OnLocation

by Sindra van Yssel

  “But flying was better. I think.” She turned to catch his lips, blindly, not sure why she couldn’t have the blindfold off at this point but not wanting to question him. As his hands worked in her hair she realized there was something braided into it, and it had probably been that and not her actual hair he’d tied to the bed. Professional secret, perhaps? Presumably he hadn’t learned that from practicing on his sisters. The idea that he’d done it before to someone else was not one she wanted and she pushed it away. Instead she melted into the kiss, savoring the taste of his lips and the wetness of his tongue. He kissed her until she was out of breath.

  “Stay right here,” he said, patting her thigh. He picked her up and set her back down on the bed. The mattress was softer on her bottom than his leg, but not much. He got up, leaving her alone for a moment. She heard an almost-click and then he returned to her. He covered her eyes with his hand. “It’s best to let your eyes adjust gradually,” he said, slipping the blindfold off. It took her a moment to adjust even with his hand covering hers, but she realized he’d dimmed the lights. He slowly opened his fingers and then took his hand away altogether.

  “Doing okay?”

  “Yes. Butt hurts.”

  He smiled. That seemed to please him. For a moment she was pissed off at that, and then she smiled back. It was easier to take if it gave him pleasure.

  “It will do that for a while,” he said. “You got more than I intended originally, because you were enjoying it. Not as much as perhaps you wanted?”

  The instrument that had warmed her bottom lay on the bed —the long black crop with a silver handle and a broad, flat leather flap at the end. It looked more real to her now that she’d felt it than it did when he had first taken it out. She blushed. “Right then I wanted it to go on and on. Now, well, I’m glad you stopped when you did.”

  “That’s my job, to look out for the long term and let you focus on the present.”

  She stared at him. She hadn’t thought of it that way. But that was exactly what had happened. She had been able to completely give herself to the moment and he had stayed in control. In control of her but also in control of himself. She wasn’t sure she’d ever met someone as in control of himself as he was. In a way, he was the opposite of the bad boys she had dated, even if what he liked in bed was kinkier than anything they had been into.

  The word “boy” didn’t seem adequate for him at all. Man. Wicked, wicked man. The thought that he had been watching over her, making sure that he didn’t overdo it even though he obviously enjoyed what he was doing filled her with peace. And oddly it made her want to look after him. Maybe she needed to balance the books somehow, but she decided that wasn’t it. She’d given him pleasure, he’d done the same for her. She didn’t owe him any more than he owed her.

  He reached over and held her. Enfolded in his big arms, the idea that she would ever look after him seemed silly. She felt small, cuddled, cared for. He was in charge, she was submitting and that was that. She kissed his shoulder and he kissed the top of her head. His solid strength was a comfort.

  His voice roused her from drifting off. “Let me know when you’re ready to head back to your room,” he said. “I’ll make sure the coast is clear.”

  Why don’t I sleep here? She bit back the words, sure she’d be told no. If he’d wanted her to stay, he would have told her so. What they had done felt like it meant something, but with his words she realized it was just play. A hot scene. A hard fuck. That was all.

  She disentangled herself and looked at him. “Now would be good.” She wasn’t able to keep the frost out of her voice. He sensed it too, because she could see his eyes widen for a second. Well, what did he expect? In a flash, however, his jaw set.

  “Good,” he said, his voice distant. He got up, looked up and down the hallway and nodded. “We’re clear.”

  She hurried back to her room. She suddenly couldn’t wait to get jammies on, even though it was warm enough to sleep without. What was his problem, anyway?

  Chapter Six

  The sun was blistering hot, beating down against the south side of Hill 217. Over the ridge were three hardened killers, a handful of villagers and Private Jack Ferguson, age 18. Roger nodded to him and they scrambled up over the top.

  He knew already he wanted to wake up. He didn’t want to have this dream. He knew how it ended. That never mattered. He always ended up watching it through to the end.

