by CJ Roberts
“A puddle, huh? How about mmmm…clothes, jewelry, perfume…that stuff?”
“T-shirts and shorts and bare feet. I have this great little black evening dress that I love. It makes me look shorter.” Casey ignored his shout of laughter. “I’m just baby powder and soap. I wear earrings and necklaces, but hate anything on my wrists, no bracelets, or watches, thank god there’s an app for time!”
“I’ll match your T-shirts and shorts, worn denims and boat shoes. But I’ve been told I’m devastating in an Edwardian-style tux.” Travis smiled at her giggle. “I wear a diver’s watch that my father gave when I graduated high school and lime aftershave. How about favorite books? I inhale good science fiction and sea stories and historical novels.”
“I love reading the most grizzly murder mysteries on dark stormy nights, with thunder and lightning and only one light on. I love the beach. I could spend hours watching the tide and the antics of the pelicans.”
“I love the ocean too, but I won’t eat anything I swim with. Favorite foods?”
“Anything and everything.” She patted her stomach. “From peanut butter and jelly to –”
“No, I mean last meal choice. Mine would be linguine in a rich tomato sauce, scotch on the rocks, and tiramisu.”
“Oh…last meal. Hmm…lobster, shrimp and white wine. Heavenly hash ice cream,” she took a deep breath. “But I will confess to eating an entire frozen cheese—”
“Cheese cake, right out of the freezer?”
“You have a sister.”
“Three.”
“So are you the oldest? Or in the middle? Or…” she saw the muscle in his check twitch. “Oh my God, you are the—”
“Don’t say it!”
“Baby.” At his growl, she laughed. “So you were either spoiled or tortured.”
Travis shook his head. “Both. I remember –”
“Oh, no, don’t you dare stop.”
He groaned. “Okay but this does not leave the villa.” At her nod, he continued. “Yes, my sisters are all just a year apart. One time, my folks were away on vacation, and left them in charge. Trust me, it was a nightmare. I was thirteen, and they sent me to the market with a list.”
“What was on the list?”
“Three frozen cheesecakes, tampons, and Midol™. I had no clue. Couldn’t find the last two items, asked for help…damn, Casey, stop laughing!”
She held up a hand and tried to control herself but couldn’t. “I can just see your face. Rest assured I brought my own supplies.”
His theatrical wiping of his forehead, made her giggle. “Well, let’s move onto…how about favorite vacations?”
“So far, so good here. I’ve fallen in love with the place. I’m beginning to think sun, sand, and ocean is my perfect day. But Mike had been emailing me the most fabulous photos of Greece, so I’m putting a Mediterranean cruise on my wish list. How about you?”
“I’ll agree to both those statements.” Travis nodded. “I have been to the Med courtesy of the US Navy, fell in love with Greece.” He took the last piece of grilled bread. “Favorite pet?”
“Never had one,” her voice was wistful. “I’ve always wanted a dog. My father kept saying he was allergic to everything, even fish. You?”
“Had two dogs growing up, both schnauzer’s, cute and tough.” He eyed her thoughtfully. “I’m not sure you can be allergic to fish.”
Casey shrugged. “It must have been nice having siblings. Mike was like a brother to me when I lived with my Aunt Helen and Matt. But my father took me back when I was six, old enough to go to school full time and then be cared for by a housekeeper. He traveled a lot. Once I turned thirteen, I was mostly on my own. He was maybe home, once every two weeks.”
Travis frowned. “Is that even legal? I mean, what if you got sick? Or…how did you get groceries or …well anything? And wasn’t he concerned for your safety?” He tried to disguise his growing anger.
“I had a great bike and everything was close by. It made me very independent. My safety?” Casey laughed but looked away from his intense gaze. “Travis, I was seventy three inches tall when I was thirteen. Trust me, I was perfectly safe. Okay, last one my favorite color is orange, what’s yours?”
