Chapter 11
Amber woke to the sound of rain on the roof and the other side of the bed empty. Disappointed, she sat up and looked around, then saw Daniel sitting in one of the rocking chairs. He’d lit a fire and was wearing a pair of scarlet pajama pants made from the same silky material as her nightgown. Looking out the window, she saw the beautiful warm weather of the day before had been replaced by rain and dark clouds. Occasional gusts of wind throwing a spray against the window made her shiver and reach for the nightgown, knowing that it wouldn’t do much to stave off the chilled air.
When her feet touched the floor, she couldn’t help but squeal, the floor was ice cold on her bare feet and she pulled them back into the bed. Daniel looked over at her and laughed. “Welcome to Alaska,” he said then added, “Come over here by the fire, it’s nice and warm.”
Amber took as few steps as she had to on her way across the room and was just about to sit on the other rocking chair when Daniel grabbed her and pulled her down into his lap. “Daniel, we’re going to break this chair,” She said laughing and trying to get up.
“No, we’re not. This chair was made to last,” He said, settling her deeper into his arms.
“Then I’m going to crush you,” She said, still trying to get up.
“No, you’re not. You fit just perfectly, you’d see that if you’d stop squirming,” Daniel said.
“Okay,” she said, relaxing back into his lap. “I’ll trust you.”
“Good.” Daniel said, “Because I have a wild idea,” a gleam in his eye that Amber didn’t like.
“What are you planning now?” she asked, thinking of the phone call to their mothers they still had to make.
“Well, we haven’t decided where we’re going from here and I thought… well the thing is, on the overnights I got to looking at that treasure map and I’m pretty sure that it’s real,” he finally spit out.
“What do you mean it’s real? Treasure maps are just something in books and movies,” Amber said, thinking that Daniel had lost his mind.
“Hear me out before you blow this off,” he said, standing up with her in his arms. “I’ve been doing some research.”
He put her back into the bed, got the map and his laptop, then got in with her. “Look, see these numbers here. These are coordinates, you know longitude and latitude. But they’re written backwards, it took me a while to see that. Dennis and his brother must not have figured that out and when you use them this way, they lead right to Jeremy’s cove.”
“But that doesn’t mean that there’s a treasure,” Amber pointed out.
“No, but do you see the name of the ship?” He asked, pointing to the ship on the map.
“Yeah, Fools Gold,” she said, thinking that it was a strange name for a ship.
“That ship really existed, one of the most popular ghost stories told around here is about this ship. Here’s one version of the story,” Daniel said, shoving the computer into her lap.
Amber read the story, but still wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know Daniel, it seems a little too good to be true.” Then when she saw the look of disappointment on his face, she added, “But it would be fun to go on a treasure hunt. How far away is this ship supposed to be?”
Daniel beamed at her. “I know this sounds a little crazy, but I just have this feeling that the ship is right where this map says it is. There were a lot of mines in that area that paid off big, and it wasn’t uncommon for men to keep their finds a secret until they had the gold safely in Anchorage,” he said, getting out of bed again and gathering up a pile of charts.
When he came back to bed, he dumped them between them, then grabbed his phone. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s order some food and I’ll show you where I think the ship might be.”
They spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon looking at charts and combing the internet for any scrap of information about the ship. Amber talked to several historians who each told a slightly different version of the story, but there were enough facts in common that she began to believe, like Daniel, that the map might just be real. By the middle of the afternoon, Amber was just as convinced as Daniel that millions of dollars in gold were sitting on the bottom of the ocean in a little cove about 75 miles from Anchorage.
“When do we leave?” she asked, shutting the notebook she’d been taking notes in and flashing Daniel a big smile.
“Day after tomorrow, I think. We should be able to get everything ready tomorrow and leave first thing the next morning,” Daniel said. “Then two days to the cove and the hunt begins.”
