Page 223 of The Encore’s Crown

“I didn’t want you to feel alone. So I brought some family.”

She slaps my arm as I break into a laugh. Then she smacks my chest.

“Asshole.”

“Hey, behave. Your cousin’s watching.”

She launches herself at me and her teeth sink into my bicep as I drop the floatie into the water.

I jerk with laughter. "Fuck's sake."

“You keep calling me a crocodile, so I’ll live up to the name.”

She bites my shoulder, then my chest. I don’t stop her, I don’t even try. She circles behind me through the water and bites into the muscle beside my shoulder blade. My body jolts, my laughter twisting into a rough, pleasure-laced moan when her teeth sink into one of the deep lines along my back.

“Nat.”

“You brought my relative on vacation. These are the consequences.”

Another bite lands at the top of my shoulder, then her arms wrap around me from behind, nails dragging down my chest. She stretches to bite me once more, right where my neck meets my shoulder, then laughs against my skin. I catch her wrists and pull her around to face me.

She’s breathless, triumphant, and so fucking beautiful that the mountains disappear.

The crocodile glides along the top of the water beside us, wearing the same stupid smile from the package that made me buy it. Natalia looks at the float, then at me.

“I should dump you.”

“No use. We’re tuned to the same fucking frequency. One of us starts vibrating and the other always answers.”

She scoffs. “You say that like you didn’t fight this every step of the way.”

“Yeah, and look how well that worked out.”

She twists against my hold, trying to wrench one hand free to smack my chest, but I only tighten my grip around her wrists and pull her closer, until the black strings of her bikini dig into my bare skin like they’re begging me to make them disappear.

“You’re not dumping me, Kroppy.”

Her eyes narrow as her mouth curves.

“No,” she says softly. “Probably not.”

Chapter 77

Across The Horizon

Natalia

Dusk settles over the Pitons in shades of pink and orange I would have sworn were impossible without a filter. The sky looks edited. Saturated beyond reality, the clouds lit from beneath as the sun lowers toward the water. Even the pool seems to steal its colors, gold and rose rippling across the surface around us.

Kiri pulls me closer. His hands move over my skin so gently it barely feels like he’s touching me at all. The tips of his fingers drift along my arm, raising goosebumps despite the warmth. When I exhale, my breath hits his chest and comes back to me. He looks down at my face while one fingertip traces over my shoulder, up the side of my neck, beneath my chin.

Then down. Across my collarbone. Between my breasts. Close enough to make my nipples tighten beneath the thin black fabric, but not close enough to give me what I want.

I remain perfectly still on the outside. Inside, I’m begging him to grab me. To stop treating me like something delicate and take hold of me properly. I want his fingers digging into my hips. His hands claiming every part of me. I want him rough enough that I can feel the shape of his touch tomorrow. But this softness makes me feel just as much his. He watches every flicker of desire cross my face, every pass of disappointment when his hand almost reaches somewhere that needs him and drifts away again. His mouth curves.

“Did you want something, Kroppy?”

Oh, he is infuriating. I should smack him. Strangle him. Throttle him to death beneath me. The thought of being on top of him wipes out the murderous part of that fantasy almost instantly. His finger makes another lazy pass along my body. He leans down until his lips brush my ear.