Page 29 of Boneyard HEA

I push through the door and find a neat bathroom with a toilet and a shower. I do the texting while I pee.

What will Loxland do if he catches me? Sew my mouth shut? Cut off my fingers? None of those, I hope. He’s a billionaire who used to teach math, and men like him have been known to execute ex-wives, let alone women they have blackmailed and dragged into sex parties.

Before hitting send, I pause. Can I even use this as my ace in the hole without endangering Rebecca? What if he sends some sort of SWAT team to go get my phone and destroy it? Again, he is a billionaire.

I bow my head, then press send.

It’s good. It is. I’m exaggerating the risk to her. Me? I deserve what I get but, please, not yet. Not until I have them. The bad… No, make that the badder guys. Loxland and Tomás are still bad, aren’t they?

Tsk, girl. Remember your standards. They haven’t killed anyone. They’re lukewarm bad.

Now, all I have to do is use what I did as leverage.

Murderers have balls. I merely rediscovered mine, is all.

11

Juniper

The engines of our catamaran ferry, the Wallaroo, surge into a bellow then throb lower, and the boat slows and curves more to the left of the distant island jetty.

To stop myself lurching sideways, I grip the edge of the bench seat I’m sitting on. The tension in my arms seems a perfect reflection of my fidgety mood.

With this palm-covered island floating before me, the past few days at Mr. Loxland’s house seem long ago and dreamlike. I was repeatedly caged and stripped, and tied up for them, the target of possibly every sexual fantasy ever devised by mankind, minus any really damaging sadism since they are sparing me for this kinky party. Nevertheless I’m aching in places I’ve never ached before. Which is, I guess, both good and bad?

What woman doesn’t want to be obsessed over and given a gazillion orgasms? Sighing, I shift my butt into a better position on the seat. I don’t know enough about this party, and it worries me.

Yesterday they toned down the sex and let me walk around the house with some clothes on.

I smile, remembering how Lucy followed me, carrying her ball or a stick, unaware of my status as a sex toy and wanting me to play with her.

The boat jolts into a wave and spray dashes across the bow, with the cool breeze whipping my hair across my face. I tuck it back, for the fifth or sixth time. Out here is cleansing my brain of my nightmares of the ominous endings I might suffer, like being buried in Mr. Loxland’s basement. Not that I’ve seen anything from him that makes me think he would do that.

But I have nothing new from him about the video. No clues. He’s withholding them—he must be. Yet how do I make him tell me?

I spent last night wedged between the two men on the super king-size bed, and I’m unsure who was the most uncomfortable. Apart from wearing the collar, I was naked. Were they as hyperaware of me as I was of them? I hope so.

I touch the collar that’s become a permanent fixture, running my fingertips over the leather’s raw edge. I know what it signifies—ownership. Touching it, as if to reassure myself that it’s still there, is a habit I’ve developed.

How callous am I to be going to a sex party with two men who aim to fuck me stupid, and give me a thousand more orgasms, after I killed a man with a shovel? He’s barely cold in his… No. He’s not in the dirt. According to Loxland and Tomás, he’s been incinerated. I must find out where the ashes were scattered so I can go there and spit on them, one day, when I’m free.

Because this is not freedom.

However, it feels like I’m being rewarded. Unless their threat of sewing bits of me is real, then it’ll turn into punishment.

I should’ve given myself up. I grimace and squint into the wind. Riley would smack me for thinking that.

“Hey.”

I jump as someone lands a hand on my arm and squeezes. I look over my shoulder to find Tomás behind me. “Hi.”

“Something is wrong?”

I can’t help shaking my head at that. I shrug. “Everything.”

“Tell me?”

“This is just wrong. Going to your party to have an orgy or whatever after I killed a man?” I seriously hope the boat captain hasn’t bugged this area. “I’m a disgusting person, aren’t I?” I don’t expect anything except a yes to that.