Chapter 5: Sunset on the Sand
The helicopter lifted off from the rooftop of the Hotel de Russie just after dawn, its rotors chopping through the thin morning air. Arya sat rigid in her seat, her fingers gripping the leather armrests, her stomach somewhere in her throat.
Devraj sat across from her, relaxed, a glass of orange juice in his hand, his eyes fixed on the coastline unfurling below them like a rumpled green quilt.
"You're not going to fall," he said.
"I know that."
"Your knuckles are white."
She forced her fingers to loosen. The helicopter banked left, and the Amalfi Coast swung into view—cliffs the color of old bone, water so blue it looked Photoshopped, villas clinging to the rocks like barnacles. It was obscene. It was beautiful. It made her want to cry.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
She hated when he said that. She hated the way his mouth curved when he said it, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. She hated that she had woken up in his bed that morning with her face pressed to his chest, her leg thrown over his hip, her body still humming from the night before.
Paris had been three days ago. Three days of museums and restaurants and his hands on her in public—her waist, her neck, the small of her back. Three nights of his mouth between her legs, his fingers inside her, his cock buried so deep she couldn't remember her own name.
She hadn't called Rohan. She hadn't even thought about calling him.
That was the worst part.
The helicopter descended toward a private beach tucked between two sheer cliffs—a crescent of white sand and turquoise water accessible only by air or sea. A speedboat bobbed offshore. A canopy of white silk fluttered in the breeze. And on the sand, spread out like a Pinterest board come to life, was a collection of things: a cooler, a hamper, towels folded into perfect squares.
Devraj helped her out of the helicopter. The pilot didn't wait. The rotors kicked up sand as the aircraft rose and disappeared over the cliffs, and then they were alone.
Just the two of them and the sound of waves and the cry of gulls overhead.
"This is insane," Arya said.
"This is Tuesday."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." He walked toward the water, already unbuttoning his shirt. "There's a bag on the cooler. Change."
She opened the bag. Her stomach dropped.
The bikini was white. Not cream or ivory. White. The kind of white that showed everything, that left nothing to the imagination, that would turn transparent the moment it got wet. The top was two triangles held together by string. The bottoms were smaller.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I never kid about swimwear."
"I'm not wearing this."
"Then swim naked. Your choice."
She turned to tell him to go to hell, but he was already in the water, his back to her, his shoulders cutting through the surf like a knife. He dove under, surfaced twenty feet out, and shook the water from his hair.
She looked at the bikini. She looked at the sea. She looked at the helicopter's distant speck against the sky.
She changed.
The bikini was worse than she had expected. The bottoms sat low on her hips, the top struggled to contain her breasts, and when she looked down, she could see the dark circles of her nipples through the thin fabric.
She walked to the water's edge. Devraj turned. His eyes traveled from her face to her chest to her hips, slow and deliberate, and the heat in his gaze made her skin flush.
"Perfect," he said. "Get in."
The water was cool, not cold, and it hit her body like a balm. She waded out until it reached her waist, then her chest, then her chin. Devraj swam toward her, his strokes effortless, and when he reached her, he didn't stop.
His hands found her waist under the water. His mouth found her neck.
"Better?" he asked.
"At what?"
"Don't be coy. It doesn't suit you."
She laughed. It surprised her—the sound of it, raw and breathy, something that hadn't come out of her in weeks. Devraj pulled back, his eyes curious.
"There she is," he said.
"There who is?"
"The woman who laughs. I was beginning to think I'd imagined her."
Arya splashed him. It was childish and impulsive, and he didn't flinch. He just wiped the water from his eyes and grinned.
"You'll pay for that," he said.
"Promises, promises."
He lunged. She shrieked and tried to swim away, but he caught her easily, his arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her against him. They both went under. When they surfaced, she was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.
"Stop," she gasped. "I can't—"
"You started it."
"I know, but—" She pushed wet hair from her face. "You're going to drown me."
"There are worse ways to go."
He kissed her. Under the water, his hands moved. They slid over her stomach, her hips, her ass. He pulled her legs around his waist, and she could feel him through his swim trunks—hard and insistent.
"Already?" she asked.
"Always."
He kissed her again. Deeper this time. His tongue slid into her mouth, and she tasted salt and something else. His hands kneaded her ass, pulled her closer, and she couldn't help but grind against him. The friction was delicious. The water made everything slippery and secret.
He untied her top. One pull of the string, and the triangles fell away. His mouth left hers, worked down her throat, across her collarbone, and then his lips closed around her nipple.
