by Jianne Carlo
A man like him had very specific appetites. From boyhood, if he craved steak but could only devour fish, even if he consumed an entire boatload of catch, Terry remained hungry, unsated. The only exception to this was women. Pretty much one hole resembled another, frequency more important than any particular female. But masturbation didn’t work this time, and he prowled his hotel suite burning with need.
Three hours to the cocktail event, he’d surrendered to the urge and gone down to the lobby cruising for a hook-up.
Nada.
Nothing, not one woman appealed. Even though he tried and had a woman in his room within half an hour, for the first time in his life his prick and his brain suffered a disconnect, one ready, the other picturing Jenny in the steam room, refusing to settle for less.
Jaysus.
Despite less than half an hour of slumber the night before, he couldn’t nap, couldn’t relax. Restless, uneasy, he went for a five-mile run along the beach.
For some reason, his thoughts strayed to Ireland, to Arran, to the father who’d disowned him more than a decade ago. Morose regrets dogged him, and he pushed his body to the limit, sprinting the last mile to the Cap.
Rolan Paxton’s marriage a few weeks earlier had started this internal strife. Watching Rolan and his new wife, Sarita, take their vows under the stars and the moon in Monaco’s Hotel de Paris’s Grill Room restaurant had made him malcontent. Seeing their mutual entrancement, their inability to take their eyes off each other, even for a minute, ignited an ache in Terry’s heart.
As a boy, even as a teenager, he’d been a romantic. His father and mother set the example, the perfect couple, in love to the end. He’d always expected to end up married and besotted, and then came the headache that ultimately killed his mother.
“Yo, Terry!” Harrison’s shout came from the side door to the Cap’s lobby.
He strode up the beach to his first mate and bent over gasping until he caught his breath. Winded, but able to speak, Terry lifted his T-shirt and mopped his face. “What’s up?”
“Got a text message from Geoff. He’s agreed to a charter for the Glory. We leave in three days.”
“Fricking rotten timing. I just agreed to a three-week Greek charter leaving Friday morning.”
“I thought we were taking a short break.” Harrison tipped his Stetson and met Terry’s gaze. “What’s up? Or should I say who’s up? You’re wearing that new-woman-in-sight expression.”
“Give me the details of Geoff’s charter.”
Harrison winced as shrill microphone feedback echoed around the hotel’s narrow beachfront. Drums and the discordant clash of an untuned guitar mingled with the high-pitched squealing.
Terry shook his head and pointed to a narrow path through bleached rocks.
Harrison grimaced but strode in the direction of the trail with Terry in tow. Neither man spoke until they passed through the well-trod tunnel, which cleaved the promontory in two. The tall boulders acted as sound insulation, muting the musical cacophony to a distant thrumming.
“I hate karaoke on the beach,” Terry muttered. “Should be fricking outlawed as noise pollution.”
“Whoa. Lookee there,” Harrison drawled and dug his elbow into Terry’s side.
“What?”
“By the kids’ swings,” he replied and pointed to a level area of the beach that sported one lone occupant.
“I see.” Terry shaded his eyes, and a certain familiarity about the female figure tugged at his brain.
“Some body on that sugar,” Harrison quipped. “I don’t know about you, but I’m for a closer peek at this sweetmeat.”
Curiosity stirred, Terry fell into place, matching his stride to Harrison’s. The steep upward slope of the fine white sand meant they couldn’t discern the female’s features until they stood about six feet to the left of the petite woman.
Jaysus.
Terry sucked in his breath and held it, staring at the vision before his unbelieving eyes. His Asian aphrodisiac was so absorbed in some sort of exercise routine, she hadn’t even noticed their arrival.
“Crap,” Harry muttered. “What the hell’s up with this? Is that sugar Asian with colored contact lenses? Son of a bitch, no one can have eyes that color and all that blue-black hair. I think I’m in love.”
“Sod it, boyo. That one’s mine. Scratch her off your bull’s-eye.”
“You don’t have to snap,” Harry grumbled. He whistled. “Will you look at that? Did she just do a split across those two bars?”
