by Bea Paige
“The tides brought me here,” he shrugs. “Perhaps I fancied a beer at Lola’s Shack. Does it really matter why I’m back?”
Of course it fucking matters.
“You said we needed to talk. So talk. Why are you here?”
He falters, his mouth opening then shutting. If I weren’t so angry I might have found it endearing. “There’s stuff going on with the King,” he finally says.
“Bullshit.”
“It always is a big steaming pile of shit where the King’s concerned,” he retorts.
“So you came back here to spy on the King, is that it?”
“No, to gather information.”
He’s lying. I can tell by the way he keeps avoiding my gaze, as though he knows I’ll find the truth buried within them.
“You know what, I don’t even care why you’re back. But just so we’re perfectly clear I want you to know how much you’ve hurt people. Lola mourned you, Malakai. If it hadn’t been for Rob, I don’t know how she would’ve put herself back together again. She deserved better.”
I deserved better.
In the beginning, I thought, I hoped my messages would bring him back to me, to us. I was naïve and foolish. I was just a kid who believed in true love, in fate, in stars colliding and all that bullshit. That belief has been tarnished now just like the derelict boats that rust in the harbour outside. It only occurs to me now, right here, standing before this man I still long for, that my heart has hardened. I feel a thousand years old, brittle.
“I told you I’d leave. I warned you, Connie. Lola understands that, even if she might not like it. I’m not responsible for how either of you choose to handle your emotions,” he says calmly.
“Fuck you, Malakai,” I grind out. He did warn me, and I went there anyway. Malakai is nothing if not a man of his word. He’s proved that now. I see how it is.
“So angry, Little Siren…” he says it gently, like a caress, and my foolish heart buckles a little.
“You made me…” I clamp my mouth shut, forcing my confession back inside.
“I made you what?” Malakai narrows his eyes at me, gritting his teeth, that infuriating muscle feathering in his jaw as the softness disappears.
I don’t answer right away. I refuse. Instead, I do what I know makes him uncomfortable, I stare at him. I let myself drink him in. I absorb every inch of his painfully beautiful face. Physically he hasn’t changed. The only difference is that his hair is a little longer and his stubble has made way for a short beard. He’s still broad, strong, muscular. His skin is still deeply tanned, and he still has that sexy, infuriating look on his face.
God, I want him.
“You made me hate you…” You made me love you.
He flinches drawing in a deep breath and for the briefest of moments I see regret flicker in his eyes. “The messages you sent…”
“Were from a girl who thought, maybe, you’d respond. Who thought, maybe, you’d have the decency to let her know you were okay. Who hoped you were the man she believed you to be.”
“I never promised anything,” he retorts, dismissing my feelings with a jerk of his chin.
“No, you didn’t, but you did kiss me like you meant it. You kissed me like I meant something to you. I felt that. I felt that.”
He laughs bitterly. “You begged me. I only did what you wanted, Connie.”
Connie…? I preferred it when he called me Little Siren. At least there is some meaning, some emotion behind his nickname for me. I don’t want him to call me Connie.
“You wanted it too.”
“It meant nothing… It was just a kiss,” he continues, throwing those words back in my face. I flinch at his coldness. It did mean something. It wasn’t just a damn kiss. Not to me and not to him. He can deny it all he likes if that makes him feel better about himself, but I know the truth and I’m not afraid of it.
“You put your lips against my pussy,” I throw back, revelling in the way that dirty word makes his pupils dilate and his jaw clench tighter. “You made me come so hard that you obliterated any chance of me wanting another man…” I clamp my lips shut, shaking now at the confession. The truth of the matter is, I lost my heart to Malakai the moment I laid eyes on him, way before any physical contact. No one will come close. Now or ever.
“I’m glad I could be of service.”
He’s glad to be of service? How dare he! His eyebrows lift as he gives me a self-satisfied smirk. The arsehole.
I lose it.
