Page 12 of Return to the Island

9

Juliet

I returned to my room. It was a luxurious space and guilt riddled me over the king-sized bed with eight pillows. The canopy rippled overhead. The curtains billowed around the open balcony door. I refused to close off the tropical fragrance or the mild heat. Too many months were spent in cooler temperatures in Maryland to pass on this warmth.

I’d curled onto my bed and let the tears silently fall, tears I hadn’t shed in years for him, over him. My heart begged to be ripped from my chest. It ached for him in a way that made me breathless, and yet, nothing had gone smoothly, just as I had predicted. Damn Miller. We needed the money, but did we need it this badly? My face rolled into the pillow, smothering my tears, as I struggled with the memories. Tack’s hands on my body. His voice in my head. All of it seemed wrong compared to the man who sat to my left at that fancy dinner table. That man was nothing like the man I remembered. His smug smirk. His winking eye. His blatant lies.

Had the island only been an adventure to him? Camping? Hiking? Was it a luxurious vacation to him after all?

I drifted to sleep with these thoughts.

Later I woke with the sensation I was being watched.

“Tack,” I whispered, knowing he could be in my head, but silently desiring him to be real. He stood at the foot of my bed, surrounded in darkness, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon, his clothes from the evening still intact. His hands buried in his pockets. When he knelt on the bed and crawled over me, I knew I wasn’t dreaming.

“Was I part of the experiment?” he hissed. “Was I just a pawn in your project?”

My hand came forward. I don’t know if I prepared to slap him or cup his cheek, but he stopped me either way. Suddenly, both my wrists were pinned on either side of my head. His body hovered over mine.

“No,” I choked. “No, definitely not,” I added louder, rolling my head on the pillow. “I knew nothing about it.”

“What happened?” he snapped.

“Lillian. She lied to me. Used me.” We stared at one another, pleading eyes to glaring ones.

“Did you feel trapped with me? Is that why you took the name Mouse Trap?” He stared down at me, his eyes unfamiliar with their cold glare.

“No,” I snapped. The tension rolling off of him angered me. “What about you? Were you part of the game? The perpetrator there to taunt the victim? Did you play me so I’d fall—“

“Don’t,” he barked, breathing close to my lips. “Don’t you dare say what you’re thinking.”

Both our chests heaved, our breaths coming rapidly. He’d squeezed my wrists, forcing them against the bed as he spoke. I gasped, a memory flashing, and he slightly loosened his hold.

“I just thought, since it was all an adventure for you, a giant glamping trip…” The harshness to my voice faltered as his eyes opened wider, the green darkening in a way I didn’t remember. A flash of who he had been the first time I lay under him, the night he almost raped me, came to mind.

“How could you say that?” He growled, the sound guttural and low. I would say what I wanted. His anger infused me with the power to speak my mind.

“I have a lot to say. I—” His mouth came closer to mine, cutting off my speech. I feared he would kiss me. If his lips touched mine, I didn’t trust myself. I hated him and desired him in perfectly matched intensity. Instead, he paused, his breath caressing my lips. His hands slid forward from my wrists, finding my palms, and his fingers slipped through mine. I clasped his hands in return.

“I have a lot to say,” he whispered. “But I don’t want to talk.”

The tropical breeze in the room seemed to heat up to a hundred degrees. His body pressed partially down on mine. The length of him resting just above the achy spot between my thighs. His upper body was still elevated. His strength amazed me.

“We both know I could take what I want from you,” he warned, his voice sharpening.

We’re going to play this my way. The eeriness of that memory crawled through my mind.

“But we both know you want my permission.” I don’t know where the strength in me came from, but I spoke back to him with the same determination, same frustration. I trusted he’d never try to take me against my will. At least, I wanted to believe he’d never go there again with me.

“I ask for nothing,” he mocked, the coldness of his tone sending a shiver down my spine, but I wasn’t frightened. I was emboldened.

“You will from me.”

To prove me wrong, his mouth descended on mine—brash, harsh, punishing. As quickly as he captured my lips, he pulled back. The pressure might have left a bruise. I didn’t recognize him like this. Even that night, that fateful night, he’d asked.

Just one, he pleaded. He’d never kissed me like this.

“Tell me how many men have you been with since me?” he commanded.