Vengeful Love: Black Diamonds

by Laura Carter

  “Christ, Scarlett, what you do to my cock. That mouth.”

  He moves one hand to my hair and holds my head still as he moves himself slowly in and out of me. His thighs tense, his arse cheeks stiffen under my hands, and his rhythm stutters. I tighten my grip, pumping quicker, turning my tongue around his tip and teasing his arse with my free hand.

  “Jesus! Fuck! That’s so good, baby.”

  He comes so much anyone would think it’s been longer than twenty-four hours since his last release. I swallow every drop he has to offer.

  He washes my body as the shower rinses my mouth. We wrap in towel dressing gowns and I follow his orders, moving to the four-post bed, whilst he retrieves the Pol Rodger from the lounge.

  Those black eyes are still unsated.

  I hold out my hand but he puts the ice bucket and two glasses of champagne on the bedside unit. He tugs my legs so I’m lying flat on the bed then yanks the tie from my gown and frees my arms, pushing back the wool and exposing my body to him.

  “Arms above your head,” he demands. My thighs throb in response, excited, expectant.

  He wraps the wool tie twice around my wrists, then around the horizontal frame of the bed.

  “I like it when you play kinky,” I say.

  Despite himself, a fleeting smile curls on one side of his lips. He moves backwards off the bed, my head lifting from the mattress to watch as his robe drops to the floor. I throw my head back on a desperate laugh. He takes his own robe belt and moves to the side of the bed. I watch his effervescent champagne fill his mouth and slide down his throat, enjoying the strong rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.

  Gregory and champagne. A truly delectable combination.

  His knees part my legs roughly then he leans forward and lifts my head so he can tie his wool belt across my eyes. His weight leaves the bed and I hear him moving around the room, opening and closing a drawer, then The Daysleepers’ “The Secret Place” drowns out all other noise. My sight and sound senses are completely gone, my ability to touch constrained. I worm restlessly in the bed.

  Taking me by surprise, the bite of ice moves along my bottom lip and his weight moves over me, not touching my skin. The ice moves down my sternum, my abdomen, down to the top of my sex. My hips rise and the ice travels back up my body. It’s gone. Then back, circling the end of my breast in time to the slow, heady sound filling my ears. My lips part, my mouth dries. The ice travels my skin, goose bumps prickling over my limbs, and circles my other breast, the cold stinging the tip.

  My breathing becomes heavy. I try to find him with my legs and fail. Where are you?

  The ice is gone and his weight moves off the mattress. I open my eyes beneath the belt and find only blackness. The track clicks over to Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place.” I tug my arms, they’re still restrained. The not knowing, the suspense, has me writhing and aching to have him.

  His weight is back, resting either side of my head. Champagne bubbles trickle into my mouth and I swallow, yearning for more. Wet, warmed brut is released in a line down my chest, my abdomen, my navel.

  My hips jerk as effervescence caresses my clit and falls between my labia. His hands finally touch me, forcing my legs apart before his mouth sucks and his tongue laps up champagne from my pulsing centre.

  He drinks alcohol from my belly button and licks a line up my chest. His hands grab my breasts and he grinds his hard cock against me.

  He lifts my hips and crashes into me on a bark that I hear over the music. He takes me hard, just as he promised. He holds me up on an angle as he hammers into me. His thumb rubs my clit, circling with the music. The assault on my senses and the force of him reaching the end of me, send a rippling orgasm through my body. My hands fist around the wool belt as my mind fogs with images of his naked body kneeling between my legs.

  He doesn’t let me come down, he flips me onto my front and pulls up my hips so I’m on my knees, hands down on the mattress, arse exposed.

  “I said every part of you.” His words are drenched in desire and I want nothing more than to sate him.

  His knees part mine and he presses his huge shaft between my arse cheeks, making sure I feel him there. He pushes two fingers into my drenched sex and draws the moisture back to my arse.

  “You need to relax.”

  I nod, gripping the belt at my wrists, and my legs drop further apart.

  “Good girl.”

