Sacred Waters (19 page)

“We’re going to walk down and put our feet in the water.”

* * * *

Colin looked down at Sammy shading her eyes from his view and hoped he was doing the right thing. He didn’t want to push her too fast or too hard. They’d been at the lake for quite a while so she had some time to adjust. He hoped she was ready to take this step.

“Just our toes, Sammy. You don’t even have to get your ankles wet.”

He followed her gaze toward the lake. It was calm, mirroring the trees and mountains like a second escape into a beautiful underground world. He waited.

He knew she was warring with herself and her fears as well as her desire to not let him down, but this wasn’t about him. This was about her letting go of the pain associated with losing her sister Meghan.

He glanced around to try to see the world the way she saw it. To him, the land was beautiful, breathtaking, serene, but to her it was likely frightening, powerful, and superior in an intimidating way.

He pointed to a scrubby patch of trees forming a hedgerow at the edge of the beach. “Let’s walk over to those trees and back.”

She followed his finger to where he pointed, actually having to turn her head in the opposite direction of the water because the trees were that far from the bank. He saw the moment her flaccid confidence grew into unthreatened surety.

“Okay.”

He helped her up. Her skin was warm and slightly pinker then when they first arrived. They strolled along the beach with slow steps and watched as their feet kicked up little grains of sand.

“What classes do you have to take when you go back?” He could have asked about her parents or something more personal, but he wanted to keep things general and loose, all thoughts away from the past.

“Classroom Management and I need three more credits in Spanish.”

“You speak Spanish?”

She laughed. They were halfway to the grove. “Not really. I can decipher it enough to figure out the general message if it’s written down, but I’m awful at speaking it.”

“
¿Y qué sucede cuando alguien habla español para usted?”

She stopped walking and grinned. “You speak Spanish?”

“Sí.”
He reached for her hand, giving a soft tug for her to keep walking.

“Well, I have no idea what you just said.”

“Then you answered my question.”

Glancing sideways at him, she asked, “What did you say?”

“I asked if you could understand the language when someone speaks it aloud to you.”

She giggled. “No.”

They approached the thicket of trees and the sand became coarser with each step. He spotted a few bramble branches and burrs hidden in their path and decided they better not get any closer in bare feet. Colin casually turned them back toward the lake.

“What kind of stuff do you learn in Classroom Management?”

“Strategies and techniques for keeping students in line and not letting them run you out of the classroom.”

Colin tried to imagine Samantha in front of a schoolroom of young, boisterous teenagers. He couldn’t quite meld the soft image of her with a severe governess type persona he guessed she’d sometimes have to employ.

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes and no. I’ve already done my student teaching so a lot of my apprehension has been put to rest. I’m more concerned I won’t have time to find a job by September or not have the time to get my classroom together.”

They’d passed their chairs about twenty feet from the bank.

“Have you sent out resumes yet?”

“Yes. When you get a degree in education you have to keep a portfolio. It’s this big book of all your philosophies and samples and pictures from your experiences as well as all your transcripts. I have that done, which is good, because I actually have a few interviews lined up for July.”

“Are they in the city or closer to home?”

“For now they’re closer to home. I’ll have to give up my apartment because it’s considered student housing. I really don’t want to look for a place to live and start a new career at the same time, so I figured staying with my parents until I get my feet on the ground is better.”

She gasped. Speaking of feet, theirs just touched the water.

The cool water skimmed his arches. He wanted to keep her distracted.

“Do you think you’ll miss the city?”

“Yes and no.”

He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her waist so that her back was to his chest and his chin rested on her warm, soft hair. They simply swayed together and he gloried in how wonderfully she filled his arms.

“There are a lot of things I despise about the city.”

“Like?”

“The noise, the pollution, the people who are perpetually rude like it’s their birth right.”

He chuckled and moved them forward a smidge. Her shoulders tensed, but he didn’t acknowledge her apprehension. His arms crossed over her bare belly, his left hand resting on her right hip and vise-versa. He massaged her skin lightly.

“Was the school you student taught at in the city?”

“Um…” She answered as if it were a difficult question, likely she was having a hard time with their position. The water crested their feet and was now just below mid-calf. “I…what?”

“The school you did your student teaching at, was it in the city?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Where about?”

Her breathing became slightly labored but nothing like the other day when she suffered a panic attack. With every brush of his fingertips along her skin, her body seemed to relax into his by small degrees.

“With traffic it was about twenty minutes from campus.”

“And how far is campus from home?”

“About forty minutes. It’s mostly highway, but then you get into the city and it takes forever.”

He nudged her forward a step and asked, “Are you considering applying to that school?”

“Yes. They already have my resume and I have a good rapport with the faculty there.”

“How far would a commute be from there to home?”

“Probably about thirty minutes, because it’s not as ensconced in the city as my apartment.”

A light breeze danced across the surface. Branches swayed slowly and he was mesmerized by the way Samantha’s skin prickled from her shoulders to her neck leaving a dusting of goose bumps. The water was warmer than most times of the year, but still cool over their skin. He kissed the side of her neck.

“I think you’ll be a wonderful teacher.”

She grew quiet and he wondered what she was thinking about.

Finally she said, “And you’ll be a great priest.”

His mouth opened and he hesitated. Shutting his eyes, he said, “I hope so.”

“You will. You have this calming quality about you. It’s enchanting. Between that and your looks I imagine your female parishioners will be so up in arms it’ll be worse than the tales of Father Ralph
de
Bricassart
from the
Thorn Birds
.”

“And are you to be my
Meggie
? The woman that haunts my dreams and owns a piece of me God will never have?”

