Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II (20 page)

“Feels so good,” I moaned and he looked at me and smiled.

“Good, take your pleasure, Baby Girl, I love to see you move.”

His hands caressed over my hips, smoothing up and down my thighs. Encouraged and emboldened by his touch, his words, and the look he was giving me, I let my inhibitions fall away the rest of the way and rode him, placing my hands over his and guiding them to my breasts. I wanted him to touch me, I wanted to make him feel as good as he was making me feel and as wonderful as riding him was… I was stuck, just on that maddening edge unable to go over.

“God, I’m so close,” I gasped in a frustrated whine and Marlin chuckled softly.

“Let me help you with that,” he whispered seductively and trailed his hands down my body delving one thumb between us where our bodies met.

“God
damn
, you’re so wet,” he growled and the warm glow of pleasure that suffused me grew incrementally, just that much more. He found my clit with his thumb, wet from my body, and teased it gently, rubbing it back and forth. I spasmed around him, tightening up my core, my body reacting to the light touch and with a wail I shattered above him, bending, back arching into a curve that must have looked extreme but felt so incredibly fucking good.

I came hard, and by some trick of his thumb, or the way he thrust his hips gently, he kept me coming for what felt like a blessed, glowing, eternity until it built and built and all became too much and laughing, shrieking, I threw myself to the side, away from his probing fingers. He slipped out of me and I mourned
that
loss, but he was, by all accounts, some sort of rascal. A pirate beneath his veneer of civility, and if it was one thing a pirate loved to do, it was plunder.

“Not done with you yet,” he said with a playful smile and sat up, he got between my knees, and I got a look at him for the first time, long and glistening from where he’d been inside me. He grinned and shucked his boxers off, giving me both a little time to cool down and because they looked uncomfortable, stuck to him as they were.

“You good for more, Honey?” he asked me and I nodded, a little unsure with him being on top, but willing to try.

“You need me to stop, or do something different, you just say,” he said gently and I nodded again.

He was so perfect. So attentive to my needs it was mind boggling. Always asking before taking, always making sure I was alright with whatever he did and I could see him making mental notes as we went along, for next time… and it thrilled me that he would even want there to
be
a next time.

He knelt between my thighs, and grasped my waist, making sure to give me enough room to breathe, not caging me, and giving me a significant look, and plenty of time to deny him before he slid himself back into me. I arched again and he grinned, and set a faster but still gentle rhythm.

I gazed at him with a mixture of adoration and lust and he bent, enveloping me in his bigger, far more muscular body, but instead of feeling trapped, or caged, I felt safe; protected. He kissed me and I kissed him and holding his long hair back from our faces I told him, “I want you to come, I want you to feel as good as I do.”

“I already feel as good as you do, Baby Girl, maybe even better,” he murmured back and I think my heart melted. He closed his eyes and listened to my lilting pants and cries like it was the sweetest music he’d ever heard. With an impassioned grunt, he thrust hard one last time and came deep inside me, which made me cringe slightly. I didn’t know if I liked that sensation. It harkened back to dark places and the careless men who’d used and…

“Easy, Baby,” he uttered, pressing a hand tenderly to the side of my face, “Look at me, Faith, look at me.”

I looked, “I won’t do that again, I didn’t know. It’s okay, you’re okay, look at me, see me.”

I nodded, “I see you,” I whispered.

“I see you, too, Baby. I see you too.” He was breathless, I was breathless, and we stared at one another in the blue light from beneath the ocean, safe in the little room from the world up above in a little world of our own making, both of us coming down from our first time together. He leaned down and kissed me, holding me near and I closed my eyes, a grateful tear or two escaping down my temple that my shattered mind and heart had allowed me this one thing, without too much of an incident.

“I love you, Baby Girl,” he whispered suddenly into my ear and my heart shattered all over again, bursting with joy.

Chapter 25

Marlin

She gave this lighthearted, but broken laugh and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me down against her harder. I flattened her to the mattress and kissed the side of her neck. There wasn’t any taking it back and I didn’t want to. Things like that didn’t just slip out if you didn’t mean them. It was on par with drunken truthfulness, and truthfully, this right here weren’t much different. I
was
drunk. Drunk on the woman in my arms, on the pleasure we’d shared, on her trust and her bravery in letting me share her body, to touch and delight and take delight of my own.