Heels touching only, Jenny Su-Lin hung suspended between the two gleaming silver bars in a perfect split, perpendicular to the powdery beach. She rotated slowly so her head paralleled the beach, stretched lithe fingers to ankles, then levitated off the bars and somersaulted to the ground, arms raised over her head, back arched, pretty bare feet perfectly aligned.
His heart settled back into place and fear gave way to fury. Terry jabbed one fist into his palm, letting the fierce sting dissolve the urge to strangle his little Asian. One wrong move and she could have broken her neck. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted the teal gymnast’s formfitting, high-cut leotard, which revealed surprisingly long legs, firm thighs, and a rounded, tight butt.
It had taken the last fifteen minutes of running at full pace to subdue his raging erection. One glance at her suspended in that split undid the last hour of punishing exercise as his cock reacted to the mental images imprinting his pupils. Lurid visions, which proved almost as blinding as the glaring afternoon sunlight, made him blink furiously against its brilliance.
Could she take him that way?
In a split?
Harrison cleared his throat.
Eyebrows raised to her hairline, she jumped and twisted to face them.
Their eyes meshed across the short distance, and she stiffened, gazed to the left for a brief moment, and swung her head back to meet his stare. She flashed him this saucy, impish grin and clamped small hands on lean hips. Her whole stance, chin tilted up, shoulders squared in a provocative come-get-me challenge, inflamed him.
Terry tipped her a two-fingered salute and knew she’d milk his aching cock tonight. Ready and willing, she’d so much as said the words.
“You know her?” When Terry didn’t respond, Harry elbowed his rib cage. “Earth to O’Connor. Who is she?”
“Her aunt and uncle want to the charter the Glory for three weeks. That’s the charter I agreed to this morning.”
“You and your leprechaun luck. What a sweet piece of meat. How old?”
“Almost jailbait for us, boyo. Twenty-one, small-town girl. From what the uncle said earlier, she’s been caring for a sick mother. Trip’s a graduation present from the aunt and uncle.”
As Terry watched, she toweled off, glanced at them, cheeks pinkening, and gave a little shake of her head. Dropping a cream towel on a steel bar, she jumped, hands clamping onto the high bar, her back to them. Swinging her legs faster and faster, she somersaulted the couple of feet between the parallel steel frames and went into a fast series of tumbles and tight turns.
“Jaysus,” Terry muttered.
“And then some,” Harrison said, shoving his hat off his head. “Kind of unnerving up close.”
“Too true, boyo, too true.”
“Shucks, Terry, you’re gonna break that sugar’s heart. And she has this air of fragility, kind of a sweet sadness about her.”
“Until I saw that little performance I’d have agreed with you. Trust me, Harry, you can’t be internally fragile and have the discipline and determination to become an accomplished gymnast. Yet, you’re right. She looks unsullied by the sins of the world.”
“She’s one freaking flexible woman. Did you see that?”
In exquisite slow motion, Jenny bent over at the waist, rested her palms on the sand, and lifted her pointed toes off terra firma, spread them perpendicular to the ground, and paused. She pirouetted, raised both legs above her head, torso a perfect, still straight line. Each movement suc
ked in Terry’s gut until air didn’t make it to his lungs.
“Three weeks ain’t gonna be enough, not with that sweetmeat. She’s blushing. When was the last time you saw a grown woman blush?”
“Don’t even think it, Harrison Ford.” Terry’s eyebrows slashed together as he levered a scowl at his first mate.
“That sugar’s marrying material, and I have a hunkering to settle down. She’s sweeter’n double-chunk peanut brittle, and there’s no way you get to be the only gunslinger in town.” Harry dusted off his hands.
“Sod the cowboy prattle, she’s not close enough to impress. Don’t cross me on this one, Harrison. I’m warning you.”
“Since when do you care who gets to pussy first?”
“This one’s mine. Touch her and you’re off the Glory, indefinitely.”
“Might be I’ll call you on that one. We’ll see.”
