I swallow, my tongue thick inside my mouth. “Make what more interesting?”
“Skinny dipping.”
Turning on her heels, she bounds out toward the water, completely unabashed in the way the sea air collides with every plane and crevice of her body.
I stand on the shore, watching as she wades in to her knees, spinning to look at me. “Well? Aren’t you coming?”
She wiggles her eyebrows, and I swallow again, a knot lodging hard in my throat.
No one’s ever seen me naked.
I don’t even like glimpsing the scarred topography of my body, vivid reminders of a life thrust upon me before I knew what I was agreeing to.
The longer Elena stands in the water, waiting patiently, the more uncomfortable I feel about her perusal. Already, I’m far too concerned with the way she looks at me, and there’s a niggling thought catching in the back of my mind that maybe this will be what turns her off from me.
Maybe she’ll finally see I’m the monster everyone always warned her about.
“I don’t bite,” she calls, drifting farther back into the water, cupping her hands over her breasts, deepening her cleavage. “Well, I do, but you like it.”
Snorting in spite of myself, I shake my head slightly, my dick straining against the confines of my pants. It throbs, desperate to reconnect with her, and finally I exhale, remembering how she said she’s lonely.
How, in the entire time we’ve been on Aplana, this is the first time I’ve seen her look something other than miserable, barring sexual activities.
And so, even though it feels like I’m skinning myself alive as I begin popping open the buttons on my shirt, I do it anyway.
Chapter 26
He tells me to close my eyes, which I don’t love, considering the fact that I’m just past the point in the ocean where my feet can touch the bottom. But I do it, because he’s starting to look a little green, and I don’t want to make things worse.
I don’t know why, but the man has some sort of complex about his body. And while I’m sure it’s something I shouldn’t pry about, I just don’t know how many more times I can have sex with a fully clothed man and not feel like a prostitute.
The water ripples, pulsing against my skin, and I hear when Kal enters it, hissing as if it’s cooler than he was expecting.
“What?” I say, my vision dark from behind closed lids. “God of the Underworld can’t handle a little cold?”
Whooping with surprise as his arms glide around my waist, my eyes fly open, hands searching for something to steady the top half of my body with. My fingers clutch at his shoulders, reveling in the thick muscle beneath his skin, and then I pause, feeling pockets of uniquely rough, yet soft flesh.
The same spots graze my stomach as I press into him, and my heart sinks low in my chest, thumping hard between us.
Meeting his gaze as my fingers continue their exploration, I do my best not to look down, sure that whatever I find there will humanize him. That I won’t be able to resist the brokenness, and my attraction will let loose and morph into something real.
Something that can hurt me.
Sadness burns the back of my throat as I recognize the puckered skin, counting eight spots on his right shoulder, then five on the left. I slide my palms in, cupping the base of his neck, absorbing the force of his swallow.
His eyes betray nothing—no vulnerability, no awareness, no shame. They stare at me blankly, a practiced ambivalence reflecting back, even though I can tell by the way the tendons in his throat tense up that he doesn’t like any of this.
“I’m no god,” he says finally, releasing a stilted breath. His fingers dig into my ass, holding me upright, and I feel his cock bob against me, seeking entrance without him even guiding it. “Just an unlucky soul, who somehow has managed to cheat death over a hundred times.”
Taking a chance, I drop my chin, coasting my gaze over his slick, sun-soaked skin. For the most part, it’s smooth and bronzed, the tone apparently natural given his propensity for the indoors.
But the larger planes are marred, decorated by shiny divots that shimmer in the light reflecting off the water. Some are smaller than others, some long and wide, scattered in various places along his entire torso.
There’s a particularly lengthy one stretching over his rib cage, and I tentatively drop my hand to the mark, smoothing my thumb over it. It’s gnarly, mangled and a little less pink than the others, bubbling up past the surface of his skin.
He sucks a sharp breath through his teeth, and I freeze, eyes widening. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry. Did that hurt?”