Amber had to laugh at Daniel’s enthusiasm, he was like a kid with a new toy. “I hope you’re not going to be disappointed if we don’t find anything,” she said, then it occurred to her that the ship would be under water. “How are we going to find it in the cove?”
“Have you ever been scuba diving?” Daniel asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“I got certified in the Caribbean,” Amber answered, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Well diving here isn’t that much different,” Daniel said, then added, “Just a little bit colder.”
Amber narrowed her eyes at him again. “I think I’m going to like diving in the Caribbean much better,” she said, thinking about how cold the water would be.
“I promise after we find this treasure, we’ll head for the warmest water we can find,” Daniel said, kissing her until all thoughts of how cold she was going to be were replaced by the warmth that only Daniel could provide.
Later that night, after they’d finished the rest of the food that Daniel had ordered earlier that day, they were laying on the rug in front of the fire. Amber’s head was resting on his chest, her fingers idly playing with the dark curly hair there, when she decided that she wanted to sketch Daniel. She rarely did portraits, found it too difficult to make people come alive on the canvass as they were in real life, but she felt like she knew Daniel well enough to capture him.
“I’d like to sketch you sometime,” she said, putting together the scene in her mind. He’d be at the bow of the boat, one foot up on the rail.
“I thought you didn’t do portraits,”he said, raising his head to look at her.
“I don’t usually, but… well… I’ve been thinking about it for a while now,” she said, then blushed, afraid he’d know exactly what she’d been thinking.
“And what exactly have you been thinking?” he asked when he saw her blush, wiggling his eyebrows and running his hand up and down her hip.
“Daniel, stop that,” she said, giggling.
“Hmm, maybe you had something like this in mind,” he said then got up off the floor and walked over to the bed, flopped down on it and posed, legs spread, the back of his arm covering his face.
Amber giggled some more, then got up and walked over to him. He was still wearing the scarlet pajama pants from the night before and he did look sexy laying there in bed. “Not quite like that,” she said, walking around the bed and looking at it from all angles.
Daniel watched her from beneath his arm, feeling a tightening in his groin as her eyes traveled over his body. If he’d been told a few weeks ago that just having Amber look at him would have caused this kind of response, he wouldn’t have believed it. When she reached over and pulled his arm down and rested his hand on his abdomen his skin tingled from her touch and the tightening in his groin increased.
“Don’t move, that’s perfect,” she said, then got her sketch book out, pulled one of the rocking chairs to the foot of the bed and sat down.
It was harder than Daniel thought it would be to have her study him so intensely, but the Amber sitting in front of him was suddenly a different one. He’d noticed it before when she was sketching, her entire body changed, became more relaxed, her focus on what she was sketching complete. She’d been sketching for quite a while when she stopped and set the sketch book in her lap, a frown on her face.
“Something isn’t right,” she said, looking at the sketch in her lap.
It had been going fine, she’d captured Daniel’s rugged good looks, including the hint of mischief that was always in his eyes. The sculpted muscles of his chest were so realistic that she ran her finger over them, expecting to feel the ridges of muscles under her finger, but that was when she’d stopped. Looking over at him on the bed again, she realized what was wrong, and her heart began to pound in her chest.
She stood up and walked over to the bed, then reached for the elastic band of his pants. “Don’t move,” she said, as she slowly slid them down over his hips.
Daniel was instantly hard, sure that he was going to explode right then. Watching Amber strip his pants off was more erotic than anything he’d ever experienced in his life. When her hand brushed across his erection he gasped, making Amber blush, but she continued gently sliding his pants off. When they were free of his feet, she threw them to the floor and quickly retreated to her chair and picked up the sketch book.
Their eyes met briefly, making Amber blush an even deeper shade of red, but she was determined to finish the sketch, not sure if she’d ever be brave enough try again. Working as quickly as she could, trying to ignore the throbbing erection between Daniel’s legs and the look on his face, she sketched everything she could before focusing on the source of all the pleasure he’d been giving her. It was almost impossible to concentrate when she thought back to all the pleasure they’d shared over the last few days, the tingle in her middle turning into a full blown knot of desire before she was finished.
