A Time of Changes

"Nah, he's not the boy-toy. She's his whore." Another of the men said and Pen turned quickly, striding back with a purpose, this slight too much to overlook. The speaker was smirking and standing with his arms out to the sides, begging for a fight.

"Do you have any idea who my father is?" He said and dropped his arms, stepping closer. Pen didn't know, or care really and the younger man stepped up with two of his friends and shoved the older man. "Let's go, bro. I've been in karate since I was six, so let's go." His two friends were moving behind Pen to grab him.

Pen cocked his arm back as Candice called out for him to stop, but before he could put the smirking, arrogant little shit in his place, a cultured voice cut through the chatter and the music fell silent.

"I do not tolerate any harassment or assault of my staff or guests in this place. You should understand that by now, Mr. Cameron. I made it abundantly clear before I invited you here." Stephan said, staining at the cabana with his hand on the stereo that had been blasting the poor excuse for music.

"And something else you should know is that Mr. Nielson is my pilot, whom I was lucky enough to get after he left the navy. If you decide to pursue your current course of action, Mr. Nielson will treat it as an assault and respond to it appropriately. So you may want to think twice, as he is both well trained and your only way off of this island that does not involve swimming to Barbados against the tide and through shark-infested waters." He said and the young man looked angry enough to follow through with it despite the warning, but he stood down.

"Today's party is over. I have ordered the bars closed and the alcohol locked away. You all look very tired so I suggest you return to your bungalows and rest for a while, perhaps clearer heads will awake and you will recall your maturity and respect." He said in such a cold manner that none of them disputed it. As they left to return to their bungalows Kennedy shot an angry, suspicious look at Candice before she went with one of the men toward her bungalow. When the eight of them were gone Stephan came over to Candice with a little smile and a warm manner.

"Mademoiselle my apologies. Had I known that they would act this way..." He said.

"No apology necessary, Monsieur." Candice said in flawless French. "You could not have known and indeed it was a surprise to me as well."

"You speak French?" Stephan said in pleased surprise.

"Quebecois actually, I grew up on the border between Ontario and Quebec and learned both from a young age." She said and he smiled widely.

"Forgive me, I am Stephan Marcasos, and this is my island. You must be Candice Markham." He said and she affirmed it as she shook his hand, only to have him place a kiss on the back of her wrist. "Well, I hope that your stay otherwise has been enjoyable, and I hope to return the peace and tranquility to the island soon. I plan to move them to a cluster of bungalows on the far side of the island, where they will be a bit more isolated from you."

"Oh, don't make any arrangements on my account. I can deal with them well enough. I'll simply avoid them for a few days until they are gone."

Stephan nodded and smiled and the three of them chatted for a while there before he decided to have an early dinner with them. They walked to the restaurant and food for three was prepared as they sat and sipped wine together. It turned into a pleasant evening and at the end of the meal Stephan excused himself and Pen and Candice went for a walk on the shore.

————20————

Two more days passed in relative peace. Candice spent much of her time relaxing and recovering in her bungalow while Pen spent some time ferrying people to Barbados and the cluster of rich kids kept to their private area under the watchful eye of several of the staff. They seemed to be having fun and their horrible excuse for music drifted over sometimes during the day. But it was peaceful and Candice felt her calm center returning as there were no more calls from Gavin or his lawyer. She looked out in the early afternoon of the second day and saw Pen coming ashore with snorkeling gear on and decided on a whim to join him.

She walked down to the beach in just her bikini bottoms again, feeling her confidence return and enjoying the warm sunshine. The young couple who had come, who she hadn't met yet, were nearby and the wife was dressed the same as Candice, enjoying the sun on her skin and they shared a wave before Candice went down to the beach and saw Pen looking at something in his hand. As she got closer he saw her and hurriedly tucked what he had found into a pocket. She stopped before him and he smiled up at her.

"Come to have a swim?" He said and she nodded.

"I saw you snorkeling and thought I could give it a try." She said and he stood up, kicking off his flippers.

