by Juniper Bell
So good. I felt tears pop into my eyes at how good it felt. "Oh my God, Rye," I whispered. "Take me." I'm yours, I nearly added. But something stopped me. "Take me away."
He rotated his palm against my clit as he eased himself farther inside. My heels lifted off the ground. I hugged the rock to keep me in place. The silk of my dress rubbed against my cheek, and I smelled lemongrass and the salt of the ocean.
He speared me. That's how it felt. Impaled between hard flesh and unmoving stone. Between a firm hand and an even firmer erection. Pleasure burst inside me. Not an orgasm, just pure pleasure. Delight at being pinned this way, used this way, spread open for my lover's groaning enjoyment.
I would do anything for you.
That thought stayed trapped in my head. The only thing that came out was a series of moans that would have made a porn star proud. I didn't even know I could make those sounds.
He pumped into my pussy, plucked at my weeping clit. He spanked me again, right on the ass, and my entire body clenched with excitement. I couldn't have hidden it if I tried.
"You're so hot when I spank you," he growled. "I can't help it, I want to devour you like the big bad wolf." He bent over me and bit my shoulder lightly, right where the tendon leads to the neck. That made another ripple of excitement blast through me. I wondered if anything he did would have that same result.
"Work it, baby. Grind against my hand. I want to feel you move."
I followed the guidance of his lust-hot voice. I rotated my hips, pushed against that hard pole anchoring my body to the rock. No matter how I moved, his hand stayed with my clit. Pinched, caressing, arousing.
I felt the first shimmers of a climax threaten. "I'm close," I gasped.
"So am I." He flexed his hips with a powerful movement. "You're so fucking sexy I can't ever last. One of these days I'm going to tie you up in that bungalow. Arms overheard, legs spread apart. I'm going to take my time. Keep you immobilized so you can't make me come before I want to, you naughty girl." He pinched my lips together over my clit and squeezed sharply. With no direct contact, I didn't feel pain, but the pressure brought a gasp out of me.
"Too much?"
"No. Yes. No. Not enough." I pushed madly against his hand. I felt as if it held everything good in the universe, that hand.
"Indecisive. I like it." He licked along the side of my neck. I turned my head blindly into the warmth of that nest between head and shoulder. "Do you want me to decide for you?"
I nodded. Rye had taken me this far. I knew I could trust him to take me all the way to whatever magical place we were headed.
"Then I say it's time to ride this thing into the sunset."
What? Sunset?
It didn't matter, because he pulled out of me and lifted me away from the rock. I was so disoriented that I didn't struggle at the change of scene. With one powerful arm, he held me against his chest while we rotated away from the rock. I felt his enormous erection hot against my hip. "I don't want to hurt you, and if I lose control against that rock, I might."
Whatever. I trusted him.
He set me down on the soft, gravelly sand so I was facing toward the ocean. "Bend down so your face is just above the water," he told, pushing against my lower back like a hinge. I bent over so my face was right around my knees. My nose hovered about an inch above the surface of the ocean, which felt like a salty lover sharing my breath.
"Legs a little wider," he ordered, caressing the backs of my thighs. "Hold on here." He guided my hands to where his were. I had a moment of doubt that it would feel good. But he launched into a stream of words that made the juices run hot inside me. And probably outside of me too.
"You're so beautiful spread open for me like this. You have the most delicious pussy. It's freaking elegant. Look at these lips. Look at this pouting clit just begging for my touch." With each word, he stroked the body parts in question. When he fingered my clit, fire streaked through me again, and whatever momentum I'd lost during our change in position roared back to life.
"Get back inside me, Rye," I warned. "I'm going to come … I'm coming …"
I felt the climax teasing at the edge of my consciousness, coming close, closer …
Still massaging my clit, he rammed into me in one long, groaning push.
