by Aubrey Dark
“I’ve been learning. It’s fun, actually. Boats. They can be fun.”
I opened the door and she climbed into the passenger’s seat.
“You’ll have to show me.”
We didn’t talk about anything serious at first. I pointed out the monkeys and pigs in the countryside. She chatted about the flight, and I told her bits and pieces about what I’d done in Guatemala after we’d escaped from El Alfa’s compound.
It was only when we got to the dock that she quieted down. I led her down the rickety pier carefully, holding her arm to make sure she kept her balance. The boards were precariously laid, crooked and warped by the humidity, with gaps that yawed open, waiting to claim an ankle. She wound her way down the wooden steps and around to the end where the boat was tied.
“I’ll take your suitcase,” I said. She nodded silently, and silently took my hand. Hers was small and warm, cradled in my fingers. I helped her down onto the deck and she stumbled forward as a wave rocked the boat against the dock. I caught her around the waist and eased her down quickly to safety in the middle of the deck, where she could lean against the mast.
She looked around the boat, her palms pressed back against the mast to steady herself. It seemed incredible to me that she was here. I’d truly thought that the hospital would be the last time I saw her.
“This is a pretty sailboat,” she said.
“It’s a catamaran.”
“What’s the difference?”
“See the hulls?” I pointed to the long wooden hulls stretching out on either side of her past the mast. “There are two of them.”
“Why?”
“It’s more stable,” I explained.
“So you won’t tip us over as easily?” she asked, smiling mischievously.
“Exactly.”
We sailed out from the edge of the coast. She laughed with glee the first time we crossed a boat wake, and the hull rocked up and down sharply, clapping against the murky green water. The rays of late afternoon were still hot on our faces, and she sat smiling on the deck, her face upturned to the bright sun, as I steered us out to the open sea.
The boat was stable, and she seemed stable too. Surprisingly stable, after everything that had happened. I didn’t want to bring it up too soon, so I let the silence hang over us. It was a strangely comfortable silence, as though we’d known each other for much longer than we actually had. I lifted my head into the wind, reveling in the peacefulness of sailing. It was nice, really, as long as the waves weren’t too strong. This boat was stable.
The water grew clear and blue as we headed towards a cluster of small islands just off the coast. The air here blew fresh and cool compared to the hot and humid inland. I thought Jessica was enjoying the sail, and I left her alone as I managed the wheel.
It was only when I’d turned into the middle of a reef and dropped the sails that I realized she was crying softly.
“Jessica?”
I set the anchor and quickly sat down next to her. I put an arm around her and she drew close into me, crying, her hands limp in her lap.
“Jessica? Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she said, sniffing once. She smiled through her tears. “I mean, no, but yes.”
“No, but yes?” I smiled back at her gently. I didn’t want to scare her. I didn’t want to hurt her. I was so worried that she would turn around and disappear again. But she only leaned into my arm and laughed through her tears.
“I’m better now than any time in the past month or so. You’re the first person to treat me normally, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I nodded like I did. She continued, the tears dripping down all the way to her chin.
“Everybody else…they all look at me strange. They don’t know what to say around me. They treat me like I have a disease, like I’m contagious. April doesn’t want anything to do with me. It’s like I’m reminding her of what happened just by being around. And my parents… well, they’re my parents.”
She wiped her hand across her wet cheeks. Stupidly, I fumbled for the right words.
“I’m sorry, Jessica. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened. For everything I did.”
“For James? I know.”
There. That was it. She would always remember that I’d killed her friend, no matter why. No matter what excuses I made for it.
“You did what you had to,” she said. She looked up at me over tear-stained cheeks with a wry little smile. “How many women did you save here? In Guatemala?”
I blinked.
“Who told you about what I was doing here?”
“Your friend. Ten.”
“Ten is not my friend,” I corrected quickly. “He’s my boss.”
“He seems to like you a lot for just being your boss,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, well. He’s a good guy.”
It was strange to me that, as much as I’d cursed his name in the past, I thought this was true. Ten was a good guy. He made me do his dirty work, yeah. But usually there was method behind his madness. And we had done a lot of good work, too.
“So how many?” she pressed.
“A lot,” I admitted truthfully.
“How many did you save?”
This was a girl you couldn’t fuck around with. I appreciated her bluntness.
“Thirty-four in Guatemala City.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“And another twenty in Antigua.”
“He said you were a hero,” she said. She spoke so softly, I almost didn’t hear the end of her sentence. It shocked me.
“What? No. I’m not—I do my job. I follow orders.”
“Is that what you did in Tijuana?”
I tilted my head. Smart girl, too. I couldn’t get anything by her. I hadn’t followed any orders at El Alfa’s compound. Ten had been furious with me, but only until I told him what I knew. It felt good to bring down something bigger than just one guy, but I hadn’t done it alone.
“I’m not a hero,” I said finally.
“You are,” she said. She leaned into my arm. “You’re my hero.”
