Page 86 of Hate Wrecked

I shake my head. “You have no idea what will happen when you leave this place.”

She looks away. “I’ll never leave. I never left…then…”

Years of secrets, hiding, laughter in closets, hand over mouths as we laughed, hoping no one would see us, and how we looked at each other and longed for each other. My job was on the line; nothing on the line for her. But she liked to play the part.

“It was love.Waslove. You have to leave it there in the past.”

“No,” Riley urges. “You do. You’re the one lingering in the wrong places. You’re not your father. You’ll never be the bad parts of him. I am free to love whoever I want, and so are you. Here and now. Just let go.”

I pull away then, eyes flashing at her. I can feel what they convey. “What do you want me to do? Lay you on the shore and fuck you, Riley? Because believe me, I want to.”

She purses her lips, defiant. “Yes. That’s what I want you to do.” I see the compromise. She wants more than that, but she will take my anger, my almost surrender.

I step close again, eyeing her clenched fists at her side, her chin pushed out, brave.

Her hands go up when I reach her, wrapping around my neck when my mouth finds her. I reach down, and her legs go around my waist. I kiss her like it’s the past, like it’s the future, and we’re off this island, and we aren’t scared of the scars we wear and the expectations of the world. Her fingers ease, pushing into my hair as we walk out of the water. I lay her down, pulling away long enough to look into her dark eyes. “Is this what you want, Riley?”

“I’ll take any bit of you I can get,” her voice is steady, but I see in her eyes all the ways she needs forgiveness.

It mirrors my heart the way it needs the same offering.

I nod, pulling the tiny triangle of bikini covering her right breast, my mouth descending. She arches her back, meeting me. I can feel her trembling, so I start slow, my tongue running a slow circle around the peak of her, and when she moans, I pull her nipple into my mouth, closing my eyes at the softness of her. I love her; I need her to warm me forever.

My hands dig into her as I push away thoughts of love and everything that hurt us.

Riley’s hands thread in my hair, pulling me closer to her breast. She whimpers, and I pull away.

“There’s no one here to hear you, so I want to hear you.” She nods, and I pull the rest of her top away, aiming my attention at her other nipple, hard and ready for me.

I know her buttons, her triggers, what will make her tremble. Muscle memory that I never forgot.

Her legs tighten around me, grinding against my erection.

Memories of her mouth flood me, and I press down into her. We won’t be doing that this time; this is about showing her with my flesh what she shows me with her confessions.

It’s all I can offer her.

It was love.Was. All I can do now is hate the way I give in, the way my body takes over.

Maybe I am everything I hated in him.

Maybe I am no better than him.

But for one night I let myself be selfish as I taste her, suck at her, make her come again and again as I fuck her with my tongue, never letting her rest until she is sobbing with need. Begging me to let her return the favor as she rides my hand until the sun fades away, and the fire goes out.

WILL HIS FORGIVENESS

RILEY

As the weeks pass,we grow restless. We decide to explore the other islands that make up the atoll. It makes for long days, but I don’t mind them. It keeps my mind off Rowan, what we did, and what he got out of his system.

At night, my mind wanders, and sometimes, my hands when I know Rowan is asleep. I never touch him, but I touch myself with hands I pretend are his, a desperate attempt to fill the void his body left when he didn’t give in to our heady desires. Not fully.

Everything changes the day we trek to where Falcon Island turns into Ember Island. As Rowan presses on through the dense jungle, his machete cleaves the green, the vibrant chaos of vegetation giving way to steel. The air hangs heavy with the sweet scent of salt and palm, my mind wandering to other places and the past.

When Rowan stops, I nearly run into him. When I’m with him, I’m less vigilant, letting him guide and wrap me in safety. I take a few steps back from Rowan, scanning the trees for any movement. That’s when I notice it—a strange break in the ground ahead. “What is that?” At first it just looks like a shadow, a dark dip in the earth. But as we move closer, it becomes clear: a sinkhole. An old one, wide enough to swallow a person whole, with vines drooping over its edges like a mouth trying to hide.

Rowan leans down, searching the jungle floor, then stands and tosses a rock in. It disappears into the darkness.

---