by Ann Denton
“We could smoke them out,” I say. “I mean, you know, start a fire somewhere to drive them where we want them.”
“The golf course is pretty narrow,” Danny contributes. “If we stay in the trees—”
“Still a ton of directions they can go,” Alec says from behind us.
We argue for a good chunk of the hike. Other than Alec, none of us have ever really faced off against men who’re meaner than a box of snakes. And anytime Alec did it, he had a whole jet fulla’ bombs.
“Well, we could just collect mangoes and let Danny hit them at their heads,” I joke. “Those fucking monkeys nearly brained me that way.”
To my surprise, the guys all stop and stare. “That’s actually not a bad idea. Smoke them out and then maybe, two guns and Danny with a racquet …”
Alec asks Danny, “What’s your serve speed?”
“One fifty.”
I yank Danny by the hand. He’s refused to let go of me, even though our palms are slick with sweat. “I’m sorry. I don’t know tennis. I was half joking. What’s that?”
He grins down at me. And it’s a panty-evaporating, proud-as-a-peacock grin. “A hundred fifty miles per hour, Katie.”
“Shut the front door. You’re lying.”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
My eyes trace his huge biceps and my nipples tighten. “I had no idea you were that strong,” I murmur.
“All for you.”
“Lie!” Kenneth calls out from the side.
“Hey, don’t be a clamjam,” Danny spouts back, good-naturedly though.
“A what?”
“A crotch nazi.”
“Oh my God. We don’t have time for more sex right now,” Kenneth growls, stomping on ahead. “In case you haven’t noticed, we are stranded on a deserted island with no fucking food and a bunch of psychos.” He tromps down the path, putting some distance between our group and himself.
I glance back at Alec, who just shakes his head. “Give him a minute.”
“Maybe it’s time for us to take a break,” Danny says.
Alec agrees. Peter Brown sighs and immediately sits down on the path, right where he was standing, no preamble whatsoever.
Alec unwraps even more of the twine on Sports Coat, revealing the man’s waist. Our POW clearly pissed himself at some point. Great. Alec sighs and shakes his head, and leads the man off to let him do his business.
This leaves me and Danny essentially alone together. Danny looks down at me and opens his mouth, but then his gaze flickers over to Peter Brown. “Um … we need a minute.”
“Not gonna fuck in front of me like the other guy?” Peter scoffs. “Trust me, I’m used to it by now.”
“You were turned around. So you don’t even know what happened.”
“Bullshit. She was screaming like a—”
My cheeks go scarlet.
“Do not finish that sentence,” Danny growls.
Peter just glares sullenly and stays in his spot.
Danny shakes his head and leads me a bit away so we can’t be overheard.
“Sorry about that.”
I wave it off. “Peter’s always been a scumball. You okay?”
Danny looks down. He unclasps our hands and runs his hands over my shoulders and down my arms. He swallows hard and repeats the gesture, like he’s nervous or something.
His nerves make me laugh nervously.
Then he laughs. A snort slips out.
That makes me laugh a little harder.
We end up laughing hard, at nothing—deep belly-wrenching, rib-aching laughter at nothing. I have to swipe tears away. When we finally get control of ourselves, Danny reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze. My eyes connect with him and his face is suddenly far too serious for the moment we just had.
He swallows hard and then says slowly, "Katie, I don't want this to end. If we get out of this… I don't want this to— " His hand gestures between the two of us before he drops my hand and stares at the forest floor. "I know for you it's just fuck buddies. But I have never laughed this much with anyone else my entire life. I've never had someone call me on my bullshit and not hate me for it. I've never felt—" he cuts himself off, scared to continue.
My head doesn't know what to think, but my heart is very fucking clear on the matter. I grab back Danny's hand. I have to choke back a sob. I have to fight my skepticism. Because there's no way Danny and the other guys should mean this much to me this quickly. But they do. And I'm older. Technically, I’m the grown-up here. I should be able to articulate what I feel better than some twenty-four-year-old. But my lips don't cooperate. All I can get out is a bumbling, "Me too."
Danny’s arms wrap around me in a bear hug that’s so tight I can hardly breathe. And it’s as perfect as a summer day, as Cinderella’s shoe, as a shutout baseball game. We fit together, Danny and me. And when I hug him, I know I’m where I belong.
