The pub was filling up, becoming livelier and noisier.
‘Let’s get some more drinks in before it gets any more packed,’ said John, with a smile and a pat of his pockets. It wasn’t his round but he was feeling thrilled and ecstatic rolled into one. And the ice-cold lager in the Smugglers Tavern was exceptionally good.
‘Yep, one for the tunnel and all who sail in her,’ declared Louise, loudly. She was not getting any more discreet, the drunker and happier she got.
Emma, before she had any more beer, decided that a trip to the ladies’ would be wise. Louise joined her. As they walked past the bar, one of the locals – a rough, unsavoury-looking chap – gave them a knowing, gap-toothed grin. Louise didn’t notice but Emma did. As they came out a few minutes later, he accosted them.
‘That better ladies? That be a lot of lager you’ve just emptied out of your bladders I’ll be bound. Must feel more comfortable, especially in those tight jeans, hey missy?’ he said to Louise. As she went by, he reached out and grabbed her backside.
Louise turned and glared at him.
‘I wouldn’t mind getting my teeth into those fair buttocks of yours,’ he growled, with a leering smile.
‘It’s a pity you’ve hardly got any left then, isn’t it?’ retorted Louise, pleased with her put-down.
The seedy-looking man roared with laughter. ‘I’ve still got one of these,’ he said, pointing at his groin and pushing it at her.
As Louise walked away, the man said with a wink, ‘I reckon we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other before long.’
Emma stared at him in disgust. Nasty little creep!, she thought. Louise shrugged it off. To her, it was just another sad bloke who fancied her.
‘Right, a final one for the road – or rather, the voyage,’ slurred Louise, half an hour later, with the time pushing 11pm.
‘Not for me thanks, I’ve had enough, to be honest I think we all have,’ said Dan. ‘Remember we’ve got to be in a fit state to navigate the boat.’
Emma also shook her head, she couldn’t keep up with Louise’s drinking and didn’t particularly want to try.
Eventually, after Dan and Emma had managed to persuade Louise and John not to drink the pub dry, the four of them staggered to the jetty and clambered inside Louise’s boat. It was nearly dark, with a streak of blue and grey in the western skies. It was as well Louise was at the helm of a boat not a car because she would certainly have failed a breathalyser test.
‘Aah, the sea, the mighty ocean, ’tis the land of the free,’ slurred Louise, ‘well it would be, if it was land. When you put to sea, you leave the nanny state behind.’
It wasn’t the law that Dan was worried about, but Louise’s physical ability to get them back, but Louise, who could take her beer, seemed not to have lost her seafaring skills and they returned without incident.
‘Come on,’ said John to her, as he guided her up the tight spirals of the staircase. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’
Emma, aware that Dan felt awkward, sought to reassure him. ‘It’s ok Dan, I’m happy to share with you. Come and curl up with me and what happens, happens, ok?’
Chapter IX
To John’s disappointment, no sooner had he laid his new girlfriend out on the mattress than she promptly fell asleep and began to snore. There was nothing that a gentleman could do but get in alongside her and pull the duvet over them both.
He didn’t mind too much. He was content to have her warm, supple body next to his. It was something he had often contemplated and wished for. Plus, he was hardly on peak form himself. The pair of them had well and truly had one too many.
Dan’s ardour for Emma was tempered with a persistent nervousness. He hadn’t got much sexual experience although nor, he was fairly sure, had she. But he dreaded appearing gauche and unsure what to do if she responded to him.
Emma sensed his apprehension as they climbed the stairs and it helped put herself at ease and make her feel more confident. She guessed that finding somewhere more neutral in the lighthouse than the girls’ bedroom might help.
‘Dan,’ she whispered, ‘did you notice the moon in the sky as we came back and how bright it was? It must be bathing the lamp room in the most magical light. Why don’t we take our bedding up there?’
Dan trembled as he hauled the duvet and pillows up the metal staircase. Emma was right, lunar light flooded through the large glass panes. It was a surreal experience to be at the top of an old, redundant lighthouse as night fell and the sea turned from deep blue, to purple then to a moon-bathed silver-grey.