Adjusting his hold on my ass, Kal chuckles, hoisting me up higher on his waist. My pussy pulses where our skin meets, the onslaught of immediate sensation making me dizzy.
“It’s not a pleasant feeling,” he says, his mouth so close to mine it’s distracting. “Not really painful, but scars tend to be a lot more sensitive than normal skin.” He shifts, dropping one hand to the crack of my ass while the other winds beneath my thigh, sweeping over the K there. “The nerve endings regenerate, and the keloid scars like that are usually the worst because of all the extra collagen.”
Slowly, I drift my hand over the site, watching his face for signs of distress. “What happened?”
He smirks. “Which time? Hit men don’t always get away with things, you know.”
I hold my breath for a moment, trying to imprint the feel of the rough edges into my palm, reconciling them with the stoic figure holding me. “With this one?”
Something cold passes over his face, making me shiver, and he starts to move deeper in the water; I’m not sure how long before he loses his footing, but it feels like we’re edging dangerously close here.
A metaphor, if ever there was one.
“I was betrayed,” he says softly, his right hand coming up, twisting in my hair. “And I vowed not to ever let anyone close enough to me to hurt me like that again.”
It feels like an admission, though I’m not exactly sure of what. A promise of sorts, the kind whispered against skin, spoken to your soul. It breaches mine, uncertain as it brushes the surface, and I lean in, ghosting my lips over his when I speak.
“You’re not unlucky,” I whisper, afraid of shattering the bubble that’s risen up around us, my heart beating so fast that it’s making me sick.
Flexing his fingers in my roots, he exhales, the cool mint of his breath rolling down my chin. “I certainly don’t feel like I am right now.”
Insanity.
That has to be what drives me to return to the Flaming Chariot, as if I haven’t had enough issues around there as it is.
But curiosity is a raging bitch where I’m concerned, and I’m on a mission to find the girl from the other day and figure out who she is to Kal.
If she’s the one who betrayed him.
The bouncer outside gives me a once-over as I unfold myself from the back seat of Kal’s town car, folding his massive arms over his chest. The bottom half of an anchor tattoo peeks beneath his shirt sleeve, and his eyes are the most crystal clear blue I’ve ever seen.
I stand there stupidly for a second, getting lost in their translucence.
He clears his throat, waving a palm in front of my face. “Sorry, no minors allowed. Dunkin’ is that way.”
Confused, I glance behind my shoulder to see if someone’s stepped up behind me. A woman in a floral maxi dress passes by, chatting away on her cell phone about some Hollywood scandal, but otherwise, there’s no one else on this part of the sidewalk.
I look back at the bouncer, pushing my hair off my shoulder. “Um, no, I’m not looking for Dunkin’. I was hoping I could wait inside at the bar? I’m... trying to find someone, and I’m hoping they’ll show up if I stake this place out long enough.”
“That’s loitering, and it’s strictly prohibited.”
His clipped, dismissive tone makes me bristle. “It’s actually not loitering, because I’ve just told you my express purpose for wanting to hang around.”
&nb
sp; The man looks at me and shrugs. “You enter the bar and don’t order a drink, that’s loitering, according to business policy.”
“Okay, then I’ll order a drink.”
He snorts, but somehow his face remains still. “Sweetheart, if you think I’m about to believe you’re over twenty-one, you’re a lot dumber than that short little dress you have on makes you look.”
Fire bleeds into my soul as he hurls his insult, and I reach up, tying my hair into a low knot at the back of my head. “Dress stays short so I have free range to do this.”
My leg kicks up, my body shooting first, asking questions later, aiming for his crotch. But then someone’s gripping my biceps and yanking me away, twisting so I’m facing the street. I lock up when he grabs me, fear shooting so suddenly through my gut that I almost double over from the way it seizes up.
