It was going to be devastation or relief the moment I saw his face. He wouldn’t have to say anything and all of us would know.
There was silence as if all the commotion around us stalled for the moments between raising my head and seeing the doctor’s expression.
Then a tear escaped to trail down my cheek as I locked eyes on him and saw his smile.
One month later
HE STALKED TOWARD me, the casual swagger lighting the spark of desire to a firestorm of heat. I ducked left, then went right, my feet splashing through the water as I took off running.
We were in Fiji on one of the islands, a private ten-acre resort that was surrounded by the lush tropics. There were sixteen villas, which were built into the vegetation, each overlooking the ocean. Crisis had booked the entire resort and then invited everyone to come with us.
The media frenzy had lasted a couple of weeks, but we’d gone to the farm and avoided most of it. Kite spoke to reporters when he came out of the hospital and the fans were more focused on him than the story of me.
Of course, there were reports about the shooting at the hospital, but our involvement was kept quiet. The story was spun that a girl, Lily Hendrik, went on a shooting spree in the hospital and I was shot. My association with Lily remained concealed and I suspected it had to do with Vic.
The wet sand squished between my toes as I ran as hard and fast as I could. My heart raced and my body tingled with anticipation of him catching me. Because he would. I was fast and could run far, but he was faster with his long lean legs, which covered the ground quicker than mine.
I thought of when he’d chased me in the thunderstorm. It seemed so long ago and so much had changed. Now, I wanted him to catch me, but I was never one to make anything easy for him.
The tide washed up on shore and sloshed against my calves. I was already soaking wet after the two hours spent in the water with him. He’d insisted on teaching me how to swim, and it was frustrating because a half-naked Crisis was hard to resist. And he was serious and kept having to unwrap my arms from around his neck. Eventually, he threatened to put his cock on hiatus if I didn’t follow instructions.
Empty threat. No way would he do that, but I knew he wanted me to learn to swim, so I let him teach me.
I heard his feet gaining on me and put more effort in as I headed to our villa. As I left the beach, the deeper sand slowed me down.
“Oh, baby, you like games? Because I excel at them and never lose.”
I was breathing hard. It wasn’t far, but running as fast as I could in the sand was hard. “Bullshit.” I was saying Bullshit, the card game, because I beat him at that.
Hitting the sandy grass at the bottom of our villa that overlooked the beach, I scrambled up the wooden stairs. I heard him right behind me and started taking the stairs two at a time. He did too.
Just as my foot hit the deck, his arm hooked my waist and I was running, but not going anywhere, as he lifted me right off my feet. His breath was harsh and ragged as he breathed against my neck.
“I’m thinking I should have taken you somewhere cold, not the South Pacific. Watching you run in a bikini and chasing you, with my cock hard as fuck . . . painful.” I stopped struggling then turned in his arms and slid down his wet hard body.
I stood on my tiptoes, my hand reaching around his neck to drag him down to my mouth. “I love that you brought me here.” It was my Christmas present, but really it was his, too. It was ours.
Crisis walked me backwards until my ass pressed against the railing. “Going to fuck you now. That okay with you?”
I bit my lip and nodded. He liked to do that, ask me. It just became his thing and I think it was to give him assurance that I was good with it, because once I said yes, there was no stopping him.
He hitched me up on the railing and I curled my legs around him. “I hope your parents don’t decide to stop by.”
He chuckled while he undid the bikini strap at the nape of my neck and it fell forward. “Have they yet?” No, and we’d been here three days. “Mom knows better than that. The damage it would do to her to see me eating you out.”
“Oh, my God.” I didn’t even want to imagine it.
He ran a finger down between my breasts and I shuddered. He leaned in and nuzzled my neck and my fingers curled into his hair as I tilted my head back. “Don’t worry, baby. Our villa is off-limits. Why do you think Luke and Roman came with us?”
“I thought you wanted them to have a vacation. I mean, Roman did save my life and Luke killed Lily.” The bullet hit my shoulder, but it could’ve easily been my chest if Roman hadn’t dove on top of me. I’d been knocked unconscious by the impact as my head hit the tile, but unconscious was better than dead.
“Vacation?” Crisis laughed as he unsnapped the back of my bikini and tossed it to one of chaise lounges. “Fuck that. They’re here to make sure no one comes near our villa while I’m fucking my girl.”
He nipped my neck then trailed kisses up to my mouth. I moaned when his mouth crushed mine, both hands cupping either side of my head and he took what I’d given him. Me. Every part of me he knew, the bad, the good, the tainted, and there wasn’t a moment I wondered if he accepted all of them.
He did.