His warm chuckle ruffed my hair and he slid it off my sticky neck. “Do you have an elastic?”
“Left pocket,” I mumbled as I frantically reeled in the tiring fish. A flash of scales a few meters from the boat thrilled me.
As did Sinclair’s gentle hands as they gathered my hair and put it rather adeptly into a high ponytail. “Much better,” he murmured against my damp neck, skimming his teeth from my ear down to my collar. “Easy access.”
I moaned slightly but narrowed my eyes and wriggled my hips, trying to get away from him. He was so arrogant, thinking that he would win the bet, that I would spend the night sprawled across his bed completely at his mercy. More determined than ever, I pushed him away with a firm thrust of my hips and adopted the position Antonio had taught me.
“Antonio,” I called. “Sinclair is a terrible tutor, would you mind helping me?”
Sinclair’s smoky chuckle sounded from somewhere behind me but I was glad he was giving me the space I needed to concentrate. It was so easy to become distracted by thoughts of what he could do to my body. The mere sound of his lightly accented voice whispering dirty promises into my ear was enough to…
I shook my head – snap out of it!
“Is a big fish!” Antonio yelled close to my ear as he came up to adjust my grip. “Very big. Maybe the man should take over?”
“No, no, no,” I growled, leaning all of my weight back to keep the fish somewhat close to the boat. How long was it going to fight me for? “I can do it.”
There was condescending amusement in the Mexican fisherman’s voice when he said, “Okay, you do it. But this is a marlin, a very big, very strong fish.”
I almost broke into a dance. Sinclair had said marlins were the biggest fish, the hardest to catch. Imagine if I caught one, the things I could make him do to me….
“Concentrate, Elle.” As always sensing my thoughts, Sinclair’s stern voice cut through my fantasies. “This fish could feed Antonio’s family for a week.”
My tongue peeked out between my lips, gently clamped against my teeth as I concentrated. Antonio’s excited voice babbled in my ear as he checked my progress. I was at the stern of the little boat for forty minutes playing the fish, reeling in fast, pulling back on the rod in an undulating motion exactly like the sea beneath my braced feet. I had never thought of fishing as a sport, but I soon realized just how taxing it was. My arms and legs felt like jelly, the rod bit painfully into my stomach even as I shifted it around trying to find a more comfortable position. But it was thrilling too. At one point, the marlin jumped high into the air, flashing its sapphire ridge and sharp nose. My cramped fingers itched for my camera and I seriously considered giving up, unsure how much my weak body could take.
“Little closer, closer! Steady, steady,” Antonio yelled while dangling over the side of the boat, a large net in his hand.
In one sharp jerk, with just a twist of his wrist he snagged the marlin, calling for Sinclair to help him. The rod was super-glued to my aching fingers and I watched dumbly as the men wrangled the massive fish into the little hull of the boat. Antonio retrieved a small baseball bat type instrument and hit the fish over the head until it stopped flailing. Despite my revulsion and the intense swell of empathy I felt for the magnificent creature, I watched rapt as they killed it and heaved it into a water cooler built into the boat. It made me uneasy to realize that I had never seen the process involved in killing the food I so easily shoved into my mouth each day.
&nb
sp; Sinclair came over to me somewhat cautiously and I realized that my confusion must have shown on my face. Gently, he unpeeled my fingers from around the rod and set it aside before taking my hands in his. He rubbed each finger, stroking down to the base and back up to the next finger until they tingled pleasantly.
“I’m very impressed with you, Elle.” His voice was quiet but intense. “You have remarkable endurance and it’s not every first time fisherman that can say they caught a 125 pound marlin.”
My eyes widened comically. “I did that?”
“You did.” He nodded and ducked his head to press a firm kiss to my lips. “I should have known a siren would have mastery over the sea.”
His words ignited my previous excitement and I squealed, jumping into his arms. He hesitated before his hands slid under my bottom to hold me up. I rained kisses over his face then pulled back to beam into his pleasantly surprised face.
“I’m basically a master fisherman now, aren’t I?” When he didn’t answer quickly enough I leaned back to call to Antonio. “Aren’t I, Antonio?”
His resulting grin was wide and toothy. “You can fish with me anytime, Signorita!”
The rest of the trip was glorious. I lay down on the small upper deck in my bathing suit, recovering in the sun from my exercise. At some point, Sinclair came up to check on me and rub sunscreen sensuously into my skin. I dozed in and out of sleep, catching snip bits of Sinclair and Antonio’s easy Spanish banter. The language was close enough to French and Italian that I could make out the gist of what they were saying but I was happy just to drift as they chattered excitedly to each other like little boys.
Sinclair yelled with triumph sometime later, rousing me from my sleep and I smiled. It was a privilege, I think, being able to see him so unbound from the tight restraints he kept himself in. Out on the sea he was less reserved and when he came bounding up the stairs to where I lay, I cracked open one eye to see him crouched before me with a wide, devastating grin.
“Did you catch one?” I asked sleepily.
He nodded, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “I did.”
“Is it big?”
His hand reached out to adjust my floppy white hat. “Don’t worry, Elle, you’ll have what you want tonight.”
I closed my eyes and hummed. “Good.”