Footsteps (29 page)

“Excellent. Will you spend the day with
me?”

Shifting to sit up a little, he sighed. “I’d
love that. But I have to get back to Trey.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” Disappointed, she
dropped her head.

With a finger under her chin, he brought her
back up. “Bina. Is this the start of something? Are we together
now? Are you ready for that? Is it what you want?”

So many questions all at once, but they all
had the same answer. “Yes. To all of it, yes. Carlo, I love you,
too. I’m ready, I think.”

“You think?”

“I know. I’m strong enough. I know myself
better. Not all the way, maybe not halfway even, but enough to know
that this is what I want. Enough to be part of something with
you.”

For a few seconds, he simply stared into her
eyes, and she could sense him searching for something. She let him
look. Then he bent his head and kissed her. “Then come with me. We
can go out on the boat. Trey’s still on the hunt for sharks. Then
maybe we can see if we can get everybody together for dinner.”

“I love that. A perfect day. I need to
shower first.” She tossed the covers back and sat up, then looked
over her shoulder at him. “Join me?”

He grinned. “Definitely. Let me call and
check on Trey’s night, and then I’ll be in.”

Feeling light and happy in a way that was
unfamiliar but welcome, Sabina padded naked to the bathroom. She
started the water in the tub and turned on the showerhead. As it
was heating up, she took care of some other bathroom business,
including brushing her teeth—and her hair, though she laughed at
her silliness as soon as she was finished.

When the water was steaming, she stepped in
and stood under the spray, letting it wet her completely. While her
eyes were closed, the spray running over her face, Carlo pulled the
shower curtain back and came in with her.

“Wow—hot!”

She brought her head forward and blinked
through the water in her eyes. “Are you so sensitive?” she teased.
“Should I make it more cool for your delicate skin?”

His hands on her hips, and pulled her to
him, turning her as he did, so that her back was to him. “You are a
smartass.”

She laughed, but she had lost interest in
banter. He was hard; she could feel him against her back, and she
suddenly felt dizzy with need. His hands slid wetly over her skin,
and she shimmied her hips back and forth, until he groaned and
caught her hips in his hands again, stopping her motion.

“Baby, this is gonna be a long shower if you
don’t settle down.”

She tipped her head back, leaning on his
chest, and looked up at him. “Would that be wrong?”

He kissed her nose. “I can’t think of a
reason why. My mind’s a blank.”

Feeling a bit playful yet, she reached
behind her and took him in her hand. Blushing at the thought of
what she was about to say and hoping that the flush from the hot
water would camouflage her naïve shyness, she said, “I like your
cock. It’s long and thick. It feels good in my hand.”

“Cock?”

More embarrassed now, she let him go and
looked over her shoulder. “Is that a wrong word? No, I know that
word. Is it one you don’t like?”

“No—it’s a great word. I’m just surprised to
hear you say it.”

Relieved, she smiled. “I like it. It feels
good in my mouth”—she blushed again—“the word, I mean.” Then,
deciding to be brave and follow through on the playful sexiness she
felt between them, she added, “But you will feel good in my mouth,
too, I know.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. “You make me
crazy.”

The thought occurred to her that she
could—that maybe, with all that talk, she should—take him into her
mouth now. But the thought of going to her knees brought up
memories she was trying to erase, and, yes, maybe doing that for
Carlo would be a way to overwrite them. But they were too vivid
yet, and she could feel
his
presence too near. What she and
Carlo had shared last night had no direct analogue to anything she
had done before. Going to her knees before him, though—that was
something with which she had experience. So she wasn’t ready for
that.

If she’d been worried that Carlo would be
impatient with her for teasing him with the prospect of a blowjob,
she need not have been. After a few seconds in which she felt
awkward while she battled her head and he simply caressed her wet
body, he reached around her and pulled the bar of soap from the
dish built into the wall. He lathered his hands and set the bar
back, then pulled her flat against his chest and soaped her
up—shoulders, arms, belly—making slow, thrilling circles on her
overheated skin.

