Read Martinique (The Acolyte Book 1) for Free Online

contact drew him even nearer, until he put his arms around me as I floated, growing serious.
    "Let me, Létice. Please, let me, just once. That's all.  Just once."
    For the first time, I didn't extend my usual ridicule or irritated retort. Instead, I pushed myself from him, but not far. I freed myself in one easy movement from the loosened madras, letting it drift to shore on the waves. Then I floated again, arching my back so my bare nipples broke the surface.
    Eugène was awestruck, gazing at them for some time. When he reached out I pulled away, but once again, not far. As if feebleminded, he repeated his words.
    "Let me, Létice. Please. I know you'll love it. I hear the women in my father's room at night. They yell like dogs in heat."
    "How romantic."
    Dropping his voice, he tried another tack.
    "I'll give you anything you want. Anything."
    These words brought an unpleasant catch to my heart. My father's words to his witch.
    I snapped, "I don't want anything, Eugène." Softening, I deliberately pressed my hand over the front of his breeches, once. "Then again, maybe I do want something. I haven't decided yet." Teasingly, I repeated, "But maybe I do," with what I hoped was a provocative smile.
    His face was dazed, wondering if I had found a new and much crueler way to reject him.
    "What do you mean, Létice?"
    "I mean that soon I'll be eighteen, and my father is going to lock me up in a nunnery for the next two years. I mean that I'm a woman, and I want to find out what all the fuss is about." I turned my head again, still floating, my breasts still the object of his enraptured stare. I raised them even higher. "Can you show me what it feels like? Or are you still a little boy, and all talk."
    His face grew flushed, his hand reaching out and closing over one again. He squeezed it, too hard.
    "Just let me, and I'll show you I'm not a boy anymore. You'll be a woman then."
    "How do I know that? How do I know you've even done this?"
    "Of course I've done it!" he fired back, in a way that told me nothing of the kind was probably the case. It surprised me, for I'd thought that surely, at the least, he'd taken advantage of the quarters, with his father's shining example of morality before him. Perhaps he'd been forbidden it for some reason, by his father's whim, or more likely possessive jealousy over his private hunting ground.
    "Well, I suppose you'll have to prove that, won't you?"
    My own father called me his little fish, for I'd taken to water before I could walk, and could out-swim just about anyone on the island. I'd even gone far enough out to play with the dolphins and the harmless cat sharks and sea turtles that we sometimes captured to make into so many delicacies. Leading Eugène where I wanted him to go was child's play. I tightened my legs like a mermaid and flipped about, speeding away from him, and as I'd hoped, he followed.
    Though I took a circuitous route, I was heading for the high rocks of the cove, with the twisted hallways and secret alcoves within, darkened chambers like a phantasmal manor of stone with a sand floor. Purposely I came out of the sea naked in the full light of sunset, the waves surging around my legs. I walked slowly toward my wrap, my head up, rather than crouching and running for it. Then I draped it around me, wet and clinging. His open-mouthed stare was quite satisfying.
    He charged out of the water, fighting it rather than letting it carry him as I had. With no word, no preamble, he grabbed me, yanking me toward him. I stumbled in the sand, but he still pulled me against him, his hands everywhere.
    "Let me kiss you, Létice! Please, let me."
    I began to wonder if he knew any other imperative verbs. How strange it was, even then, when I had no understanding of the sort of man I wanted. For I'd already offered myself to him in the most brazen way possible, after two years of his relentless pleading and teasing. I'd already made it clear the prize was his. And yet he found it necessary to