Occasionally, the crest of a wave would flicker ghostly white and sparkle as it journeyed forward. After a few hours of calm, the sea was moving again beneath a steady breeze. The rocks around the island, uncompromisingly black at this hour, gleamed and glistened in the pale light.
The moon, the stars, the restless sea hypnotised Dan and Emma as they stared through the glass. Emma did not wish to tear herself away but sensed that someone needed to take the initiative.
As Dan maintained his dreamy reverie at the window, she knelt in front of him and tugged his belt open. She struggled to free the button of his trousers, then pulled them straight to his feet.
Dan hardly dared believe what happened next. He felt her fingernails catch his thighs as they seized the waistband of his briefs. He hoped he’d remembered to put a reasonable pair on that day. With one swift yank, Emma pulled them free of the stiffening bulge inside and let them fall to the floor.
Wrapping her arms around his waist, she stroked his firm buttocks with her hands and traced her tongue hungrily between his legs. She lowered him on top of her and he pulled her tight jumper, which showed off her neat breasts so perfectly, up over her head. He fumbled with her bra strap and she had to help him. Her breasts leapt free. He bit on them, roughly at first, then more gently. Emma’s nipples swelled as his tongue flicked over first one then the other.
He knelt in front of her and unhooked her skirt which dropped to the floor. He gazed at her as if she were a goddess, entranced by her pale, elf-like legs and white cotton knickers with frilled lace edges. Just visible in the moonlight, the subtle shape of her most private, feminine place pressed against the fabric.
Dan traced a single finger back and forth over her pubic mound, enjoying its rise and fall.
‘Take my knickers off now Dan and make love to me, please,’ pleaded Emma. ‘I want you inside me.’
She gasped as Dan entered her, deep and swift and rough at times, as months of pent-up desire finally burst free.
When their lust was finally satisfied, they cuddled beneath the duvet, resting in each other’s hot, sweaty arms, saying nothing and listening only to the ebb and flow of the tide sluicing the rocks below. Eventually, they fell asleep as the moon waxed higher before moving off, ahead of an early-rising sun.
To watch dawn break across the sea at 4am as it did in early June would have been magical, but Dan and Emma’s eyes remained firmly shut. Nor did they hear the seabirds’ dawn chorus, the maritime equivalent of blackbirds, robins and chaffinches at home.
Relaxed and content they snoozed on and on, as did John and Louise. After all, they were on holiday, there were no lectures to get up promptly for; no alarm clocks needed setting and they’d had a late night.
Chapter X
‘Why do people like you and me get named after characters from the Bible, when we both turn out to be such scumbags,’ snarled Jacob to Zachariah, putting his lump hammer down for a rest.
‘You speak for yourself you gap-toothed idiot,’ snarled back Zak, as he was usually known, to his near-toothless accomplice. ‘You might be a scumbag but I’m not. I don’t move in the highest circles, but I like to keep my hand in a few pies.’
‘Oh you do that all right. I can’t believe we’ve been trying to smash our way through breeze block since 6 o’clock in the morning on a fool’s errand like this!’ moaned unfit 44-year-old Jake, short for Jacob, sweat pouring from his brow.
‘Oh
grit your teeth – or in your case pretend to – and get on with it,’ advised Zak, who at one year older still had a reasonably full set, a couple of gold fillings and a scar across his cheek that he was proud of. ‘We haven’t got all day, we’ve already been at it two hours. Once those stupid students haul themselves out of bed, they will be straight down that tunnel to get that treasure.’
‘That’s assuming there is any treasure,’ pointed out Jake. ‘I ain’t heard of a soul finding so much as a gold sovereign in a century or more. There’s more gold in your gnashers than down ‘ere. All the caves and tunnels ’ave been cleaned out and you know that as well as I do. What’s more, this one ’as been blocked up for most o’ that time.’
‘Yes you prize oaf, that’s why there might still be some loot to be had, if you knew where to look for it and those posh kids clearly do,’ said Zak. ‘It’s ’idden for sure and they ’ave found a way down to it somehow from that island and they’re going back for it today.