Danny’s hypnotic abilities suck way worse than his hugs. Way, way worse.
We untie Sports Coat. Alec trains a gun on the Russian as Danny dangles a rock tied to a string in front of the foreigner’s face.
“You’ll fight with us,” Danny intones.
“Shouldn’t you choose a better turn of phrase? Fighting with us can mean fighting us,” Kenneth snarks from his spot leaning against a tree. He’s gotten progressively more grumpy throughout the afternoon. And he won’t say why, even though I asked. He just runs his hands over his dark hair and squints off into the distance. He does that now, rolling his eyes at Danny’s poor choice of words.
Danny’s face turns red and he changes the phrase he’s chanting to, “You’ll change sides and fight against the other Russians. You’ll fight alongside us. You’ll fight alongside us.”
Peter Brown snorts in the background. Apparently, everyone’s a skeptic.
I don’t feel like this is going particularly well, but Danny’s trying to help. So I press my lips together and bite my tongue.
Three minutes later, I’m near my breaking point. Danny’s been doing the same damn thing the entire time and it doesn’t look like anything’s happening. I’m about to tell Danny thanks for trying when he changes his tone.
“Stand up,” Danny commands, switching from his muttering chant to a loud, booming voice.
Sports Coat stands.
All of us exchange a startled look. What the fuck? The guy doesn’t even speak English. How did he know to stand up? Either he lied, or the hypnotism worked.
Danny looks completely and utterly awed. He glances over at Kenneth and says, “Not too shabby, huh?”
He uses his commanding voice again. “Hold out your left hand.”
Sports Coat starts to extend his left hand. And my jaw drops.
But then Sports Coat smacks Danny across the face and books it into the trees.
Alec’s the first to recover, leaping over a bush to chase the foreigner.
“Fuck!” Danny pulls at his hair. I grab his hand and yank him along. Once I’m sure Danny, Kenneth, and Peter Brown are following, I let go of Danny as I try to hurry after the fucking-liar-face Russian. He’s totally not Sports Coat anymore. He’s Liar-face. Maybe even Shane Paul the second. Fucktard.
Shane Paul II trips and I hear a “Ohh sheet!” The lying liar even curses in English!
“STOP!” Alec yells. He stops running, his eyes down. He puts his hand out like a barrier, physically warning us all to stop.
I slow down and come to stand beside Alec. The forest falls away suddenly. The ground just cuts off, like a knife sliced down through the island and cut off a sliver. I cautiously move toward the edge and peer over. At the very bottom, at least fifty feet down, waves crash against the cliff. A shiver runs down my spine. I’m about to go full southerner and say “Bless his soul,” when I spot Shane Paul II perched on a narrow ledge halfway down the cliff.
“What the hell? What are the chances?”
Alec and the guys stand beside me and peer down.
Kenneth whistles. �
��He’s one lucky fuck.”
That lucky fuck screams up at us, “Pool me up!”
I want to fucking yell back down at him, “Don’t speak English, huh?”
Alec is the first to straighten. “I vote we leave him there.”
“What?” I’m startled. I look up to see his unforgiving brown eyes.
“Not forever. But we don’t have to watch our backs and worry about him if he’s there. We take out the others, we can come fish him out and throw him in whatever jail we make for them.”
He’s sugar-coating it for me. I can tell. But I need that. I can’t take too much more right now. And he’s right. We need to be able to focus on Heather. We need our full attention on distracting and taking out those other Russians. At best, this Shane Paul fucker would slow us down. At worst … I can’t even think about it. “Alright.”
“Good plan. Far as I’m concerned, we can leave the fucker here forever,” Kenneth spits, then turns around and stomps back through the trees.
We look at Peter Brown, who shrugs, like the slimy bastard he is. “Better odds with him there.” He follows Kenneth.
“Danny?” I ask and turn to search his eyes.
He’s not looking at me though. I’m not even sure he heard our conversation. Danny is staring out at the waves, which are lit in blinding bands by the afternoon sun.
“Do you see that?” he asks. He lifts his finger and I squint, trying to find what he’s staring at in the patchwork of blue.
