Chapter 10: The Ghost in the Sheets
The door clicked shut behind us, and Raven was on me before the lock even settled. Her silver dress whispered against her skin as she peeled it over her hips, letting it pool at her ankles. She pushed me against the wall with both hands flat on my chest, and her mouth found mine, hungry and demanding, tasting of champagne and something sweet.
I kissed her back because it was easier than thinking. Her fingers worked the buttons of my shirt with practiced efficiency, and I let her, my hands sliding down the curve of her waist to grip her bare hips. She was all smooth, sun-warmed skin, a body sculpted by years of camera-ready discipline.
"There you are," she breathed against my lips. "I was starting to think you'd rather be somewhere else."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. The image of Lucia beneath Chadwick, her back arching off that white suite bed, her mouth open in a cry I knew intimately, was burned into the back of my skull. I pressed Raven harder against the wall, my cock straining against the fabric of my trousers, and she laughed low in her throat.
"Someone's eager."
She dropped to her knees, and her hands were on my belt, unfastening it with the ease of someone who'd done this a hundred times. She pulled my cock free, and her mouth closed over me without hesitation, wet and warm, her tongue working the length of me with slick, practiced strokes.
I let my head fall back against the wall. The suite was cool, air-conditioned against the Caribbean heat, and the windows behind us showed the dark churn of the sea. But all I could see was the flash of Lucia's thigh, the way Chadwick had gripped her hip, the sound she'd made when he pushed into her.
Raven took me deeper, her throat opening around me, and I fisted a hand in her ponytail. She made a sound, half gasp, half approval, and looked up at me with those knowing eyes. She was good. Very good. But she wasn't her.
"Enough," I said, pulling her up by the shoulders.
She rose, smiling, her lips wet. "Not a patient man. I like that."
I spun her around and bent her over the arm of the plush sofa, her ass raised toward me, her silver dress a forgotten heap on the floor. She wore nothing beneath it. Of course she didn't.
I didn't bother with condoms. I was too far gone, too wound up, and the thought of Lucia's cunt tightening around another man's cock had stripped away every ounce of my restraint. I gripped Raven's hips and slammed into her, burying myself to the hilt in one brutal stroke.
She cried out, a sharp, startled sound that melted into a moan. "Fuck, yes."
I fucked her hard. Harder than I had anyone, my hands digging into her flesh hard enough to leave marks, my rhythm punishing and relentless. She took it, her body rocking against the sofa, her moans rising in pitch with every thrust.
But it wasn't enough. It wasn't her.
Images flashed behind my eyes, on loop. Lucia's face as she'd looked up at Chadwick with that mix of hunger and surrender. The way her chest had heaved, the sweat sheening her skin. The possessiveness in Chadwick's voice when he'd called her by name. I had watched, frozen, my cock aching in my trousers, and I hadn't stopped them. I hadn't stormed in.
I drove into Raven harder, chasing the violent edge of the act, trying to shred the memory with pure fucking force. Her nails dug into the sofa cushions, and she pushed back against me, meeting my thrusts with a greed that should have thrilled me.
"That's it," she gasped. "Fuck me. Oh God, yes, like that."
But her voice wasn't right. It was too young, too practiced, too eager to please. Lucia's moans were different, raw and honest, torn from her throat whether she wanted them or not.
I closed my eyes and saw her beneath me instead. Saw her on the deck of the lake house, her legs wrapped around my waist. Saw her in the copper tub with Andres, her mouth open in a cry that might have been real or might have been performance. Saw her in the Caribbean suite, her body illuminated by moonlight, telling me she'd never let me go.
I came with a violence that surprised me, a shuddering, brutal release that emptied me completely. Raven clenched around me, riding the moment, and I stayed buried inside her until the last waves subsided.
Then I pulled out, breathing hard, and let my head fall forward against the back of the sofa. My hands were still shaking.
Raven turned, still half-draped over the couch, and looked up at me with those knowing, amused eyes. She wasn't breathless. She barely seemed ruffled.
"Whoever she is," Raven said, "she's got you good."
I didn't answer.
She laughed, low and easy, and rose to her feet. She didn't bother with the dress. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I don't need men to be present. I just need them to be hard." She padded toward the bathroom, her bare ass swaying. "But whoever she is, if she's here at this gala, you might want to figure out what you're going to do about it."
The bathroom door clicked shut. I stood there in the cooling air of the suite, my cock softening against my thigh, the taste of champagne and another man's claim still sour in my mouth.
She was right. I had to figure out what I was going to do.
Because Lucia's ghost wasn't going anywhere.
