Savage Hearts

by Lili Valente

  I think about it every time I see a guy in a fucking polo shirt with Greek letters on his ball cap. I think about a bunch of smug, entitled assholes ganging up on my girl, holding her down while they use her for a night’s entertainment, not giving a shit about the life they’re ruining or the good person they’re tearing apart.

  Fraternities should be burned to the ground. They bring out the worst in people who aren’t that enlightened to begin with. Any prick who needs to spend a shitload of money to buy “brothers” is only half a man, and people who aren’t whole too often fill the void inside of them with dangerous things.

  During the year Sam and I spent apart, I almost picked up a bottle at least a dozen times.

  On those long nights, when I lay in bed feeling so lonely and sad I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alive anymore, the oblivion I knew I’d find at the bottom of a fifth of Jack sounded pretty damned good.

  But then I would think about that last night with Sam in New Zealand and all the cruel things I said to her after I drank those bottles of wine and I would go for a run or a swim, instead. And while I ran or pulled hard through the water I would think about luring Sam’s attackers into the middle of nowhere and torturing them to within an inch of their lives.

  That is how I filled the hole inside of me and I will use that hatred now, to end Todd before he can hurt anyone else.

  “Do you think so, Danny? That harnessed is the best way?”

  I turn to see Paola, the trilingual Italian girl serving as my translator, looking up at me with an expectant expression. Knowing I’ve been caught zoning out, I grin and run a lazy hand through my hair.

  “I’m sorry, P.” I play up the dumb surfer bit, wanting to make sure the other tour guides remember me as a laid back guy way too chill to have killed someone. “I was already halfway up the mountain in my mind and missed the question. What was it again?”

  Paola repeats the question, we chat with the other guides for a few minutes about the importance of keeping all campers in their harnesses and secured to the rock face, even when it’s time to head into the tents for the night, and then we break for iced coffee and Galletas Maria cookies. I spend another thirty minutes hanging out, shooting the shit with the other guides, pretending to be psyched about our first training expedition tomorrow.

  Only when most of the others have retreated to their cabins, do I grab extra cookies for Sam and head back across the compound.

  The sun has set, but pale orange light still lingers in the air, illuminating the dust motes drifting by on the breeze, giving the three monkeys hanging out in the tree next to our cabin a glowing, fuzzy halo around their little heads. I pause to watch them, amazed all over again at how strange and exotic this part of the world feels to a person who has never spent time in this kind of tropical rain forest.

  I’ve been all over Europe and spent every summer since I was a kid on Maui with Sam, but I’ve never been somewhere that feels so wild and primal. Costa Rica is beautiful, but it’s also a place where it’s easy to get in touch with fears and desires that have been lingering below the surface, ignored until they’re sweated out in the jungle heat.

  It is the perfect place to commit a murder.

  It’s also the perfect place to fall in love again.

  I head up the stairs to the cabin, wondering if it’s possible for me and Sam to have one without the other, if we will be able to recapture what we’ve lost if we fail to finish what we’ve started.

  “I brought cookies.” I swing through the front door, forcing an upbeat note into my voice, pretending I haven’t been dwelling on the best way to murder a man for the past hour and a half.

  But my performance plays to an empty room.

  Fear that Sam has changed her mind about being a team and left to do something crazy on her own makes my stomach clench, but then I see the note on the dining table.

  I went down the river trail to that hot spring they were talking about. Come join me when you’re through. I have towels and bug lanterns.

  Just bring yourself.

  Swimsuit optional ;).

  Aside from when we were kissing in the car earlier, my cock’s been fairly well-behaved the past few days. I know Sam’s not in a good place and as much as I want to be with her again, sex is pretty much the last thing on my mind. I’m more preoccupied with revenge and wondering what it’s going to feel like to become the latest Cooney to kill another human being.

  Now, my body responds to those last two words and wink face like I just watched a twenty-minute strip show.

  But even as my blood rushes and my mind fills with images of Sam naked in the water, her breasts bobbing close enough to the surface for me to see her nipples pulled tight, something cold snakes up my spine from the opposite direction, warning me not to get my hopes—or my cock—up. I don’t know how to be with her now.

  We’ve been together since the rape but we haven’t had sex since I knew about it, and I’ve spent a good amount of time since last summer beating myself up for not reading the signs and knowing something was wrong. I would have been so much more careful if I’d known. We could have gone slow, checked in more, made sure it was the polar opposite of what happened at that New Year’s Eve party and stopped the second she felt scared or uncomfortable.

  I’ve wondered that too—was she scared when we were together but hiding it, the way she hid so many other things?

  She seemed to enjoy making love, but I don’t know for sure. I don’t know anything for sure except that I can’t keep her waiting. I don’t like the thought of her out in the jungle alone, even here on the compound where we’re surrounded by a bunch of nature nerds, hippies, and health nuts more into sunset yoga than grabbing a few beers after dinner.

  I meant my promise today—I’m never going to let anyone hurt her again. I’m going to stick to her like glue and be there whenever she needs me.

  After changing back into my mostly dry board shorts, I tuck my cell phone and cabin key inside my pocket, grab a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt from Sam’s bag, in case it gets cooler and she decides she’d rather walk back to the cabin in something more than a swimsuit, and head out.