Rage whips through me like a tornado. Malakai must sense it because he steps back as I move forward. In four strides I’m standing before him, the flat of my hand stinging as it meets his cheek with a loud thwack.
“How dare you!” I seethe, twisting on my feet away from him. I’m too incensed to let the tears fall, but I know they’ll come later. When I’m alone, they’ll fall. Like a dam waiting a whole year to burst.
Before I know what’s happening, Malakai has gripped my arm and yanked me against his chest. The physical reaction between us sparks dangerously. The lust and want is mixed up with anger and hurt. I feel the incendiary energy whip up around us. It’s familiar, yet treacherous, threatening to tear us both apart. We’re breathing hard, and I have a sick sense of satisfaction from the bright red mark on his cheek. I want to slap him again, and I raise my hand to do just that.
Of course, he stops me, grabbing my other wrist too.
“You try that again and I’ll…” he snarls, breathing hard. His forehead presses against mine, his breaths falling hot and heavy against my lips.
“You’ll what, Malakai?”
His chest heaves. His teeth grind in anger. His grip tightens and slowly, painfully slowly, his mouth moves closer to mine. For a couple long seconds we remain head-to-head, toe-to-toe. Two angry, damaged, stubborn people unable to back down. He hurt me, so I hurt him.
It’s only fair, right?
Maybe I was wrong to slap him.
Maybe this is wrong. This thing between us.
Love shouldn’t hurt like this.
Pushing that rogue thought away, I grit my teeth and glare at him. I won’t be the one to submit, to back down. I won’t. He might be my soulmate. He might be the one, but I am not a pushover. He has to understand the damage he’s caused. I have to have some self-respect.
“You’ll what, Malakai? You’ll run again?” I press, pushing his buttons. Driving in the knife and twisting. Hoping to hurt him as deeply as he’s hurt me.
“No, you’ll be the one who’s running, Connie, and when I catch you I’ll put you over my knee and spank your arse so damn hard you’ll see stars. Then I’ll soothe all the pain with my tongue and watch your writhe beneath me until you come so hard that you won’t know night from fucking day,” he retorts in a rush, not taking a moment to breathe.
What?
“What?” I repeat out loud.
Malakai rears back, releasing me. His eyes widening as he realises what he’s just said. So this is a booty call? He’s had a taste of the forbidden fruit and now after a year he’s come back to torture me? Hell, no!
Yes, a tiny voice inside protests, but I force it away. I lock it down.
“I dare you to try,” I bite out, challenge blaring in my voice whilst hope flares inside my chest.
An infuriating calm washes over Malakai as he barks out a laugh. “You think I’m serious? God, Connie, you’re so fucking transparent.”
But I’m not calm, nor am I transparent because if he could look inside of me he’d see that I’m raging, I’m burning, and lustful, and hate-filled. I’m all those things and so much more. My fists clench as angry tears brim on my lashes, so I do the only thing I can think of. I provoke him. “I think you were deadly serious, but here’s the thing Malakai, you’re a coward. You haven’t got the guts to act! You’re scared,” I spit.
Malakai wavers on his feet, opening his mouth to retort. For a second I think he’s going to call my bluff and come for me. Only, he thinks better of it and sla
ms his lips together in a tight line, folding his arms across his chest.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
With one last hard look, Malakai turns on his feet and walks away. I don’t follow.
Twenty-Two
Malakai
Connie’s wrong.
No, that’s a lie. I’m full of shit. She’s so fucking right. I haven’t got the guts.
Before today, I never considered myself a coward. Connie just proved that I am. She laid down the gauntlet and I balked. Connie carved me up with all her anger, each word a slice against my skin, opening old wounds and making a plethora of new ones, and I’m left standing here behind Grant’s dusty boat shop bleeding onto the weathered board beneath my feet.
Yet, I’m so fucking proud of her grit, her determination to make a stand. No one has ever stood up to me like that before. No one would dare.
