by Lila Dubois
She opened her eyes, startled to find that they were no longer in the dungeon, passed out on a mat in the corner, but in a bedroom. The massive bed faced a wall of windows, and the light which had been bright enough to wake her was actually only the first hints of dawn. The western horizon was still cobalt blue, but fading with each minute as the sun advanced into the sky.
Her life had hardly been mundane, but even she was struck by wonder for a moment at the sight of the beautiful play of light and dark over the ocean.
Gently shifting his hand, she sat up, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them as she looked out over the ocean.
They were on the second story of the house, the elevated position allowing her a panoramic view. She remembered seeing the wall of glass from the outside.
She twisted to look down at Solomon, who was still asleep. He was on his side, one arm stretched over the empty space where she’d been lying a moment before. The uninjured side of his face was up, and she glanced at him, expecting him to look like the boy she’d first fallen in love with. But he didn’t. He wasn’t that boy. He was a man. A man who touched her and made her feel things that no one else ever had and, she suspected, never would.
As her brain came fully awake, a knot of dread settled in her stomach. Last night had been everything she could’ve hoped for and more. She’d been able to cry and come and release all that miserable tension inside her. By the time she collapsed into his arms, she’d been spent. Her body aching, but her mind blissfully at peace.
And none of that changed what she had to do.
She’d made her choice. Finally, she’d made the smart choice.
Last night had been goodbye, and it had been closure.
She could now definitively say that no one would ever make her feel what Solomon did, but that didn’t mean she should make the same mistakes she had before.
It was too easy to see him as her rock, her safe harbor in the storm. Too easy to lay her soul bare for him. She’d almost given in to that urge to invite him to step in and rescue her. In those moments when she thought her punishment had been to be in bondage, ignored and alone with her own thoughts and feelings, she’d made a choice.
And now it was time to follow through.
Vivienne feathered her fingers over his hair, pushing a piece off his forehead. Her touch was light and he didn’t react.
Stacking her forearms on her bent knees, she stared out at the water once more. She could stay here for hours, just watching, imagining that nothing and no one beyond this island existed.
But she’d said her goodbyes, and now it was time to follow through.
Vivienne slid out of the bed, fighting back tears. Despite her resolve, her heart ached and her stomach was in knots. Tears she refused to cry made her throat hurt.
Vivienne paused at the door of his bedroom. The headboard hid him from view, all except for his long legs, one of which was on top of the covers rather than under them. He always did that, stuck one leg out at some point in the night.
She pressed a hand over her own mouth, digging her nails into her cheek as she gritted her teeth, using that pain to force back the sob that wanted to spill free.
With the force of will that had kept her upright, kept her going even as her life continually crumbled and reformed around her, Vivienne turned and walked out of Solomon’s bedroom.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back in the guest room she’d been using. Her fingers trembled as she dug out her phone. That same trembling made the message she typed to Aldric take longer, need more corrections than it should have.
Once it was sent, she tossed her phone to the bed and went into the en suite bathroom to take a shower. In the privacy of the shower she let herself cry.
She cried as the water ran over her. Cried until her breath was spasming and she slid down to sit in the cold tiled corner of the stall. Knees drawn up, the sound of her sobs echoed painfully loudly in the glass walled enclosure.
Half an hour later, she was out of the shower, dressed in bespoke resort wear. Her perfectly applied makeup disguised the puffy, red-rimmed eyes she sported as a result of all those tears.
Her phone dinged, and she glanced at it. Aldric had ordered helicopter transport to get her off the island. If she was lucky, she would be able to walk away without seeing Solomon. She would prefer to say goodbye just so he wouldn’t think she’d slunk away, or worse, run. Goodbye would acknowledge everything that had passed between them.
The problem was she was fairly certain she would not be able to hold herself in check if she saw him again. For all her gathering of her armor, preparing herself to return to reality, her body ached from his abuse last night.
Each ache and twinge was a reminder of what he could do to her. Of how he, and only he, could make her feel.
Vivienne zipped up her bag and carried it out of the room. She didn’t want to stay here any longer.
Hat on her head, she walked away from his home onto the sandy beach, leaving her bag at the point where palm trees gave way to sand.
The whomp whomp whomp of helicopter blades made her look up. It started as a speck on the horizon, then grew. A black bird, then a beautiful mechanical monster.
The helicopter buzzed once over the beach then turned, finding an open area of sand before it started to descend. That had been incredibly fast. She’d expected it to take several hours, and when she’d checked on her transportation options, she’d thought there was a helicopter pad on the island. If the pilot was landing on the beach, she must have been mistaken.
She was far enough away she wasn’t in danger of being hit by the sand the downdraft was flinging into the air, but just to be safe she stepped behind a copse of palms. When the sound of the rotating blades began to slow, she stepped out once more, brushing briskly at her loose pants.
She had been prepared, once she received confirmation from Aldric about the exact pickup time, to request a ride from one of the house staff to the apparently nonexistent helipad.
