Kingsley took her by the wrist and lifted her arm to his lips. He kissed her hand, turned it and kissed inside her palm.

“I can’t let you go,” he said. “Not even when he comes back.”

“You can,” she said, kissing his lips, his cheek, his jaw to his ear. “You can and you will. And you’ll go home to your world, and I’ll stay in mine. And we’ll be fine, you and I. I’ll be fine. Eventually. Someday.”

“I won’t. Don’t pretend you will, either,” Kingsley said. Juliette didn’t argue. He knew she felt as he did, that what they were to each other they could only be to each other.

He kissed her again, more passionately now. There was no way to make love to her out here without tearing her back to shreds on the rough rocks. And they had nothing with them, not a single condom. But he had to touch her. They were far from the shore, no other people in sight. He untied her suit top and pulled it off her. Her naked breasts were magnificent in the sunlight with water sliding down her skin. He dipped his head and licked a water droplet from her breast before taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking deep. He cupped her other breast in his hand, massaged it. She arched her back as he kissed and licked her nipples.

When her breaths grew ragged and harsh, he untied the bow on her right hip and slipped his hand between her legs. She opened her thighs for him, leaned back on her hands and tilted her hips for him in an invitation.

Kingsley pressed his fingertip lightly against her clitoris. He brushed it gently again and again and Juliette panted between her parted lips. Her eyes were closed and her long thick lashes lay on her cheeks. He kneaded the swollen knot harder now, making circles with his finger. It pulsed against him as her hips moved in time with his touch. He entered her with one finger and found her wet inside, wet and hot. He pushed a second finger inside her. He didn’t rush the moment, didn’t force her climax. All he needed was to touch her as deeply and intimately as possible.

Inside her he pressed his fingertips into the soft indentation under her pubic bone. Juliette’s inner muscles clenched him and she gasped again. Her fingers curled tight on the rocks. As wet as she was, it was easy to push a third finger into her. He pushed against the walls of her vagina, slipping his fingers into the inner folds, opening her up, exploring, learning every inch of her. He found a pulse point inside her and pressed his fingertip into it. Against his hand he felt the wild pounding beat of her heart.

He turned his hand again and penetrated her with his thumb and index finger. Juliette gripped his thigh and squeezed to the point of pain.

“There,” she said, the words coming out in sharp rasps. “Like that.”

He fucked her with his fingers now and her thighs fell open. His hands were covered with her wetness. He’d never felt such raw sexual chemistry with a woman before, such incredible aching hunger. He would die before his desire for her ran out. For days she’d played his sexual property, submitting to his every order, his every need. And it was a cruel trick the gods were playing on him, for whenever he entered her, penetrated her, it was Juliette who dug her way deeper inside of him.

She was close to coming now. He could feel her muscles tightening on his hand, gripping him hard, pulsing and contracting. She cried out in her release, but Kingsley didn’t stop. He pushed on, still touching her past the point of pleasure until she winced and flinched in pain.

“It hurts,” she said but didn’t tell him to stop. He didn’t stop. He rubbed her still-throbbing clitoris until she cried out again with a second orgasm. He didn’t let her catch her breath, didn’t let her rest. He knew her body by now, knew what it was capable of. Inside her she bore an inexhaustible supply of ecstasy and he knew how to find it and release it. He gave her pleasure until it turned to pain, gave her pain until it turned once more to pleasure.

“You’re punishing me,” she said, her voice weak and tired. Still he worked his hand inside her, and still she stayed open for him, letting him use her as he willed.

“I am,” he said. “Every time he touches you for the rest of your life you’ll think of me. I will burn myself into your mind like a fucking brand and it will never heal.”

She cried out with her fourth orgasm. Her body shook and her vagina spasmed with the tremors of her climax. He let her rest at last and reluctantly he pulled his hand from her. While she watched, he licked her wetness off his fingers. She opened his trousers and took his length in her hand. He hadn’t ordered her to do anything but he didn’t stop her from taking him in her mouth, sucking him hard. The rocks underneath him hurt his hands and his back. The pain spiked his pleasure. Not since Søren had he felt this particular brutal combination of desire, of agony, of ecstasy and fear. When they were lovers, Kingsley had feared Søren and what could happen between them. Kingsley’s life had been in Søren’s hands because Kingsley had put it there. With Juliette, Kingsley feared something far more terrifying—he feared what might not happen. He might lose Juliette, he might lose this game. But now he only lost himself in the impossible bliss of this moment with the sun warm on his body and the waves cold against his feet and Juliette’s mouth wet and hot around him. And when he came, he came with blinding force oblivious now to the rocks scoring his back. He felt only the movement of Juliette’s tongue as it coaxed his cock deeper and her throat as she swallowed every drop of him.

When it was done and over and they had nothing else to give or take from each other, Juliette rested her head on Kingsley’s chest and he wrapped an arm around her naked back.