“Boyo, you’d better fricking not be planning what I think you are. Time you got back to the Glory and earned your keep. I’ll touch base tomorrow. Have a complete engine overhaul done. Miss a trick and it’s your hide.”
“Sieg Heil, Captain!” Harry said, snapped booted heels together, and gave a Hitler’s salute. “Tyranny so wins out over charm. But there’s a small matter of two charters at the same time. What’re you going to do?”
The few seconds of distraction proved fatal, and when he glanced up, Jenny Taylor had vanished.
“Terry? The two charters?”
“I’ll phone Geoff and see if I can fob the other one off for four weeks.”
“Your call. You’re the captain. Even if it’s blatantly obvious you’re thinking with your prick.”
“Sod it, Harry. I’ll meet you back at the Glory.”
Terry’s lips flattened as he watched the Texan saunter away. He had three friends in this world: Harry, his partner, Geoff, and Rolan Paxton. All of them would risk their lives for each other. Yet when it came to women, an unsaid gloves-off principle held, and he had no illusions Harry would target his Asian darling.
The notion riled him, and he knew he had to have a strategic advantage over his first mate before the end of the evening. Even the thought of Harry pursuing her after Terry ended their affair caused his jaw to clench. He kneaded his nape and avoided analyzing the reasons behind this sudden surge of jealousy and ownership. For the next three weeks, the little Asian belonged to him and him only.
Impatient, so randy he’d fricking come if she so much as licked her lips, Terry boarded the boat early and paced the deck, waiting, plotting, and cutting the time between greeting and screwing down second by second. He’d already explored the cabins below and knew exactly where he would take her.
Women sensed his sexual heat.
Each female passenger raked him head to toe, and ascertaining his disinterest, darted speculative glances at all the other women on board, wondering who was the lucky one. He ignored the visual come-ons.
His lungs hiccupped when he caught sight of her sashaying up the gangplank dressed in a Chinese-style satin sheath. Each graceful step outlined her slender curves, and the emerald material glistened wet in the sun’s receding rays.
She stopped in front of him, and he curled his hands around the boat’s rail. The temptation to kidnap her and steal a page from his barbarian ancestors threatened to overpower all rational thought.
“Jenny.”
“Terrence,” her uncle said and held out a paw.
Terry acknowledged the greeting with a nod of his head and a brief handshake, determined not to take his eyes off her, drowning in her essence.
“I know you two met earlier, and I introduced my niece as Jenny, but she prefers her Chinese name, which is Su-Lin.”
“Su-Lin,” he intoned and raised her hand to his lips. Unable to resist, his tongue traced the center of her palm. His eyelids closed when she flinched and then melted into his caress. He could have eaten her fingers forever, drawing each one into his mouth, nibbling on each succulent tip, but she jerked her hand away, and his hooded lids flicked open.
Those jade eyes wouldn’t meet his gaze, and she turned away, the side of her nape coloring a dusky rose. He drank in her profile, noting the contrasts, the Asian and white combinations of her unique beauty.
Three weeks. Three weeks with her on the Glory, in the cabin next to his, which had a connecting door. His prick wept with greed. Terry razed her with the fervor of an addict scoping his next fix.
She drifted out of his line of vision, following her aunt and uncle’s path to the bar punctuating the boat’s bow.
“What are you doing here?”
That cultured baritone, honed to aristocratic perfection, could belong to only one person.
Hands jammed into fists, he shuffled right and faced the man he hadn’t seen or spoken to in more than a decade.
“I live on a boat in the Mediterranean. I’m the one who’s supposed to be here,” Terry growled, his earlier exuberance morphing into anger. “What in fricking hell are you doing here?”
“Watch your tone,” his father snapped.
The man hadn’t changed, not a single iota over the years. Terry’s lips curled as he studied his father’s visage, full head of hair, now silver rather than blond, weathered face lined at the eyes and mouth by too much excess, and gray eyes that mimicked the dead of Antarctic winter.
He’d been lucky to escape.
A throat cleared behind him.
Terry’s gaze shifted, and his stomach, always a barometer of his concealed emotions, listed and heaved, threatening to upchuck its contents.
“Terrence,” his mirror image said.
