Page 49 of Marlin's Faith

“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.

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. Iwasdrunk. 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, soher, 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 veryworriedeyes. 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.

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