by K. S. Adkins
“You married young.”
“Very young,” she smiles, “At least it felt that way.”
“Was he good to you?”
“Alan was gentle. That’s the best way I can describe him. He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t give orders and he certainly didn’t fuck. I wouldn’t find out what being fucked was about until he left me behind.”
“He a good dad?”
When she chokes up, I pull her across the tub into my lap. Ain’t easy hearing about another man, but this Alan sounded like a good guy. Also sounds like Bet used to be a good girl, too. Funny how shit works. Here I was with a beautiful woman in my lap and I worried about competing with the deceased. Then I realized the woman in this tub was who I was meant to meet. Not young Bet, but mature Bet.
“He was a great dad,” she says whimpering into my neck. “And I miss him.”
“You’re always gonna miss him, Bet.”
“If I was in a better place, at another time I’d want to have a chance at making you happy, Rio. Unfortunately for us, this is it.”
“Running already?”
“No,” she says kissing my neck. “Not running. Just being realistic.”
“’Cause I ain’t worth a shit? ‘Cause I don’t run in your circles?”
“It saddens me that you think this is about money,” she says pulling away. “It makes me mad that you took the time to search my name when I know nothing of yours. It pisses me off that you thought you had a right! I don’t give a fuck about that money! I had to lose them to get it, asshole! You’ve got me all figured out, do you? The poor rich widow? Well fuck you, stranger. You don’t know shit.”
Reaching for her to apologize, she slaps my hands away and storms out of my room naked. Slamming the door to her own, I can hear her moving around. Getting out of the tub and taking a chair I hold my breath waiting for her to come out. Minutes later she does, and I lean on the fence placing my hand there again.
“I’m sorry, little Bet,” I tell her, “I fucked up.”
I swore I could feel her on the other side, but I must have been mistaken because seconds later I heard the door click and I let my hand fall. Feeling the loss of her, I grab my phone to call Rion. Taking off on her was a dick move but a week ago. I felt like I had no other choice. Now knowing for sure my feelings were misplaced, I owed her an apology at the very least.
“Rio?” she asks on the first ring.
“Hey, Junior,” I say sitting at the table, “How are things?”
With her, talk was easy. She always had so much to fucking say. Hearing her voice helped too. Hearing about all things Loyal wasn’t gut-wrenching and she when told me she missed me, I told her I missed her too. When she said she loved me, I said I loved her too.
Only difference was, now I knew why I loved her. I loved her because she was my family and after meeting Bet, I knew the difference between the two.
Rion would always be a family, Bet though…
Hearing him call me little Bet crushed me. It hurt because despite his apology, he didn’t know me. Even after I told him about my family, that I was trying to find myself again, he brought up the fucking money. Throwing all my shit in my bag, which I’ll admit wasn’t much I storm back out to the deck to say something, goodbye maybe? Thanks for the fuck? When I heard him speaking to someone on the phone I knew right away it was a woman. His tone was different, he sounded loving, soothing and lighter to me. Whoever she was made Rio happy, something I didn’t have it in me to do. Backing away, I stand between the deck and the door when I hear him say he loves and misses her.
Heart in my throat, I debate grabbing the paper that was left under the door to write him a note. Instead of doing something stupid because I had nothing to say, I quietly grab my bag and room key closing the door behind me. Wiping my eyes, I make my way toward reception. The walk I found peaceful on the way up, I found wet and dreadful on the way down. Stopping once to catch my breath, I want to smack myself for even considering getting invested in him. He could be fucking married for all I know. The thought of him having a wife at home gave me the energy I needed to get the fuck off this island.
“The last ferry,” I say to the woman behind the counter, “When is it?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, “Due to inclement weather the ferry isn’t scheduled to run until at least Tuesday. We’ve been evacuating the island all day today. Didn’t you get the note?”
Blinking at her, I’m at a total loss. “Note? No, I didn’t get a note.” I argue. “What’s it going to take to get me a pilot?”
“A pilot ma’am?”
