Page 5

Under the Sea

Because of their conversation in the secret cave, Liam didn’t find a chance to kiss Tess before their tour guide returned. Gathering them all up, she asked if they were ready to depart. They all were. As interesting as these caves had been, there was only so much to wring out of stone and darkness. A brighter set of sights awaited them.

But first, that kiss.

He hadn’t managed to accomplish it when he’d wanted to, but he also didn’t want to wait a second longer. He had his face underwater, breathing air through the snorkeling tube, swimming alongside Tess, when he realized that fact. They were in the back, trailing the others, right about to reach the part where they’d need to head fully underwater.

He saw the arch he’d failed to go under on their first time passing through this tunnel. An idea came to him suddenly. It excited him.

Everyone breathed in deeply, then submerged themselves. Liam, however, tapped Tess on the side. Her head shifted, hair flowing in waves behind her head. Her light shone a little uncomfortably bright in his eyes as she looked at him. With his handheld light, he pointed it toward the archway of stone.

Tess nodded and began swimming toward it, yet he reached out and touched her again. Confusion shone in her eyes as she paused, the others getting farther away.

Moving his breathing tube out of the way, Liam brought two fingers to his lips, held them there long enough for Tess to register his meaning, then pointed at her lips. And then he pointed again with his light toward the archway.

Beneath the water, shifting her breathing tube out of the way, Tess smiled and nodded.

They went under the arch, moving with slow intention. Twisting so they faced each other, they brought their bodies together. Working in tandem, overcoming the issues of their snorkeling gear, they brought their lips together. Just for a couple of seconds, that was all the kiss lasted. Using their hands to stall their momentum on the limestone arch, they stayed underwater. Together, lips touching.

That also made four.

When they surfaced after their protracted stay underwater, they gulped a little more air than the others had needed. Anna looked slightly concerned, as if she’d noticed they should have come up sooner than they did, but her worry faded once both their heads were above the water.

“More of those at the reef,” Tess whispered, smiling openly. “That was very romantic.”

Liam promised he’d do so with a nod.

He kept to another promise on the boat ride down to the second resort where they’d be dining. Now that Victoria had openly exposed their relationship, Liam gleefully showered his affections upon her. Arm around her waist, holding her close, he whispered all sorts of sordid suggestions into her ear while kissing her neck, cheek, and ear.

If not for the two crew members on their little boat, he’d have gone further. Avril, amazing as ever, proved to be the perfect ally, distracting them with a flurry of questions during the trip. That gave plenty of opportunities for Liam to have his way with Victoria. He did so, unapologetically. Right now, because of what she’d said in the caves, he was on top of the world. That made him a little reckless.

And he was pretty sure she would have allowed him to do more. Victoria’s pulse betrayed her attempts at maintaining her poise, revealing his potent effect on her. She stayed stoic and calm for the first half of their journey southward, playing it cool. But by the second half, an aroused gleam had taken up residence in her gorgeous eyes.

“Be sure to be the kind of man who makes good on his promises,” the voluptuous woman warned. “You’re making quite a few. I want reliability as much as excitement.”

“If I don’t make good on every single one of them, let a meteor come crashing down on me when I’m in bed tonight,” Liam whispered.

“Hopefully, a small enough one to avoid taking me out too,” Victoria said, shivering as he moved a hand from his lap to her thigh. Her skin was so smooth and soft, and he ached to send it across every inch of her long, attractive legs.

Before doing such a thing, he glanced to see if Avril was still being her perfectly distracting self, which she was. Of the eyes watching him, they all belonged to women whose attention he craved.

“We don’t need to worry about how big or small it might be. Because I’m going to follow through on them all. You’ll see again tonight.”

“I hope so,” Victoria whispered, spreading her legs slightly.

Liam slipped his fingertips into the inner part of them, tracing them toward the cutoff of her beige shorts. But how good would it be to unbutton them and slip his fingers inside? Victoria looked like she was considering the same set of events.

