Page 19 of Free Fall

She sighed. “Just the back of my head. He was moving toward my tits when I panicked.”

I followed the movements with my hands, gripping the back of her head before skimming down her neck, along her collarbone. She shivered, moaned. Her eyelids fluttered like she was going to fall into a blissful sleep. I didn’t stop, though, cupping both her tits and squeezing.

She smelled of seawater and lychees as I ran my nose over her jaw. “I need to fuck you again.”

“Fuck your wife,” she spat back. “I’m fine.”

This time when she tried to fight me off, I let her go, let her step away. Not a moment too soon too, because Henry was emerging from the shadows, his tension thick and rolling from his every step. Whoever he hooked up with tomorrow was in for quite a ride.

“I’m going to text you an address. It’s a club. Meet me there tomorrow night,” I told Zelda under my breath before Henry reached us.

Zel looked at me, then at her dad, and shook her head. “I won’t come.”

“Yes, you fucking will.”

Ten

Zelda

Mydadtookmeback to my room while I apologized again and again for being such a dick and wandering off with Kal, the pushy surf instructor. Alcohol was for sure making my words and actions sloppy, but Dad said nothing, only tugged me along with the occasional huff.

It had been going well. Kal was sweet and fun, but a bit too touchy feely. I flirted with him, lingering smiles and suggestive looks as we bobbed over the gentle waves on his surfboard. He didn’t try to get me surfing, we just floated for a bit. He showed me the island from the waves and we snuggled up together. It had been all wrong though, his body against mine. The way his hands settled on my waist and his legs bracketed my thighs. It should have been pleasant, romantic even, but I had to force it. As soon as we were back on the sand, and he was kissing me, my brain said a big fat no.

I tried, I really did. But panic overtook me and slammed my knee into his ballsack as his hand drifted over my body before trying to run away. We fought a little, him out of confusion and fresh pain, but when he wouldn’t let me go without apologizing or explaining, I lobbed his phone into the surf and darted away. Seeing Luca and my dad appear as if from nowhere shattered the last of the cognition I had left, and it wasn’t until Luca kissed me with my dad just yards away I came back around.

He was always there. Either in my mind or waiting on the sidelines to mess me up some more.

Now he’d invited me to a fucking sex club, sending me the link as I walked off with his best friend, my father, who was comforting me in the aftermath of a fight. The gall of the man.

I skimmed the website he’d forwarded as I sat on the toilet. Scoffed and ignored it again until I was showered, changed and in bed. Jules had been asleep on top of the covers when I came in, still dressed for the day, sandals still on her feet. With guilt growing deeper, I pulled her shoes off and thrown a blanket over her body. Every damn thing was making that annoying shame bubble through me these days. What happened to my relaxing vacation? I snorted to myself at the thought that would ever happen with Luca down the hall. I’d operated under some intense naivety to think he would leave me alone.

Lying on the bed, I shuffled about to get comfortable, failing. It was a hard single mattress with thin sheets, pushed into the corner of the room with a floor to ceiling window and door to the balcony beside my head. We had a tiny balcony, just one step out before we reached the railing. The gauzy curtains hid us from any prying eyes, blocking our view of a car park. But my eyes wouldn’t shut, like there were pins between my eyelids keeping them wide open as the evening’s events ran through my tired brain.

Tonight, when Luca had caught me running from Kal, swept me into his arms and studied me for injuries, it had been with a surprise tenderness. None of the intentional sexual touch, only soft reverence as he skimmed his hands over my body. The warmth in his eyes had been missing since Halloween, replaced with a darkness only I seemed to see, but it had been there on the beach. Even the tender kiss he’d planted on my lips with my father close by… it shocked me more than him ravaging me would. I was used to the deviant side of Luca now, so the soft side had me thrown.

It was too gentle, too much like falling. I felt my spine crack and shift at the thought of actual emotions leaking in. My heart stomped in my stomach at the notion of more with him. It was unacceptable, would ruin lives even more than we already had. Those lives didn’t know they were ruined yet, but they would.

I tried to push it away, the way he’d made me pause with a lump in my throat, the way he’d checked if I was okay. It was more than as a friend’s daughter. I saw the expression in his gaze that neither of us wanted to be there.

Scrunching up my fists and squeezing my eyes shut, I forced all my pent up energy out into the room, away from me, to drift amongst the dust particles. My body ached. The jetlag and packed day made my bones weary. But my mind wouldn’t stop. Luca, loving him. Touching him. Fucking him. Hating him. I hated him. But every part of him called to me now.

He sent me another message just as I was giving up, reaching for my phone again to browse until the bright light hurt my eyes.

Luca: come, puppet. you can be my kitten for the night instead. we need to talk.

Our mothers had impressed none of us in booking a sunrise hike the morning after our arrival, but now that we were up on the hills, my breaths came easier. The air was cool and fresh, fueling my damaged body with bright clarity.

We trudged in silence along the well-worn path, following the quiet guide who’d met us in the lobby with a big grin and a huge backpack. Dad, Luca, and Jules were up front with him, asking the occasional question and setting a steady pace. Mom and Ali followed their husbands. Both wore pretty hiking gear, colorful matching sets, and high ponytails with visors. I was behind them in my cycle shorts and baggy t-shirt, walking slow, in the hopes the twins would overtake me too. They were chatting to each other, laughing and play-fighting as we walked. Trying to shove the other into the prickly bushes lining the path.

I was about to turn around and yell at them, then we crested the view point we’d been aiming for, and my mind went blank. It stunned me. The way the hills rolled and tumbled over each other, lush vegetation, and a volcano in the distance. I just gaped at it, mouth open, breath slow. The orange and purples shooting across the sky as the sun finished its ascent made me want to fucking cry. Holy shit. How could anything be wrong in a place like this?

I wasn’t aware of what anyone else was doing until Cole sidled up beside me. “What are you thinking about?” he asked, his voice teasing. Without realizing, I’d sat my ass on a rock facing the best of the view. Cole settled on the rock too, his thigh brushing mine as he handed me a bottle of water and a container of fresh pineapple. “From the guide,” he muttered, gesturing to the fruit.

Cole popped a piece of my pineapple in his mouth and smirked at me, the smug shit.

“The view, asshole,” I snapped back, snatching my bowl away from his greedy paws.

“Of who?”

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