I can’t.
I’m…I’m done.
More tears squeezed from my eyes as I floated on my back, mingling with the ocean that kissed and soothed my traitorous body.
Sunset slashes of mauve and mandarin Picassoed the sky above me.
The air temperature had fallen from unbearable to temperate, and the ocean continued its non-judgemental embrace. It cocooned me gently, washed away my abominable behaviour, and rinsed away the finally fading dregs of debilitating need.
I didn’t have a bikini on.
I didn’t care I was naked.
I’d blindingly run into the sea after my fifteenth or fiftieth orgasm, sobbing in fatigue and unable to stand another touch. Even though it was my touch. My fingers that wrung bliss after bliss from my bruised and throbbing body. My hands that couldn’t stop even though I begged for a rest.
I’d put my jumper back on, trying to prevent myself from torture.
I’d tried tying my wrists together with a towel.
Nothing worked.
Unable to take it another minute, I’d bolted from the villa, past the security guard posted so I couldn’t enlist some despicable paying guest to rape me, and over the glittering crystal sand. The beach undulated beneath my bare feet in erotic ways. The splash of cool water on my legs threatened to become sexual, but I threw myself headfirst into the wetness, staying under until my breath grew thin and my heart pounded for another requirement other than drugged desire.
My grey jumper had become waterlogged, dragging me to the shallow bottom where sand glittered through turquoise clarity, and sparkly, metallic fish darted suspiciously around me.
By the time I’d come up for oxygen, I was able to take a breath that didn’t hunger for yet more pleasure and, in utmost relief, threw off the sodden jumper, watched it sink, then gave everything I was to the sea.
That’d been at least two hours ago, and I still hadn’t moved.
After a man in another suit had carted me from Sinclair’s office and dragged me down yet another sandy pathway, I’d ached with a need so painful I’d almost fallen to my knees when his fingers locked around my elbow.
Sinclair hadn’t looked at me as I was unceremoniously removed from his picture-perfect office. Even after everything that’d happened between us, he looked unruffled and entirely unmoved. No sweat on his brow, no dampness crinkling his clothes.
How cold-blooded must he be to not feel the humid heat or show any signs of the lust scalding his veins? And I knew he had felt lust because he’d almost come. He’d stopped himself. He’d tucked himself away mid-release as if I was an abomination and didn’t deserve whatever consummation we could’ve shared.
My back had slicked with as much moisture as my pussy. My temples and hair were damp from sweat—perspiration from desire as much as the tropical mugginess.
He was the most callous and cruel person I had ever met, and, floating weightless in the sea surrounding his island, my hate returned a thousandfold. Lust didn’t overshadow my every thought anymore. The boundaries and borders that allowed civilisations to evolve from rutting beasts to intelligent humans were well and truly back in place.
What an absolute asshole.
What a monster to drag me here against my will, feed me a drug—also against my will—and then watch me flounder for something I abhorrently didn’t want yet couldn’t stop begging for.
He could’ve had me.
I would’ve done anything in that moment to have him enter me and give me what I was so empty for.
But now…
Now?
God, now I was prepared to murder him with my bare hands. I wanted to slash his jugular with that condemning pen I’d used to sign his awful contract. I wanted to swim and swim until some fisherman scooped me from the sea in his net and tell the police about this sick and twisted island that he’d trapped me on.
What would Scott think?
I blushed a deep crimson. Even though my behaviour wasn’t my fault, and I’d fought it at every step, I still suffered guilt so thick it made me nauseous.
How would I ever look him in the eyes again, knowing how I’d acted?
My guilt turned to homesickness.
Had he enlisted the authorities to look for me yet? Did my parents know I’d gone missing?
My eyes burned as another cascade of tears began.
I hiccupped and swallowed them down. I honestly didn’t have the strength to cry. I’d reached the end of my limit. I needed to sleep, to rest, to forget.
Allowing my legs to sink beneath the surface, I hovered vertically instead of horizontal. My eyes met those of the guard who’d never left the sand, even in the beating sunshine. He’d kicked off his loafers and hovered around on the edges of the lazily lapping waves, ready to launch after me if I did make a swim for it but content for me to bob if that was my only intention.