  They crested the hill to the sound of automatic weapon fire, aimed in their general direction but not very accurately, and each found a rock to take cover behind. Two of the Taliban were hiding behind a truck, closer to Roger than to Kyle. The third, farther away, had a gun trained on the villagers and the young Aussie soldier. That one was closer to Kyle. He and Roger exchanged a few signals. If Roger could get closer he would take out the two with a grenade tossed at their truck. But that almost certainly would mean the end of Jack and possibly the villagers. Kyle had to get there in time to kill the hostage keeper at almost the same instant he realized the odds had changed, or there would be yet another atrocity—and as usual, the locals would believe it was the foreigners’ fault.

  He scrambled down the slope, drawing fire for a moment to give Roger a chance to advance. The sound was deafening—the gunfire itself was bad enough, but the pinging off the rocks behind him was a reminder that a bullet didn’t need to be aimed correctly to kill him. Kill me now, he prayed. Don’t make me watch this again.

  He was almost in place, as always, when he heard the explosion. It didn’t matter that the shot was long and he wasn’t set, he had to take it. He went prone, lowered his rifle and started to pull the trigger, his heart full of dread. The Taliban man aimed his gun at Jack’s head and pulled his trigger too, a fraction of a second earlier.

  But this time it was different. He saw the face of the woman behind his target. She was pale-skinned, with dark-red hair. Teresa. He fired, as he always did. Missed the Taliban killer, as he always did. Watched the woman’s head jerk back as the bullet hit her. And then fired the second shot that made the Taliban the third body lying on the ground, alongside Jack and the woman. He ran forward, not sure what he expected to be able to do.

  Teresa.

  He woke up screaming.

  What the hell was Teresa doing in that dream?

  He could see the sun shining around the curtains. The clock on the dresser said six. That was all the excuse he needed to get out of bed and get on with the day. If he could go without sleep entirely, he would. Awake, there was no dreaming and no gunfire.

  I should have pulled back when I saw Teresa. But he knew it was silly to upbraid himself over what he did in a dream. Or what he’d done in reality, years ago. If he’d thought his bullet would hit any woman, or anyone but his target, he wouldn’t have fired it. He’d known there was a chance. Had known that if he hesitated one more person might have died. He’d taken the best chance and he’d saved three people, but not Private Jack and not the woman. Her name was Fatima, and she’d looked nothing like Teresa at all.

  He’d gone through the what-ifs. If he’d been faster down the hill, he would have had longer to aim. But he’d been reckless to move as fast as he had. If Roger had been a little slower he would have had more time too. But there was no way they could have known or timed it any more accurately. They had gotten it right within a second as it was, but that second was fatal.

  He pulled on his shorts and walked downstairs. As expected, no one else was up. He poured himself some milk, mixed in some protein powder and chugged it down. It wasn’t the world’s best breakfast but it gave him some calories to burn off. He set off for a jog around the island. At low tide it was doable, he just had to watch the sand to avoid stepping on jellyfish.

  His mind flashed back to Teresa, inevitably. I’m not dangerous to her. I’ll keep her safe. When he’d been younger, what he liked to do with women had frightened him. He hadn’t met anyone else like him, although he’d met a few women who thought he was a kinky
good time. He had thought they were crazy. He had thought he was deranged. He figured he could do some good in the SAS, then get himself killed, and that would be good too.

  Then he met Roger and realized he wasn’t alone or insane. And neither were the women who liked what he liked. Now the only thing that made him question his sanity was the dreams, but maybe you’d have to be crazy to come out of some of those things whole. Seeing friends shot. Fighting his way out of captivity with his bare hands and then a knife. Killing Fatima. The top brass hadn’t wanted Kyle to find out her name. She was a statistic, collateral damage in a messy war. Killed by the Taliban, they claimed, which might have been true in some big sense, but he knew he’d fired the bullet.

  He counted his breaths. His footsteps beat a rhythm on the wet sand. He tried to blank his mind. It usually worked, but this time all he could think of was Teresa.

