by Susan Stoker
Shadow loved it too, barking happily at the dolphins, paddling his somewhat lethal paws through the water. Chelsea struggled to keep her grip on Shadow’s collar and avoid getting scratched as he swam. Her attempt to drag him back toward the yacht was clearly failing.
“Shadow, come,” I commanded in my native language and swam toward the yacht, and he immediately followed. “Let him go, baby, it will be easier for both of you,” I said to Chelsea, who’d grabbed the life preserver.
She obeyed and turned to watch the dolphins, who gave us a few more leaps before they swam away.
I swam to the ladder and had to lift my ridiculous dog up to help him climb it, and Avar, one of our crew members, reached down to pull him the rest of the way up. I waited for Chelsea, next, offering my hand.
She let go of the life preserver and swam into my arms, tucking her body against mine when we each stood with one foot on the ladder. My boxer briefs sagged off her hips, only staying on by virtue of the water cling.
“Can you believe that?” Her eyes were lit with excitement, joy palpable.
I twisted my lips over hers, drinking from her mouth. “No,” I said when I reluctantly broke the kiss. “I can’t believe you risked your life for my dog.”
She laughed, shoving her wet hair out of her eyes. “Are you nuts? I love Shadow.”
Such easy love she gave to my dog. I wondered what it would be like to be loved by her.
“It wasn’t necessary, you silly American.” I couldn’t keep the warmth of affection from my voice. I wanted to scold her, but the moment felt far too sweet for that. It wasn’t time to dominate. I kissed her again, slower this time, twining my tongue with hers.
Avar cleared his throat. “You need a hand, your highness?”
“No, thank you. We’re fine.” I kissed her again, tasting the strawberry sweetness of her lips.
“Crazy girl,” I murmured. Her nipples pointed through my wet t-shirt, and she shivered in my arms. “Come on, let’s get you into a hot shower.” I pretended to guide her up the ladder with my hand on her ass, until she reached the deck and Avar held out a towel for her.
“You jumped in after Shadow?” Avar asked, shaking his head. “You’re a dog hero.” He chuckled and handed me a towel.
“She’s a keeper this one, no?”
Something hard twisted in my solar plexus.
In this moment, I never wanted to let her go. But I wouldn’t be keeping her.
We’d be back at shore soon, and she would collect her money and her things and run off to write her precious story.
I needed to detach myself from this fucked up situation before any more damage was done. Not to my reputation—I didn’t give a fuck about that. To my heart.
***
Chelsea
I saw the way Darius went quiet after his crew guy had called me a keeper. He’d turned back into the dark and brooding duke of the tabloids, a scowl squatting squarely between his brows, his square jaw firmly set.
Damn. I guessed this was it. We’d be parting soon and we wouldn’t be exchanging cell numbers. There’d be no postcards, no staying in touch. He would think I planned to betray him, and he’d hate me.
He led Shadow and me back to his room. I’d hoped we’d shower together, but he sent me in alone with a curt, “Take a shower.”
I stood in the spray of water, wondering why it felt like a concrete block had been placed on my chest. Guilt and grief mingled together with the water, coating me with a dark gray aura that didn’t wash off.
When I emerged, Darius and Shadow were gone, but a Post-it note on the door read, “Do not leave this room.” I put on another one of Darius’ t-shirts and looked around the room, looking for anything that gave me deeper insight into the duke.
Darius returned thirty minutes later with a tray of food, which he plopped unceremoniously on the bed. “Eat.”
I took the covers off the dishes, my stomach rumbling for what looked like a spinach omelet, fresh fruit, and pastries.
Darius leaned against the wall, folded his arms over his chest and stared.
I ate a few bites in the silence, but the tension became too much. I re-covered the plates and set the tray on the floor. “It’s, ah, a little hard to eat with the Devil Duke giving me the death ray glare.”
