Chapter 17
Last Night in Paradise
West
We walk back to the casita in silence.
Late afternoon sun slanting across the path, everything gilded and lazy—the kind of Caribbean light that turns ordinary things beautiful and beautiful things unbearable. Ocean hush to our left. A parrot screaming from somewhere in the canopy like it has opinions about what just happened.
Jane's walking slightly ahead of me.
Her hips sway. Just a little more than necessary. The green dress she chose for the wedding—tasteful, fitted, a neckline that's been tormenting me since noon—moves with her like it was designed specifically to test men who've recently tackled other men at the altar.
She knows I'm watching.
I am.
We pass the pool. Tourists laughing, oblivious. A bartender pouring rum punches. Staff rearranging lounge chairs. The normal world continuing as if we didn't just detonate a billionaire wedding forty minutes ago.
But all I can focus on is the woman in front of me. The way her dress catches the breeze. The bracelet catching light on her wrist—Jan 24, 2026. Us. —the engraving winking at me with every step she takes.
The way she glances back at me over her shoulder. Quick. Innocent.
Except there's nothing innocent about that look.
My knuckles ache. I flex my right hand at my side—the one that drove into Blake's chest—and the dull throb feels like punctuation. Deserved punctuation.
We reach the casita. I unlock the door. She brushes against me as she steps past—shoulder to chest, hip grazing my thigh—a full-body whisper.
"Oops. Sorry."
Her voice is light. Apologetic.
But her eyes aren't sorry at all.
The door closes behind us. The click of the latch sounds louder than it should. The air inside is cooler, the ceiling fan turning slow overhead, and the shift from bright heat to dim quiet makes everything feel compressed. Pressurized.
She moves into the room. Stretches—arms overhead, back arching, the dress riding up her thighs as her body elongates. The hem lifts high enough that I can see the muscle in her calves, the soft crease behind her knees.
"Long day."
She's not looking at me. But she knows exactly where I'm looking.
She's playing a game.
I lean against the door. Cross my arms. Watch her. "Yeah. Long day."
She touches the bracelet on her wrist. Runs her fingers over the diamonds. Tilts it to examine the engraving like she's reading it for the first time instead of the twentieth.
"This really is beautiful."
She bites her lip. Then looks up at me through her lashes—dark eyes, warm and deliberate.
"Thank you. Again."
My jaw tightens. "You already thanked me."
"I know." She turns away. Starts removing her shoes. Bends over. Takes her time with the ankle straps, fingers working the tiny buckle with exaggerated precision. "These heels are killing me."
The dress rides up further. I can see the backs of her thighs. The curve where thigh becomes something else entirely. She's not wearing stockings. Just bare, sun-warmed skin and a deliberate lack of urgency.
Acting like she doesn't know exactly what she's doing to me.
She straightens. Kicks the shoes aside. Rolls her shoulders back like she's working out tension, and the movement makes the thin straps of her dress shift, one sliding down her shoulder.
"I'm a little sore." Said completely innocently. "From earlier."
The implication lands exactly where she intended.
I'm getting hard just watching her pretend.
"Are you?"
"Mmm." She runs her hand down her side. Over her hip. Trails her fingertips along the fabric gathered at her thigh. "Everywhere."
She walks past me. Close enough that I catch her scent—coconut lotion and the faint salt of perspiration and something underneath, something warm and alive that's just her. It hits me low and immediate.
She pauses. Turns her head just enough.
"Want to know a secret?"
"What's that?"
Her hand slides down. Between her legs. Over the fabric of her dress. She cups herself through the material—one deliberate press—and I watch her fingers flex.
Then she brings her hand up. Her fingertips glisten in the slanted light.
"I've been wet since we left the venue."
She says it like she's noting the weather. Casual. Informational.
But she's showing me her fingers. Showing me the evidence. And something behind her eyes dares me to do something about it.
My control snaps.
"Come here."
"Why?"
"Jane."
She smiles. Slow. Knowing. The smile of a woman who has spent eight days learning exactly how to dismantle me. "Make me."
I cross the room in three strides. She backs up until she hits the wall—shoulders flat against it, chin tilted up, pulse visible in her throat.
I cage her in. Hands on either side of her head. Close enough to feel her breath against my mouth but not touching. Not yet.
"You've been teasing me this entire walk back."
"Have I?" All wide-eyed innocence. A performance so deliberate it's practically a confession.
"You know exactly what you're doing."
"Do I?"