A man like me is capable of terrible things, violent things, but for her I’d crack open my chest and let her see what she does to my heart. If I was brave enough, I’d let her hold my battered and bleeding organ in her hands and give her the choice to breathe life back into it or crush it within her grasp. I’d give her that power.
But I’m not brave enough, and it isn’t just because I fear for her safety.
A long time ago I lost hope of ever loving another human soul again. When Annabelle chose Blake over me my heart was crushed. I would’ve survived that, eventually, but when my father murdered my mother my heart broke entirely. I was a kid who lost three people he loved dearly in a space of a few months. Two to each other through love and one to my father through violence. Painstakingly slowly, I rebuilt myself into a hard, hollow, husk of a man and became the criminal my mother tried so hard to prevent me from becoming.
The Punisher.
That’s what they called me. I was the one the King sent out to do his bidding. I hurt people for someone I despised, first for my uncle and then for my cousin when he passed away. I broke people, I took life without any thought or care. Ma Silva was right to protect Connie from me. That kid she’d once known, he’s gone. I’m not a good man, but for Connie, for her, I want to be. Only I’ve just fucked that up.
She was so angry. She had every right to be, but beneath that I swear I felt something infinitely more powerful than hate. I felt it that night I left, and I ran from it, from her. I felt it in all the messages she sent me over the past year and whilst they kept me sane, they also kept me far, far away from her. Until that last damn one. Until she made peace with herself, with me, and said goodbye.
Like the sick, masochistic bastard that I am, I couldn’t let her do that.
I want her. I want her so much that I can’t fucking think straight.
But I can’t have her.
I fucking can’t.
The King will kill her.
So I do what I always do. I shut down. I become hard, cold, thoughtless. I just played with Connie’s emotions when all I really wanted to do was hold her, make her mine, and fucking love her like a normal human being.
But I’m incapable.
Forcing myself to breathe, to calm my tattered thoughts and the battered pounding of my heart, I steel myself for what’s to come. First, I need to figure out who this little prick Peter really is, then I need to decide what to do. Most of all I need to keep Connie safe. Once she is, I’m going to leave this island and I won’t ever come back. No matter what.
Piecing myself back together, I head back out into the harbour and towards Princess, an inanimate object that’s become the only home I’ve ever really known.
By the time I hear the sound of merriment coming from Lola’s Shack it’s well past ten pm. After returning to Princess, I forced myself to eat and then sat at my laptop for hours trawling the web for information on Peter Jones. It wasn’t hard to find out his surname, a few of the fishermen were more than happy to answer my questions about the mysterious little wanker in exchange for a couple of notes to spend on alcohol later.
According to the men, he’s a good kid who can hold a drink. Harmless.
Yeah, right.
All kids these days have some kind of social media footprint even if they’re grown-up enough to not want to use it so religiously. I’ve never understood the attraction. These days kids don’t take a shit without telling the world about it. Idiots.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik-fucking-Tok. I know all about these sites available to the masses, and I know plenty about the ones that can only be found on the dark web. Believe me, there are many ways to find people without putting in much effort at all.
After a quick search, and just like I suspected, this Peter Jones has no social media accounts, no online presence whatsoever. That in itself raises alarm bells. What twenty-year-old kid who travels around the world doesn’t want to share his escapades with a hoard full of strangers? Apparently not this kid. Not that Peter Jones is the name he was born with.
As far as I can tell he doesn’t even exist, and whilst his name is pretty common worldwide and I haven’t had enough time to prove his innocence, my gut tells me he’s dangerous.
My gut is never wrong.
And fuck proving his innocence anyway. I’m not a court of law, I go on probability, and probability tells me he’s fucking trouble. Despite Grant’s theory that this is more to do with my sudden infatuation with Connie (the prick) I know my gut is right. Switching off my laptop and stowing it away in a compartment hidden beneath my kitchen cabinet, I haul arse into the shower.
