Savage Dom: A Dark Romance: Savage Island Book One Page 10

  “Oh, and you’re the one, are you? You jerk! Let me go!” I scream furiously, which just earns me another hard spank.

  “Thankfully, yes,” he says, unruffled, and for some inane reason, I’m turned on and it pisses me off.

  “Put me down!” I scream, scissoring my legs and wriggling as hard as I can.

  “Not until I know you’re going to behave yourself,” he says with another whack of the brush.

  “Behave myself! As if I’m a child! I will do no such thing!”

  “Alright, then,” he says. “Suit yourself.”

  Warm air brushes my ass as he lifts my dress and pulls down my panties. My God!

  “Cy! You stop that!” I scream, but it’s not just because I don’t want to be spanked, though there’s that. I’m ridiculously turned on and mad as fuck about it.

  “I don’t think so,” he says, before he smacks the back of the brush on my bare ass. I squeal and squirm. My hairbrush is solid wood with a flat back, and it hurts like hell. “I think that not only do you need someone to bring you to heel, but you like it, too.”

  “I do not, you big ogre!” I screech, bucking and wriggling, but not able to actually get away from him at all.

  “Oh yeah?” he asks, rubbing the back of the brush over my scorched ass. “So, if I part your thighs, I won’t find you wet as fuck?”

  “No!”

  “You’re lying,” he says. “And if you lie to me, you’ll earn a harder spanking.”

  I don’t respond, since I’m not sure what to say.

  “Tell me,” he says, spreading my thighs apart with the back of the brush, before he scrapes the bristles up and down my inner thighs. “Tell me, Harper,” he repeats. “You’re not at all turned on when I punish you?”

  I swallow hard, because just hearing him say the words makes my heart thud in my chest and my pussy clench. I whimper when he glides the brush between my thighs. The need for pressure right there makes my mouth go dry and my pulse ratchet even higher.

  “I think if you’d let me take care of you, you’d like it more than you know,” he says.

  I already have, I protest silently. But it’s a silly argument. I’m putting modern expectations on a situation that’s so outside the norm.

  “I didn’t say—I didn’t mean—” my voice trails off, since I’m not sure what I want to say.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere, babe,” he says, smoothing the varnished wood over my ass as he talks. “And this argument is over.” He calls me babe like we’re dating, and for some reason it seems fitting.

  I gasp when his hand is between my legs again, his palm cupping my pussy. My clit throbs and I want him to touch me so badly I’m whimpering.

  “Okay, okay,” I tell him, and in my head, I beg, touch me. I can hardly think beyond my need for relief. It’s so insistent it’s nearly painful.

  I won’t fight him, not now. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if ever there were a desperate time, this is it.

  I close my eyes when I feel his hands between my legs. I can’t breathe or speak or move, my only focus the persistent, furious pulsing between my thighs.

  “That’s a girl,” he encourages. “See, it isn’t all bad now, is it?” If I wasn’t so turned on it’d seem condescending, but I don’t care now. He strokes and fondles, and I’m so aroused I’m already near climax. I’m so ready for this, a few more strokes of his fingers and I soar into bliss right there, climaxing right over his knee, panting and writhing while he wrenches pleasure from my body until I’m spent.

  I’m in a haze when I feel him dressing me again. He turns me over and sits me on his knee. Taking my chin in his fingers, he keeps my gaze locked with his. I’m still breathing heavily, my pulse simmering down to normal. I feel shy and a little embarrassed at how hard and easily I climaxed.

  “I’m in charge here, Harper,” he says. “Whether you like it or not. Got it?”

  I nod meekly, because I have no more power to deny him than I have to get myself off this island.

  “We end up back home, then you can go back to whatever it is that makes you tick. You get that, too?”

  “Yeah,” I whisper. Because we will get back, damn it, and I want back to my normal life again.

  When we do… will we ever see each other again? Or will we part ways, strangers once more?

