S.E.C.R.E.T. (Secret 1)

Dropping the damp blanket to the floor, I looked around the room. I opened the small galley closet and found a few blue work shirts hanging there. I peeled off my wet clothes and carefully strung them over a chair in front of the space heater. I threw on one of the flannel shirts. It was so big, he was so big, it hung to my knees. I crawled on top of the big bed, feeling the waves. With every passing minute, the Gulf waters seemed calmer and calmer. I thought about the cute pilot and hoped he had reached shore safely. I made a mental note to ask Jake to check for me. There must be some number, some central call-in place where members and participants could reach someone from S.E.C.R.E.T.

The sound of the motor dying down woke me from a nap. I had no idea how long I had been out, but the waves had calmed considerably. I could hear Jake bumping around above me, making his way across the deck to the stairs to the galley, where I lay on the bed waiting. I wasn’t good at waiting. Calmness in the face of chaos wasn’t my style. But this was, after all, my rescue fantasy. While I decided I didn’t like being rescued one bit, I was willing to take part in the aftermath.

“Hi,” he said, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of me on the bed.

“Hi.”

“Everything’s good up there. We’re safely away from the storm. Do you mind if I take off the rest of my wet clothes?”

“I don’t mind at all,” I said, resting back on the pillows. If he was going to rescue me, I was going to play along. “So I’m safe, then?”

“You were never in any danger,” he said, shuffling off his damp jeans. This comment pricked the fantasy bubble and left me reeling in reality.

“Are you kidding? I fell off a boat into the Gulf during a hurricane!”

He was so tall he had to duck in the galley as he made his way to the bed.

“Yes, you did, Cassie, but I’m trained to save lives. And yours was never in great danger. I can assure you.”

He was so smooth from head to toe that he looked like marble. “But, but what if … something had happened to me?”

“It was a tropical storm that became a hurricane very quickly. No one saw it coming, not even the weather bureau.”

I had to admit, there is something exciting about surviving an accident. You feel alive in the most visceral way; your veins pulse; you can detect your skin breathing. You feel very fragile and human, but at the same time nearly immortal. Jake tentatively approached the bed. I could smell the salt water on his skin and some other scent beneath that, something velvety and dark.

“Do you still accept the Step?” he asked, his black eyes on me, his hands pushing his wet hair back in a way that reminded me so much of Will.

“I … guess,” I said, my chin jutting out over my blanket like an impudent child’s. “But I don’t know if I can feel sexy and terrified at the same time.”

“Let me help,” he said, taking a fistful of my blanket in one hand.

He drew the blanket away from my shoulders and nestled it around my waist. He took a long look at me, then tugged me closer to him, tilting my head up and putting his salty lips to mine. He loomed over me, making me feel safe again, protected. He told me over and over that I was okay, that I’d be okay, slowly nudging the blanket at my waist to the floor and pushing me back onto the bed. I felt my damp hair spread out around me, and his skin, that expanse of smoothness, meeting every inch of my own flesh. I closed my eyes and let my resolve melt. And I took in his smell: the ocean.

“I’m going to take very good care of you, you know that, right?”

I nodded, too stunned to talk. This was a man the likes of which I’d never seen, never experienced. He made me feel soft and small and delicate. In my constant self-sufficiency, I had forgotten it might be possible to have a man protect me, to be my anchor. I swear to God I trembled as I watched him move to the foot of the bed, gently fold his enormous hands around my ankles, lift a foot to his face, then run his tongue along the tender arch, kissing the tips of my toes, then putting them in his mouth. I couldn’t help but giggle. I relaxed back on my elbows as he slipped his hands up the length of my calves, my thighs, and then stopped to look at my face, devouring me with his eyes. He knelt on the bed, resting my legs on either side of him, and parted me. He trailed his hands along my quivering thighs (yes, they really were quivering!). He skimmed over me with his thumbs, not quite touching me there, then up my torso to my breasts. I arched forward, aching for him. I arched in a way that said, Now, please! And yet he continued to tease me with his tongue, arousing me so quickly and so fully. See? See what you’re doing to me? I wanted to say. But I was speechless. Oh God, I had never been with a man this compelling, this strong. He was a work of art.

“Do you want me inside you, Cassie?” he asked, propped up on one elbow, his free hand caressing my breast.

Do I?

“Um … yes.”

“Say it. Say you want me.”

“I … want you,” I said, with an urgency that had me on the brink of tears.

With that, he trailed a hand from my breasts down to my stomach and thrust his finger inside me. “You do want me,” he said, a dark smile crossing his lips.

I almost made a joke about going overboard, but I shook it out of my head. His face came towards mine and his kiss was full of vigor and fire. I kissed him back with the same force. It was different from Jesse’s kiss, or any kiss I’d ever had. This one was all-consuming. I kissed him like my life depended on it. Then his hand reached beneath a pillow and freed a condom, and he stopped kissing me just long enough to rip the package open with his teeth. He slipped it on with ease and then guided himself into me.

“You’ll never be afraid again, Cassie,” he said.

I lifted for him, and then with my eyes closed, savored the feel of him. How long had it been since a man entered me? Had I ever been taken so richly, so completely before? Never. My wanting was so intense, it almost felt like my first time.

He was thrusting into me, deeper and deeper, stopping every inch so that I could take him in, breathe into him, and then began to move above me, slowly at first, and then faster, rhythmically, smoothly. I couldn’t help but gasp. His arms were beneath me, pulling me towards him so he could move deeper inside me. I couldn’t believe how wet I was. My thighs were now wrapped high around his back, the muscles in his arms tensing and twitching.

“Cassie, this is incredible,” he said, before nudging me to turn over and slide on top of him, which I did. His hands found my waist and held on, and he lifted me until we found our rhythm again. Then he put his thumb to me, bringing yet another part of me alive.