Following Trouble (11 page)

“The minute I’m free, I swear to God,” he whispered.

“Yes.”
I sniffed, sitting back and letting him take the ring out and slide it onto my finger. It fit perfectly. Sneaky. He must have raided my jewelry box while I was at work and figured out my ring size, because he never asked, never gave me any indication.

“Well you’ll have a lot of planning to do, between a wedding and a baby.”
My mother dabbed at her eyes as Rob got back up into his chair.

“I’m not waddling dow
n the aisle like a fat penguin,” I scoffed, staring at the ring on my finger. Was I dreaming?

“I
’m the one who wears a tuxedo,” Rob reminded me. He was grinning from ear to ear, so pleased with himself.

“I’m so happy for you.”
My mother leaned over and kissed my cheek.

“Congratulat
ions,” my father said. I glanced over and saw his eyes were damp at the corners.

“Well, who wants dessert?” My mother stood, picking up her glass. “I have strawberry shortcake!”

“Sounds great.” My father stood too, following her. “As soon as I make some room.”

“Dad!” I covered my face with my hands and I heard Rob chuckle as they went into the house.

“Hey.” Rob took my wrists, turning me toward him. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I said honestly, looking down at the ring on my finger. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned.”

“Not as beautiful as you.” He leaned in to steal a kiss before my parents came back out, whispering against my lips, “I have one more surprise for you.”

I laughed.
“I don’t think my heart can handle any more surprises.”

“Just one more.”

* * * *

The water in Aruba was like bath water, a bright, light blue so clear it was like looking through glass to the bottom. I’d wondered what Rob was doing when he went back to talk to
Barb for “just a minute,” at my appointment. He’d acted so secretive and wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but now I knew. He wanted to make sure that snorkeling was safe at this stage in pregnancy.

“Unfortunately, scuba diving is out,” Rob told me, adjusting my mask as we stood waist deep in the clear blue water
in our flippers. He sounded like he had a cold, because he already had his mask on. “But snorkeling is easy and Dr. Barb said it was just fine.”

“Are you going down my list?”
Now I sounded like I had a cold.

“What list?”

“You know… when you asked me what I wanted?” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Swimming in the ocean, snorkeling in Aruba, a baby… what’s next?”

“I told you, I like memorizing you.”
He leaned over and kissed me, our masks clashing, making me laugh.

“I’
m scared,” I said as we started to wade further in.

“Hold my hand, you’ll be fine. We’re going with the current, so you won’t have to do any heavy swimming. Just let the water take you around the reef. We can float like babies.”

“Like our little girl.” My hand went automatically to my belly. It was slightly rounded above the elastic band of my bikini bottoms.

“Yep,” he said, only it came out ‘yeb.’
“Hey, what do you think of the name Capri?”

He’d been throwing weird girl names out randomly like that ever since we’d found out the gender. I teased him that our baby wasn’t going to have a strange “Hollywood” name and always countered with something sensible.

“Capri? As in pants?” I snorted. “How about Esther?”

“Esther. Huh.” He seemed to consider this. “I actually kind of like Esther.”

“I was kidding.” I rolled my eyes.

“It was your idea!”

“Let’s snorkel.”

He took my hand and we dove in, letting the salt water buoy us up. Rob held my hand as we drifted, breathing through our snorkels and watching the un
derwater life swim by. It was like peeking into a secret world. The water was so shallow at first, I could have reached out and touched the fish, if they’d let me. I tried, a few times, but they would lash their colorful tails and swim away.

The current took us, just as Rob said it would, into deeper water. The coral reef below was colorful and bright, even from a distance. Fish darted in and out and my heart jumped in my chest when Rob pointed out what looked like the dark shadow of a small shark cruising the reef. I knew it was probably okay—the guy who ran the snorkeling class said most sharks weren’t interested in humans and those than came around were just curious. He even taught us how to hit them in the nose if they came close, although I didn’t think I’d have the guts to punch a shark in the face.

I don’t know how long we were in the water but by the time the current took us to the first cut, a sandy bottomed area between the coral marked by a white buoy, the sun had moved halfway across the sky. Rob kicked us to shore and we waded out, sitting on the beach and peeling off our masks. Other snorkelers on the same dive were doing the same, talking about all the things we’d seen. Apparently someone else had seen the shark too.

“Did you see the shark, Dad?” a little boy asked. He was probably around ten. “I wish he’d come by me! I would have punched him!”

Rob and I looked at each other and cracked up. He had lines on his cheeks from the mask and I knew I must have them too, but he looked at me like I was the most delicious, beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me deeply, forgetting about the father and son, about the rest of the people coming out of the water.

“There. Now you’ve gone snorkeling in Aruba,” Rob murmured against my lips.

“Check.” I put my arms around his neck.

“Wait until you see where we’re staying.” Rob nuzzled my throat, licking the salt water from my ear. “I’m going to fuck you in the
Caribbean Ocean tonight.”

I moaned softly, feeling his hand move over my hip, pulling me closer to him on the sand.

“That wasn’t on my list,” I whimpered, feeling my nipples harden when he took my earlobe between his teeth.

“We’re expanding it.”

* * * *

Our room wasn’t a room at all. We stayed that night in a little tiki hut standing on four posts directly anchored in the water. Rob said there were all sorts of these up and down the coast
and most were meant for afternoons lounging after swimming in the warm, bath-like water. But we had one all to ourselves—there was no one anywhere for miles up and down the beach. Rob, as usual, had thought of everything. It was fully stocked, including a tray of tropical fruit and a big platform bed.

“This is paradise!” I
stretched my arms out to the sky, letting myself fall back into the water, making a huge splash.