Ten minutes later I’m dressed and ready, heading over to Lola’s Shack.
Spilling out, are several men, all of whom seemed to have had one too many drinks already. This time, there are a few more women dotted amongst them, none of whom I recognise. Not that I particularly care, so long as these men are occupied with other women they’re not fawning over my girl. She’s off-limits to every single one of these wankers, including me.
“Hey, you’re new around here, fancy a drink?” one woman asks, clocking me as I make my way through the crowd milling around outside. She slides in front of me, shoving her cleavage out and licking her lips provocatively as she grasps my arm. I notice she’s wearing a pink sash with the words ‘Lucy’s Hen Party’ and has probably downed enough booze to sink the Titanic given her slurred speech and high-pitched giggle.
“Not new around here, and no I don’t,” I respond, my voice clipped, strained. She needs to take her fucking hand off me.
“Ah, come on big boy, what happens on the island stays on the island,” she slurs.
Losing my already frayed patience, I lean over and growl in her ear. “Take your hand off me before I do it for you.”
She snatches her hand back, my cold response somehow registering in her foggy, alcohol-muddled brain.
“Must be gay,” she mutters as I push past her. She staggers sideways and out of my way. I hold back a laugh and shoot her a cutting look instead.
“Not gay, just not fucking interested.”
Expecting Connie to be run off her feet, given the place is busy, I head inside ready to clear the place and send each and every drunk arsehole home. Except Connie isn’t struggling to maintain control. She’s perched on a stool at the far end of the bar with her guitar across her lap talking to that prick Peter who is currently mixing fucking cocktails like he owns the damn place. Neither Lola nor Rob are anywhere to be seen.
“Where’s Lola?” I ask the bloke next to me. He seems familiar, but right now I can’t place his name. He gives me a surprised look and opens his mouth as though he’s about to tell me to mind my manners but changes his mind when I glare at him.
“With Rob on the mainland,” he retorts, wary now.
I point towards Peter. “He’s new. Work here, does he?”
“Kind of. That’s Connie’s fella. He helps her out.”
“Connie’s fella?” I snap, unable to hide my surprise and my anger. He better fucking not be.
“Yeah, thick as thieves those two. Been hangin
g out every day for the past few weeks. Most of the guys here are pissed they didn’t get in there first.”
“Is that so?”
“Connie’s got quite a few admirers. That girl’s a sex bomb.”
Anger boils inside and it’s all I can do to not to take out every single fucker in here who has ever had dirty thoughts about my Little Siren. Why the fuck have Lola and Rob left her alone? She’s like a nice juicy lamb chop in a den full of wolves. I must’ve said that out loud because the guy… Dan, I suddenly recall, looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“She’s not alone, Pete is here, and the last time one of the guys got a bit over amorous he knocked him out cold with one punch. You wouldn’t know it, looking at him, but he’s a lot tougher than he seems. No one’s tried to make a pass at her since. Though he can’t stop them from looking or appreciating her singing. Her voice is as sexy as she is…” His voice trails off when I suddenly grab him by the collar and sneer in his face.
“Stop talking about her like she’s a piece of meat!” I growl.
“Whoa! Sorry man, I meant no harm. Are you and Connie…?”
“None of your fucking business, dirtbag. Now, fuck off.” I let go of him and stalk towards the bar. It might only be early still, but I’m closing this place down. Lola can have it out with me tomorrow. I don’t give a fuck. Someone needs to be a responsible adult here, and tonight that looks like it’s going to be me.
When I reach the bar still unnoticed by Connie, much to my annoyance, I slam my fist on the counter a few times. On the fourth strike, the music has suddenly stopped, and the room has fallen quiet, all eyes fixed on me. There must be at least thirty people inside the small space, but I’m only aware of one of them.
My Little Siren is staring at me with daggers in her eyes, and fuck if it doesn’t turn me on.