The following night, Sam’s was alive with music, humidity, and bad decisions.
The tiki bar sat right on the edge of the beach, all crooked wood, hanging lanterns, and salt-sticky floors worn smooth by years of drunk tourists and local secrets. Ceiling fans pushed warm air in lazy circles while reggae thumped low through hidden speakers, mixing with crashing waves somewhere beyond the dunes.
Heidi sat between Lila and Aiofé with a sweating drink in her hand and the distinct feeling that her body no longer fully belonged to her.
Not after last night.
Not after him.
The bite near her bikini line throbbed faintly beneath her sundress, a dull pulse that came and went like a second heartbeat. Every now and then she caught herself touching it absentmindedly beneath the bar top, fingertips brushing the tender skin while memories crashed through her hard enough to make her lose track of conversations halfway through.
Jesus Christ.
The way he touched her.
The way he held her.
The way he looked at her like hunger had finally found religion.
And beneath all of that—
something stranger.
Something wrong.
Heidi took a long drink.
Rum. Pineapple. Regret.
Across from her, Aiofé was already halfway through a rant.
“I’m telling you right now,” she declared dramatically, pointing a french fry like a weapon, “if one more rich woman asks me for dolphin-gray highlights, I’m going to drive my car directly into the ocean.”
“You don’t even own a car,” Lila pointed out.
“Exactly. That’s how serious I am.”
Lila snorted into her drink.
This was the first time all four of them had been together in one place long enough to feel like an actual group instead of overlapping relationships. Heidi knew Jacques separately. Aiofé knew everybody because she treated gossip like cardio. Lila pretended not to care about social politics while secretly monitoring all of them like an emotionally unavailable lifeguard.
And Jacques—
Jacques sat beside Heidi lazily smoking a cigarillo, one arm draped behind her chair like he owned the concept of relaxation itself.
Which, annoyingly, he almost did.
The dim lantern light softened the sharp angles of his face. Black shirt rolled to the elbows. Linen trousers. Gold watch catching flashes of amber light every time he lifted his glass.
Beautiful man.
Dangerous face.
Emotionally suspicious.
Under the table, his fingers brushed Heidi’s knee once.
Just once.
But it lingered there like a private sentence.
Lila noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Lila noticed everything.
Heidi caught the brief flicker in her eyes before Lila looked away and took another sip of rum punch.
Interesting.
Aiofé leaned back dramatically in her chair.
“So,” she announced, “which one of you emotionally constipated disasters is finally going to admit there’s sexual tension happening at this table?”
Jacques didn’t even blink.
Lila nearly choked.
Heidi groaned into her drink.
“Aiofé—”
“No, seriously.” She pointed between Heidi and Jacques. “That one’s obvious. You two look at each other like divorced people who accidentally still sleep together.”
“We are not divorced,” Jacques said calmly.
“You’d have to date first.”
“An important technicality.”
Heidi laughed despite herself.
That was the thing about Aiofé. She bulldozed through awkwardness so aggressively nobody else had time to feel uncomfortable.
Lila rolled her eyes.
“You know,” she muttered, “some people don’t announce their entire sex lives like public service bulletins.”
Aiofé gasped theatrically.
“And miss opportunities to discuss buttholes? Never.”
“There it is,” Heidi sighed.
“Always circles back to buttholes,” Jacques murmured into his drink.
“Because the human body is a wonderland,” Aiofé replied solemnly.
Lila burst out laughing then.
A real laugh.
Head tipped back. Sun-browned throat exposed. Eyes shining in the lantern light.
Heidi found herself staring at her.
Not intentionally.
Just… looking.
Lila looked beautiful tonight.
Loose white crop top. Denim shorts. Bare legs tangled carelessly beneath the table. Saltwater-dark hair falling around her shoulders in messy waves. Gold hoops catching the light when she moved.
Island beautiful.
The kind that didn’t require effort because it belonged to the landscape itself.
Lila caught her staring.
For one strange second, neither looked away.
Then Aiofé ruined it immediately.
“If you two end up scissoring before summer, I want credit.”
“Jesus Christ,” Heidi choked.
Lila threw a napkin at her.
Jacques smiled into his cigarillo smoke like a man quietly enjoying chaos he didn’t have to clean up.
Heidi shook her head, laughing harder than she had in years.
And that was what startled her most.
Not the island.
Not the strange man from the ocean.
Not even the bite.
This.
The laughter.
The ease of it.
For years, happiness had felt performative. Something she manufactured for other people so they wouldn’t ask questions.