The bathroom door clicked open, and Raven stepped out naked, water beading on her shoulders where she'd splashed her face. She read the room in one glance, took in the way I was still standing there hollowed out, my hands limp at my sides, trying to figure out how to escape my own skull.
She didn't offer comfort. She didn't offer more violence. She just walked past me toward the sliding glass door, her bare feet silent on the cool tile, and said, "I can't sleep. And you look like you're drowning in here."
She slid the door open, and the warm Caribbean night breathed in, carrying the scent of salt and night-blooming jasmine. She stepped out onto the terrace. Then I heard the splash.
I followed because there was nothing else to do. There was nothing left in that suite but the ghost of what I'd just done and the ghost of what I'd watched Lucia do.
The pool was a long dark rectangle cut into the terrace, its water lit from within by soft underwater lights that made it glow the color of pale jade. Raven was already floating on her back in the deep end, her arms spread wide, her blonde hair fanned out around her head like a halo. She looked up at the stars, and for a moment, she didn't look like a predator at all.
The water was cold enough to shock me when I stepped in, a sharp gasp of temperature against my overheated skin. I waded out until the bottom dropped away, then let myself sink, the water closing over my shoulders.
The silence was heavy, but not oppressive. The only sounds were the soft lap of water against the pool's edge and the distant hush of the sea below the cliff.
I floated on my back like she did, staring up at the stars. The sky was black velvet scattered with diamond dust, so many stars it felt like the universe was showing off. Somewhere behind us, muted through glass, the faint thrum of the gala's music still played. But out here, on the water, there was no performance. No watching. No waiting for the other shoe to drop.
For the first time all night, I didn't feel like I was holding my breath.
Raven drifted closer, the water barely rippling. She didn't say anything. She didn't touch me. She just floated there beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her body displacing the cold water.
"Better," she said finally, her voice soft, almost sleepy.
"Yeah." I let out a long breath. "Better."
We floated in silence for a while longer. The tension that had been riding me since I'd seen Lucia's back arch under Chadwick's hands began to seep out of my muscles, molecule by molecule, into the cold water.
She rolled onto her side, and I did the same. We were face to face in the water, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her eyes by the underwater light.
"You want to know something?" she said.
"What?"
"I came to the gala alone." She smiled, but it was a different smile than the one she'd worn on the dance floor. Less armor. "I'm always alone at these things. That's part of the brand, I think. The untouchable girl."
"You don't seem untouchable."
"I'm not." She drifted closer, her hand finding my hip under the water. "I'm just good at pretending."
I didn't kiss her. Not the way I'd kissed her in the suite, all hunger and violence. I just reached out and took her hand, felt it small and warm in mine, the skin of her palm softened by the water.
We drifted like that, hand in hand, floating lazy circles around the deep end. The stars wheeled overhead. The pool's underwater lights cast shifting shadows across her body, her breasts, the hollow of her throat, the curve of her hip.
She pulled me closer, and I went willingly. This time there was no pushing, no slamming, no trying to outrun a ghost. She wrapped her legs around my waist under the water, and I felt her heat against me, soft and inviting.
She kissed me, slow and unhurried, her mouth tasting of chlorine and sweet champagne. I kissed her back, just as slow, and this time I wasn't thinking about Lucia. I wasn't thinking about Chadwick or the suite or the look on her face when she'd come undone under another man's hands.
I was just here. Just in this water, with this woman, the warmth of her body against the cold of the pool.
"Take me again," she said softly, her lips brushing mine. "Slow this time."
I slid into her with the weightlessness of the water doing half the work. She gasped, a soft sound against my mouth, and her legs tightened around my waist. I moved in her, deep and unhurried, the water rippling around us with each thrust.
She didn't talk. She didn't gasp my name or tell me how good I felt. She just looked at me, her eyes dark and open, and let the moment be what it was.
We drifted toward the shallow end, the bottom rising beneath us. I braced my knees on the smooth tile, and she leaned back in the water, her body rippling with the movement as I kept up the slow, deep rhythm.
Her head tipped back, and the underwater light caught the line of her throat, the curve of her breast. Her mouth fell open, but the only sound she made was a soft, continuous hum, like a note held under water.
I leaned over her, my hands cradling her hips, and watched her face as I moved inside her. Her eyes were closed now, her brow relaxed, a small crease of pleasure forming between them. She was present too. Fully present. Not performing, not reading the room, not reading me.
Just here. Just two bodies in water.
And that was enough.
She came first, a slow, spreading warmth that made her body tighten around me, her breath catching in a sound that was almost a question. I followed her, my release rising from somewhere deep and quiet, not violent this time. Not trying to escape anything.
