Pirates Read Online Free PDF Page A

so clear that she could see the thin reeds and jewel-like shells wavering on the bottom. The sand was as fine and white as sugar, and Phoebe kicked off her sandals and waded in to her knees, exultant with the pure joy of being exactly where she was.
    Within the hour, despite the sunscreen she’d lathered on every inch of exposed skin, Phoebe was forced to cease communing with the sea and go inside. She bought a tall pink drink with a cherry in it at the bar and sipped the concoction as the old elevator wheezed its way to the third floor.
    In the privacy of her room, Phoebe gingerly removed her red polka-dot sundress, smeared herself with burn cream, and stretched out on her bed, imagining that she was lying in a hidden cove, naked except for the shade of a palm tree. She smiled, perfectly content, the sea murmured a lullaby from beyond her window, and sleep stole over her, soft as the shadow of a phantom.
    Her dreams were erotic, mysterious, interwoven with the music of a harpsichord.
    She was lying in the sand, shaded by the fronds of a palm tree. A man came and knelt beside her, and, although she could not see his face or find his name on her tongue, her heart knew him well. He stroked her bare thighs with a minstrel’s light, deft fingers until she quivered and whimpered beneath him, and then he weighed her breasts, first one and then the other, in a reverent, calloused hand. Phoebe felt as beautiful and magical as a mermaid, or a princess waking to her prince’s touch after a century of slumber in acastle encompassed by thistles, and she longed for the familiar stranger to make her completely his own.
    He bent his head, and she caught just the hint of a smile on his well-shaped lips just before he kissed her.
    An exquisite instrument played by a master, Phoebe’s body arched, bowlike, in response, and there followed a surge of passion so strong that it flung her spiraling upward, out of the sleeping rhapsody and into the real world. She lay despairing on her lumpy hotel bed, soaked in perspiration and still trembling from the violence of the imagined release. And she grieved, because she was alone, after all, and because her lover had vanished with the dream.
    Since the divorce from Jeffrey, Phoebe had been telling herself that celibacy wasn’t so bad, but now the very essence of her femininity was saying something quite different. She was still young and vibrantly healthy, and she wanted the emotional and physical satisfaction of total intimacy with a man.
    Well and good
, she thought, wincing as her sunburn made itself known. She was ready for another relationship, ready to trust a guy, to let him touch her heart and her body. Now all she had to do was find one who met her standards, which were much stricter than they had been when she’d met and fallen in love with Jeffrey, back in college.
    It wouldn’t be easy to make a new start, Phoebe knew, but she resolved to try. Maybe the best thing was to leave Seattle entirely, with all its memories, and look for work in San Francisco, or New York, or even somewhere in Europe. London or Paris, for instance, or somewhere smaller, like Florence or Lyon. In time, if she didn’t creep back into her shell to keep from getting hurt again, and if she was very, very lucky, she might just meet a terrific man.
    Feeling better just for having made a decision, Phoebe took her watch from the nightstand and squinted at its sand-coated face. “Damn,” she murmured. It was almost time for that dratted costume party.
    Phoebe dressed carefully in the cheesy gown, with its lace-up bodice and low-cut neckline, brushed her hair, and applied a touch of makeup. A headache was just pulsing tolife beneath her right temple, but she didn’t pause to gulp down an aspirin because she didn’t want to be late. It wasn’t that Phoebe was afraid of missing the flight back to the mainland—if it hadn’t been for the condominium people, she might have decided to stay forever, swinging from jungle