Diamonds and Toads: A Modern Fairy Tale (20 page)

She began at the railing, with the idea of
working her way from one side of the deck to the other. As she
glided her hand over the wood, it snagged on something that felt
awfully like the object she was looking for.

Leaning her pelvis against the railing, she
held her discovery up to the light.
Eureka!

All at once, a brief scent of patchouli
invaded her nostrils and two hands splayed on her back and pushed.
“Eek!”
The phone clattered onto the deck as Isadora tumbled
over the side of the boat into the cold, cold, cold, icy cold salt
water.

* * *

Sam shoved his bound galley and his laptop
into his suitcase. By this time tomorrow, he’d be on a plane bound
for Hawaii, and then a few days after, on his way to Micronesia. In
the morning, he’d be pulling out of the dock and sailing the
houseboat up the Gulf a ways to his friend’s marina. As a favor,
he’d offered to dry dock it while Sam was away, but the boat would
eventually be shipped home to Hawaii.

It was going to be expensive to do, but the
vessel had been willed to him, along with a sizeable inheritance,
by his Grandmother Slade and, after flying here for her funeral
last month and reading the letter she’d written him before she’d
passed as well, he couldn’t bring himself to sell it. He glanced
around. Besides, the old thing had an ambience of an earlier era
that he kind of liked.

He shook his head and went back to packing.
He’d take care of getting the vessel shipped when he returned in
fourteen months for Chas’s wedding. Which also gave him plenty of
time to get most of his initial diving expeditions in Micronesia
completed.

He was just walking back into the living room
when he heard his name shouted, followed by:
“Help!”
A short
silence. Then:
“Help!”
again.

“What the—? Izzy?” He took off toward the
sliding glass door and nearly busted it off its track as he slammed
it open. He heard splashing and gasping coming from the starboard
side of the deck. He looked over the railing into the pitch of
night and Gulf sea water. “IZZY!”

“
Here! Help me!”

He saw her then, tossed out a life preserver,
and then dove straight for her.

It took quite a bit of wrestling with tangled
skirts and half-drowned woman, but Sam managed to drag her through
the frigid water and up onto the deck. Then, lifting her into his
arms, he took her directly to the bathroom. Her lips were the color
of raw oysters and she still hadn’t stopped gagging and coughing,
although it was less frequent now. As he waited for the shower
water to heat, he toweled her off and, unable to undo the
fastenings on the drenched gown, took his knife from his back
pocket and used it to slit it from breast to waist.

“M-m-m-y—m-m-y—”

“I know, I know. It’s some fabulously famous
designer’s rag, right? Well, it was ruined by the sea water
anyway.”

He picked her up and walked into the shower
with her. When, after a full minute of steam and hot water, she was
still quaking and chattering, Sam decided he’d better try rubbing
her down as well.

He was merciless, scrubbing his palm over her
arms, her legs, her belly, until they were warm to the touch, no
matter how loud her squeals of protest grew. Afterward, he angled
her around and started on her shoulders and back. It was then that
he noticed the tattoo on her bottom. Right where the birth control
patch had been before it dropped to the floor of the shower a
moment ago.

It was the frogman tattoo. The one he’d
tried, and failed, to talk her into getting along with him, after
their first diving experience together in Hawaii. And after she’d
agreed to become his wife. The one that he’d said would be a symbol
of their commitment to each other. Of their love.

“Iz?” he said softly as he ran the pad of his
finger over it. “What’s this?”

* * *

Isadora squeezed her eyes shut.
“Nothing.”

“
Nothing?”

Isadora shrugged. “Yes.”

Sam melded himself against her and whispered
in her ear. “I don’t think so. I think it’s something. Something
world-changingly important.” He turned her around to face him and
tipped her head back with his knuckle under her chin, forcing her
to look him in the eye. “You do love me, don’t you Izzy?”

She shook her head.

He grinned at her. “
Yes.
You do.”

She blinked away the sudden sting in her
eyes. Her larynx felt swollen. She swallowed hard. “So? So what if
I do? It doesn’t signify. I can never marry a scuba diving vagabond
marine biologist.”