“You write anything about my cousin, or what you know happened on this yacht with him and his friends, and my family will destroy you, signed NDA or not.” His accent was thicker when he threatened. “I don’t care what you write about me. My story doesn’t matter. But I won’t let you ruin Kaspar.”
“I won’t ruin Kaspar,” I croaked, horrified he believed I would. Of course, I’d given him every reason to think it. “I promise.”
Nothing in his expression changed. He still considered me with the hard, measuring stare.
“I won’t ruin you, either.”
His lip curled like he didn’t believe me. “You can’t ruin me,” he scoffed, moving from his place of holding up the wall and pacing the length of the room. “And you still refuse to tell me who you work for?”
I looked down at my hands. “I’m sorry.”
He let out a puff of what sounded like exasperation and tunneled his fingers through his thick, wavy hair. “Fine.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I have two more hours with you, so let’s see if I can make them meaningful. Strip.”
No more hesitation. When he gave an order, I obeyed. I pulled the shirt over my head and tossed it on the floor, then stood up, facing him.
Despite the hardened expression he wore, desire flamed in his eyes when they fell on my body. “On your knees, baby.”
I lowered to a kneeling position at his feet, hungrily eyeing the bulge of his cock in his still-damp shorts. He unbuttoned them and shoved down his boxer briefs to free his erection.
I licked my lips, keeping my eyes lifted to his face, and the way lust coated his expression gave me a kick of power.
“Take it in your mouth, American. But don’t use your hands or I’ll have to bind them. Understand?”
I bobbed my head. “Yes, sir.”
“Good girl.”
He rubbed the head of his cock across my parted lips, moistening it with my tongue. “Open wide, baby. Show me how deep you can take it.”
Again, my brain flitted to the wonder that if Derek had ever said such a thing, I would’ve bitten him where it hurt, but from Darius, it only made me wet. I filled my mouth with his cock eagerly, loving the groan of satisfaction that issued from his lips, the jerk of his hips, the lengthening and twitching of his magnificent cock.
I took it as deep as I could, trying my hardest not to choke when it hit the back of my throat. I don’t know why this kind of choking didn’t bother me. It was only the external, hands around the throat kind.
“That’s a good girl,” he rumbled, fingers tangling in my hair and urging me forward.
I hummed around his manhood, swirling my tongue when he slid in, sucking hard when he withdrew.
He tightened his grip on my hair. It should’ve hurt, but instead it felt wonderful. He dragged me forward and backward over his cock, then held me still and pumped in and out of my mouth. It terrified and aroused me at once—the loss of control allowing me to simply be in the moment. Simply experience what he chose for me to experience. Who needed yoga or meditation when I could find nirvana here? On my knees. With a duke’s cock in my mouth.
I got lost in pleasing him, reaching for his thighs to stabilize myself.
“Uh uh.” He pulled out and I gazed up, dazed. “I told you no touching. Get up on the bed.”
I wasn’t sure how he wanted me on the bed, so I crawled onto my hands and knees and waited.
“On your back, spread those thighs, baby. I’m going to fuck you hard and deep. Make you remember who knows how to make you come.”
My body shook with anticipation, his dirty talk nearly bringing me to the brink without a single touch. I slid onto my back and parted my knees wide. He crawled over me, a
condom already sheathing his cock.
I was already silently chanting please, please, please at the sight of it, so ready to take him again—desperate for this one last fuck before we parted ways forever.
What I wasn’t ready for was the hand he clamped over my throat.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Not because he’d cut off my air, just because it freaked me out.
He ignored my panic and sought the notch between my thighs, sinking into me with a muttered curse in his own language.
I’d frozen. Instead of fighting him, trying to wrestle my way out of his stranglehold, I’d turned to stone. Afraid that if I did move, those strategically-placed fingers might tighten their hold.
Darius still ignored my obvious panic, rocking into me, filling my needy channel. It felt good, but I couldn’t acknowledge it, couldn’t get my wild thoughts off the hand at my throat.