  He reaches out and I hear him click open a lid. I gasp as cold gel touches my hole. He moves it around, preparing me. I’m nervous, anxious because I know what’s coming and I’ve never had it before. But the feel of his fingers, slick through the lube, dipping inside me, it has me rolling my hips, shocked by how much I want him to claim this part of me.

  He parts my cheeks wider and pushes gently, until his tip is just inside. I feel myself stretching and realise he’s started to move again. It’s strange but...okay.

  “Relax, baby.”

  I breathe out the air I’ve been holding as he eases himself into me.

  “Fuck, that’s tight.”

  It hurts at first and I don’t know if I like it. But the pain passes and I’m more acutely aware of him than ever before. The shape and size of his length. I groan, surprised by the pleasure I feel. His fingers move back to my sex, his thumb to my tight knot, torturing my body, assaulting me as he moves himself, sliding until he’s fully inside.

  In a way I couldn’t have imagined, I feel like I belong to him. Like he’s taken something I’ve never shared or wanted to share with anyone else. Only him.

  I push my hips back, wanting more of the new kind of pleasure. The physical and the emotional. He moves slowly in and out of me, his fingers and cock working together in time to the music, sending my head into a trip.

  His cock thickens and his rhythm builds slowly, his moves taking me to a crescendo. “Not yet,” he growls.

  My erratic breaths come thick and fast as he increases his pace.

  “Fuck, Scarlett. I’m there, baby.”

  I scream his name into the mattress and shatter. The biggest orgasm I’ve ever had rips through my body, my limbs weightless, my pelvis bucking, my head in a frenzy. He yanks my hips back and continues to crash into me until his release comes and I feel each spurt, my greedy muscles flexing in response.

  He pulls out slowly, an alien feeling I don’t enjoy, and collapses us both on the mattress. His hands move immediately to my wrists, releasing me, then he takes the belt from my eyes. With one arm around my waist, he rolls us onto his back, nuzzling my neck, kissing my skin gently.

  “I can’t believe I get this forever.”

  I wrap my arms around his and interlace our fingers. I can’t speak but I can make him feel how much I adore him. Any way. Every way. Always.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gregory pulls us into the port in a rental Porsche. A completely unnecessary extravagance to get from the airstrip in St. Maarten to the harbour.

  “I can’t wait to see the boat,” Amanda squeals, jumping out of the car. “Which one’s yours?” She glances at Gregory then scans the host of white and blue boats docked in the Marina.

  Gregory rolls his eyes and I dig an elbow into his ribs. “None of those,” he says.

  A port official comes to talk to Gregory and when he leaves, a man maybe in his late twenties or early thirties with a cute tan and ruffled dirty-blond hair makes his way over. His black knee-length shorts and black T-shirt tell me he’s probably crew. He lifts his sports shades to his head and squints as he shakes Gregory’s hand.

  “Nice to see you again, sir,” he says with a soft North American accent.

  Gregory nods. “Is she ready?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Thank you, Carl. Is the tender ready?”

  “R
eady and waiting, sir. We’ll get you out there and Rick will come for the luggage.” He inclines his head in the direction of the wooden jetty. Gregory in turn flicks his head at Amanda, Williams and me.

  “Guess that means come hither,” Amanda jibes.

  Christ, this could be painful. Ignoring her, I happily gallop to Gregory’s side, my white sundress floating as I move.

  “Carl, this is Scarlett Heath.”

  “Miss Heath, pleasure to meet you. And congratulations.”

  I cast questioning eyes to Gregory, though he can’t see it for my Bvlgari shades.

  “Erm, thank you, Carl. So, you’ll be keeping us above water for the next ten days?”

  “Whilst you’re on the yacht, that’s the idea.”

  “Then I best keep you onside. Where are you from?” Gregory guides me along the jetty with an unnecessarily protective hand on the small of my back.

  “Originally, the West Coast but my family lives in Florida these days.”

  “I guess that’s easier for you to get to the boat?”

  “Other way around, it’s easier for me to get back to my family. The crew lives on the yacht most of the year, Miss Heath.”

  “Scarlett, please.”