“Green, like your eyes.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then blinked as an odd fluttering sensation hit the muscles of her stomach.
“What about your dislikes?” Travis let his gaze move from her face to roam slowly over the feminine curves of her lithe body.
Casey’s feet slid off the railing and landed with a resounding thud on the redwood deck. She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want to do the dislikes. I write articles about all the things I dislike; it makes me unhappy and angry. I don’t want that tonight.” She stood up, shook out the folds of her culottes, and began to clear the table.
Travis picked up the silverware and glasses and followed her into the small confines of the kitchen. “You know what your biggest problem is.” It came out a statement more than a question.
“Tell me,” she invited, squirting dish detergent into the sink and watching it suds into life under a steady stream of hot water.
“You’ve got what the Latin’s call Sympatico. You are too sympathetic. You empathize with what you write and infuse it into your own life.”
She thought about that for a moment, then looked over at him. “You are absolutely right. That’s why I’ve left the Annex and given up reporting. I’ve been dealing with the worst in people and now I want to look for that something special that’s in everyone. I want to enjoy life, savor it, get involved on an entirely different level. I want to get out of the basement and at least taste the ground floor.”
Travis slid the cutlery into the sink and eyed her thoughtfully. “But you are so damn good at what you do. Your fiction is good too, but that could be a hit-or-miss proposition. Then what will you do?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” Casey gave a careless shrug. “I can always wax lyrical in an ad agency over some household product.” She picked up the plastic detergent bottle, squeezed its middle, and watched a stream of iridescent bubbles shoot into the air. “If all else fails, I’ll join the army.” Casey gave him an irreverent grin. “Uncle Sam wants everyone.”
“Will you please be serious!” His palm slammed against the counter for effect. “You are too good a reporter to give up your career. If you need a bigger salary, when the Annex is sold to the Marshall Group you’ll get –”
“Money has nothing to do with it,” she interrupted sharply. “I can’t stand the telephones that never stop ringing, the tight deadlines, the pounding of a million computer keyboards, and I can’t handle those assignments.” She tried to keep the anger inside that was dangerously close to exploding outside. “I won that damn Pulitzer for cracking a child pornography ring that was operated by a kindly grandfather type who was turning children – babies – into sickening sexual robots just for greed.”
Travis winced. “But you put him out of business. You did something that helped everyone.”
“Most of the stories I write put people in jail. I help everyone but me,” she turned back to the sink. She took a sponge and started scrubbing a large salad fork. “Do you know what it’s like to interview rape victims, drug addicts, and teen gang members? Last year, I was stunned when I found an oral sex ring operating in the third grade of the local elementary school. The pimp was in the fifth grade and his parents were ministers. We are talking eight-year-old girls giving blowjobs to ten-year-old boys for five bucks!
“And my holiday assignment wasn’t much better. Internet predators who were luring young teenage boys to the mall. Two of those perverts were disguised as Santa’s elves and they were recording the encounters for distribution on-line. One guy wanted money before he’d give me more information. When I said no, then he said he’d trade a blowjob for a story. I mean there’s Deep Throat and there’s deep throat.” Casey ignored his strangled gasp.
�
��Before that, it was let’s kill a child month, toddlers were dying at an alarming rate each week. My god, if you don’t want kids, take a pill, get yourself sterilized, put them up for adoption. You have choices, you don’t have to kill them.
“I just wrapped up a three part series on physical and mental abuse and while I was writing up a list of agencies that helped people control violence I was failing to control my own anger. Suddenly, I was becoming violent. Little things set me off. I smashed three computer mice instead of just changing batteries. I broke two keyboards like they were twigs. I threw away a perfectly good sandwich when it wouldn’t slide into a baggie.” She scrubbed the fork harder, her voice cracking under the strain of her words.
