by Mae Doyle
“He didn’t care,” Marco said, and I hear a hint of sadness in his voice. “All he cared about was winning and it didn’t matter what the cost was.”
I bite my tongue, not wanting to remind Marco that, up until last night, he’d wanted to do was win, no matter how many people he killed.
“So now what? Everyone’s gone.” The words feel hollow coming out of my mouth and I swallow hard. I’m not sure why I feel like I want to cry. It’s not like I had a wonderful time here or that I was cared for by anyone other than Marco, but the thought of so many people being dead is sad.
And, if I’m being honest, I don’t know what it means for me. Is Marco going to kill me? It was what he’d been planning from the beginning.
“We leave,” Marco said. His voice is quiet, almost far away, like he’s talking to me through a pane of glass.
“We?” I muster up just enough courage to ask the question. It’s only one word, but his answer will determine everything that happens to me in the future.
“Of course,” he says, turning to me, frowning. “You think that I’m going to leave you here?”
“You were going to kill me,” I remind him, afraid to look up at him. “You were going to kill me, Marco. That’s why you brought me here.”
That stops him.
His face pales a little and he reaches out, gently running his fingers along my cheek to my chin before gripping it slightly and lifting it so that I’m looking at him.
“I didn’t know what to do with you, Natalia,” he says, his voice a whisper. “Never in my life had I met someone as gorgeous, strong, or brave as you. I brought you here to destroy you because it wasn’t fair that someone so amazing as you could live without belonging to me.”
I open my mouth to continue but he kisses me, his lips light against mine for just a moment before he pulls away. “I killed my three best friends for you, Natalia. Don’t think that I wouldn’t burn down the world to protect you.”
“So we leave?” I ask, only because it seems to be the only thing that I can manage to say. “We just…leave?”
He nods. “We leave.”
I’ve never been really good with decisions, especially not when I feel like they’re open-ended and depend on me making a choice. “But where?” I finally ask. “Where do we go?”
Marco grins and pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around my and nuzzling the top of my head. “Where do you want to go, Natalia?”
I suck in a breath.
This is something that I’ve never been asked.
Chapter 32
After
I wake to the sound of waves lapping on the beach, the soft rhythmic sound they make slowly pulling me out of my sleep, out of the best dream I’ve ever had.
Reluctantly, I open my eyes. Even though I should know what I’m going to find when I wake up every day, I’m still struck by what’s happened to me.
It’s like this is all a dream.
Sure enough, though, there’s a lazy ceiling fan above me, its paddles large leaves, spinning slowly to keep the breeze moving in the room. Even if we didn’t have it set up, though, the room wouldn’t ever be stifling, not with the breeze from the ocean blowing in all the time.
Without looking over, I reach my hand out and feel for Marco, but his side of the bed is empty, the sheets and blankets all flipped up. I sigh and stretch before swinging my legs out of the bed and onto the soft mat on the floor.
“Marco?” I call, waiting a moment to hear if he answers. He doesn’t and I stand up, bending down to stretch my toes before walking out the large double doors that lead straight from our bedroom onto the beach.
It’s not the same beach as the one we were on before, that’s for sure. I’d told Marco that I’d be perfectly happy putting that place behind us and never going back. Of course, it was where I started to fall for him, but that was the only good thing that I could say about it.
“Marco!” I raise my voice to make sure that he can hear me over the sound of the waves and feel my heart squeeze hard in my chest when he stands down by the surf and waves at me to get my attention.
We’re both tan after being here on the beach together for a few months. After the explosion on his island and Marco asked me where I wanted to go I told him that I wanted another island, just for us, where I could paint and write without ever having to worry about waiting tables again.
I’m still in my pjs, which consist of a tank top and underwear but I walk down to see him by the water without any hesitation. He wants to go to the mainland today, which is great, because we need food and I’m running low on canvases.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he tells me, meeting me halfway and kissing me, one hand on my hip, the other running up through my hair to fist it and hold me tight. “You looked so pretty sleeping this morning that I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Mmm,” I say, leaning into his kisses for a moment. “You care to tell me what you’re doing out here so early?” I ask, glancing past him to where he had been working before.
At first, I’d thought that he was working on a boat or kayak, which is something that he’d been talking about for a while, but when I get a better chance to look at it, it looks like just a blanket spread out on the beach.
“It’s a gorgeous sunrise and I thought that you’d want breakfast on the beach,” he tells me, linking his fingers through mine and leading me down to where he has the blanket spread out.
Sure enough, once we get closer I can see that he has out a huge plate of fresh fruit, some toast with butter, and fresh juice. I sit down next to him, leaning against him, and pop a bite of pineapple in my mouth.
“Did you ever think that we’d make it this far?” I ask, looking out over the ocean. Far out, birds wheel and dive as they hunt for their breakfast. Closer in I can see the whitecaps on the waves right before they crest.
There are seashells scattered all around us and after we eat I’ll probably go for a walk to pick some up. Marco’s hung a hammock from two palm trees and that’s my favorite place to nap.
“I knew that I would have something with you,” he tells me, kissing my cheek. “I didn’t think that it would be this, but Natalia, I loved you from the moment I saw you.”
