Seduced by Passion

Seduced by Passion - Chapter 5

The Light

Perched on the edge of a bar stool, Raph sipped his ginger beer. He looked out the window at hotel guests climbing into a small power boat docked on JBR's pier.

He brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and glanced at his Cartier watch. Why was he still here anyway? He had delivered the letter. There was nothing keeping him from going on to the villa to settle in for the week, figure out where Aetós was, scatter his grandparents' ashes, and get back to his life in San Francisco.

Oh, you know why, his inner voice taunted. She's hot and you want a go at her.

It was clear to see from where Xiomara got her looks and her passion, he thought, remembering her outburst when he'd knocked on her door. Like mother, like daughter—strong and formidable—neither afraid to express her opinion or her anger. They had strong survival instincts, and he felt a strange affection growing inside him for the Davenport women.

Raph took a swig from the bottle as the image of Xiomara's slender, perfectly shaped body meandered across his mind. He loved the way her curves moved subtly beneath her dress. Visions of threading his fingers through her long black hair and trailing his hands slowly up and down her smooth skin made his mouth water.

He shifted on the stool as his shaft hardened. He was still mystified at his reaction when Xiomara's picture had popped on his computer screen a few days ago. So intense was her effect on him that that night he'd dreamed of them walking naked along a white-sand beach. He had no idea where the beach was, but the fact that they were naked didn't seem to bother them. It had felt like the most natural thing in the world. They'd been playing in the water and having so much fun that they hadn't noticed they'd been pushed away from the shore until a huge wave wrapped around them and pulled them farther into the deep. They'd clung to each other, screaming at the top of their lungs. Then the boom of a drum, or a bolt of thunder—he wasn't sure which—rumbled through the air.

Raph had jumped awake to a painfully stiff cock and the warm, sticky evidence that he'd had a wet dream. As he'd climbed out of bed and headed for his bathroom, he'd thought it strange he couldn't remember the name and face of a woman he'd screwed the previous night, when the face of one he'd only seen on his laptop, and hadn't yet met, had made him come in his sleep. It wasn't even a sex dream. They were just fooling around like life was a breeze and they didn't have a care in the world.

He'd dreamed about her again the following night. In that one, they were children, around nine or ten years old. They were gathering seashells and digging for crabs in the wet sand. He remembered her smiling at him while she tugged strands of black wet hair out of her face. She was so pretty, he'd thought, watching her eyes shimmer in the afternoon sunlight. In his dream, he'd felt happy that they were together. And now that he'd met her, Xiomara was even more irresistible than in his dream.

Raph finished off his ginger beer and set the empty bottle on the bar top. Sliding off the stool, he raked his hands through his hair and walked over to the window. People were strolling along the stretch of beach, and relaxing in hammocks suspended between palm trees on the lawn below. Some folks really know how to let go and relax. A part of him wished he was one of them.

You were relaxed in your dreams.

There were two aspects about those dreams that had bothered him, and while in-flight to Akilina, he had called Gwen, a marketing specialist for a tech company in New York, who interpreted dreams on the side for her friends. Occasionally, when he flew to the east coast, they would hookup. She was a no-strings-attached woman. The kind he liked.

Gwen had said that being carried out to sea was a warning that he could be dragged into some kind of crisis and lose control of himself or his values. That had given him pause. With that interpretation alone, had he not been mid-flight, he might have canceled the trip altogether. Their nakedness, Gwen continued, indicated emotional vulnerability. Raph was less concerned about any chance of that happening. His emotions were under tight wraps.