“There’s another benefit to being consistently reliable, as well,” she whispered.

“What’s that?”

She leaned into his mouth, which warmed her neck with a rapid attack of four small kisses. “I’ll be more willing down the line to agree to some of the group opportunities you’re clearly hungering for.”

Liam breathed in sharply, excitedly. “Any in particular that you’re thinking of right now?”

“Interrogate me about them tonight. When I’m at my weakest.”

Liam experienced his own private earthquake of anticipation. “I will,” he said, tormented by the images her challenge summoned within his mind. “Just you wait.”

Victoria smiled slyly and let him continue to touch her for the remainder of the boat ride.

At the Coral Blue Resort, they enjoyed fine dining and amenities under a shaded canopy. The resort seemed used to having people come by just to eat, relax a little, then head out to one of its nearby coral reefs, and they were again one group among many. Probably because of those facts, this one was a bit larger than their resort.

Soon enough, they were back under the sun, setting their toes on white sand suffused with its warmth. With the resort at their backs, they headed north, coaxed forward by a relaxing breeze and the sight of a dazzlingly blue ocean.

Unlike yesterday’s beach, this one faced away from Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island, so the sight of that gorgeous expanse of ocean seemed to stretch for eternity. From the shore to the horizon, all shimmered and swayed. It was a vibrant swathe of cerulean, going on forever, disturbed by exactly a single thing: a sailboat lazily riding the waves, its white sails flapping as the wind pushed it onward. At the end of Liam’s sight, where the horizon brought together ocean and sky, gorgeous hues of blue connected, touching but not fusing, neither wishing to bend their color and meld with the other.

Basking in the warmth, Avril sighed contentedly and waved for them to follow. They did so, warming their heels on the loose sand. Their reason for choosing this beach became clearer with each step.

About fifty or sixty feet from the shore, a coral reef hundreds of feet long dwelt beneath the turquoise water. They’d gotten some information before coming here, so they knew what to expect. This northern reef didn’t have much of a drop off, sloping gradually until rock became sand. Once they reached that point, they’d be able to witness the full breadth of the larger of the two reefs near the resort.

“Well, let’s get in there,” Avril said, escaping her shorts and shirt. Balled up in her fists, she tossed it onto a borrowed beach towel she’d laid on the sand. The rest of them followed suit, and Liam got his second experience applying sunscreen to several stunning bodies. Today, he went a little more quickly, knowing everyone wanted to get out into the water. Others were coming in their direction from the resort, anyhow, so it wasn’t as if he could get quite as handsy as he might have liked.

Once everyone was ready, grabbing whatever snorkeling gear they wanted to bring out with them, they let their legs carry them to the waves, which lapped by, cooler than the sand, though not by much. Liam wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to how warm the ocean was around Fiji. Even though he’d been in it multiple times, his brain continued to expect a splash of chilliness each time he waded into it. He was too used to swimming in pools in the summer, where the entire idea was to escape the sun’s ferocious heat.

The water raced by his feet as he strode forward with the others, soon rising to his ankles, then calves. It remained warm and inviting, though he could have done without the rock he needed to walk over. Eyes pointing downward, he watched for any sharp protrusions that might very swiftly ruin his day.

In fact, they needed to watch out for more than just rock. Walking methodically on the sloping rock, they soon began to see isolated patches of coral, like isolated cabins intentionally built away from the urban sprawl. They were mainly on the smaller side, as the water levels weren’t that high just yet, so the five of them only gave them brief looks.

Around the time the water had climbed up to Liam’s chest, the rock beneath them terminated suddenly. Wet sand squeezed between their toes, continuing to slope downward. Just beyond them, the coral reef, an entire ecosystem in and of itself, began.

