CHAPTER SEVEN - DANNY
She holds her breath. And even though I can’t hear it, I know her heart speeds up. Her grip on the railing tightens and her back goes stiff.
She’s wondering who I am and what I’m doing, and if I had an answer for that I might offer it up.
But I don’t.
I have no idea who I am anymore.
I did. Not too long ago. I was Danny Fortnight, maker of custom motorcycles, partner to Brasil Lynch. Thief. Loner.
Then Christine came, and Alec came, and that Danny—he’s just gone now. But I’m not old Danny either. I’m something new. Some sick combination of the two.
I pump my cock a few more times, getting ready. Christine’s gaze wanders down to catch a glimpse. She’s already so wet.
It’s only been a few hours since we last fucked but it feels like we’ve been apart forever and we’ve got things to make up for.
Which isn’t far from the truth, really.
“Don’t let go,” I remind her.
She swallows, licks her lips, and nods her head. Silent submission.
Which makes me grin. And with that grin, in that same moment, I thrust my cock inside her, sliding her along the table’s surface with such force her head bumps into the railing.
She does not let go. She does just as I hoped. Stiffens her arms, pushing back on me so when I pull back and then thrust forward again, there’s resistance.
Not that I could push any closer to that railing. Her head isn’t even on the table anymore. It’s suspended in mid-air over empty space. Just the very bottom of her shoulder blades and the force of her arms, now bent at the elbows, keep her from being pounded over the edge and disappearing into the depths of darkness. So she has no choice but to resist.
I do it again, and again. Fucking her faster, harder with each forward push.
She grits her teeth, watching me. Nothing relaxing or soothing about it.
In fact she’s so crumpled up against the railing that I have to kneel on the table, hike her hips up, and prop the underside of her thighs over the top of mine, just so I can keep fucking her.
It’s a messy, messy fuck.
Nothing artistic about the picture we paint. Nothing slow, or sensual.
It’s just… erotic and hard.
And she’s probably thinking, What the fuck, Fortnight? What am I? One of your little sluts you pick up in random cities?
But if she is, she doesn’t say it. And I don’t stop.
She’s not one of those whores.
This is just how I like to fuck when Alec’s not around.
I reach forward, grab her hair with both hands, pull her upward, then place one hand across the middle of her back with fingers splayed wide and hold her there.
We breathe hard and heavy as I continue to fuck her. Her chin is tilted up, her eyes locked on mine, her jaw tight as sweat rolls down her face, and my chest, and her wet, wet, so fucking wet pussy swallows my cock and then… there’s this moment when we stop.
We don’t really stop. I’m fucking her harder than ever and she’s gripping my shoulders with the tips of her fingernails like she’s clinging to the edge of a cliff. She’s hissing air through clenched teeth. Her hair is damp again, but not from the shower. It clings to the sides of her face from the hot, stuffy, humid tropical air that simmers above this salty ocean and wraps around us like a mist as the sun rises above the horizon and heats us up with the coming of a new day, and—
—we both explode.
I take her like that two, sometimes three times a day. Or night. And then in between, there’s the soft fucks. The ones in the shower where the heat comes from hot water and not the hell brewing inside me.
I’m out of control. I know this. I’m a fucking fiend for her body. I don’t even let her put clothes on anymore. I make her walk around naked. I’m hard all the time.
We don’t talk much.
I’m not sure I have anything to say.
And she doesn’t ask any questions.
Oh, every time I come at her she gives me this look like… Again?
But then one touch, one twist of her nipple or one pull of her hair and she forgets that she wasn’t in the mood because she is suddenly in the mood.
And I don’t know if it’s lust, or the heat, or why the fuck she gives in like this. The only thing I know it’s not is fear.
She likes it.
I think that’s why we don’t talk.
And I don’t care anyway.
All I know is that the depression lifted back in the Cook Islands and I’ve got her to myself for a few more hours. Just a few more hours and then we’ll be docking at the beach club in LA and heading to the airport, where we’ll get on a jet to London, and then this whole thing will be over.
We might never talk about it again.
Or maybe we will?
Maybe she’ll tell Alec all about it when we get him back and he’ll say something like… Fok, Fortnight. I need to see this side to you.
And then we’ll all become the same kind of freak I am. We’ll all go dark, and get dirty, become purple instead of blue and do things that we’ll never talk about.
I kinda hope it goes that way.
But it won’t.
I know it won’t.
It’s late afternoon when we get to our boat slip at the very tip of the dock in the west channel of the LA Harbor. We’re not members of this club anymore either, but that’s not enough to prevent us from handing over a fat wire transfer to keep the yacht safe until such a time as we decide to come back for it.
Maybe we’ll never come back for it?
These people don’t care. They got their money and as long as that wire transfer comes in every month, they’ll shut the fuck up and do what I tell them.
They even give us a complimentary room at the hotel next door so we can freshen up and wait for their concierge to arrange a private jet to London.
“We can just take a commercial flight,” Christine says, once we’re in the room. It’s weird being on land again after so many weeks on the sea.
“Fuck that,” I say. “I’ve been frugal for years. Time to spend that shit.”
She’s brushing her hair, looking at me via her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“What?” I ask.
“You,” she says.
“So?”
She shrugs. We’re doing that shorthand thing again.
What she’s really saying is, Who the fuck are you, Danny Fortnight?
And what I’m really saying is, I was always this guy, Christine. I just hid it really well. And that’s why I never wanted to touch you when we were younger. But fuck it. We’re not kids anymore, and you said you wanted this, so here you go. You got it. This is me.
She stops brushing her hair and turns around. Waits there, on pause, for a few moments. Then she walks over to me—stalks me like a fucking lioness looking to take down a baby gazelle on some barren, too-hot savannah—and when she reaches me, she slips her hands around to the back of my neck, resting her forearms on my shoulders, and says, “I love you.”
Which means… I get you.
So I say, “I get you too.”
A limo takes us to the jet. I’m still wearing cargo shorts and a sleeveless white t-shirt even though it’s gonna be cold as fuck when we get to London. I’ll change before we disembark. I’m just not ready to let go of what we had just yet.
I cling to it. The way you cling to a moment after waking up from a perfect dream.
Maybe Alec’s dead.
Maybe I’ll die, or Christine will die.
Hell, maybe we’re all dead right now and we just haven’t figured it out yet.
So I wear cargo shorts and a t-shirt until we’re circling around London and there’s no way out.
We must go forward and meet our fate.