  Why do I care?

  I’m not even sure what I’m consenting to, or if I’m even consenting. It’s more that he’s just telling me the way it is, and between being out of my element and my insatiable need for sex, I don’t have a lot of resistance left in me right now.

  “Good,” he says, righting me. I’m still trembling so I stumble a little, but he holds me by the arm to steady me. “We’re heading down to the beach.” He hands me my hairbrush. “Put that in your bag for now.”

  Meekly, I obey, then go to sling my bag on my back, but without a word he takes it from my hands and takes the bag himself. Birds twitter overhead, and in the distance, I hear the soothing sound of waves crashing on shore. The sun is rising higher in the sky, and a gentle, warm breeze warns of the heat of the day ahead of us. Everything seems normal, but nothing is normal at all.

  Eleven

  Cy

  It doesn’t matter to me where she came from.

  It doesn’t matter to me who she was before she landed on this island.

  Now that she’s here, she’s mine. Fully. Entirely. Under my protection, under my watch, and in my bed, makeshift as it is.

  She may have ideas in her head about how things should be, but I’ve buried four men and fuck if I let her be another casualty.

  Today, we’ll go to the beach. I’ll take her back to the shelter the six of us built when we first got here, and we’ll head to the shore. I’ll show her the lay of the land on this island and introduce her to what it means to survive here. For now, food is plentiful, so we’ll spend our time stocking up on what we can.

  And I’ll find the other motherfucker who threatens our safety. I watched as one by one the other men degenerated into being animals. If Will is hungry, or the poison of this island has affected him, he may have become like one of others. Barely human. Fucking dangerous.

  And even if he hasn’t, I want to know where he is.

  When I was younger, I dated a few girls. I was the guy who always sat so he could see the door in a restaurant. I slept near the door in the bedroom. I walked on the outside of the street. It’s part of who I am to know where danger lies and to be the first one to face it when necessary.

  And now it’s fucking necessary.

  I spanked her good and hard this morning, and I don’t regret it. Hell, I’m hard as a steel rod now, but we’ve got more important things to do right now than fuck… again. We both have admitted this island’s some sort of aphrodisiac or something, and we have to fight against the constant irresistible attraction between us.

  For now.

  We’ll have time.

  I’m holding her hand as we walk to the beach, her bag slung over my shoulder. This time, we won’t let anyone else touch it.

  If Will wants to mess with us, then why did he bring the bag back?

  Or does he want us to know that he’s out there watching?

  Either way, I will draw that motherfucker out, and if he tries to hurt my girl, I will end him. I will fucking end him.

  I’ve done it before. I’d do it again.

  The first human life you take guts you. It makes you hyper aware of how fragile and temporary life on this earth is.

  The second becomes easier. And the third. As a soldier, I learned to mask my fears and focus on my ultimate purpose. Back then, it was to serve my country and protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.

  Now it’s Harper.

  She’s not a helpless female, though I’m sure a part of her thinks I think that. She’s held her own on this island, and honestly better than half the men who died before she got here. Though she has her moments of grousing about our circums
tances, she’s ready to get shit done when necessary. Hell, I love that about her.

  “Oh, wow.” We’ve come to the entrance to the beach where we built the shelter long ago. It’s a part of the beach she hasn’t seen before, and from where we stand now, it looks like a fucking postcard. White sand as far as the eye can see, the beach dotted with picturesque shells and flat rocks on the shore.

  “Yeah, it’s beautiful,” I agree.

  “All that’s missing is a cabana and someone to serve us drinks with little umbrellas in them.”

  It’s missing a fuck of a lot more than that, but I don’t argue with her.

  “Looks idyllic,” I agree. “But you can’t swim in that water.”

  Frowning, she turns to me. “Sharks?”

  “Yep.”

  Her gorgeous green eyes narrow on the water as we make our way to the sand. “Did you find that out the hard way, too?”

