Shark man. That’s fucking ridiculous.
Yet, here she was, returning to the place that had haunted her dreams since returning from her trip. She’d wanted to tell Penny the real reason she couldn’t be the person she’d been before. That every ounce of cheer she’d once possessed was still out there on that bloody barge. She felt wrong anytime she even smiled, knowing all those young people would never smile again. She wished she had told her friend all these thoughts, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d probably come across as a bitch, pushing her only real friend away. All Penny had wanted to do was go get a coffee and gossip like the good ol’ days. Sylvia had been happy to see the new glowing aura around her friend. She looked healthier than she ever had before, even more lively and energetic than she had been when they first met, back before the illness set in.
In all the years she’d known Penny, not once had they gone on a jog or even to the gym. This time around, it was all the new healed Penny could talk about. She wanted to go outdoors and do something physical. Anything but go to the beach. Apparently, that might cause some problems. But Sylvia had been a party pooper. She’d sent her best friend, the girl who’d been like a sister to her, back to Australia with barely more than an ass-out hug.
Ass-out hugs are the worst. I should have at least thrown my arms around her and told her I loved her before watching her walk away forever.
But it wasn’t forever because Sylvia was on her way back to the land down under. In the end, she realized she could never pack her entire life into two suitcases and a carry-on. So, she grabbed what she could and called for a ride to the airport. All that time waiting to board, then sitting on the airplane, and finally taking a cab back to the same resort she’d visited with Penny, all she could think about was how big a mistake she might be making. If she hadn’t already drained her remaining vacation time and invested the rest of her savings on this trip, she would have cancelled and returned home. Home was safe. Or was it? She’d felt no more secure there than any other place lately. The sharks were always in there, gnawing at her mind, and it seemed Queensland had beckoned to her.
Walking through the lobby this time was so different from the time before. Penny had been exhausted that day. Sylvia remembered trying to cheer her up with a quick drink at the bar while they waited to check in. She’d made cheesy jokes and had flirted with one of the waiters. She’d glanced at one of the guys at the bar with her “fuck me” stare. Now, she felt timid and shy. She kept her purse slung across her neck and shoulders, settled in the front of her body as if she were afraid someone might run by and try to snatch it from her. She peered into the bar as she walked by, but instead of scanning the crowd for possible booty calls, she searched the faces of men and wondered if any of them might grow fins in the presence of salt water. Had any of those guys been responsible for the carnage she’d endured. It was quite possible. What better place for malicious shark shifters to hang out other than in a bar full of tourists. She’d once looked forward to wading into Australia’s dating pool, but now she worried that it might be nothing more than a meat soup with bloody broth and pieces of bone, a feeding ground for the demons of the deep.
Stopping there in the lobby, right in front of the bar, Sylvia closed her eyes and imagined the hotel pool bathed in crimson. She watched herself step down the pool stairs and lower herself into the water, bare-breasted, her tits lowering into the thick, red water. She imagined a fin heading her way and as this fantasy consumed her, she felt a cramp in her pussy and she squeezed her legs tight. She imagined a faceless man with an impressive body rising from the water to meet her, his fin still there on his back. Her hands pressed against his chest, feeling the carved-out muscles, and imagined the skin as thick as a shark’s. His cock would be even thicker.
“Ma’am,” someone called out to her.
Sylvia snapped out of her trance and looked left to see a bellhop standing at her side.
“Your bags are at the desk,” the young, clean-cut man said as he tipped his hat at her. “All you need to do is show your ID and I’m sure they can get you settled in your room rather quickly.”
He was cute. Handsome but way too young. Then again, Sylvia hadn’t had sex in what felt like an eternity. She considered asking the guy if he wanted to earn a big tip by coming up to her room and fucking all this shark nonsense out of her mind. Or, she supposed, if that were to happen she would have been the one getting the big tip.
My God. I’m thinking of turning a bellhop into a prostitute. Get a hold of yourself.