Finally, colors other than blue presented themselves. He saw a lot of grey, like the patches of coral they’d already passed. Many of the various reef complexes he could see once he set his face into the water held only this color. But there were plenty with at least a splotch of color within them. In a lot of ways, they reminded him of someone adorning a kerchief or flower on a suit. Just a splash of color, there to draw attention and accentuate the sharp outfit.

Within one mass of coral and rock was a single standout, bright purple, stretching its many stiff polyps out like a flower in the midst of unfurling its petals. On a neighboring section, he saw another that was blue—so, okay, even the coral seemed to like that color a lot. But just as many went about things with a little more subtlety.

Swimming ahead toward a sight that caught his eye, their group spreading out to admire the beauty beneath the waves, he came across a platter-like area of coral, about three feet in diameter. It flirted between beige and green, and as he grew closer, he realized that it consisted of hundreds of tiny ends, like a forest of Brussels sprout heads.

That wasn’t all that it consisted of, however. As he circled it, he discovered a blue starfish, one that had robbed its hue from the sky before retreating beneath the ocean, resting on this coral. And then another, and then another. Apparently very common to this reef, he and the others would end up finding dozens of them throughout the day.

There was another type of coral that almost looked brain-like, ridged and curvy. The one he found was a burnt orange color, and it swayed in a gentle rhythm in the water. Many of them did that, including ones he found once he started swimming out even deeper. Peering toward the ocean floor, which now sat about a dozen feet beneath him, he saw tree-like expanses of soft coral. These came in red, pink, and yellow shades, finally fighting against blue domination.

While examining one such nest of coral, breathing in through his snorkeling tube, someone poked him. Shifting his focus to the left, he saw both Tess and Anna. The latter, the one who’d poked him, pointed toward something moving on his right.

A pair of stingrays swam not twenty feet away from them, gently propelling themselves through the water. They were several feet across, and their long, thin tails trailed behind them. Gliding just above the sandy surface, it gave Liam and the others a perfect chance to see the fascinating black and white coloration they possessed. These wore a void-like black on their backs. It covered them all the way up to their flat heads, at odds with the white sand beneath them. However, they were marked in the dozens by little white squiggles, some circular, some curvy, a handful that almost looked straight. It was like an artist had brought out a black sheet of paper, then coated it in as many white symbols as they could fit on the page.

The stingrays drifted by, in search of a meal among the coral. They certainly weren’t lacking in variety.

With the ecology professor elsewhere, Liam could only guess at the types of fish he saw. They numbered in the high hundreds, at least, mixing and matching shapes and coloration with reckless abandon. He recognized at least a few, including several butterflyfish, striped in orange, white, and sometimes black.

And these were just the ones he saw. For the most part, he stayed up where he could continue breathing through his snorkeling mask. Whenever he decided to dive lower, letting his lungs get a good workout, he found even more unusual sea creatures darting beneath the coral. One was as long as his forearm, and it had a big enough mouth to look capable of swallowing his fist. He shied clear of that one.

“Did you see that grouper?” Anna asked during a brief moment when both their heads were above the water. “The orange one.”

Liam nodded. It’d been hard to miss, standing out among the grey and beige coral around it as it darted by—perhaps the stingrays had gotten a little too close for comfort. Or any other predators that might be around, yet unseen by Liam.

“There are giant groupers at a few places, I think,” Anna said, pulling up her goggles and rubbing water from her forehead. “Bigger than humans. You can dive with them; they’re not dangerous or anything. People who go shark diving often see them.”

“Ever done something like that?”

Anna shook her head. “It’s a little thrilling for my taste. I’ve never gone swimming with sharks or skydiving. Avril has. Both.”

“Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Liam chuckled. He looked around but didn’t see her, so he assumed she must be underwater. “I can’t say I’ve ever done either one. If you had to pick, which would you go for?”

“I’ll pick the sharks,” Anna said, glancing upward. “I’d rather trust the science behind how rare shark attacks are over hurtling toward the ground at terminal velocity. Even if that’s also scientifically very safe. It makes my head spin, imagining doing such a thing.”

