Ted Bell - Phantom

“No, darling.”

“He said, ‘Great love affairs are born in heaven. But so, too, are thunder and lightning.’ ”

Nell laughed her soft laugh. She was now wearing his old Irish fisherman’s sweater and nothing else. Her long legs were tanned a deep bronze by the Bermuda sun, pale white at the top where the beloved golden thatch nestled between her thighs.

“I like that,” she said.

“My darling girl. Of course I’ll light the fire. Come here first and give us a kiss.”

He lifted the covers and she crawled inside, reaching for him and finding him already rock hard.

It started with a kiss.

Half an hour later he slipped from her body, then silently from the bed and lit the fire. He sat there, cross-legged on the floor before the hearth, watching until he was sure it had caught. Nell came over, knelt beside him, and placed the silk coverlet around his shoulders.

“That was lovely,” she said, gazing at his profile lit by the flickering orange flames. “My man, my beautiful man.”

“Looking forward to your first sea voyage tomorrow, landlubber?” Hawke asked, still staring into the fire, lost in his own thoughts.

“I look forward to everything, Alex Hawke. Every single day.”

A t sea the following day, Nell emerged from the varnished mahogany cabin house and into the pale gold of the late afternoon sunlight. Hawke’s lovely old ketch, Stormy Petrel, was heeled hard over, slashing through crystalline blue water that roiled and foamed along either side of her bow.

“Did he finally fall asleep?” Hawke asked.

“Yes. He’s all tucked into your bed-excuse me, berth. Clutching his teddy and fast asleep. I think he was just exhausted. He loved it when you let him steer. He’s had an exciting day, hasn’t he?”

“I guessed he would love the water, the wind and sails. Hawke blood runs thick with sea salt. Has done since my ill-mannered pirate ancestors plundered and terrorized the Spanish Main.”

Nell sat down in the cockpit right next to Hawke, who was standing at the wheel, gazing upward at his billowing white mainsail, looking for a luff, and trimming or easing the mainsheet a bit when he saw a crinkle or pocket in the canvas.

“Alex. I had no idea Bermuda could be so exquisite. Small wonder you and Pelham spend so much time at Teakettle Cottage.”

“One of those places that make me happiest. But do you think Alexei is safe here? Safer than in England, at any rate?”

“Without question. You cannot possibly monitor all the points of entry at home, but you certainly can here. Only one airport. The cruise ships arriving in town and out at the Royal Dockyards. And then the private yachts. That’s it. And we’ve got eyes and ears at all of them, all day, every day.”

Hawke smiled down at her. “Thank you for that, Nell.”

“I love him, too, you know.”

“I do know,” Hawke said, gazing at the open water beyond the harbor and the westering sun. He felt a shiver of pleasure ripple down his spine. He was where he wanted to be, the feel of warm teak decks beneath his bare feet, the breeze on his cheek, the sharp spike of salt in the air, a beautiful sailing machine responding to his every command, slicing through the incredibly translucent blue.

“Are you tired, Nell?” Hawke said, stroking her golden thigh.

“A little.”

“I’ve rigged a little hammock forward, slung beneath the bowsprit just above the water, nothing but a sail but quite comfortable for two.”

“And who sails the boat, Captain?”

“The autopilot.”

“So we just climb inside and sail off into the sunset?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like something you’d read at the end of a novel.”

“Yes. Or perhaps at the beginning.”