Float Plan - Trish Doller Page 0,70
enough.
In Martinique, we anchor in a harbor that looks like a postcard come to life. Where turquoise ocean touches white sand beside the red-roofed village and green mountains behind. The hills surrounding the bay are a welcoming hug and the wooden jetty appears to come straight out from the front door of the village church.
“Welcome to Les Anses d’Arlet,” Keane says. “The best place on earth.”
“Wait. I thought Montserrat was your favorite.”
“Taken as a whole, it is,” he says. “But I could easily live out the rest of my days in this village.”
“Well, my expectations suddenly got higher.”
I take the dinghy to shore and use a computer in a restaurant to clear through customs. While I have Wi-Fi, I rent a guesthouse up the hill from the beach. When I go back to the boat for Keane and Queenie, I tell him to pack an overnight bag. “I have a surprise for you.”
“As good as Puerto Rican baseball?” he asks.
“Better.”
Fifteen minutes and a steep hill later, we arrive at a small wooden cottage with an outdoor kitchen and a view of the harbor. A striped hammock big enough for two is hanging on the veranda, but the focal point of the room is the large bed with fresh white bedding and a mosquito net draped along the headboard.
Keane takes it all in, and nods. “This is most certainly going to be better than baseball.”
I laugh, shutting Queenie in the bathroom with food, water, and her favorite tennis ball. “Definitely. I mean, I figured we could go to the beach or hiking in the forest or—”
He stops me with soft kisses, one after another, a hand sliding into my hair as the other seeks out the hollow of my lower back. Soft becomes harder, more urgent, and I clutch the back of his T-shirt in my fists, my heart thumping a wild beat. It may be that I push him backward or he draws me forward, but together we find the edge of the bed. He sits and pulls me onto his lap.
He touches my cheek. “Are you ready for me, Anna?”
“Yes,” I whisper, turning to brush my lips against the inside of his wrist. “Yes.”
He works open the buttons of my shirt. Keane has seen me in my bikini and the other day in my wet pink polka-dot bra, but today I feel exposed. The glue has only just dried on my broken heart and I’m offering him a hammer. But when he kisses my skin, just there, above my heart, I feel safe.
My shirt lands on the floor as he kisses my shoulder. I tug his shirt up over his head and send it to the ground. Kiss the corner of his mouth that always lifts first whenever he grins. I stand to remove my shorts, and Keane watches as I unclasp the front of my bra and take off my underwear. I worry that my breasts are too small and my pubic hair too much, but when I hear his sharp intake of breath and my name on the exhale, I’m reassured. Need settles heavy between my thighs.
Feeling bolder, I straddle him again and follow as he moves backward on the bed, first beneath me, then above me. The sheets press cool against my back as his mouth forges a warm trail down my body. Insecurity creeps in as I feel his mouth on my inner thigh, but it’s lost to the pleasure of his tongue.
My legs are still trembling with release when he removes his prosthesis and his shorts and slips on a condom. He moves over me. Inside me. “Oh my God.” I groan into his shoulder. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
Keane rolls his eyes and shifts his hips, making me gasp. “Yeah, none at all.”
At first we’re laughing and out of sync—two bodies that have never moved together before—but once we find our rhythm, the world around us disappears. And when it’s over, our skin damp and our breath short, the words repeat in my head like a litany. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m afraid to say them, but when I kiss them silently into his mouth, it feels as if he’s giving them right back to me.
“Jesus, Anna, that was—” He blows out a breath and presses his lips to my forehead. As much as I love the feel of his mouth on mine, forehead kisses are the Sullivan sign of true affection and they are