The Pleasure Of His Company. Lindsay Evans

quick tutorial on the beach, Kingsley stayed close to Doe Eyes to make sure she put on her gear properly. Despite her obvious nervousness, she put on her snorkel and fins with easy and practiced movements, checking the fit and the security and brightness of the flashlight secured to her wrists, while everyone else did the same. After a quick verbal check all around, the group slipped into the water. Kingsley and Doe Eyes were the last.

      “Ready?”

      “Absolutely.” She looked like she was trying to convince herself, and he wondered why. But he mentally shrugged and slipped into the water first, keeping his head above the surface and his body close to the anchored boat. He flicked on his flashlight. In his board shorts and otherwise bare skin, he felt the pressure of the water, the night’s brisk breeze on his face and neck. A shiver of reaction climbed up his spine.

      She sat in the belly of the boat for a moment, watching him, then walked to the very edge, took a quick breath and splashed down beside him. The splatter of water made her blink her eyes behind the mask, and he floated away from the boat slowly, signaling for her to follow him.

      His flashlight illuminated a long line of water around them, pushing aside the shadows and, he hoped, any potential fear for her. She brushed against him briefly, and he felt her tremble. Then she adjusted her mask, gave him the thumbs-up, turned her face into the water and began to explore. After a moment Kingsley began to do the same.

      The reef was close to the surface. Only a few feet separated the tips of Kingsley’s fins from the coral alive with color and darting fish whose scales shimmered under the light from their torches. Sea urchins, spiny and dangerous, poked out from holes in the coral. Kingsley tapped her shoulder and pointed to make sure she saw them.

      This wasn’t Kingsley’s first time snorkeling at night. He’d even done some night diving, traveling down to the ocean floor to watch octopi, their bodies dotted with phosphorescence, slide along the coral. He’d swum through massive schools of brilliantly colored fish not present during the day. All of it had been breathtaking.

      But there was nothing like the wonder on this woman’s face, her eyes widening, hands clutching fiercely at his when she saw something new: the powerful and steadily moving sea through the beams of their torches, large schools of bright blue parrot fish swimming lazily in the night waters. He wanted to show her more. He wanted her to see everything.

      This feeling wasn’t a new one, wanting to preen and introduce a woman to the best of what he knew. What was new to him was the lack of urgency. Kingsley enjoyed the brush of her arm against his, rising up to the surface to take a breath and catch sight of the twin globes of her bottom resting on top of the water. It was a deep and pure pleasure he could bask in for hours. But despite the vague possibility of this unnamed and beautiful woman disappearing from his life at any moment, he wasn’t frantic in his desire for her.

      He knew he would have her.

      Still, his ache to touch her was almost a painful thing, a desire that clung to the backs of his teeth and burned steadily. It was slow. It was hot. And it easily melted away the memory of any other woman he’d ever wanted.

      In just his mask and fins, he swam farther down, holding his breath and lighting up the darkness for her. Deeper into the water, he saw a school of spotted turquoise fish, their scales bright even in the small grotto where they hid. Kingsley propelled himself up to the surface, taking a deep breath when he hit fresh air. She took out her snorkel.

      “You okay?”

      He nodded yes. “There’s something you should see, lower.”

      Her eyes widened. “This is snorkeling, not diving,” she said.

      “You can handle it.”

      She gave him a curious look, then put her mask back on, refitted her snorkel and nodded at him in acceptance of his challenge. Kingsley grinned, took her hand and dove deep with her fingers wrapped tightly around his.

      Nearly an hour later, they surfaced for the last time to the sound of MC Solaar playing from the speaker Carlos had brought. It was a miracle they’d gotten any reception on the battered, old thing. Kingsley could hear Annika “singing” along to the old-school French rap and laughing at herself when she tripped over the words. A look at his watch told Kingsley they’d already been out there for nearly three hours and at almost ten o’clock at night, the others were ready to wash off the salt, get someplace dry and drink something a little harder than beer to close out the night.

      A sleek head appeared from beneath the surface barely a foot away, and Kingsley smiled at her automatically, having quickly grown used to the brightness of her eyes behind the mask and the way she grinned around the snorkel in excitement at the things they’d found together. He pulled off his mask, and, after a glance around them, she did the same. She wiped water from her face.

      “Time to go in, huh?”

      “Yup. They’ve probably been waiting for us a little while.”

      Doe Eyes didn’t hide her disappointed look, but she nodded, cast one look at the glare of his flashlight that illuminated their bodies just under the water. “Let’s go then.”

      Kingsley gestured for her to go first. Once she’d swum a fair distance in front of him, he followed at a leisurely pace, enjoying the last of their privacy.

      “I thought you two were going to stay out there until sunrise,” Carlos said, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke over his shoulder.

      “I’d prune up too much by then,” Doe Eyes said. “I value the softness of my skin too much.”

      “Even at the risk of denying yourself the company of this hunka burnin’ love?” Annika tossed a look at Kingsley as he clambered into the boat.

      He ignored her and turned up his nose at Carlos. “The only thing burning up out here is our nose hairs from that cigarette. You couldn’t wait until we got back to land to light up, Carlos?” His friend smoked the cheapest and most offensive cigarettes known to humankind, having exchanged his addiction to hard drugs for one to nicotine.

      “You know I have a vice, man.” Carlos blew another stream of smoke, this time through his clenched teeth.

      “Those things will kill you just like the other crap you gave up,” Kingsley said. He sensed Doe Eyes watching him with curiosity.

      “Not this again.” Steven groaned over the long-standing source of disagreement. “Everybody ready?”

      After he got the appropriate number of grunts and yeses, he started the boat’s engine and propelled them back toward land.

      * * *

      At the beach, Steven anchored the boat and cut the engine. The others moved slowly to get their few belongings, sealed in watertight bags, and climbed from the boat to the beach, where the battery-operated lantern they’d left stuck in the sand still blazed but the fire had long since died. Kingsley felt pleasantly exhausted but didn’t want to go back to his place yet. Although his body was tired from the swim, he felt mentally energized by the snorkeling, and by the presence of the woman he couldn’t get off his mind.