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If I as so much as moved, wiggled a finger, Christian would be up and the abuse, the sucking and biting of my nipple would begin once more. He’d said he wouldn’t be finished with me until tomorrow, but the sun had set, and he’d denied me food. I was hungry, my stomach made these loud noises, and I thought Christian would wake from the growl. Before he’d fallen asleep he said there were things he wanted to try out on me.
What the fuck more could he do to me? I thought. If he was creative and had an insatiable appetite for bondage and inflicting pain there were a number of things he could do to wet his cravings for sexual deviancy. Perhaps that was what he wanted from me to teach him things beyond his knowledge of BDSM.
Jonas had been my mentor, and thank goodness I didn’t have to use what I knew on anyone but Max. If I thought I could crush his balls and bring him to heel without incurring harm to me or Jonas I would.
He'd said to me, “I have some toys I think you’d like.” Before he’d fallen asleep, he motioned to his closet hidden behind a large mirror. How does he know what I’d like? I’d like to send him to hell where he belongs. I’d like for Max and Jonas to get rid of him. I’d like to tell them I never want to see him again in this life.
My heart quaked in my chest, and I was sure he heard it beating loudly, and would wake from his peaceful dreams, or my nightmare.
He’d know what I’d been thinking just from the rumbling of my body, the trembling of my hands, and the terror in my eyes, so I had to be careful and precise. I reached cautiously for the rope he’d discarded near me. I’d seen it earlier. He’d used it to bind my wrists and ankles in place.
With one hand slowly, and then the other deliberately, I managed to retrieve the pieces of rope without him waking, making sure I took my time so as not to wake him from his peaceful rest. He could sleep soundly, while I hadn’t had a good night’s rest since I married him.
My heart slowed, I closed my eyes, then opened them, and peered down without moving a muscle. I wrapped one end around my fingers and made a fist all while he slept. With the other hand I draped the other end around my fingers and made a fist, then I gently ran it across his Adam’s apple. I glanced at that man sleeping, and I didn’t want to go through with my plan, but I’d come this far and there was no turning back as they said.
I’d crossed the Rubicon.
I abandoned taking a deep breath, because I knew I couldn’t make an attempt at what I had been thinking without risking it all. I had to be sure I couldn’t fail once I made the attempt on his life. If I was unsuccessful, I’d never see my children again, or the men I loved—Max and Jonas.
After I’d tied the rope securely in my hands, I slowly eased it around Christian’s neck and made a circle. My breathing intensified, and I knew if this was to work, I had to get my emotions under control. I tried breathing out in small spurts. I watched as he slept like a baby, but he wasn’t a baby, he was evil. I had him now, I thought. He didn’t feel the rope on his skin, and it was now a part of him like a scarf, and there was no way I would let him go.
Each end of the rope was inside my fists. I began tightening the rope around his throat.
It was then I became fearful I couldn’t go through with this or pull this off. I’m not a killer, I thought. My mind was playing with me, and I needed it to be silent. I couldn’t go through all of this and then bale. What if he woke and knew my intentions? I had to see this through if I was to survive him.
All kinds of thoughts raced through my mind. What if he wakes and overpowers me? Maybe I should wait for Jonas to come looking for me. He said he’d be back to check on me. What if I do this, could I live with the thought I’d killed someone, even if it was Christian?
Yes. I would find a way to live with myself. I would go on. Max wouldn’t blame me for what I was about to do, but Jonas, I didn’t know about Jonas. He’d seen too much death. Do I tell him? I questioned. I had to, because there was no way I could get rid of Christian’s body alone.
In my mind I had killed him and that wasn’t reality. The reality was he was sleeping, and I needed to do something quick. Who does something like that to a woman and falls asleep? I had my answer. An arrogant evil man looking to die. I will grant him his wish if I’m successful. I have to be, because there is no turning back for me now.
Christian stirred, and I thought everything was over, but he reached for my breasts in his sleep, and with one glance thinking about what I’d been through with him, I narrowed my eyes and began tightening the rope around his throat.
All of a sudden his eyes opened, and he realized what was happening to him. He reached for my hair, and began pulling it. I tightened my grip on the rope and pulled it as well. Then he thrashed about kicking and trying to open his mouth to scream. He released my hair, then he used his hands to insert his fingers between the rope and his throat.
