porthole, projecting the shadows of the storm onto the back wall. I’ve been staring at it for hours. Awake. Alert. Wondering if Rafe is coming back, or if I’m going to spend a second night hugging his cold pillow.
He said it was a meeting. The period between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is always a smudge on the calendar, I know. But two days. What meetings last for two days?
My cell hasn’t buzzed once with a shit joke, or even a curt, one-word command. Instead, it’s burned a silent hole in my pocket as I’ve wandered aimlessly from room to room, taunting me with the idea of texting him.
My pride won’t let me.
My sigh melting into the thrum of rain, I kick the covers off my clammy body and prop myself up on my elbows. I’m hot and restless, and as pathetic as it is, I know only the soft lull of Rafe’s voice in my ear and the hard comfort of his body against mine, will soothe me.
I drop back on the pillow. Traps are the worst fucking thing.
I lie like this for a while, contemplating what to do. I’m down to my last For Dummies book, and I’ve called the Sinners Anonymous hotline so many times that my head is devoid of mundane topics. Just as I’m considering doing another lap of the yacht to burn some of this nervous energy, a low hum in the distance makes all the hairs on my arms stand to attention. My eyes slide up to the row of portholes lining the wall and the yellow glow from the boat lights that slowly washes over them.
Relief eases the pressure in my chest. Sliding under the covers, I close my eyes and strain my ears, listening to the movement shift around the yacht.
The engine shuts off. The swim deck groans. Only when the French doors open and slam shut so violently that the headboard shakes against my crown, does a sheet of unease slide over me.
It grows heavier with every irregular footstep that crawls across the ceiling. Almost suffocates me when the sound travels down the stairs and closes in on the cabin door. When the door clicks open and the smell of rain and animosity spills into the room, I squeeze my eyes shut and stop breathing.
Something’s not right; I can sense it. There’s a venom in the air, and Rafe’s breathing too loud. My arms tingle with awareness as he navigates the bed and sits in the armchair by my head.
Danger screams, but the silence is louder. Letting out the slowest, quietest breath I can, I dare myself to crack an eyelid—not wide enough for him to realize I’m awake, but enough to assess him.
His eyes are on me, his elbows propped up on the chair arms. He spins a poker chip between his thumb and forefinger, each turn glinting gold in the moonlight. He’s a rumpled version of himself: his hair is mussed, his shirt soaked, and the shadows even make him appear unshaven.
Even if I were wide awake and we were in the cold light of day, I wouldn’t be able to read his expression. His attention is unfocused, somewhere else. Somewhere bad luck thrives and heavy decisions have to be made.
I squeeze my eyes shut again.
A few seconds later, the chair groans and deliberate footsteps lead to the bathroom. The pipes gurgle and pop in the walls as he turns the shower on. Water pitter-patters against tiles and steam creeps under the door. The very normal act of him coming in and having a shower almost lulls me into a false sense of security, until a loud crack snaps through the room and bolts me upright.
What the fuck?
Heart pounding, I glare at the bathroom door. “Rafe?”
No answer.
On shaky legs, I slip out of the bed, cross the room, and knock. When there’s still no answer, I brace my bones and gingerly push the door open.
Fear chokes me, but nowhere near as much as not knowing what’s on the other side of it.
Behind the steamed-up glass, Rafe’s got his bare back to me. One hand is braced on the wall, his head dipped between his shoulder blades, while water droplets capture the moonlight, glistening like metal as they glide over his tattoos and swirl down the drain.
“Rafe?” His inked shoulders tense, but he doesn’t turn to look at me. “Are you okay?”
Silence and mist cloak me; I suck it in through my nostrils and almost gag on it.
Unable to take the tension, I yank open the shower door. Duck under his arm and slide in between him and the wall. His eyes are as icy as the water soaking through my T-shirt as he lifts them from the drain to me.
“Your socks didn’t work.”
What? Stupidly enough, I glance down at his feet, as if I’m going to find those ugly green socks growing damp. But what I see makes my throat dry. Blood, and lots of it, swirling with the water and disappearing down the drain. I follow the trail up his thigh, over his navel, and to the right of his stomach.
“You’re bleeding,” I whisper, reaching out to touch the bloody bandage. Realizing it’ll hurt, I curl my hand into a ball and press my back against the tiles. One scrapes roughly between my shoulder blades. A glance at his knuckles, also bloody, and I connect the dots; the crack was him punching the shower wall.
“What happened?”
His gaze is lazy and irritated. Blacker than the dark side of the moon. “You happened, Penelope.”
I blink the water from my eyes and stare at him through the downpour. For once, I’m at a loss for words.
His stare latches onto mine, burning hotter as it rolls over my soaked ponytail and down the length of my plastered T-shirt. He pauses at my breasts, running a hungry eye over my nipples.
“Get on your knees.”
My throat tightens. “What?”
He wraps his bloody fist around the base of his cock. It grows harder the longer I stare at it. “You brought me to my knees; now it’s your turn.”
I’m frozen, and not just because I’m drowning in a constant stream of ice water.
I don’t know this man. He isn’t the one who swoops in to steal a bite of my burger, or the one that kisses every mark he leaves on my body.
I don’t know him, and I don’t like being trapped between him and the cold shower wall pressing against my spine.
He takes a step forward and violence flashes in my veins. For a split second, the tiles are brickwork, the shower’s an alleyway, and he’s a man hell-bent on revenge. My hand shoots out and slaps him across the face, hard.
Rafe doesn’t flinch. “That all you got?” he says lazily.
So I slap him again. And again when his indifference doesn’t waiver. Anger roaring in my ears, I curl my hand into a fist, but as I draw it back, he ducks and, in one swift movement, sweeps me off my feet and lifts me over his shoulder.
