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Ch8:Taking a Dip

Leah woke to the sound of a boat gunning its motor in the near distance. As she blinked sleepily, the jarring noise faded only to be replaced by the soothing sound of the wind chimes Embry had hanging from the canopy on the upper deck.

The realization of where she was struck her suddenly and she rolled onto her back. She rose from the empty, crumpled bed a moment later. She saw through the partially closed blinds that it was another brilliant Oahu day.

She noticed that at some point Embry had brought her discarded clothing from the deck and placed it on the dresser. Her purse sat on top of the folded clothes. She retrieved her cell phone and then fingered the dressy blouse doubtfully. The outfit seemed far too constraining for the comfortable environment of Embry's ocean home.

A minute later she padded down the hallway, appreciatively catching the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Embry appeared to be nowhere in sight as she poured a cup of the rich brew and found some creamer in the refrigerator. She carried her coffee to the partially opened double doors that led to the deck and stepped outside.

The lagoon winked at her cheerily in the bright morning sunlight. Leah sat down on the deck next to the ladder and let her feet dangle in the water. She sipped the hot coffee, enjoying the sultry breeze and the feeling of the warm sun on her legs. She dialed the number for the Moana Surfrider and requested Rosalie's room. Her friend answered groggily after three rings.

"Sorry to wake you Rose."

"Leah?" Rosalie asked, sounding considerably perkier all of a sudden. "I got your message last night. What's going on? Did you meet someone when you went out last night?"

"Yeah, I did," Leah murmured. "What about you? Did you and Emmett have a fun time?"

"Oh my God, we had so much fun. You were right though, I nearly did break my ankle dancing in those heels. We went to this place called the Green Turtle and danced until two in the morning—what about you?" she interrupted herself abruptly. "You must have met someone amazing for you to spend the night with him. You never stay all night with a guy, and don't you try getting out of giving me all the juicy details."

"I did meet up with someone pretty amazing. You actually already know him… Embry Call." Leah heard the waves lapping gently against the side of the houseboat in the stunned silence that followed.

"Embry Call? I thought you couldn't stand the sight of him."

Leah chuckled softly, "Be real, Rose, I doubt there's a woman alive on the planet who couldn't stand the sight of him. I'm only human you know."

Rosalie gave an incredulous bark of laughter. "Shit Leah, leave it to you to get that gorgeous man into bed. How did you do it?"

Leah spied Embry in the narrow passage between the lagoon and the expanse of the ocean. He knifed through the water with breathtaking power. Leah knew it took a special kind of strength and experience to be an ocean swimmer, but Embry made it look as natural as breathing.

"It's a long story. I'm going to stay here with him on his houseboat for the rest of the day. If that's okay with you, I mean."

"Of course it is. You know I'll be fine… I'm just still in shock."

"It's not that shocking Rose. Pretty cut and dry actually. It's like you said last night: I might as well live a little while I'm here."

Leah managed to quiet her friend's questions with a promise to give an explanation later. "I'll call you this afternoon, okay?" she asked before she hung up. She leaned back and sipped her coffee while she watched Embry come toward her, his back muscles flexing and gleaming magnificently in the brilliant sun.

"Good morning," she greeted when he finally surfaced near her dangling feet.

"Hi." He wasn't even out of breath, Leah realized with a touch of admiration. He yanked off his goggles and wiped off his streaming face. He looked down at her body and grinned.

"I hope you don't mind," she said, referring to the huge T-shirt she'd pulled out of his bureau drawer. "I didn't feel like putting on my pants and blouse yet." The shirt featured an illustration of a female with a Pamela Anderson-type body with a surfboard under her arm. It read Maui High Wave Patrol.

Embry chuckled before he dipped his head back in the water, efficiently getting tendrils of hair out of his eyes. "I don't mind at all, might have been nice if you had found something that didn't validate your stereotype of me being a surfer dude."

"Aren't you?" she teased before she took a sip of coffee.

"Well, yeah, but that's not the point." She caught the glint in his eye and grinned right along with him. He draped an arm over the bottom rung of the ladder. "You know… I think I like you in the morning."