  I close my eyes, instantly assaulted at the memory of the body torn to shreds. We did everything we could, but we didn’t have the tools to save him. Watching him die didn’t solidify our bonds as it could have, as it does sometimes in war. Instead, it served as a brutal reminder of how easily we could die here. We began to turn on one another.

  “Yeah.”

  She doesn’t reply, but I notice she’s walking slower now.

  “There’s a place close to the beach where you can swim, though. You got sunblock in that bag?”

  “I do.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Where?”

  I point beyond the beach to a more distant alcove. “That inlet over there. Enough water gets in and out, but the opening isn’t large enough for a shark to get through. It’s almost like a little pool.”

  We reach the beach and she digs her toes into the white sand. “Wow, it’s already heating up, huh?”

  I nod. There are days when the temperature’s nearly unbearable.

  “Can we go for a swim?”

  “We? Nah. I’m not interested. You can, though.”

  “Why don’t you want to join me?” she asks, her head tipped to the side. She looks at me so coquettishly, I would almost give her anything right then.

  “Need to keep watch.”

  She looks to the beach, then back to me again. “Fair enough.”

  “We have a few things to do today, though.”

  “Check out the shelter.”

  “Gather some water.”

  “Stock up on some food supplies?”

  Neither of us says the other item on our agenda out loud: find Will.

  I nod, glad that we’re on the same page. “Absolutely. It will be better to wait to get your swim in later, once it isn’t so hot out.”

  “Later this afternoon?”

  “Yeah.”

  Without another word, she sits on the beach, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I’m game for whatever we need to do. I just want to look at the water for a minute. It’s so beautiful.”

  I cover my eyes and look out at the vast expanse of endless blue-green water. Neither of us speak, but I sit on the beach next to her and we watch the waves coming in and out in silence. Wispy white clouds dot the sky.

  “It’s as if someone painted paradise,” she says softly. “All the different shades of blue and blue-green. Turquoise. Cobalt. Ultramarine. Sapphire. Cerulean.”

  “Yeah, makes it sound a lot better than just ‘blue.’”

  The sky is lighter where it meets the ocean. Dotted with wisps of white clouds, it gradually becomes a darker blue, a breathtaking contrast to the greenery that surrounds the beach. Palm trees that surround the island bow their heads and branches as if in adoration of the ocean.

  “You could almost imagine something hidden in those depths,” she says.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind there are things hidden in those depths.”

  “I mean like… mermaid kingdoms, and kings that rule with tridents. Buried treasure and the like.”

  “I mean sunken ships and sea creatures.”

  She smiles softly but doesn’t reply.

  “We should get out of the sun,” I tell her. “Only a few minutes in direct sunlight like this, and your fair skin will scorch like a lobster.”

  “Mmm, lobster,” she says, getting to her feet. “Sounds delicious. Is there lobster here?”

  “Not sure,” I reply. “But I’ve caught at least a dozen types of fish.” Not during the famine, though. Not when there was no food to be found anywhere.

  “Where are we?” she asks. “Do you think we’re near the Cayman Islands? That’s where we were supposed to be landing yesterday.”

  Was it only yesterday?

  “I have no idea,” I tell her. “What port did you sail out of?”

  “Miami.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She looks at me quizzically. “Do you think I forgot something as simple as that?”

  “No.” I don’t supply the rest of my answer, and she doesn’t push it either. I think that she was manipulated into being here. That she wasn’t left by accident. Unless she saw evidence that she actually sailed out of Miami, she could’ve been literally anywhere. I’m not above a conspiracy theory. In fact, I’m pretty damn well convinced we have good reason to be concerned.

  “Let’s go over the food supplies we could stock up on,” she suggests.

  “First, let’s get to the shelter and see what condition it’s in. We have to be sure Will isn’t there.”

  “Do you think he might’ve gone there?”

  I shrug. “No idea.” I don’t think he would, to be honest. He had to know eventually I’d make my way back there, and hopefully the guy’s scared of me.