"Well, let's get you a snorkel and mask and I'll show you the reef." He said and she smiled as they walked over to the cabana together.

She completely forgot about seeing him with something in his hand by the time they got there. She found a snorkel and mask and they walked back to the beach and he got her set up with it, gave her a few pointers on how to use them properly and then they went down into the water together. It was exhilarating and refreshing and she forgot about her other woes and worries as they dove down to the reef together. The tidal surge around them was fairly weak and she got a great view of some fish she had never seen before and some beautiful coral. As he pointed out something new to her she was enchanted and she took her snorkel out of her mouth, grabbed him and pulled his away to kiss him there under water. They shared breath for a while, kissing for a long time and renewing the relationship that had been building before they had to go up for air. After that each time they dived down it was the same, losing themselves to deep kisses and long touches, more and more intimate as they drifted with the pull and push of the water.

When they surfaced for the last time that day, they saw that it was nearly sunset and they had the entire beach to themselves. Candice didn't let him get far out of the water before she was reaching for him again and he eagerly returned her kiss. They held on for a long time and she finally broke away, gasping for breath and holding on to him. He kissed her shoulders and his hands caressed her back and bottom, slipping under the bikini to find the bare flesh, warm and strong and still wet from the sea. She slipped her hands down and felt the bulge in his shorts and smiled as she looked at him.

"Here?" He said with a smile and the way her eyes lit up told him all he needed to know as her hands lifted and then slid back down inside of his trunks to grasp his hard, hot length.

He bore her back onto the sand, there where the waves had it pressed and swept smooth and clean, kissing her the entire way as he held her against him. As soon as her back was on the ground, she spread her legs around him and brought them up, his hands bracing on the sand as she pushed his trunks down with her hands and then her feet to move them below his knees. He laughed at her eagerness and one hand came to cover her breast and give a little squeeze. She moaned and arched her back, pressing her flesh against his hand. She was very aroused, more than she had been with him ever before and she was eager to feel him in her once again. With him sex felt fun, something she was supposed to be enjoying instead of the near monotony it had been with Gavin and she revelled in what she was feeling as she laughed and bit his lower lip playfully. He laughed and his hand slid down from her breast across her body, feeling how soft her skin was, then the brush of her bikini bottoms.

Rather than take them off of her, he hooked a finger under the center and slipped the cloth out of the way of her pussy and when his fingers caressed her slit she gasped. The waves washed over them almost constantly there, drenching them with warm water and salt as she looked up into his eyes and he slipped a finger along her slit, feeling the soft petals of her sex and the rim of her entrance, then the smooth flesh of her vestibule and up to the little pearl of her clit. When he touched her there she gasped and moaned, her face softening, the lust on her features making her more beautiful than ever. She felt the tip of his cock at her labia, then the gentle press that seemed to flow forward as smoothly and inexorably as a wave, filling her in a smooth, slow stroke that seemed to take forever. It felt wonderful and she moaned long and low as she enjoyed the feeling of him filling her, stretching her walls and making her feel complete again.

The day turned to twilight around them as he slipped through her, establishing a smooth rhythm that mimicked the waves as they rolled in, and she felt buoyed by the entire thing. She felt like she was the island, that she had been laying here for hundreds of thousands of years and he was the ocean, washing over her, through her again and again. She stared up at him, and at the sky behind him as her orgasm began to rise, as the sky turned to purples and blues and shades of black that she never knew existed. The stars came out and as she climaxed, moaning out loud, a shooting star streaked across the sky above to vanish past the horizon. He kissed her to silence, knowing their voices would carry and not wanting attention and she returned the kiss eagerly as she clung to him with all four limbs, not wanting him to slip away, not wanting to lose her ocean. She was as good as drunk on the exhilaration of the moment and she lost herself to the fantasy of the island and the sea making love always. The waves washed them but she felt sweat and tears, the tidal forces moved them, but she felt anchored, rooted in place and knew all that kept him there was her need, her clench and the pull of her limbs. She clenched her core down on him and pulled at him with her hands, kissing him as the waves carried over them, riding somehow higher and higher and then they were floating free, his hands grasping her hips, his voice trying to speak. But she was too far gone to hear him, too exhilarated to care.