Her body humming with desire, she got to her feet and stood at the end of the bed. “There’s one more thing I want to try,” she said, making Daniel groan. “Don’t worry you won’t have to hold still for this.”
Hoping that she was brave enough to go through with what she planned to do, she stripped off the pajamas she’d been wearing all day and stood at the end of the bed naked. Daniel groaned, but didn’t move as she climbed up on the end of the bed and began to run her hands up and down his legs, her hands as gentle as his had been on her. Afraid to move, he watched her, pleasure and anticipation making it difficult to breathe. When she finally took his swollen penis into her hands, her grip firm, and began to stroke him, his hips came up off the bed involuntarily and he moaned.
He reached down to pull her up to him, needing to feel her naked skin against his, but she resisted and said, “I’m not finished yet.”
Another strong wave of pleasure flooded his senses at her words, and a little drop of cum formed at the tip of his penis. When Amber leaned down and licked it off with her tongue, he came so close to losing it that he had to shut his eyes and think of something else for a second. He knew that he couldn’t take much more but couldn’t seem to move to stop Amber from taking him into her mouth, and then nothing could have made him stop her.
Her mouth was hot and wet, and with each stroke, her tongue rubbed against him in a way that had him gripping the sheets in his hands in an effort to retain his fragile control. His hips came up off the bed to meet each stroke of her mouth until he could feel the pressure beginning to reach a breaking point and he stopped her.
“It’s too soon. I’m not ready for that yet,” he said between ragged breaths.
Amber smiled at him, a sultry smile he’d never seen before and all he could think about was plunging himself inside her until they were both trembling. “But it’s my turn to give you pleasure, I want to make you come,” she said, then slid her body up his and kissed him.
Daniel grabbed her hips and centered her over his erection so that it was tucked between her folds, then slid her back and forth making her gasp when the tip of his penis rubbed against her swollen nib. Passion flared in the room as Daniel and Amber came closer to the union they were both desperate for, their tongues dancing together, mimicking the joining of their bodies. Then desperate to be inside her, Daniel grabbed Amber’s hips and drove himself into her, then held her there, letting her heat and warmth wash over him.
Amber wiggled her hips, loving the way Daniel felt buried so deeply inside her, then sat up, gasping when he slid even deeper. Seated so deeply inside her Daniel was sure that he’d never felt anything like what he felt right then, and when Amber looked into his eyes, he knew that she felt it too. Eyes locked on hers, he drove himself into her until she threw her head back in pleasure and cried out his name.
As the pressure inside her began to build, Amber realized that this pleasure was different than the other she’d felt. That Daniel was deeper inside her than he’d ever been, filling her like he never had before, each thrust of his hips bringing that pleasure closer to fulfillment. When it burst over her, it took her breath away and all she could do was hold on to Daniel and let it take her.
Daniel felt Amber tumble over the edge, her body grasping his as her muscles clenched around him, each spasm bringing him closer to the edge. Instead of letting her come down when the spasms began to fade, he reached between them and began to rub her swollen nib, which was so sensitive Amber was immediately thrown right back into the throes of passion. The waves of pleasure built, stealing what little breath she had before culminating in another orgasm that seemed to last even longer than the one before.
Daniel, satisfied that he’d wrung all the pleasure he could out of Amber, drove himself into her again until with his own cry of pleasure his body began to tremble and spasm. Amber hung on to him, her body responding with its own final burst of pleasure, then collapsed on top of him, her muscles still trembling. Panting they lay together until their breathing quieted and their bodies began to cool in the chilly air.
Daniel moaned, a low rumble in his chest and said, “I think I like being a model. You can sketch me anytime you want.”
Amber laughed, “As long as no one sees the sketches, that one is almost pornographic.”
