Chapter 11SpencerWhen I first approached her fire, I had every intention of claiming her right then, but she looked so cold and miserable that I couldn’t bring myself to do it yet. Instead, it seemed kinder to allow her time to rest, and she was reasonably safe with me. It would’ve taken a brazen hunter to try to take her when I was sitting just a few feet away. If one had been brave enough, he would’ve quickly realized the error of his ways, because I wouldn’t tolerate anyone putting their hands on her, or trying to claim her as theirs. I wish I knew who had ripped her shirt, because I would have hunted down his ass too.No, I would focus on her, because she was the most important part of this. I was starting to feel a bit of desperation to possess her, which made it all the more noble and self-sacrificing that I’d given her a brief reprieve. I snorted aloud. “Yeah, I’m practically a fucking saint.” I was talking to myself too, so did that mean Anya was driving me crazy?The need t
Chapter 12He was a large man, and his light-blond hair whipped around his face when a breeze stirred. He had hazel eyes, and they were focused solely on Dai. There was hunger there, but he didn’t seem creepy. Maybe it was because he wasn’t looking at me that way, but I had no fear.Dai stiffened again, and she held out her spear in a threatening fashion. “Walk away.”He lifted his hands in a gesture that suggested he was approaching peacefully. “Why do you keep shutting me down?”My eyes widened at the information, and I looked closer at Dai. She trembled for a moment, and I was certain she wanted to surrender. I could sympathize, as I felt the same way with Spencer.A second later, her backbone stiffened, and she shook her head before gesturing with her spear. “Go back the way you came, and I won’t have to use this on your bony white ass.”He looked wounded. “You haven’t even seen my ass yet. I’ve been told it’s perfectly taut and downright gorgeous. It’s never been called bony befo
Chapter 13AnyaIt wasn’t quite light out yet when I woke up fully, with no hope of getting back to sleep. I shifted restlessly in the tree, counting down the minutes until it was light enough to depart. I glanced over and upward, finding Dai still sleeping. I waited until the sun broke over the horizon, though it didn’t do a whole lot to improve the gloominess of the jungle. Abruptly, I recalled I was wearing the headlamp that I had switched off last night and switched it on.When the beam of light accidentally arced to Dai’s face, her eyes blinked open, and she sat fully upright. She appeared instantly alert, and her hand gripped the spear. I didn’t think she’d dropped it all night.“We should probably get going.” I whispered the words so she could hear me, but hoped no one else was nearby to hear them.She nodded and gestured downward. “I’ll go first and stand guard, and then you can start down.”Before I could agree, she was already scrambling down the tree. She made it look easy
Chapter 14SpencerHow the hell had she gotten away from me? Cutting myself some slack, and due to the fact that my head was still aching, and I had an occasional moment of slightly blurred vision, I accepted I had been too slow to respond after that little shit hit me with the branch and tried to steal her away from me. I just sat there like an idiot as she stared at me before running. It’d taken me another couple minutes to really gather my senses and get to my feet to follow her.At that point, I was still overly confident in the tracker, and I’d followed the route it mapped for me. It wasn’t until I was almost at the destination that I realized the red dot hadn’t moved for several minutes. I was terrified for her and broke into a run despite the pounding in my head, expecting to emerge to find someone attacking her, or her injured. Instead, I just found her damn backpack and some of her other items abandoned. She figured out I was tracking her somehow, and she’d left it all behind
Chapter 15AnyaAt first, I was certain that it had all been a dream. I woke up feeling snug, secure, and completely warm. I was no longer dangling over a cliff, confronting my own mortality as my fingers started slipping. For a moment, it was all blank how I’d managed to get up from the mudslide area to a warm and cozy bed.Then it came back to me, and I remembered how tender Spencer had been with me as he took care of me. He hadn’t pushed me, and I wanted to make it up to him. I was moved by how sweet he’d been, and I had absolutely no fear even knowing I was lying naked in his arms, and his erection was pressing insistently into my stomach, though he was asleep.Moving carefully, not wanting to wake him just yet, I scooted upward so I could hold onto his shoulders as I started raining kisses gently over his face. He woke sometime between me kissing his nose and his mouth, and his lips captured mine in a deep and far more forceful kiss than the light, almost teasing, ones I’d been d
Chapter 16SpencerI nodded off for a while along with her, and then woke closer to dawn. I knew the terms of the show, and I had to be out of her bed by nine a.m. I didn’t want to waste any more time, so I stroked a finger down her cheek until her eyes fluttered. She looked at me with a sleepy smile, and I picked her up after rolling out of bed. She clung to me, asking no questions as I took her back to the bathroom. The water was cold, so I let it out and started a new bath. Apparently, this placed didn’t believe in showers, but a bath suited me just fine. I wanted her squeaky clean for all the things I still wanted to do to her.She was starting to wake up when I stepped into the bath and sat down with her on my lap. Her eyes flew open the rest of the way, and she frowned for a moment before apparently realizing we were back where we’d started. She snuggled against me, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth, and I turned my head slightly to deepen it into a real kiss.She tasted