My orgasm burst onto his hand. He kept rubbing, his expert movements triggering full-body convulsions that absolutely shattered me. Spasm after spasm rocked me to the core. When they began to subside, he took his hand from my pussy and wrapped it around my hip. With both hands, he pulled my entire lower half hard against him. Wham, wham. Just a few strokes, and he reached his own peak in a torrent of curses and groans. I closed my eyes so I could soak in every second of his ecstasy. I felt, literally, as if it were mine. There was no separation between us out here.
This was our space.
"You destroy me, Lauren," he whispered.
12
Lauren
Afterwards, we floated in the water, both of us on our backs, side by side, arms entwined. His body heat felt wonderful in the coolness of the ocean. He splashed water over me to wash off our combined fluids. I relaxed against him with a sigh of bliss. The good kind.
I took in the glory of our surroundings with awe. I knew the full moon wasn't actually smiling at me, but that's how it felt. As if the sparkling path across the water was a road to infinity.
I yawned.
"Ready for bed?" Somehow even that innocent phrase sounded sexy in Rye's deep voice.
"You mean I can't sleep right here?" I nudged his leg with mine. The water murmured around us.
"Whatever milady wants," he answered, breath warm against my neck. This had to be heaven.
"I want you." I thought about it for a moment. "But a bed would be nice."
He aimed our little flotilla of two toward the shore. As we got closer, we saw a couple standing on the beach, sharing a smoke. I recognized the owners of the restaurant.
"Oh no," I realized. "I have no real clothes. My dress is completely soaked through and it's white. I'll look completely naked."
"Yeah, and …?"
"I know it seems very free-wheeling here, but the Thai people are modest. I don't want the owners to see me naked. Could you … would you mind running up to the bungalow and grabbing me some clothes? Something less revealing when wet. I'll wait by those rocks." I waved at a sheltering rock formation to our right.
"Whatever milady wants," he repeated with a smile. After planting a passionate kiss on my mouth, he began stroking toward the shore.
I dog-paddled the other direction, to the rocks where I could hide out. I settled into a spot where I could float while hanging onto a rock, and blushed at the memory of how it felt to be pressed against that other one. Would I get hot in the face every time I thought about rocks? Or the ocean? Rye was creating so many erotic memories for me.
I was still smiling when rough arms grabbed me from behind and a hand clamped over my mouth.
I shrieked but the sound was smothered. I was dragged backward, kicking at the water. Someone would hear me splashing out here. I tried to shout for Rye, but nothing came out but a whimper.
And then I was being hauled onto a boat and dumped into the bottom. A gag was wrapped tightly around my mouth, even though I clawed at it. My attacker tied my hands together in another efficient move before picking up a set of oars. He rowed us swiftly away from the shore, around the point where Rye and I had made love.
My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I calmed myself by taking in every detail around me. We were in a smaller version of the Thai longboats, long and narrow, able to dart across the water like dragonflies. Most had outboards, as did this one, but my kidnapper had chosen to sneak up on me by rowing. What did he want with me? Was this a random attack? I'd never heard of anyone being plucked out of the water by kidnappers around here.
Rye will notice I'm gone. He'll call the police, or the restaurant owners, or someone. He's Rye. He'll find me. He'll get me back. I used that reassuring mantra to g
et control of my panic.
And then the man at the oars turned them on edge to slow the boat to a stop. He nodded past me. I was turning to see who else was in the boat when I heard the last voice I wanted to.
"Darling, everything's fine. This won't take long. I'm going to take off this gag, but there's no point in screaming. We're out of earshot and I want to get our business completed before Rye comes back. Do you understand?"
Bliss.
My terror subsided and anger took its place. "What the fuck, Bliss?" I erupted as soon as she took off the bandanna around my mouth and untied my hands.
The moonlight poured into the boat, revealing Bliss in a black t-shirt and capris, with a dark-patterned sarong wrapped around her head and shoulders. She unfurled it and handed it to me. I remembered I was naked and, grudgingly, I took it. I didn't want anything from Bliss, but I also didn't want to face this bizarre situation with no clothes on.
