by Stella Hart
A sudden barrage of sleet began to fall from the storm clouds overhead, making the ground slick with ice, and one leg gave out from under me as I slipped and fell.
“Shit!” I tried to scramble to my feet as another heavy gust of wind hit me in the face, but I slipped backwards, heading perilously close to the edge of the cliff again. I screamed and tried to dig my nails into the rocks to no avail.
Then I slid right over the edge.
6
Elias
Thunder cracked through the sky, and frigid air blasted me in the face as I jumped out of the helicopter on the Finishing School’s helipad. I was well over an hour late, because my family’s usual pilot wasn’t available due to an injury, meaning I had to wait until a substitute could be found. The high wind speeds had also made it difficult to get over to the island.
One of the guards dashed toward me as I strode over to the main entrance of the mansion. “We thought you weren’t coming,” he shouted over the roaring winds, shielding his face from the rain.
“Had some issues getting a pilot, but I’m here now. The helicopter’s a twin-engine so it can fit ten passengers and do several flights without refueling, if we need that,” I replied. “How’s it going so far?”
“There were twelve society members here, but they left on the first two choppers, along with the art. Then—”
I cut him off. “Hold up. Did you say art?”
“There’s been a lot of priceless artwork added to the collection here over the years. Your father wanted to ensure all the valuables were taken out first, along with the members, so we—”
I cut him off again. “Fuck the art! Who gives a shit about that when there are fucking people here?”
“I’m sorry, Elias, I was just following your father’s orders. He said he wanted you to do all this stuff, but you didn’t get here in time.”
I let out a sharp, angry snort. I should’ve known today’s ‘emergency’ involved some bullshit like this. My father didn’t want me to help oversee the island evacuation to make sure everyone got off safely. He wanted me to make sure any priceless family treasures were airlifted to safety before anything else. I guess to him, people could always be replaced, but an original Modigliani couldn’t.
“How many others have been evacuated?” I asked, taking a deep, steadying breath.
“Ten of the girls so far. All the kitchen and cleaning staff are still here along with the nurse and the rest of the guards. Several more choppers are due to land any minute now to get everyone.”
“Right.” I waved my hand back at my helicopter. “Like I said, that can fit ten passengers. We’ll get the rest of the girls onboard now.”
“Got it. They’re waiting inside.”
I strode into the mansion with him, and my eyes narrowed as I counted nine remaining girls in the entryway.
“I thought you said you only evacuated ten girls, not eleven,” I said, turning to the guard.
“That’s right.” His brows furrowed.
“Care to explain this, then?” I said, waving my hand at the gaggle of fearful girls.
His face paled as he counted. “I… I don’t know what’s going on. Hold on.” He dashed over to another guard, who was holding a clipboard. Then he returned to me, flipping up a piece of paper. “We’ve been keeping track of everyone who left so far. There were definitely only ten girls on that rescue chopper.”
I scanned the list, and my guts began to churn. When I didn’t see Tatum in the entryway, I assumed she was on that helicopter, but her name wasn’t on the list.
“Where the fuck is Tatum Marris?” I shouted, addressing everyone in the large foyer.
There were some shrugs and murmurs, but no one seemed to know. Fuck.
“Come on, has anyone seen her?” I said, a note of desperation in my voice.
“She was here a second ago,” a petite dark-haired girl murmured. “I… I thought I saw her go outside to get on the first helicopter, but I guess I was wrong.”
I turned back to the guard. “Good fucking job, man,” I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm.
“I’m sorry, sir, I have no idea what—”
I held up a hand. “Get these nine girls on my helicopter, and the nurse as well. That’s ten.”
“What about Tatum?”
“I’m going to find her. We’ll get on one of the next ones.”
I pulled my hood up and dashed back outside. No point searching inside. I had a pretty good idea that Tatum was out here, given what the dark-haired girl said, and conditions were far more dangerous outside than inside. I couldn’t risk wasting valuable time looking through the mansion first.
Shielding my eyes from the rain with one hand, I frantically looked around, trying to figure out what direction she might’ve gone in. I didn’t have to look too far. I caught a glimpse of white fabric out of the corner of my eye almost immediately, and I turned to see Tatum stepping toward the cliff’s edge a hundred feet ahead.
“Fuck!” I started running as fast as I could in the gale-force winds. They were strong enough to pick up a small animal and fling it right into the briny waves, but I steeled myself and kept going. Every sense was maxed out, every muscle working beyond normal capacity.
“Tatum! What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted, but my voice was lost on the wind. She didn’t turn around, didn’t seem to hear anything at all.
My lungs burned as I sped up, flinging myself into the furiously-pouring rain, and I realized what Tatum’s intentions were with a sickening jolt. Perhaps I was wrong, but it looked like she was going to jump off the cliff. Like she thought she deserved it after what she did to Ben, pushing him off another cliff all those months ago.
The impact of the realization made me feel like someone had sucker-punched me right in the gut. “No!” I shouted. “Tatum, don’t do it!”
She still didn’t seem to hear me, but I kept calling out anyway, hoping at least one word would make it to her.