"But you're still undecided?" she asked in mock disbelief.

"No, I've decided." He said, his tone mellow even if his stare on her wasn't.

Leah looked pointedly out at the ocean, trying to minimize the effect of his gaze. "Do you still compete in swimming?"

He shook his head. "Not since the World Championships in 08."

"And do you miss it?"

"Yea and no. I miss the competition but not all the stress and training."

She met his eyes. "Now you get to enjoy it for what it is. I can tell you love swimming. You would probably live in the water if you could, wouldn't you?"

He nodded toward his houseboat. "I do live there, remember?"

She laughed. "Some people are just naturals at something. But if they're pushed too hard at their talent, forced to perform and compete… they run the risk of losing their love affair with the thing they're good at. It becomes a task… a duty."

"You sound like you have a firsthand knowledge of that. Is that why you're so adamant about not selling out with your music?"

She paused in the motion of lifting her coffee cup to her lips. "Yes, I guess it is. Do you want a cup of coffee?"

She saw his brow furrow as he studied her. For a second, she thought he was going to pursue the topic.

But then he inhaled slowly and grinned. "Are you flying?"

She was already standing up by way of answer. "How do you take it?"

"Just a splash of cream."

He was sitting at the edge of the boat and drying off his chest and arms with a towel when she came out with his coffee.

"Thanks," he murmured when she handed him the cup and sat down next to him on the deck.

"Not a bad way to wake up every morning," she said nodding to the cerulean lagoon.

"Yeah," he mumbled. She touched her hair self-consciously wondering if that's why he looked at her with that odd expression. She'd gone to bed with it damp and hadn't combed it yet. It probably looked like a rat's nest. She finger combed it idly as they sipped their coffee in the silence that followed.

"Is Bry's closed on Sunday?" she asked.

He blinked like his mind had been far off. "No, we do a good brunch crowd on the weekend."

"Oh, I thought because of what you had said yesterday you must close on Sundays. Feel free to go any time you—"

"Leah."

She stopped abruptly when she heard the exasperation in his tone. "I told you I wanted you to spend the day here with me. If you want to go back to shore, just say the word, but don't make it seem like I'm the one who changed my mind."

"Oh, no… I don't want to," she insisted, feeling flustered. "Go back until later, I mean."

"It's not really that much to ask, is it? For you to just let go and relax—take it easy—for a few more hours?" he chided softly.

"No of course not."

His hand came up to cradle her jaw. He turned her face until she met his stare. "It actually is, though. Isn't it? A lot for me to ask."

"It's fine, Embry."

His eyebrows went up skeptically. She was glad when he didn't comment any further. He just stood and took her coffee before he grabbed her hand and helped her up. "Come on, let's sit in the sun on the front deck. After I dry off, I'll bring you some breakfast."

Leah trailed after him, wondering if she had imagined that brief charged moment. She had half convinced herself she had had after Embry led her to several padded loungers and he fell back into one of them, his hands over his head. He proceeded to soak up the heat like the sun worshipping male animal he was. Leah scooted back in her chair and submitted to the drugging effect of the warm rays. She might have even drifted off for a few minutes as she lay there next to Embry in the sunshine.

When she blinked open her heavy eyelids a while later Embry was gone. She was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes when he came around the corner carrying a tray.

"What's this?" she asked drowsily when he pulled a metal table between their loungers and set down the heavily loaded tray.

"Your breakfast. Nothing fancy. Some fruit from my gran's farms." He snagged a chunk of mango with his fingers before he sprawled in the chair. She smiled. She had never before known someone who was so supremely confident in his own skin. It was admittedly a wondrous sight: him lounging around wearing nothing but a pair of very low riding trunks. He had a torso that made her wish she was a painter or a sculptor so that she could make some feeble attempt to replicate its glory. Her gaze reluctantly transferred to the tempting sight of fresh pineapple, mangoes, strawberries, bananas, and papaya heaped onto a platter. He'd included a bowl of what looked like strawberry yogurt for dipping.

"Wow, this looks wonderful," she murmured, reaching for a pineapple wedge.

