“I’m sorry. I think I dribbled on you.”
She chuckled. “Sex is messy. We can swim in the morning. Nothing’s perfect on an island with no showers. Go back to sleep, pretty one. I want to just cuddle you.”
“M’kay.” I snuggled in, still mostly on my belly with my hand curled on her shoulder. I was halfway to sleep when Klaus spooned up to my back.
“What about the crabs?” he whispered from close to my ear.
“Forget them,” I mumbled. With both of them warming me and stroking me, I faded out into dreamless soothing black.
For the next two days we luxuriated in our tropical paradise. I hiked around the island with no one holding a leash or telling me to beg or lie down or spread my legs. Though at other times, that happened. I discovered the fun, crazy side to Klaus as well as the way he could protect when called to. We spread sunscreen on each other and mocked the redness that showed when we’d done the wrong thing and sat in the sun too long anyway. And we administered pain-killers and Band-aids when someone stepped on a rock and scraped themselves.
I even did this to Klaus while he watched—smoothed a Band-Aid onto his knee. His bemused expression pleased me. I liked him like this—fun yet wise, yet an amazing lover.
It was when he threatened to stick metal through my nipples and torture me that I cringed. He was smart to tie me up at those times. I would have run. Sad but true. He was so close to perfect yet he’d never be right for me. And soon I would be freed. Why was I so sad then? Too much ecstasy, too much attention paid to me, I guessed. I’d wallowed in them treating me as their treasured thing for so many days that the good things I’d loved overwhelmed all the pain and humiliation. I had to admit to myself—I liked being their sex object.
Soon, I’d have withdrawal symptoms.
And so we swam and splashed each other, made sand castles, of all things, and Jodie and I ran away shrieking from Klaus when he found something dumb to do, like chase us with a bucket of water with a crab in it.
On the Saturday, Chris arrived. He’d hired a speedboat and come out from Bowen after driving there overnight. His casual nod when he sauntered onto the beach, chilled me. The sun dimmed a notch.
At times, that day, he and Klaus sat discussing what they should do. I heard raised voices, or more raised than seemed usual during a measured discussion. Later at night, with the campfire crackling between us, they came to a decision. The teriyaki steak he’d brought with him was marinated perfectly. The bought salad was also no doubt delicious, but all I could think of was their final words. My last bit of food went down as a gray, tasteless lump. Tomorrow I was to return to the island with Chris so he could free me. If Klaus scared me, Chris fucking terrified me.
“Let’s go for a walk.” Jodie took my hand and tugged me to my feet.
We strolled, arm in arm, past the circle of brightness, our eyes adjusting to moonlight as we trod the cold sand. We couldn’t go far anyway and the only predators on this island were the mosquitoes and the men behind us.
I stared up at the crescent moon and leaned my head in toward Jodie with my arm sliding about her waist.
“Friends still?” she murmured. “Even after everything?”
“Yes.” I was miserable and didn’t know how to fix this.
The coldness at the pit of my stomach was to do with my dread of travelling with Chris, or so I told myself, and nothing to do with leaving Klaus and Jodie. I was sure of that, until she pulled me up against a sun-warm boulder and kissed me.
Jodie tilted up my chin with her fingers. “I’m sorry this ends you know, though I guess to you this is a victory. You know that I love you?”
I rested my forehead on hers a moment, struggling with my answer. “Yes, I do. Because I love you too.”
Then she sniffed and curled her arms around me, hugging me in tight. I began to cry, silently, trying not to let her notice because it was so dumb.
A tear rolled onto her arm from my cheek.
“You crying?”
I sighed, and nodded. “I’m stupid, aren’t I?”
“I have no idea. Guess we both are. Let’s just hug a while before we go back.”
“Okay. And…” My hands were at her hips and I moved my fingers and resettled them, squeezing, playing with her as the cotton dress slid on her skin. I wanted to somehow implant a memory that would never fade of her warmth, her exact shape, of the sound of her voice, and her scent. I never wanted to forget this night. “Jodie, I’d like to kiss you again. If that’s okay?”
I felt her laughter in the shake of her body. “Sure. We can do that. This, pet, should be our goodbye. I want to make it now and not tomorrow when the guys are watching.”
“Yes. I want that too. Though I wish…”
You could come with me.
But that was wrong, she belonged to Klaus more than to me. I was a late extra.
