Her Shadow Harem: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance

by Savannah Skye

He took my weight in his hands and lifted me up to lower me onto him once more, and we fucked hard and fast, standing in the water, Red’s powerful hips skewering me while his powerful arms held me.

  As my orgasm approached, I clung to him, almost desperately, whispering into his ear. “Yes, Red. Please. It’s so good. So nice. So fucking perfect.”

  Again we came together and I kissed him hard as he pumped his seed into me once more.

  “Where’s it all coming from?” I marveled breathlessly.

  He shook his head with a baffled smile. “You’ve got me.”

  “Damn right I have.”

  With wobbly legs, we made our way back to shore and collapsed on the beach to rest and dry off in the sun.

  “Red?”

  “Yeah, Jane.”

  “You know I slept with Campbell, right?” I was pretty sure he knew, but he had not even hesitated when the chance came to fuck me, so I needed to make sure.

  “Of course.” Red turned to me, propping his head up on his hand. “Is that okay?”

  “It’s very okay with me,” I said, fervently. “I just… I don’t want to break up a friendship. I mean, I’m so glad this happened and I definitely want it to happen again. But if Campbell were to ask…”

  “Then you might go with him again, too?” suggested Red, with a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Seriously?”

  Red gave me a rueful smile. “The life we live doesn’t support relationships. Nothing is for keeps. Casual sex is what there is if you’re a secret agent, so you may as well enjoy all the benefits of it. And if you meet someone who makes you happy then go with it. That’s true for us and I think it’s true for you. Don’t tell me you were thinking of taking me or Campbell home to meet your parents.”

  That was true, I wasn’t. They were a fling. You weren’t supposed to say that out loud, but wasn’t it better to do so? And if we both wanted the same thing then that was fine, wasn’t it.

  And yet, I thought I saw a hint of sadness in his eyes. This was the way it was with the life he led, and the way it was with the type of vacation I was on, this was the way it had to be. But maybe it was not the way he would have chosen.

  As if aware that I had seen more than he had meant to give away, Red gave me a grin and a kiss. As our tongues met, he guided my hand down to where his cock was stiffening yet again. All that casual sex had clearly taught him a thing or two. What a man he was.

  I drew Red over on top of me, the soft sand a pleasant cushion beneath, and sighed as he pushed in once more.

  “So good,” I murmured, lost in the pleasure that washed over me as soon as Red entered me.

  This time was slow and loving, and hot beneath the Caribbean sun. We came together one more time and Red held me to him as I cried out aloud at the blue sky, my voice echoing along the empty beach.

  Chapter 9

  We washed our naked bodies clean in the surf, and I could not stop my gaze from wandering back to Red’s cock, swinging between his legs. It looked limp and sore, both of which it had earned, but I had a hunch that if I wanted more, then Red would provide. I looked away again – I had to get a hold of myself, the others would be back soon. My trip had been supposed to be about self-indulgence, and today had certainly fulfilled that, but there was still room for common sense.

  Back on the beach we shared a pleasant kiss before heading back up to our makeshift camp and food store, where we got dressed once more. For the next hour we kept ourselves busy, and I tried to keep my mind off how good Red looked. But as the hour passed, his mind was clearly elsewhere.

  “Something’s wrong.”

  I looked at him. “They’ve been gone too long?”

  Red nodded. “They’d have been back by now, even if it was just to check in.”

  “You don’t think…”

  “I don’t think anything without evidence to back it up,” he cut me off quickly. “But we’re not going to get that sitting here. Grab some food, we’ll eat on the move.”

  Red led the way as we set off into the jungle. After the day we had had it was strange to see, so soon, the other side of him. The flirtatious, fun-loving sexual dynamo with whom I had spent an enjoyable day was replaced by the professional Red; all business, speaking in short sentences, his muscles tensed for action, his eyes sharp and alert to danger. He tried to keep things light when he spoke to me, but even his voice seemed different. He didn’t say it, and I certainly wasn’t about to raise the subject, but he was worried about his friends.