“But Izzy—Iz, I’m doing what I want to do.
Living the way I choose. You aren’t. You’re living according to
your mother’s dictates.”

“She’s all I have.”

“You have me.”

“I’m all she has.”

“She has Delilah and Chas. She’ll
survive.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can.”

“No! I can’t! I’m not brave like you! I can’t
just walk away from everything. I can’t.”

Sam fanned his hands over the sides of her
face, closed his eyes tight and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Okay.
Okay. But give me tonight. One night with you—the real you. No
lies, just truth. Hearts wide open. Allow me that much at
least.”

“And then we say goodbye? We move on with our
lives? No bitterness? No regrets?”

“Yes,” he breathed against her ear.

“Okay then. I’ll stay.”

* * *

Sam rolled Izzy over onto her belly and
traced the tattoo with the tip of his tongue. “Okay. I’ll allow you
one lie: Tell me you’ll always keep this as a memory of us.”

Izzy giggled but her eyes misted. “I’ll
always keep my frogman tattoo as a memory of us.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Sam?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you write that memoir?”

His eyes tracked up to her face, but his
finger wandered into the cleft between her legs.

She sucked in a breath.

“You like that, huh?”

“Oh yes.”

He gave the tattoo a suctioning kiss and then
said, “I needed the money to help pay for my research. It’s a pet
project of mine that I couldn’t get completely funded through
traditional avenues. But it’s important. Or, I believe it will
be.”

“Oh.” His finger dipped into her vagina and
then slid over her clitoris. “Oh—
Ooohh!
”

He rolled her onto her back and continued his
exploration from that angle as he nipped and sucked the tender skin
of her breasts.

As he nuzzled one of her nipples with the end
of his nose, he said, “The memoir is going to fly to the best
seller lists. Or, at least that’s what my editor says. They gave me
a sizeable advance to prove it. The book’s just the kind of
titillating fodder that people love to devour.”

Then
he
devoured
her
. Bit and
tasted her chin and neck, her shoulders and arms, her breasts and
belly.

Isadora couldn’t take in a full breath.
Suddenly, there were too many barriers between them. She ripped at
his towel and his erection sprung into her hand. Hot and alive.

He flung his head back. “Ah! God, Iz!”

“You like that, huh?” she repeated his words
of a moment ago.

He fisted his hands in her hair and captured
her mouth. Soon his pelvis was rocking to the beat of her loving
strokes.

“I want to taste you,” she said between
kisses.

“I want to taste you, too.”

“All right.”

“In tandem or simultaneously?”

“Ahh. A true scientist, I see.”

He grinned and kissed her again. “Well?”

She chuckled. “Simultaneously.
Definitely.”

“Excellent choice.” Changing position so that
his head was on level with her sex, he hoisted one of her bent
knees to rest on his neck and shoulder. Then he spread her labia
lips and pressed a soft kiss to the center of her.

She was much more impatient, however. She
stroked the length of him with her hand from base to top and sucked
the pearl of liquid desire from its tip into her mouth.

The muscles of his buttocks flinched, nearly
yanking him from her grasp.

He bent his head then and trailed the tip of
his tongue around the circumference of her opening, making her
tummy tremble.

In answer, she ran her own tongue around the
head of his penis, then flicked the line of skin on the bottom side
of it.

He jerked.

She did it again.

He groaned.

Then he laved her clitoris until she arched
into him and moaned.

She filled her mouth with him and he suckled
her clit until her muscles tensed and her thighs quivered.

She wrapped her hands around his erection and
sucked on him in the same fashion. He rocked his pelvis, stroking
himself between her hands, between her lips, across her tongue.

He sent his middle finger into her and
caressed the sweet spot inside of her. Her hips rocked against his
mouth. He lifted her knee so that she was spread wide as he suckled
her, teased her clitoris with his tongue in ever faster beats. She
flung her head back and felt the first tight spasms of release. And
then she shattered. “Sam! Oh-oh-
ahh!
”

When she settled, fell back with her legs
limply spread, Sam raised up and reached for a condom out of the
drawer of his nightstand.

“Now for the crescendo.”