Chapter 17SpencerI forced myself to slip away before she woke, deciding it would be easier that way. She spent the last hour or so sleeping deeply in my arms, because I’d worn her out. I was worn out too, but hadn’t been able to sleep. I was too consumed with dread at leaving her, and low-level anxiety at my dread. Anya was addictive, and I braced myself for withdrawal.I slipped out of the little cottage and made my way back to the bungalow to shower and dress in preparation of leaving. It’d taken everything I had not to wake her up and demand her phone number or some way to contact her.When I arrived back at the bungalow, I found my brother emerging from our shared bathroom with a towel around his waist. He had some scratches and bruises, and a huge grin. Apparently, he’d been successful in catching Kelly.We didn’t discuss what had happened though. I was a little surprised he didn’t ask me, and I didn’t ask him because I didn’t want to talk about my weekend with Anya. It was too
Chapter 18AnyaI woke at first feeling completely serene, but quickly realized I was alone in the bed. A sense of dread crept through me, and I sat up with a sigh. A glance at the clock on the nightstand revealed it was after nine a.m., so Spencer was probably long gone.I was miffed and a little hurt that he hadn’t bothered to wake me up to say goodbye, but maybe it was easier this way. I wouldn’t see him again, and a long, drawn-out goodbye scene might’ve made it that much harder. I wouldn’t have wanted to cry on camera, especially after bidding goodbye to a man I’d only known for forty-eight hours or so, so I was thankful he slipped away quietly. Mostly.I got out of bed and walked across the room. My clothes were a lost cause when I managed to gather them together, and I let out an impatient sigh. “What am I supposed to wear?” I asked that aloud, hoping maybe they were still observing me. With that thought in mind, I realized I was parading around naked and moved to the bed to st
Chapter 26SpencerI rested heavily against her, humbled by how weak I felt. I also felt disgusted that I hadn’t been more help to her. I turned my head and nuzzled her cheek. “I’m sorry this happened. I thought I’d handle him, but I must’ve half-assed it.”She surprised me with a low laugh. “It’s okay. I told you we should do this together, and I guess we did.”I shook my head, immediately regretting it as there was a throbbing pain in my skull. “No, you did it yourself.”“With Arseny’s help, but you got them here—though that wasn’t your intention. The important thing is, he’s out of our life, and we handled him together.” She curled her fingers through mine and squeezed reassuringly.I wanted to keep arguing, but was a little too addled to do so. My head was throbbing, and if that was Arseny’s idea of holding back, I was thankful he hadn’t given me the full brunt of the pistol against my head. He could’ve faked it a little more, I thought grumpily as the room spun, and I saw two of
Chapter 25AnyaI fell asleep in Spencer’s arms, but woke to the cold press of steel against my temple in the middle of the night. My eyes snapped open, and I gasped at the sight of Ivanov looming over me. It was his pistol pressed against my temple. “Spencer?” I called his name with all the panic I felt.He shifted beside me, and then jerked upright. There was the snick of a gun cocking on the other side, and he froze. I was afraid to look away from Ivanov to figure out what was going on, but it seemed obvious someone else was there with us, and they had a gun trained on my lover.“We had a deal,” said Spencer in a calm voice, as though he wasn’t currently held at gunpoint. From the direction of his voice, I could tell he was looking at Ivanov rather than the person with the gun.“You forced a deal, along with your treacherous friend. I’m not stupid enough to stay here and wait for the bratva to find me. I’m leaving town, but have come to collect on the debt she owes me.” He pressed
Chapter 24SpencerThere were two scantily clad girls sitting on each arm of his chair, just reposing against him, but when I got closer, it was obvious they weren’t relaxed because they were comfortable. Their vacant-eyed stares suggested they were drugged out of their minds, and I was further disgusted with him.It was a struggle not to show it when he looked at us, his lip curling. “What do you want?”“I’ve come to settle Lev Russo’s debt.” I refused to refer to it as Anya’s or her sisters’ obligation, because they had nothing to do with it.He smirked at me. “You have nothing to offer.”I reached into my pocket to get my phone, noticing from the corner of my eye how Arseny stiffened and watched my every movement. I pulled it out a moment later and held it up, so he could see the banking app I had already opened before entering the market. “I have your million dollars.”He scowled. “I don’t want money. I want the girls.”“You won’t be getting them,” I said confidently. “You can tak