But here—
Here it slipped out of her accidentally.
Lila nudged her shoulder.
“You alive over there?”
“Barely.”
“You’ve been weird all night.”
If only you knew.
Heidi looked down at her drink quickly.
The memory hit her again without warning—
The washing machine vibrating beneath her back.
Strong hands gripping her thighs.
Saltwater skin against hers.
That mouth.
God.
The bite pulsed sharply.
Heidi shifted in her seat.
Jacques noticed immediately.
His eyes flicked toward her.
“You alright, chérie?”
Too soft.
Too observant.
Too close.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
Aiofé narrowed her eyes dramatically.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“You got laid.”
Heidi almost inhaled her drink.
Lila barked out a laugh.
Jacques leaned back looking deeply entertained.
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You have the face.”
“The face?”
“The post-orgasm spiritual confusion face.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is for women.”
Lila pointed supportively. “She’s kinda right.”
“Traitors,” Heidi muttered.
Aiofé leaned across the table eagerly.
“Who was it?”
“Nobody.”
“That means somebody.”
“There is no somebody.”
“Was it Jacques?”
Jacques lifted his glass. “I refuse to answer on legal grounds.”
Heidi kicked him lightly under the table.
Lila watched the interaction carefully over the rim of her drink.
Not jealous exactly.
But aware.
Very aware.
And Heidi, already rum-warm and emotionally frayed from carrying the secret of the night before, suddenly became hyperaware of everything:
Jacques’ thigh brushing hers beneath the table.
Lila’s gaze lingering too long.
Aiofé chain-smoking glamour and chaos beside them.
For the first time since arriving on the island, Heidi realized these people mattered to her.
That thought scared her more than casual sex ever could.
Because people could leave.
People died.
People drifted.
People stopped calling.
People disappeared into silence and never returned.
The strange man from the ocean had unsettled her physically.
But friendship?
Friendship terrified her in a much deeper way.
Lila leaned closer suddenly to show Heidi something on her phone.
Their shoulders touched.
Warm skin against warm skin.
Simple.
Casual.
Yet Heidi felt it everywhere.
Lila smelled like rum, coconut oil, and ocean water still trapped in sun-heated skin.
“You should do something for the festival,” Lila said. “Seriously. The Tiki Tumble’s officially part of the island now.”
“The laundromat having a parade float feels deeply unserious.”
“That’s why it’s fun.”
“You could throw dryer sheets into the crowd,” Jacques offered.
Aiofé pointed excitedly. “Or tiny detergent samples.”
“Oh my God,” Heidi laughed. “You’re all insane.”
“Yes,” Aiofé said proudly. “That’s why we adopted you.”
The words landed softly.
Adopted you.
Heidi looked around the table quietly.
At Aiofé, all black glitter and emotional chaos.
At Jacques, beautiful and sad and carrying the night around his shoulders like an expensive coat.
At Lila—
Lila, who had once looked at Heidi across the street like she personally represented colonialism.
Now here she was leaning against her shoulder like it was natural.
Something warm moved through Heidi’s chest then.
Dangerously warm.
The music shifted around ten o’clock when the DJ finally abandoned mellow beach music in favor of bass heavy enough to rearrange internal organs.
Lila immediately stood.
“Oh no,” Heidi groaned.
“Oh yes.”
“Lila—”
“You’re dancing.”
“I’m emotionally exhausted.”
“That sounds like a dance floor problem.”
Aiofé grabbed Heidi’s wrist dramatically.
“Come suffer beautifully with us.”
Jacques remained seated, smoke curling lazily around him.
“I will supervise,” he announced.
“Coward,” Lila called.
“Professional observer.”
The girls disappeared into the crowd.
The beach dance floor pulsed beneath colored lights strung between palm trees. Music vibrated through the sand itself while tourists and locals blurred together beneath humid midnight air.
At first Heidi moved awkwardly.
Then the rum kicked in harder.
Then the music swallowed her whole.
Lila danced beside her barefoot in the sand, laughing freely, hips moving effortlessly with the rhythm. Aiofé spun dramatically nearby like a goth hurricane in platform heels somehow defying physics.
And Heidi—
Heidi forgot herself.
Forgot the office.
Forgot the wedding dress.
Forgot America.
Forgot fear.
For a few perfect minutes, she existed only inside movement and music and warm island air.
Then the song changed.
Slower.
Dirtier.
Lila moved closer instinctively.
Hands sliding onto Heidi’s waist.
Bodies aligning naturally.