“Nah, Jess,” I said, embarrassed.
“Vale?”
Her eyelashes were dark on her cheeks as she tilted her head back against my shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“When you came up to me and we started dancing, that was the craziest thing I’d ever done in my life.”
I didn’t know what she was driving at, so I stayed silent.
“But I’ve been wondering… I need to know… was any of it real?”
“Real?”
“I mean, did you… did you ever want me?”
Tears spilled over her cheeks as she looked up at me.
“Oh, Jessica.” I hugged her closely with my arm, nuzzling the top of her head. Her hair smelled like coconut.
“It was all fake, wasn’t it? El Alfa told you to do it, and you did—”
“No.”
“You never wanted me at all—”
“That’s not true.”
“It isn’t?”
I cradled her face in my hands and turned her so that she had to look at me. She sniffed, her eyes rimmed red with tears, putting on a brave face.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Vale,” she said, in a voice so soft and broken it made my heart ache. “Please don’t lie…”
“Jessica, I’ll never lie to you again. Do you believe me?”
Her lip quivered. She bit it and nodded her head.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you dancing in the middle of that crowd. That’s—that’s why El Alfa sent me after you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were the first one to catch my eye. I always thought—I thought it was my fault you were there, because I was the one who chose you.”
She was silent. I sat there, unsure of what to say. There was a tension between us, something rippling and dark under the surface, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to go too deep.
/> “Jessica?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I ever lied to you. I’m sorry for everything that happened.”
“It—it wasn’t your fault,” she said. Her voice trembled over the words.
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. I take full responsibility for everything I did. I’ll have that weight on my conscience forever. The only thing I can do is promise that I’ll never lie to you. I’ll never hurt you again. And if there’s anything I can do for you, just tell me and I’ll do it.”
Her eyes closed over her tears and a silent sob wracked her body. I pressed my forehead against hers. She looked so small in my arms, so fragile. I would have killed a hundred El Alfas to save her again.
“Tell me what you want, Jess,” I whispered. “Anything… anything you want.”
The words were soft, so soft that I had to lean forward to catch them.
“I want… I want to be yours.”
Chapter Forty
Jessica
For an awful second, I thought I had messed everything up. Vale looked down at me with such shock in his eyes that I thought he was going to turn around and jump overboard to swim a mile to shore. But then the look softened.
“Jessica, I didn’t ask you here to…I…I don’t want you to think you owe me anything.”
I shook my head.
“It’s not about that,” I said.
“You’re sure that you want this? You want me?”
He seemed so surprised. His reaction threw me. Most guys that handsome assumed that women wanted them. Vale seemed to be doing everything in his power to avoid that conclusion.
He looked off to the side of the boat and I let my gaze drift down his body. He was wearing a white buttoned shirt and casual khaki slacks. He was tanner, too, than he’d been in Mexico. I wondered if too much had changed. But I had come here for a reason, and I kept a hold of it in the front of my mind.
“Vale,” I said, as clearly as I could, “I’ve never wanted anything else so badly.”
Then his mouth was on mine, taking the breath from my lips in a kiss that was gentle at first, then more and more insistent. His arms drew me closer as he kissed me.
“Oh, Jessica.”
I leaned into the kiss, deepening it. Every minute on the way here, I’d been terrified of what I’d find when I arrived. Vale hadn’t been his real self in Mexico. I didn’t know who he would be. I only had a thin hope that he was the kind of man that I thought he was, the kind of man I saw peeking out from under the façade back when I was locked up.
Feeling him touch again made me shiver with emotion. Yes, he’d done terrible things under order. But when I thought about what he’d done to me, it wasn’t anything that made me angry, or upset. I was only angry at the real villains—El Alfa, David. And the real villains were all dead. We had killed them.
It was true. He was my hero. And when I thought about how he had touched me, about what he’d done to me… I could only wish for him to touch me again.
His mouth moved hesitantly down to my neck. I could feel him resisting with every touch, every heartbeat. His hands fluttered over my shoulders, down my arms. He didn’t want to take me without my consent. He didn’t realize he already had it.
As his lips pressed against my neck just under my ear, I took his hand and pulled it around my waist. My own hand drifted down, molding itself to his chest.
He looked into my eyes, and his gaze was a question. I answered it.
“More.”
I leaned back and he lay me down against the thin cushion on top of the deck. The boat rocked slowly in the swell of the waves, tugging against the anchor.
“You’re the most beautiful girl in the whole world,” he said, with all sincerity. I didn’t know what to say, so I just laughed.
“And your laugh is the most beautiful laugh in the whole world.”
The sun was starting to dip down to the horizon.
“Is that your normal pick up line?” I asked.
“I don’t pick girls up,” he said.
“No? Never?”
“Well… with my line of work…” he said, gesturing in the air. The reddish rays of the sun gleamed off of his tan skin. “It’s hard to start a relationship.”
“Right. Here I was thinking you don’t pick up girls, you just kidnap them.”