Just coming home.
We floated together afterward, tangled in each other, the water still lapping gently at our bodies. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I felt her breath warm against my neck.
She didn't say anything. Neither did I.
Above us, the stars burned in silence, indifferent to everything that had happened and everything that was still to come.
We drifted together, tangled, the water still rocking us gently. She rested her head on my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck. Neither of us spoke. The stars burned overhead, indifferent.
After a long while, she lifted her head and looked at me. "I'm getting cold."
I wasn't. But I nodded, and we swam to the edge, the water shedding off our bodies as we climbed out. She didn't reach for a towel. She just walked barefoot across the cool stone, back toward the suite, and I followed. The door slid shut behind us and the air-conditioned chill hit my wet skin, raising goosebumps along my arms.
Raven picked up the silver dress from the floor and tossed it onto a chair without putting it on. She climbed onto the bed, naked, still damp, and lay on her side, head propped on her hand, watching me with those flat, knowing eyes.
"You look like you're deciding something," she said.
"I don't know what I'm deciding."
She smiled, but it had no teeth. "That's honest. I like honest."
I stood there, dripping onto the carpet, feeling the weight of the night pressing down on my shoulders. Every version of me that had existed tonight — the one who'd slammed into her on the sofa, the one who'd floated with her under the stars, the one who'd seen Lucia arch her back under another man — none of them felt like they belonged to the same body.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Not getting in. Just sitting.
She didn't move to touch me. She just watched.
"You want to talk about it?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. I don't either."
She slid over and made room. Not an invitation, not a demand. Just space. I lay down beside her, on my back, staring at the ceiling. The damp of her skin and the damp of mine slowly drying into the sheets. The AC hummed. The sea whispered beyond the glass.
"Sometimes I think about buying a farm," Raven said.
I turned my head. "What?"
She was looking at the ceiling too, her voice flat and easy. "Corn. Cows. Something that doesn't require me to smile on command." She paused. "You ever think about anything like that?"
"No," I said. "I think about construction sites. Blueprints. Deadlines."
"That's not what I asked."
I closed my eyes. The ceiling pressed against my vision. "I think about a woman I can't have," I said quietly. "That's all I think about."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I know."
She didn't move closer. Didn't offer comfort. Just lay there, breathing, her presence steady as the stars. And somehow that was enough. The admission hadn't cost me anything she didn't already know. The dark swallowed the rest.
The next thing I knew, light was creeping in through the sliding glass door, pink and gold over the water. I was still on my back. I was still alive. And Raven was still there, her face slack with sleep, blonde hair fanned across the pillow, her breathing slow and even.
I watched her for a moment. Not with longing. Not with regret. Just with something close to gratitude — for a night that had asked nothing of me and given me a few hours of absence from my own head.
Her eyes opened. She looked at me without surprise.
"Morning," she said.
I didn't know how to answer. The night was over. The morning was a blank page I had no idea how to fill.
She smiled, small and plain. "You're still in one piece. That's more than I expected."
I sat up. The sheets fell away. The Caribbean light caught the water still beading on her skin.
"Where do we go from here?" I asked.
She stretched, slow, like a cat deciding whether to wake fully. "I have a call with my agent in an hour. There's a buffet on the east terrace with fruit that tastes like it's been flown in from somewhere it was actually allowed to ripen." She looked at me. "You could come with me. Or you could go figure out what you're actually going to do about her."
She said it simply. No edge. No expectation.
I looked at the door. Somewhere in this resort, Lucia was waking up. The same sun was falling on her skin. The same morning was asking her what she wanted.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," I said.
Raven nodded. "Then eat breakfast first. Decisions made on an empty stomach are always bad ones."
She swung her legs off the bed and stood, walking naked to the bathroom. At the door, she paused and looked back.
"The bathroom can fit two people, I think."
I followed her into the bathroom, and the door clicked shut behind me. The air was already warm, misted from the shower she'd started, the glass door of the stall fogging over. She was already under the spray, her head tipped back, water streaming through her hair, plastering it to her shoulders and her back.
She looked over her shoulder at me, water sluicing down her spine, and there was a quiet invitation in the way she held my gaze. No challenge. No game. Just an open doorway.
I stepped in behind her, the water hot enough to sting my skin, and let it wash the chlorine from my body. She turned to face me, and I let my hands find her waist. The water streamed between us, and her skin was slick and warm.
"This is better than a buffet," I said.
She laughed, low and easy, and reached up to push the wet hair off my forehead. "Much better."
