Moriah's Mutiny

“No,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster in her growing panic. She glanced about furiously, but everyone else seemed oblivious to her situation. The bartender was pouring drinks with his back to her, and the diver’s friends were eagerly egging him on. “Let go of me, you big jerk,” she hissed anxiously.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the diver admonished her as he grasped her upper arm painfully with his other hand. “No name-calling. I don’t like that. It’s not polite.”

His voice had become malicious and low, and Moriah decided then and there that serious times called for serious crimes. She was just beginning to bend her knee, quickly assessing the exact amount of force necessary to drive it into the man’s private parts and completely incapacitate him with pain, when another man came suddenly out of nowhere, dropped his arm casually across her shoulder and cried out, “Darling! I’ve been looking all over for you! Hiya, Bart. What’s new?”

Simultaneously Moriah and the diver turned to stare at the newcomer, one face etched with surprise, the other with wariness. Moriah took in the man’s handsome features, ruggedly bronzed from the sun, his laughing amber eyes and the slightly curling hair that had probably once been a dark rich mahogany but was now also streaked with a dozen shades of copper and bronze. He was taller than the diver who still held on to her, but not nearly as physically overblown. This man was firm and muscular, yes, but as a result of physical labor and lean times, not from afternoons spent at a gym. Moriah could only stare at him speechless, but her tormentor obviously knew the man and was disappointed by his interruption.

“Austen,” the diver greeted the other man with a reluctant nod. “You know this babe?”

Austen cringed a little at Bart’s statement, but his smile didn’t falter. “Know her?” he asked, seemingly aghast. “Know her? Why, Muffy and I are practically engaged!”

“Muffy?” Moriah and Bart spoke as one.

Austen’s smile dropped somewhat. “It’s a pet name,” he explained to the diver. When he looked over at Moriah, the crooked grin reappeared. She looked as if she wanted to slug him instead of Bart, and he was the one trying to rescue her. When he’d entered The Green House, he’d almost turned right around to leave again. The popular night spot was even more packed than usual, and for some reason he didn’t feel like being part of a crowd tonight. Normally he enjoyed a party as much as the next guy, and the more people, the better. But tonight he felt differently. Tonight he felt restless and edgy, anxious even. As if there was something big coming, but for the life of him he didn’t know what.

As he’d turned to leave, he’d caught sight of Bart and the boys at the bar, then almost involuntarily his eyes had been drawn to the woman they seemed to be tormenting. It wasn’t just the fact that she was beautiful that made him catch his breath; there was something else, too…some raw energy, some unassuaged yearning caged within her, threatening to burst out any minute. The look in her eyes spoke of wild desires that wanted to burn free but that she kept buried with careful control.

He could tell by her expression that Bart was threatening her and she was about to strike back. He’d even noticed her preparation to nail the diver in a place that most men considered exceedingly important. He had to admire her insistence that she was not about to be manhandled by the big gorilla, but knowing Bart the way he did, there was unfortunately no way she would have been allowed to leave St. Thomas intact had she succeeded with such an act. Therefore, Austen had jumped in with both feet in an effort to defuse a potentially explosive situation, hoping unconsciously, too, that like the good guy in all his favorite Westerns, he might also wind up with the girl.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on her, Bart,” he told the other man with a wink. “I was afraid she’d gotten tired of waiting for me and taken off.” He playfully but meaningfully tugged Bart’s hands from the woman’s tender flesh, then put his own arm around her waist and pulled her close.

Moriah had no choice but to allow him the liberty, reasoning that at least this man seemed sober and more normally proportioned, and would prove a much less formidable adversary than Bart.

“Yes, uh, Austen,” she began slowly, thankful that she remembered Bart’s use of the stranger’s name. She, too, wound an arm around his lean waist, explaining away the pounding of her heart as the aftershocks of having been placed in a dangerous situation. “It’s about time you showed up. I was getting worried.”

“Isn’t that just like a woman?” Austen said to the group of divers who still gazed at him with no small amount of suspicion. Impulsively he swung the woman around to face him and buried his hands in the hair that had tantalized him ever since he’d entered the bar. Her gray eyes widened in startled surprise, but Austen couldn’t help himself. Telling himself he was only doing it to convince Bart he actually knew this woman, he lowered his lips to hers in what he’d intended to be a quick, light kiss. But once he knew the warmth and softness of her mouth, once he tasted her sweetness and passion, Austen couldn’t retreat.

At first Moriah was shocked by the man’s actions, even if she had thought the arm draped around her waist had brought on some very pleasant sensations. She was being kissed by an absolute stranger! In a public place! While other strangers looked on! But what was worse, she realized, as the handsome, wonderfully muscular man intensified the kiss, she was really beginning to enjoy it.

Maybe it was a result of consuming too much beer or having been far too long without any male companionship, or maybe it was a leftover reaction to the highly tense situation in which she’d been embroiled only moments before. Maybe it was for some other reason she didn’t want to think about right now, but almost of their own volition, Moriah’s arms crept slowly and reluctantly up Austen’s abdomen until her fingers spread possessively across his chest. And that was all the invitation he needed to pull her closer and deepen the kiss. As his hands wandered freely over her back and shoulders, her fingers became tangled in his thick hair. When Moriah felt his tongue graze along the line of her teeth, she opened her mouth to him willingly and nearly collapsed in his arms at the reckless, hot sensations that washed over her at being so filled by him. She allowed herself to become lost in the passionate embrace for a moment, clinging to him as he clung to her, locking her tongue with his in an intimate celebration. But when she realized with a start that she was clinging so desperately and passionately to a total stranger, Moriah gasped out loud and pulled her lips savagely away.