“Whoa, whoa, what in the bloody hell’s going on here?” a vaguely familiar British accent asks, the hands leaving my biceps almost as quickly as they appear, like touching me burns him. I peek up, noting the full, dark beard and the leather jacket, letting out a slight breath of relief when I realize it’s the man from the back office the other day.
Wolfe something. Kal’s friend or confidante, the part owner of the bar.
Recoiling from his touch, I cross my arms over my chest and lean to the side, shooting daggers at the bouncer. “What’s going on is that I’m being insulted by your employee, who refuses to let me go inside because he thinks I’m bad for business.”
“We have enough of a problem keeping the riffraff away as it is,” the bouncer says to his boss, shrugging. “Just trying to maintain an orderly bar while we’re still understaffed.”
Kal’s friend frowns, flipping his head so the mop of dark brown curls atop it falls from his eyes. “Blue, you have a habit of harassing potential paying customers?”
Jonas Wolfe, that was his name.
“I wasn’t harassing her, I was—”
Scrubbing a hand down the side of his face, Jonas sighs, glancing at me. “Maybe you should pay a little bit more attention to who you’re keeping out of the bar before you go insulting their intelligence. You know what Dr. Anderson would do if he knew you called his wife stupid and implied she’s a whore?”
The bouncer—Blue, apparently—eyes me, raking over my form more fully now. He lingers a little too long on my legs but snaps up to my gaze before I have a chance to feel creeped out by it.
I don’t get unsettling vibes from this guy—no part of my girlish intuition is telling me to run, or steer clear the way it did with Vincent. Blue just seems like an asshole.
“His wife?” Jonas nods, and Blue puffs his cheeks out, releasing a slow breath. “She’s a little young for him, don’t you think?”
“Nobody asked what you think,” I snap, but Jonas holds his hand up as if to silence me.
The gesture infuriates me more.
“I’m going to murder both of you,” I say in a low voice, grumbling mostly to myself as I envision a bloody end for the two of them.
The image flashes across my brain before I have time to think it through; violence, crimson painted around a room, their mangled bodies strewn about haphazardly, waiting for someone to come clean them up.
Blinking it away, I press a hand to my stomach, trying to ignore the heat coiling there. I don’t even know these men, and yet here I am, imagining being their executioner?
Jonas laughs, the sound boisterous and startling compared to the quiet, reserved nature of my husband. “You shouldn’t threaten assassins, love. They take those very seriously.”
Growing more irritated by the second, I put my hands on my hips and cock an eyebrow at the two men. “Well, we’ve established that I belong here. Can I go in now?”
“Unfortunately no, although it certainly has nothing to do with the way you’re dressed.” Unlike his employee, Jonas doesn’t even look at my outfit, instead focusing on a spot beyond my head, like he’s looking for someone. “You’ve got bad luck written all over you.”
“I do not!”
He nods, ignoring me, and grabs my elbow, starting down the street away from the bar. “You do. It’s this... purity within your presence; bad shit just flocks to you, doesn’t it, love?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You’re right, Anderson probably wouldn’t like that very much either.” His long legs eat up the sidewalk, and even though I’m not short by most standards, I’m having to practically sprint just to keep up. “He’s rather fond of you, hm? It’s like you’ve finally managed to dislodge the stick up his arse.”
My nose wrinkles up, my body rejecting the sentiment. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Don’t suppose you’d have to. The lad’s been proper obsessed with you for ages.” He glances down at me as we round the corner, a Dunkin’ Donuts coming into view at the end of the street. “Well, not ages. It’s a rather recent development, but boy oh boy, did it hit him hard.”
Jonas’s words make my face heat up, and when we stop just outside the doors of the donut shop, he releases my arm, turning to face me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, shrugging, not wanting to let him know how his claim draws my throat closed. I cross my arms over my chest, in case my heart beats so hard he can see it.
“Technically speaking, he could’ve married anyone,” he says. “But he chose you.”
“He was blackmailed into it. We both were.”