Chapter 23SpencerI seethed with rage as I held and comforted Anya, wanting nothing more than to tear off Dimitri Ivanov’s head. I had no idea who he was, but I would quickly find out, I vowed to myself.Speaking of vows, though I’d technically promised to wait for her to come with me to meet with the slime ball, I had no intention of dragging her along. She needed to be protected from him, and I wasn’t about to have her exposed even one more time to such a disgusting piece of filth.After she finally calmed and spoke with her sisters about the situation, we all made dinner together, which was strange to me. I had a housekeeper/chef for a reason, but the three of them completely disdained the meal Mrs. Fields had left for us and threw together their own. Somehow, I found myself chopping lettuce for the salad, though I hadn’t done the task before.“You should make the pieces more uniform,” said Sasha.I nodded, taking the advice under advisement as I attempted to make the chunks of le
Chapter 22AnyaIt was odd how easy it was to assimilate into his life and his household. My sisters seemed to be just as flexible as I was, and by the end of the fourth day, I felt like I’d lived with him for years. How was it possible to feel so close to someone that I technically didn’t know very well?Not that we hadn’t spent hours getting acquainted. Wrapped up in his arms, and in his huge bed at night, we found time to talk in between touching and exploring each other. We’d had several late nights in a row, and it wasn’t unusual for us to be talking until dawn. Still, it shouldn’t have been so easy with him, but it was.I wasn’t yet comfortable enough to share with him the full story of why I’d been on “The Island,” and what still loomed over my head. I dared hope we might’ve evaded Ivanov. The last place he was going to look was an upscale apartment at the top of Wallingford Tower, right? I wasn’t completely convinced, but I was hoping we had evaded him.That hope shattered Fri
Chapter 21AnyaMy legs were free, and I tried to kick out at him as he tugged on my shorts. They gave way with a rending sound, and then he ripped off my panties. “Let me go, you animal.” I was panting heavily as I said the words, barely managing to breathe and talk through my excitement.Spencer didn’t reply, but silk brushed against my face a moment later as he jammed the ripped panties in my mouth. I tossed my head, struggling to reject the cloth, but they were wedged firmly inside. There was no way to get them out without my fingers, and my hands were bound tightly behind me. I was helpless and at his mercy.I loved it.My pussy wept at the pleasure, and I shifted restlessly. It might’ve given the appearance I was still trying to escape, but I was just looking for relief now. I wanted him, and there was absolutely no holding back this time. There were no cameras to watch us, no stupid reality TV show between us, and no barriers.It was just him lining up his cock and slamming it
Chapter 20AnyaWhen I woke, it was dark in the room. The curtains were drawn, so I couldn’t even see the light the neighbor usually kept on at night above his garage. I knew the room well and managed to get up and make my way to the bathroom before stumbling out of it and crossing the room.I didn’t bother with the light, too driven by hunger. I hadn’t eaten a real meal since Heathrow and wanted to eat while I was still hungry. I was certain if I spent too long contemplating my circumstances, I’d lose all appetite. Knowing I needed strength to deal with Ivanov, I made my way downstairs.The track lights that lined the hallway made it easy to navigate into the kitchen without flipping a light switch. I went straight to the refrigerator and opened it to remove a carton of milk. It was nearly empty, so I tipped it back and drank straight from the carton before tossing it vaguely toward the recycle bin. I would pick it up later, but didn’t have the energy now.I bent down to forage in th
Chapter 19AnyaAlmost a full day later, I was back home where I’d started. I exited the airport with my carry-on, prepared to wave down a taxi from the line waiting for passengers. Instead, two huge men crowded on either side of me, grabbing my arms. I tried to fight to escape, but they clamped harder on my arms and half-dragged me between them. I knew who they were, having recognized them from the afternoon Ivanov had come to our home, the very day of my father’s memorial service. Where they were, that bastard had to be nearby.I was still trying to struggle when they shoved me inside a limousine before crowding in beside me on each side. Ivanov sat across from me, and he took my purse when one of the goons snatched it from my fingers. “Give that back.”He clicked his tongue. “So you can cash your check and make off like a bandit in the night? I think not.”I watched with horror as he opened my purse and fished out the check from “The Island.” “How…?” I trailed off, briefly wonderin
Chapter 18AnyaI woke at first feeling completely serene, but quickly realized I was alone in the bed. A sense of dread crept through me, and I sat up with a sigh. A glance at the clock on the nightstand revealed it was after nine a.m., so Spencer was probably long gone.I was miffed and a little hurt that he hadn’t bothered to wake me up to say goodbye, but maybe it was easier this way. I wouldn’t see him again, and a long, drawn-out goodbye scene might’ve made it that much harder. I wouldn’t have wanted to cry on camera, especially after bidding goodbye to a man I’d only known for forty-eight hours or so, so I was thankful he slipped away quietly. Mostly.I got out of bed and walked across the room. My clothes were a lost cause when I managed to gather them together, and I let out an impatient sigh. “What am I supposed to wear?” I asked that aloud, hoping maybe they were still observing me. With that thought in mind, I realized I was parading around naked and moved to the bed to st