She paused for a long shuddering inhalation. “Oh my, though. I don’t know where Klaus and I are going. Maybe he’ll say after you’re gone?”
Here we were saying our goodbyes and she was worried more about where they were going? Somehow that said this, us, didn’t mean as much to her as it did to me. The story of my life.
“Maybe. Maybe you can somehow send me a message and I can come visit you? In a few months? A year?”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound hopeful. That was yet another blow to my ego. Here I was, willing to follow her to some unknown place and to risk being near Klaus, dealer of pain, and she rejected me?
Get over it.
My mind didn’t listen too well to its own instructions. The hurt stayed even if I managed to push it to the back.
I caressed her side before I drew back to look into her eyes. “I won’t give you up to the police. I’ll manage somehow. I’ll lie. I’ll make up stuff. I will.”
“Thank you.” I could see the vague upturn of her mouth that said she smiled.
“There’s just one thing. Can you ask Klaus to double-check what happens after I go? Follow the news or something? Chris scares me even more than he does.”
“I will. Promise. Though, girl, he’s trustworthy. He might be a little kinky and crazy like Klaus, but I trust him. Whatever Klaus tells him to do, he will. Be happy. Don’t worry.”
I nodded. I wasn’t convinced, but I nodded. No point in concerning her over something that might be nothing and that I couldn’t alter.
“Now,” she whispered. “Kiss me like you said. We got moonlight and a deserted tropical island and we really shouldn’t waste this night.”
“Sure.” I leaned in and met her lips chastely, with feather-light kisses that roved over her mouth, her chin, her nose, and then the slender curve of her eyebrows.
When she growled and dragged me up hard against her, I melted into her embrace. That was my Jodie.
In the morning, after an awkward breakfast on the beach sitting on the driftwood logs we’d been using for days, Chris rose to his feet and looked across at me. “Time to go. We have a boat ride then a fairly long car drive. Klaus.” He put out his hand and they shook.
I didn’t move. The bowl of breakfast cereal hadn’t been to my taste anyway with the strange milk we used. Trying to stay calm, I placed it in the sand. “You haven’t told me anything. What is happening?” Jodie’s comforting words seemed to lose their effect in the sunlight. “I don’t know that I want to go with him.”
“Stay there, Jodie.” Though she hesitated, she stayed. Klaus came over, the sand squeaking underfoot. He squatted in front of me. “Steph, what’s happening is what I said would weeks ago. You’re being set free. Except not overseas, because there’s no way I can guarantee your safety there. And I see no point in releasing you far away somewhere else in Australia because you’re very likely going to be found out for who you are. Chris will let you contact the police on the island after we have time to fly out. With Kat adding to the chances of this going wrong, I’ve decided this is the best answer. He was going to tell you all this.” Klaus lowered his head for a second before continuing. “But that’s it in a nutshell. We no longer need you to lie, except about one thing.”
“One thing?” I stared over his shoulder at Chris. “But you trust him.”
His hand came up under my chin. “Look at me.” Those gray eyes. I quivered. I needed to grow a fucking backbone. “Yes, I do trust Chris. He’s been honorable in this except that he’s helped me. The one thing is that you need to help protect him. Otherwise he may be charged with being an accessory. Okay? So say what he tells you to when you’re asked questions.”
“I guess I can do that.”
His explanation was so reasonable that the knot of anxiety low in my chest lessened.
“What about me though? You told me I would get charged. How has that suddenly vanished?”
“What Chris said to you is most likely correct. You’ll get an exemption providing the cops think you’re co-operating, because of what we did to you.” In his smile and his eyes was a hint of the sadistic man I feared, and I blinked and forced myself not to look away.
“Okay,” I croaked out. “I see.”
Most likely. Shit. Better be.
I was the one who had to go do this.
He gripped my jaw firmly enough that it was close to pain, in the
V
of his fingers and thumb and his next question was said in a dead-level tone. “Stephanie, what if I said we’d get you out too? We’re going out on regular flights, but…if I put my mind to it, I can get you out anonymously. Would you stay with us? Would you like to continue to be our pet and our toy?”
Dead serious. Oh god. He meant it and just him asking this aroused me, I could feel my body responding, feel myself dampening, my nipples peaking. Insane. I shut my eyes. “No. Please no.”
