Castle in the Sand (6 page)

The muscles of his arms bunched and relaxed
as he moved. Claire put her hands on his biceps to enjoy the
flexing beneath her fingers. When he lowered himself, his smooth
chest teased her erect nipples. His back was smooth and muscled
like his chest, and his ass, too. She cupped the firm globes of his
buttocks as he thrust inside her. Her calves caressed his furred
thighs and she used her ankles to push him deeper into her.

"Claire."

She could tell he needed no answer, as she
had needed none before, but she answered him anyway. "Yes." Then
again, when the twist of his hips put delicious pressure on her
clitoris, "Yes!"

Her orgasm built slowly and burst over her as
slowly. Not fierce. Not harsh. It rippled through her in waves of
pure desire, each one building before the last one faded away,
until she was coming. Just coming, over and over while Malcolm
whispered her name and she answered with his.

* * * *

Claire wrung out the cloth into the pail and
grimaced at the filthy water. "I can't figure out why everything is
so dirty."

"There's always sand all over the place. You
know that." Malcolm leaned his elbows on the table while he watched
her.

"This isn't sand. It's dirt and dust. When
the others get here, we're going to have to talk about hiring a
different cleaning agency."

She went outside to throw the dirty water
over the edge of the deck. It hit the driveway and darkened the
sand. She looked to the sky without needing to shade her eyes. The
sun had gone behind a cloud. The day was almost as black as the
water.

"No beach today," she told Malcolm as she
came back inside. She paused before filling the bucket with more
water. They hadn't actually been to the beach at all yet. And
they'd been here how many days?

"Mal?"

"Yes, love?"

He ought to have been reading a book or maybe
working a crossword puzzle. Making a grocery list. Something,
anything, other than merely sitting and watching her work.

"Nothing." It was her choice to clean, not
his. He didn't have to help. But...she shook her head at her own
odd thoughts. He usually would have pitched in or found someplace
else to be. He wouldn't just...watch.

She set the pail in the sink and began to
fill it again with clean water. In the next moment, she felt his
lips against the back of her neck. His kiss sent a pleasant chill
down her spine and she shivered. "That tickles."

"I've got something else that would like to
tickle you, too."

She felt it against the small of her back and
she pressed herself harder against him. "Oh, really?

Now his hands came around to cup her breasts.
The nipples sprang instantly erect under the attention of his
thumbs. He nuzzled the back of her neck some more, and she felt the
wet heat of his tongue. It was answered instantly by a wet heat
between her legs.

His hand went there next. He lifted her dress
and his forefinger stroked the outline of her cleft, then slipped
beneath the waistband of her panties to circle her clit. He dipped
a little lower to smooth his way with her slickness and up again to
rub her button. He pushed her panties off her hips and she stepped
out of them.

She heard the sound of his zipper as he
pulled it down. She gripped the edge of the ancient porcelain sink
as Malcolm pulled her hips toward him. He pushed her legs apart
with his thigh. Claire tensed, waiting.

"Ahh." The wordless sound burbled from her
throat as he entered her. She couldn't have formed words if she'd
tried. She stood on her tiptoes to ease his way.

How many times had they made love? She would
never get enough of him. Claire moaned as Malcolm slid his fingers
over her clit. His cock pumped in and out of her. His soft pubic
hair brushed her ass and she smiled. He was tickling her, all
right.

His teeth nipped the curve of her shoulder
and neck exposed by the collar of her sundress. The tiny pain only
intensified her pleasure. Her clit pulsed.

"I can feel you getting bigger down there. I
can feel you open to me." Now he tickled her ear with his breath.
"You take me in all the way." He stroked her again. "Come with me,
Claire."

She did, with a long shudder that made her
legs tremble. Wetness splashed her. For a moment, she thought it
came from her, and her eyes flew open, startled.

"The sink!"

"Leave it," he growled, his passion evident
by the way he thrust inside her.

The sink was overflowing. The pail had
blocked the drain, and once it was full the water had begun to fill
the sink. Now it ran over the sides, onto Claire, the counter and
the floor.

She climaxed again, anyway, even as she
reached for the faucet but turned it the wrong way. More water
flowed and faster. Malcolm thrust into her one more time and cried
her name. Claire forgot about the water as the pleasure swept her
away.

Water poured onto the floor with a noise that
sounded as loud as the crashing of the ocean waves. The noise
filled her head and made it ache. Malcolm kissed her neck once
before he pulled out of her. Her dress fell down to her thighs
again.

"Oh, what a mess!" Claire looked around the
kitchen in dismay. There was so much water. Water everywhere. Her
entire front was soaked. She turned the faucet off with a vicious
twist that hurt her wrist. "Damn it."

"It's all right."

She faced him as he pulled up his pants and
zipped them. "You're going to help me clean this up, I hope."

He rolled his eyes but nodded. "I'll
help."

"I knew there was a reason I love you." She
kicked a little water in his direction, but he didn't smile.

"You do love me still?"

"You know I do. How could you think I
don't?"

He sounded almost desperate, but she didn't
know why. "And you'll no stop?"

"I don't plan to." She wiped fruitlessly at
the front of her dress, then gave up.

"Claire, I want you to know I'm sorry for
hurting you. I'm desperately sorry. I never want to hurt you
again."

She didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Hurt me?"

"I have to tell you something, love."

Claire gave him her back and fussed with
draining the sink. The gurgle of the water made her headache
worsen. "Let's get this cleaned up first."

"No, Claire. I think you need to know this
now."