His shock quickly turned to amusement when he saw my joking expression.
“Sorry,” I said, giving him a wry smile as I let my hand touch his shoulder.
“I’m not used to having girls joke with me,” he said.
“It’s alright. As long as you don’t mind it from now on.”
“Do you always joke around?”
“Not always. Just whenever I get swept up by a handsome kidnapper.”
“You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever kidnapped,” he said suavely, joking right back at me.
A furious giggle rushed up inside of me and I pressed my fingers to my lips. I felt…not normal. That wasn’t it. I felt free. Like the first time we’d crossed over the Mexican border. Only this time, freedom tasted a whole lot sweeter.
“Thanks,” I said, not knowing how to make it mean more.
I grinned as he pulled me into another kiss. All of my hesitation vanished as his lips found mine and shocks of pleasure raced through my body. His mouth was hot, pressing insistent kisses against mine.
I’d never felt so safe. It was weird, I suppose. I should have been afraid of him. He was a killer, he admitted that much and more. He had done terrible things. But when his hands smoothed my dress down, cupping my hips in his large palms, I felt like nothing else in the world could touch me.
Here I was, floating in the middle of the ocean, and I felt completely free.
A rasp of his breath in my ear made me shiver. I kissed his neck, savoring the taste of ocean on his skin. His breath caught in his throat on the inhale. Despite his muscles, I could feel his arms trembling around me.
“God, Jessica, you don’t know what you do to me.”
“Or,” I said, another smile slinking up my face, “I know exactly what I’m doing to you. Even if I don’t know what I’m doing at all.”
His face shone with surprise and delight. And when he kissed me, I arched into him, letting his hands take me up by the hips. I could feel his cock through his pants, straining against the fabric. I knew he wanted me.
And this time, I was going to be able to let him take me.
He cradled me in his arms and leaned me back against the thin deck cushion. Underneath us, small waves slapped up along the side of the boat’s hull. He pressed kiss after kiss on my mouth, my cheeks, my neck. He nibbled his way down to the straps of my dress and nibbled his way back up to my ear. Every touch of his, every graze of his fingers, sent electrical thrills through my body.
When he gave me a little bit of space, I gasped. The air was cool and salty. The sun was almost to the edge of the world, and the other side of the sky was going dark.
I’d talked with April about losing my virginity, before we had ever even thought about taking a trip to Mexico. She’d told me that it wouldn’t feel great the first time, that it would hurt a little. She told me that I really should just get it over with so that I could stop worrying about it, because there was no way that I would enjoy sex my first time.
Despite all this, I was so very glad that I had waited. In this moment, I knew that Vale was the only man I could trust enough to take me from virginity to the other side. I trusted him, as strange as it sounded, because I had seen hints of the real him peeking out in the days when I was locked up. I had seen who he really was. And now, now that he was opening up, everything I saw made me even more firm in my decision. Vale was the one.
I wasn’t sure if I could ask him for what I wanted, though. I wet my lips and tried to think of a way to say what it was that I desired, but I couldn’t. My whole body ached for him.
My fingers explored the edge of his white shirt. I stopped at the seam of his
scar peeking out just under his collarbone.
He froze above me. I could almost hear our heartbeats pounding in the dimming ocean air.
“Vale?”
He took my fingers, picked them up from where they were touching his scar. He lifted my fingers to his lips and kissed them.
“This is… hard for me,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Trusting you. I haven’t been with anyone since after Jen tried to kill me. I tried, but I couldn’t. It just didn’t work. It was impossible for me to let someone in. But you…”
He trailed off, looking at my fingers. He bit his lip, uncertainty playing across his strong features.
“I can’t hold back with you,” he said finally. “I want you too much.”
That was it. Relief flooded through me. I could ask him. I knew I could.
“Will you—will you tie me up, Vale?”
He raised his eyebrows. For a moment, I thought that I had gone too far, asked too much.
“Tie you up?”
“I like it. I mean, I didn’t like being chained up as a prisoner, but when you were kissing me, and...” My words started to stammer as I thought about what else he’d done to me. “I mean, I liked being tied up when I was with you. Is that weird?”
I flushed as I spoke. My body was ready for him, my whole self was ready to throw myself into this, but I wasn’t sure if I was asking the right thing.
“Not weird at all. Lots of people like that. But…”
“But?”
He brushed my hair away from my eyes and tilted my chin up so that I met his gaze.
“You have to promise me that if you feel uncomfortable, you’ll let me know.”
I nodded quickly.
“Of course.”
“Is this something you’ve always wanted?”
I looked up at him. I hadn’t expected his questions, but now that he was asking them, it forced me to look inside myself deeper than I’d looked before. Why did I want this?
“Yes,” I said slowly. “I didn’t know before… I didn’t know what I wanted. But there was always this…shadow over everything. I didn’t want what other girls wanted. I didn’t want a nice boyfriend who bought me drinks and flirted and met me at the door with a bunch of roses.”