Once she was in her hotel room and had unpacked, she couldn’t wait to have a drink. She raided the mini-bar and downed a tiny bottle of vodka to calm her nerves. Even peeking outside the window gave her instant anxiety. The ocean was so close. It was so calm from way up there in her safe room. She could see a sailboat in the distance and someone was crazy enough to be out there skiing. Hadn’t anyone told them about the sharks? About how dangerous it was out there on the water?
Sylvia’s heart raced, and she threw the curtain back into place before racing back to the mini-bar to grab another bottle. She didn’t even look at the label before twisting off the top and downing the entire thing. It burned in her throat and tasted like butterscotch.
“Fuck,” she said. “This was a mistake. What am I doing here?”
She wished she could talk to Penny. If she only knew a way to get a hold of her. Penny had practically gone off-grid when she moved out to the island. Shamrock Island. That was all she knew. Penny had told her the name of her new home but hadn’t given her any way to reach her. She wondered if any of the local fishermen or anyone at all would know how to find the place.
Bellhops know everything.
Sylvia picked up the phone, dialed the front desk, and asked for the bellhop who’d helped her earlier.
“Hello?” she heard from the other end.
“Hi, you helped me up to my room earlier,” she said, “and I need a favor. I can totally pay you. I just need some info. Do you know a guy named Juan Diego? He’s a captain of one of the boats down at the docks.”
After a long pause the guy replied, “I don’t know all those guys at the docks, you know?”
“He’s Latino,” she said.
“Some of them are,” he replied.
“If you can find him, I’d really appreciate it.”
About an hour later, the bellhop showed up at her door with an older Hispanic man by his side.
“I think this is him,” the bellhop said. “His name’s Juan Diego.”
Sylvia hoped it was him. How many Juan Diego’s could be working anywhere near the hotel? Plenty she figured, but maybe luck would be on her side. The bellhop held out his hand and she forked over much more cash than she’d ever planned to her first night in town. For all she knew, this was some stranger he’d found by the pool named Jose. The man wore a dirty sky-blue polo, a floppy hat, and cargo shorts with sandals. His face was tired and sagging, but his smile was bright.
It turned out, this was the Juan Diego she was looking for, and after explaining the situation, he agreed to call Thane.
“I can’t promise you anything,” he said. “Mr. Thane is a busy man. He always keeps his phone in the cabin and he is never in the cabin. But maybe Ms. Penny will be there—"
“—Can’t you give me their number and I’ll call?” Sylvia interrupted.
“Pardon me, Ma’am,” Juan Diego said, “but I am trusted with very secret information and I can’t just give it out to anybody. Surely you must understand.”
“Sure,” she said.
Juan Diego pulled a cell phone from his pocket and turned his back to Sylvia as he dialed the number.
“It’s ringing,” he said to Sylvia over his shoulder.
Sylvia didn’t want to be excited. This could lead nowhere, but she was proud of herself for tracking down someone who knew Thane within a few hours of arriving at the hotel. Well, the bellhop had done the difficult part, but Sylvia hadn’t wanted to walk up and dow
n the docks shouting out a man’s name and hoping the fishermen and tour guides and other dock workers would be honest enough to point her in the right direction. If not careful, she could end up in the back of somebody’s boat. She’d seen movies like Taken and Hostel and even though they weren’t based in Australia, this wasn’t the U.S. either, and anything could happen. She would not be following this Juan Diego guy anywhere until she’d spoken with Penny.
“Umm…hello?” Juan Diego said into the phone. “Mrs. Penny?”
Juan Diego whispered into the phone with his free hand cupping his mouth to muffle his voice even more. Then, he handed the phone to Sylvia and smiled.
“It’s for you,” he said.
Sylvia took the phone, which looked like one of those military satellite phones she saw in the Mission Impossible movies, and held it to her ear.
“Sylvia?”
It was a voice she knew well.
“Penny?” she asked.
