Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance by Savannah Rose (best ereader for pdf and epub .TXT) 📗

So much for dinner.

I landed straight on my hip, scattering the fish and pissing off the Langoustine. They scurried under little shelves in the rocks, vanishing, as a bolt of white-hot pain shot through my leg. The first thing I thought was that my femur had snapped in half. And wouldn't that be a fine kettle of fish.

I laid there for a moment, the cold water lapping at my chest, and clenched my teeth as I waited for the pain to subside. Even a little bit would be appreciated.

After a moment or two, the fiery ache in my leg wasn't going anywhere. God damn it. One of the first rules in the world of survival was don't hurt yourself. Say, for instance, you're hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital, medical hut or medicine man, and the worst possible scenario will go from zero to sixty if you do something catastrophic, such as break a bone.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, and fuck again.

I took a deep breath, and went to wiggle my toes, hoping they would respond.

They did.

They hated me, but they moved. Which was more than I could say for my knee.

Alright. Don't panic. Assess. Rule number two was assess.

Potentially fractured, not paralyzed left leg. Locked meniscus on the other leg, just for fun. Freezing cold water splashing up toward my shoulders. Then it was at my chest just a few minutes ago. So the tide was coming in.

Lovely.

Right now it probably looked as though I was doing no more than reclining on my side in a wading pool. All that was missing was a Pina Colada and a tiny umbrella stabbed through a fruit kabob. In a few agonizing minutes, that water would be up to my nose.

Nope. Not gonna happen. That is a god damn stupid way to go, and I'd be hexed if I was going to check out like this after everything I'd gone through.

Isn't that strange? A couple of days ago, you were just fine with suicide. Now you want to live? Fascinating, really. You'd make a great case study.

There was nothing wrong with my arms, save for a few scratches and cuts, and I was in reach of the jagged rocks.

They found Rebecca in a pool of warm water. Blood makes water warm, for a while, anyway. You never asked if the bath water was warm or cold.

I gripped the side of the rock. There were finger-sized holes, natural pockets of erosion, and I could haul myself out of the water. If I was able to do that – and really why couldn't I – I'd assess the next problem, which would be me and my broken body beached on the sand like an ailing manatee.

“First things first,” I hissed, more angry than anything.

I got a firm hold in the rock holes, expelled all my air, and pulled.

Chapter Twenty-Four

MADDOX

Never once did I contemplate or reflect on the man I was.

In all my dealings, business or personal, there was never a reason to look back and consider anything. I was always right, even when I was wrong, my decisions were the correct ones.

I was an intelligent person.

A passionate man.

And while some may view my behind-the-scenes pleasures as questionable at best, detestable at worst, life was my rodeo and I was well within my rights to ride it as I saw fit.

Women. I'd ridden a lot of them. That's all they were to me – playthings for entertainment purposes only. It never occurred to me that there should be, or would be, reason for them to be anything more.

Then came Ramona.

Not Maria the maid, not Sofia the Maid, but Ramona Sanchez – a former small business owner who I'd chewed up and spit out without even knowing it. Until she brought it to my attention. Granted, in a very assertive and unique fashion, but realizations are as realizations do. Or something like that.

As far as my sexual addiction went, it was no more than par for my testosterone course. My “T” numbers were off the charts – according to my physicians. I, therefore, operated on shooting first and never asking questions later. Didn't need to. Didn't want to. I was Man, hear me roar.

Or so I thought.

Now, staring down the barrel of forty years old, and circling back from whence I came, the bottom line end-of-the-day epiphany was it wasn't my rodeo anymore.

I threw a stone into the remains of the fire, watched a gentle shower of embers rain down into the ash.

It was lonely here, by myself. After Ramona had left with her trademark 'fuck you' and heated glare, I had to fight the urge to follow her. Not that I was in any great physical shape to go trekking along the sand.

A sarcastic chuckle escaped me as I thought about asking her if she enjoyed romantic walks on the beach.

I'd imagine she'd clobber me with the closest available piece of driftwood.

That’s what I liked the most about her. She was a firecracker, a woman of passion. In all my days of bondage, sadomasochism, and sexual games – she was the only one who had ever turned the tables on me. The only one who had ever put me in the position of the submissive.

What she had done – or had not done – to me was the erectile equivalent to water boarding. I could call it tough love.

I don't think she would see it that way, though.

In fact, if we were ever to be plucked from this Eden on the Atlantic, I'd never see her again. Except, perhaps, on Good Morning America or Sixty Minutes, some network tell-all, sharing her tale about being marooned on a tropical island by the billionaire who kidnapped her.

I wondered how much detail she would go into. Whatever she decided, life as I knew and commanded it was over.

Ramona had gotten me to see things for what they really were, though. And what I