by Avery Aster
“Are you afraid of dying, Tessa?”
I think back to the hut, to The Master—Theo—and his questions about death.
“It’s not that I’m afraid…” I say slowly. “It’s more that I’m just not ready to give up living.”
Christophe spends another fifteen minutes trying to talk me into it. But I’m not budging. Eventually he sighs. “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“Nope.”
I’m surprised he gives up, but he does. Maybe he’s perceptive enough to see just how adamant I am about this. So, I wait for him and twenty minutes later, I see a speck in the sky; Christophe’s body plummeting to earth.
Oh God! I take it back. I do not want to see him go splat. I watch the rest of his descent through my fingers as if blocking out part of my vision is going to change things.
Within seconds, I see the parachute and less than ten minutes later Christophe floats down, landing gracefully onto the sand just down the beach from where I am standing.
He didn’t die.
Not only did he not die, but he made the whole thing look easy. Fun even.
Damn.
After unclipping himself from the chute, he strides over to me, his cheeks ruddy and his eyes electrified with the thrill of the jump. He picks me up and kisses me, his mouth wet and soft and full of passion.
“Wow.” I say.
“You ready to go back to the villa?”
“Sure, but what’s the rush?”
“There is only one thing better than jumping out of an airplane.”
“What’s that?”
“Making love to you.”
* * *
I am not a runner, but I sprint back to the villa. You’d think after our crazy sexy time last night, after I came three times, I’d be satiated for at least twenty-four hours. Nope. I cannot wait to get into Christophe’s pants. Or for him to get into mine. While I love his Dom side, I’m really looking forward to some good old fashioned, randy-assed sexy times.
We’re barely inside the front hall and I’ve got my shirt off.
“Slow down, Tessa.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.” I push my shorts over my hips and step out of them. “You do everything fast.” Now that I’m dressed in nothing but my lacy white, naughty-virgin lingerie, I get to work on the buttons on Christophe’s shirt.
He covers my hands with his. “Some things are best enjoyed fast. Others slow.”
“Whatever.” Slipping my hands out from under his, I unbuckle his belt and manage to get the button popped on the fly of his trousers.
He pushes my hands away. But I’m not buying it. He’s got a killer grin and, let’s face it, the dude is twice my size, he could easily stop me if that’s what he really wanted.
“You’re voracious.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” The zipper on his trousers goes down. He does it right back up.
So, I drop to my knees, unzip and then pull everything down before he has a chance to do it up again. With his already erect cock looking me in the eye, there’s not much for me to do except take hold of him and lick him.
“Dammit, Tessa.”
If he didn’t like what I was doing, he’d move. But he doesn’t, so I open my mouth wide and take him deep.
He growls.
I take him deeper, my mouth as wet for him as my pussy is and the more I suck, the wetter I get.
“Jesus, Tess. You’ve got to stop.”
This time there’s real passion in his voice. Keeping the tip of him against my lips, I lift my eyes. He’s looking down at me, his face flushed from more than wind and sun, his eyes wild, from more than the thrill of the jump, his chest rising and falling unsteadily.
I think back to yesterday and how he used my body’s response to determine what I wanted. How is this any different? I flick my tongue up his length. “You like it.”
“Of course I like it.”
“Then why do you want me to stop?”
“Because if you keep going I will come all over your face.”
His words take me by surprise, they also fire my pulse which results in a lovely throbbing between my thighs. I tighten my hold on him. “It’s okay,” I say. “Do it. It makes me feel powerful to bring a man to orgasm.”
“It’ll be over too fast. Over before we’ve begun.”
“We’ll just go again.” I lick a leisurely lap around his tip and he cries out while fisting my hair.
“Fuck.” Finally he pulls himself out of my grasp, but I can tell he totally doesn’t want to. Nope. He wanted me to keep going. He wanted to give in.
Taking my hand, he says in a hoarse voice, “Come to the bedroom. I’ll show you how to touch me.”
“Really?” I say, insulted. “You don’t think I know how to touch?”
“You don’t touch, you excite. There’s a difference.”
Making a huffing sound, I allow him to pull me along to the master bedroom, to the lovely king-sized, four poster bed. If Christophe thinks he’s won this round, he has another thing coming. I eye the four poster with longing. I’m tempted to resurrect the Christophe from last night…
But the man gives me no time to work my powers of black magic because he moves behind me and starts kissing my neck. It’s lovely. His lips taste me and nibble softly on the cords made taut by the tilt of my head. While his tongue and mouth explore my skin, he finds the clasp on my bra and releases it, pushing the straps from my shoulders. Then he turns me in his arms, sweeping his hands along my sides and up my ribcage to my breasts.
“The body is a miracle, the nerve endings so sensitive.” He touches my face, my jaw, my cheek, tilts my head back, revealing the length of my throat. “Too much stimulation and the nerves stop firing.”
“Mmm,” I hum. I’m enjoying what he’s doing so much that I don’t really listen to what he’s saying.
“Too much friction, and the muscles tense, cutting off even more nerve endings.”