Bryan walked up the pier finally feeling like he’d gotten somewhere, after two days in Anchorage he finally had a lead on the man who’d cheated his brother out of their map. It hadn’t been that hard to find the boat, what had been hard was getting anywhere close to it or getting any information on who it belonged to. He’d finally had to pretend that he wanted to buy another boat in the marina to find out what he needed to, but all the effort had been worth it since the salesman at the marina had been all too happy to gossip like a little old woman.
Now all he had to do was figure out where the couple was staying and come up with a plan to get the map from them. He was getting tired of cleaning up his brother’s messes, would have just walked away this time if there hadn’t been so much on the line. When he’d left the map behind he’d never dreamed that his bother would do something as stupid as losing it in a poker game, but Dennis’s mind didn’t work the way other people's did, at least that’s what he kept telling himself.
Now he had a ship and backers for the treasure hunt but no map. And the men he’d made a deal with wouldn’t understand what the problem was. If he didn’t have that treasure by the end of the week, he was going to be in big trouble. He’d already wasted too much time tracking the map down, now he’d have to take even more time to figure out how to get it back. But Anchorage wasn’t that big of a town, it shouldn’t take long to find out where they were staying. After all, a man of Daniel’s standing wouldn’t be staying just anywhere. A few phone calls would be all that was needed, then he’d get the map back, find the gold and live in comfort for the rest of his life.
He got in his car and drove a few blocks then pulled into the parking lot of a small restaurant. Hanging around the marina might attract attention, it would have been the best place to confront them but he couldn’t risk all the security, he’d have to find another way. Then to his immense pleasure he saw them, they actually pulled into the same parking lot and got out of the car, then crossed the lot and disappeared into the restaurant. Now, all he had to do was wait for them to come out and make his move. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but he had no choice, he’d made a deal with some very bad men.
By the time they pulled themselves out of bed the next day, it was almost noon and they were both starving. “We need to go check on the boat, see what we’ll need to get us through for about a week. How about lunch at that little place on the dock?” Daniel asked as he loaded their few bags into the car.
“Sounds good to me.” Amber said, switching her phone on for the first time in days. “I just remembered we’re supposed to meet everyone for dinner tonight at the hotel.”
“That’s fine, we should have plenty of time,” Daniel said, thinking that he was the luckiest man alive.
When they got to the restaurant it looked deserted, only one car in the parking lot, but Amber had called ahead and knew that they’d have a table for them. “Are you sure they’re open?” Daniel asked, parking the car.
“I called before we left,” Amber said, then blushed, “I might have used your name to get them to give us special seating, but I really want one of those burgers.”
“I think I married a very smart woman, I hope you promised them a big tip.” Daniel said, taking her hand and pushing through the door.
They came out of the restaurant less than an hour later, stuffed and very sleepy so when a man came around the corner with a huge knife in his hand Daniel was caught off guard. The man grabbed Amber and before Daniel could stop him, the knife was at her throat, he had a desperate look on his face and Daniel thought that he recognized him but couldn’t quite place him.
But the minute the man opened his mouth and began to speak, Daniel knew who he was. “You took something that belongs to me, so I’m taking something that belongs to you,” The man said, and instantly Daniel knew that this was the brother Dennis and his friend had been talking about.
“Okay, okay. Just relax. What do I have of yours?” Daniel asked, playing stupid.
“You took a map from my brother that belongs to me, and no one takes what belongs to Brian O’Connor and keeps it,” The man said, becoming braver.
Daniel didn’t think that Brian was any smarter than his brother, but he had a knife up against Amber’s throat and he looked desperate. “I don’t have it with me, it’s back on the ship,” he said, holding his hands in the air.
“Then we have a problem, don’t we? I want my map and I’m sure you’d love to have your little woman back,” Brian sneered at him. “Tell you what, she and I are going to go on a little ride, I’ll give you some time to find the map then I’ll call you.”
Then he began shoving Amber toward the car that was parked just at the end of the sidewalk. “Let’s go bitch, now I guess we’re going to find out just how important you are to him.”