Chain Lightning (23 page)

Mandy looked up, startled.

“For trusting me not to pitch you in,“ he said simply.

Scuba gear prevented Mandy from speaking, so she squeezed Ray’s hand, silently telling him mat she had long since forgiven him for tossing her into the Fish Pond. Then she turned to Sutter and held out her hand. Strong, slick, wet fingers intertwined with hers. She released the stern and began sinking into the blue depths of the sea.

After the first burst of adrenaline passed, Mandy was able to regulate her breathing. It was still too fast, too shallow, but it no longer threatened to run through her supply of oxygen four times faster than normal. She looked at Sutter and gave him the thumbs-up signal, which he returned. Then he turned her around slowly until her back was to him.

One hundred feet away an immense, ragged wall rose from the sapphire depths to culminate just beneath the surface of the sea in a fantastic crown of multihued life. As enormous as the wall appeared, it was just one tiny fragment of a coral complex that went north for thousands upon thousands of square miles: the Great Barrier Reef.

Slowly Mandy swam toward the reef, drawn to its enormous, living presence as inevitably as a river is drawn by gravity to the sea. Sutter swam at Mandy’s side, monitoring the bursts of bubbles she expelled, literally counting her breaths. With growing elation he realized that the longer she stayed in the water, the more her breathing slowed; her fear was diminishing, not increasing. Her breathing was still too fast, but no worse than his had been the first time he had found himself face-to-face with Lady Elliot Island’s contribution to the immensity of the Great Barrier Reef.

Mandy didn’t stop swimming until she was little more than an arm’s length away from the reef. Six feet below the surface, bathed in warmth and light and nutrients, the section of reef that she could see was a fantastic garden of fixed animals and mobile plants, of individual lives so small she could barely make out their delicate shapes and of communal skeletons so overwhelming in numbers that man couldn’t comprehend them. At each succeeding downward level of the reef there were more shapes and sizes and colors of coral, more varieties of life than seemed possible, a dazzling fecundity that shamed the land by comparison.

At the upper levels, staghorn coral grew in interlocking splendor, arms reaching into the warm sea to make a chaotic, living garden where tiny fish thrived, scattered among the prongs of coral like broken necklaces of citrine and emerald, amethyst and sapphire and gold. A soft coral grew in deeply sinuous array, its fleshy-appearing folds turned and refolded upon itself with muscular grace. Coral as intricate and as delicate as Irish lace shawls grew from a section of wall in stark contrast to the dense convolutions of maroon brain coral.

Starfish whose countless arms were as delicate as feathers and as flexible as whips clung to the living outer surface of the reef, adding bursts of magenta and white and red to the multihued coral display. Sponges whose shapes went from the ridiculous to the unbelievable grew from hollows and irregularities in the reef wall. An enormous shoal of tiny white fish wound across the face of the reef in a wild river. The fry of oceangoing fish hung against the reef like clouds against a rugged mountain.

Crevices and grottoes were everywhere, and each had its own inhabitants. At first they were only shapes hanging in the darkness. Then Sutter would flash a hand-held diving light, bringing the dark hollows and their dwellers into sharp focus. Sometimes the residents were vivid coral “trout“ or muscular cod sporting freckles of electric blue, and sometimes there were banner fish whose long fins were breathtakingly graceful as they wove in fragile sine curves through the sea. Corals in the shape of enormous, deeply folded fans descended the face of the reef like gigantic footholds leading down and down and down to the levels where sunlight and warmth slowly were absorbed into the serene lapis depths of the Pacific Ocean.

Everywhere there was life. Mobile or motionless, camouflaged or shouting with colors, hunter or hunted, succulent or spined, wearing its skeleton on the outside or the inside or doing without altogether, graceful or grotesque, aggressive or shy, beautiful, ugly, haunting, overwhelming – Mandy barely had time to comprehend even the smallest fragment of the reefs stunning profusion of life before Sutter tapped her shoulder and pointed to his watch and then up to the surface. She was startled to find that nearly all of her dive time was gone. She was even more startled to discover just how far she had been drawn down the ragged face of the outer reef. The surface was far, far above, little more than a silver banner unfurled against the darkly luminous blue that surrounded her.