The tension was unbearable as time stretched on, each millisecond seeming to last a thousand years as I tried to catch up. There was a fist around my heart, squeezing it tight. I couldn’t hate Tatum anymore. Couldn’t let anything happen to her. Couldn’t lose her. For all my claims of not caring about the girl, the thought of her potential death made my world shatter to pieces around me.
Obviously, somewhere deep inside, I fucking cared.
Tatum stopped right by the edge, falling to her knees. Then she stood and turned around, seemingly changing her mind at the last second. Thank fucking Christ.
All of a sudden, she stumbled and fell. My momentary relief vanished, stomach jerking with pure terror. The ground was slippery with ice, and Tatum was sliding backwards, right toward the edge. She let out a piercing scream, and I surged forward and fell to my hands and knees, flinging my right arm out as she slipped over the cliff.
I managed to grab her left sleeve, and she screamed hysterically as I tried my best to pull her up. The fabric quickly began to tear, and I steeled my jaw and moved down onto my belly, reaching my other arm out as far as I could to grab Tatum’s wildly-flailing right arm. “I’ve got you. I’ve fucking got you, okay?” I shouted.
Her face was pale and streaked with raindrops, eyes saucer-wide with shock and fright. “I’m going to fall!” she screamed. “I can’t hold on!”
“You fucking can, and you will!” I shouted back at her, trying my best to pull her up. In all her struggling terror, she was like a dead weight. I needed her to calm the fuck down, but as long as her wet fingers were slipping within my grasp, that wasn’t going to happen.
A terrified cry bubbled up from her throat. “I can’t! I’m slipping!” she screamed.
I was holding on so tight my knuckles were bone-white, but I kept my face arranged into a neutral expression, refusing to let it betray the abject fear I felt. That would only worsen matters. “Tatum, listen to me!” I shouted. “There’s a narrow rock ledge just below you. I can see it. I need you to do your best to h
old onto me, but if you lose your grip and fall, you’ll land on the ledge. But only if you stop squirming and struggling, okay? If you aren’t completely still, you’ll miss it.”
She took in a deep, shaky breath and stopped twisting in fear, going rigid instead. That was all I needed. Using all my strength, I began to pull her soaked, shivering body up from the cliff’s edge. When I finally had her all the way up, I dragged her to safety and collapsed onto my knees, my arms tightly wrapped around her. “I’m not losing you like that,” I muttered, voice thick with emotion. “You’re not leaving my sight ever again. No fucking way.”
Tatum was trembling and sobbing like mad, her tears mixing with the heavy rain as she nestled against my chest. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a hysterical blubber.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I repeated over and over, pulling her even tighter. I felt like I’d just been through a fucking war. “I’ve got you.”
“I…” she finally choked out. It was the only word she managed before sinking into another bout of gut-wrenching sobs, each one jackknifing her like a punch.
I filled my aching lungs with a deep breath of fresh air before dragging myself to my feet. “Come on. Need to get you inside,” I said as I moved up. I picked Tatum up and carefully threw her over my shoulder, keeping her safe and tight in my grip. I never wanted to let go.
As I trudged back toward the mansion, the image of her dangling off that cliff almost knocked the wind out of me as it flashed repeatedly in my mind’s eye. She was so close to falling, so close to being smashed on the jagged rocks and swept away by the roiling ocean, sucked down into a place she’d never return from. There was no ledge below her; nothing to stop her from plunging a hundred feet if she slipped out of my hold. Just a lie I told to calm her down.
Thank fucking god it worked…
A sudden mental image of her falling through the air and breaking on a craggy pile of rocks made me want to retch violently. I swallowed down the bile I tasted and forced the thoughts aside. It was fine. She was fine. Nothing like this would ever happen again.
I went into the mansion through a side entrance, opened the first guest bedroom door I found, and gently set Tatum down on the floor. She was soaked to the bone, shivering and ghostly-white.
I quickly stripped her of her freezing, sodden clothing and wrapped her in a thick blanket before rummaging through a cupboard to find a towel and dry clothing. My heart was still hammering at what felt like a million miles an hour, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“Here,” I said softly, returning to Tatum’s side a moment later.
She gratefully accepted the towel and dropped the blanket so she could dry herself off. “Thank you, Mast—”
I put a finger to her lips. “No. Don’t call me that now. Use my name.” It didn’t feel right to let her call me her master anymore. I wanted the old Tatum back, not the blank-faced wreck I’d turned her into these last few weeks.
“Thank you, Elias,” she whispered slowly, looking down at the floor. A pink flush was creeping up her neck. She sniffed back her tears and wiped her face, looking back up at me a second later. “You… you saved my life,” she added, teeth still chattering. “Why?”
Her question hit me like a brick. Why indeed? I’d spent so long trying to convince myself I despised this girl, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t see myself without her. If she actually went over that edge today, she would’ve taken a sizable chunk of my soul with her, leaving a hole inside me that could never be filled by anyone or anything else.
This whole time, I hadn’t truly wanted to destroy her, as much as I told myself otherwise. If anything, I was letting her destroy me.