“Please?” he murmured, laughing a little. “That you say please tells me a lot. I wish I could force you to stay with us, little fucktoy. But I can’t.”
I willed him to let me go but he didn’t for several traumatizing minutes. He was looking at me but I simply could not open my eyes.
But I watched him walk away. My emotions were a fragile mess—a mess of joy, despair, loss. How in the world did saying goodbye to him mean loss? I rubbed the ache from my forehead. Just having him do that, talk to me like that, had drained me.
But it made me wonder if Jodie had mentioned my idea of visiting to him.
I said my farewell to her without crying though I could see a hint of them in her eyes. We simply held each other tightly but said no words apart from a whispered goodbye.
As the boat pulled out into the open sea, she wiped at her face. I waved for a few seconds before letting my hand flop to my lap. The lush red seat of the speedboat was padded but my teeth rattled as we hit waves.
Klaus hadn’t even said goodbye. My last sight of him was of a man with sternness carved in the lines of his face like he’d turned to rock.
But…I hadn’t wanted a hug or anything. I just wanted
something
.
From my kidnapper. Yeah. I shook my head.
“Not far to the mainland!” Chris yelled back. He smiled. “Cheer up. You’ll be free to do what you want soon.”
I nodded. True, except I felt numb. Emotionless. As if someone had died, only I couldn’t figure out who to mourn for.
Chris acted like a human guide dog, he didn’t put a foot wrong, telling me what would happen next and why, asking me to hide under a baseball cap and scarf inside the car as we crossed via vehicular ferry back to the island. I wasn’t sure why we had to go back there, but then he explained his house was there. Of course, how else could he hide me while Klaus and Jodie caught their plane to wherever in the world they’d headed?
I wondered how long they would remember me. A year? A month? A day?
His house was a neat modern rendered-brick, two-story thing perched on a hillside on Horseshoe Bay. Ironic really, considering where this all began.
I barely glanced at the outside as we pulled into his garage. My borrowed sunglasses, cap and scarf came off—how un-suspicious wearing a fucking scarf in this climate. My collar and cuffs were still on. Chris didn’t have the key to the little padlocks and, besides, I was meant to have escaped, so I’d still be wearing them. Made sense, though it also made me uneasy.
In a blurred state of emotional exhaustion, things happened, and a room was found for me. I flopped back on the single bed and stared at the white ceiling wondering what the hell I was doing.
Late afternoon, from the sun on the wall. I drifted into sleep curled up at the bottom of the bed.
Someone’s hand shook me and I burst into reality, gasping, scrambling backward across the bed.
“Hey. Hey.” It was Chris. He held up his hands. “It’s okay. I don’t bite. If you’re hungry, I came in to tell you dinner will be ready soon. Toilet’s down the hallway.” He backed up. “Look, the door’s open and you can come and go.”
My heart slowed to less than jet plane speed. I gulped and let go of my hold on the quilt. “Thanks.”
“Why not come out and watch me cook?”
“Sure.”
I waited for him to go. The door might be open but the man had steel grates on his windows.
Ah. Course. Stupid. They were burglar proofing or something. Even though I’d been a total zombie on the trip back he’d done absolutely nothing bad. Chris had a corner on the being a gentlemen thing.
In the kitchen, I found him preparing to cook a Moreton Bay bug. Yum. I realized I was starving. Nothing was better than these lobster-like critters on a plate. My cooking antennae refused to let me stay back. “Need a hand?”
He peered over his shoulder at me. “You can cook one of these? I buy them sometimes but they turn out tough.”
I heaved out a sigh. This I could do. Cooking calmed me. “How you can make one of these tough, I do not know. Like to have it with garlic butter?”
“Sure.” He stepped aside. “I may have garlic somewhere. Butter is for certain.”
Bugs were sweeter than lobster if done right. “All you need is a frying pan at the right temp and that garlic and butter.” I frowned. “Seriously, this is the easiest thing.”
“Go. I’m at your mercy. Cook it how you want to.”
My frown faded. What had I been afraid of? Chris was, if I subtracted his initial odd behavior in the room, sexy and big and one of the squarest-looking men in build, but he was plain
nice
. He’d been gorgeous. Just, yeah, I wouldn’t want to be a fly he swatted.
Maybe that’s what set me against him from the start?
Big equaled scary.