Her head fell back to his chest with a light
thud
, and she whimpered.

“Does it feel good, baby?”

She liked to hear him call her ‘baby.’ She
felt like his—not like a possession, a thing, but like she was
precious to him. She nodded.

“Can you tell me?” His hands moved up from
her twitching belly, still making lazy circles, and then covered
her breasts.

She gasped, and then, when his fingers
swirled over her nipples, plucking gently, she cried, “Oh, yes! It
feels good!”

Still teasing her nipples, he bent down and
kissed her shoulder, and then she felt his tongue sliding from the
ball of her shoulder to her neck and then up. He nipped lightly at
her ear. “I want to be inside you.”

She whimpered, and he thrust his hips,
driving his rock-solid cock harder against her back.

“I want to take you like this, from behind.
With my hands on you like this.” He plucked a little more than
gently this time, and Sabina wondered if it was possible to come
from that touch alone. Her ache now was so deep that she realized
that she was reflexively clenching and unclenching the muscles
between her thighs. She resisted the urge to touch herself and then
wondered why she was.

She put her hand between her legs and at
first just pressed it against her clit. She moaned at her own
contact and rolled forward a little; he brought her back flush with
his chest. “God, that’s beautiful. Can I be inside you like
this?”

She loved that he asked. When she nodded,
his hands left her breasts and went to her waist. He turned them
both and lifted her, setting her up on the ledge of the tub, facing
the tile wall. The ledge was fairly deep, though, so she wasn’t
flat against the wall. She was confused, but then he nudged her
legs apart, and she felt him pushing at her core, and she
understood. He’d made her taller—the perfect height to slide into
her and go deep. At the brilliant sensation of his cock filling her
completely, she fell back against him with a sound that was almost
a scream. A scream of consuming pleasure.

His hands came back to her breasts, and his
mouth was at her ear again. “You can touch yourself, Bina. I like
it.”

It took a moment for her to understand why
she would—he was filling her, thrusting so deep, exciting her
breasts, growling in her ear, and it was all wonderful. She didn’t
understand how she could improve upon this perfection. And then she
began to get close to that breathtaking peak that he’d found for
her over and over again last night, and she felt an ache. And she
understood. She could have every touch at once.

She rubbed her clit in small circles, as
she’d learned she liked best, and right away, the pleasure that was
so fierce it nearly hurt was on her, and she heard herself grunting
with every thrust of Carlo’s hips. She came hard, her pulse
sounding like a jet engine in her ears, her vision sparkling around
the edges, and her body spasming so strongly that Carlo nearly lost
his balance. He took half the shower curtain down trying to steady
them both.

Laughing through his own strained grunts, he
set her feet on the floor of the tub and bent her at the waist,
taking her hips in his hands and pounding into her while the
shower, its spray cooling, cascaded over them both. As his thrusts
became erratic and wild, Bina came again, crying out, “Oh God, Oh
God!” again and again to the rhythm of his hips. He came right
after her this time, making a sound like anguish.

When it was over, Carlo pulled out of her
and swept her into his arms, his breathing as loud and labored as
hers, and lifted her out of the tub. He set her down, wrapped her
up in a towel, and then folded her into an encompassing embrace.
With the curtain destroyed, the shower sprayed into the room, but
neither of them cared enough to worry.

He kissed her temple, brushing her wet hair
back. “Was that too much?”

“No. That was heaven.”

~oOo~

“Ms. Bina, you watch that way and I’ll watch
this way.”

“Okay, Mr. Trey. What should I watch for? I
can’t remember.” Sabina met Carlo’s eyes over Trey’s head and
grinned. She let her eyes linger a little, enjoying the way his
muscles flexed as he worked the sails and navigated the boat. Now
she had a trove of memories of how that beautiful body felt, how it
tasted. Her eyes fluttered closed for just a second, and she was
glad of the big sunglasses she was wearing.