  I start down the trail, passing the monkeys in their tree on my way.

  These three are part of a larger capuchin group that live near the waterfall where the adventure tours break for lunch. They’ve become so accustomed to the people on the compound that they sometimes roam close to the boundaries, looking for food. I was warned not to open my windows too wide or they’d find their way in, clean out my mini-fridge, and let themselves out through the front door. This particular species is so smart that they rub herbs on their fur for medicine and use simple objects as tools and weapons. Paola said she once watched a mother capuchin beat a snake to death with a stick to keep it away from her baby.

  Animals have no moral issues with killing the predators among them. I can’t say I’d enjoy being a monkey—the social structure of the white-headed capuchin sounds pretty messed up if you’re anything other than an alpha male—but I envy them their moral simplicity.

  And lack of law enforcement worries.

  With that thought in mind, I tug my phone from my pocket, doing a Google search for American arrested in Costa Rica on drug charges while I walk. There’s only a one line mention on a local news station’s website, but I know the twenty-two-year-old arrested by National Police today at the airport is Scott.

  One down. The easiest one, but still, the ball is in motion and once we come to a firm decision on what to do with J.D. and Jeremy, things are going to move fast.

  All the way to the hot spring, my mind is churning, brainstorming and discarding various ways to get Todd’s followers out to our pit without leading them there myself. But then I reach the turn off to the pool and see Sam’s bikini top hanging from a limb—the sign that the spring is in use and anyone hiking by should come back later—and thoughts of anything but the woman waiting for me vanish.

  I duck under the low-han
ging leaves shielding the pool from the trail and tread carefully through the ferns covering the ground. I’m wearing my tennis shoes without socks instead of sandals, out of respect for the snakes that might be coming out to play now that the light is fading, but a bite on the ankle could still send me to the hospital.

  Though at this point, I’d probably try to put it off for at least half an hour.

  After all, what’s a potentially deadly snakebite compared to the possibility of seeing Sam without her top on?

  Chapter Twelve

  Danny

  “This is the true measure of love:

  when we believe that we alone can love,

  that no one could ever have loved so before us,

  and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.”

  -Goethe

  * * *

  I hold my breath as I round the curve in the trail and the river comes into view.

  The spring fed pool is tucked into a rock formation above the riverbed, between a bluff pock-marked with mysterious looking caves and the finely pebbled bank. The runoff from the spring warms the water for several hundred feet downstream, increasing the growth rate of river algae until it looks like a dark green, underwater shag carpet.

  I have to wade through a particularly slimy patch to get to the spring, slogging through the shallows in my waterlogged tennis shoes before I start the climb up the rocks. I’m halfway to the top when Sam’s curly head pops up and her blue eyes peer down at me over the edge of the dark stones.

  “Took you long enough,” she says, grinning. “I was worried I’d be poached before you got here.”

  Her cheeks are flushed from the hot water, her face dewy with sweat, and her blond curls have become a fuzz ball that frizzes around her head like a cotton swab that’s been through a blender. She looks wild and so stunning I stop and stare. I want to memorize everything about this moment, from the exact pink of her lips, to the glitter in her eyes, to the way she’s looking at me like there is nothing else she needs to be happy.

  She blinks, her smile fading as the silence stretches between us. “Is everything okay?”

  I nod. “Very okay. Just stopping to admire the view.”

  “The view of my white girl afro?” She fluffs her curls. “It’s even worse now that I’m blond.”

  “It’s beautiful.” I climb the last few feet up the rocks, bringing my face even with hers. “You’re beautiful.”

  “You too.” She leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips that sends longing surging through my body, making my knees weak. “Get in. The water’s amazing.”

  She pushes away from the rocks, drifting back to the other side of the pool, granting me my first glimpse of her body beneath the clear water. When I see the one-piece polka dot suit she’s wearing, I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  If Sam were naked beneath the water, I don’t know if I’d be able to resist reaching for her with both hands.

  “You can put the clothes and stuff on the towels,” she says, motioning to the left side of the pool, where she’s spread out three towels, side by side, flanked by whirring bug repellent lanterns. With the cushion of ferns underneath and the soft glow of the lanterns, the makeshift bed would be the perfect place to pull Sam out of the water and make love to her beneath the darkening sky.

  I can’t look at it without imagining Sam naked and reaching for me, so I keep my eyes on the river as I undress. I chuck off my shoes, toss my cabin key and phone onto the towels, and strip off my tee shirt before sliding into the water with a hiss.

  It’s hotter than I was expecting, but the heat feels good on my shoulders, which are still aching from all the paddling this afternoon, and it only takes a few seconds to adjust to the heat. When I do, I look up to find Sam watching me with an amused expression on her face.

  “What?” I ask from my side of the pool.

  “You left your board shorts on,” she says, lips pushing into a pout.

  “You have your swimsuit on,” I point out, motioning toward her beneath the water. “I was following your lead.”

  “I only have my suit on because I didn’t want to be naked if someone other than you showed up.” She stands, her shoulders and breasts rising out of the water, steam swirling from her suit as the hot, damp fabric makes contact with the cooler evening air. “And I don’t want you to follow my lead.”