  As we progressed through the jungle, stopping every now and then to check our direction using a compass in Red’s watch, the sun began to fall, late afternoon drifting in the direction of evening. I felt Red starting to pick up the pace as the light failed. Though I was starting to tire, feeling the exhaustion tugging at the muscles of my calves, unaccustomed to such exercise, I did not complain or ask for a break. There was too much at stake now, the fate of the mission and the lives of our comrades.

  Finally, Red held up a hand and signaled for me to wait. He stole forward a little further to the edge of a cliff that had been completely claimed by the jungle, thick undergrowth sprouting from every crevice. Red returned.

  “Right,” he spoke quietly. “There’s a whole temple complex down there and it looks like some shit is going on. The whole place is heaving with people. I need to go down and see if I can get a better idea of what’s going on, I need you to wait here.”

  “Can’t I come with you?” I asked, I think more from fear of being left alone than bravery. “I might be able to help.”

  But Red shook his head. “Believe me, I don’t want to leave you but I don’t think I have any choice. Just stay quiet and keep your head down, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He paused, then took off his watch. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, then head due west. That will take you to the wildlife reserve. They’ll be able to get you off the island.”

  “Then what?” I asked. “Who do I call?”

  He shook his head. “No one. Just go home, live your life and forget you ever met us.”

  “I’ll never do that.”

  He gave my hand a squeeze. “Just do as I say, Jane. I’ll be back. Once I’ve found out what mess those idiots have gotten themselves into.”

  Again, he was trying to keep things light to stop me from worrying, and I was willing to believe the lie.

  As Red stole away, moving like a jungle cat through the forest, as if he had lived here all his life, I hunkered down behind a moss-covered boulder, clutching the watch in my sweaty hands and trying not to breathe too loudly. Though I wanted to think about anything else, I could not tear my eyes from the watch face. The first minute was gone. Fourteen more and Red was to be considered as good as dead. I had been so happy earlier today, now I felt guilty for so easily forgetting the seriousness of all this. To me it had just been a day of thrilling sex, but to Campbell and Drake… Who knew?

  Another minute gone. I couldn’t expect him back yet. Not before ten minutes at least had passed.

  To take my mind off the slow passage of time, I allowed myself to savor the events of earlier. Closing my eyes I could feel Red’s touch across my skin, his kiss on my breasts, his strong cock thrusting into me. And from Red my mind took me back to Campbell. Between Red’s swift recovery and Campbell’s incredible stamina, what a pair they would make, separately, or together… Now my mind was not remembering but creating new and exciting situations as the two men lavished their attentions on my willing body. Suddenly two became three and Drake joined the fray, so strong, so powerful, I imagined him pinning me to the ground and pounding my body like the bull he was.

  My eyes flicked open. Maybe I was taking this fantasy a little far. Surely ten minutes had passed already. Where was Red?

  The third minute ticked over.

  Time passed slowly, and yet all too quickly, for with every minute gone, the point at which I was to leave came closer. I decided to wait twenty minutes rather than fifteen. Fif
teen hardly gave him a chance.

  Five more minutes came and went.

  I wondered if I should go and look for myself over the edge of the cliff. It was well shrouded in vegetation, what harm could it do? But Red had told me to wait here. If I was spotted then it might spell disaster for him.

  Two more minutes went by slowly and yet fast.

  Ten minutes had passed. That meant I had license to start worrying about him. That meant there was a chance this had gone…

  A hand covered my mouth and I almost leapt out of my skin, lashing out at the man who had come up at me from behind. The relief as I realized it was Red was followed swiftly by anger.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” I hissed.

  “I didn’t want to startle you…”

  “Well you damn well did.”

  “… and for you to make a noise,” he finished.