The arrival of the helicopter, before any sort of message came through from Aldric, and on the beach so close to her current position, was unexpected but not unwelcome. The sooner she was off of Luca Cay, the better.
Because she feared her resolve would not hold up if she stayed here too much longer.
Picking up her bag, Vivienne started to walk toward the waiting helicopter.
Chapter 13
Solomon sat bolt upright as a hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked. He came up swinging. Jalen had known him long enough that the other man had already stepped out of range.
“Solomon, get up now. We have problems coming.”
Disoriented, he looked around. It was still early, though it was well after dawn. Normally, the light woke him up, but he had no idea what time he’d fallen asleep. Given how groggy he felt, he had a funny feeling it hadn’t been more than a few hours ago, and exhaustion had let him sleep through sunrise.
He glanced over at the empty space in the bed where Vivienne had been. He frowned and then the rest of what Jalen had said penetrated.
“What problems? Where’s Vivienne?”
“I don’t know,” Jalen said. “But we got a funny call from one of your friends.”
Solomon rolled out of bed naked and padded to the bathroom, checking to see if she was there. “None of you have seen Vivienne?”
“No, and that might be one of the problems.” Jalen looked more puzzled than worried. “You see, this message we got, from your friend James. That English boy who came. It said they were about to stage an intervention.”
“An intervention?” Was he hallucinating right now? Was Jalen hallucinating? “What the fuck?” Solomon shook his head. “Go back. What do you mean you can’t find Vivienne and that might be one of the problems?”
Before Jalen could say more, the distinct sound of the helicopter approaching the island interrupted the normal sounds of rustling breeze, birds, and the faint lapping of ocean waves against the shore.
Solomon rushed out onto the balcony, one hand up to shield his eyes. A helicopter was approaching the island, but was coming in from a weird direction. It buzzed over the beach, then looped around. His jaw clenched with anger as he watched the massive helicopter—it was one of those huge ones that could seat six people—hover over the beach, then begin to drop down to land in the sand.
“What the fuck is this asshole doing?” Solomon demanded.
Before Jalen could answer, Solomon had turned and rushed back into his bedroom, snatching a pair of the loose linen pants that were his day-to-day wear out of the drawer. He pulled them on as he rushed out of the bedroom. Barefoot and shirtless, he pounded down the stairs and slammed open the front door of the house. They had a helipad on the north tip of the island. Landing a helicopter in the sand would destroy the beach and freak out the birds.
So far, this morning was a cluster fuck of questions, but he knew how to prioritize. Issue one, get that helicopter off the beach, hopefully after breaking the nose of whatever dumbfuck pilot had landed there. Issue two, find Vivienne. She was probably in her room. She’d been asleep when he had his somewhat—okay, very—sappy realization that they weren’t just good together, he didn’t just love her, but that they were soulmates, dammit. And the less emotionally fulfilling realization that he was going to have to move back to Paris and settle for whatever she was willing to give him.
Issue three, figure out why James wanted to stage an intervention.
He stalked through the narrow band of vegetation and out onto the beach, glaring daggers at the helicopter. A moment later he saw Vivienne, bag in hand, walking toward the aircraft.
Solomon’s heart stopped beating, and the ball of ice condensed in his abdomen.
The helicopter wasn’t some foolish lost tourist. She’d called it here. This was her getaway car. She was leaving him.
Of course she is. She got her fun from you. She wanted closure, last night was closure. You walked away from her twice. Now it’s her turn. And it serves you right, you dumb asshole.
It hadn’t, until that moment, occurred to him that she wouldn’t be at least partially moved by what they experienced last night. He didn’t expect her to wake up with the gooey feeling of completeness, and soul-deep sense of peace that his midnight revelation had brought him. But he had expected her to feel something. How the hell could that have been one-sided?
Didn’t she know what he was planning to do for her? What he was willing to give up for her?
“Vivienne!” He shouted and she turned to look at him. A long stretch of sand separated them.
Her face was shadowed by her hat, hiding her expression. She raised the hand not holding her case in a small wave goodbye.
Solomon felt like he’d been sucker punched.
Jalen crashed through the vegetation, stumbling to a stop beside him. His friend was panting and seemed panicked. Solomon only dimly registered those facts.
He watched with masochistic fascination as Vivienne turned and kept walking toward the helicopter. With each step she took, it felt like a piece of his stomach and heart had been ripped out, leaving him raw and open, unable to function.
I bet this is what it felt like for her each time you walked away, that snide little voice in his head whispered.
Jalen looked at Vivienne, his eyes wide. “That’s them. That’s the intervention.” He took Solomon’s arm, tugging. “Come back to the house, I don’t like this.”
He didn’t like it either. “That’s the intervention? I’m pretty sure that’s her ride off this island.”
“No. The helicopter she hired just radioed, like they should. They’re leaving George Town now.”
Solomon whipped around to face his friend. “Jalen, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I told you. James, that friend of yours, he said they were staging an intervention. That we shouldn’t be alarmed if some people came for you. That I should pack you a bag.”
Solomon filed that information away, but focused on something else Jalen had said. “That’s not her helicopter?”