Arya moaned. The sound echoed off the cliffs.
His teeth grazed her. His tongue flicked. He sucked hard, and she arched into him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
"Devraj—"
"Shh."
He switched to the other breast, and she looked up at the sky. It was a perfect blue. The sun was climbing higher, warming her face, and somewhere in the distance, a bird screamed.
He pulled her legs from around his waist, lifted her, and carried her out of the water. She was naked from the waist up, her top lost to the sea, her bottoms clinging to her skin. He laid her on a towel on the sand and knelt beside her.
"You're trembling," he said.
"It's the cold."
"Liar."
He kissed her stomach. Dipped his tongue into her navel. Moved lower.
"Wait," she said. "The strawberries—"
"What about them?"
"You said—"
"I said I would feed you strawberries. I didn't say when." He grinned, wolfish. "And I'm hungry for something else right now."
He pulled her bottoms down her legs. The white fabric stretched, resisted, and then slipped free. She was completely naked on the sand, and he was still wearing those swim trunks, still covering himself, and she felt impossibly exposed.
He reached into the cooler and pulled out a strawberry.
It was cold and wet from the ice, and he held it to her lips. She bit into it. The juice ran down her chin.
He caught it with his tongue.
"Delicious," he said.
He picked up a second strawberry. This time, he bit into it himself, holding it between his teeth, and lowered his head to hers. She bit the other half. Their lips met around the fruit, sticky and sweet, and then he was kissing her again, and the taste of strawberry was everywhere.
He squeezed another berry, crushed it against her nipple, and followed the red trail with his mouth, his tongue lapping at the juice, leaving her gasping and needy.
"Devraj, please."
"Please what?"
"Please. I need—"
He moved down her body. His mouth found her pussy, and he didn't tease. Not this time. His tongue parted her lips and drove inside her, and she bucked off the towel with a sob.
He ate her like he was starving. His tongue thrust into her, curled against her walls, pulled back and found her clit. He sucked it into his mouth and flicked it with the tip of his tongue, and she grabbed his hair and held on.
"Oh fuck," she gasped. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck."
The waves crashed nearby. The gulls kept screaming. And she came on his tongue with a cry that the cliffs threw back at her. His mouth stayed on her, drinking it down, licking her through the aftershocks.
When he finally sat up, his face was wet and he was wild-eyed.
"You taste like the beach," he said. "Like the sun."
Then he stood and pulled off his trunks, and his cock—hard and thick and glistening—sprang free. He stroked it once, twice, his eyes fixed on her.
"Now," he said. "Now I'm going to fuck you."
He was on her before she could breathe. His hands gripped her hips; his knees spread her legs. She reached for him, pulled him down, and guided him to her entrance.
The first push was ruthless. He sank into her in one long glide, stretching her, filling her, and she cried out—not from pain, but from fullness.
"Fuck," he breathed. "You're so tight. So fucking wet."
"Move," she said. "Please, move."
He moved.
His first thrust drove her into the sand, the coarse grains scraping her back. His second made her gasp. His third made her see stars. He fucked her hard and fast, no rhythm, no technique, just raw animal need. His hips slapped against her thighs. His balls tightened with every stroke. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto her skin.
"Look at me," he said.
She looked.
His eyes were dark, nearly black, and they held hers as he drove into her. There was something desperate in his face, something hungry and broken. Something that looked almost like fear.
"I want to come inside you," he said. "Tell me I can."
"No."
"Do you want me to stop?"
No."
He kissed her, messy and rough, and his hips never stopped moving. She was coming again, the orgasm building from somewhere deep, and she locked her legs around his hips and rolled them over.
He landed on his back. Arya was on top.
She sat up and looked down at him. He was beautiful like this, powerful and vulnerable at the same time. His chest heaved. His cock was slick with her.
"My turn," she said.
She rode him. Slow at first, grinding her hips against his, taking him as deep as she could. His hands found her breasts, kneaded them, pinched her nipples. His mouth opened, but no sound came out; he was lost in her.
Then she went faster. She leaned back, hands on his thighs and bounced. The sound of their bodies meeting filled the empty cove.
"Jesus Christ," he groaned. "You're going to kill me."
"Good."
She came with a sob. Her body clamped around his cock, and she felt him release—hot and thick and deep inside her. He roared. His hips bucked off the sand. His fingers dug into her hips, holding her in place.
Then they collapsed. She fell onto his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her with a shaking sigh in the aftermath—just breath and heartbeat and the slow creep of the tide.