"I can make toast too."

She shook her head emphatically as she chewed the succulent fruit. "No, this is perfect for me. Thank you for cutting up all the fruit," she paused and blinked, "how long was I sleeping for?"

"Forty five minutes or so," he replied before he snagged a piece of papaya and popped it into his mouth.

Her eyes widened in surprise. She had thought she had drifted off for a minute or two, tops. Rarely did she lose herself so utterly. When she was singing a particularly good song, she lost track of time, but that was one of the few occasions she could think of when she let go so completely.

Of course she'd let go last night when Embry had coaxed her into breathing through the snorkel. And later, when he'd had his way with her on the upper deck, she'd become a primitive creature existing solely for pleasure: a raw, exposed bundle of nerves whose sole agenda was sexual release.

"What's wrong?" Embry asked. Leah realized he sat up slowly from his lazy reclining pose.

Embry tensed when a strange expression came over Leah's face and she placed the piece of mango she had been holding back on the platter. He'd been pleased—and relieved—to see how relaxed she'd seemed this morning when he returned from his swim.

It'd taken him a while to fall asleep last night. One warning alarm after another had blared in his brain, starting with the one that went off when Leah had separated herself from him after he was still struggling to recover from the most intense orgasm he ever recalled having.

The truth of the matter was, he felt guilty for pushing her so hard. But, shit, something about the stiff, bitchy attitude she donned occasionally like a bulletproof cloak royally pissed him off. As soon as she jerked that façade into place, Embry was filled with an irrational desire to rip it off her… strip her bare once again.

The second alarm blared in his brain when he saw her face after she'd walked out of the bathroom last night. She hadn't realized he was standing in the hallway at first, and ever so briefly he'd caught a glimpse of the vulnerability on her face. When they'd gone to bed, he'd seen her hesitation after he stepped out of the shorts he'd been wearing. She'd dropped her towel and gotten into bed with him naked, but at that moment he'd known for a fact he'd misplayed his hand.

He'd most definitely pushed her too far. And it wasn't because she couldn't handle some kink or hard fuck. It was because he'd used a little kink and a hard fuck to get her to drop her defenses. He'd have been better off being gentle with her, coaxing her like he had in the water into letting her rigid defenses slip.

But he had been so desperate he had gotten stupid.

Even though he had felt her stiffen when he pulled her into his arms in bed last night, he'd refused to let go. He'd waited until he felt the tension melt out of her body and heard her even breathing. It'd taken a good hour for that to happen. He'd finally fallen asleep, determined to make it up to her the next day.

When he had awakened just after dawn, his arms were empty. He'd rubbed his eyes, pausing when he saw her huddled at the far side of the bed. Her figure had looked as slight as a child's as she curled up into a small ball beneath the blanket.

Something had tightened inside his chest at the sight.

He had taken out his misgivings on the Pacific Ocean. By the time he had returned from his strenuous swim, he was convinced he had his head on straight again. Leah was a fascinating woman who was so sexy she could spin a guy right off his axis. But she had issues. Most people did. He'd be a hypocrite to blame a woman for having intimacy issues when there were probably dozen of females out there who would accuse him of the same thing.

He'd been lucky enough to be granted her company for a small period of time. He should make the most of it. She'd leave later today, and that'd be that. He just needed to spend the next few hours making up for forcing her to bend to the breaking point—all so that he could exhibit that he was more powerful than her rigid defenses. If he spent the day fully enjoying the experience of being with her and trying to make her forget his insensitivity last night, he could let her go with an easy mind.

Or so he'd thought until he'd taken off his goggles and seen her sitting on the deck of his boat earlier. She'd looked as sexy as an unmade bed with her hair tousled around her shoulders and a sublime smile on her beautiful face. Having Leah Clearwater tease you with that whiskey smooth voice first thing in the morning wasn't something a man could easily prepare himself for.

It was just her stardom plaguing him, he realized; his fascination with her bluesy, sexy voice. Her gloss would wear off, if not with the rapidness of a normal lust infatuation… quick enough, nonetheless.