It terrifies me when he says stuff like that, but it’s not because I don’t believe him. I do believe him and that’s because I loved him from the moment I saw him, too.
I knew that I had to have him.
Had to be with him.
Had to be his.
Most people wouldn’t be able to survive the hell that the two of us went through to be together, but we did. We did, and we came out stronger on the other side.
Now I have my dream life.
I’m thinking about what that means for me when I feel his hand on my shoulder, gently leaning me back down against the blanket.
“Do you know the hardest thing about being here with you?” He asks, lightly tracing his finger down my side. I shiver as he reaches the top elastic of my underwear and lightly hooks his finger inside it, giving it a little tug.
“No.” My voice is thick with desire and if I think that he won’t notice then I’m just kidding myself. He looks sharply at me, picking up on the fact that I’m about to fall apart under his touch.
“It’s the fact that I want to fuck you all the time,” he tells me. “Every single time I see you, I want my cock in you. You say something sassy and I want to bend you over and fuck you. You’re sleeping and I want to wake you up with my face between your legs.”
“What’s stopping you?” I manage. My breath is coming in little gasps now. His finger is still instead my underwear and I buck my hips a little, trying to make him move closer to me.
I want him to touch me.
“I just like to hear you beg for it.” He smirks, the corners of his mouth turning up deliciously and I grab him around the neck, pulling him down to kiss him. His lips crash against mine and I slip my tongue into his mouth, moaning at the way his dances against mine.
Immediately he traces my clit, slowly rubbing it as I buck up at him and moan, then slips his fingers into me. The pressure feels amazing and I cry out, rocking against his hand.
“I didn’t know that you wanted it so badly,” he tells me, pulling out of me long enough to lick his fingers clean and then strip from his pants.
Propping myself up on my elbows I pant, staring at him. “Don’t make me wait,” I beg, reaching for him.
He rips my tank top off of me and throws it to the side before straddling me, his hands squeezing my breasts and rolling my nipples. I moan at the sensation, spreading my legs and grabbing his cock.
He’s throbbing for me, his cock so hard that it’s almost painful to hold and I pull him down. “Please,” I beg him. “Please, fuck me, Marco.”
With one thrust, he’s in me and I arch my back, crying out. It feels so fucking good to have him fill me like that. His mouth is everywhere, running a line of hot kisses from my jaw down to my chest, then he takes a nipple in his mouth, lightly nipping it until I cry out.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he tells me, pulling back a bit to look at me. I can barely open my eyes — it’s almost impossible for me to look at him. His cock slips in and out of me, hitting every nerve that i have and I moan, bucking up at him as we find our rhythm.
Faster and faster he pounds into me, his cock going deeper than before. I cry out, unable to help myself. It’s incredible to be filled like this, to have his huge dick fucking me and I feel my toes start to curl in the sand.
“I love your cunt,” he whispers, and I feel my skin tighten in response. It’s like it’s too small for me and I know that I’m about to break free from it thanks to the sensation of him in me.
No matter where we fuck or what he does to me, I always come, but this orgasm feels like it’s going to be more powerful than others. Sweat breaks out on my skin and I shiver, wrapping my arms around his torso to pull him closer to me. His body is warm and heavy on me as he leans into me.
There’s a tingling feeling at the base of my spine, like small bubbles moving through my body, then the waves of pleasure start to wash over me. They’re tiny at first.
“Don’t stop,” I cry out, letting myself get pulled under into the pleasure that’s about to rush through my body.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he tells me, brushing some hair back from my cheek before kissing me. “Your cunt is just perfect for my cock, you know that? I want to feel you come all around me, Natalia. I want your perfect cunt squeezing me hard.”
I cry out as my orgasm rushes through me at the sound of what he’s saying. I can’t hold back any longer, not when he says stuff like that, and the bubbles that were starting to form at the base of my spine all explode, sending the most incredible rush coursing over my body.
“Marco!” I scream, my muscles all seizing up as he fucks me. “Oh, fuck!”
He rocks in me and I feel his cock thicken before he releases, his come spilling into me and filling me up.
After that, he stills, his cock still in me, then rolls off of me, pulling me onto his chest to relax. I try to catch my breath but my breathing is erratic as all of the nerves in my body calm down.
It’s the most incredible feeling I’ve ever had and I rest my head on his chest, enjoying the steady beat of his heart.
“Fuck,” I finally say and he laughs, pushing me off of him and then gently putting me on the ground.
“Fuck,” he agrees, turning away from me for a moment.
I close my eyes, enjoying the sound of the waves as my body comes back down to earth. I feel like i was just broken into a million different pieces and it’s going to take some time for me to put myself back together.
“Natalia,” Marco says, and my eyes fly open as I sit up. He has something in his hand and is holding it out to me, but it takes me a moment to focus on what it is and realize what he’s doing.
“Marry me,” he tells me. “You are the person I was looking for all these years. Marry me, please, and make me the happiest man in the world.”
I suck in a breath, looking first at the huge diamond ring he has in his hand and then up at his face. He’s so fucking hot that I can barely breathe.
We’ve been through hell.
But we came out the other side.
There isn’t a single person on this earth who knows me like Marco does.
“I will,” I tell him, and he kisses me again.
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