She took a bar of soap from the ledge and lathered her hands, then started on my chest, working the suds into my skin in slow, deliberate circles. Her palms glided across my pecs, down my stomach, leaving gleaming trails of foam. I watched her hands move, the way she focused on the task, the small crease of concentration between her brows.
My cock stirred against her stomach, rising with the warmth and the closeness and the simple, uncomplicated fact of her body against mine. She noticed. Of course she noticed. Her hand slid down, slick with soap, and closed around me.
"There he is," she murmured, and stroked me slowly, the suds making it smooth and easy. "Morning wood. My favorite kind."
I groaned and leaned into her touch, my forehead dropping to her shoulder. She worked me with a lazy, practiced rhythm, her thumb circling the head, her other hand braced on my hip for balance. The water beat down on both of us, steam rising in clouds around our heads.
I reached for her in turn, my hands finding her breasts, the soap making her skin impossibly slick. She sighed as I kneaded her, my thumbs brushing her nipples, which had tightened into hard little buds under the spray. She arched into my hands, her mouth falling open.
I slid one hand down her stomach, into the wet hair at the junction of her thighs, and found her already slick. Not just from the water. She was ready. She was always ready, this woman, always a step ahead of me.
"Mmm," she hummed, pressing her thighs apart, giving me room. "That's it."
I worked her with two fingers, circling her clit in the same lazy rhythm she was using on me. We stood there in the steam, both of us stroking each other, the only sounds the hiss of the water and the soft, wet sounds of our hands moving.
She broke first. She pulled her mouth away from my shoulder, where she'd been mouthing at my skin, and turned around, pressing her palms flat against the tile. She looked back at me over her shoulder, water streaming down her back, her ass raised toward me.
"Take me," she said, and her voice was low and rough. "Right here. Against the wall."
I didn't need to be told twice. I lined myself up and pushed into her in one smooth stroke, the soap and water easing the way. She moaned, long and low, her head dropping between her arms.
"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, exactly like that."
I fucked her slowly at first, savoring the heat of her, the way she gripped me. The water cascaded over both of us, steam rising around our bodies. She pushed back against me, matching my rhythm, her fingers curling against the tile.
I gripped her hips, my fingers digging into her slick flesh, and drove deeper. She made a sound, half gasp, half laugh, and pushed back harder. The tile wall muffled her breath, and the steam wrapped around us like a second skin.
"Faster," she said, and there was no playfulness in her voice now. Just need. "Faster, I'm close."
I gave her what she wanted. I slammed into her with a rhythm that made the water splash and churn around us, my balls slapping against her with each stroke. She braced herself against the wall, her back arching, her hips meeting mine with a ferocity that surprised me.
She came with a cry that echoed off the tile, her body shuddering around me. I felt her clench, felt the waves ripple through her, and I let go with her, buried deep, my own release emptying into her with a groan that came from somewhere primal and unguarded.
We stayed like that for a long moment, the water still beating down on us, steam rising around our bodies. She braced against the tile, and I leaned against her, my forehead pressed to her shoulder blade.
When I finally pulled out, she turned and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me slow and deep, the water streaming over both of us. She tasted like chlorine and heat and something saltier, and I kissed her back without thinking.
"That's the best shower I've had in a year," she said, pulling back just far enough to smile at me.
"Don't tell your agent."
She laughed, bright and genuine, and reached for the shampoo. "Help me with my hair?"
I did. I massaged the shampoo into her scalp, working my fingers through the strands with care. She closed her eyes and leaned into my hands, making a small sound of contentment.
We washed each other properly, unhurried, the water turning the bathroom into a steam room. We rinsed. We dried each other off with the plush white towels, her hands slow against my skin.
She stepped out of the bathroom and picked the silver dress off the chair where it had been tossed the night before, slipping it over her damp skin without a word. I found a linen shirt and loose trousers in my bag, shrugged them on, and followed her out into the bright Caribbean morning. The east terrace was already buzzing with late breakfasters, but she led me to a quiet table at the edge, where the ocean glittered like a sheet of hammered tin. She ordered coffee and fruit and a plate of pastries, and we ate without talking much, the sun warming our shoulders.
The fruit was sweet, sharp on my tongue, and the coffee was strong enough to cut through the lingering fog of the night. Raven ate with the unhurried ease of a woman who had nowhere to be and a lifetime of being watched. She didn't look at me while she talked, just picked at a slice of mango and let the morning sun catch the gold in her hair.
The fruit was sweet, the coffee strong enough to cut the fog. Raven ate with the unhurried ease of a woman who'd spent a lifetime being watched.
"You ever think about what you're actually selling?" she asked.