  “What did you find?” I asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

  “They’re down there,” Red replied, setting my mind at ease. “From what I could pick up by listening in to conversations and what I can guess, LeSoeur’s men arrived just before we did and they decided to use our arrival to their advantage.” Red shook his head. “Credit where credit’s due, LeSoeur is smart, and this was a brilliant idea. He goes to the native town with his men and tells them he’s from some Caribbean crime squad and he’s on the trail of a group of international jewel thieves who are after the jewel in their statue.”

  “That is clever,” I acknowledged.

  “Yeah. So when Campbell and Drake show up – however surreptitiously they arrive – the natives are waiting for them. They know this jungle like the back of their hands so there’s no creeping up on them, plus, their numbers are being bolstered by LeSoeur’s men, who of course are all armed.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, Campbell and Drake are unarmed and outnumbered but they’re smart and experienced and they escaped the ambush – maybe they even got hold of some guns, no one seems to know for sure. They can’t get away through the jungle – that’s terrain where the natives hold all the cards - but there’s a network of caves that run through the cliffs around which the temple complex is built and they used those to hide. There’re lots of places to hole up and it’s easily defensible; in the short-term, at least.”

  I frowned. “Won’t the natives go in after them? I can’t imagine Campbell or Drake shooting innocent civilians who’ve been tricked onto the wrong side.”

  “You’re right there,” nodded Red. “Our organization… well, we do some sketchy things from time to time but we don’t hurt civilians as a rule.” There was a brief flicker of uncertainty across his face. “Unless we have to. Unless lives are at stake. Other civilian lives, that is. You don’t like it, but sometimes… Well, shit happens.”

  He paused for a moment, as if the point had brought up some unpleasant memories, before continuing.

  “Anyway, the guys got lucky – or maybe Campbell knew something, that guy always seems to know something. The natives regard the caves as sacred, only High Priests are allowed in and they’re not about to send the High Priest in after a pair of armed men. Better yet, foreigners aren’t allowed in full stop, which means LeSoeur’s men can’t go in after them, either. When I was having a snoop around, I heard LeSoeur arguing with the town headman. Basically, LeSoeur was saying that these are exceptional circumstances and his men ought to be given special dispensation, and that although his men aren’t allowed in, the caves have already been desecrated so why not?”

  “Was the headman buying it?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. He says there’s no other way out but the main entrances and those are all guarded. He’s quite happy for Campbell and Drake to starve to death.”

  “Not the ideal situation,” I judged, “but it could be worse.”

  “That was my thinking, too.”

  “So what now?”

  “Now,” said Red, “we create a distraction. We need LeSoeur and the natives to think that we’re Campbell and Drake, who have found another way out of the caves. That’ll give the guys a chance to sneak out.”

  “How do we do that? I mean, they’re bound to leave the guards by the cave entrances.”

  “We have to give them a target they can’t ignore,” explained Red. “We have to force them to abandon their posts.”

  “How?” I asked again.

  Red shrugged. “Easy. We steal the jewel from the forehead of the statue of their god.”

  On the one hand, I could absolutely see the logic of this plan. We had come here to steal the jewel, and that mission was still important, so this was a useful opportunity to do that. And it would certainly cause a major enough diversion to draw all the native islanders and LeSoeur’s men, too, away from the caves so Campbell and Drake could escape. We would be killing two birds with one stone. On the other hand, deliberately pissing off a town full of angry natives did not seem like the safest thing in the world to do, and as we snuck into the temple – taking advantage of the fact that everyone’s attention was currently otherwise engaged – my concerns grew.

  “That’s the statue?”

  Red nodded. “Problem?”

  “Problem? It’s enormous.”

  The temple was built into the cliffs themselves and over the centuries it had become recolonized by the jungle so it looked part of the island. This also meant that it was far bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside because it burrowed back into the cliff, a vast interior space hollowed out for worship. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the statue had been what I was expecting; a run of the mill idol, something about the size of a crucifix in a cathedral. What stood in front of me, filling the vast interior space, lit by shafts cut through the rock to let in the dappled jungle light of early evening, was a colossal statue, its head only just fitting in beneath the carved ceiling, as if it had had to stoop to get in here. In its gaudily painted forehead, seeming no bigger than a zit on the gigantic face, was a bright red jewel.