He’s punishing me.
His lack of caring about my fear hurt more than I wanted to admit, but part of me also felt I deserved it. I was using him for a story, and this was payback. My worst fear actualized.
He thrust deep, pounding harder into me. His eyes closed in obvious satisfaction. He was taking his pleasure without catering to mine.
I closed my eyes, too, fighting to come back from the terror engulfing me.
Something light brushed over my cheek. I opened my eyes to find Darius right over me. The thumb of the hand around my throat caressed me. Which meant… he couldn’t be squeezing my neck. At all.
I turned my head to see his other hand beside my head, all his weight leaning on it as he rocked in and out. “Come for me, baby,” he murmured.
He wasn’t punishing me. He was still trying to fix me. Desensitizing me. Confusing me by making the act of holding my throat a part of sex. Sex that was mind-blowing.
I shattered, my internal muscles lifting and squeezing his cock, my inner thighs tightening.
Darius shouted a curse. “Christ, you’re so fucking tight when you come, baby.” He thrust in and out harder as my orgasm continued to roll through me, wringing out every ounce of my pleasure and his. “Take it,” he growled, shoving deep and following me over the edge and into the ecstasy of release.
***
Darius
After sex, there was nothing left to say. I knew she was probably fragile after her release, but I couldn’t hold her and whisper in her ear that she was safe and I had her.
She was leaving.
With her heart intact.
While I was fucking gutted.
This wasn’t the same as Madison. It was so much worse. Madison had been a play partner, no more. Not particularly bright, not particularly stable, but a very willing and eager submissive. We always met at a hotel room, we scened together, nothing more. I always left her with spending cash, although she wasn’t a prostitute. She had a kid at home, and I wanted to help out. But after six months, the situation grew stale for me. My mistake had been breaking it off after a scene, because she’d taken her marks and run straight to the police. I guess she figured if she couldn’t get money out of me one way, she’d try another. It had worked for her.
Chelsea was so much more. Smart, well-educated, sexy. Her submission wasn’t feigned; she fought it, which made it all the more beautiful when I won her surrender. She hadn’t been out to land a duke. She had been perfect for me. I’d finally met the kind of girl I would offer everything. But she’d wanted something else.
I thought it’d be easy enough to keep her in my room for three days, protect her from Kaspar and the boys, protect them from her. I even knew she’d be digging for information. I just didn’t know how badly it would hurt.
I rolled out of the bed and went to the shower. I wanted to rinse off the scent of her. How would I survive with it fucking reminding me of my worst failure yet? I stripped and stepped under the warm spray.
Yes, I had failed. Only now, at the end of the game, did I realize what the object had been. It hadn’t been to keep her from writing her story. It had been to win her. To make her forget her scoop and fall in love. To earn her affection and trust.
I needed more than her fucking first name! I punched the wall of the shower, shattering one of the tiles.
The pain lanced through my knuckles and into my wrist. It satisfied some dark urge in me, the same way sex, drugs, and alcohol had in my younger years. I punched the wall again. And again. The fractured tile cut my knuckles, making them bleed, turning the water at my feet into a swirl of pink.
I stayed in the shower until the water turned cold. Even then, I stayed until someone pounded on my bedroom door.
“Stop hogging all the water, asshole!” Kaspar shouted in Austrinian.
I shut off the water and surged out of the shower, not because I gave a shit about Kaspar, but because I didn’t want him walking in on Chelsea.
“Go fuck yourself!” I wrapped a towel around my waist and strode out into the room, spoiling for a fight if Kaspar wanted to test me. But when I threw open the door, he’d already disappeared.
I cast a backward glance at Chelsea, who huddled on the bed, looking so much like a scolded child that every part of me yearned to go to her and offer my arms.
But the time for that was over. This was goodbye.
“I’ll get your things,” I said stiffly, shutting the door behind me.
