The Cancun Trilogy, An Erotic Beach Romance (11 page)

This was Nik’s dream. Though she’d
helped recently, and felt she fit in here, it was still his dream.
She was just borrowing it. Her dream was to be a pediatrician.
They’d had many conversations about dreams and ambitions, and how
important it was to work hard to make them come true. He’d done
that. But how could her dreams fit with his? What would that mean
for their future together? Did they have one?

She looked around the empty space,
imagining what it could be used for.

A medical clinic
, she thought.
For kids. A free medical clinic.
She stood up and turned in
a circle, thinking. There was a need for it, she knew. She’d gone
on trips with Carmine to the outskirts of town to get building
supplies, and seen the poverty many of the children lived in. But
how could you fund something like that?

Soon, her mind was racing as she paced
around, imagining it. Was it possible?
Maybe. Just maybe.
She could see it.

Then her old nemesis,
Doubt,
barged in, as it usually did whenever she started to feel confident
that she could do something—
A medical clinic? Are you high? Ha
ha ha. You really think Nik would want a bunch of sick kids coming
here? That may be your dream, but it sure isn’t his.

Terra looked out the open doorway,
toward the ocean. Through the gusts of rain, she could see powerful
waves rolling in. Nik always looked out at the ocean, and now she
felt she knew why. It was a source of strength. As she watched the
water, she could feel herself getting stronger.

Not this time
, she told her old
nemesis.

She needed a pen and paper to make
some notes. She had a dozen thoughts she needed to get down. If she
was going to talk to Nik about it, she wanted to have some
specifics.

She went back to the house. When she
got to the deck, she grabbed a towel and went into the living room.
Nik was still writing in his journal. She noticed he was griping
the medallion in one hand. He was sitting forward, writing quickly,
his eyes intent.

Terra stood, toweling her hair, about
to ask him where she could get a pad of paper when suddenly he
looked up at her, as if only now noticing she was standing
there.

He said something to her in Greek, his
eyes bright. It sounded like a question. He did that sometimes when
he was excited. “Shit. Sorry. I mean to ask, when does your
university start?”

“Ten days,” she said, a little too
quickly.

“Anna called me,” he said. “While you
were on your walking.”

“Your sister?”

“Yes. You met her last
year.”

“I remember. Is she okay?” Terra
asked, sitting on the edge of the coffee table.

“Yes. She’s graduating college, in
Athens. She wants me to be there. To fly out there. Tomorrow. It
would be important to my mother as well. You know how mothers are,”
he added. His face fell as he realized his mistake in reminding
Terra of her own mother. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Are you going to go?” she asked, a
panic rising in her she wasn’t sure she could control.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” A wall of grief was about to hit
her like a breaking wave. She looked down at her lap, trying to
hold it off. The voice of
Doubt
barged in—
Ha ha ha, a
medical clinic!

“If you’ll come with me,” he
said.

She looked up at him. “To Athens? To
Greece?”

“Yes. Will you? I’ve thought about it.
I plan it out. We could leave tomorrow, see? The seasons almost
over here. Carmine can finish. You can fly from Athens back home in
a week, see? Will you? Will you come with me? Please.” He took her
hands. “Please, say you will.”

“Yes. Yes, of course, Nik. I’d go
anywhere with you,” she blurted out. The tears came anyway. Now she
wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy or relief, but they streaked
down her face as she kissed him.

He soon sprung into action. “Phone!
Where is phone?”

“Bedroom,” she said.

Terra, her heart still in her throat,
went into the kitchen to make their lunch. She needed a distraction
to help her calm down. Nik came back in, holding the phone, looking
concerned.

“No reception. Landline is down too.
Must be from rain. How am I to get tickets?”

Terra stood there, feeling helpless,
holding a knife with peanut butter on it. Nik looked out the window
at the pouring rain.

“I know,” he said suddenly, heading
for the front door. He grabbed his jacket from the hook on the
wall. “I’ll be back soon,” he said over his shoulder as he bounded
out the door. She watched out the window as he ran across the sand,
pulling his jacket on.

Lunch sat in the kitchen, untouched.
She couldn’t eat. Her thoughts were racing. What did this mean? Did
he want her to meet his family? He’d talked about his huge family,
the brothers and sister, aunts and uncles. She had them all
pictured in her head. And his mother.
His mother?
What
did that mean?

She tried to distract herself with a
book, but couldn’t concentrate. She saw his journal sitting there.
She was tempted. What had he written? His plans. She knew she would
never read his journal—she would never invade his privacy like
that, but she didn’t welcome having to fight off the temptation. It
would be in Greek anyway, she realized, which made it
easier.

It was more than two hours later when
he returned, soaking wet but excited. He took the bandana off from
around his face. “We’re all set,” he said, giving her a happy, wet
kiss. “We leave tomorrow.” He was not only wet, but nearly covered
head to foot in mud.

“How? What did you do?”

“I went to airport, and bought the
tickets,” he said, running his hand through his wet hair. He looked
insanely sexy, she thought. She wasn’t sure why. His boots were
muddy, his jeans were wet and dirty, and his shirt was not only
muddy but barely hung on his body, having lost a few buttons
somewhere along the way.

“I thought the road was closed,” she
said, watching him as he pulled his shirt up and wiped his
forehead. She loved his belly. It was flat, with strong, rippled
muscles, and two thick muscles along the sides that dropped down
into his jeans, forming a V shape. His jeans hung low on his hips,
pulled down from the weight of the water. There was a line of hair
that ran from below his belly button, down into his
jeans.

“It is, but I take the motorcycle. The
dirt road is all mud now, but I make it.” He looked so happy. And
so… sexy, she could hardly stand it.