“Stop,” she whispered breathlessly, her fingers betraying her as they continued to clutch great handfuls of Austen’s pale yellow T-shirt. She was so close to him that she could feel through his faded, tight blue jeans how aroused he had become, and her shame and horror at having provoked him into this state was almost too much to bear. “Please, just stop,” she repeated, ducking her head in embarrassment, unable to meet his eyes.

Austen’s gasps for breath were ragged and shallow, and he, too, was appalled by what had just transpired between them. He didn’t even know this woman’s name!

Moriah took a deep, calming breath and expelled it slowly. “The others…” she muttered lamely, looking around the bar fearfully. “Bart…”

Austen glanced quickly over her head to discover that Bart and his cronies had disappeared from their seats at the bar. With a brief survey of the room, he saw that they had joined a group of giggling beach bunnies, their smiles broad, their chests swelled, enjoying their new celebrity.

“The others are gone,” Austen murmured into Moriah’s ear. “So’s Bart. See for yourself.”

She turned uncertainly, her eyes darting between Austen and the recently vacated bar stools behind her, then returned her attention to him. “If that’s the case, then why don’t you let go of me?” she asked him pointedly, indicating the strong hands still settled possessively on her hips.

“’Cause I don’t want to,” he told her with a crooked smile, his curiously colored eyes sparkling with humor. “Why don’t you let go of me?” he returned, and Moriah realized with chagrin that she still clung with some insistence to the front of his shirt.

Immediately she released it, nervously running her damp palms over his chest in an effort to smooth the softly worn fabric. “Um, sorry about that,” she mumbled sheepishly.

“Hey, no problem,” he drawled, loving the feel of her hands caressing his chest.

Moriah, too, was somewhat preoccupied with the motions of her hands, marveling at the strength and hardness she felt below her fingertips. He probably had a really magnificent chest, she thought fondly. Well, of course it was magnificent now, with his tight T-shirt straining across the finely tuned muscles. But when he was naked, it was probably incred—

She dropped her hands as if she’d been burned, and pulled away from his now-loosened grip to reseat herself at her original position at the bar. After a long, cooling swallow of beer, she managed to look over at him without feeling her stomach turn inside out, though she did squirm a little when she realized his chest was still at eye level. After clearing her throat nervously, she finally said, “Well, thank you for coming to my rescue, Mister…”

“Uh-uh. No ‘Mister,’” he told her. “Just Austen.”

“Well, then, thank you, Austen. It was, um, enlightening meeting you, but now I’m more than certain that you have to be going somewhere. Goodbye.”

Austen’s already handsome face was made radiant by the mischievous glimmer that lighted up his eyes as he seated himself on the bar stool Bart had vacated. “You’re damned right it was enlightening,” he agreed. “But I don’t have to be anywhere until tomorrow morning. And frankly, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to leave you here alone with Bart lurking around. I’m afraid I know the guy. And the way he was looking at you tonight…well, let’s just say the old boy’s tenacious where women are concerned.”

Unconsciously Moriah’s hand encircled the wrist that the diver had gripped so painfully, and she gazed at him uncomfortably across the room.

Austen noted the gesture with a frown. “Did he hurt you?” he asked softly, taking her wrist gently in his own hand. Her soft flesh was red from Bart’s manhandling, and he traced over her delicate bones with a roughly padded thumb.

Moriah grew warm at the exquisiteness of his caresses, so different from the savage pawing she’d suffered from the other man. “Not much,” she replied quietly. “Thanks again for helping me out.”

With a casual shrug, Austen brushed off her unnecessary thanks, then caught the bartender’s eye. “Stu, bring us a couple of planter’s punches.”

“Oh, no,” Moriah objected. “I’ve still got a beer here, and I don’t want to mix.”

“Come on,” Austen insisted. “You’re in the Caribbean. Drink something festive. You can have beer any day. Besides, you’ll love this. Trust me.”

On cue the bartender placed two tall, pinkish-orange drinks on the bar before them.

“Stir it up first,” Austen instructed.

“Why?”

“They float one-fifty-one on top.”

“One-fifty-one?”

“Just do as I say, Muffy, or I’ll have to get ugly.”

“My name isn’t Muffy,” Moriah said with a laugh as she rattled her straw around in her drink. “It’s Moriah.”

“Wow, what a great name,” he remarked with genuine appreciation.

“Really?” she asked, irrationally pleased that he thought so. “Yeah. Isn’t there an old song or something about that?” He thought for a moment and then recited with mock seriousness, “Way out west they have a name for wind and rain and fire.’ Or something like that.”

“Yeah, the wind is ‘wind,’ the rain is ‘rain,’ and they call the fire ‘fire,’” she rejoined with a chuckle.

“No, no, that’s not it. They call the wind Moriah,” Austen corrected.

“Whatever.”

“After what happened tonight, though, I’d say the fire should be called Moriah,” he murmured in a silky voice.

Moriah tried to pretend she hadn’t heard, but she sloshed a good bit of her drink onto the bar as her stirring became more furious. Dropping her straw onto the napkin, she lifted the wet glass to her lips and took a deep sip of her drink. “Hey, this is really good. I could drink a lot of these.”