“Ms. Bina, I
told
you already! Try to
listen better.” Trey put his hands on his hips and sighed, his
bright yellow life vest lifting and settling with his dramatic
inhale and exhale.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be better.”

“It’s okay. Look for a big triangle in the
water.” He lifted his arms and made a triangle over his head.
“Sharks come in all sizes but we want to see a BIG shark.”

Sabina wasn’t so sure she agreed, but Carlo
had promised her that in all his life on the coast, he’d only seen
a few sharks, and none of them had been the kind horror movies were
made about.

“Daddy took me to the Ex-por-lation Center
and they had sharks but they were just little.” He gestured to
demonstrate how little by pinching his thumb and forefinger almost
together.

“They were bigger than that, pal. One was
about three feet long.”

Trey turned on his father. “But they weren’t
like on Shark Week.” Looking out over the water, he finished his
story. “Uncle Joey showed me Shark Week and there are sharks big
like Pop-Pop’s truck! And even bigger! I want to see one like that.
With BIG TEETH LIKE KNIVES.”

Luca was sailing with them, though Sabina
wasn’t entirely sure why. She didn’t mind at all—she had a filial
love for Luca that had grown quite deep. He was rough around the
edges and prone to saying whatever was on his mind, but he was
conscientious and devoted to his family, too. He was a groaning
mess today, and Sabina couldn’t fathom why he’d accepted Carlo’s
invitation. When she’d teased him and asked, he’d muttered, not
very convincingly, that he never passed up a chance to get on the
water. But he was obviously hung over from the night before, and
he’d been lying supine on the deck at everybody’s feet, a can of
beer perched on his bare chest, growing warm.

Now, Luca lifted his head, turning his
Oakley-shielded eyes toward his nephew. “Careful what you wish for,
champ. Maybe one of those big sharks will take a bite. Chomp
chomp!” He reached out with one hand, grabbing at Trey’s
ankles.

Trey giggled and jigged out of his reach.
Carlo kicked a foot out and connected hard with Luca’s thigh,
making him grunt. “Careful, man. He goes overboard, so do you.”

“You’re silly, Uncle Luca. Sharks don’t go
in boats. Are you looking, Ms. Bina?”

“I am, Mr. Trey. Big triangle. I’m
looking.”

Being on the Paganos’ little sailboat was
much different from what ‘sailing’ with Auberon had been. Sailing
then, on a yacht with an extensive cabin below, was about
entertaining appropriately. The ocean was nothing more than a
venue. Sailing now, with Carlo and Trey and Luca, was really
being
on the water. Several times, Sabina had leaned over
and let her hand trail in the light froth of the water they were
moving through—until Trey would share another shark fact, and she’d
pull her hand back for a while.

The day was perfect for the water. She’d
never paid much attention to the mechanics of sailing, but she
could tell that the day was fine for it—puffy white clouds moving
across the cerulean blue sky, just enough breeze to fill out the
sails and to make her need a ponytail so that she didn’t yank the
wayward strands out in frustration. Carlo was happy, Trey was
happy. Luca was recovering. She was happy. She felt full and
complete and content.

Carlo dropped anchor not far from Block
Island, and they ate a lunch that he and Sabina had prepared in the
kitchen of the house on Caravel Road. By then, Luca was more
lively, and they had a funny, elaborate conversation while Trey
tried to teach them shark facts and all the grownups played
dumb.

Carlo sat next to her while they ate and
found a thousand little reasons to touch her. She was wearing a
black monokini with extremely deep décolletage, brought to decency
by two goldtone rings. Carlo’s expression when she’d stepped out of
the bathroom on Caravel Road wearing it and her paisley pareo had
been
extremely
affirming. He’d said nothing, but since then,
she’d felt his hands on her bare skin again and again, just light
touches, innocence tinged with promise.