She didn't think about Rohan.
Not once.
The sun was setting when Arya finally sat up. Her body was sore in ways she hadn't felt in years. Sand was everywhere—between her ass cheeks, in her hair, stuck to the drying sweat on her stomach.
"We need to shower," she said.
"There's no shower."
She looked at him. He was still lying on his back, one arm behind his head, and the golden light turned his skin to bronze.
"You didn't plan this," she said. "There's no shower."
"I didn't know we would need one."
"Liar."
He smiled. It was a lazy, satisfied smile. "Maybe I hoped."
She stood. Her legs were shaky. The champagne was warm now, but she opened what was left and drank from the bottle. The bubbles burned her nose.
"I'm going to be washing sand out of my hair for a week."
"That's what the yacht is for."
She turned. He was pointing out to sea. The boat she had noticed earlier was closer now—not a speedboat at all, but a sleek, white yacht. It was anchored a hundred yards offshore, its lights just coming on.
"You planned this," she said.
"I plan everything."
"And what did you plan for me?"
He stood. He walked to her. He took the bottle from her hand and set it on the sand.
"I planned to make you forget him," he said. "Just for one day."
She looked at him. The sunset painted him gold, and the water was calm. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice was telling her to run.
She ignored it.
"And did you?" she asked.
"Did I what?"
She didn't answer. She didn't need to. He saw it in her face, and something in his expression shifted—softened—and he reached out and touched her cheek.
"Let's go," he said. "The yacht has a hot tub."
She followed him to the water. She swam behind him, her limbs heavy with exhaustion, and when she climbed onto the yacht, she didn't look back at the cove. She didn't look at the sand where she had come apart. She didn't look at the place where she had finally stopped thinking about her husband.
She didn't look because she knew that if she did, she would have to decide what that meant.
And she wasn't ready to decide yet.
The yacht's engines hummed beneath her feet as they pulled away from the cove, the cliffs shrinking behind them like closing doors. Arya stood at the stern, salt drying on her skin, and watched the beach disappear. She didn't wave goodbye to it. She just stared until it was gone.
Devraj appeared beside her with two glasses of ice water. He handed her one without speaking.
She drank. The cold hit her empty stomach and made her wince.
"When did you last eat?" he asked.
"I don't remember."
"Then we'll fix that."
The shower on the yacht was small but powerful, the water pressure so strong it stung. She stood under it for a long time, letting it pound the sand from her scalp and the salt from her skin. When she stepped out, a robe waited for her—white, thick, monogrammed with initials that weren't hers.
She wrapped herself in it and found Devraj in the main cabin, dressed in linen trousers and a loose white shirt. His hair was still damp. He looked almost soft in the dim light, almost human.
"There's a dress for you," he said, nodding toward the bed.
She looked.
It was black silk, cut on the bias, with a neckline that plunged but didn't gape, and a slit that ran up one thigh. It was elegant. It was expensive. It was exactly the kind of thing a man like him would choose for a woman like her.
"I'm not wearing that," she said.
"You're not wearing the robe either. Not to dinner."
"Where's dinner?"
"Ashore. A little place I know."
"I don't want to go."
He looked at her. His expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes shifted. Something patient and immovable.
"You've been protesting since the moment we met," he said. "And I've been ignoring you. But tonight, I'm asking. Please. Have dinner with me."
It was the please that undid her. Not the command. Not the expectation. The please.
She took the dress.
The restaurant was tucked into a cliffside terrace overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, lit by candles and strung with tiny white lights. The tables were covered in white linen. The air smelled of garlic and lemon and the ocean below.
Arya walked in ahead of him, the black silk clinging to her hips, the slit flashing her leg with every step. She felt eyes on her. She always felt eyes on her when she was with him.
The maître d' led them to a table at the edge of the terrace, close enough to the railing that she could hear the waves. Devraj pulled out her chair. She sat.
"This is too much," she said.
"It's just dinner."
"No. The helicopter. The cove. The yacht. The dress. This." She gestured at the candlelight, the view, the wine already chilling in a bucket beside them. "It's too much."
He sat across from her. He didn't answer right away. Instead, he poured the wine—a pale gold that caught the candlelight—and slid a glass toward her.
"You think I'm trying to buy you," he said.
"Aren't you?"
"I already bought you. That's not what this is."
She picked up the glass. She didn't drink. "Then what is it?"
He leaned back in his chair. The candlelight carved shadows into his face, made him look older and younger at the same time.
