Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/7676/duecredit.html

Author's disclaimer: Characters, theirs. Story, mine. I beg shamelessly for feedback as to whether this was a dream or a nightmare.

Author's notes: This is about as steamy as I can get away with at my young age. Read at your own risk.

There is a word for where we are.

That word is paradise.

The night sky stretches above us, an endless drape of ebony velvet imbedded with stars scattered against the darkness like carelessly tossed jewels. The moon is a thin sliver of it's rounded face, casting just enough light to see the sparkle of a wave's crest or the smile of a lover. Before us, the ocean reaches out to meld seamlessly with the distant horizon, as tranquil and warm as a child's wading pool heated by the July sun.

Gentle waves caress the soft, white sand, their soothing rhythm and the sigh of a warm breeze the only sounds that invade on what is otherwise total peace. The sand is cool now, the heat of the sun having dissipated through the night, and it forms a cushion beneath our feet as we walk the water's edge, staying just beyond reach of the ocean, though the bolder waves occasionally manage to tease us with their spray.

The tropical air of this unnamed island is warm, even at night, and little comes between me and the light wind that sways the exotic foliage and tosses our hair in unruly wisps. I am wearing a simple black one-piece bathing suit, cut high on the sides and treacherously low in the back. The cut accentuates my long legs, once almost paper white but now slowly burnishing as we spend more time under the sun. The suit is still wet from our swim earlier that evening, and it glistens in the faint moonlight like the
glossy skin of some exotic sea animal. A light gossamer cover-up is draped over my shoulders, the lingering moisture on my skin making the fragile fabric cling to every line and curve.

A bird calls somewhere nearby, and you feel me squeeze your hand. You look quickly, wondering if it frightened me, but it is not fear or alarm that you see in my dark eyes. It is desire.

I reach to take your other hand, and we stop walking, standing now facing one another, our bodies little more than a foot apart. We look at each other for a long moment, time stretching to a length that would be almost painful except that we know that time means nothing here. Rank and protocol are words that have lost their
meaning. We have forever.

My fingernails drag slowly over your palm as I release your hand, leaving only the faintest whisper of sensation, and I take a step closer, careful to bring our bodies as near as possible without actually touching. Then the sight of the moon reflected in my feline gaze disappears from your view as I close my eyes, leaning forward that last fraction. Your arms ache to grab me, to pull me near for a fierce kiss, but you know what is happening. We've done this many, many times before, each building on and growing beyond that first moment of heaven I tasted on top of that train.

My tongue teases out from between my lips like an exotic snake, and it lightly flicks over your lips before retreating. I open my eyes to confirm that my own desire is reflected equally in eyes as blue as the ocean itself...and I see that it is. That I am wanted, loved. That you think me beautiful. Your love inspires me, and I raise my hands, allowing them to rest as lightly as twin butterflies on your broad shoulders as I lean forward again.

Your hands also raise, brushing a salt-sequined chocolate strand out of my face as our lips come together. Slowly at first, a simple meeting of lips no more intense on the surface than one might bestow on a close family friend. Our eyes close, and my hands tighten on your shoulders, my long fingers undulating to knead the firm muscles I find there. In response, your arms wrap around my small body, almost fragile in appearance, but strong and nimble in fact. Your hands are skilled and sure as they move down my bare back, the sensations your fingers send rocketing through me intensifying the kiss to something only attributable to lovers. Still, however, you remain the gentleman, allowing me to indicate how far you want to go.

I waste no time showing you, as not even the intense pressure of our mouths and the feeling of our bodies pressed tightly together satisfies me. My tongue quests outwards again, but no longer gently, as my hands move down from around your shoulders. Blindly, they seek the hem of the simple tanktop you wear, and a harsh ripping invades on the tropical stillness as I tear the garment from you, our mouths never parting. My tongue thrusts more insistently now, and your lips, which have remained teasingly pressed closed, now part, complying to the demands of a building passion telegraphed wordlessly through the intensity of our kiss and the fervent motions of my hands on the bare skin of your back, then on your chest as they move to over the perfect smoothness
there.

Exploration. My fingers and hands seeking, massaging, stroking, memorizing every plane, every line, every firmly muscled curve of your sculpted form, even as my mouth performs the same actions upon yours. Lightly running my tongue along the smoothness of your teeth, applying the barest of nips to your lower lip...just enough that it leaves a faint indentation of a few tiny teeth for several seconds. Swirling my tongue through your mouth and dancing it with yours in a series of moves that would put the most sensual of tangos to shame. And all the while, my lips pressed firmly to yours, opening and closing my mouth ever so slightly so that you feel the fullness of my lips against you.

Sight is a sense for which I have no use, a distant memory good only to project the image of your handsome face and unerringly masculine form upon the theater of my mind. My hearing is filled with the fevered rushing of my blood, the pounding of my pulse from this wild and unstoppable desire that is building and building in me with no signs of abatement. My mouth is filled with the taste of you...salt from the water which had dried on your lips, a honey-like taste from the fresh mangoes we shared earlier, and the undefinable, unspeakably exquisite taste that is simply you. My nose catches the sharp tang of the salt water, the heady aphrodisiac of scents from the jungle blossoms, and the building scent of two heated bodies pressed together.

But I live in a world of touch. My mouth upon yours, engaged in that passionate tango. My hands on your body, moving and seeking with ever growing fervency for something I cannot define, but know instinctively that I desire. One fingertip brushes the waistband of your swimsuit, and I know that will have to go soon. It would definitely get in the way of what I have planned.

You seem to share my thoughts, your fingers having fast discarded the flimsy cover-up, now teasing the straps from my shoulders. I whimper slightly with loss as your mouth leaves mine, but it is soon replaced by a low moan of pleasure as your lips and tongue begin to tease at the sensitive skin at the hollow of my collarbone. My hands entwine in your dark hair, and I wordlessly urge you to continue, all power of cognitive speech having utterly deserted me. I am a creature of instinct now, of desire, of unadulterated passion.

The sky is beginning to lighten to the east, and soon it will erupt in a riot of unearthly color as the dawn breaks. But we are oblivious to nature's displays as our legs bow to the raging pace of our growing arousal, lowering us slowly to the sand before we would have mindlessly collapsed there. The cool, calm Inspector has deserted me, taking the quiet, reserved Constable with her. I'm not at all sorry to see them go.

Despite being unknowing of it's approach, we are celebrating the new dawn in a fashion so intensive, so primal in it's origin as to be the truest homage to such a powerfully beautiful act of nature.

Can anyone truly blame me for demolishing the damned alarm clock?

THE END