Free Island Promises by Joy Connell Page B

nearly sighed with at the end of the week when the frat boys packed up their duffels and their hangovers and went home.
    She, Joe, Mitchell, and Anthony were left with the aftermath and they had been cleaning almost all day. The college frat boys had been far from neat. Big surprise there. Beer cans rolled out from under bunks, dirty magazines were crumpled in the lockers, and potato chips were crushed in the bed sheets.
    Just before sunset, Mitchell and Anthony headed off to spend the night onshore. “I’ve smelled enough disinfectant for one day,” Mitchell had grumbled.
    While Joe cooked dinner, giving Riley an “are you for real?” look when she half-heartedly offered, she lugged soap and shampoo to the marina bathroom and scrubbed herself. After dinner he hiked to the showers. When he came back smelling of coconut aftershave, she went below and made them a pitcher of rum drink.
    “Invented this myself.” She poured him a glass as they settled in the cockpit. There was not much of a moon tonight; the sky was as deep a black as she had ever seen. Even the marina’s one pitiful light couldn’t block out the thousands, maybe billions, of stars.
    “Hey, that’s not bad.” He took a long swig of the drink.
    “Don’t act so surprised,” she said. “Stanley taught me. Some pineapple juice, some coconut, a little sugar, and a lot of rum.”
    They drank, staring up at the stars.
    “It’s a night for wishing on stars,” she said, her head lolled back, gazing upward. She was on her second drink. The rum was kicking in, making her feel warm and generous. She was conscious of Joe beside her, so close she felt she could hear his heartbeat. “What do you wish?” She turned to him.
    Instead of answering, he took her glass, set it in the drink holder, leaned into her, and kissed her. She should have been shocked, or at least surprised, but she wasn’t. He kissed her gently, holding her face between his hands. When he inched back, his fingers massaging her cheeks, she felt lost. The only solution was to kiss him and she did, hard and needy.
    “Let’s go below,” he said against her mouth.
    They were barely inside his cabin, when he pushed her up against the wall, kissing her neck, his large, rough hands on either side of her waist. His hair smelled of sun and sea salt, his skin coarse from hard work outside.
    She lost herself in the feel of him, in the sensations he teased out of her. She moaned and he put his mouth close to her ear, his hot breath tickling the sensitive nerves. “We can’t be too loud,” he whispered. “Sound can carry over the water.”
    They would make love with their eyes, their hands, their tongues, but not with their voices. The thought made Riley want to shout for joy. Suppressing the urge was causing the tumult inside her to build to an even higher crescendo. Her body shuddered with the effort to keep all she felt just between the two of them.
    “I want you,” Joe whispered, moving his hands under her T-shirt, caressing the indent where her ribs gave way to her waistline. “You drive me mad. Watching you all day.”
    She couldn’t help herself she let out a sigh. He moved his hand over her mouth, gently tugging at her bottom lip. “Shhh,” he said. “I know it’s hard . . .”
    Riley twined her fingers in his hair and brought his head to her chest. He was breathing hard, his hands roaming under her shirt, moving around to her back, fiddling with the clasp on her bra. He freed it and moved once again to her front where his hard fingers worked the soft skin of her breasts. It was too much and she clutched him, one hand grabbing his shoulder, the other his hair.
    Joe ignited every part of her. His bleached jean shorts rubbed against the smooth skin of her inner thighs. A few inches higher she could feel him, hard and yearning, straining against the denim fabric, grinding against her pelvis, seeking entrance to the part of her that gave her life, gave her passion.
    She wanted him