"Good Lord, sweetie, is that the kind of language you're learning around Rye McAllister?"
I glared at her as I wrapped the sarong around me. "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing?"
"You shouldn't be so hostile to me. I came to warn you."
"Warn me?"
"Yes, and I came a long way to do it. You're being watched."
I looked around at the empty ocean and the silhouetted shoreline of lonely rocks.
"No, not at this moment. But there's someone on this island being paid to keep an eye on you, someone who may do you harm."
I thought of my bag, how it looked as if someone had searched it. But didn't want what she said to be true. "You're crazy. No one here wants to hurt me."
"I assure you, it's true."
Truth—always a slippery concept for Bliss. "Okay, then—who?"
"That I don't know. I was party to an intercepted communication from an anonymous person. Scout's honor, I'd tell you if I knew." She put a hand over her heart with a pious expression that would have made me laugh if she hadn't just kidnapped me.
"Do you know who the person's working for? And why they're watching me?"
She waved my questions away. Bliss never answered questions she didn't want to. I'd spent a lifetime fighting that losing battle. "We're wasting time here. I pulled you out of the water to offer you a deal."
"So offer it." I was starting to shiver under the thin sarong. "When Rye sees I'm gone he's going to freak out."
"Yes, I imagine he will." She gazed toward the shore with a look I'd seen a million times—the wheels were turning inside that devious brain. "Has he delivered my message yet?"
"I don't want any message from you. There's nothing you have to tell me that matters to me anymore."
She looked back at me with a small laugh. "You're adorable, darling. I suppose that includes what I know about Rye? What should be perfectly obvious to you as well, if you weren't so wrapped up in emotion."
Emotions always inspired disdain from Bliss. She claimed she didn't have them, and maybe she was right. But I sure did—and right now, my emotions were digging a hole of fear through my stomach. I didn't want to hear the rest—but I did—and then before I could stop her, she was saying it.
“Who do you think Rye is? What does he do?”
What was she getting at? “He works at a ranch. He's a cowboy. He works with horses.”
"Do you think simple ranch workers can roam the world for months looking for some girl they screwed?”
I hadn’t really thought about it. I’d been enjoying our private dream world too much to ask for details. “What are you saying?”
"Rye is loaded, darling. Dripping with money. He's a millionaire many times over, and none of it is from his family."
"No. That's not true." I gripped the sarong more tightly around me. He would have told me something like that. Rye was always straight up about everything.
“It is true. He's quite an investor, it seems. Must run in the family."
It took me long moments, but finally it all clicked into place.
The Las Vegas gambling he’d mentioned. His stay at the Colonial, which was one of the priciest hotels in DC. His rented Maserati. And here on Koh Pha Ngan, he never talked about needing to work. God, I was an idiot.
"He didn't tell you, did he? Most men boast about their money. I bet I know why he kept that under his cowboy hat. He doesn't trust you."
Her words hit me right where it hurt the most. "No. It just never came up, that's all."
"Right. It never came up in between all those screaming orgasms."
I kept my face still so she wouldn't see the turmoil going on inside me. "You know nothing about my relationship with Rye. Don't bother."
"Honey, I know things even Rye doesn't know. Things about his father, his legacy. Things he'll want to know, believe me."
"Why don't you tell him, then?"
"Because I'm telling you. You're still important to me, darling, whether you see it or not."
No. No, I didn't want to be important to her. I wanted to be free of her. Forever. But a sinking sense of inevitability was starting to take hold. "I don't care if Rye has money. None of this matters. Why can't you just leave us alone!"
A night bird swooped past us. Overhead, the moon glared relentlessly. Onshore somewhere was Rye, but at that moment he felt so far away.
"Sorry, darling. I can't. There's too much in it for me."
"What could possibly be in it for you?"
"A million dollars, at the very least. It's from my dear departed husband, and he meant me to have it, and have it I will. Unfortunately, that depends on Rye. So you see, I can't step aside."