“Then I began to have crying jags over everything. Even reading the comics would make my eyes tear up. The day Oprah said goodbye for the last time, I could have irrigated the Sahara. And…and…not only did I mangle my smart phone…I even killed a Keurig™!” She stopped. Her breathing was shallow and jerky and her heart was pounding so hard she feared it would explode out of her chest.
Travis came up behind her, reached around, and took the soapy sponge and the scrupulously clean fork out of her hand and let them drop back into the water. “Well, killing the coffeemaker is a hanging offense.”
Casey sniffled a laugh. She leaned back against him, feeling the strength of his rugged body support her exhausted frame.
He took a towel and slowly dried her hands, then turned her around and smiled gently into her troubled eyes. “Come on, that’s enough for tonight. You need some sleep.” He draped a sinewy arm around her shoulders, holding her close against his side while he led her out of the kitchen.
“What about the dishes and the –”
“Don’t worry, I’m perfectly capable of doing everything. You need to relax in the arms of Morpheus.”
“And you think the Greek god of dreams will soothe my burned-out psyche?” She let her head rest against his shoulder.
“I think it’s a damn good place to start.” He pushed her bedroom door open with his free hand.
“Thanks.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Travis stared at her closed bedroom door for a long time. He had met a lot of people in his thirty-eight years and had learned to measure them up in a blink of an eye. He had become a master at the rating game. He could always pick a winner. That was why he was so successful.
With women, he had not been so discerning, nothing beyond the physical level of pleasure – careful pleasure. He hadn’t gone after every woman he thought was attractive. Casey was not as beautiful as many of the women he had known. She was very attractive, very warm, very inviting, and very tempting. Her sensuous body had instantly stoked his desire; her face was stirring and her mind exciting.
Fundamentally, he wanted her. That had been his plan from the start. But things had changed. He had the chance to deal with quality this time and to see if intimacy would grow beyond a sexual level. Travis turned on his heel and headed back to the kitchen. He had some serious thinking to do.
A continual banging permeated Casey’s peaceful repose. She sat up, flicked on the bedside light and listened. Her bedroom shared one wall with the kitchen, and it was cabinet doors that were being slammed.
She threw back the gold sheet and matching summer-weight blanket and padded out of her bedroom. Her bare feet silently led her to the shadowed kitchen doorway and she stood watching Travis futilely hunt through the cupboards. He was wearing a pair of thin blue-striped pajama bottoms. The naked expanse of his broad back glowed under the illumination of the range hood light.
“What are you looking for?” Casey snapped on the fluorescent ceiling fixture.
Travis turned guiltily and blinked against the strong light. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you but –” he winced, his firm mouth twisting in pain.
She sighed and walked over to him. Her hand settled against his flat stomach and she could feel his muscles contracting against her palm. “I see old Montezuma is extracting his revenge.” Casey patted his abdomen sympathetically.
“I’m afraid so. I don’t suppose you have anything –”
“Sure, this place came well-equipped.” She reached for an amber-tinted plastic container that was sitting on the counter. She shook out two tablets and handed them to him. “Guaranteed to make you good as new,” she promised, turning away briefly to get him a glass of water. “There’s a filtration system on the water system here. So you should be fine.”
Travis’s eyes followed every movement she made. He took in the rumpled glory of her curly brown, sun-streaked hair and the outline of her shapely body beneath the thin pink nightshirt that barely reached her knees. His ache had moved from his stomach to his cock. He smiled slightly, accepting the glass, and washed down the two tablets, sighing as if in immediate relief.
Casey grinned and slipped her arm across his broad shoulders. His flesh felt warm and hard against the soft skin of her arm. She led Travis out of the kitchen and across the dining room to his bedroom. “You’ll be back to normal by morning.”
Travis looked at her smiling face and swallowed hard. “Thanks.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
Casey stared at his closed bedroom door for a long time, then turned and walked across the dark living room to her own bedroom. They had talked without pause all evening, and she discovered she liked Travis Craig more with each new thing she learned about him. That remembered flutter hit her stomach again, snaking lower and hotter. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. They were more like brother and sister. She shook her head to clear it, then closed her own door – tightly.