A look of dark amusement passes over Jonas’s face, and he smiles, revealing two rows of bright, unnaturally white teeth. He reminds me of his namesake, staring down at me like a wolf who’s just caught his dinner and never learned not to play with his meals beforehand.
“Right. I forgot about that.” Clearing his throat, he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, pressing his lips together. “Still, Elena. Think about it. Is a man like that ever blackmailed easily?”
My nerves jumble, blending wildly together and spreading like poison through my gut. “I don’t know...”
In truth, it’s the same thought I had when he first approached me, demanding my hand. After he’d already taken out Mateo, eliminating my choice in that matter.
Not that I miss Mateo.
But it did feel mildly suspicious.
Narrowing my eyes at Kal’s British friend, I take a step back, and he laughs again, the sound so rich and infectious, it sends a twinge of homesickness through me.
I haven’t heard anyone laugh in weeks.
“I’m not saying he wasn’t forced into doing it,” Jonas says finally, lifting his shoulders. “I’m just saying... maybe it’s not the full picture. Maybe you should see if anyone has the other side of the photograph.”
And when he turns, leaving me in front of Dunkin’ to head back to the bar, I stand there for several minutes, wondering what to do with the information he’s just given me.
I should go ask Kal what he’s talking about, or complete my mission to find Violet.
Instead, I head inside, order a long john, and settle in at one of the outdoor metal patio tables, pushing all my problems aside until I’ve finished eating.
Chapter 27
Dropping my head into my hands, I dig the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, creating kaleidoscopes of color spotting across my vision.
A vein in my temple throbs painfully, maniacally, as I pore over the list of possible IP addresses of the flash drive culprit, growing more agitated with Ivers International’s incompetence at finding the person.
Earlier this morning, a third flash drive appeared, that same grainy footage not attributed to my state-of-the-art security, but filmed with an outside party’s camera.
Marcelline brought it in with the mail, and when I plugged it into my desktop, I was met with the black and white evidence of me baring my soul to my wife, both of us stark naked in the ocean.
Somehow, compared to the others which caught us in the middle of lascivious acts, this one felt more intimate. Mo
re exposing.
More purposeful.
I just can’t figure out why they’re appearing in the first place.
If it was about exposing me to the press, for any number of the crimes I’ve had expunged from my record over the years, most likely they would’ve been leaked already.
If it were Rafe’s doing, I have a difficult time imagining why he’d agree to give me Elena, effectively terminating his contract with Bollente Media, and fucking up the mediocre criminal empire he’s built.
Even though his name doesn’t hold as much weight in Boston as it once did, I still don’t see him resorting to self-sabotage, and then still trying to extort me in the process.
Leaning back in my desk chair, I stare up at the vaulted ceiling, losing myself in thought for several minutes. The house is silent tonight, Elena having turned in with a new copy of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own she bought at the only bookstore on the island.
For the first time in a long time, I reach beneath my dresser, my hand smoothing past the pistol secured just above my thigh, and tear off the Polaroid taped to the underside.
Unlike the crumpled, worn one I keep on hand of Violet, this one is so infrequently handled that it’s still in mint condition; the edges remain straight, the colors on the picture itself only slightly warped due to the passage of time. Otherwise, it’s as if the photo’s just popped out of its camera.
My mother sits up in a hospital bed, a pink bandana pulled tight over her head, because she’d just begun losing her hair after restarting chemotherapy treatments.
She’s spooning chocolate pudding out of a plastic cup, staring at whoever’s behind the camera, but her smile points at me. Even as she sits there, her body devouring itself from the inside out, she’s trying to reassure me that everything is okay.
That it will all be okay.
‘That’s the love of a mother,’ nurses would sometimes say, because keeping in high spirits while trying to fight off a terminal illness isn’t something everyone can do, year after year, day after day. And yet, she made it a point to, always trying to get me to see the brighter side of things.
Promises and Pomegranates: A Dark Contemporary Romance (Monsters & Muses Book 1) Page 19