“I’m twenty-nine years old,” I growl. “I am not a fucking ma’am. A pilot for a helicopter, get me one.”
“Have you looked outside?”
“I just walked here in it,” I say raising my voice again, “Clearly I’m aware of the weather.” When she looks uncomfortable I feel like an asshole, this storm wasn’t nor was my meltdown her fault.
Switching tactics, again I ask her, “I’ll need another room then, any room just not one in the Straits Cottages.”
When she looks like she may cry, I let my head hit the counter. Tucking my face into the nook of my arm I whisper. “Please tell me I can get another room, any room. I’m not picky.”
“I’m s-sorry,” she stutters.
“Oh come on! This cannot be my life right now!” I yell in a rare form of anger. Scooping up my bag and walking right back out into the rain, swearing my ass off, I can’t dial it down. Bypassing the Straits, I soak myself to hit the island party store to buy wine, rum and cigarettes. Thirty minutes and possible pneumonia later, I’m standing in front of my door again.
“I just want to disappear,” I whisper to the hideous green door.
“Bet?” he says coming from his own room and standing next to me. “Where the fuck were you!”
Closing my eyes, I let me forehead hit the door again and wonder when I’m going to wake up from this nightmare. Even from here he smells good, he smells like chlorine and pussy. My pussy. Jealousy was at war within me even when it held no place. I belonged nowhere.
“Answer me,” he growls, getting in my face. “I’ve been worried God dammit.”
Turning myself to face him I ask him, “Why?”
“The fuck do you mean, why? Get in here before you get sick.”
Pulling away, I reach for my own door. “No thanks, Rio,” I tell him. “I’ve got big plans.” Taking my key from me, he opens my door dragging me behind him. I was so emotionally exhausted, I didn’t even have it in me to find the humor in this. Here we were, two idiots stuck together in a storm. I was the idiot who fucked a potentially married man and he was the idiot who assumed I’d let him do it again. Grabbing the bag he looks inside and makes a noise of disgust. “Gonna get drunk again? Need it to forget me is that it?”
“Huh?”
“You drunk right now?”
“No,” I growl. “I’m not drunk, yet. I’ve been gone a half hour, Rio.”
When he finally notices my bag on my shoulder, he takes it, throws it then has me pressed against the wall. “You were gonna fucking leave me?”
“I---”
“You what?”
“I---”
“Say it, you fucking coward!”
Choking on another sob, I allow my head to fall forward to hide my face. “I came out to say goodbye and heard you on the phone with what sounded like a woman.”
“Fuck!”
“So I forewent the goodbye because it didn’t seem to matter anymore.”
“Then why the fuck were you standing at your God damn door soaking wet?” he yells in my face.
“Because the island is fucking closed and we’re stuck here until further notice, you fucking twat!” I yell back in his.
Stumbling back he runs his hand over his face and sits on the bed. “You would have left,” he says quietly, “after hearing one side of a phone call? You’d have fucking bailed on me?”
“You sounde
d happy,” I defend. “You deserve to be, so yes, I would have left because I can’t offer you happy. Pretty sure I made it clear I can’t offer you anything. I hope whoever that was on the phone can.”
“That phone call was to a friend I owed an apology to. A friend that I do love and miss. I also treated her like shit when she didn’t deserve it. A friend that was fucking hospitalized after some crazy asshole took her, beat her and carved his God damn name in her chest and I couldn’t help her in time! She’s the only family I got!”
“You love her,” I defend because I heard it; I know what infatuation fucking sounds like. “It’s okay to say it, I won’t---”
“My feelings were mixed up alright! I’m not in love with her for the last fucking time!”
“Bullshit!” I yell. “You’re telling me that wasn’t the real you on the phone?”
In a blink he grabs me, crushes his mouth over mine and growls into it. “This is the real me, the guy who fucked you three inches into the dirt. The same guy who tied you up and fucked you off the bed onto the floor!”
“I like that guy,” I moan into his mouth. “Just be real with me, Rio, I don’t have any expectations.”