“Are you not so good with aerobatics?” Liam asked, remembering how tightly she’d squeezed his hand while on the seaplane that had brought them to the Yasawas. She’d seemed fine on their private jet.

“I trust planes when they’re flying straight and gentle,” Anna said. “I don’t need to know that the plane can spin while getting me to my destination.”

“I suppose that’s pretty fair.” He nodded downward. “Well, do you want to explore a little bit more with me? We can point things out to each other.”

Anna nodded, smiling. “If you spot any sea turtles, please tell me immediately.”

“Will do.”

Back beneath they went, legs propelling them toward the ocean floor. Some fish scattered as they grew near, while others barely gave them any notice. Anna, unfortunately, soon got a scare from a black and white banded sea snake, which emerged from the coral and swam, unconcerned by her, close enough to her face that Liam saw her eyes go wide. Later on, they’d learn from Victoria that it was actually highly venomous, though small enough that it was rather unlikely to be dangerous to an adult human. Nevertheless, Anna’s face grew paler at the newly gained knowledge.

Constantly resurfacing and then heading back down, giving their lungs a workout, he and Anna explored the reefs and the ocean floor. Around their tenth diving action, they saw a camouflaged octopus moving among a rocky patch of coral. Elsewhere, they spied on several fish “bathing” themselves in an expansive patch of sea anemone. Amusingly, not three feet over, other fish munched on that same bit of coral. Not so far a journey from the bath to the buffet table, it seemed.

Still, they searched and searched for any sight of a sea turtle. They saw crabs scuttling on the ocean floor, wearing shells covered in tiny barnacles. They saw schools of fish weaving among the coral, streaks of blue scales that reflected the sunlight penetrating the clear water. Another stingray passed by, and they even found a spotted leopard shark—a juvenile one—napping on the sand. But no sea turtles.

“We could conscript the others,” Liam said during one of their brief respites above the water. They’d spread out pretty far, Tess the closest to them, then Avril. Victoria, who was apparently quite confident as a swimmer, had been the farthest out when Liam had last checked. However, as he looked for her now, she seemed to be heading back to the shore. Done already? That didn’t seem right, given her status as an ecology professor. Surely, there was plenty out here to keep her occupied and engaged.

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” Anna said, also noticing Victoria as she stepped back onto dry land. Their curiosity led them to bring it up when they swam over to Tess.

“She’s returning to the resort to get flippers,” Tess said. “She wants to go deeper down, see what’s down there.”

Liam and Anna shared a look. He nodded. “I’ll go grab us some. Do you want a pair, Tess?”

“Maybe later. If you have the hands, just drop mine off by my towel.”

Separating from the two women, he flagged Avril down. She opted for the same choice as Tess.

Back on dry land, Liam didn’t catch up to Victoria until she was coming back out, carrying her flippers in one hand. She raised an eyebrow, and he realized that she was wondering if he’d come after her.

Well… I wouldn’t say no, Liam thought, glancing toward several opportunities where they might find a little privacy around the resort grounds. He quickly shook off the thought, however. Mostly.

“We’re all piggybacking off your intelligent idea. Anna and I are hunting sea turtles, so we need flippers too. And I’m getting spares for Tess and Avril, should they later decide they want to swim down deeper.”

“Ah,” the voluptuous brunette said. “It is possible. April is still part of their mating season. Would I be cutting in if I joined you two on the hunt?”

“I think Anna would do just about anything right now to see one, so another set of eyes would be totally welcomed.”

Smiling slightly, Victoria nodded.

After obtaining more flippers and returning them to the beach, Liam left two pairs with their towels. Anna was waiting for them there, indeed completely fine with—quite happy about it, in fact—Victoria joining them on their hunt. After donning their flippers and waddling inelegantly back into the ocean, kicking up sand as they went, they renewed their search.