He looks at me, splayed there for him. “You’re definitely trouble.”
I giggle as he steps up to me, lowering his linen trousers. He toys with me a moment, ensuring I’m ready for him. “Mm, yes, just like that.”
His fingers leave me wanting for only a breath before his cock fills me up. I’m tender from before, and that heightens the sensations. “You said you want me to have my way with you.” He pulls me onto him, so I wrap my legs around his body. “This is my way.” He bounces me on his cock so hard that I see stars.
No wait—those are the actual stars.
My head tipped back at some point, evidently. When I make eye contact with him again, I take his mouth as he fucks me roughly. This is stupid—he isn’t wearing a condom. But I don’t care.
I have never felt so seen in my life. Roman understands me. He knows what I’ve been through and sees the person it has mademe into, and he likes me anyway. There’s something alluring about that. I can’t explain it.
I think I’m falling for my husband.
He kisses me in a way that leaves a mark. He listens to my breath and answers it. I hook my fingers in his hair and tug until he laughs into my throat. His palm lands above my head on the bark. His other hand finds my hip.
The resort is not empty. Life hums. Far away, someone sings. The guards are shadows. I stop caring. This is ours. I press into him. The tree holds. The sand gives, but he’s steady on his feet anyway.
Roman drives harder and deeper, and my orgasm strikes without warning. When I cry out, he kisses me savagely, biting my tongue. The pain makes my orgasm into something more primal, more animal. My whole body jerks and throbs and soars inside my skin. The moment I find myself again, he lays me on the tree, pulls out, and shoots onto the sand with a snarl.
When the world sharpens again, the night is deeper. He finds my sandal half-buried and kneels to slide it on. Didn’t realize I’d lost it. It’s a small gesture that almost breaks me. He tears me apart and puts me back together again, and I’ve never had that.
We head back to the bungalow on shaking legs, and our shadows reappear, still seeming like fellow tourists instead of guards. We’re quiet on the walk back, so my mind drifts. He said Olga was too nice for this life. He said I am not. He meant it as respect, and I take it that way. I was not built for dinner parties with polite chitchat or a house with a dog and a white picket fence. I am built for this night and the morning after. I will survive this and he sees that in me.
I won’t let him down.
18
ROMAN
Dawn thinsthe dark to a gray edge. I wake the way I always wake in a place that could turn on me. I lie still, fully awake, eyes closed for the first minute, just in case someone stands over me. This way, I can get the drop on them.
One part of me listens for weight on the boards. One part counts the small knocks of the tide on the pilings. The rest holds still and lets the room report.
There is nothing out of the ordinary in here. Nothing to be on high alert for. But I wake this way regardless of reality.
In films, I’ve seen scenes of drowsy people, slowly finding their way to being awake. When I was young, I always thought that was the oddest thing. Who wakes up like that, when sleeping is the most vulnerable time of your life, and enemies could be standing over you?
I was in my late teens when I found out that most people wake up like that. Normal people, that is.
Normal people don’t spring to alertness for fear of an attack. They don’t listen for enemies in their bedroom. They don’t wakewith a jolt of adrenaline that spikes every sense just in case. They don’t fall asleep with a gun under their pillow and a knife tucked between the mattress and the box spring.
The morning after I slept with Olga the first time, she gave me a slow, satisfied smile as she rolled over and wished me good morning. I knew then that the movies weren’t always as fake as I thought they were. She wasn’t on high alert. She wasn’t afraid the moment she woke, despite being in a hotel room instead of her own bed.
I was never so jealous of someone as I was of her that morning.
The bed is cold on Mina’s side of it. My eyes pop open, and she’s no longer there. On the nightstand sits a folded square of paper that was not there when I closed my eyes. I flip it open.
Went for a swim. Join me.
I cross the deck. The lagoon is flat and pale. For a breath I see only water. Then I find her. Thirty yards out, inside the ring of bungalows. Face down. Still. Perfectly still.
Two long shadows circle below her.
Sharks.
My chest goes cold. I take the short knife from the drawer by the slider and vault the rail.
Salt water closes over my head. Cold, then warm. The shadows dart. I cut toward her. Wake folds against her back. She lifts her face at the push of it. A snorkel tips from her mouth. Mask. Wet hair slicked back. Her eyes blink clear behind the lens and then she smiles like I am the surprise.
