top off over the top of her head, baring her white breasts to the cool light. He was quickly on his knees beside her, covering her flesh in kisses. He cupped her breasts and kissed the nipples, while constantly whispering to her in Spanish. She didn't know what he was saying, but it was no less erotic for the lack of understanding.
When his mouth found her nipple again, he brushed his coarse mustache against her hot breast. The slight burning added to the myriad of sensations racing through her. She combed her fingers through his wet hair and held his head against her. Need was consuming her. She couldn't keep her hips still and his warm lips, now on her cool belly, made it impossible to control her hunger. “Love me,” she moaned.
“Oh yes,
querida,”
he said, pulling off first her suit-bottom, then his.
Liza could see that he was huge and rampantly erect. He wanted her and she would have him. She spread her legs, reveling in the slippery feeling of her pussy, wet from her juices as well as the water of the warm Atlantic. She had a flash of worry about protection but, ever the gentleman, the man picked up a foil package and quickly unrolled a condom over his cock.
Then he was on top of her, the weight of his body enfolding her in his warmth. She felt the tip of his cock nudging at the center of her need so she wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed her hips upward.
His laugh was warm. “So anxious. So hungry. Such a needy woman.” With one quick thrust he drove into her. Then he moved slightly and his fingers found her hardened clit. He stroked and rubbed until she was unable to keep the waves of pleasure at bay anymore and she came. She tightened her legs around him and bucked to bring him still more deeply inside of her.
He thrust and together they rolled over. He pushed her to a sitting position and, still climaxing, she rode him like a wild thing riding an untamed stallion. And then he came, his hips driving into her again and again.
She collapsed on top of him, exhausted, panting, her heart pounding.
“Mi querida,”
he whispered over and over. “So beautiful. So hot.”
Liza must have dozed, for how long she had no idea. When she awoke, she was alone, lying on her own towel on the hard-packed sand. He had gone, as she had suspected he would, as silently as he had appeared. But it was no dream, she thought, slowly getting up and wrapping her towel around her. She located the two parts of her swimsuit, let herself in through the gate and slowly walked up the path toward the elevator. Tomorrow she would be back home, with a most wonderful memory to warm her when the snow fell.
Fran sighed and pressed the save key. Another time, she told herself, she'd think of a title and proofread the story. For now, she was content and more relaxed. She had worked out some of the tension she had felt earlier.
Despite the usually calming effect of writing, Fran slept fitfully, dreams of men and sweating palms swirling through her head. She awoke the following morning tangled in the sheets, with a bad-dream hangover. She stood beneath a hot shower for quite a while, then brewed herself a cup of cinnamon apple herb tea. She also prepared a pot of coffee for Carla. She had found a radio in the kitchen and as she drank her tea she listened to a radio psychologist who advised one long-divorced woman to relax and enjoy her new dating life. “It's a different world from the one you left when you married and many of the rules are different,” the melodious voice on the radio said. “Take a bit of time to learn the new patterns of behavior and go with the flow.”
Okay, Fran, she said to herself, that woman's absolutely right.
As the program broke for the on-the-hour news the doorbell rang.
She greeted Carla with, “When you say ten o'clock, you mean exactly ten o'clock.” Carla was wearing a multicolored floral-print skirt with a coordinated blouse and a three-quarter length black wool jacket.
The two women embraced, then Carla held Fran at arm's length. “Nicki, my love,” she said, “you look fabulous. I knew you were one gorgeous woman and Jean-Claude did wonders. Your makeup is fabulous.”
“Thanks to you.” Fran grinned, glad she had again taken time to do her makeup and dress more New York chic, as Clark had put it. This time she wore a soft pink turtleneck with a brown wool calf-length skirt and a pair of cowboy boots that added a few inches to her height. She had topped it with a caramel-colored jacket with a pin on the lapel in the shape of a cluster of green grapes. Each grape was a smoothly polished bit of jade. “I love that pin,” Carla said.
“I found it yesterday morning as I walked to Jean-Claude's. I'm taking what you said to heart.” She looked at the toes of her boots. “Actually someone commented on it, told me I looked New York chic.”
“Trust Jean-Claude to notice.”
“I wasn't talking about Jean-Claude.”
“Oh?” Carla took Fran's arm and led her into the living room, then gave her a small shove until she landed, sitting on the sofa. Carla sat down beside her and stared at her new friend. “Something's up. Tell me, woman.”
Fran looked up and couldn't suppress a grin. “I got picked up last evening. I stopped for something to eat after I left Jean-Claude's and, as I sat, a very nice man sat down at my table and we talked, then shared dinner.” Fran filled Carla in on the conversation. “He's long divorced and he's really nice.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Is he going to call you? Did you make a date?”
“I wasn't comfortable giving him this number, but I have his. I'm going to call him in the next day or two. I don't want to sound too anxious.” Carla silently raised an eyebrow. “I am going to call him,” Fran said. “Honest. But, more important, O'Malley called. You know, I feel so silly calling a grown man O'Malley. Does he have a first name?”
“Michael, of course. Michael John Patrick O'Malley. But no one ever calls him anything but O'Malley. Don't change the subject. He called andâ¦?”
“And I'm seeing him for dinner tonight.”
Carla shrieked. “Bravo, my dear. Scared?”
“Petrified. But if I'm going to become Nicki, I have to begin somewhere.”
“And there's no one nicer or better for the job than O'Malley. I know you both and I'm sure you'll love him and he'll be taken with you.” Carla cocked her head to one side. “Where are you going?”
“We're meeting at Cafe des Artistes.”
Carla whistled. “Very âin,' very intimate and very pricey.”
“Can I ask you a silly question? Do I let him pay for dinner? I'm used to paying my own way.”
“What did you do last evening?”
“We went dutch. I told him I wasn't comfortable letting him grab the check, so he let me pay my half.”
“How civilized,” Carla said dryly. “Listen, Fran, or should I start calling you Nicki all the time. Do whatever makes you most comfortable, but O'Malley makes more in a year than any of us will make in ten. He works hard, plays hard and can more-than-afford a dinner for two at Cafe des Artistes.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He's a commodity trader. Actually he buys and sells money. Ask him about it. It's really fascinating. So what are you going to wear tonight?”
“I was thinking about that. Maybe I should get something new.”
Carla stood up and dragged Fran to her feet. “Get me some coffee and we'll sort through your wardrobe.”
By ten-thirty, the two women had been through all of Fran's clothes. “I would suggest that wonderful black miniskirt with the cranberry silk shirt and that sexy leather vest. Have you got black shoes with high heels?” When Fran nodded Carla continued, “And you need a wide leather belt to show off that tiny waist of yours. And earrings. What have you got?”