“Maybe I do,” he says pulling my wet clothes off, a piece at a time. “Turns out after meeting you I got a lot of ‘em. Good thing we got more time.”
Once I’m naked, I start to shiver violently. When he notices, he takes his own clothes off and wraps himself around me. Crawling into bed together, we didn’t fuck. Instead we touched a lot and listened to the rain fall in buckets outside. The lightning illuminates the room and the thunder shakes the windows. Despite all the reasons being here with him wouldn’t work, I fall asleep on his shoulder with one hand over his heart and the other on his cock.
It’s the best night’s sleep I’d had in six years.
Waking up with Bet on top of me wasn’t my idea of a bad morning. She’s the first female I’ve ever spent the night with and instead of running for the door, I gripped her a little tighter. No nightmares plagued her, we spoke no words and I kept my dick in my pants. Yes, I plan to get back in that pussy soon, but for now we’re stuck indoors and the two of us have some shit to talk about. How I’m going to get her to explain her relationship to Adrian without pissing her off or tipping her off, I wasn’t sure, but I had to figure this shit out fast. Had the island not shut down, she would have left me. I needed her to want to stay and was thanking God for the shit storm currently holding us hostage. Had she gone and left, I would have lost it. The thought of losing her made me anxious. The thought of Adrian catching up to her terrified me. Without me there to protect her, he would crush her.
Adrian and I have a dark past, he’s saved my ass countless times and there’s some loyalty there, but there ain’t no way I’m putting her in a position for him to harm her. I use the word loyalty lightly. Adrian is the prince of blackmail. He used his dirt on me to bring me to heel once and once was enough. He uses blackmail to get shit done and it never bothered me, until now.
Feeling her skin against mine has my body humming. Convincing her to take a shot on a nobody like me is gonna take some serious effort. That meant treating her as more than a fuck. Not that I knew what that meant, but I was hoping she could give me a few pointers. Hell, she was married once, she’d know.
“Good morning,” she says into my neck. Squeezing her ass as a means of getting closer, I tell her “Morning to you too, why are you hiding from me?”
Lifting her head up, she floors me with her smile and bright eyes. “I wasn’t hiding,” she says wiggling on top of me, “I was savoring.”
“Savoring?” I moan, “Me?”
“Yes, you,” she giggles, “Have you seen yourself? You’re fucking beautiful, Rio.”
“I ain’t---”
“You are,” she insists. “Look, we both have issues, right? You can see mine as clearly as I see yours. Although, you know mine; if you never tell me yours, it’s okay. I’ll never tell a soul what I see but just know I can see it. You may think I spend my days moping but I am rather perceptive. Just know that I haven’t been in another man’s arms since Alan, this is a major step for me. I don’t know about any of your past relationships but I need you to know that for me---”
“Tell me,” I urge her with my heart pounding in my chest.
Taking a deep breath, she sits up so she’s straddling me. Running her fingers over my chest and stomach she sighs when she answers. “The fact that I’m still here means something, Rio. I’m just afraid to find out what it is.”
“When we get on that ferry, I want you with me, Bet.”
“We’re strangers and there is no way I can promise you that.”
“What can you promise me?”
“That while we’re here on this island, I’ll belong to you and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“You need to know that when we leave this island, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”
Her silence after I drop the bomb doesn’t scare me. In fact, it gave me the opening I needed. Slapping her ass, she giggles and kisses my cheek. “Something wrong with my mouth?”
“Maybe the fact that it smells like shit?”
“Yours don’t?”
“Mine smells like shit and the cigarette I smoked. I’m doing you a favor, trust me.”
“Coffee?”
“Is it bad that I love it so much that you even mentioning it almost gave me an orgasm?”
“Coffee, coffee, coffee, coff---”
“Smart ass.”
Climbing off, she struts naked to fetch the cups while my bare ass makes the pot. Not bothering with clothes, we sit in the muggy ass living room drinking it together while the island floods around us. Fuck the heat, seeing her smile was all I needed. Right now, air conditioning was the enemy when the heat kept her naked and this storm as far as I was concerned could go on forever.