“No.”
Solomon’s feet were already moving before he’d made the conscious decision to start running. Running through loose, fine-grain sand was no easy feat. Vivienne was at the door to the helicopter. He couldn’t see who she was talking to, but it wasn’t the pilot, who he could see was still in their seat.
Vivienne’s shoulders jerked, as if surprised, and she took several steps back, her case falling from her hand.
Solomon started running faster, the occasional roll to his ankle or twinge in his knee warning him that this was a terrible idea.
Vivienne turned toward him. Between the hat and the sunglasses, he couldn’t see much of her face. He saw her mouth open a second before he heard her scream.
The sound cut through him like a knife.
A man jumped out the side door of the helicopter, wrapped his arms around her waist, and hauled her backward. She fought. Damn right she did. His Vivienne was strong. Her legs kicked in the air as she was lifted off her feet, the man’s arms around her midsection, trapping her own arms to her sides.
She screamed again as she was hauled into the helicopter.
Kidnapped. Vivienne was being kidnapped.
Panic made his already swiftly beating heart feel like it would crack through his ribs. Solomon watched as the helicopter blades slowly started to rotate.
He was close, getting closer.
They hadn’t yet closed the side door of the helicopter, and that was a blessing. First thing he’d do was reach in and grab Vivienne. She was his first priority. He needed her safe. He needed her in his arms.
The helicopter blades should have been going faster by this point, but they were still rotating lazily. Maybe they were having engine problems. Solomon fucking hoped so. If they were, it meant they were stuck on his island.
He’d never been a violent man, at least outside of BDSM, but as his breath sawed in and out of his chest, his legs pumping with power born of desperation, he imagined a hundred horrific things he would do to these men for scaring her, for touching her.
With every second that passed, and every step he took, he expected the door to slam closed, or the helicopter blades to whirl to life.
The part of him not completely gripped by panic at seeing the woman he loved being kidnapped was starting to get very, very worried that neither one of those things was happening.
Ten feet. Five.
He was there, practically crashing into the side of the helicopter as he flung himself at the open door.
The cabin of the plush helicopter had four individual seats. A partial partition separated the pilot’s seat, and the sixth chair, which was either for a co-pilot or for someone to ride shotgun.
Vivienne was strapped to one of the plush captain-style seats farthest from the open door. Black leather buckle straps bound her arms to the armrests. Another strap had been wrapped around her ankles, binding them together. A muzzle-style half mask covered the lower part of her face, from just below her nose to under her jaw. The straps for it wrapped around the nape of her neck and up over the crown of her head. She wore headphones—the massive ones that would allow her to hear the pilot’s instructions. A mic was positioned in front of her mouth, almost mockingly since with the muzzle in place she couldn’t speak.
She looked at him with wide eyes. He expected to see fear, but she looked almost…confused?
Had they drugged her? That would explain why she wasn’t thrashing around anymore.
He took in Vivienne in a split second, then shifted his attention to the helicopter cab’s second occupant. The man was dressed casually in dark jeans and a black shirt. When Solomon looked at him, the man smiled, and it was a relatively friendly smile rather than one of those Hollywood evil villain smiles. The man had oddly colored hair, a mix of gray, brown, and even a bit of blond. It reminded Solomon of a wolf’s pelt.
The man looked…familiar.
Something was
n’t exactly adding up, but the rage and fear turning inside Solomon didn’t care. He planted one foot on the runner board and reached for the man. Because of Vivienne’s bindings, he’d have to disable her kidnapper, and probably the pilot, before freeing her. Then he’d get her to safety. He’d take her and run into the lush jungle that bordered the beach. He knew his way around, and even if the kidnapper and pilot followed them, Solomon was confident he’d be able to stay two steps ahead long enough to make it back to the house.
Then he’d put the house in lockdown mode—closing all the heavy reinforced shutters over the windows, barring the doors, and locking them safely inside. The shutters were actually there in case of a hurricane or tropical storm, to prevent all that glass he’d insisted on installing from being blown out. As of this moment, what had once been hurricane shutters were now tactical defense.
Blinded by his fear for Vivienne and rage at the man who’d taken her, bound her, Solomon never heard a third man coming up behind him.
Focused as he was on the man with wolf hair, Solomon was taken by surprise when a hard shove from behind threw his balance off. He fell forward into the cab of the helicopter, his knee banging hard against the lip of the door.
He twisted to see the man who’d shoved him roughly pushing his feet all the way in. Solomon tried to kick out, but the man avoided his bare feet and jumped into the helicopter. The door slammed closed and finally he heard the sound he’d been waiting for—the blades above them began to spin faster. There hadn’t been mechanical issues, they’d been waiting. For him.
Oh. They were both being kidnapped.
Well, fuck.
Solomon rolled onto his back and pulled his knees into his chest, prepared to kick his assailant in the dick. The man yelped and jumped to the side, sliding between the two rear-facing seats and dropping into the co-pilot’s seat. There was a lurch as the helicopter lifted into the air.