“Okay, come on. I bet you’ll like this,” I whispered smiling and curving my arms around her, delving between her hot, flushed skin and the sheets, I brought her up with me.

“Where are we going?”

“Baby Girl, we are out in the absolute middle of nowhere. Ain’t another man, woman, or child for miles and miles. Let’s go jump in.”

She gazed at me, apprehension in her posture, and the set of her eyes, “Can we really?”

“Just you and me, and no one to tell us what the fuck to do, what do you say?”

Her face broke into one of the most beautiful smiles I’d ever seen and she let me hoist her up onto her feet. She went ahead of me, and I snagged a couple of large bath sheet towels out of the pile of crap from my boat sitting in the corner. She climbed the ladder and I got a gorgeous view as we climbed up.

Faith threw back the hatch and climbed out into the sun the rest of the way and I followed her. She gave a little look over her shoulder and without any warning, dived smoothly into the sea. Fearless, beautiful, like some kind of water nymph that was born to it and headed home. I dropped the towels and dove in after her, coming up for air to find her treading water and laughing.

The sound sent shivers down my spine, so clear and beautiful, so
her
, I couldn’t hardly stand it. She tipped herself into a back float and gazed up at the sky, her hand reaching out and finding my own. I joined her and we floated and made comments about the clouds in the sky, trailing by fluffy and white. We spoke of dreams, both before and what they were now for her and I felt the need to make every damned one of them come true for her, no matter what the cost.

I wanted for her, so bad, like I’ve never wanted anything before in my life. We swam for an hour, two hours? Who knew how long, before I finally helped her to the ladder and we climbed out. We dressed, I made her lunch, and we lounged under cover, out from the hot sun on the shaded, waterline deck with the couches. I think we napped, her resting against my chest, legs tangled, because it was the Captain, kicking my foot lightly that brought us both awake with a start.

“Time is it?” I asked sucking in a breath.

“Late afternoon,” he sighed, “I’m hungry. Let’s cook, let’s eat, and let’s talk. We got shit to discuss and it ain’t all pretty.”

Faith stirred against my chest and I looked past the Captain into a set of very dark, very lovely, and very
worried
eyes. I sighed, this was going to be a fuckin’ tightrope and a half to walk, and I couldn’t say that walking gently had ever really been my strongest suit.

“You okay, Bubbles?” Hope called out to her groggy sister and I felt Faith tense up like she was in trouble or some shit at her sister’s voice. Too long, a conditioned response, things needed to change and the cycle needed to be busted, but how to do that and mitigate the damage? I guess there weren’t no easy way, so I did what I thought was best. I drew fire.

“Hope,” I grated and her eyes flicked to mine, “You doubt me to be anything less than an honorable man?” I demanded and she jerked back some, like I’d slapped her with a cold fish, right in her kisser. Faith’s breaths came sharp and too close together for my liking and I tightened my hold on her to reassure, hoping that’s what it did. Hope was looking me up and down; silent, calculating.

“Answer the fuckin’ question, if you please.”

“The fuck, Mar?” I shot the Captain a glare enough to quell him and he nodded, raising his hands, recognizing it for what it was. A brother correcting an out ‘o line fellow brother, because that’s almost what Hope was, wearin’ the club colors like she was.

“No, I know you’re a good man, Marlin. I wouldn’t trust my little sister to just anybody.”

“You think I’d hurt her?” I demanded.

“No.”

“Then the fuck you comin’ up here asking after my girl like I did?” Hope startled and Cut looked mutinous for a half second, before tacking, his mouth turning down; eyebrows going up, giving a tilt of his head as if he’d changed his mind about what he was going to say.

“You serious?” Hope demanded, and she looked like she was starting to amp up. Faith gasped and I held her just a little bit closer, steadying her.

“As a fuckin’ heart attack.”

The Captain chuffed a bit of a laugh and put in his two cents, “’Bout fuckin’ time,” he said, “Now can we all get back on the same fuckin’ team and get back to what needs doin’?” he asked.

It was Hope’s turn to look positively mutinous for a second bus she was looking over Faith. Her expression softened and she jerked her chin at her sister, “You okay with this, Faith?”