For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely happy. Don’t get me wrong, the pain was there and I wasn’t about to start singing Taylor Swift songs but keeping up with Rio took total concentration. Not only was he disgustingly funny, I couldn’t take my eyes of the wrinkles around his eyes. Those are laugh lines and it proves that he’s known happiness. As for me, I frown so much I started getting Botox a year ago to hide it.
We sat here butt-naked but the focus wasn’t solely our bodies. The desire was there burning slowly but I found getting to know him took priority. He asks me simple questions that I’m happy to answer and I do the same. Running his finger along the inside of my thigh, I shiver before slapping his hand away.
“Your turn,” I tell him, “When did you lose your virginity?”
“Seventh grade,” he says with a smirk.
“Seventh grade? Your balls couldn’t have even dropped by then!”
“So? My dick worked just fine.” He smirks even more now when he asks me. “You? Let me guess, prom?”
“Oh fuck you, porn star,” I snap while faking hurt and dodging the truth a bit. “Try my wedding night.”
“No shit?” he says with a whistle, “Lucky bastard.”
“Tell me about her,” I say crossing my legs and tucking them beneath me. That, in turn, exposes my pussy which short circuits his brain and it’s adorable how quickly he can shift. “Eyes up, stud,” I say nudging him. “Rion, tell me about her.”
“I told you some already,” he mumbles not wanting to look away. “One day I was facing prison, the next I had a family. Her old man, Senior, made it real clear she was off limits. He offered me a second chance, a chance to be better and I took it. You don’t look the gift of freedom in the mouth, at least a kid like me couldn’t. The second I met them my world righted itself. Right away he gave me his total trust and made me promise to keep her safe. Come to find out he made a bet he thought was a joke but the other guy didn’t. The whole thing started a chain reaction he couldn’t stop.”
“What was the bet?” I ask biting my lip.
“He bet, Rion.
”
“He bet his daughter?”
“He thought it was a joke,” he reminds me, “Then the other guy started threatening him to hand her over and he made me promise to keep her safe. Not even knowing the full story, I did. All this went down when she was an infant, that’s how fucked up it is. I followed her everywhere she went, we were inseparable. I guess being attached to her and knowing all her shit meant that I loved her. I really thought I did, until I fucked up and kissed her.”
“This is getting good,” I smile. “Then what happened? Don’t leave anything out.”
“Then I didn’t feel what I should have and it pissed me off. I didn’t know what to do about it neither. Her heart belongs to an ex-marine named Loyal and when she was taken, he was the one that saved her. Wish I could hate the guy but he’s some military bad ass and I can’t compete with that. Shit, I tried to be the hero and got stabbed by his fucking brother, of all things. Hence the stellar stitch job.”
“You might just be the most interesting man I’ve ever met. Is it fair to say that maybe you felt like Loyal was taking your place? That maybe, you feel lost now that you aren’t her main focus anymore?”
“When it was happening, no.” he mumbles. Now, yeah.”
“Is she in good hands?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “He’s good people. He’s a total head case but he’d kill for her, I’ve seen it.”
“It’s obvious she loves you and you love her. You’ll always have her, Rio and be grateful that you do. I’ll tell you why. Alan and I met, dated and married. We were so young that our young feelings didn’t have time to mature into more. I was looking forward to growing up and growing old with him. I won’t get that now, but you still have a place in her life. You can still meet someone else and love her.”
“You don’t want me to give up on finding love but you can?”
“You’ve known me days,” I remind him. “You don’t know the depth of the grief I feel. You’ve seen moments of it, but that’s my life every day. That’s why I work so much, I can’t be still or I’ll fall apart. The difference between us is, you want to find love, I don’t. When this is over, you have a life to get back to, I don’t. When I get home I won’t have happiness waiting for me, but you do if you’re willing to take it. You have a lot to offer a woman and I’ll be honest, it hurts to say that she won’t be me.”
