Paradise Island

by Charmaine Ross

  “Ready?”

  She nodded and then she was flying through the air. Her feet hit the surface of the water, and then it closed over her head. She came up gasping, watching the ship speed on its way, away from Paradise.

  She swam as hard and as fast as she could towards her beloved land, Gregory at her side. The current was strong, and they were taken with it as easily as dry leaves in a storm. She drifted past the shore, but she kept the land in her sight. Stroke after stroke sapped her strength, but she kept her eyes trained on the land that raced path.

  She wasn’t sure how long it had taken, but finally her feet found the sandy bottom of the ocean. And as she struggled through the waves that lapped at her knees and then to the white bubbles that were the tips of the waves she fell. Next to her Gregory did the same. As exhaustion claimed her, she hoped against hope that they had been unnoticed and Paradise would remain a secret.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What have you gotten yourselves into, now?” A crackling voice echoed dryly through Estelle’s head.

  Boney fingers probed her arm and she groaned. It hurt, even in dreams. It stank, too. “This will fix you up,” the voice said. Estelle cracked open glued, heavy eyelids. A watery image of an aged face, thick with wrinkles and a halo of scraggly white hair was above her.

  The face smiled, showing yellowed teeth then swam from her vision. “You are a fighter. That is good, the gods have chosen well, but you need to let yourself feel the things only he can make you feel. Amor Fati. It is the only way. Only then can you be strong enough to defeat that which wants to rule. A word of warning, stay within the circle of the runes tonight and you shall be safe, retreat into the darkness and you shall be found.”

  An edge of a cup was placed at her mouth and she drank. The liquid was warm and sweet and soon she was in a deep dreamless sleep.

  A fire crackled from within a neat row of rocks arranged in a circle. Over the flames was a grill that had been set on top of the rocks which supported a blackened pot. The smell coming from it was delicious. Estelle blinked awake and raised up onto her elbow.

  It was well into the night. The sky was dark, but the moon and stars were bright enough so that her vision adjusted quickly. All around were the sounds of the night, insets, faint rustling and a lone frog calling. The sounds of her island home.

  She realized she was in no pain. She tested her arm, flexing the muscles and felt nothing. She was clean and dry and also very hungry. Next to her Gregory stirred. She reached over and shook his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

  His eyes flickered open, locked onto her instantly and she was drawn into twin pools of liquid blue. His hair was mussed into a mass of raven waves. One unruly strand curled over his forehead. His lips curved slightly as he focused on her and she wondered if she could ever tire of waking to such a look from him. She rode the kick-in-the-gut feeling and swallowed hard. It would do her no good to think of such things. Theirs were two paths that would not cross for long.

  She turned to face the fire. “It seems as though we have been saved again.”

  Beside her Gregory sat, “And it seems as though we have dinner waiting for us.”

  Beside the fire on a flattened rock, bowls and spoons had been set. She filled a bowl and handed it to Gregory. “It smells a lot better than the last concoction.”

  Gregory took the bowl from her with thanks and started eating. She took a place a little way away and faced the fire. “We have been cleaned and attended to. I know I received cuts, but they are gone. I don’t know how that could be. I had a dream it was the old woman.”

  “Cutlass named her as a witch,” Gregory said.

  “I would call her our Guardian Angel.”

  “Whatever she is, it seems as though she is intent on helping us, although I cannot fathom why,” Gregory said.

  “Her motives beg the question. There are so many evil forces at work here, I am just glad that there is some good,” Estelle said.

  “Cutlass doesn’t like her, or what she is doing to help us, that I am sure of, but there must be a reason why we are here. She must have taken us to this place for a reason and it won’t have aided Jack Cutlass for us to still be alive.”

  “Do you think she can help get my father back?”

  Gregory was silent, replacing his spoon into the empty bowl. “You saw his state. I had no idea it would be like this. He was a walking cadaver.”

  “He didn’t recognize me,” Estelle said, her voice lowered. She restrained the tremble that quaked in her throat.

  “Something is amiss. Your father never would have attacked you,” Gregory said.

  “But why did he look like that. So dull, without life. What I saw was not my father, but simply the shell of him. There is something more than mind control. I saw it in his mind, Jack’s mind, there was something evil lurking there, and getting stronger. When it knew what I was trying to do, it tried to take me with it. I knew I would have been taken too if … ” She didn’t want to say if he hadn’t been there to guide her back, if she hadn’t seen his light, or that she drew from his strength, his caring.

  Instead she said nothing.

  “If the story from the ancients is to be believed then the god they unleashed from the cave has found a way to live on earth to become stronger. Although Cutlass is an evil man, he cannot own the power to command other men. You father would not have been his willing pawn.” Gregory paused and they were silent for a moment, letting the quiet of the night dissipate the full extent of the horror of their realizations.

  “Do you think my father can ever return from the … thing … he is now?” Estelle asked.

  “I have to believe it can be possible. There has to be hope,” Gregory said.