It takes a minute, but there, coming close to the cliff, is a little boat. Two men are on it, one of them steering, the other holding tight to a suitcase. I squint. “Is that … Anthony Drake?!”
The sun glints off the reporter’s hair suddenly, like the universe is answering me.
“Looks like it,” Alec grunts. “How the fuck did he get a call out when we can’t?”
“He must have done it last night, before the Russians blocked the signal,” I say.
“And the gangsters didn’t hear this fucking boat? Didn’t find Drake?”
I shrug. “They didn’t find us. Maybe they’re not the brightest. I hope they aren’t. Or maybe they’re distracted—” Thoughts of the things they could be distracted by make bile rise in my throat. I can’t bear the thought of Heather getting tortured.
Danny’s quiet as we watch the boat head away. It’s like watching hope smile at you, then flip you off, flounce her skirt, and walk away. Hope was the bitch that ruled my high school.
We watch the boat head toward another island. From our vantage point, it seems like it’s only a stone’s throw away.
“How far is that island, do you think?” Danny suddenly asks.
“Nine, ten miles,” Alec replies.
“I could do that,” Danny says, his voice pitched low and thoughtful.
“What?” I jerk my head up and search his face.
“I could swim that.”
I feel like someone punched me in the gut. “Through open ocean? Are you insane? There’s waves and sharks and currents and I-don’t-even-fucking-know-what.” That idea’s crazier than a mule chewing on a bumblebee.
Danny turns and looks at Alec, avoiding my gaze. “I think I can make it. I was on swim team in high school.”
“Lie!” I shout as that punch to the gut turns into a tire iron smashing into me. He’s serious. I grab onto Danny’s arm and yank him back, away from the edge of the cliff. Clearly, he’s got vertigo. He isn’t thinking straight. This is nuts.
“They’ll have a phone there,” Danny says; he still doesn’t look at me. He and Alec seem to have a silent conversation. And it freaks me the fuck out.
After I’ve got Danny back from the cliff-edge, I go and grab Alec. I try to move him, but he won’t budge. He does break off from staring at Danny to look over at the other island again. “It’s risky.”
Danny shakes his head. “It’s not any worse than what we’ve already talked about. It’s better than hitting fucking mangoes at those assholes when you all have guns. I want to actually do something worth a shit. And this way, it’s only risking me.”
Everything in me grinds to a halt. I don’t think my heart is still beating. I turn to Danny, aghast. “What!? No!” I run to him and toss my arms around his waist. “You’re not going. You can’t. I’m not gonna let you.”
Alec squints at the waves for a long time. Finally, he turns back to Danny. He nods once.
“NO!!!!” I scream.
Danny puts his arms around me and gives me a hug. I clutch at him. He tries to slip out of my arms but I claw at him, trying to draw him closer. “You can’t. You can’t.”
“I have to. It’s the best way,” he whispers into my hair. He kisses the top of my head and I feel that kiss through my entire body, like I’ve been drenched in a rainstorm made of the tears that come from lost wishes and dead dreams. I sputter, “But, but you said …” He wanted an after. Why the fuck is he doing this if he wants an after? “Don’t!”
Alec’s hard hands yank me away from Danny. Alec wraps his arms around me. I buck and fight. I scream, “Don’t you dare, Danny! Don’t you dare!”
He gives me a regretful, sad-puppy eyes look for a second. And my heart breaks. It turns inside out, like an umbrella in a storm—twisted, deformed, mangled.
Danny says, “I have to try.”
Then he turns on his heel and my liar, my precious liar, walks away.
Chapter Fourteen
Heather
I grab Rubin and Reval’s hands and lead them out of the kitchen. Suity and Blob follow behind. J2 is the last out of the kitchen, and of course, he has to make an asshole comment. "No way she can take on five."