‘We ’eard ’em say as much in the pub, several times over. Now I’ve known this coastline round ’ere since I were that high,’ he said, pointing to his ankles. ‘The tunnel from that there island leads all the way to this shore and comes out into this rock face. If it weren’t blocked up, we’d see a great big ’ole. All we ’ave to do is unblock it this end, walk up and find the loot before they return. ’Ence why we’re making an early start.’
‘All we’ve got to go on is the say-so of that drunken madam with the dark hair and wild green eyes, with more lager in ’er than was good for ’er,’ replied Jake. ‘I tell you this, I’m gonna shag her bloomin’ tits off if all that were a wind-up.’
‘Hey,’ replied Zak with a glint in his eye, ‘assumin’ they be tellin’ the truth and we come upon them in the tunnel we may bag ourselves more than a sackful of treasure, know what I’m saying?’
‘Ah, now you’re talkin’,’ said Jake, his round, unshaven face and pudgy nose contorting into another leering smile of the kind he had inflicted on Louise the previous night. ‘I’ve already grabbed a handful of arse, I could do with a bit more besides. It’s a while since I’ve sunk me teeth into a real woman.’
‘Judging from your empty gob, I’d say you must have left them in her!’ guffawed Zak. ‘Anyway, you keep thinking, arse ‘n’ treasure, arse ‘n’ treasure – that should spur you on, now swing that lump ’ammer ’ard then I’ll take over. Couple o’ hours we be countin’ our gold and bangin’ them lasses – with their fellas tied up in the corner!’
~~~~~
At 8 o’clock in the lighthouse, it took a particularly spine-chilling shriek from a cormorant to wake Dan and that was only because it was perched on the circular balcony directly outside the lamp room. He was roused from a strange and erotic dream in which he discovered long-lost treasure beneath a pyramid, had wild, passionate sex with a girl he adored on the top of a skyscraper then had some noisy eagle spoil it by waking him with a loud squawk.
‘Where am I?’ he grunted as he sat up half on his elbows, rubbing his eyes. The offending cormorant was still on the balcony, preening its black feathers with its long beak. Several other seabirds mewed mournfully.
There, next to him, was a slim shape under the duvet and a shock of blonde hair lying messily across her face. As Dan staggered to his feet, he realised that the dream hadn’t been far out. Here he was in the lamp room of a lighthouse with his woman and yesterday they had indeed found treasure.
So why did he feel odd and woozy, as if everything wasn’t quite real? Of course, he’d got a hangover! The four of them had gone ashore in triumphant mood to enjoy a few celebratory pints. Now it was payback time. His head throbbed intermittently; his throat felt thick. He hadn’t drunk as much as John and Louise, but Guinness could easily affect him after three or four pints.
Right, thought Dan, time to get moving and regain a sense of focus. They had an important task to recover that treasure to a place of safety. Admittedly, it had lain there undiscovered for over two centuries but it needed bringing to the lighthouse where they could see it properly and make a list of all they had found. Furthermore, mused Dan, uneasily, was there a chance that their loud and indiscreet conversation had been overheard the previous night? He could have kicked Louise for her bragging. Of course, she had been happy and on a high about not only treasure but her blossoming relationship with John and too much lager had loosened her tongue.
The spiral staircase made Dan unpleasantly dizzy as he slowly descended. From John and Louise’s room he could hear heavy breathing and the occasional snore. There was no hope of getting them up just yet.
He made a pot of tea and buttered toast which he carried carefully on a tray. Emma was starting to come round. She blinked in the bright daylight flooding into the lamp room which did not, of course, have any curtains.
‘Where am I?’ she said, before remembering. She grinned at Dan as he came in.
‘Mmm, breakfast in bed. Now this is a nice surprise!’
‘It’s only tea and toast I’m afraid,’ replied Dan.
‘That’s perfect,’ said Emma. ‘Tea, toast and you, my lovely Dan. Did we really do what I think we did last night, or did I dream it?’
