Chapter 9

NINE

Phoenix

W ater slapped against her chest, its noise drowned out by the absolute ruckus she was making.

I could see a large shape surrounding her flailing form beneath the water. The shark must have been curious about what was causing all the splashing.

Thankfully, the only sharks that tended to frequent the area were basking sharks. They don't even have teeth.

I hadn't wanted to laugh quite so much in a very long time.

Even soaked to the head, she still had that spark in her eyes—like an ember plucked straight from the fire.

My pretty little ember.

‘Please, help me?' she called, her voice even more panicked than before.

My arm still bled from the cut she'd inflicted on me—not too deep, at least. Thin rivulets of blood snaked down over my forearm, wrapping my fingers like scarlet gloves.

I had a choice. I could leave her there to tire and sink. The sea would rid me of the issue of dealing with my first mistake in years.

Or I could use her misfortune to my advantage.

To make her behave.

Leaning over the bobbing helm of the boat, I held my hand out and tensed my bicep. A fresh slew of blood dripped from the cut and followed its crimson path to my fingers, which I stretched out over the water.

‘What are you doing?' Her words hit me, and I looked down at her stricken face. A slop of salt water hit her right in the face, making her cough.

A drop of my blood fell into the ocean. This wasn't the first blood I'd lost to it while out on my uncle's goddamned boat.

No, he'd seen to me losing plenty over the years.

‘Stop it. Are you… insane…' she shouted. Her squeals as the basking shark slipped past her made my cock twitch. I wanted to make her squeal like that.

‘Please.' Fear filled her big doe eyes. They darted from left to right as she tried to paddle back toward the boat, which was drifting slowly away from her. ‘I'll do anything. I'm sorry! Okay?'

Lifting an eyebrow, I backed away from the edge and toward the cabin. Her wild screams and curses followed me. A chuckle sounded deep in my throat, silenced only when it reached my mouth. The feeling of the noise made me stop in my tracks.

Touching a hand to my throat, I made it again. The vibrations pulsed down my fingers. It felt… good. So fucking good.

If only it could come out fully.

I grabbed a chunky permanent marker from the kitchen and walked back to my screaming flame.

‘You absolute arsehole. Get me out of this water.'

I shook my head and dropped to my stomach, leaning over the edge beneath the railings.

The pen squeaked against the boat's finish, black streaks forming upside-down letters.

A N Y T H I N G?

‘What?' she called.

I underlined the word. Twice.

Her eyebrows creased until eventually she figured it out.

‘Yes, I'll do anything if you get me out of here. Anything!'

I reached down and wrote one more word below my first.

P R O M I S E?

Not that I thought I could particularly trust the word of the woman who tried to stab me and shove me off my own boat. Hopefully, she'd stick to her word this time.

If not I'd have to get creative with punishments.

‘Yes. I promise.' She let out a blood-curdling scream before bursting into tears. ‘I'll do anything you say. Cook for you. Clean up. Scrub the deck. I'll be good. I can please you. I can even suck your fucking cock. Just get me back aboard.'

Scrub the deck. Fuck, I wanted to laugh again.

Fucking precious.

I threw down one of the life preserver rings attached to a rope and watched as she clung desperately to it.

The basking shark had long lost interest, but she couldn't see that from her point of view.

She slipped the ring around her body and gripped the rope. Pulling deadweight—soggy deadweight—on my own was harder than I'd imagined. My forearms throbbed, veins bulging like giant bevelled cracks. Sweat beaded on my brows as I yanked, my boots barely holding their grip on the deck.

At last, the top of her head appeared, and I tied off the rope before going to her. Reaching over the rail, I slid one hand into the back of her hair, fisting it tight.

‘I promise,' she repeated through chattering teeth as she stared up at me.

Blue tinged her full lips, and I craved nothing more than warming them back up with my own.

The thought came with a heat that soon turned to ash against my tongue. That wasn't for me.

Taking the rope in my other hand, I hauled her aboard, dumping her unceremoniously onto the deck.

‘Thank you,' she whimpered, unhooking the ring and pulling herself up on unsteady feet.

A violent shiver stole over her body. She needed to lose the wet clothes.

She all but growled when I pushed the top up over her head, leaving her bare-chested. The breeze whipped past us, sending her skin pebbling in its wake.

I bent to my knees, removing the rest of her clothes with firm tugs. The sopping clothes clung to her, almost as if resistant to let her go.

‘Couldn't wait until I was dry? Well, get it over with,' she said. I stilled at the glare she fixed me with. As much as I wanted to hear her squeal, fucking a half-frozen woman wasn't my jam. No, there was time for that later. I wanted her screams of pleasure, and she would beg for my cock before I'd let her have it.

Standing up, I reached forward, ignoring her flinch, and took her by the elbow.

Her eyes lit with a combative glare, but it quickly extinguished as she leaned heavily into my grip.

Between her bullet wound and the cold water, her strength had left her entirely.

Moving behind her, I tried to scoop her into my arms, yet she shrugged me off with a snarl.

‘I'll walk,' she muttered. And step by shaky step, never allowing more than the briefest support from my hand, she did.