“Thomas.” His mind numb, Terry shook his identical twin’s hand. And what was left of his gleeful anticipation for the evening dissipated. “What brings you two to Antibes?”
“Business. Don’t think of embarrassing me tonight,” his father answered. “How did you garner an invitation?”
“They’ve chartered my yacht for the next three weeks.”
Nigel Thomas Jefferson Patrick Gore, the Earl of Arran, flinched and paled. Terry’s eyes widened; for a mere inhale, he thought he saw fear and guilt in his father’s charcoal eyes. He shook his head, lip curling at one corner. The father he knew eschewed any hint of vulnerability. He must have been wrong.
Leprechauns dogged him.
Terry downed his glass of scotch, caught both his father and his twin’s disapproving stares, and spun around, headed for the bar, where he ordered a triple shot.
Jaysus.
Fricking leprechaun luck. Both his father and his twin when he least expected it.
Ten years since he’d last seen Thomas, longer for his father.
Thomas, Thomas.
Terry found a solitary spot on the starboard, propped one foot on the rail, downed the tumbler of liquor, and flung the glass into the sea. The boa constrictor banding his chest squeezed his gullet, and the scotch traversed his insides one drop at a time, scorching a slow, scalding path.
Even though the view showed a tranquil Mediterranean, it was not what he saw.
Rage, bloodied limbs, Thomas’s sad, resigned slate eyes minutes before he slipped unconscious, burned Terry’s pupils. For the past ten years, he’d buried his self-loathing in booze, orgies, drugs, gambling, anything to mask acknowledging the lousy human being he’d become.
One brief exchange was all it took.
One glance and their souls meshed.
He could no longer deny the damage he’d inflicted. His twin’s pain reflected in his eyes like an endless corridor of horror-house mirrors bouncing, echoing, so he couldn’t differentiate the person from the never-ending reflections. He’d become a mirror image -- there only if you happened to catch the muted likeness at the right time.
Only Thomas could spur such soured introspection.
Terry shook his head, ordered another scotch, and forged into the throngs cramming the deck. Old habits reared and Terry scanned the crowd.
A woman, he needed a woman. Sex, a
night of thrusting and pounding like an enraged bull, and then he would face reality, deal with the burdens of the past.
Determined not to be thrown off course, his glance slid left, drawn to Su-Lin like Mars drawn to the sun. To his surprise, she met his gaze and tipped the crystal glass, her full lips curling in a trembling smile.
His for the taking.
He forgot his father, his brother, his life, and homed in on a single goal, sheathing himself in her warmth. Trying not to be obvious, Terry wound his way through the crowd mingling on the upper deck until he stood inches away from her. An involuntary shudder sucked his stomach in as his eyes swept the length of her back, delectable ass dimples exposed by the sweeping low-cut jade silk.
As if sensing his presence, she sidled a corner-of-the-eye glance at him, and her pouty lips parted in a sultry half-smile. She sipped at the bubbling champagne, glancing over one bare shoulder at him.
“Have you met Lord and Lady…?” He lost the rest of her question, eyes pinpointed on those large nipples pushing against the sleek satin. A brief flicker to the right unveiled a hefty, downright ugly couple.
“A pleasure,” he said and captured Su-Lin’s glass. “There’s a minor issue in the kitchens, and your presence is required.” He set the crystal flute on a nearby high table and held out an elbowed forearm. “Excuse us, will you? Shall we?”
Those searching eyes, their startling color, the absolute absence of guile, made him hesitate for a brief, imperceptible moment. A woman, he reminded himself, she was a female, a hole to be filled, nothing more, nothing less.
Before they reached the last mahogany step fronting the lower deck’s main corridor, Terry scooped her into his arms
She didn’t resist but raised verdant eyes to his. “I’m not sure.”
That was all she said, and it stabbed at his conscience, those words.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. “It’ll be okay.”
He had to squelch all emotions to make it to the secluded cabin door without touching her, without drowning in her mouth. With a gentility he didn’t know he possessed, Terry laid her down in the middle of the queen-size bed.