Faith swallowed hard, “Yes,” and it was written all over her that she expected screaming or yelling to start. Hope saw it too, her shoulders dropping; she dropped onto the couch across from us and huffed in a deep breath letting it out slowly.

“As long as you’re safe, and happy, that’s all I want for you,” she told Faith calmly, and she meant it, too.

“I am,” she whispered and sat up slowly.

“Good, now can we please get something to fuckin’ eat and go over this?” Cutter demanded.

“Keep your pants on,” I grumbled.

“Oh fuck him,” Hope waved her hand dismissively, “He’s just hangry, feed him and his attitude ought to improve. It’s been a long fucking day for us, trying to clean up this mess.”

Faith closed her eyes and her shoulders dropped, Hope looked over at her, “Not your fault, Bubbles. If anything, it’s ours for being so damned overprotective. The harder I tried wrapping you up, the more I tried to shelve you to protect you from everything, the more you fought growing up.” Hope lifted one shoulder in an inelegant shrug, “Why should now be any different? Should have changed tactics a long time ago.”

Faith very nearly held her breath, looking from one to the next, to the next, her gaze finally settling back on her sister. We all sort of waited to see what she would say.

“What,” she cleared her throat, “What happened?” she asked and it was as good a change of subject as any, so we took it, at least the Captain did.

“I think I got Marlin off the hook for the most part,” Cutter said and I raised an eyebrow at that, “Faith is another story, there ain’t nothing for it. We gotta go back to NOLA so she can appear; get this mess sorted out in front of a judge.”

Faith visibly wilted and I smoothed my hands up and down her arms, telling her, “Not like you ain’t going without us, Baby Girl. If the Captain says it’s gotta be done, it’s gotta be done, but ain’t no fuckin’ way you’re gonna face any of it without all of us at your back.”

Hope smiled, “What Marlin said.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Firefly. We’ve contacted a lawyer out there; a dude Ruth knows. The Voodoo Bastards wouldn’t steer us wrong after the solid we did each other. We’ll ride out tomorrow, get this shit sorted and be home by midweek.”

The Captain looked at each of us in turn and we all sort of slowly nodded, there really weren’t nothing for it. I wanted this all cleared up and in my Baby Girl’s rearview as fast as possible. I sorta couldn’t believe we’d all forgotten about the outstanding charges. It was a call from the police that’d cracked this wide open for Hope in the first place. A bolt from the blue, fuckin’ kismet, a gift from God, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it; that’s what it was.

“Now if y’all don’t mind, I’m fuckin’ hungry. Gimme the goddamn keys to the freezer, you jackass.” I laughed and dug between me and Faith, pulling the keys out of the pocket of my board shorts, and unclipping them from the ring designed to keep them there while I was in the water.

I tossed them to the Captain who swore, “Thank you fuckin’
Jesus!
You know, a little respect every now and again wouldn’t be misplaced…” he ranted to a soundtrack of both Hope and Faith’s laughter. Yeah, the bastard knew we all respected the shit out of him and then some; otherwise he wouldn’t
be
the Captain.

We cooked, we ate; we stripped the Locker down and locked her up. The whole while Faith moved silently, wrestling with whatever demons she had over returning to that godforsaken place. We got the
Mysteria Avenge
underway. It didn’t take much, there was another thunderhead moving across the water in our direction, the direction back to town, and despite the fact I owned an ultra-modern sport fishing boat, I loved to sail with the next Mariner. Cutter and I hauled anchor and ran canvas, tacking windward. The sails filled pretty quickly, and with the Captain at the helm we were underway pretty quick.

I went to Faith who stood at the starboard bow, the wind sweeping her hair at her back, blowing it in front of her. I went up behind her and let her know I was there with a gentle, “Hey, Baby Girl,” but she still startled. I pulled her back against me in the circle of my arms and just enjoyed the wind and the salt and her warmth tucked against me.

“How you doin’?” I asked her.

“Scared.”

“Yeah, I get that. Anything I can do?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You tell me if there is?”

“I promise,” she said turning so she could lean on me, her arm snaking around my waist. I held her, and she held onto me and we sailed back to the marina, both of us lost in our own heads.