Page 69 of Their Cruel Love

A thought surfaces, a shark cruising in dark waters. A crocodile, if you will.

Fuck.What if… What if she doesn’t intend to stay mine? Just because we are investigating a possible murder and screwing each other, that doesn’t automatically make us life partners. I should talk about it, with both of them. Should. This island is hardly an idle spot for romantic tête-à-têtes.

28

Phoebe

Without the weight of those strangers’ stares, the night sloughs off its brittleness and acquires a welcome, quiet laziness. It’s not just me, I can feel the men relax, through their hands, from their gait, and even from how they speak.

It isn’t long before I simply must stop. I slip my hand from theirs and pull my now-useless dress over my head, leaving it on the floor.

When they look curious, I shrug. “It wasn’t covering anything.” My nakedness is liberating. It’s my decision to throw away my clothes.

Now, what to do about the desires agitating inside me, a petulant storm that needs a shore or two to crash upon. If I don’t get to fuck them both soon, I may scream. I am at sea in a way I’ve never been before.

I’ve been super horny before, yes, but not with this freedom I now have to doanythingI want, providing they play along.

I lean into the wall, offering a smile before I take hold of Razor by the arm. I draw him closer, reaching up to the back of his neck until he leans down.

“What’s this, sweet sexy thing? Are you seducing me?”

“Perhaps?” On tiptoe I kiss him, gently, on the lips. When he responds and presses me backward, my head bumps on the wall. It’s a soft, languid kiss where we are, almost, equals. Then I do the same to Marcus who’s looking distinctly annoyed at being second.

Marcus leans a forearm into the wall above where I’ve slumped. I’m caged in by two predators and still naked, and this is perfect.

“Forward, isn’t she?” Razor offers.

“Very.”

“A spanking or a caning, Marcus? To discourage such forwardness.”

He grins.

“What? What did you expect? My butt is still remembering that hook inside me. It was not a trifle.” I raise an eyebrow, push out my breasts, teasing them.

“You can wait.”

I get my butt smacked, once, by both of them, and we keep going. It was worth it. My mouth remembers the kissing and my ass those smacks.

We walk about the pool looking in the nooks and crannies. This place has more of those than I expected. Motion detectors flick on lights here and there, most of them dim. We seek somewhere that holds enough light to feel safe and enough to see each other, yet we also want concealment. Around us thenight breathes soft as we find a little white, roofed gazebo nestling by a curve of the pool. Stirred by a breeze, the shallows lap ripples of light across the water’s edge.

No crocodile would ever deign to swim in this pool. Thank god. I’d have extra nasty nightmares. One would be crawling at me from the depths if I were left here alone.

Around us, small pink-and-white lights dot the walls of the enclosure and the trunks of the palms, the lattice walls of the gazebo. Fairy lights some would call these. I imagine them being scattered by a bunch of drunken elves that lost their Christmas tree.

“This looks good?” I venture.

“Yes.” Razor grabs me off my feet then swings me in a gentle circle. There is a frisson of awareness whenever they touch me, multiplied by the contrast between my nakedness while they are clothed. That would be an aberration anywhere but here. In some ways, this place is a godsend, allowing my most subterranean needs to climb to the surface of my consciousness, spitting out the dirt of what is right and wrong in society.

Spinning, spinning…Razor smiles down at me, lips twisting, a mix of fiend and friend captured in his expression.

If only my reason for being here wasn’t so malevolent…so potentially malevolent.

This is a place of whispers, secrets, and eyes, and every corner I turn I half-expect some monster to make itself known—probably by eating my face off.

When he gathers me up then drops me onto my back, I whoop and shriek though it’s a quiet shriek. I bounce a little on the large round bed taking up much of the space then flop backward, sighing.

“Nice.” The fabric is cool, swishing against my arm when Isweep it across the surface. The bed and the painted timberwork are pale and diluted, with only moonlight and those tiny lights to illuminate them. The sky is crosshatched by the overhanging lattice.

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