“That's… that's your truck?”
He laughed. “Yeah. Sweet set of wheels, isn't it?”
“Not really,” I replied. “It's going to be a bitch for me to climb into it.”
Maddox turned to me, anticipation and dare I say a hopeful innocence behind his eyes.
And for some reason, which I will never quite be able to explain, I put my hand on his. It was a lot like the feeling I had when I rammed the Insatiable onto a reef. Unseen forces, invisible spirits, name the cosmic compulsion.
Whatever it was, when he entwined his fingers with mine, I didn't pull away. In fact, I found myself hoping we would stay like that for a while. Which we did. We sat there in a strange, comfortable silence as the breeze continued to rustle the palms, with the sound of the ocean waves crashing behind us, and surrounded by the lilting scent of apples.
Maddox and I were definitely starting a new chapter. Or maybe a new book. It would take a lot of forgetting the past, forgiving it, to have any real shot at a future.
As he turned into me, palm on my cheek and his lips on mine, I think I finally understood what letting go of the bad felt like. I finally felt what it felt like to not be alone anymore.
In this moment, I wasn’t really trying to map out a future. Which is exactly what I should have been doing. Because then, and only then, would I have realized that the only right thing to do, was to kiss Maddox this one last time, and say my goodbyes.
Instead, I climbed into his truck.
Into his bed.
Into his heart.
Epilogue
RAMONA
I was floating. Weightless. As if I could fly.
Naked, and beneath the canopy of dusk, I watched as the full moon began to rise through the wispy tendrils of clouds.
Far below, the waves crashed against the shore in their strange, rhythmic roar of the ocean's lullaby. Here in the water, I felt glorious, ethereal. Like the Lady of the Lake. Or in my case, the lady of the infinity pool.
Maddox’s lips brushed against my breasts. Gently, slowly, one then the other. He lightly kissed the very tip of my nipple, the scruff of his mustache a delicious contradiction to the soft touch of his lips.
“You never get enough, do you?” I said, my voice a little hoarse. I was still recovering from one of the most delightfully excruciating orgasms of my sexual career.
“Mmm-mm,” he replied, and took his hand from the small of my back, drew it across my buttocks, and placed it just between my legs. He squeezed me, just a little, and pressed his thumb against my pubic bone, making small, exact circles.
I gasped, arching my back, feeling the surface of the water lapping against my forehead. He was making me come, again, and this one erupted inside my pussy in a single, magnificent pulse.
I grabbed his hand, and held it, tightly, as my third climax of the night ebbed away.
“You’re killing me, little by little,” I managed, once I could breathe again.
“Yeah, but what a way to go. Am I right?”
I nodded, pulled myself onto his lap, and nestled my head beneath his. The water lapped gently against my back as I hooked my arms around his neck.
“This couldn't be construed as against policy, could it?”
“Nah. Technically, it's our pool,” he said, and scooted us back against the baja shelf – a smooth ledge of tiled concrete that ran just below the surface – every other ceramic square painted with various images of ashen-plumed, island birds.
We sat in silence for a while, simply watching the night sky take over the day, and feeling perfectly at home in paradise. And that was the whole idea.
Cliffside Passages was designed to be peaceful. Healing. A kind of twenty four seven meditative state of mind. Not your normal, industrially designed detox facility.
Its grand opening was tomorrow, almost a year to the day when Maddox and I were plucked from Santa Diabla by Captain Rogero and his good ship Dicey.
I had a hell of a lot of adjustments to make in the months that followed – personally, and physically. Learning how to walk without the damn crutch again was an absolute bitch.
Shacking up with Maddox? Surreal.
It was as if I was becoming a whole new person, all without leaving the old one behind. The award-winning weirdest part of my trip down this rabbit hole, however, was avoiding the press.
In the months that followed, Maddox and I had gotten quite accomplished at ducking and weaving the media. So far, we'd managed to keep our, shall we say, sordid history from them.
Fortunately, Atlantic Charter had been bought off and sworn to secrecy, and Rogero and his first mate happily scrawled their signatures at the bottom of one of Maddox's non-disclosure agreements. An agreement that was modified in certain sections and with greater financial incentives, of course. But there was always the looming possibility of someone, somewhere, leaking out what they knew. Maybe Martin Stiller, or Phyllis. The bozos from Jericho Security. The numerous, faceless women my fiancé had slept with once upon a darker time.
That was the biggest metaphoric pill I had to swallow. Women are jealous, vindictive beasts, and I'm not speaking of former lovers Maddox had chained to his bed at one point or another. I was talking about me. Jealousy and revenge were two character traits that ranked high on my list of shitty behaviors. Mix those into the fiery blood of a hotheaded Latina, and