I stepped closer and reached one hand out to her face, slowly tucking a thick wet strand of hair behind her ear. “I know I’m supposed to hate you,” I muttered huskily. “You killed Ben, and almost my father too. But… I can’t. I just fucking can’t. Guess it took almost losing you to make me realize that.”
Her eyes widened, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. Just fucking couldn’t.
I leaned down and crushed my mouth against hers, commanding her lips in a searing kiss. A potent jolt of energy shot straight into my bloodstream, and I pushed her back and pressed her up against the wall, unable to drag myself away from her.
This wasn’t the time or place for such actions, but I didn’t care. I had to have Tatum now, had to let these feelings and all this adrenaline pour out of me somehow. Everything about her was intoxicating, addictive, eliciting something deep inside me that I could neither control nor fight. She was like a damn siren, luring me to her side and keeping me under her spell with her seductive call.
I reached one hand down and around to her firm, round ass, the other still tangled in her hair, yanking her head back so I could pepper her neck with hot kisses. She gasped and arched her back against the wall, pressing her hard nipples into my chest. “Elias…”
I bit down on her left earlobe, making her yelp as I unzipped my pants. “I need you,” I murmured, my cock throbbing with the need for release. “I fucking need you, Tatum.”
She let out a deep, satisfied sigh, obviously liking the sound of her name on my lips. If that’s what she wanted, I’d say it every fucking day. Every hour.
I moved my lower hand around from her ass, pushing her legs apart and sliding up to massage her clit. She moaned loudly, and within seconds she was wet and throbbing and so fucking ready for me. “Oh, god, please...” She tilted her head to look at me, soulful blue eyes shimmering like deep pools of need.
I wrapped both arms around her and lifted her right off the ground, forcing her to wrap her legs around me, and then I nudged my cock against her pussy, sliding through her slick folds and watching her face as I filled her. Her lips parted in a soundless gasp as I thrust deeper into her slippery core, and when I dug my nails into her ass and bounced her faster on my cock, she began to moan and whimper.
“That’s it, baby,” I grunted. “Scream for me. Come for me.” My thoughts quickly turned to words, and I couldn’t stop them flowing out. “Oh, shit, you’re so fucking tight...”
At that, her pussy clenched down on me like a vise, milking me even harder. I groaned, thrusting my hips like a madman as she climaxed. She screamed, her voice reaching a spine-tingling pitch, and for the first time in weeks, I saw the old Tatum. She was finally back here with me, coming apart on my cock, wild and free and uninhibited. “Don’t ever fucking leave me again,” I commanded her.
“I won’t,” she whimpered breathlessly. “Just keep doing this to me.”
I didn’t know if she truly meant it or if it was just something she said in the heat of the moment, but I could figure that out later. Now wasn’t the time for conversation. We needed to satisfy the heady urges flooding our bodies, filling us with desperate heat and energy. The rolling waves in the storm outside had fucking nothing on us right now.
I kept hammering into Tatum’s mind-numbingly tight pussy, letting her hot juices drown my cock, and then I closed my eyes and let out a grunt, a flash flood of release spilling out of me and into her. “Oh, fuck...”
I stayed inside her for a moment afterwards, still holding her up against the wall. My arms were aching from all the effort I exerted earlier during the cliff rescue. It had only just started to hit me now that the adrenaline had worn off. I didn’t mind. I’d tear my fucking right arm off if it meant stopping Tatum from plunging over that edge.
“That was...” Tatum opened her mouth, then clamped it shut after two words.
I nodded. “Yeah. It was.”
We didn’t need to say it out loud. We both knew what the other meant; that what just happened was fucking incredible. Magical.
We used to hate each other so much, but neither of us could deny the magnetic pull that’d always drawn us together. Somewhere along the line, all because of that dark lure, our mutual hatred had twisted and spiraled into explosive passion and need, animosity falling somewher
e along the wayside.
At least for now.
“You should get those clothes on,” I said softly. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
She did as I said, quickly wiping herself down before pulling on the dry sweatshirt, pants and socks I’d fished out of the cupboard for her. They were all several sizes too big, but at least she was warm and dry now.
I led her out into the hallway, marching toward the entryway. The guard who’d greeted me earlier was standing there, his face stark white. “Oh, thank fuck,” he said when he caught sight of us. “You found her. When you didn’t come back, I thought….” He shook his head. “There’s another chopper landing now. Last one. Everyone else is gone except us and one other guy outside.”
“Let’s go.”
I picked up Tatum and carried her outside, shielding as much of her body from the icy rain as I could. When she was safely inside the helicopter, I strapped myself in next to her and looked out the window, watching as the winds stirred the waves beyond the cliffs to even greater heights.
“Just in time,” the pilot remarked. “Storm’s about to hit for real. Give it an hour and this whole place will be flooded.”
The helicopter rose off the platform, struggling against the battering winds. I held Tatum’s hand tightly as we soared above the island. When I looked out again I saw a cypress tree ripped from its roots by the wind, crashing right into the far end of the mansion. Around the cliffs, the waves were growing taller, foam spraying right up to the second-floor windows as they smashed against the rocks.
Tatum let out a soft sigh and leaned her head against my shoulder, her eyes closing. I let her nestle into me, one hand gently stroking her hair as I stared down at her.
