* now with Passion Perspiration (TM)

Page 2

He springs from the blackness. Beside her, he pulls the rag from her fingers. She smiles a slow and humid smile and mops her brow. There is the scent of her steamy hair and the moistness of her hidden self. The bloodhound part of him strains to follow her trail, to seek her out in the hollows of the bushes.

His tongue on her nipple tastes salt. She sucks air through her teeth. It is the sound of water hitting a hot stove. Now he plunges the rag into the water and pulls it out again. He places it on her neck and squeezes. A small flood spreads down her shoulders and breast and back.

She laughs a foggy laugh and tries to steal the rag back again. He hides it between his legs and raises her arms over her head. He holds them together high in the air, like she is the winner of a boxing match. His other hand sneaks around, and his fingers run down the curve of her back where many drops of sweat race into the alley of her ass. And where his fingers follow.

Her tongue reaches for his neck. When she touches the tip of it to his ear, he shivers and the cold shiver is like the breeze he's been praying for. He presses her back to the wall and cold comfort spreads across her face. When she closes her eyes, he squeezes the rag again, this time down the pale moon of her belly.

She opens her eyes in surprise as the water runs down her hips and between her legs. She closes her eyes but parts her thighs when his tongue sails down that same river. He anchors there, not moving, just holding her still while the night throbs around them. His tongue anchors her while her pulse beats around it. They drip. She begins to bob, her fingers pinch his face and squeeze his shoulders. Her jellyfish center lies fat and sweet on his tongue. He melts her.

His hands find the swell of her ass. He pulls her down in fistfuls, stretches her long on the waxy wood and opens her like a storybook. And in that Once Upon a Time place she finds her mopping rag, slaps his thigh and drapes her openness. He kneels between her ankles, strips the cloth away and wraps it round his head. He becomes her sudden pirate and she his sudden sea. He puts out toward Ports of Larceny and Love. He sails and rocks and robs her until finally, in that Happily Ever After place, her Siren squall pulls him under fast and wrecks him on the cliffs of her lemon shore.

"This bed is a heaven," the buccaneer sighs. "I'll die in this place."

In the shallows of the clean boards, the debris of their limbs untangles and they float to sleep, a calm and breezy sleep after their summer storm.