“Oh yeah?” I sigh as he bends to take my nipple in his mouth. While he’s exploring me, I explore him. My hands are automatically drawn to the hard muscles of his abdomen and the even harder muscle just south of there. I love the sound of his rapid intake of breath when I touch him.
I do not love the way he stops touching me to cover my hands with his.
“Here.” He takes my right hand and moves it lower, to that spot between ass and balls. “This spot, this is the root of me.” He presses my fingertips firmly against the hard knot of muscle. “That’s where there are bundles of nerves, muscle and tissue. That’s where men hold their tension. Their anger and aggression.” He shows me how to massage that spot. I do it but I don’t focus on what I’m doing, oh no. I’m way too busy plotting out how to make Christophe come—whether he wants to or not.
Chapter Fourteen
The answer is simple. The man gave it to me himself. All I need to do is excite him. So as I’m massaging that tight knot of muscle between his legs, I’m also stroking the length of him while grinding my wet pussy against his leg.
The effect is instant. His cock jumps in my hand and after a frustrated grunt, the man grabs my wrists, flips me onto my back and pins me.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?” I ask, wide-eyed.
“You know what.”
I wriggle beneath him. “Christophe, enough of this slow shit. Put a condom on and fuck me already.”
“This,” he says, pointing his finger at me. “This is what I’m talking about.”
I roll my eyes. “Just touch me. Feel me. See how sopping wet I am for you.”
And then I wriggle some more.
He closes his eyes and pinches his face as if he’s fighting a smile or a sigh of pleasure. Seriously? Winning this bet is going to be too easy. I take his hand and tug on it until he gives in and lets me guide it in between us. “Feel me,” I whisper. “Touch me. Please.”
Does he touch me because I said please? I don’t know but I arch beneath h
im, a legitimate response to his expert caress.
“You’re so soft and wet,” he says reverently.
When I move my pelvis against his hand and he orders me to hold still, I say, “I’ll hold still once you’re inside of me. I promise.”
Another groan, as if he doesn’t believe me—which he shouldn’t, because I don’t plan on holding still. No way. But he rolls over and pulls open the drawer to the bedside table where he deposited the condoms earlier.
“Can I help you with that?”
“Yes.” He hands me the condom and flops onto his back. I quickly open the package and get to work, rolling it over him. The second I’m done, I straddle him and direct him toward my clit, rubbing him in circles around my arousal.
“Jesus, Tess.”
“Mmm. Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Too good.” Grasping my hips, he lifts me off of him, flips me over and crawls right back on top of me.
“How can something feel too good?”
He narrows his gaze while he bites the corner of his lip. “You promised to listen.”
“I am listening.” I part my legs and maneuver my hips so that he’s poised at my entrance.
“No, you’re not.”
“Christophe? Are you accusing me of something?” I try to fit my hands between us so that I can guide him inside of me, but, swift as a shark in a feeding frenzy, he snatches my wrists and lifts them above my head, shackling me with one hand.
I moan with pleasure because it feels good having him take control of me again. “Do it,” I say. “Come on, Christophe. I’m dying here.”
There’s tension building in his body. Wonderful tension that culminates in that virile spot between his legs.
“Take me, please. Just fucking do it.”
He pushes my hands into the mattress just as he pushes himself into my body. I cry out. He cries out. I try to free my hands from their bondage so that I can hold onto his madly thrusting hips, but he won’t let me go. He keeps me there, a willing captive in his feverish passion.
But it all feels so good, so fucking marvelous that I’m done playing. Now I give in to the all-consuming sensation of Christophe filling me again and again and again. I know he said something about too much friction desensitizing a person, but goddamn, it also feels fucking good and I do everything in my power to increase the friction, to tilt my hips to give him better access, to lift them when he plunges to meet him thrust for thrust, cry for cry, curse for curse.
Until we’re both chanting together, fuck, fuck, fuck…
* * *
“Admit it, you lost.” I try not to be too over the top smug, but it’s hard when you win a bet as controversial as our sex bet against someone as arrogant and sure of himself as Christophe.
“I didn’t lose. You cheated.”
“How?” I ask, putting my hands on my hips. “How did I cheat?”
“You sabotaged.”
“How, exactly, did I sabotage you?”
“With excitement.”
I’m pretty sure that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. After I finally get my laughter under control, I come up closer, put my hands on Christophe’s chest and look innocently into his vibrant blue eyes. “Sorry dude, but you lost fair and square.”
“Siren.” He smacks my ass.
“Where was that last night?” I ask, rubbing my butt suggestively as I make my way into the kitchen, calling over my shoulder, “Should we order room service for breakfast or do you want to help me make an omelet?”
He comes up behind me and rests his hands on my hips, ducking his head to whisper in my ear, he says, “We’ll have breakfast on the boat.”
“What?”
“Get you things. We’re going diving.”
* * *
So the man may not have persuaded me that Tantra was all it’s cracked up to be, but he did quite easily persuade me to go diving. We’re suited up with gear and after we check our equipment and its functionality, the captain of the boat gives us a brief history of this area. His name is Irish…by his accent, I’m guessing it’s a nickname based on his country of origin. He’s quite the storyteller, though I only understand half of what he’s saying, as he relates the history of shipwrecks in the area. We’re on the boat for less than an hour and he must have told us about twenty stories. That’s a lot of wrecks.