“You are here!” the voice on the other end said with glee. “I can’t believe it! I thought you’d never come back.”
“Tell me about it,” Sylvia said. “I’m here trying to figure out how I can call this whole thing off and head home. Kind of hard to do with a one-way ticket.”
“Are you crazy? A one-way ticket?” Penny said. “Oh my God. Well, you’ve come this far. At least meet me for a drink.”
“I was thinking of going to the bonfire party tonight,” Sylvia said
“Aksion’s!” Penny said. “It’s a nightclub on the beach. They’re having a bonfire tonight. Thane was talking about going. But I can’t. I’m pregnant, you know?”
“You’re what?!” Sylvia squealed. “Holy shit! How could you not tell me? How could I not know?”
“I wanted to,” Penny said, “but to be honest, after my last visit, I didn’t think you wanted to know. You seemed anti-shark.”
“I’m sorry,” Sylvia said, feeling like shit that she’d ever made her friend feel like she should avoid her.
Penny was right. Sylvia had been in a horrible mindset and probably wouldn’t have provided the kind of cheer deserved for a pregnant best friend. This was a dream come true for Penny. Not long before, she’d been hanging on to life by her fingertips, and now she was creating life. This was amazing news.
“So, I probably shouldn’t be going to a night rave or bonfire or whatever,” Penny said. “But you should totally go. Maybe you’ll meet someone.”
“I guess,” Sylvia said. “I’ll check it out, but I’m really here to see you.”
“Meet me tomorrow,” Penny said. “I’ll have Juan Diego bring me to the hotel.”
Sylvia smiled and agreed to the plan.
“Listen,” Penny added. “I know it’s none of my business, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing. What happened last time…it…it was a travesty. But you can’t let your life be controlled by it, you know? I’m around some of the greatest people in the world right now. I know you’d love them. Give them, us, a real chance and you’ll see.”
Sylvia should have been excited, but her friend’s positive energy was bordering on becoming annoying.
What’s wrong with me? She only has my best interest at heart. Besides, she’s always been slightly annoying.
She laughed at her own thoughts, knowing if she were to voice them out loud in Penny’s presence, her friend would have joined in. That’s what made their friendship so great. It didn’t matter the mood they were in. They could be total bitches to each other and both would only shrug it off and see the funny side of their rudeness. She’d once told Penny she wished she would die. It was said in a pissed off but joking-like manner. Penny had sat cross-legged on her bed and stared at her for a second, a pissed off look on her face, and then smiled and said, “How would you kill me?”
They’d spent the next half hour plotting out each other’s murders. That was the kind of shit they would do before Penny got sick. Then things kind of changed. Now they had the opportunity to do it all over again.
Two hours later, Sylvia stood next to Doug’s Frozen Fridgesicles cart, which Doug had probably abandoned at around five o’clock, and sipped a plastic cup of amaretto over ice. She craved the smooth sweetness that came with her favorite drink and enjoyed how it seemed to add a new layer to the buzz she was nursing from the handful of miniature bottles she’d downed in her room. About fifty feet away, the fire blazed over a pile of broken furniture and old warehouse pallets. The heat wafted at her with each wave of fresh ocean breeze and she loved the warmth on her skin.
Next to where she stood was a large banner that read “The Party for Life Festival: July 20-29.” On the banner, couples danced romantically in the dark with neon pink lips and green eyelashes. Kids tossed multicolored paint into the air and a teenage boy tried to stop a girl his age from stuffing his hot dog all the way into his mouth. Sylvia couldn’t help thinking how great it would be if a single festival could change her mood for the better. She could dance in neon and throw paint and eat hot dogs. The festival was only a week away. If nothing else happened during this trip, maybe she’d stick around long enough to see what all the hype was out.