"I grew up poor," he said. "You know that. What you don't know is that I came to Italy when I was twenty-two with nothing but a backpack and a copy of Dante that I couldn't read. I slept on a beach like the one today. I ate bread and olives for a week because that's all I could afford."
She watched him. His voice had changed. Softer. Realer.
"I told myself that one day I would come back. And I would bring someone with me. Someone who would see it the way I saw it, the first time. The way it made me feel—like the world was bigger than my hunger."
He picked up his glass and drank.
"I'm not trying to buy you, Arya. I'm trying to show you something."
She took a sip of the wine. It was good—crisp and cold, with a finish that lingered.
"You're still married," he said. "I know that. And you still hate me, probably. I know that too."
"I don't hate you."
He raised an eyebrow.
"I want to," she said. "It would be easier."
The waiter came. Devraj ordered in Italian—his accent rough but confident—and the food arrived in waves. Grilled octopus with lemon. Pasta with clams. Sea bass baked in salt. A salad of tomatoes so ripe they tasted like candy.
Arya ate. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. She hadn't realized how long it had been since she'd eaten something that wasn't from a hotel kitchen or a room service tray.
"You're staring," she said, between bites.
"You're beautiful when you eat."
"That's a strange thing to say."
"It's true. You eat like you mean it."
She set down her fork. "Why are you doing this? The dinner. The beach. The—everything."
He didn't answer at first. He just looked at her.
"Because I want you to see me," he said. "Not the man who owns your time. Not the creditor. Me."
"You're both of those things."
"I know." He reached across the table and took her hand. His fingers were warm, and the touch was light, almost tentative. "But I'm also the man who wants to know what you look like when you laugh without meaning to. What you sound like when you're not fighting."
She pulled her hand away.
"You're the man who took me from my husband," she said. "You're the man who made me something to be owned. Don't ask me to forget that just because the wine is good."
The words came out harder than she'd intended. They landed like stones between them.
Devraj didn't flinch. He just nodded.
"You're right," he said. "I am that man. And you have every right to hate me for it. But I'm asking you to let me show you that I can be something else too."
She looked out at the sea. The lights of distant boats flickered on the horizon. The wind had picked up, cool and salt-laden.
"I don't know if I can do that," she said.
"I know. I'm not asking for an answer tonight. I'm just asking you to stay at the table."
She stayed.
They finished the meal in something that wasn't quite silence but wasn't quite conversation either. The waiter brought dessert—lemon sorbet in hollowed-out lemons—and Arya ate hers slowly, letting the cold sweetness melt on her tongue.
When the bill came, Devraj paid it with cash. He didn't look at the total. He just folded the receipt into his pocket and stood.
"Walk with me," he said.
She did.
The path from the restaurant wound down the cliff toward a small marina. The boats bobbed in the dark water, their masts clicking in the breeze. Arya walked beside him, her heels sinking into the gravel, and didn't speak.
At the end of the pier, he stopped. He turned to her.
"I'm not going to kiss you tonight," he said.
She blinked. "What?"
"You heard me. I'm not going to touch you. Not unless you ask me to."
She stared at him. The wind whipped hair across her face, and she pushed it back.
"Why?"
"Because I've been taking," he said. "Since the first day. And I want to give, for once. I want you to choose."
He stepped back. He put his hands in his pockets. He waited.
Arya stood at the edge of the pier, the sea churning below, and she felt something crack open in her chest. It wasn't tenderness. It wasn't forgiveness. It was something messier and more dangerous—something that felt like the first draft of a decision she wasn't ready to make.
"I don't know what I want," she said.
"I know. That's okay."
"I don't trust you."
"You shouldn't."
"I don't trust myself when I'm with you."
He smiled. It was a small smile, sad and knowing.
"That's the most honest thing you've said to me," he said.
He walked past her, toward the yacht, and she followed. They didn't touch. They didn't speak. But when they reached the deck, and he handed her a blanket and a glass of water and told her he'd sleep in the other cabin, she felt something shift.
It wasn't submission. It wasn't surrender. It was something quieter than either of those things. It was the beginning of a question she hadn't asked herself before.
What if she stayed because she wanted to? Not because he made her.
What if that was worse?
She slept alone that night. She dreamed of Rohan. She woke up with his name on her lips and the taste of salt still on her tongue. And when she walked out to the deck at dawn, Devraj was already there, watching the sun rise over the water, and he didn't ask her what she'd dreamed about.
He just handed her a cup of coffee and said nothing.