Blood-soaked tiles, moon-streaked carpets. They pass in a breathless blur, until a sudden blast of ice water flash-freezes my skin.
It’s a million degrees colder than the shower stream. I gasp from the shock of it and instantly struggle to escape Rafe’s grip, but it’s unrelenting, and all I can do is scream as the carpet melts into the decking. He lowers me until wet metal touches the backs of my thighs and the wind lashes my hair.
There’s no time to gather my bearings because I’m falling backward. The sensation slows my perception of time, dragging my heart to my stomach, but it’s over as quickly as it began, because Rafe’s hand shoots out and grips me by the throat.
Wheezing, I sweep a panicked glance over my surroundings. I’m balancing on the railing that separates the bow from the raging ocean below. The only thing stopping me from falling into the abyss is the battered hand choking the life out of me.
I’ve always told myself I’ll stare death in the face when the time comes, not curl up into a ball like my father. One option I never considered was what I’m doing now; flailing my arms and legs, clawing at his inked forearm and screaming for mercy.
“Please!” By his blank expression, I don’t think he can hear me over the wind, so I scream it louder.
My stomach jumps to my throat when he takes a step forward, pressing his drenched forehead against mine. He smells like whiskey and looks like a man who has my entire life in his hands. Fuck, he had it anyway, long before he decided to hold me over the edge of a railing.
“If I throw you overboard, maybe this will all go away,” he growls. “Maybe I’ll get my luck back.”
I’m so cold I feel sick. So scared my heartbeat threatens to crack my ribs.
“You won’t!” I cry.
His hand slips around to the nape of my neck. I arch my back and press my body into his, feeling his hot, bitter laugh skitter down my throat. “I know I won’t. Can’t seem to hurt a fucking hair on your head, let alone end your life.” His squeezes, coasting his lips up to the hollow behind my ear. “You think I haven’t already tried, Queenie? I want to snuff the life out in you so badly, but if I do, it’ll go out inside me too.”
Numbness seeps into my skin and then freezes everything underneath it. I realize he thinks I meant he won’t kill me, not that he won’t get his luck back. It’s a crack in his demonic facade, and I dig my claws in.
“Please,” I whisper against his forehead. “I’m cold. We can talk about this inside. We can—”
He pulls back so suddenly my life flashes before my eyes. I grab onto his slippery bicep, my stomach muscles aching from where I’m trying to keep myself upright.
“I didn’t choose love!” he roars into the wind, eyes black and agitated. “I chose the King of Diamonds! I didn’t choose you!”
His anger sparks my own to life, and suddenly, I forget this man could end my life with a slip of a fingertip. “And I didn’t either, yet here I am, stuck in your fucking trap! Stuck so deep I fear I’ll never get out!”
His breathing slows, his eyes sharpening with clarity. I take advantage of it, putting my hand around his throat too.
We stare at each other. Him naked and bloody, me soaking wet and shivering.
We look nothing like the King of Diamonds and The Queen of Hearts.
Just two fucking idiots in love.
I swallow the thickness in my throat and whisper my truth.
“If I drown, you’re drowning with me. If you burn, I’m burning too. Pick your route to hell, Rafe. The destination and the company are the same.”
He makes a noise of anger. Grabs a fistful of my sopping ponytail.
And then he makes me a millionaire.
His mouth presses against mine, hot and desperate. My lips only part to let out a gasp from the shock, but he immediately slides his tongue in. As he tastes me, his moan fills my mouth, triggering violent, fire-starting sparks between my thighs. Fuck the storm; I can’t feel the freeze anymore. With every animalistic glide of his tongue against mine, with every nip on my bottom lip, my body grows so hot I could melt the Arctic.
His fingers slide down my nape and grip me there. Not only am I in his trap, the chains are pulled taut; he won’t let me move an inch. He leans into my hand wrapped around his throat when I pull back for air. Steps between my thighs when I attempt to twist my head from his grip. The warm heat of his groin radiates through the thin fabric of my thong, melting underneath into something pliable. Something that fits in his hands as perfectly as the rest of me does.
As he scrapes his teeth over my bottom lip, his stare clashes with mine through the sheet of rain. A pool of green lava, as angry and as reckless as his kiss. “Of course I’ve seen The fucking Notebook,” he growls, before fusing his mouth to mine again.
He refuses to break the kiss, even as he slaps my thighs so I wrap them around his waist.
Even as he lifts me off the railing and carries me inside. As he drops me on the bed, removes my clothes, and covers me with his hot, bloodied body.
And as he slides himself inside me, I hope he never does.
I wake up among damp sheets, swollen with unease. The type that fills all the hollow parts of me and pushes against my organs.
I’m on my side, facing the wall. My crumpled shirt, stained with second-hand blood, lies on the floor drying. A cool breeze taunts my bare back and I know.
But I lie here a little longer, playing my new favorite game: make-believe.
The rules are simple. If I just squeeze my eyes shut and clamp my hands over my ears, I can play it for as long as I like. I can feel the reassuring weight of his arm draped over my hip. Feel his lazy breaths tickling my nape.
But the thing about make-believe is, you can’t play it forever. I knew it on Christmas Day, and I know it now.
Movements slowed by dread, I roll onto my back and swipe my hand over his side of the bed. It’s as empty and cold as my heart. My fingers slide beneath his pillow and brush against something underneath it.
I prop myself up on my elbow and inspect it. It’s a card wrapped in a piece of paper. I unravel the paper and realize it’s a check for a million dollars. Then my eyes fall to the business card. To the number I know by heart, then to the written words that I don’t.
I own Sinners Anonymous.
I’m sorry.
Rafe.
I stare at it for the longest time. Not an ounce of emotion flowing through my blood. Not a single thought filling my head.
And then I curl my hand around the lamp on the bedside table, and I throw it at the wall.