  What Kyle had enjoyed most about the evening ere the moments he had spent holding Teresa in his arms, and that surprised him. It wasn’t that he never hugged women; most subs needed some cuddling after a flogging or rough sex. He had never considered himself to be particularly good at it and he rarely enjoyed things he wasn’t good at. Cuddling was something he did for them, a kind of service. That had been all he had set out to do when he’d held Teresa before finishing chaining her to bed. But once he’d hugged her he’d found he didn’t want to let her go. He liked the way her nipples pressed against his chest. He liked the way her waist felt to his hand. And he liked the way, even with one hand, she’d held him back.

  He wondered how it would be to have her sleeping next to him. What it would be like to spoon against her warm body until they both drifted off. She would have stayed with him, he knew. And then she’d have heard him cry out when he woke up from the dream. At least tonight wasn’t the other dream, the one where he usually woke up strangling the pillow. Since that one started, he hadn’t allowed himself to fall asleep next to a woman.

  He’d always sought out women who were a bit masochistic, subs who could transform pain into pleasure. After all, it made sense to be with someone who enjoyed the same thing he did—he might enjoy giving pain, but he didn’t want to make anyone miserable. Teresa had a gift. He hadn’t expected her to make it to seven strokes with the crop without swearing. Instead she had flown right into subspace. He’d known experienced subs who’d never made it there, who had to struggle with each and every blow. Before today, he would have said he preferred them. But what he’d been able to do to Teresa, with Teresa, had been beautiful to behold. He wanted to do it again.

  Why was he thinking about her? He looked at the rising sun, the shimmering waves of the ocean and the light pink of the sky. Sunrises might not be as colorful on the island without any pollution to create the deeper reds of the civilized world, but he preferred their simple beauty to all that gaudiness. It calmed him. The sunrise was consistent on Submission Island. Plain, vanilla, beautiful.

  He managed to focus on it until he began his second lap and the sunrise was at his back. Then his mind drifted to plain, vanilla sex with Teresa. He’d never been a big fan of the missionary position, but the one thing it did have going for it was that it was a form of cuddle. Her legs, wrapped around his butt. His chest against hers. His arms holding her close, never letting go.

  Damn, running with a hard-on is annoying. But it was the first time in a long time he’d been aroused by a thought without a trace of kink.

  Who am I kidding? With a woman like Teresa and a man like me, there will always be a trace of kink.

  He got to the cove on the far side of the island from the house. The tide was starting to rise and he wouldn’t be able to make another circuit, so he decided to cut down the path through the jungle, but something made him stop. The ground didn’t feel right.

  He paused and looked around the cove. The sand was smooth, flat—too smooth and flat. Normally the waves and wind gave it a bumpy, irregular shape, but it had been smoothed over in a section about two meters long and one meter wide. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Gallagher or Teresa had been out here building sand castles and had destroyed them after. But the look of it reminded him of something he’d seen before, in Iraq, even though the sand was much finer there and dryer. A quickly dug grave. But who for?

  Teresa. The connection with his dream, even if it made no sense, was too strong to ignore. For a moment he wanted to claw at the sand, but that wasn’t smart. He sprinted down the trail back to the house. Gallagher was downstairs eating cereal for breakfast. Kyle didn’t want to waste time in conversation so he ran up the stairs to Teresa’s room and knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” Terry was startled by the urgency of the knocking. She had been sleeping very soundly. Maybe that was because Kyle had worn her out—it must have been. She normally didn’t sleep on her stomach because her boobs got in the way and yet tonight she’d managed it quite well. Sleeping on her back hurt her bottom too much.

  “You’re okay. Never mind,” said Kyle’s voice. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” But she could already hear his footsteps receding and she knew he didn’t hear her. She reached for her phone and turned the screen on to look at the time. I’ve had plenty of sleep. Might as well start my day.