4
Travis’s canvas deck shoes kept perfect time with the Spanish tune he was whistling as he climbed the one hundred fifty stone steps that led to the villa. This morning he had picked up not only the catchy song from the village fishermen, but the contents of the large mesh bag that was slung over his right shoulder. He couldn’t wait to give Casey her present.
He expected to find her in her usual position, hunched over the typewriter, keys hammering one word after another into paragraphs that formed pages, then chapters, that were full of suspense and intrigue. Instead, his eyes blinked into focus the sight of bare feet and long legs that leaned against the white stucco wall of the dining room.
Travis dumped the mesh bag on the open counter and, with hands on his lean hips, eyed the form of one upside-down woman with open amusement. “What are you doing?”
Casey groaned before opening one emerald eye. Why did Travis have to return at precisely this moment? It had taken her almost half an hour to achieve this precarious position. She closed her eye and spread her long fingers wider against the cool marble floor, trying to protect her balance. When she spoke, her voice was distinctly garbled. “Yoga.”
“Hmmm.” Travis rubbed a large hand over his beard-rough jaw and let his eyes feast on the lean satiny display of legs that the thigh-baring, tulip-style jungle print shorts revealed. He moved to stand next to her, letting his hands stray to her body. He could feel her shiver against the sensitive tips of his fingers that traced her slim midriff and the full curve of her breasts that the thin black cotton tank top so provocatively outlined. “I’d say you were more in danger of smothering.” Travis grinned broadly then settled himself on the floor next to her head.
Casey’s eyes were now wide open and glittering angrily. She could feel a wave of heat surging over her already flushed features. “I am very ticklish,” she warned, letting her skin shrink from under his slowly moving hand. “If you keep that up, I’ll come tumbling down all over you just like the walls of Jericho.”
Travis laughed and pointedly ignored her threat. He let his fingernail blaze a trail from the visible hollow between her breasts, down the curve of her slender neck, over her arched throat, and under her chin to her full lips. He chuckled, watching her eyelids squeeze tight against the sensations he was transmitting and the mutinous line that was forming on her soft
lips.
“Travis! Stop! I am letting the blood rush to my brain in order to dislodge the writer’s block that has formed there.”
He tugged on the braid that was splayed against the gold pillow under her head. “Come on, right yourself. I’ve brought you the perfect brain food.”
She gave an unladylike snort, twisted her legs sideways and collapsed into a rather graceful heap next to him. She grabbed his shoulders, while her equilibrium balanced. “Have you any idea the logistics involved in getting seventy-three inches into the position?”
“I think I like you better in a less gravity-defying pose.”
She stuck the top of her tongue out, her green eyes straying over the lean, muscular length of him. His body had already acquired a rich tan and seemed to glow with strength, health and vitality. Travis was wearing gray fleece athletic shorts and a sweat-stained red tank top. A blue bandana was rolled and tied across his forehead and knotted at the back of his head.
He looked, Casey thought, like some browsing barbarian in search of a treasure – ready to rape, pillage and plunder for his prize. A shiver of pure physical awareness coursed down her spine. She quickly tore her eyes from his lion-like gaze and focused on the kitchen. “The brain food you mentioned seems to have a mind of its own. It’s walking across the counter.”
Travis looked over. “So it is.” He levered himself off the floor and held out his hand for hers. “Come on, it looks like my surprise is walking out of the bag.”
Casey let him lead her to the kitchen and watched him expertly transfer a large, dark-green spotted lobster to one side of the stainless steel sink and then filled the other side with a collection of luminescent pink shrimp. She looked at him inquiringly.
His lips broke into a wide, boyish grin. “Well, last night you mentioned these were your favorites. So this morning, I talked my way onto one of the village shrimp trawlers and this was my pay for a day of work on the high seas.”