A million …? "Ian McAllister's will," I breathed.
"That's right. Unfortunately, it's caught up in legal issues due to Rye not bothering to come forward. I refuse to let shenanigans rob me of my rightful earnings."
"Earnings?"
"I worked for that money, believe me, child. They thought I wasn't paying attention, that I was just a bimbo they could manipulate. But I'm not stupid. And neither is Rye. Once you tell him the stakes, he'll understand. He thought the family money was gone, but he was lied to.”
“By who?”
Bliss ignored my question. “All you need to know is that Rye, Elijah and Annabelle will become extremely wealthy once Rye comes forward. We both know he won't want to cheat his brother and sister out of their legacy, no matter how much money he has himself."
Of course she was right. Rye would do whatever he could for them. He was a McAllister down to the bone. "Okay, so you want him to go back to Chicago, is that it? You came all the way here from Morocco and dragged me into a boat in the middle of the night to tell me that?"
"There's more, darling. Much more." She pushed her hair back with a long-suffering sigh. "Never send a boy in love to do a woman's job. Since Rye hasn't given you the information I sent along with him, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do it myself." Her eyes glittered in the moonlight, the way a knife might shine right before it slips between your ribs.
"Stop right there or I'll jump off this boat." I gripped the side of the boat, ready to make it true. "I'll swim to shore or drown, I don't care."
"But darling, don't you see? That's just what your mother would do. That's why they had to put her away."
"No. Stop— What?" I felt as if I was at the top of a roller coaster just about to tip into the down curve.
"This would have been so much better coming from Rye. But no wonder he didn't want to tell you. I really think that boy is madly in love with you. No one wants to hurt the one they love."
But she was looking forward to it—I could see it in her tight-lipped smile. Fear paralyzed my vocal chords. I heard the partiers’ war whoops in the distance, drumbeats getting more complicated.
"I'll get right to the point, darling. If not for me, your mother wouldn't even be alive. She would have killed herself or someone else by now. Homicidal psychopathology, it's called. They wanted to warehouse her, lock her away. She gave me you in exchan
ge for all the bills I pay for her. Whispering Pines is expensive, but I held up my end of the bargain. But I'm not doing it anymore. Why should I, if I don't have my little helper?"
She reached for my cheek, but I shied away. Horror was clogging my throat, turning my vision black.
"You're lying. It's all a lie," I choked. "You know how I know? Because you don't care about anyone. You never would have paid a cent for another person."
"Really, darling?" She leaned toward me, the wind catching her hair and making it flutter in the breeze. "Even my own sister?"
No. No.
"That’s right, your mother is my little sister. My poor, damaged, deranged little sister. That makes you my niece. I’m sure you want all the details, but we’re running out of time. So here's the deal, darling. And there's no negotiation. You work your magic on Rye and get me my McAllister money, or I’ll put my sister somewhere you’ll never find her. Somewhere I can’t guarantee her safety.”
No. No. NO! That was the only word blasting through my mind.
I ripped her sarong off my body and threw myself out of the boat. The water slid against my skin, taking me into its cool, pure depths.
Darkness. Silence. Blessed, blessed solitude.
I thought about staying there, underwater. About never taking another breath of air.
It would be so easy to just keep gliding until peace and darkness claimed me forever.
But …
Rye.
And damn it—screw Bliss. Screw her manipulations, her lies. Her vicious, endless selfishness.
When I surfaced, the longboat was disappearing around the rock. I treaded water for a moment, trying to collect myself. The toxic mixture of emotions Bliss inspired swam through my veins like poison. She made me doubt everything.
She even made me doubt my feelings for Rye and his feelings for me. Why hadn't he told me about his wealth? Was he worried I’d want him for his money? Of course I should have figured it out the truth from all those clues, but shouldn’t he have told me?
But mostly, she made me doubt myself. Who was my mother? Was she really dangerous? What did that make me? And if Bliss was my aunt, would I ever be free of her?