His eyes protruded, his glare became intense. I pulled harder and his eyes grew red, and he opened his mouth to beg me. When that didn’t work, he managed to get one hand out of the rope surrounding his neck, because he needed it.
I pulled tighter and he grabbed my leg with his free hand. He pounded on it with his fist, but I wouldn’t release my grip on the rope.
He scratched my arms clutching it, and tried to curse at me as he began to lose the battle, but I pulled it tighter and tighter until he couldn’t speak.
With the last ounce of his breath and strength, he dropped the other hand that had prevented me from giving him a quick death. With his hands he reached, and grabbed my shoulder, and twisted around, bringing me over him, where he was on his stomach and I was on his back, but I wouldn’t release my death grip on him.
What he did in his last futile effort of life was to give me a better advantage, because he was now face down, and I was sitting on his back. I pulled his neck back and planted my knee on his spine, and pulled as hard as I could until he slumped to the floor, and stopped moving, and still I couldn’t let go of the rope for fear he’d somehow wake from the dead.
Then he flipped over, and he was trying to breathe, but I wouldn’t let go of the rope as he was losing consciousness. His face had turned blue when his hands no longer moved, and I didn’t let up on my grip. I pulled and pulled, cried and pulled until his body slumped on the floor and there was no more movement. When I thought it was over, I passed out.
When I heard Christian breathe his last breath, and there was so much silence and I could no longer hear the waves of the sea, I lay on his back naked, my hands gripping the rope afraid that he’d wake from the dead. Afraid that the only thing that would kill him would be a stake in his heart. I had no stake.
It was then Jonas opened the door, and entered the room.
I raised my feeble head, rolled off Christian, lay on my back and looked up at him. He hadn’t seen the true picture. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
What the fuck, Jonas. Why are you so fucking polite? And can’t you see that Christian is dead? I’m not playing games with him now.
Jonas’s steps were measured because he knew this wasn’t natural. He stepped around to see Christian’s eyes open, his mouth open and foam spilling out on his expensive rug.
“What the fuck, Alex? What happened?”
“I killed a man. No. I killed a monster.” Jonas rushed to the chair and found my robe and threw it over me, then he gathered me in his arms, and laid me on the bed.
“I want to go to my room, Jonas,” I pleaded. He turned and glanced around as if he thought there were cameras, and there might have been with all the talk of videos that could get back to Max and my children.
Sitting up and moving over to the chair near the bed, Jonas sat at my feet. “Take your time and tell me what happened. Did he do something unspeakable to you that would make you want to do this?”
“Wasn’t it enough he walked me in front of men, sold me to the highest bidder even if it was you. You just happened to be the one who bought me.” My voice shaky, but I couldn’t cry any more. So much had happened to me, I was all out of tears. “I need to be in my room. I can’t be here with his body.”
“You’ll have to wait, Alex, until I can dump the body overboard. It will have to be in the Gulf of Mexico near the Bay of Campeche, then we can turn and go to Cancun or Brownsville, Texas. There are deep waters there, and chances are they will never find him, but first we have to get our stories straight, because when we arrive in Cancun, we’ll have more questions from the authorities.”
I heard my heart beating loudly, and I’d forgotten I was naked, and my eyes focused on Jonas while his focus fell on my breasts. I watched as he cupped his covered cock and his chest heaved up and down.
Not now for Christ’s sake, Jonas.
I stared at Jonas because his eyes said too much, and my mind thought too little about the problems that lay ahead of us. I hadn’t thought this out. No, I didn’t, because it was hard to think when you found you hated someone more than you valued your life.
At this moment my hatred had taken over and it was consuming me. And then it was the problem of falling in love with Jonas that had colored everything in my life. I dreaded this day, but I knew it was coming, and I knew Jonas felt the same way I did.
And therein lay our greatest dilemma. How would it be possible to love two men who were brothers. Could I have a built-in excuse. Could I tell Max it was all his fault, which it was? But what about my children? They were old enough now to know that something different had occurred between me and Jonas. There would be no way we both could hide how we felt about each other. We had shared something private and life-changing for the both of us, and we couldn’t go back to the casual relationship we’d shared before of brother and sister-in-law.
What the fuck was I to do?
Lately, I’d been swearing more and needed a drink as my life swirled out of control. “I need a drink, Jonas.” Jonas marched to Christian’s liquor cabinet and poured me a glass of vodka straight. He took a sip before handing it to me.