  “Pretty,” muttered Red. “Watch the door, while I climb up.”

  I did as I was told, but could not help glancing frequently back to see Red ascending the statue as easily as he had the palm tree earlier that day. It seemed to me impossible that anyone should have enough body strength to hang from the fingers of one hand and still be able to swing himself up to the next handhold, but there was Red, doing it. At times he hung, perilously, legs swinging beneath him while his ripped arms took the strain. Were he to lose his grip then, there was nothing to stop him plunging to an unpleasant death, shattered on the rock floor.

  But Red just kept going, his strength never failing him, his faith in his ability never faltering. On the statue’s broad shoulder he took a few quick breaths before ascending the ear, which offered a good number of hand and foot holds for the intrepid climber. From the top of the ear it was a more precarious climb out along the forehead. Red’s toes found purchase in the grooved lines carved into the statue’s brow – thank goodness this god was either old or angry. He edged his way in towards the jewel.

  I looked back towards the door. It might be my imagination but it seemed to me that the noise level was increasing outside. I began to walk towards the door to take a look, still casting regular glances back to Red, who was now approaching the center of the statue’s forehead. Reaching the jewel, he inserted the edge of his knife into the gap to pry the precious stone loose.

  We had left the main doors of the temple slightly ajar so as not to make a sound closing them – like everything else, they were huge – and I now peered out through the gap. Two people were having an increasingly heated argument and I realized that, for the first time, I was seeing LeSoeur. He was a tall man, thickset and overbearing, maybe in his late fifties. His nose was hooked and his eyes heavy lidded, with a pronounced mania in them. He gestured expansively as he talked, his pallid, waxy skin growing redder as he argued with the town headman. It seemed to me – and of course I did not speak the
language – that LeSoeur had pushed his luck too far. The natives had believed him initially, and the arrival of Campbell and Drake had seemed to confirm his story. But his insistence on going into the caves had made them suspicious and now they were starting to wonder if any of his story was true.

  Was he in league with the men in the cave? Was it all a set-up? Was he just another treasure hunter, here to rob them? Perhaps the men in the cave were just a distraction.

  There was one way to find out.

  My eyes started wide as the headman turned away from LeSoeur and began to lead his people towards the temple.

  I raced back towards the statue, where Red, now with the jewel in his pocket, was edging his way back along the statue’s furrowed brow.

  “They’re coming!”

  “Oh well,” Red shrugged. “About five minutes extra would have been good but, what the hell.”

  Reaching the ear, he sprang lightly down to the shoulder where he seated himself and, to my horror, shoved himself forward. Down the shoulder he slid, like a kid on a toboggan, down the arm, using the carved curve of the god’s sleeve like a bobsleigh run. He shot out over the wrist, spun in the palm of the hand and ricocheted on in the direction of the statue’s crossed legs. As he slipped down the calf, he put down a hand and pushed himself off to land on the floor with the poise of an Olympic gymnast.

  Behind me, I heard a noise and turned to see the massive doors of the temple opening.

  Red grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

  We ran through across the temple, towards the shadows by the walls. The natives poured in, their attention focused on their violated idol, anger rising.

  “Get on my back,” hissed Red.

  I didn’t stop to question what insane thing he had planned this time, I just clambered on. From the light shafts far above us, creepers hung, which had found their way into the temple in the way that vegetation always manages to find every crack. Red grabbed one of the creepers and gave it a stout tug to make sure it was strong enough. Then, as I bit my lip in fear, he began to climb. I saw the creeper stretch as it took both our weight, and saw Red’s muscles pop from his arms as he climbed, bearing me as well as himself upwards at an astonishing rate. The darkness of the room and the native’s focus on the statue allowed us to reach the roof without being spotted, but as our shadow’s cut out the limited light from the rock shaft, I heard a cry from below and looked down to see a forest of pointing arms.