I lean in. My mouth next to her ear. Close enough that my lips brush the shell of it when I speak.
"You made me need you. You know that?"
She shivers. A full-body tremor that I feel through the wall. "Good."
Her hand slides between us. Cups me through my dress pants. I'm already hard. Aching. The pressure of her palm makes my vision narrow.
"I can tell," she whispers.
I grab her wrist. Pin it above her head against the wall. The movement is fast—hockey reflexes, twelve years of instinct—and her breath catches. Not from fear. Her pupils blow wide and her back arches away from the wall, pressing her chest toward me.
"You want to play games?"
"Maybe."
I grab her other wrist. Pin that one too. Both hands above her head now, my fingers wrapped around her wrists, her chest rising and falling fast beneath the dark-green fabric.
"Then let's play."
I kiss her. Hard. Desperate. She kisses back just as desperately—teeth and tongue and the soft sounds she makes when I press the full length of my body against hers. All pretense of innocence burns off like fog in sunlight.
When I pull back, she's breathless. Eyes dark. Mouth swollen.
"Bedroom. Now."
"Make me," she whispers again.
So I do.
I release her wrists, grip her waist, and lift.
She wraps her legs around me automatically—muscle memory now, the geometry of us something her body knows without instruction.
I carry her toward the bedroom. She's kissing my neck.
My jaw. The hinge of it where the muscle tightens when I clench my teeth. Anywhere she can reach.
"You made me so needy," I murmur against her mouth.
"I know." She bites my lower lip. Not gently. "That was the point."
Iset her on the edge of the bed. She's flushed—cheeks, throat, the exposed strip of chest above her neckline—and her hands are already reaching for me, pulling at my shirt, tugging buttons with impatient fingers.
"Slow down," I say. But I'm already pulling the shirt over my head because buttons are taking too long.
"No." She drags her nails down my bare chest—light, deliberate, watching the muscles contract in her wake. "We did slow yesterday. I don't want slow."
She reaches for my belt. I catch her hands.
"Not yet."
"West—"
"Lie back."
She narrows her eyes. But she lies back. The dress is bunched around her hips, and I can see her underwear—simple white cotton, soaked through, and the sight of it nearly drops me to my knees.
Instead, I reach for the hem of her dress. Pull it up and over her head in one motion. She helps, arms lifting, and then it's gone and she's lying there in nothing but that white cotton and the bracelet and the afternoon light painting gold bars across her stomach.
I look at her. Really look.
She squirms. "Stop staring."
"No."
"It's unnerving."
"It's admiring."
I hook my fingers into the waistband of her underwear. Pull them down her legs. Slow—dragging them along her thighs, her calves, over her ankles. She watches me, breathing hard.
I toss them aside. Undo my belt. Drop my pants. Step out of everything.
Her gaze drops. Lingers. Her lips part.
"Who’s staring now?" I point out.
"Admiring," she corrects, and despite everything—the wanting, the ache, the fact that I can barely think—I almost smile.
I reach for the nightstand. Condom. The foil tears between my teeth—hands too occupied with watching her to bother with finesse—and I roll it down my length, stroking once to settle it.
When I turn back, my hand stills mid-air.
She's propped on one elbow, hair spilling across the pillow, and her other hand is between her thighs.
Two fingers sliding through her own slick heat, slow and unhurried, like she's keeping herself warm while she waits.
Her eyes are locked on me—not my face. Lower.
Tracking every inch of me with a focus so sharp it borders on predatory.
Her fingers circle her clit once, lazily, and her lips part on a soft exhale.
My hands are actually unsteady. That's new.
"Started without me," I manage.
"You were taking too long." Her fingers dip lower, pressing inside herself—just the tips—and she lets out a sound that makes the blood drain from my brain.
I'm on her before the last word lands.
Then I step between her legs where they hang off the edge of the bed. Lift her knees. Press them up and back, guiding her legs onto my shoulders. The angle tilts her hips and opens her completely—exposed, trusting, mine.
"Oh—" Her hands fly to the sheets, gripping fistfuls of linen. I haven't even entered her yet. Just the position, the vulnerability of it, has her breathing ragged.
I line myself up. Press forward—just the head, just enough to feel resistance give way to slick, devastating heat.
Her back arches off the mattress. "West—that's—"
"Too much?" I still. Every muscle locked.
"No." She shakes her head, hair fanning across the white sheets. "Just—I can feel you everywhere like this. You're so deep—"