She took a deep breath and clutched at the
porcelain only moments ago she'd been gripping in passion. She
forced her fingers to loosen their grip. "I don't think I want to
hear."

"You have to."

She whirled to face him. "Who says? Who says
I have to? It's something awful, Malcolm. I know it is! What could
be so awful that would make me feel this way? I don't want to
know!"

He spoke softly. "How do you feel?"

"Cold!" she cried, and realized it was true.
"I feel cold all the time. The only time I feel warm is when we're
making love."

His gray-green eyes filled with tears. "I
know, love."

She took a breath and put on a brave face. "I
hope you're not going to tell me you've been unfaithful.
Because...because you know I could not forgive you."

"I know."

Her voice faltered and she forced it to be
strong. "I would never speak to you again probably."

"God, how I know that, too."

She had to concentrate on her breathing, in
and out, to fend off the faintness and nausea threatening to
overwhelm her. "I wouldn't make a scene, you know. I wouldn't want
to ruin everyone's time. I wouldn't make it hard for anyone
else."

"Just for me." He ran his fingers through his
hair, and she saw his hands were trembling.

She sloshed toward the drawer that held the
kitchen towels and grabbed up the entire pile. "Here. Help me clean
this up before the others get here."

He shook his head and made no move to take
the towels. She dropped them to floor, where they instantly began
to soak up the water. She moved them around with her foot, but it
wasn't enough. Everything was still wet.

"The others aren't coming, Claire."

"The hell you say!" She put her hand on her
hips and glared.

His voice broke as he spoke, and he moved
toward her palms up. "Do you no remember, Claire?"

"Remember what?" She spat the words like they
burned her throat. "No. I don't."

"I didn't want to tell you. Not when you
loved me again."

"Again? What do you mean...again?" Shudders
made her body jerk.

She took a step and the water splashed around
her ankles. Water. Everywhere. Water, and the scent of berries, a
smell that should have been pleasant, but instead, made sickness
lurch to her throat with an acid sting.

"I do remember." She turned to face him. Her
eyes felt wide and staring, her mouth stretched tight in a grimace
she couldn't seem to force away. "I remember. We were all coming to
Nonesuch for our week. Our week. The Fellowship. Like always, like
every year. But you came a day early, didn't you? And you weren't
alone."

He had the decency to meet her eyes without
hanging his head. "No, Claire. I wasna alone."

More chills spread through her body. "You
brought her here. To our place. And you fucked her out there, on
the beach. You didn't know I had planned to get here early,
too."

She swallowed the burning in her throat. The
more she talked, the easier it got. "You came in here, to the
kitchen. We...we fought. I asked you if you'd been with someone
else, and you lied. But I could smell her on you. Not my perfume.
The smell of raspberries."

He groaned, but she continued, her voice
rising as the memories washed over her.

"And then I ran out to the beach. She was
gone, but that didn't matter.The ocean was there, and I ran to it.
I wanted to swim, to get away from the anger and the pain. A storm
came up. I swam out too far. I couldn't get back. I was
drowning..." Now she turned to stare at him, her wet dress clutched
in her fists. "And you swam out after me."

"I did." Malcolm shivered. "I swam out after
you, Claire."

"But the waves were too high." Her voice was
calm, low. The sickness had passed. "You caught me by the hair. I
remember that."

"Your lovely hair."

"And you pulled me above the water. I could
breathe again."

He nodded, slowly. She saw the hems of his
trousers had gone dark with wetness. He sighed.

"But then you left me!" she cried, stricken
with the memories. "You left me anyway, didn't you? But I did what
I said. I didn't ruin it for everyone else. I didn't speak to you,
no. And I didn't forgive. But I didn't make it hard for the others
to be around us. I wasn't like Joe when he broke up with Candace,
and it was so awkward to be around both of them. I tried so hard to
pretend, for everyone else, that I was okay. But it didn't matter,
did it? After a while you stopped coming."

A sob burst from her. Tears slid in burning
trails down her cheeks. "I tried so hard!" she cried, and swung at
him. He didn't even move away. Her palm cracked against his cheek
with a sound like deadwood cracking. "I tried!"

He enfolded her in his arms, though she
struggled and fought against him. "I know you did, Claire."

"But you left me anyway, you son of a bitch!"
She sobbed and pounded his chest over and over. The blows hurt her
hand, but he didn't even move. "You left me!"

"No, Claire," he said softly in her ear.
"Don't you understand, love? You left me."

* * * *

Warm and dry beneath the covers of the bed in
the upstairs room, Claire snuggled close to Malcolm. She felt
burned out from crying, an empty husk, but better for it. The
memories had been poisoning her for too long, even when she didn't
remember them.

"I pulled you out of the water," Malcolm
said. "But you were already gone."

She didn't remember that. She remembered
years of this place. Dinners with her friends and nights spent
alone in this room, this very bed. She did not remember lying in
the ground. But she did remember being cold.

"We all came back here for a while. For
years. And at first, nobody wanted to tell anyone else the things
they'd seen. By unspoken agreement, we all avoided this room
because we knew how you'd loved it best. We didn't want to sound
foolish for saying we'd seen you at the table, or heard you
laughing with us when we joked. Eventually, they began making
excuses for why they couldn't make the trip. First one year, then
another. The place spent more time as a rental than it did as
ours."

"But you kept coming back." She listened to
the sound of his heartbeat through the softness of his shirt.

"I came back. But you never saw me. I kept
coming back, hoping. But you never did."