  She reaches up to the tie behind her neck and slips the bow free. I watch, mesmerized as she lets the newly loose straps dangle down the front of her body and brings her hands to the top of the suit, just above the swell of her breasts.

  “I want you to take the lead,” she says as she draws the fabric slowly down, baring her breasts. “And take me.”

  My breath rushes out and my pulse pounds in my throat.

  All I want to do is pull her into my arms and devour her whole. I want her tongue in my mouth and her tits in my hands. I want to pinch her nipples between my fingers, rolling them into hard points before I replace my hands with my tongue. I want to suck her into my mouth, to make love to her breasts until her body is so slick I can feel her heat on my fingers, even with the water pressing in all around us.

  Instead, I force myself to stay where I am, my clenched fists at my sides. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” She pushes the suit lower, baring more of her irresistible skin and the taut muscles beneath. “And I don’t want you to be careful or worried. All I want you to think about is what you want.”

  “What I want?” I repeat, a frown tugging at the skin between my eyes.

  “Yes, what you want.” She bends over, guiding the suit down her thighs and stepping free. She tosses the wad of sodden fabric onto the rocks and stands in front of me, naked and beautiful and so tempting I can barely breathe. “Which, knowing you the way I do, is probably to make me come as many times as you can before you lose control and fuck me so hard I’ll ache a little when I wake up tomorrow morning.”

  I flinch at the thought of being rough with her.

  I don’t want to be like them, I don’t want to do anything to remind her of the nightmare she barely survived.

  I don’t say a word aloud, but evidently Sam can still read my mind as well as I can read hers.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she says, stepping closer. “If you’re gentle and different and worried because of what they did, then they win, Danny. And we’ll never be alone again.”

  My jaw clenches as I shake my head. “I don’t want to hurt you. I couldn’t live with myself if I—”

  “You could never hurt me.” She reaches out, her fingertips brushing across my chest. “You never have and you never will.”

  Her elegant arms twine around my neck, bringing her breasts inches from my chest, sending her summertime smell rushing through my head. I’m so hard I feel like I’m going to explode, but I keep my hands by my sides.

  “I want you,” she whispers, her breath warming my lips. “Don’t you want me, too?”

  “God, yes.” I curl my hands into tighter fists, refusing to let myself reach for her until she understands exactly what she’s asking for. “But if I lose control, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it back again. I haven’t been with anyone in a year, Sam, and I’ve been so fucking lonely.”

  Sweat breaks out on my lip as I fight to swallow past the wave of emotion shoving up my throat. “What if, once I start, I can’t stop?”

  “There will be no reason to stop.” She leans in, flattening her breasts against my chest. “Please, Danny, make love to me.”

  My control snaps and desire takes over.

  By the time my mind catches up with my body, my tongue is stroking into Sam’s mouth, hard and deep, and I’ve got her ass in my hands, drawing her tight against my aching cock. She rocks against me, making hungry sounds that make it clear she’s as desperate for this as I am.

  We cling to each other, bodies straining closer, fighting to escape the boundaries of our separate skins, to become us again after
all the terrible time and distance. I cup her breast, rolling her nipple between my fingers and thumb, trembling as she cries out against my mouth and bites my lip.

  I bite her back, dragging my teeth across her bottom lip and sucking hard as I continue to pluck at her nipple, making her moan.

  A second later, she’s got her hand down the front of my shorts and her fingers wrapped around my cock, stroking me hard, making my vision blur with how phenomenal it feels to have her hands on me again.

  But I don’t want her hands.

  “Hold onto me,” I gasp, head spinning as I wrap my arm around her waist and lift her out of the water. I’m out of the pool in three steps, laying Sam on the towels and shoving my shorts down my hips, so desperate to be inside her I’m shaking all over.

  “Yes,” she pants, hands trailing down my stomach as she reaches for my cock again. “Inside me. Please, Danny, please I—”

  Her words end in a cry as I lengthen myself over her body and drive between her legs with one long stroke. I sink in, pushing through her slick heat until I’m buried inside of her. I don’t think about holding back and couldn’t have if I’d tried.

  A floodgate has opened and all the hunger I’ve ignored for the past year is rushing out, demanding release, demanding I get closer, deeper, that I show Sam with every thrust of my hips that she is mine.

  That she belongs to me and I belong to her and nothing is ever coming between us again.

  “You’re mine,” I whisper, trapping her chin between my fingers as I ride her, shoving in and out of her pussy with swift, hard strokes that end with enough force to make her breasts bounce every time I drive home. “You are mine. Mine. Forever.”

  “Yes,” she gasps, fingernails digging into my ass as she pulls me in tighter, harder. “Yes.”

  “And you’re never leaving me again,” I say, pace growing more frantic even as tears rise in my eyes.

  I feel like I’m falling apart and being put back together again at the same time. My heart is falling out of my chest and into Sam’s hands and all the hurt of the past year is pouring out of me with every thrust into her heat. I’m fucking her with all of it, all of the hurt and the love and the abandon only she can make me feel.