I drop the twins’ hands. Because that right there, is a fucking insult. And he might be a killer Russian mobster, but if there is one thing that I perfected during my swinger years with that limp dick Shane Paul, it’s group sex. I’m a blow queen. An orgmist. I’m a beastmaster at the sex circus. A spank bank with enough gold to break your piggy and make him ‘wee wee’ all the way home. I whip around and point at J2. My eyes are lasers when they land on him and size him up. "Buddy, I've been a part of more orgies than you've ever even watched on your pathetic Soviet-era black and white TV.” I have no idea if that’s what J2 has, but fuck him, I’m so mad that I don’t care if my insults make sense. I stomp over and shove my finger right into his Adonis-like chest. “I’m the goddamn Batman of sex. I’ve got all the fun toys and I know how to use them. Mouth, pussy, ass, and two hands. That’s five things right there. Or don’t you know how to count?" I reach down and grab him by the dick through his pants.
He stares down at me, his hazel eyes hard and angry in a way that gets me hot and bothered. But the sneer on his face and the clench of his jaw show me he’s not amused. “Batman is man.”
“Batman is the best.”
“Because he’s man.”
Ohh, he did not just say that. J2 is not arguing sexist shit with me. I bear down on his dick, squeezing hard. That’s not my brightest moment, because J2 whips out his gun and cocks it. He presses it against my temple and my mouth has to swallow my heart back down because it tries to jump ship. Oh crap. Now I gotta undo the mess I made. Fuck. Luckily my tits tend to help earn forgiveness whenever someone’s decided my mouth’s earned a beat-down.
I pretend to ignore the gun as I unzip J2’s pants and pull his dick out. I pretend to ignore the fact that underneath the pressed pants he’s wearing, he’s got on tighty whities that are worn paper thin. Guess gangstering doesn’t pay so well. No wonder they want my money. I bend forward over his cock, trying not to let my fingers tremble. Goddamned automatic nervous system. Remember, Heath, this is a sport. Orgasms are just another goal, another score. No big deal. You’re gonna rack up such a big fucking score, girl, I tell myself. You’re gonna smack down these dimwits. That’s right. They won’t even know what hit them. I lean forward slowly, making sure the other guys get a good view of my ass.
I’ll need the others to come to my rescue
if J2 gets pissy. So I’d best give them a show. I spread my legs apart, so that my slit gapes. And then I arch my back so they can see it as I lean over J2’s dick.
I spit on his shaft and use my hands to lube it up. Then I jerk it gently for a few tugs, and either J2 realizes that I’m not trying to kill him or he realizes that I have the power to destroy him because his cock’s in my hands. If he guessed the latter, he’d be correct. He’s got the gun, I’ve got the cock. It’s total mutual-assured destruction.
After a few more strokes, J2 uncocks his gun and holds it limp at his side. I’m so, so tempted to try and knock it away from him like I did with Suity earlier. But that’s not the plan. I need to stick to the plan. We need to blow all these fuckers to bits. Not in a sex way. And we’re only gonna be able to do that if we build a coo-coo-banana-loco, fool bomb outta limes. I stand up suddenly, keeping J2’s dick in my hands as I turn around. I face the others, still stroking him.
“Come on,” I order. “My villa’s got condoms. And all the lube we need.”
Blob, his paunch highly visible now that he’s lost his jacket, leans over and says to Suity, “I knew the sexy times was true.”
He crosses his arms above his belly and rests them there. I see pit stains from sweat on his shirt. I have to look away before I talk myself out of a sixsome.
I stride past them, kind of enjoying the fact that J2 is stumbling along behind me since I’ve still got a grip on his dick. He trips over his pants, which are still stuck around his ankles. “Stop. Wait.”
I just pretend I don’t understand him. I mean, turnabout and all that since they didn’t bother to learn fucking English properly. “I am hurrying! Geez! Anxious much?” I tell him, biting down on my grin.
After another stumble, he grabs my wrist and forces my hand off his dick. I consider scratching him when he does that, but … I need to keep these foreign dickheads occupied for a couple hours. And his dickhead won’t last if I give it a boo boo. Men are weak like that. So, I let him go.
Dammit. I roll my eyes before turning back to the group. Because I know there’s nothing that turns a lot of guys on more than pretending to be an innocent little ditz, I make my eyes wide to double the dumb-factor. “Oh, no. Five big strong men are after me? What are they gonna do to me?” I let out this obnoxious squeak I’ve perfected over the years. I think it sounds like a fucking dying rabbit. But it seems to perk up the idiotic male predator in most men. Yeesh.