She'd been relaxed enough to fall asleep up on the front deck, and she'd seemed comfortable enough when he brought out the fruit just now. But then he'd seen that shadow fall over her features, and she'd dropped the fruit back on the tray with stiff fingers.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he sat up slowly.

She glanced at him furtively and smiled. "Nothing. I was just thinking… how strange it was that I had fallen asleep for so long. I don't usually drift off so easily." She picked up the piece of mango again, not seeming to be aware that she'd ever dropped it.

"It's the sunshine and being out on the water. Lots of people don't realize how lulling even the slight movement of the boat can be."

She sighed as she chewed her fruit and stared out at the opening of the harbor and the Pacific Ocean. "Actually, I've been known to get seasick on boats. But the waves are so gently here, and your boat is so large that it absorbs most of the waves. It's nice," she admitted, but Embry heard her tentativeness.

"You sound like you're not sure about that," he teased.

She grabbed another pineapple wedge, dipped it in the yogurt, and bit off the tip. "Well there's got to be storms… typhoons even, right? What do you do then?"

"I just batten down the hatches. We get warning for typhoons, you know. It's happened twice since I've owned this boat that I've had to go weather a storm at my Gran's farm. Other than that—I have good insurance. Nature will have her way, no matter how much planning I do. Maybe you were too young to remember much about living here, but this is a typical day. It hardly ever varies."

"I remember one," she said softly after a minute of silence.

"One what?"

"One storm," she replied huskily. "A really bad one. I'd been… accidently locked out the cottage where I lived with my father."

Hadn't she implied she'd left the island son after her mother died? She must have only been a tiny thing. How could her father have "accidently" locked out a little kid in a storm? But then he remembered what she'd said about her father being an alcoholic and wondered how much that grim fact of life had played into the story.

"You must have been scared to death. When a bad storm hits the island, it can be ugly. Was it a true typhoon?"

"I don't think so. Just a bad storm. I survived." She finished off her pineapple and wiped her hands on one of the napkins he'd brought out. "I'm getting warm."

He almost called her on changing the subject so abruptly, but then remembered he was supposed to be patient with her. It galled him just to let things slide like that, but he'd promised himself. "Want to take a dip?"

She hesitated for a moment, and he wondered why. Then he realized that every time they'd swam before they'd done so after fooling around, when her inhibitions had been held in abeyance by lust. At the moment, they were highly aware of each other—or at least he was highly aware of her—but they'd hardly touched since last night. He watched her, curious as to how she would respond to the idea of stripping down to the only bathing suit she had available—her beautiful skin—with no sexual prelude.

"Sure," she replied. His eyebrows went up at her unruffled agreement, but he wasn't really surprised. Leah personified smooth coolness when she chose to. He stuffed a few more chunks of juicy mango into his mouth before he stood along with her.

"I'll put the fruit in the refrigerator until we get back from our swim," Leah offered picking up the tray. Embry just grabbed several more chunks of mango and grunted agreeably, since his mouth was full of fruit.

When she came back outside, he had already stripped out of his trunks and gotten in the water. She glanced at his discarded swimsuit and met his gaze before she reached for the hem of the shirt and matter of factly whipped it over her head. His tread in the water faltered slightly at the sight of her wearing nothing but some tiny black bikini briefs.

He loved how small her waist was. It made the curve of her hips and the fullness of her breasts so much more pronounced—so much more exciting. Her breasts looked delicious, soft vulnerable… tender. His cock lengthened in the cool water.

"Leave on your panties," he called out when she started to remove them.

She looked up sharply. "Why?"

"Because I said so," so much for being patient and going easy on her.

So much for sexual fires being banked. Just like that, the flames surged into a full-fledged inferno. He saw her mouth drop open, noticed her sudden stillness.

He hadn't been the only one who'd noticed the heat flash.

She slowly removed her fingers from her panties. She dove into the water, surfaced, and swam toward the shore without pause. The urgent tug on his penis made him knife into the water after her. A few seconds later he reached and grabbed her windmilling wrist. She whipped her head up, her long hair splashing water in his face. Her lips fell open in amazement at being halted so abruptly.