  Gregory’s profile was lit by the flickering light thrown from the welcome flames. She watched the muscle at his temple working and knew that he found what had happened to her father as soul destroying as she, and in that moment she knew what he had been telling her, what she had refused to believe, was true. He genuinely loved her father as much as she and he had been intent on finding him as much as she was. Only she believed he was dead where Gregory had refused.

  She, who had resolved her vengeance on Gregory, was really the only other in the world who could have helped her father. He had been telling the truth all along. What would have happened if she had taken him to Paradise and had found him guilty? What then? Her father’s fate would have been sealed and he would have to live, if she could call it that, as he was for no knowing how long. At least now her father had a chance. She had a chance. Estelle turned her head away from Gregory, lest he should see her eyes swimming with the tears that heated them.

  Even though she had treated Gregory badly, he had stood by her, looked out for her, handled her with gentle care, fought alongside her. She knew, how he felt when they had kissed, had felt the same all consuming passion arise in her, all the while knowing she shouldn’t, that he was temptation that shouldn’t be consumed but finding it beyond simple reasoning to deny herself.

  Estelle wiped her eyes clear. Maybe if they did work together, for the sake of her father, for the sake of getting themselves out of this situation, she would trust him, let him in just that little bit more. Maybe it would unite them enough so that she might have the strength to finish what her father started all those long years ago. She moistened her lips and faced Gregory. “The old woman said something to me in a dream. The Prophecy. Amor Fati. But that is too farfetched. I hope she is not relying on that alone for it can’t happen between us … could never happen.” Wanted it to happen, she realized with a start.

  She needed to move. She rose putting her bowl on the flattened rock, took a long straight branch from a pile that had been left to one side and stoked the flames.

  “It is more than the Fates of Love, Estelle. The prophecy is more than that. Must be. It is ab
out the good that can come from the power of love, the strength that can be drawn from the person it enables you to be. It is magic in itself.”

  Estelle felt herself frown. It had only been the strength she had felt from Gregory that had enabled her to retreat from the clutches of the entity that slowly was taking over Jack’s mind. Was that strength found through love?

  Gregory stood, moved to her, took the stick from her hand putting it to the side and brought her to her feet. He adjusted a lock of her hair that had fallen over her forehead, letting the fine strand swirl around his fingers. She watched the lock, now made a glowing red by the light of the fire, slip over his skin.

  “The old lady thinks that we, together, have the strength to defeat this entity that Marcus Worthington and Jack Cutlass have unleashed onto the world. You are strong, Estelle, you are a survivor if ever I met one and … I … ” The words ceased, but he looked into her eyes and she almost gasped with the intensity that possessed their depths.

  She needed to know what he was about to say. She clutched his upper arms. His muscles were tight, bunched with hidden strength. “Finish what you were about to say.”

  His hand that held the strand of her hair dropped. He slowly traced the line of her cheek, oh so softly with the pads of his fingers. His thumb outlined the line of her lower lip, the gentle warmth sending a wave of heated tingles through her. She opened her mouth, taking the end of his thumb, letting the tip of her tongue swirl around the end.

  He groaned then, plummeting his free hand deep into her hair to cup the back of her nape. He angled her head, lowered his and took her mouth in his, claiming it with purpose, with deep intent. She could do no more than simply respond, moving with him, accepting him into her mouth, suckling his lips, letting his tongue slide and dance with hers. He kissed her with purpose, informing her of his need, of his objective that this time, their kiss would not stop, that he would continue to thoroughly make her not want him to stop.

  And she didn’t want him to. Couldn’t let him. Clung to him desperately, letting him know that she would go nowhere but further into his arms.

  She returned his kiss, move for move, needing him as much as he needed her, right now, at this time when it was so right. When she needed nothing more than what he would give. There was no question in her mind. This time she knew she wanted him with very fiber of her being, every ounce of her soul.

  His free hand skated down her side and rested at her hip. He slipped his fingers beneath the end of her shirt and pressed his hand against the skin of her waist. His fingers stroked her there for a moment then clung to her as he sunk his tongue to slide against hers in an entirely irrefutable way. His touch, although gentle, was as possessive as a brand. His growing passion instantly igniting hers.

  He slowly pulled her shirt from the waist of her breeches and slid his hand to cup her breast. There was no asking this time. His hand went and claimed. She braced against him as the heat from his hand seared a path deep into her.

  He massaged her breast so that her nipple puckered into a tight nub, almost hurting with need to have his mouth where his hand now was. She moved irritably and he sensed her need, unlacing the bonds of her shirt so that her breasts were bared and he could have the access she wanted him to.

  He pulled away from their kiss. She cracked opened heavy eyelids to stare unfocussed up into his face. He cupped her cheek, eyes roaming her face as though he studied every detail, committing it to memory. “My God, Estelle, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he ground out beneath clenched teeth. His voice was low, weighted, and she knew that he was as affected by her as she was by him. Just the realization of that had her spiraling to a new level of passion. He could do as much to her with his voice and his eyes, as he could with his mouth and hands.

  It had never been this way; she had never felt this growing need, which was so much more than just a physical ache. It was as though this was the first time for her, the way it should have been right from the start. But she hadn’t known Gregory then, and wasn’t the woman she was today that would appreciate what his loving her like this could possibly mean.