  She’d intended to sort out how she felt about Kyle during the night, but she’d slept instead. If that was supposed to bring clarity, it didn’t. She loved what he did to her and how he made her feel physically. But there were other feelings she was less sure about. When she sat down, her bottom yelped a complaint and she was filled with pride. He’d done that to her. She’d taken it for him. When she caught herself feeling that way, she hated it. How could she, when he was so distant? He didn’t love her. She shouldn’t fall in love with him. It was stupid.

  She put on the loosest pair of jeans she had. She buttoned every button on her flannel shirt but the top one. She didn’t bother to brush her hair like she normally did. She didn’t feel like looking especially nice today. Kyle could take her as she was. Fuck him.

  She walked downstairs. Gallagher was there, and a cereal box, a milk carton and a bottle of orange juice were still on the table, so that was the path of least resistance. She got herself a bowl and a glass and plunked herself down.

  Ouch. Her pussy tingled at the pain like the traitor it was and that made her think about Kyle’s cock inside her.

  “What?” asked Gallagher.

  “Nothing.” It might be nice to have a girlfriend to share with right now but she definitely wasn’t going to tell Gallagher.

  Gallagher shrugged. “That Kyle guy is weird. But you have the hots for him, don’t you?”

  “We’re not having this conversation,” Terry said firmly. She poured a bowl of cereal, not registering what brand it was, and then poured milk all over it.

  “You like ’em dangerous.”

  “We are definitely not having this conversation.”

  “You should show him what you do. Spend the afternoon with him. Get to know him as a person and all that stuff. Otherwise he’s just going to see you as a sex object.”

  Maybe I want him to see me as a sex object right now. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she replied. His cereal bowl was empty, after all.

  “Sure, I’ll head out to the cove. You know, this place would be better for a shoot if we could clear more land.”

  That was true. And as she understood it from Stegner, there was no way it was going to happen—the owners were dead set against it. If they were going to film the movie on Fleury Island, they were going to do it as is. If not, they would have to find somewhere else and the movie would fall behind schedule.

  “I know. We need to make the best of it. We’re just here a few more days.”

  “You’re here for just a few more days. I’ve got to help with the filming when this is done.” Gallagher got up, not bothering to put his dishes or the milk away. She was tempted to call him on it—I’m not your mother, I don’t pick up after you—but that would m
ean prolonging the conversation.

  Besides, Gallagher had a point. Maybe it would help for Kyle to see what she did for a living. She wanted to break through that distance. She frowned. That would mean risking losing some of her own, as well. And it would make it harder to leave when the week was done. Perhaps it was best to keep it to hot sex. If she was a sex object for him, so be it. She was getting off, he was getting off. Nothing wrong in that.

  She squirmed in her seat and her bottom reminded her afresh of what she’d done. She knew she wanted more, even if she couldn’t have it. The fact that she was still feeling what they’d done made her feel he’d put his stamp on her, claimed her. And she wanted that. She wanted him to possess her, own her. But how could he when he didn’t even want her sleeping in his bed? And that kind of possession came with some responsibilities she wasn’t sure he wanted.

  Damn you, Kyle.

  I can either flee or fight for it. But I don’t think my heart can take just having kinky sex.

  The moment she put it that way, her mind was made up. She’d never run from things—she’d never have become a location scout if she had, because it was a male-dominated profession. She was going to fight. And she’d use every trick she could use. After she finished breakfast, she vowed to get on makeup, nicer clothes and unbutton a few buttons.

  Then she heard Kyle on the stairs. At least I have time for the buttons. Her hand was still on one when he arrived, and she knew he’d caught her in the act from the way he smirked and raised his eyebrows.

  Well, hopefully he thinks it’s sexy.

  He was gorgeous. His hair was still wet—he’d probably been in the shower. His jeans were tight and his T-shirt could have been painted on. He didn’t look as though he’d spent one moment considering what to wear, and yet he looked perfect. She soon forgot about her button as she watched him walk over and sit down across from her.