Slowly, reluctantly, Mandy followed Sutter back to the world of dry land and warmth, gravity and white sunlight In the days that followed, Mandy and Sutter spent every possible minute diving together, sharing the incredible beauty and infinite variety of the sea. After the first few dives fear stopped clutching at Mandy’s heart and plucking unexpectedly at her nerves. Once more she was a part of the ocean, swimming easily in the clear water, cradled and at peace within the mother of all life. Mandy put away all thought of time, all fears, all knowledge of a life beyond the coral seclusion of Lady Elliot Island. It was the same for Sutter, no thoughts of what was to come, no bleak shadows of the past, nothing but the glorious reef by day…and by night a sensual beauty that grew until he could no longer measure it, he could only immerse himself in it as he did the sea, asking no questions, knowing no time, simply living within the endless, incandescent perfection of his lover.

The peace endured until the last day on Lady Elliot, then Mandy and Sutter emerged from the cradle of the sea and knew that their time together was almost gone. In silence they sat close while the dive boat was hurried back to shore by the wind, which was companion to the squall line that had pulled tangled skeins of cloud across the sky. At the dive shed, Sutter gently shooed Mandy off for a predinner shower while he supervised the packing of their equipment.

But later, when Sutter went to the tent, Mandy was nowhere around. Inside the tent there was only twilight dimness and the pearlescent, almost secret gleam of the white cowrie shell Mandy had placed at the head of their bed. Kneeling, feeling claws of sadness sinking and twisting through him, Sutter ran a fingertip over the shimmering beauty of the rare, flawless shell that would have to be left behind.

Sutter closed his eyes for a moment and his hand became a fist. Then he came to his feet in a rush and went in search of Mandy, needing her in a way he neither understood nor questioned. There was no one in the bathhouse. There was no one on the beach. The tide was higher than he had ever seen it, the wind was swirling over the crystal water, and tattered veils of warm rain were sweeping the surface of the lagoon.

Suddenly the breath rushed from Sutter’s lungs as he saw a familiar, slender shape cruising facedown through the rain-washed, crystalline waters. He watched Mandy patrol the Fish Pond and then go out into the rest of the lagoon, propelling herself with very small, controlled flipper motions, her arms relaxed at her sides. When she headed back for the Fish Pond again, Sutter was chest-deep in the warm water, waiting for her. She swam up to him, reversed neatly and stood in water that came to her neck.

“It was too beautiful to give up just to eat dinner,“ Mandy said, sliding her mask onto her wrist, bobbing a bit in the chin-deep water, out of her depth but not frightened at all. “No weight, nothing dragging, just floating and the warm water everywhere, a whole world opening up around me.”

Sutter smiled at Mandy, wanting her until he ached, wishing he had the words to tell her how much he enjoyed her renewed love of the sea. The setting sun sent a single, slanting shaft of light through the clouds, turning the beads of salt water on Mandy’s mouth into pure gold. Sutter saw, and remembered a time when her lips had been silvered by rain and he had licked them until she moaned.

“I haven’t thanked you,“ Mandy said, touching Sutter with sea-wet fingertips. “You’ve given me so much….“

“No,“ he said softly, kissing her fingertips. “It’s you who have given so much to me. You’re beautiful, Mandy. So elegant and determined.“ He smiled as his fingers gently caressed her cheek. “No matter what happens, no matter where I go or what I do, I’ll never forget your courage.“ His big hands closed gently around her ribs, keeping her from drifting in the chin-deep water. “Give me a hug before you float away forever,“ he whispered.

Sutter’s hands slid down Mandy’s back to her thighs, rifting her slowly, anchoring her legs around his hips. The thin strip of cloth running between her legs didn’t prevent her from feeling the hard, quintessentially masculine bulge pushing against Sutter’s bathing suit. Her breath shortened as she realized that only two thin strips of cloth prevented her from taking Sutter into her body once more, here, now, the heady warmth of the lagoon enfolding them, concealing their joined bodies beneath water turned incandescent orange by the dying sun.

The erotic thought changed Mandy, sending softness and heat flowing through her even as she dismissed the idea as impossible. It was too light. Too public. Someone might walk down the beach at any moment.

But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy a small taste of the sensual pleasures Sutter brought to her. She could rub her hands down his chest through the thick mat of hair that concealed his nipples. She could kiss his neck and taste the lagoon and wish that the salt had come from elemental passion rather than the eternal sea.