  And that was what he did. Love her. In the true sense of the word, and finally, finally, she could understand what he meant when he said this was how a woman should be treated by a man. With care, veneration, tenderness, as though she were the most precious thing in the entire world. As though she were cherished. Loved.

  Her heart tripled its beat and her mind fractured as she put a name to the very thing she fought all this time. The very thing that she refused to acknowledge, but the very thing that would lead her to the height of this passion, to allow her to finally feel what it was that she had sought all these years. Which she had now found them in the arms of Gregory and no other. She had fallen in love with him. She didn’t know when, but she knew she had. Beyond all certainty, she knew.

  She entwined her hand at the back of his head. “Gregory, I … ” She wanted to say the words out loud, that she loved him, as if admitting them in her mind was not enough, that stating them to the world would cement the realization and make it a real thing. Her throat closed over and she couldn’t push the words past the block. She felt like a clumsy fool. Finally knowing what she felt and not being able to tell him.

  His brows had furrowed and she realized that he waited for her to finish what she had begun to tell her. She might not be able to tell him how she felt right now but she was able to show him. “I want you to kiss me here.” She touched her lips. “And here.”

  Her hands fell to her breasts, cupping each of them for him to see so that there would be no uncertainty of what she wanted from him. She felt the pressure of his hands tighten on her skin, felt the intensity of his gaze heat and sear with a slow burning unquenchable need.

  Her hand dropped further, to the juncture of her thighs. Her fingers splayed across that part of herself and she felt the heat of her own trembling hand through the material of her breeches. The effect of her hand on her most intimate of places with Gregory watching sent an erotic shiver through her.

  Her voice fell to a bare whisper. “I want you to touch me here. I want … ” She licked her suddenly dry lips. “I want all of you tonight. The way you said it could be between a man and a woman. I want you to prove to me that these things can happen, that it can be all the things you promised. I want you to take my body and show me how it can be, how it should be. Can you do that, Gregory? For me? Please?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  A low growl emanated from Gregory’s chest. He wrapped strong arms around her and lowered her to the soft grass that carpeted the ground. Her shirt spread, revealing her breasts to the warmth of the fire and the heat of his gaze. She felt no shame. The hunger in his eyes made her feel more libertine, in turn spiraling her own desire.

  “I will do my best to please you, Estelle. You needn’t have asked. It is something I would beg of you, something which I would do each and every day of my life.” His eyes devoured her. His hand slid to her waist, splayed possessively on her heated skin. “With pleasure,” he breathed.

  He kissed the place where her neck met her shoulders. He moved to her scar. His fingertip traced the old wound. “Why did Cutlass do this to you?” he asked softly.

  She moved to cover the scar, but he held her hand away. Laced his fingers with hers. He moved his gaze to cup hers, holding it, asking for an answer.

  “It was how I met Claire. I rescued her from Cutlass. He didn’t like me doing that.”

  The breath hissed out between Gregory’s teeth. “How many others have you rescued from him?”

  “Most on the island. He has a personal vendetta against me from taking away so many women from him.”

  A muscle worked at Gregory’s temple. “It is a personal vendetta I will help you fight. I can’t abide the treachery he has committed against men and women. And I can’t abide that h
e has hurt you so badly. He almost killed you.”

  “But he didn’t,” Estelle whispered. “And I am here, now with you, to fight him further, and I won’t stop until it is ended.”

  His hand shook imperceptibly. “That is a promise I keep with you,” he growled.

  He kissed her scar, barely touching. His breath whispered across her skin as he nuzzled her. Soft. Gentle. Tenderly. She sighed, as her mind fogged and drifted.

  He moved to her breast, the tip of his tongue tracing a heated path. The tip swirled around her nipple until it grew so hard she ground her teeth with the exquisite pain. He drew her breast into his mouth, suckling, teasing. His tongue played there, skidding across the hard nub, flicking it with the tip. She arched her back so that he may more fully devour her.

  She plunged her fingers into his thick hair, glorying in feeling his head against her breasts, the bristles on his cheeks scraping against her tender skin. Smooth against rough. The slick, wet heat of his tongue sending delicious tingles through her body, sweeping away thought, allowing her to be, to feel, to let him care for her, to love her.

  His hand played with her waist. His fingers wrapped her curves, purposefully stroking lower to her abdomen. Her stomach muscles clenched as waves of tingles swirled in the pit of her belly.

  His fingertips rested on the waist of her breeches. His thumb skidded beneath the material. She shivered in response, moved restlessly. It was answer he sought. He trailed light, feathery kisses to her navel and lower, while his fingers worked with the buttons on her breeches, releasing her buttocks to the night air.

  He lifted his head. His heavily hooded eye hooked hers. “To feast on you, to touch you, is more than anything I could wish for.”

  He played with the burnished curls he found there, adoring them. He slipped her breeches from her legs so that she was naked beneath his touch. The cool air touched her skin, but the heat that oozed through her veins more than kept her warm. Her bones were languid, as though she could barely move. Anticipation sensitized her skin, her mind was locked onto his each and every movement.