Rob laughed as I came up, taking me into his arms and kissing me deeply as we floated together. I wrapped myself around him, licking salt from his lips, kissing it from his eyelashes.

“Soak up the sun now, baby.” He waded further into deeper water, taking me with him. “Tomorrow we’ll be in Ireland.”

I couldn’t even believe it.
Did people really do this? One day in the Caribbean, the next in Europe? It made my head spin.

We ate dinner in our tiki hut and watched the sun set. I thought Florida had the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen until I saw the sun set in Aruba. Rob fed me crab and lobster and I sucked butter off his fingers and let it run down my chin so he could lick it off. The pineapple was so sweet and juicy, I got
it all down the front of me. Rob licked that too, his tongue trailing between my cleavage. Then we stripped down to nothing and slipped into the water and washed off after dinner, floating and kissing ourselves silly.

When the sun disappeared below the horizon, Rob lit two tiki torches on either side of our hut and lit candles inside. There was no electricity at all, so we had to eat all of the perishable food and then we stored the other—
including more fruit and muffins and granola for breakfast. The bottled water stayed cold in cooler packed with dry ice.

“
It feels like a honeymoon,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and towel drying my wet hair as Rob came up the ladder from checking on the torches outside. I looked up at him as he approached. He already had a gorgeous color, all tawny, lean muscle. I liked going around naked with him. “Or Blue Lagoon. Do you remember that old movie? I saw it on HBO when I was like twelve. It was the first sex movie I ever saw.”

“That’s not a sex movie.” Rob laughed, sitting beside me on the mattress.

“My dad monitored my internet very closely.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “I didn’t see porn until I got to college.”

“Such a sheltered life.”

“It just reminds me of that.” I went over and hung the towel to dry on a rack. “Of course, they were younger—just young teens. But Brooke Shields was pregnant because Christopher Atkins couldn’t keep his hands off her. They were just kids, but it all came so natural. When it came down to it, they just knew what to do.”

“Well I know how he felt.” Rob was leaning back on his elbows, looking at me as I came back toward the bed, his gaze sweeping up from my feet to my hair. “Because I can’t keep my hands off you either.”

“Can you imagine it though?” I climbed in bed and stretched out beside him. “Being stranded some place like this, just the two of us. Not knowing anything, having no one around to tell you how it all works.”

“But you’d know what feels good.” Rob rolled toward me and I felt the heat of his erection against my hip. “When I was that age, I couldn’t keep my hands off my cock.”

“Really?” I smiled, reaching down and taking him in my hand. “I know the feeling.”

“And all I could think about was girls.” He lowered his head to my chest, his tongue tracing slow circles on my breast, avoiding my nipple.

“I was boy crazy,” I admitted, feeling his cock swelling in my hand. “But I didn’t know what I wanted, not really. I just knew I wanted
something.
And I wanted it very, very much.”

“Now you know.” He rolled slowly onto me, thigh parting mine.

“Yes.” I guided him, tugging gently until he shifted between my legs, poised above me. “Are you really gonna marry me?”

“First chance I get.”
His hips moved as I kept him there, the tip right at my entrance. “I am going to marry you so hard.”

“
Fuck me first,” I said, letting him slide through my fist and into my pussy in one, long, glorious stroke. “Really, really hard.”

We both moaned at the sensation of him entering me. Everything down there felt fat and swollen these days. It felt like I was always ready for him, always turned on. He said I felt hotter, tighter somehow, even when he just put his fingers in. I squeezed my muscles around him and heard him gasp, felt the way his thighs tightened between mine.

I rolled my hips to meet him, smiling at the way he stayed above me, careful of my belly, even though I told him it didn’t hurt me and couldn’t hurt the baby. But it gave me the opportunity to look at him in the candlelight, to watch the muscles in his abdomen work as he thrust his cock into me again and again. He was so fucking beautiful. I couldn’t stand it.

“Rob,” I whispered, putting my arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. I wanted him, all of him. I welcomed the weight of him on top of me. His tongue slipped between my lips, thrusting like his cock, as if his body had taken over completely. But he was still careful not to put his full weight on me, too worried about the baby.

I wiggled underneath him, pushing up with my hips, urging him to his back.

“You want to be on top?” He grabbed my hips and rolled, effortlessly, taking me with him.

“Mine.” I leaned in to capture his mouth, sucking at his full lips, licking down that delightful dent in his chin, nibbling on his neck as my hips moved in easy circles, feeling the swelling of his cock deep inside of me.

“
Yes, baby. I’m all yours.” His hands ran up from my hips to my ribs, fingertips grazing my nipples, making me moan. They weren’t painful anymore but they were even more sensitive.

“Suck.” I arched my back, offering him
my nipple. Rob moaned, pressing my breasts together, fleshy and full, his tongue bathing one nipple and then the other like he couldn’t decide which one he wanted in his mouth.

I rocked my hips faster, grinding on his cock, my clit throbbing. His tongue on my nipple was like a direct current straight between my legs, driving me wild, making me dance on top of him, electrified.

“Ohhh fuck!” I cried as he sucked my nipple hard, drawing it deep into his mouth, rolling my other nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Oh God, you’re gonna make me come!”

My fingernails dug onto his shoulders, hanging on for balance as he fucked me from underneath, wild with lust as my climax crested and broke, like a wave. He thrust up, deep and hard, my pussy clamping down on his length.

“Ohhhh Sabrina!” He moaned against my breasts, crushing me to him and driving his hips up so high as he filled me, both of us came up off the bed. My whole body shuddered on top of him until I couldn’t hang on at all anymore, collapsing, but he held me fast, easing me down to the bed beside him, still trembling.