In Kaspar’s dungeon, I located the bag she’d boarded with, the one I’d kept from her, to prevent her from recording or transmitting anything.
The boys and their playthings were hanging out with the listlessness that comes from too many uppers and alcohol. They had hollows under their eyes, a sallowness to their skin. Yes, three days was definitely enough for these parties.
Kaspar was absent—he must be in the shower now. Too bad I’d used all the hot water.
I left without a word of greeting to any of them. Back to my prisoner.
***
Chelsea
I couldn’t take the weight of Darius’ disappointment. If I didn’t care so much about vindicating him, I’d sign his stupid NDA, promise to never write or disclose anything I’d learned here. And maybe, as it was, I still wouldn’t. But Rolling Stone would never run the article if I signed my rights away. Their legal department would go nuts over it and the story would get cut.
It was important I preserve my rights to write about Darius Halsburg.
He returned to the room and tossed me the dress I’d been wearing when I boarded. “Get dressed.”
I noticed he had my bag, but didn’t offer it. Of course not, because he didn’t trust me.
How could I blame him? I was beginning to question my own decision. Was I really doing this for Darius? Or was it for me? To further my career?
Or did it matter if it helped us both?
If it was the right thing to do, why in the hell did I feel so terrible?
God, I didn’t want to walk off this yacht and return to the cramped apartment I shared with Allegra. I didn’t want to stay in Ibiza even for one more day.
Like a frightened child, I wanted to be home—not even home in L.A., but the home I grew up in. I needed to remember who I was. Who I am. To forget Derek. And Darius.
No, not Darius.
I never wanted to forget Darius. In fact, I wanted to record every single thing I could remember about him, even though doing so would break my heart into a million pieces.
Sweet Surrender stopped moving.
This was it, we’d arrived back at Ibiza.
Tears smarted my eyes and my hands shook as I pulled on my sundress. “I had panties, too.” My voice cracked when I spoke.
Darius gave a callous shrug. “They’re missing. You’ll buy a new pair with your five grand.”
The money.
I’d forgotten about the five thousand Euros—no six thousand with my bonus—I’d be paid.
The thought of taking money made me sick.
Lost, chest aching, I sought Darius’ eyes, pleading with him to
understand.
“Don’t look at me like that.” His voice rang out hard and cruel. He picked up my bag and held it out to me. “Time to go, princess.”
“Darius—” Tears leaked out of my eyes, wetting my cheeks.
Alarm flickered over Darius’ face but instantly morphed into fury. “Stop crying, princess.” The harsh command cut me like a knife. He pointed at me, and I saw gashed and bruised knuckles on his right hand. “You don’t cry unless I make you cry.” There was so much anger in his voice that I stumbled back, my chest caving as if I’d taken a direct hit.
He slammed his wounded fist into the wall, splintering the wood paneling.
I gulped air, trying to stop the tears that only flowed faster now.
“Get out.” The words punished me far worse than any physical chastisement he’d given me. “Go now before I raise the alarm and my family comes down on you like the wrath of God.”
I didn’t move.
“Get. Out!”
A broken sob erupted from my chest, and I ran, half-blind from my tears, through the door.
“Take your bag,” Darius hissed behind me.
Somehow, I directed my fingers to grab it. Somehow I managed to be that close to Darius and not fall at his feet and beg his forgiveness.
I stumbled up the stairs, not knowing if Darius was following or not. Not able to stop the full on sobs that were coming now.
Samson stood on deck, handing the girls their envelopes of cash.
I pushed past, needing to get off the yacht before I imploded.
“Allegra, wait! Here’s your money,” Samson called after me, but my feet had already hit the dock. I started running and I didn’t stop.
Running away from the biggest mistake of my life. From Darius, the man who’d made me feel safe and special. Who’d shown me the white hot flame of lust and the cool comfort of home.
Because that’s what being with him had felt like, that’s why I wanted to run back to my childhood.
Home.