I didn’t hate Max because I loved him, but he was the reason all this had happened. From the first time I’d met him and Jonas, I was destined to walk down this road, and here I was. I should have run away, but I ran to Maximillian and Jonas Blackstone with their sexual psychotic deviancy that drew me to them. I had been all fucked-up from the start, otherwise I never would have found myself here, I thought, as I looked down at the corpse of Christian staring up at me.
I took another gulp of the liquor as it burned my throat.
Jonas stood up after checking Christian, and walked to the door, opened it carefully and peeped outside. When he heard two crewmen talking outside, he closed the door and slammed it.
“Where is the hidden passage to your room?” I pointed because I didn’t have the strength to talk anymore. The liquor hadn’t started working yet, so I took another swallow.
“I have to supervise the serving of food and bring you something to eat. You’re going to need your energy. I have to act as if nothing is unusual. I’ll tell the captain, Christian is sick, and he’ll take soup, and you and Christian are indisposed, and will want all your meals delivered in the staterooms by me. From what I hear from the crew, there’s nothing unusual about him holing up inside his stateroom for days, and sometimes weeks. I don’t know what will happen in Cancun, but we’ll have to figure out something when the authorities question us. Or we could end up in a Mexican jail for the rest of our lives.”
I glared at Jonas, my mouth turned downward biting back tears. Now was no time to cry. I had just killed a man with my own hands, and here tears were welling. Oh no, I had to see this through, because if I fell apart then everything in my life would be over.
The stillness of Jonas as his eyes covered me from head to toe, it was then I recognized his true passion, longing, and immediacy just by the way he looked at me.
I threw off the short robe and covered my body with a sheet. I knew Jonas was ready to do something stupid like take the blame.
Lately, we had been close to each other, and talking with me without clothes felt like the norm, but it wasn’t normal. To be in his arms for him to comfort me wasn’t normal. I needed to be comforted, but I couldn’t accept it from him, not today. Maybe never.
“I can’t stay in here with him—” I finally broke and tears streamed down my cheeks.
“You will have to for a while.” Jonas reached for me and wrapped me in his arms and close to him. He glanced down at me, and I met his eyes. He leaned in and captured my lips in a warm passionate kiss as his tongue slashed through my waiting mouth.
Jonas held me tight. He placed his hand behind my neck and pulled away from the heated kiss, and my mouth and body felt the absence of his warmth. However, he kissed my neck, my shoulder, and then he took my hard protruding nipple into his mouth as my body responded to him, forgetting I was in love with Max, and now I’d fallen in love with Jonas.
This had to be the worst thing to happen to us in my life, but then I glanced down, and I realized it wasn’t.
Jonas stooped down to retrieve the sheet that had fallen at my feet, and his mouth landed on my pubic area. He went to his knees and his warm mouth encircled my folds, and then his wet tongue hit my clit. I grabbed his silky dark curls and pulled his face closer to rest on my mound as Jonas used his tongue to bring me into his sexual life.
He licked and sucked until I stiffened, and he knew I was ready to reach my orgasm. He pulled away and looked up at me. “Alex, come for me. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I shouldn’t be here except to comfort you, but I’ve always loved you. Before, I never wanted to admit to you how I’ve longed for you and for this day.”
He placed his mouth covering my clit, and then his tongue as I opened my folds. He wrapped his arms around my butt. He used his tongue and I had to muffle my screams of pleasure and ecstasy. It was something about being upset, nervous, and just plain scared out of my mind that made me want to have an orgasm, and I did as Jonas moaned and groaned with pleasure as he held my ass when I came.
He pulled away and stood in silence, waiting for me to acknowledge him as the man I loved above all others. Now it was him who I would tell I loved and never wanted to be without. When he thought he’d waited long enough, and got no response from me, he said, “I’ll place the body in one of Christian’s hidden walls until we get to where I can dump it. But I have to leave him here, and get you some food.”
Jonas’s long legs headed for the door, but before he opened it I did acknowledge him. “Jonas, we have been through so much together. I love you, Jonas. As much as I love Max.”
Jonas smiled and his eyes brightened.
“I’ve always wanted to hear that from you. And now I know you mean it, not as a brother, but as much more. I’ll do anything for you.” And he opened and closed the door.