  Carl eyes Gregory, then me, and smiles. Guess I’ll be staying Miss Heath, then.

  Carl helps me into the small tender boat and introduces me to Bryony, a quite stunning woman about my age with golden thighs and a tiny waist beneath her black shorts and T-shirt combo. I throw a stubborn glance back to Gregory. There’s a ghost of a smile around his mouth and I know those goddamn eyes will be twinkling with arrogance behind his shades. He sits back onto the bench next to me, and crosses a heel over the pale-blue shorts covering his thigh. He rolls back the sleeves of his pink-and-white-striped shirt and lazily drapes an arm across the rim of the boat behind my back.

  “No. I haven’t,” he says, leaning into my ear. “But I’m going to spank your arse for being a green-eyed monster.”

  I gasp at his crass words and look nervously at Amanda and Williams wondering if they heard, but she’s too giddy looking around at the boat and Williams is chatting to uber-pretty Bryony.

  Gregory asks Carl about the weather and the expected sea conditions for the coming days as Bryony backs us away from the pier and turns the boat so we’re facing out to sea, her sun-kissed, glossy hair blowing in the wind.

  We break out of the harbour and pick up speed so water crashes against the front screen and spray reaches my bare arms, cooling my skin under the hot Caribbean sun. We head out beyond a huge cruise liner and a yacht, anchored alone, comes into view, gleaming on top of the turquoise sea.

  My jaw drops as I switch my eyes between the super-yacht and Gregory. “You. Are. Fucking. Kidding. Me.”

  He chuckles, as does Williams. Amanda almost pees her pants.

  “I’ve told you to mind your fucking language when you’re not in the bedroom.”

  I pull down my shades to peer at him. “Gregory. Come the fuck on. That’s your yacht?”

  A supercilious grin draws on his face. “Working hard has a few perks.”

  “Ho-ly shit!” Amanda eventually says, each syllable laboured.

  Williams laughs and wraps his arm around her ribs, pulling her tenderly onto his lap. “Our baby is going to come out preceding everything with ‘Holy.’” He kisses her temple and I want to coo.

  “I have a surprise for you,” Gregory says, as Bryony slows the boat to a stop, still twenty meters or so from the yacht.

  Carl speaks to someone through a radio, then a man appears on the deck of the yacht, near the nose thingy, which Gregory informs me is the bow. A blue banner hangs over the edge of the yacht. Gregory smiles at me, takes my hand in his, then nods to Carl who gives the okay to whoever is on the other end of the radio.

  The banner is rolled up slowly and for the second time, my jaw hangs loose. I’m speechless as I read the black writing stating the name of the yacht.

  S.R. Aurora.

  I cover my lips with my fingertips and I’m pleased my glazed eyes are masked by shades. Scarlett Ryans Aurora.

  “Presumptuous,” I say to Gregory. He liquefies me with his stunning half smile and I throw my arms around his neck. “Thank you. It’s incredible.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. I really want to hate you,” Amanda says, swiping away a tear.

  I feel Gregory’s chest move as he chuckles in my hold. “Alright, Bryony, let’s get on her.”

  Bryony and Carl expertly position us adjacent to eight white steps. At the top, another six crew members wait to greet us, all dressed in the same uniform.

  Bryony asks if Amanda and I would like to be shown around the ship, which of course we do, and I realise as she talks excitedly in her Barbadian accent about the three hundred foot yacht and all its features, I really quite like her.

  She leads us around the bottom deck where there’s an eight seater dining table, two rattan sofas, two matching rattan chairs and four matching sun loungers. The hot afternoon sun beats on my face as I tilt my head and tie my hair back into a ponytail. I open my eyes to a speed boat flying across the sea, two bikini clad girls waving vigorously in the back as water crashes over the front of the boat. Amanda lifts on to her toes in her gladiator sandals and waves back.

  “Miss Heath, Miss Darling, my name is Bertie and I handle all the food and beverages on the yacht.” He’s a tall red-haired man and his pale freckled skin makes me think it’s a good job he works in the kitchen rather than on deck. “Can I interest you in a fruit punch?”