For now, she focused on the bonfire party happening in the present. All around her, couples hugged each other tight and danced to the slow techno, beachy vibes flowing from the DJs speakers. The DJ was a hot blonde in a pink bikini top, and Sylvia couldn’t help feeling proud of how far her sex had come. Boardroom CEOs, partners at law firms, surgeons, and now even DJs. The thought made her laugh. From open-heart surgery to glowsticks and lasers. In truth, it wasn’t much of a joke. She’d known a handful of DJs back home. None of whom were women. Here on the beach, at one of the country’s top resorts, this chick controlled the party and that was a lot of power in what was usually a laidback atmosphere. This wasn’t a family party. This was going to get wild before night’s end.
It was still early, and the party was only beginning, but already Sylvia was seeing potential suitors.
Suitors. The alcohol is definitely working.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she went sexual window shopping. She hadn’t tried to find anyone new since returning home from vacation. Only once when she’d gotten ridiculously drunk and hopelessly horny had she called up an old flame and begged him to come over and fuck her. It had been a mistake. Sore, hungover, and pissed off at herself for climbing into bed with a guy she’d kept at such a faraway distance while sober, she politely told him to take a hike and become a born-again virgin.
This virgin shit is for the birds. Now that one…
Sylvia had spotted a guy with combed back blond hair and wearing a thin buttoned up shirt that blew in the breeze, clinging to what looked like a muscular chest. The fire’s glow lit up the left side of his face and bounced off the silver beer can he lifted to his lips.
Sylvia remembered the day she went out on the party cruise with Penny to meet up with some stranger. She hadn’t known anything about the guy, but knew he was the one. Penny had gotten knocked overboard and attacked by a shark before sealing the deal, but in the end, it had all turned out okay. She was still with Thane to this day, and now she was preparing to have his baby.
Was this blond guy by the fire her Thane? Sylvia wondered if there was a sure way to tell one of the paranormal shifters from a regular human. The wolf guy she’d dated once upon a time had been normal, if not slightly more aggressive than past boyfriends. Looks wise, he’d been a handsome, scruffy player. She’d dumped him not because of his behavior or his strange abilities, but because he’d been an asshole who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants around other women.
In her shadowy spot by the cart, she realized the blond guy probably couldn’t even see her. He was so close to the floating embers that they seemed to dance above his head, mesmerizing her, and she was invisible to him. She’d always been the girl with the sparkle—Sylvia Foxx, the one who could make men beg for her affections. For a second, it seemed the guy was looking
back at her, but then he turned his attention away and looked into the crowd. Other men caught Sylvia’s eye, but none of them seemed like “the one.” None had that thing that made her heart flutter. In the past, she would have settled for a sexy stud who might or might not be good in bed. She’d faked orgasms at least as often as she’d had them. A few times she’d finished herself off in front of the guy to teach him how it was done. This time, the new Sylvia would wait. She wouldn’t budge unless something abnormal happened. She wouldn’t make a move unless she found her Thane.
Chapter 5 – Rafe
These beers cost a bloody fortune.
The problem with these nightclub-run parties was the cost of drinks and the refusal to allow people to bring their own. Not that Rafe was a cheapskate or anything, but he could buy a twelve pack for the cost of one beer here. Yet, he’d decided to go to the bonfire as a chance to unwind and have a good time. He fished into his jeans pocket and pulled out enough cash to pay for another one.
Doug’s Frozen Fridgesicles.
The woman standing next to the cart was gorgeous. He liked her long black hair and the soft, golden tone of her skin in the fire light. She was cute, exotic, and from the look of it, totally attached to someone. She seemed as if she were waiting for someone, expecting some guy to come waltzing back to her with the drink he’d promised. She didn’t have the desperate floozy look of some of the other drugged up or drunk chicks that seemed to make up half the crowd. He considered approaching her. He could act like he thought the cart was where he needed to go to buy a beer. Then once he realized the error of his ways, he could offer to buy her one.
Bite Me Harder (a paranormal shifter novel) (Guardians of the Deep Book 2) Page 4