‘I was wondering that too,’ said Dan, pouring the tea, ‘I think we did. We can always do it again to make sure!’
‘Yes, definitely,’ said Emma. ‘This holiday is proving to be quite an education to me, in so many ways. I’m even learning how to get about in a boat and go potholing.’
‘Talking of which,’ said Dan, as he crawled under the duvet, ‘I don’t want to leave it too long before we return for the treasure. I’m worried about the way we all went on about it last night, particularly Louise, I have to say.’
Emma nodded. ‘Yes, especially in a place like that which we know was once a haunt of smugglers and wreckers. Some of the regulars in there, like that gap-toothed fellow who grabbed Louise’s bum, look like they would be that sort of type, given half the chance. The question is, what time will John and Louise finally surface?’
‘Crack of noon, probably,’ said Dan wryly. ‘Mind you, it is lovely and cosy under this duvet with you alongside me. He entwined his legs with Emma’s and she felt his erection pushing hard against her.
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘we better help you get rid of that before we do anything. You can’t go around like that, you’ll knock something over.’
Meanwhile, one floor below, were signs of life.
‘Oh, my head hurts,’ moaned John. He looked about him and noticed that daylight was seeping in below the curtains. He glanced across the room to where he assumed Dan was asleep. ‘Oi mate, you don’t fancy going downstairs and getting us a cup of tea do you, and maybe a headache pill or something? I think there’s some in the cupboard.’
An absent Dan didn’t reply. The room was spinning slowly and John wasn’t even attempting to actually locate him. Then he became aware of something warm and human curled up under his own duvet.
‘Dan, what are you doing in bed with me?’ he muttered, throwing the covers back. It was Louise of course. That was a pleasant surprise. John scratched his head seeking to work out how that had happened.
Eventually, the memories of the previous night’s celebration flooded back and his wonderful, romantic chat with Louise as they went to buy the drinks and how, fuelled by joy at their amazing find, they knew they wanted to be together.
Had they done anything in bed together, or just fallen asleep? John couldn’t remember but Louise was still fully clothed, as was he, so it didn’t look like it.
He glanced at his watch – 8.45am. It wasn’t exactly late and they were on holiday after all. That treasure had waited for them for more than 230 years, it could stay put another hour or two.
Louise began to stir. ‘Oh my head,’ she said.
John grinned at her. ‘That’s how I feel.’
She looked around the unfamiliar bedroom. ‘Where’s Emma, why am I in bed with you?’ She smiled as it all came back to
her. ‘John, look at the pair of us still in our clothes. That will teach us to drink so much. I’ve got a terrible hangover.’
‘Me too,’ said John. ‘The funny thing is, hangovers can make me feel incredibly horny. How about we make up for last night? I would love to see that gorgeous Amazonian body of yours.’
‘Amazonian, I think the Amazons might disagree,’ said Louise as John began to peel her layers off her.
The kettle was barely warm by the time John staggered to the kitchen. He boiled the water and scrabbled about for some headache pills. The sex had been great, but had not in fact, put paid to either of their hangovers. As theories went however, it had been well worth a try.
He met Dan on the stairs upon his return. ‘I’ve left the hangover pills out if you’ve got a bad head.’
‘No,’ said Dan, ‘I’m feeling ok now. John, between you and me, I don’t want us to delay for too long getting back below ground.’
‘Oh come on old chap, it’s been there for . . .’ began John, forgetting exactly how long it had been there for.
‘230 years, yes I know,’ said Dan, impatiently. ‘If it’s been there for that long, another few hours won’t make much difference. It would be a valid point if it weren’t for the fact that after 230 years, four loud-mouthed idiots went and talked about it inside the local smuggler’s pub. I’m worried we were overheard. We must get down as soon as poss and bring the treasure back where it will be safe.’
John yawned. He had that tiredness and lassitude one always gets the morning after a drinking session.
‘In any case, Dan,’ he mumbled, we are the proud owners of the tunnel entrance, which can only be reached through the outbuilding and that’s safely locked up.’
Wreckers Island (romantic suspense) Page 8