She laughed, but it came out as a sort of
wheeze. “That wasn’t a crescendo?”

“No. More a mezzo-forte. Not near loud
enough.”

“Oh, goody.”

It warmed her heart in a way she wasn’t
prepared to examine when that got a laugh out of him.

* * *

Sam strained and bucked. He couldn’t get
enough of her. They’d started this with her on top, but somewhere
after her second orgasm, a primal need to dominate made him roll
her to her back and take control. She didn’t seem to mind. Damp
strands of glorious red hair clung to her flushed cheeks, swept
over the bottom lip of her parted mouth as she moaned and twisted
beneath him.

“Do you know how many nights I lay awake that
autumn after we met, imagining how you’d look with no clothes on?
How you’d feel beneath me? How it would feel to be deep inside
you?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, then
stroked her fingers through his hair. “Oh, Sam.”

He bent his head and gave her a hard kiss,
then he said, “I love you, Izzy.”

“I love you, too, Sam.”

He lifted her leg over his shoulder and slid
further into her.

She cried out.

“Too much?” he said.

“No! God no!”

With short, shallow thrusts he rocked into
her, watching the bloom on her cheeks glow ever more brightly,
feeling her vagina clasp and unclasp, clasp and unclasp, clasp and
unclasp. He began a new rhythm then: three shallow, one deep, three
shallow, one deep until her breathing grew labored and she began to
whimper.

“Come with me, Izzy.” He felt his scrotum
tighten, felt his semen rise. His muscles grew rigid. He
shouted.

Grasping hold of her hips, he rammed into
her, hard and fast.

“Yes! Oh, God, yes!” she cried.

He felt the walls of her canal spasm around
him and in the next instant, he vaulted over the peak as well.

* * *

“I don’t want to close my eyes,” Sam
said.

“You don’t want to go to sleep?”

“I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Wait. Isn’t that a song?”

“I’m serious.”

Isadora sighed. “I know. I know you are. I—I
don’t want to sleep tonight either. I just want to be with you. In
this moment.” She rolled over, turning her back to him. “I’ve been
with you only in my dreams for long enough.”

Sam raised up on one elbow and placed his
hand on her shoulder. For a long moment, all he could do was absorb
the pained expression on her face. “Why Izzy? Why did you ruin it?
Sleep with Chas that night? And why did you make damned sure I’d
walk in on it?” He forced her to her back. “Why? If you loved me,
why?”

She lifted her palm to his cheek and gazed
into his eyes. She didn’t say a word.

“Why?” he whispered.

“Because of my mother.”

He gripped her shoulders. “Are you saying
your mother made you sleep with Chas?”

“Yes—no, not exactly. She wanted—demanded
that I help our family out of its crisis.” She pushed Sam away and
sat up. “You remember. My father. The fraudulent investment scheme.
The trial.” A heavy pause and then: “The imprisonment.”

Sam took hold of her hand and gave it a
squeeze.

She looked at him then. “It was the only way.
We were social pariahs. Censured and snubbed.” Her brow crinkled.
“Don’t you see? I couldn’t run off and marry just anyone I
chose—and certainly not a scuba-diving renegade from his family’s
fortune.”

Sam flung the sheet off his hips and swung
his feet to the floor. “And yet, nearly eight years later, your big
sacrifice has gotten your family exactly nowhere.” He stood up and
pulled on his boxers. “I need a drink.”

* * *

Isadora wandered into the living room a few
minutes later. Sam was sprawled on the sofa with what looked like a
tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

He lifted it up toward her. “Scotch?”

“No—no, thanks.”

He looked into the amber liquid a moment.
“Did you know that I had to take two shots of this stuff before I
could get up the courage to ask you to marry me that night?”

A knife point of pain went straight through
her heart. “No. No, I didn’t.” She looked down at her clasped
hands. “Your proposal was one of the most romantic things I’ve ever
heard. You swept me off my feet—made me forget—made me accept when
I knew, deep down, I shouldn’t.”

He didn’t respond, just pierced her with his
pain-filled glare and took another long pull on his scotch before
placing it on the end table.