As Mandy shifted slightly to reach the pulse beating in Sutter’s neck, the cloth between her legs rubbed over the swollen ridge of male flesh. She made a ragged sound and wished fiercely that it was dark and they were naked in the sea and he was pushing into her with the hard, hot flesh she loved to arouse and hold within her body.

“Sutter,“ she said raggedly, leaning back to look up into his face, her body caressing him once more.

Blazing green eyes looked into her heavy-lidded ones. “I know. Oh Lord, Mandy, I know what you’re thinking because that’s what I’m thinking, too!“

She arched her back, rubbing lightly against him as she brushed her lips over his mouth, whispering, “Tell me.“

“You’re thinking there’s no one around, and even if there was, the water is up to my collarbone and the surface is scuffed by the wind and covered with burning colors,“ Sutter said in a low voice, shifting his grip until his left forearm took the sweet weight of Mandy’s hips and his right hand was free. “Who would know if I untied just one bow on your hip and you took me out of my suit and guided me to that sweet, hot place between your thighs and let me…“ He groaned as his finger slipped beneath the triangle of her bikini bottom. She was soft, hot, welcoming. “Let me,“ he said hoarsely, stroking her just once. “Who would know, Mandy?“ he asked, undoing one of the two ties that held the bikini bottom in place. “We’ll be quiet and outwardly casual, just two people enjoying a sunset and talking and hugging up to their necks in water.“

“Damon,“ Mandy whispered, feeling the warm lagoon caressing her most delicate flesh as he pulled the bikini bottom aside.
“Damon.“

“Take me, Mandy,“ he said in a low voice, running his fingertips over the softness he had uncovered, feeling her utterly open to his touch, wanting to join with her while the sky and sea turned to fire around them. “Take me,“ he whispered, “if you want me.“ His fingertips deciphered the message of her satin heat and shivering response as he probed her soft, feminine secrets. “Ah, you do want me,“ he murmured, caressing her with his hand and his voice. “Take me, love.“

“Damon… we… can’t.“

“It will be our secret,“ Sutter whispered, watching Mandy through half-closed eyes, feeling her softness opening for him, yearning, wanting. “I’ll be very slow, very quiet. Someone could walk by on the beach and be no wiser. I promise you, love.“

The beach was deserted, the liquid warmth of the sea surrounded Mandy, and between her legs her lover’s fingers slid and teased, parted and caressed her. She didn’t know if she had enough self-control to act outwardly casual while Sutter was inside her, but when his hands moved to her hips, supporting her and at the same time leaving her bereft of all but the sea’s lapping caress, she knew she was going to find out.

Mandy brought her hands down Sutter’s muscular torso, all the way down, sliding her fingers inside the black strip of cloth that was all he wore. His breath hissed out as he felt her hands caressing him with small, secret motions. He tilted his head forward and brushed her lips with his own in a caress that would have looked quite casual from the beach.

“It’s a good thing no one is within fifty yards of us,“ Sutter said in a low, raspy voice. “Your smile would give our game away for sure.“

Mandy’s only answer was a husky sound of pleasure and discovery as she stroked the potent male flesh she had uncovered. She looked up at Sutter, her eyes vivid with a combination of sensual mischief and frank passion. “You know,“ she murmured, her breath tight, rapid, “you bring a new meaning to some old phrases.“

Sutter smiled despite the hunger racking him with each knowing, teasing movement of her fingers. “Like skin diver?“ he suggested, flexing his fingers into her naked hips.

“That’s one of them,“ she agreed, squeezing him with loving deliberation. “Then there’s ‘stand up and be counted.’ Or take ‘standing ovation,’ that’s another one. Or take ‘a stand-up guy.’ Or take – “

“Me, love,“ he interrupted, groaning.
“All of me.“

The husky command sent desire glittering through Mandy, scattering her thoughts, focusing her on the naked thrust of Sutter’s arousal and the moist heat of her own response. Watching his face, wanting him wildly, she tugged his suit down just enough to give her the freedom of his body. His hands shifted as he moved her slightly, holding her just in front of the blunt, hungry flesh she had freed. Smiling, he watched her eyes as he felt himself brought closer and closer to her satin sheath, touching, teasing, nuzzling for heart-stopping seconds until he penetrated her with a slow, smooth pressure, watching her eyes take on a haze of pure sensuality as he filled her.