  Unless he really has become feral.

  Like the rest of them.

  What if she becomes like the rest of them, snarling and beyond recognition as a human? The look in their eyes when they go past human comprehension or reason…

  It makes me glad the others are dead.

  “How far’s the shelter?”

  “Not far.”

  We walk on the beach to the edge of the woods, because it’s easier walking this way but still out of direct sunlight, with the wide branches of the palm trees above us giving us shelter.

  “Can you tell me about the others?”

  “I will. Not now.”

  She doesn’t push it. I don’t want to talk about it right now.

  “I’ve never been in a place like this.”

  “Has anyone?” I laugh mirthlessly. Idyllic but dangerous, the island’s like the mythological sirens, luring us in with their beauty only to have us crash to death on the rocky shores. Dangerously seductive.

  “I mean like a vacation spot. My parents were very simple, and we had hardly any money. We would camp here and there, but we never went to a beach, and we never visited an island.”

  “What about when you were grown up? An adult? No trips to Cancun on spring break even?”

  “Nah. I was already guardian to my brother and had no time or money for anything like that.”

  “I can relate to that.” I want to know how she came to be guardian of her brother, but we have time to learn more about each other. Christ, all we have is time. Endless time.

  I hold the branches on a low-hanging tree in front of me so they don’t smack across her face. She ducks and follows my lead.

  “How so?” she asks.

  “I went straight to the Navy. But I did get to travel then. I saw some beautiful sights, much like this island.”

  The memories are still coming back in wisps and glimmers.

  “Oh yeah? Like where?”

  We’re only a few paces off from the shelter. We both freeze at the loud, cawing sound of a bird nearby.

  “What’s that?”

  I shrug. There are so many birds on this island I haven’t even begun to catalog them.

  “Oh! Cy! Is that passion fruit?”

  I haven’t seen it here before, so it takes me by surprise. “Maybe?”

  “We tota
lly can gather this,” she says. “It’ll keep better than the more perishable foods and it nourishes.”

  “Perfect.” I know enough about hunting and building fires, and even constructing a shelter, but beyond that, I’m no botanist.

  “Hell, I can even maybe find some greens to make a soup.”

  “Turtle soup is also an option.”

  “Oh, God!” She grimaces. “Did you cook before you got here?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, a little. I mean, I’ve spent enough time in the Navy, I ate what they served me. I can flip a burger and cook a steak, but a turkey dinner’s a bit beyond my field of expertise.”

  “Oh, God, don’t talk about steak.” Her hand comes to her stomach and she groans.

  “Tell me about it. I’d give fucking anything for a good steak right now.”

  “With buttered potatoes.”

  “Stop,” I groan. She laughs, then sighs. “Up ahead,” I tell her, pointing to where the shelter still stands. It’s more like a hut than anything, but we put our best efforts into it, and it’s withstood tropical rain, storms, and kept creatures out, keeping us clean and dry inside.

  “Wow,” she muses. “So, tell me again why you were sleeping on the floor of a cave when this shelter was right here all along?”

  She walks around the edge, taking in the details of the perimeter. It hasn’t been tended to in a long while, and needs a good cleaning, but is otherwise in good working order.

  “They were fighting over it. Eugene inhabited this place last, and he would attack anyone that came within a twenty-foot radius of it. He was the guy that attacked you,” I remind her.

  She turns to me and raises a brow but doesn’t ask any more questions.

  “Well, let’s investigate,” she says. Then she pauses and looks at me quizzically. “Deal?”

  Is this her way of asking me permission?

  I nod. “Let me open it up.”

  She steps to the side to let me in. I open the door, not surprised to see several large spiders skittering across the floor. Thankfully she stands behind me and doesn’t see. Something tells me she wouldn’t be a fan.

  “Wow,” she says. “It’s like really kinda cool in here. Does it offer much protection against the elements?”