  “Is it virgin?” Amanda asks.

  “Yes, of course, Miss Darling. And might I say, congratulations, Mr. Williams is a fine man.”

  A glowing smile pulls on her lips as she takes the pink-orange juice from Bertie’s tray.

  “It’s delicious, Bertie,” I say. “Is it your recipe?”

  “Sure is. Wait ’til you see what I can do with a bottle of Disarrono and Tequilla Blanco.”

  “I’m looking forward to it already.”

  Amanda sighs and drains her virgin drink, depositing the empty glass back on Bertie’s tray.

  “Another?” he asks.

  She shakes her head, clearly sulking.

  “D’you guys want to go on?” Bryony asks, gesturing to the stairs, one set going down, the other going up to the next deck.

  “Please.”

  “Great. Come on. So, down there is really just a deck for getting on and off the boat. If you’re diving, swimming, going on the Jet Skis. We’ll go up.”

  There are more gadgets and levers around the steering wheel than I would have expected but the view from the top deck is amazing. Endless, sparkling sea merging into clear blue sky. I hold onto the metal rail and look out to the horizon, wondering whether I’ve ever felt more complete in my life. Lifting and turning my hand, I watch the rock on my finger twinkle under the sun, my stomach flipping as I think about Gregory being mine. Forever. An irrational wave of yearning washes over me and my heart skips when I see him standing at the bow, hands in the pockets of his shorts and looking out. All mine.

  At the sound of my bare feet on the deck he turns, welcoming me into his arms. “Have fun?”

  I slip my arms around his waist. “Yes, sir. I like your boat.”

  “Our boat. It does have your name on it.”

  Pulling back, I smile up at him. “Yes, it does. I like that something is ours. But maybe next time we could share something like a case of wine. A yacht seems a tad extreme. We’re in pre-nup territory.”

  He pushes me back by my shoulders, his face not humoured at all. “Don’t say shit like that. Pre-nups are for people who intend to break. Nothing is going to break us, Scarlett. Do you hear me? I won’t let it. Everything I have will be yours. Everything.” He takes my hand
and places it across his chest. “You already have the one thing I thought I’d never give away. If you break it, I don’t think I’ll survive.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  He drowns me in a slow, tender kiss.

  “Mr. Ryans, sir, a drink for sail away?” Gregory keeps me pulled tight to his side, a closeness I enjoy, as we accept champagne from Bertie. “Pol Rodger Sir Winston Churchill 2002, like you asked.”

  “Thank you, Bertie.”

  “Would you like lunch when we’re off, sir?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Two thirty, sir.”

  Gregory nods. “Yes, thank you.”

  “After lunch I’d like to talk you quickly through the plans for Black Diamonds,” I say. “As in the game, not the stones on my finger.”

  “Alright. Not too long though, I want you to have a break. You need one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Williams crosses the deck to us, his free arm loosely resting on Amanda’s shoulder. “Alright, you two, a toast. To finally getting your shit together.”

  We laugh and clink glasses. “Heartfelt, Williams, thanks.”

  “Oh, trust me, Scarlett, it genuinely is heartfelt.”

  Bertie serves up chicken Caesar salad and cool Semillon-Sauvignon. We eat in the shade, a welcome break from the stifling heat. Everything seems right somehow. Williams and Amanda seem happy. Gregory and Amanda have gone forty-five minutes without a jibe passing between them. My perfect man is eating with his left hand as his right strokes the fourth finger of my left. Yet, I have the same lingering feeling I’ve had since Katrina Martin showed up in Dubai. This is just a hiatus. Somewhere, she’ll be thinking up her next move.

  “Alright, lady. Shall we talk about Black Diamonds?”

  “Oh, hell, I’m off if you’re talking work.” Amanda is out of her seat quicker than she’d hit Harrods in a flash sale.

  “Mind if I hang around, old boy?” Williams asks.

  “Not at all.” Gregory pushes his seat back from the table, his elbow resting on the red table cloth, his index finger and thumb pinching his chin.