Embry plunged his tongue between them.

He sealed their mouths together, swallowed her gasp of shock and sent his tongue deep. He felt her slip slightly in the water beneath his ravaging kiss and pulled her closer to his body, letting his treading legs support most of their weight. The sensation of her silky skin sliding next to his, her soft breasts and pointed nipples pressing against his chest, caused his cock to surge like a snake at the strike.

"God, you feel good… taste so fucking good." He muttered a moment later as he kissed the salt water off her lips and cheeks and filled a hand with a breast. When he heard her soft moan, he covered her mouth again with his, kissing her feverishly. His excitement was like a flash floor, coming upon him unexpectedly and with torrential force.

He was so temporarily insane with lust that he would have driven into her pussy right there in the middle of the lagoon, fucked her like a madman if he could have managed it without drowning them both.

He ripped his mouth from hers. She blinked up at him dazedly when he grabbed her hand and tugged her alongside him.

"Embry," she sputtered through a mouthful of seawater.

"Bed," he replied monosyllabically. He'd gone caveman under the influence of his furiously throbbing cock.

"Just let me swim," she said.

He realized that it would be more efficient for them to swim to the boat instead of him dragging her through the water. He swam slowly next to her, not wanting her out of his sight for some reason. Maybe it was just his cock influencing him—making sure its source of relief didn't get too far out of striking distance. He'd have laughed at himself if he wasn't horny enough to tear bare fisted through a wall to get to Leah at the moment.

When she reached for the ladder, he placed a hand above hers, stilling her. He held her hip and pressed his aching cock against her ass. His hand found her panties and shoved them down to her thighs. He flexed his hips aggressively, searching for her heated core. She whimpered when he encircled her waist firmly and skewered her with his cock. He pushed her down on him at the same time that he thrust. A harsh shout tore out of his throat when he fully embedded himself in her sleek, tight pussy.

"Ah, fuck, I'm sorry," he muttered between clenched teeth as he began to fuck her, making the water churn wildly around them. "But you feel so damned good. I won't cum in you, but…"

He clenched his eyes shut as he lost himself in her. She was so hot, and she gloved him so tightly. He slammed into her with short, hard thrusts, feeling like a wild, feral animal had taken up residence between his legs… invaded his brain, even. Every time he withdrew slightly he experience a blinding mandate to be back in her. Her pussy sucked at him like a hungry, hot little mouth, taunting him to test her depths higher and harder and faster.

He used his hold on her waist to slam her down more forcefully on his driving cock, creating a frantic tempo. The water surged and boiled around them. He plunged into her to his balls, his cock lurching viciously inside her hot, muscular sheath.

He shouted in anguish when he jerked out of her. He clung to the ladder for dear life and turned his body slightly away from her. His cock felt unbearably sensitive when he pumped himself, climax tore through him. He shot off what felt like a geyser of semen into the water.

He shuddered when he felt her cool, small hand fist his cock. He kept his eyes closed, overwhelmed by pleasure as they both milked his spasming member together.

When he came back to himself and opened his heavy eyelids, he saw her watching him with huge eyes. She was still holding on to the ladder, but she'd twisted around to stare at him. Her hand still fisted his softened cock. Her lips and cheeks were flushed bright, signaling her arousal.

It'd likely been five minutes tops since the moment she'd removed his T-shirt and dived in the water.

"Sorry," he mumbled, embarrassment overcoming him when it slowly began to dawn on him what he'd just done. Talk about being hit by a bolt of sex lightning. What would he have done if he had been struck by it in the midst of a public place? Probably would be being pulled off Leah and arrested right about now, he thought with a stab of amusement. He didn't realize he was smiling until he saw Leah's lips curve.

"Little anxious for it, weren't you?" she asked in that low, husky voice that he craved.

He smirked. "I don't know what would ever make you say that."

The sound of her laughter was as good as fucking her had been.

Almost.

"Come on, let's go inside and I'll make it up to you," he assured her with a kiss.

Would have had this out hours ago but better late then never right? :)

Anyways hope everyone had a lovely weekend!

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