Antonia returned Thomas' smile, though with a curious, eminently amused furrowing of her brow as he pulled away, and began his leisurely march to the sea. Words were not needful - even had he offered them - to explain what Thomas shed as he walked to the shore. He unburdened himself of far more than clothing and, sweetening this moment further still? The rogue knew what he did right now was every bit as much for her, as for him.

And were such a thing possible, Antonia loved him all the more for this.

"You are [i]mad[/i]" the rogue said just under her breath as Thomas’ impromptu striptease began, the bright beginnings of laughter wriggling and bubbling up past her lips. Clear and sparkling, her child-like giggles began to wash away the filth and despair and worry like a swift summer stream. Antonia blinked with surprise, wondering too when his shirt fell to the sandy wayside at the serpentine shapes illuminated over near the entirety of his back. The purposeful lines and the exact nature of the design remained a mystery for the moment, too far in the darkness for her to make out [i]exactly[/i] - but this wasn't a mystery she intended to let sit long. 

But she could, certainly, stand to wait yet another moment or two. Antonia’s head tilted just a little, appreciatively even, drinking in that rather [i]stunning[/i] view while Thomas stood there on the shoreline, hands on hips, her lovely man living up to every last promise of the nickname she bestowed. “You [i]are[/i] mad, Thomas!” she called to him, though she doubted he heard her over the surf, or if he did? He gave no indication and continued his seaward march. 

By the time he turned to entice her to join him in the warm Jamaican waters, the rogue was already glancing up and down this stretch of nighttime beach. Though she knew very well they were completely alone, she still had to be satisfied that for all intents and purposes, they may as well have been the only two people in the world – a notion that suited Antonia fine. 

Shedding her own garb was, as might be expected, perhaps a touch more difficult than Thomas’ disrobing – and a bit noisier as well, though the sound of the surf masked most of the occasional clinking of metal on metal. Silken skirt and underskirt, petticoats and the dual garters with sheathed stilettos left a colorful, glinting pathway all of the rogue’s very own on the sandy shore. And though the corset gave a bit more trouble, the thin throwing knives stowed in its stays jangled merrily when the corset strings gave way, and joined the silver and ebony trail already blazed by Thomas. 

Dressed only in her long, lace-edged ivory chemise, Antonia waded into the waves after Thomas. Those two hothouse roses, crimson and white, that once perched over her ear now floated on the waters, marking the spot where the rogue dove silently into the sea. Disappearing beneath the tide, Antonia swam unerringly to her lovely man, rising up behind him in a spray of laughing sea foam. Thick, curling lengths of ebony hair glistened with crystal droplets of sea water in the moonlight, her hands gliding up the length of Thomas' arms to rest lightly on his wide shoulders. The soaked linen shift clung to the rogue’s svelte curves, the revealed outline of her body a strangely delicate counterpoint to the magnificent, monstrous beast that writhed across Thomas’ back. And though her eyes drank in the sight of that intricate, skillfully crafted tattoo, it was her fingertips that ran so tenderly over the great scars she could now see on his back. 

“Oh Thomas,” she said tenderly, her wet, cooling cheek leaning against his shoulder before she turned to kiss it softly. One hand snaked about his waist, pulling him close as the fingers of the other gently traced the edges of one of those scars. “It would seem you have a story or two of your own lovely man – dark [i]and[/i] light - you have not yet shared with your Antonia.”