"Everyone in this room sells something," she said, gesturing at the guests in linen and silk. "The staff sell service. The guests sell belonging. The models sell want. It's a con — but an honest one, because everyone knows the rules."
I thought about the lake house, how Elena had directed us into poses that were staged and real at the same time. "Do you ever feel like a fraud?"
"Every day. That's the trick. You wear it like a second skin. Nobody wants the real thing — it has morning breath and bad days. They want the performance."
"Then what's the point of real?"
She leaned forward, and for a moment the mask slipped. "Real is what you keep for yourself. The people who see the performance and stay anyway. The industry teaches you to monetize every look, every smile, every curve. But you have to know when to stop — or you wake up at forty with no idea who you are when the cameras stop."
She set down her cup and pinned me with a look that was almost maternal. "You've already found that, haven't you? Someone who wants the mess."
I didn't answer.
"You walk around carrying something fragile. That's the heaviest secret to hold — when it's someone else's heart." She stood, the silver dress catching the light. "Set your own price, sweetheart. Never accept less than you're worth."
She left with the easy confidence of a woman who knew exactly what she was worth.
I stayed at the table, the coffee cooling in my cup, and watched the sea. The gala was over. The morning was stretching toward noon. Somewhere in this resort, Lucia was deciding what she wanted from the rest of her life.
And for the first time since I'd driven her to that first photoshoot, I had a glimmer of an idea that maybe I knew what I wanted too.
The terrace was quieting, the breakfast crowd thinning as the morning stretched toward noon. I was still at the table, the coffee cold in my cup, the sugar bowl untouched, when I saw her.
Lucia.
She emerged from the west wing, from the corridor that led to the private suites, the ones reserved for the resort's most important guests. The ones like Chadwick Hale. She was walking slowly, unhurried, her heels clicking on the polished stone with the same measured grace she'd worn on the gala floor.
She was still wearing the emerald gown.
The same dress she'd been wearing when I'd seen her last, the fabric deep as sea glass, catching the morning light as she moved. The same dress she'd been wearing when she'd slipped away from the ballroom. The same dress that has been lying on the floor when I'd watched her arch her back on that white bed while Chadwick drove into her.
The same dress meant she'd never gone back to her suite.
She'd spent the whole night with him. The whole night. I'd been in my own suite with Raven, fucking her against a sofa, floating in the pool, falling asleep with her warm beside me. And all that time Lucia had been with Chadwick. Had she slept in his arms? Had she woken in that bed, tangled in the sheets, the sun rising over the sea while he held her?
The coffee cup trembled in my hand. I set it down carefully.
She saw me. Her step didn't falter, but something flickered across her face, there and gone too fast to read. She walked toward me, and the morning light caught the gold threads in the emerald, and I thought about how she'd worn that dress for the gala, for the cameras, for the investors. And now she was wearing it for a man who'd been waiting twenty years.
"Good morning, Tomas."
Her voice was warm. Easy. As if she'd just stepped out for a walk, as if she hadn't spent the night in another man's bed while I'd been tearing my heart open in a pool under the stars.
"Morning," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended.
She stood at the edge of my table, the sun at her back, her hair loose around her shoulders. Not a strand out of place. Her makeup was gone, wiped clean, and without it her face looked younger somehow, more open. Her lips were slightly swollen.
I knew what that swelling was.
"I thought you'd be at breakfast," she said. "I looked for you."
The words landed wrong. She'd looked for me. After spending the night with Chadwick. After spreading her legs for a man who'd known her before I was born, she'd looked for me.
"I've been here," I said.
She pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. The emerald fabric pooled around her, the same dress that had been a pool on the floor of Chadwick's suite, the dress I'd seen pushed up around her hips as she'd ridden him. She folded her hands on the table and looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes.
"You slept well?" she asked.
"You didn't."
The words came out before I could stop them. She didn't flinch. She just held my gaze, steady and unreadable.
"No," she said. "I didn't sleep at all."
I waited for her to say more. To explain. To tell me it had been a mistake, that she'd regretted it, that she wished it had been me. But she didn't say any of that. She just sat there, watching me with that patient, elegant stillness, and I realized she wasn't going to offer anything I didn't ask for.
"Where were you?" I asked. The question felt clumsy, childish. Like a boy demanding to know why his mother had come home late.
"I thought you knew," she said.
The words hung in the air between us. Simple. Quiet. As if she'd assumed I'd been part of it, or at least that I'd understood. I hadn't understood. I'd watched through a crack in the door and come in my own hand like a desperate teenager, and now she was telling me she'd thought I knew.