“We’re smack in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle,” he says as if that explains everything. “You’ve got to watch out for one another.”
I nod. I love diving and was certified years ago, but I don’t go as often as I could because as much as I love it, it actually freaks me out a little bit. The breathing through the mouth, the pressure in the ears, the silence. It’s not until I stop focusing on those things and start focusing on the pretty, colorful fish and coral that I start to relax. I’ve only done deep water dives a handful of times, so to say I’m more than a little freaked when Christophe announced we were doing one is an understatement. He must read my apprehension because he grabs my hands and squeezes.
“It’s going to be fun.”
Before I know it, we’re falling back into the water and descending. Slowly. There are three shipwrecks all in close proximity, and we’re going down a hundred feet. That means this will be the deepest dive I’ve ever done. As we adjust our buoyancy control devices so that we continue to descend, less and less light filters through the water. I find myself breathing too quickly and stopping my descent. Christophe is in front of me immediately, using his fingers to point from my eyes to his, telling me to keep watching him. He gives me the thumbs up sign. I give it back.
Deeper we go until suddenly I can see the mast of a ship poking up beside me. The depths are eerily silent and all I hear is the sound of my own labored breathing. Christophe takes my hand in his and points. The hull of a wreck is right below us. We descend a bit more until we can touch the hull. The pressure on my ears is intense and I have to keep stopping to clear my ears, but now that we’re near the wreck, I’m able to stop concentrating on the pressure. A large pleasure sailboat by the looks of things, this boat has been here for at least twenty years, according to Irish.
We start by exploring together, but when we get to a narrow open hatch and Christophe indicates we go down with the motion of his hand, I shake my head. Then I give him the thumbs down signal. He points to himself, asking if it’s okay if he goes. I hesitate before giving him the thumbs up and after a burst of bubbles, he disappears headfirst down the hatch.
I swim close to the point where he disappeared, not wanting to stray too far, knowing how easy it is to get disorientated underwater. The surface of the boat is covered in coral and barnacles but there are a few parts that give some indication of what this boat must have looked like in its day. I touch the deck rail, no longer iron, pretty much completely coral and I wonder what happened on that fateful voyage. Did the ship get lost? Were they on their way to Eden? Did anyone die?
At that thought, I turn around slowly, feeling suddenly extremely cold. While the water near the beach is warm, at this depth it’s cold and even though I’m wearing a wetsuit, I shiver. The silence seems deafening now, or maybe that’s the pressure building in my ears. I check my underwater watch and notice that Christophe has been gone for fifteen minutes. Our tanks are only good for about forty-five, so given it took us ten minutes to descend, we’ve been down here close to half an hour and should be heading back up soon.
I swim over to the hatch and stop, looking around. Did I miss Christophe? Is he right now looking for me? I consider swimming around to see if I can see him or his light, but then decide that we’re like two needles in a haystack looking for one another. The other possibility is that he came up, missed me and started to ascend, thinking I’d gone up to the top.
Stay together. That’s the name of the game down below, Irish had said. We didn’t listen very well, did we?
I wait, checking my watch every twenty seconds. They seem like hours.
Of cour
se the other possibility is that something happened to Christophe.
Shit.
Now that the thought has crossed my mind, I can’t get it out of my head. The problem is, if I resurface without him and he’s not up top, he’s screwed. It’ll take twenty minutes for me or anyone else to get back down. So, after a few deep breaths and a little mantra to reassure myself, I hover above the hatch and adjust my BCD so that I can descend into the belly of the ship. If I thought the hull and outside of the boat was creepy, the inside is ten times creepier. It’s dark and narrow and large fish swim by creating weird shadows beyond my light.
I do not like it. I do not like it one bit. A phrase from a favorite childhood story rings between my ears, I do not like it Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham. I know I’m on the verge of panic when weird, random shit like that pops into my head and I’m tempted to turn right back around and head straight for the surface.
Five minutes, Tess. Look around for five minutes, then go up.
So that’s what I do, cursing Christophe the entire time. Why did I let him talk me into this dive? I like bright fish and fancy coral. Not weird, scary skeletal ships that might still house dead bodies.
Fuck! Why did I have to think about dead bodies? The mere thought puts me on the verge of hyperventilation. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
You can’t do that down here. Slow your breathing. You’re okay.
I cuss out the calm voice in my head and in the process of getting annoyed with myself I actually find myself calming down.
That’s when I see Christophe.
He isn’t moving. His body is limp and swaying with the gentle underwater current.
No. No, no, no, no!
I swim up to him and see that his tank is caught on some chain and it looks like his regulator tube is pinched. I try to unhook it quickly but it’s stuck.
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!!
Moving around to the front of Christophe, I can see his eyes are rolled back. I take the regulator out of his mouth and I shove mine into his.
Breathe, dammit. Breathe!
At first nothing happens and I have to snatch it out of his mouth so that I can suck air into my lungs. I try it again and this time, I think I see his eyes flutter.