They floated free in the water and their movement slowed but continued as they loved in the ocean, now below the water, the surf rushing around them as they moved almost frantically, needing to stop, but not daring. There was too much magic, too much power in the moment and they were trapped, unable to stop until they completed even if it meant they drowned, even if it meant the sea took them both. And the power of the moment, the passion of their lovemaking infected him too and he thrust into her frantically, pressing deep and hard, harder than he ever had before and feeling them both move through the water. All sense of up and down was lost, all sense of everything was lost and they were reduced to the place where they came together, to the joining of their flesh and their souls and their mutual climax was powerful, so powerful that they both lost their breath to the sea and barely made it to the surface, gasping for air and laughing as they treaded water.

It had felt like nothing else they had ever known, and they played and splashed in the water together under the full dark of the sky. The sun was down and the spangle of stars overhead was as bright as diamonds on a velvet cloth. They had been carried far out from the shore by the rush of the waves and the pull of the tides and when they finally swam back they were very lucky to find all of their snorkeling equipment, which they had cast aside when they first came to shore. Pen's shorts were lost to the sea however and to be fair Candice stripped off her bikini bottoms and tossed them out into the waves with a laugh as he tried to stop her. They fell to the ground and laughed together and before they knew what they were doing they had started in again, kissing and touching higher on the shore. Moans escaped them both as they rolled around on the sand, almost frantic in their need to couple. The slip of flesh on flesh was addictive as was the heated kiss of lips, the feel of him entering her again and of her accepting him, her sex wet and ready, grasping at him greedily until they reached another climax together and lay there, still joined together and gasping for breath as if they had just come from the sea again.

They eventually stood, gathering up the scattered snorkeling gear and made their way to her bungalow for a shower to cleanse the sand from their bodies, and the sweat and the mingled fluids and again they loved, there in the little rinsing shower with the warm water cascading over them. When they had finished again Pen went back to his own apartment and returned, dressed in slacks and a shirt and he found her dressed in a loose, flowing skirt around her waist and nothing else, comfortable in her skin once again. Together they went to the cabana bar at the pool to sit down and have a few light drinks and something to eat. The young couple that they had shared the beach with earlier was there, still dressed as they had last seen them and as Pen and Candice settled at the bar one of the bartenders came over with a drink for them both.

"Oh! I didn't order anything yet." Candice said as she looked at the colourful drink.

"It is from the guests there." He said, gesturing to the couple who were waving with a friendly smile. "It is a sex on the beach." He said as he set the other one before Pen and Candice blushed as she realized they had been seen. They nodded in thanks to the other couple and the pair of them walked over, being friendly.

"Hi, I'm Alex and this is my wife Sara." He said and Candice introduced herself and Pen.

Alex and his wife settled in with them and soon the four were comfortably lost in conversation together, enjoying the company of others their own age and with similar interests. They learned that the couple were on their honeymoon. Sara was an actress and Alex a screenwriter who had met her on a movie shoot. Pen had no problem admitting that he was the pilot for the resort, but Candice merely said she was on a sabbatical and steered the conversation away from herself. They chatted and drank and enjoyed the night together and when they all parted they were in good moods, better than Candice could remember having been in for a long time. She returned to her bungalow with Pen to sleep, exhausted and comfortable.

————21————

Two days later Candice had her catamaran tour and she dressed for it, wearing her comfortable bikini bottoms and a loose wrap which she removed to put on a life vest. She seated herself in the netting for the little four person boat and Pen pushed them out into the surf and got the boat turned around and ready to go before he rolled up next to her. She smiled and watched as he got the sail turned to catch the wind and they started moving and within moments they were practically flying across the water. The spray of the ocean felt good on her face and skin and she almost missed her long hair for the first time since she had cut it. He took her out far, until they couldn't see the island and it was just them and the sea and she laughed as they skipped across the water lightly as a bird. Soon they were joined by a pod of dolphins that raced along around them so effortlessly that it felt like they were barely moving. Jumping and flipping alongside the boat, their chattering laughter musical in her ears.

