“Not even a little bit,” I say, though I’m grinning just a little.
“How’s the honeymoon going?” he asks, getting right to the chase. “Have you consummated your marriage yet?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“That’s a negative, ghostrider,” Cillian fills in for me. I can picture that stupid, lopsided grin on his face that makes him look like a human golden retriever. “How tragic. I should have given you some tips before you left. Practice unrolling a condom on a banana, that kind of thing. Pull up the Wikipedia page on female anatomy so you know where to put your dick.”
“I’ll come to you next time I need tips on how to leave a woman dry and unsatisfied.”
“Please!” he scoffs. “Women get wet just looking at me.”
“Women over sixty don’t count.”
“Fuck you,” Cillian laughs, before his tone irons out into seriousness. “But, honestly, how’s it going?”
I pause. How is it going?
I genuinely have no fucking clue.
We’ve been on this island a little while now and we still have a week left. That’s enough time to fuck each other senseless or stab each other bloody.
I can’t tell which outcome is more likely.
“Wow. If it’s taking you that fucking long to answer, I’m guessing it’s not going so good?”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Because you have fucked her?” Cillian asks. “Or because you haven’t?”
I roll my eyes. “Why is everything about fucking with you?”
“It used to be the same with you…” he points out, “…before.”
“I’m not the same man I used to be,” I say simply. “I haven’t been since Marisha.”
It’s as honest as I’ve been about that in a long time.
“Until recently,” Cillian corrects.
I frown. “What?”
“I don’t know,” Cillian muses vaguely. “There’s just something different about you lately. You seem less… pissed off. I think that happened around the time we stormed the Moreno compound.”
My frown deepens. I know what he’s trying to imply.
But I’m not taking the bait.
“Have you been keeping out of trouble?” I ask instead.
“Trying to change the subject?”
“Ah, the Irishman’s not as stupid as he looks.”
Cillian laughs. “I’m actually on my way out. Checking out this new club in town with the boys. Need to stop and get condoms. I have like ten on me, but I don’t think that’ll be enough.”
“You know you don’t have to wear a condom when you’re masturbating right?” I tease. “Especially not ten. Probably not good for blood flow.”
“Asshole.”
Laughing, we say our goodbyes. I hang up and turn off my phone.
But the moment the silence settles over me, I find myself—yet again—slipping back to thoughts of Esme.
I strip off my clothes and lie down on the bed, naked and tense as fuck. As my thoughts linger on Esme’s face, it takes only seconds until I’m hard.
I need a release, especially after what almost happened between us.
We were right on the edge together. Right on the cusp of falling into a mess we’d never get out of.
If I’d stripped her down and fucked her on that piano she had played so well, she wouldn’t have stopped me. She might’ve done what she’d done that night in bathroom at The Siren: begged for more, harder, faster, deeper.
So close to happening. So fucking close.
I saw the disappointment in her eyes when I’d pulled away, but something in me had struck a brick wall back there.
She’s conflicted. She’s wary of me. She doesn’t want this life.
That much has all been made very clear.
And as for me… I brought one woman into my world before. She died because of it.
I always swore I’d never make that mistake again.
I place my hand around the shaft of my cock and start massaging a little, imagining that it’s Esme’s hand around me.
That’s not enough, though. That’s just a fucking tease. A first taste.
My fantasy builds. I imagine her bending over me, her sexy little mouth parting slightly to take in my tip between those plump, perfect lips.
But even that fantasy crumbles almost immediately. Nothing is fucking satisfying about lying here alone with my hand on my cock when Esme was in the next room.
“Goddammit,” I growl up at the dark, silent ceiling overhead.
I abandon the sexual fantasy altogether and just picture her standing in front of me. I see what I always notice in her—the dark waves of her hair, the fire in her hazel-gold eyes, the defiant fullness in her bottom lip.
Sweet. Wild. Beautiful.
That’s what I want.
I jerk off to that image, thrusting up and down on my cock with increasingly violent movements until I burst over the sheets.
For one second, I’m purged of the never-ending desire.
A second later, as always, it’s back.
“Goddammit,” I say for a second time. “God fucking dammit.”
32
Artem
I move to the bathroom and wash my hands as I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
I look like an addict in withdrawal. Like I’m craving something.
No prizes for guessing what “something” that might be.
I splash cold water onto my face and move back to the bedroom. I’ve just pulled on my boxers…
When a scream explodes through the quiet night.
My mind goes blank for a second before I jump right into action mode.
I snatch my gun from my bedside table and rush out of the room, straight towards Esme’s where the cry came from.
The screaming is getting louder, more panicked.
My mind goes blind with fury.
This can’t be happening.
Not again.
Not to her.
For the first time since Esme has come into my life, I see Marisha’s face clearly. But it’s not an image I welcome.
It’s the image that’s haunted my nightmares for far too long.
In this memory, Marisha is lying on her back in a pool of her own blood. Her eyes are open, but she stares unseeing at the ceiling above her. Mouth parted, frozen in the middle of forming unspoken words that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I failed Marisha.
But I won’t fail Esme.
I slam open her door and rush into the room with my gun at the ready, looking around for the intruders.
I freeze when I realize there are none. No one else in the room but