She stepped out of his embrace and turned to face him. “No, Colin.
Meggie
led a tragic life and I won’t sentence myself to such a fate. She was the thorn bird that sang only once then bludgeoned her heart as a price for that short song. When you give yourself to the church, give all of you. It’s torture to emotionally be in two places at once. True love is a complete surrender without regret or ever looking back. You’ll be marrying the church and that’s where your heart must lie, same as I’ll someday give my heart over to my husband without reserve. I’ll never forget our time here, but I plan to work damn hard to. I can’t put myself through a lifetime of wanting what I’ll never have. I will not ‘pierce my breast for the glory of one song’ that’ll never be sung back to me.”

He brushed a wisp of hair away from her face. She was so reasonable yet somehow had an incredibly romantic soul.

“I’ll always envy the man that marries you, Sammy. I’ll confess it first among all sins until the day I die. I know I shouldn’t, but the heart is a muscle with reflexes of its own that we have no control over. You will always be my one thing left unfinished, the masterpiece that slipped away.”

She gazed up at him with slightly trembling shoulders. He wondered if she shook, not because of her fear of the water, but because the reality of his words. He hadn’t lied. He’d never forget her. She was the first and only woman he had ever cared for to such a degree. He needed her then in such a way it shook him to his core.

Slowly leaning down, so not to break the emotionally laden moment, he pressed his mouth to hers. Their bodies touched only at their lips as he sipped from her. Her small tongue skated over his lower lip and he smiled. He had never imagined kissing to be so intoxicating.

Slowly, she took a small step closer to him and her breasts pressed into his chest. Under the inconsequential scraps of fabric, her pebbled nipples gently stabbed into his skin. His arms wrapped tightly around her and the kiss intensified, picking up speed and overflowing with need.

Her body tipped back as he deepened the kiss. He somehow managed to lower her to the ground and settled himself on top of her. She gasped. Cool water crossed their sun kissed thighs and electrified his senses. Her shorts became wet, forming a film over her skin, and sand clumped to their flesh like grits of glue. They were only at the bank, sitting upon the water’s edge, so when he eased her back the ripples of the lake lapped at her hips, but left her shoulders dry.

Dark hair spiraled around her face like a dark halo, small flecks of yellow sand interrupting the solid chestnut sheen. He tugged at the string around her neck and watched as her top came loose. Raising her arms above her head, she knotted her fingers together and rested them in the sand. He pulled both sides of the string toward her belly, flipping the cups covering her breasts back, exposing two tightly puckered nipples.

In her position, her breasts appeared less full then they had earlier that day when she’d leaned over the counter of the sink. They seemed smaller, but still magnificently feminine. He brought his hand to her flesh and cupped her breast, granules of sand creating a friction that
wasn’t
there before. Instinctively he bowed his head and sucked one tight nipple into his mouth.

Samantha moaned and arched farther into his touch. She tasted fresh yet salty. So close to her skin he could smell the fragrant lotion she had used earlier. His other hand found her other breast and cupped it firmly from the soft underside. He dragged his thumb back and forth over the turgid tip.

Sucking her nipple deeper in his mouth, he lightly held it between his teeth as he drew his tongue back and forth over the fleshy nub. She squirmed beneath him and he switched his attention to her other nipple.

Colin kissed and suckled and licked at her flesh until she was a fury of confused moans and movement. Sammy’s slow motions became frantic as though she longed for that satisfying end, but also didn’t want the pleasure to stop. Garbled words of love left her lips.

His body heated to such degrees he could no longer feel the heat of the sun. He was the sun, a fire burning so intensely for this woman beneath him he feared he’d burst into a million pieces and never be able to put himself back together again. She was changing him and once changed, certain parts of him would never be the same.

His mouth crashed down upon hers and he kissed her with the magnified intensity of a million emotions colliding into one. He loved her. He loved her in a way that rivaled even his love for the Holy Father. His body shook, and she suddenly pushed against him and he rolled onto his back.

With quick little movements she climbed upon his body and straddled his hips. Her mouth found his again and their potent kiss continued. As her knees sank firmly into the sand on either side of him, their bodies molded to one another’s. She rocked her hips over him. Their bodies were sealed so tightly together, that if not for their clothing, he would be inside of her.

At the thought of entering her, his entire being shivered. Would she be warm? Soft? Wet? She rode him as she kissed him with so much passion it was as if she could no longer contain it all.

A fire in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary of holding it in.

As she dragged her pelvis over his, something shifted inside of him. It was as though she cradled his erection in her hands, every movement sending sensations splintering through him, igniting every nerve. Her touch singed him in such an addictive way he never wanted her to stop. The warmth of her core penetrated her shorts and his. Like tiny fingers tickling his shaft, squeezing, pressing, dragging, she gripped him with her core. He was going to ejaculate. He should stop her, but all common sense vanished.

He gripped her hips so tight he feared he’d leave bruises. His eyes rolled back as he dragged her faster and faster over his hardness. Her head tipped and she sat taller, allowing just the right amount of pressure to give him the most pleasure. He moaned and she cried out. Their breath had become a tribal beat building in tempo and pitch, a ceaseless tattoo, escalating to introduce some grand moment.

Through half closed eyes he watched her heavy breasts sway with each move and it was that vision that threw him over the edge. His muscles locked as his shoulders rose off the sand beneath him. Warm jets of semen poured out of him and coated his thigh. Samantha cried out again as she too found release. Their bodies trembled as one and she collapsed across his chest as breath sawed out of his lungs and blood rushed like wind in his ears.

After a few minutes of simply basking in the afterglow of such an intense climax, she finally admitted, “That was the most incredible experience I’ve probably ever had.”