Pen ran with them for a while, no real course, just a lazy zig-zag that took them across the water. When he finally turned and brought them around to a coasting stop she sat on the side of the boat and laughed as the dolphins played around her feet. Then Pen stepped up beside her and off the boat into the sea with them, treading water effortlessly as they moved around him, squeaking and splashing. With a laugh Candice joined him and the feel of the dolphins around her was playful and curious. She laughed as she swam with them and with Pen for more than an hour, finally climbing back into the boat too exhausted and even sit up, but giddy with happiness. Pen flopped down beside her and they lay there and soaked in the sun for a while. Their skin warmed and they relaxed. When Candice sat up, Pen did as well and they had a light lunch there on the boat as it moved gently with the water. He also had a bucket of iced fish that the dolphins were willing to perform to get. He tossed one fish high into the air and a dolphin leapt for it, arcing over the boat gracefully to splash down on the far side.

Laughing and playing they took turns feeding them until the fish were gone. Candice sat on the side of the boat with her feet in the water and one of the dolphins head between her knees out of the water and her hands rubbing his nose as he chattered and watched her with huge eyes. Pen came and sat next to her and she leaned against him as the dolphin raced away only to be replaced by another seeking any last fish she might have forgotten she was holding. It was like nothing she had ever experienced and Candice was happy.

That was when Pen took something out of the pocket of his vest and she felt suddenly cold again as he passed the brooch to her.

"I don't want it." She said as she tried to refuse it.

"I'm not returning it to you." He said as he pressed it into her palm. "We're over a trench in the sea floor right here; it's a few miles deep. Drop it in the water here and it is gone forever."

She looked from him to the water and felt a moment of vertigo as she understood what he was saying. She understood that they were on top of water, but somehow her recurrent fear of heights gripped her and she felt like she was going to fall off of the boat and scream her way all the way to the bottom of the ocean. She gripped the brooch tightly and closed her eyes as she leaned against Pen. When she had herself under control she sat up and she meant to just casually drop it into the water, but she hesitated. It had meant so much to her when she had been married. Gavin had been loving and sweet and attentive and she had thought that they would still be married in forty years. She had wanted children, had talked to him all that night about a family and he had urged her to wait. It wasn't that he didn't want children; he just didn't want them right then. She had agreed and they had stayed happy for the next three years... She looked at the brooch with tears standing in her eyes and with a mournful feeling she let it fall into the sea and it was gone instantly. She stared, thinking she would see a twinkle of light on silver or a flash from the gemstones, but it was just gone, just as Pen had said and she felt a strange, hollow void within her, one that she knew she had to fill or it would hollow her out. She turned to Pen and he was startled by the strength in her hands as she pulled him into a kiss.

They fell back in the netting on the bottom of the boat and frantically pulled at each other's clothes. She needed this so badly that it hurt and the hunger and need was so clear in her that he couldn't deny her. He unclipped her life vest and it fell away, his hands and mouth going to her chest, the hard point of her nipple caressing his lips before he took it into his mouth and sucked hard. He drew a moan from her as her hands frantically pulled at his trunks and freed his hard length. She was begging him and he couldn't deny her as he pulled at the ties on the sides of her bikini bottoms and as the cloth came away he slipped a hand over her smooth flesh. She was so warm and wet that his fingers parted her labia easily and slid into her slick canal. She moaned again and arched her back and pushed up against him, eager and needing as she sought more. He curled his fingers and she sobbed in pleasure as her core clamped down on him tightly. He rubbed at her, the heel of his hand grinding at her clit as his fingers moved within her core. She cried out and her hands clenched at his shaft, pulling him closer and he groaned at how eager and needful she was. She wanted him in her so badly that it was physically painful and she couldn't do anything but pull him on, anything but seek to fill the yawning void that was filling her soul. He obliged, his hand moving, spreading her labia and his tip coming to rest at her entrance.