“That’s great. That you were able to
make it through,” was all she could think to say. Watching him, she
felt her body temperature going up. She briefly imagined herself on
her knees, pulling those jeans down off his hips…

“I’m so glad you going to come. So, so
glad.” He took a step toward her. “I’d hug you, but I don’t want to
get you muddy, so I should probably—”

She leapt at him, throwing herself
high into his arms, straddling him. She wrapped one arm around his
head and cupped his face with the other. Getting wet and smeared
with his mud, she opened her mouth and kissed him with a lusty
intensity. Kissing her back, he slid his hands under her shirt,
grabbing her breasts and sliding his other hand up her back. His
rough handling excited her even more.

She was still clasped around him,
kissing him, when she heard him undo his belt.

He lowered her to the floor and
roughly yanked her shorts off. Standing back up, he looked down at
her. He pushed one of her legs open with his boot, then slowly
unzipped his jeans, pulling them down just past his hips. His
enormous erection sprung forward. He kicked open her other leg,
spreading her wider. Fully exposed, she looked up at him as he
stroked himself.

“I’m going to fuck you
now.”

He fell on her, still clothed, wet and
muddy, smelling like rain and dirt. He greedily pushed into her.
She wrapped her legs around his upper back, opening herself
completely to him. He was soon thrusting into her, his wet hair
spraying her with water.

She’d tapped that animal side of him
she’d seen only a few times. It was the only time when he became
completely focused on his own needs, fiercely driven to satisfy his
hunger. The few times it had happened in the past, he felt
compelled to apologize to her later, for being what he called a
“selfish lover”, but she secretly loved it. She loved that she
could drive him to it. And she loved being the recipient of
it.

He pounded into her, overcome with
lust. He suddenly paused for a moment, as if realizing he was being
too rough. She grabbed his hair and pulled him close. “Fuck me.
Fuck me hard,” she said in his ear.

That drove him insane. He thrust into
her in long, deep strokes. He pushed into her so hard she was
sliding backward on the floor, her head getting pinned against the
couch. His shirt hung above her. She reached up and grabbed it,
yanking hard. The last remaining button popped off as she tore it
off and wrapped her arms around his back, digging her fingers into
him.

“Harder,” she said.

He made animal-like grunts and gasps
as he pushed. His hand at the back of her head grabbed a fist full
of her hair. Fully leveraged on her, she felt the full force of his
physical strength with each thrust.

“Harder,” she said again.

She was completely overwhelmed by the
power of his pure, masculine force. Usually shy about making too
much noise, she yelled out as he drove into her. She pulled her
legs higher and reached down, grabbing his ass. Pounding deeper, he
arched back. The glistening muscles on his chest and shoulders
bulging with strain. Tendons in his neck stood out as the color of
his face darkened. Finally, he let out a long, whaling cry as he
orgasmed, releasing deep inside her in powerful blasts.

Chapter 8

The
next morning was a mad scramble. Nik had spent the previous evening
going over everything with Carmine, Allan and Red. Everything was
set—except for a way to get to the airport.

It finally stopped raining during the
night, but the road out was too muddy to pass. No way a cab would
try. They had an old truck they used to pick up supplies in town,
but it would never make it through the mud.

“The boat,” Nik said, pacing in the
living room.

“No, man,” Carmine said. “Have you
seen the waves coming in? You can’t swim to shore from the boat
when it’s like this.”

“The motorcycle,” Nik said.

“Nah. How are you going to get it
back?”

“We leave it there, and you get it
with the truck, later, after the road dries.”

Carmine shook his head. “I could get
it, but there’s no way you could make it through the mud with both
of you on the bike.”

Nik glanced at Terra, then went back
to pacing. Carmine stared at the floor. They didn’t have much more
time.

“Yes, we could,” Terra said. They both
looked at her. “We could do it.” She looked at Nik. “I’ve ridden
with you before. I remember what you taught me—crouch on the pegs,
lean when you lean.” She stood up. “We could do it,” she said
firmly.

Carmine shook his head. Nik pursed his
lips, unsure. “No. Nik, you’re a good rider, but you two would end
up in the mud a half dozen times before making it to the main
road,” Carmine said.

“So?” Terra said. “I don’t care. We
can do it, I know we can.” She was determined now. She knew they
were worried that she didn’t know what she was getting into, and
Carmine was clearly concerned for her safety.

They didn’t end up in the mud a half
dozen times, but they did drop the bike twice. Luckily, Terra had
stuffed her shoulder bag in her backpack and wrapped the whole
thing in plastic. After the second drop, she was covered with
mud.

It was brutally hard. She knew it’d be
messy, but she wasn’t as prepared for the physical exertion. The
road was so washed out there were times she couldn’t even tell if
they were still on it. They had to ride crouched over the bike as
Nik maneuvered through the muddy terrain. Her legs were burning
before they were even half way to the main road, but somehow they
made it.

When they came over the last
embankment and up onto the paved road, it felt like they’d just
been birthed from middle earth.

Terra wasn’t sure what Nik was doing
when he pulled the bike off the main road, near a farm. He got off
the bike and motioned her over. There was an irrigation hose. He
turned it on and they washed all the mud off each other and cleaned
off the bike. Back on the road, Nik opened it up. Terra could feel
the warm air drying her as they zipped along.

As they road up the coast, Terra
looked out at the Caribbean.
A source of strength
, she
thought. The world seemed cleansed by the rains. Long streaks of
sunlight slashed through the high clouds, lighting the ocean
surface in majestic, shimmering sections.

Terra had a feeling, both comforting
and scary, that maybe she belonged here.
Maybe…