Page 53 of Descent

Night after night of mind-melting orgasms. Ero’s creativity in bed knows no equal.

I’m upside down, my arms and head resting on the bed as he devours my pussy, his arms circling my tummy and holding me up.

He’s hanging from the underside of the dock, keeping us from drifting away in the current, my legs wrapped around his middle as the surf guides our rhythm.

I’m stretched out, suspended between him and the railing of our hotel room balcony, gripping the bar with all my strength as he spears into me.

We’re recovering from one such bout, sharing a bottle of tequila in a hammock when a messenger comes trotting up the beach to our solitary bungalow.

“Haw do?” I offer, dropping my feet to the sand. No response.

He’s wide-eyed, tight-lipped. Probably just some kid from the town nearby. He sets down a burner phone on the table and bolts.

And of course, it immediately rings.

Ero groans, swinging back as I answer. He’s only wearing a robe, his muscular chest exposed and looking oh so scrumptious.

“Where the hell have you two been?!” Ananke’s voice crackles through the speaker.

I stifle a laugh at Ero’s waving middle finger. “We needed…supplies.”

Ero catches my eye, parting his robe, a single bead of sweat running down his stomach to?—

“—supposed to be on your way back to Europe last week! I have a mountain of requests for your services—” She rambles on as I hold the phone away from my ear.

Eventually she dials it down, sighing.

“We just needed a few days to recover. I left a message at the bank in Panama, like we’re supposed to.”

“The only message I got was a statement of yourexpense account.” From the way she says it, I take it we’ve overstepped.

But I’m drunk as a skunk and feeling sassy. “Oh no! Did we use up all our allowance? Sorry Mom.”

Silence follows and I suddenly feel very, very nervous.

Ero’s right there, working the phone out of my fingers. “Look, we followed protocol. We checked to see if you had another assignment. Nothing was listed so we cut loose.”

“Cutting loose is how you both wound up in your respective situations. How you both wound up in a ditch. Cutting loose is how you were betrayed and lost one another to begin with. You mock my concern. But who else was there to pick you up and fix you?”

Neither of us have a response, something sour and heavy hanging in the air between us. It’s fear. Fear that she’ll do something, punish us somehow.

Somehow, even on the other side of the world, I know she could.

Ero opens his mouth to speak. He freezes.

I didn’t hear her speak, but I know she must have whispered something. His eyes glaze over, his pupils dilating. Seeing it happen right before my eyes after so long sends a fissure right through my chest, a pang of anguish through my heart.

Ero recovers, his expression pained, stern.

“Where do you need us next?”

13

ERO

“Ithink I’m sick.”

“What’s wrong?” Ciro rests his chin on his hands over the back of a chair.

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