Heidi’s breath caught.
Their hips moved together slowly beneath the lantern light and crashing bass.
Close.
Too close to be accidental.
Lila looked up at her then.
Dark eyes half-lidded.
Rum-soft smile.
And Heidi suddenly understood with terrifying clarity that if Lila kissed her right now—
she would absolutely kiss her back.
The realization hit hard enough to almost sober her.
Jesus Christ.
Lila’s fingers tightened slightly against her waist.
Neither spoke.
Neither needed to.
The tension sat there openly between them now.
Not fully formed.
Not understood yet.
But alive.
Across the dance floor, Jacques watched them quietly from the bar.
Not angry.
Not jealous.
Something stranger.
Thoughtful.
As though he saw a future arriving before either woman did.
And somewhere beneath the music, beneath the rum and laughter and island heat, Heidi still felt the bite near her thigh throbbing softly beneath her dress like a secret trying to wake up.
Chapter Six: Three Bodies, One Secret
By the time they stumbled out of Sam’s, the island had softened around the edges.
Music still drifted faintly from the bar behind them while the ocean breathed against the shore in slow black waves. The streets were mostly empty now, glowing gold beneath scattered lamps and moonlight caught in puddles from an earlier rain.
Aiofé had abandoned them twenty minutes earlier with a dramatic groan and a cigarette tucked between black-painted fingers.
“I have an asshole wax at seven in the morning,” she’d announced miserably. “Apparently motherhood leaves women with exactly one free hour between the school bus and emotional collapse.”
“Tragic,” Jacques had murmured.
“She wants a little rhinestone heart shape this time,” Aiofé continued darkly. “I hate this profession.”
“You chose this profession,” Lila laughed.
“I chose money. Buttholes were simply part of the journey.”
Then she disappeared into her waiting Rolls Royce like a gothic Cinderella with cocaine residue in her purse.
Now it was just the three of them.
Heidi between Jacques and Lila as they wandered slowly toward the laundromat beneath the heavy tropical night.
Rum hummed warmly through her veins.
Not drunk enough to lose herself.
Just drunk enough to stop resisting things.
Lila walked close beside her, bare shoulder brushing Heidi’s arm every few steps. Jacques followed slightly behind them smoking lazily, his white shirt half unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to his elbows, beautiful in that careless way only certain men could survive being.
“You danced with her like you wanted to start problems,” Jacques said finally.
Lila glanced over her shoulder.
“Maybe I did.”
Heidi laughed softly.
“Oh my God.”
“What?” Lila grinned. “You think he didn’t notice?”
“Everyone noticed,” Jacques replied calmly.
“Good.”
The word landed warm between them.
Heidi’s pulse skipped.
The laundromat glowed softly ahead beneath the string lights she’d hung outside weeks earlier. The turquoise door stood cracked open slightly to let the ocean breeze move through the building overnight.
Home.
Or the closest thing she’d had to one in years.
They climbed the stairs slowly, laughing when Lila nearly tripped halfway up.
“These stairs are trying to kill me,” she muttered.
“That’s because you’re wearing shoes designed by Satan,” Heidi replied.
“They’re cute though.”
“That’s how evil works.”
By the time Heidi unlocked the apartment door, the tension between the three of them had become impossible to ignore.
Not awkward.
Worse.
Mutual.
The apartment glowed softly as Heidi kicked the door shut behind them. Curtains drifted through the open windows while moonlight spilled silver across the hardwood floor. Somewhere outside, waves crashed softly against the shore.
Lila wandered toward the window immediately.
“God,” she sighed. “I’m obsessed with this apartment.”
“You just like the view.”
“I like both views.”
Heidi turned toward her just in time to catch the slow look Lila gave her over one bare shoulder.
Oh.
Jacques noticed too.
Of course he did.
He set his cigarillo in the ashtray by the window and crossed the room slowly until he stood directly in front of Heidi.
Close.
Close enough for rum and smoke and saltwater to cling to his skin.
“You’re quiet tonight, chérie,” he murmured.
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
His hand lifted slowly to her waist.
Familiar now.
Steady.
Warm.
Heidi tilted her head back automatically when he kissed her.
Soft at first.
Then deeper.
The kind of kiss built from weeks of tension and stolen moments and unfinished thoughts. Jacques kissed like he did everything else—with patience first, hunger second.
Heidi melted into him instinctively.
And somewhere behind her, she heard Lila exhale softly.
Jacques’ fingers slipped beneath the hem of Heidi’s dress while his mouth moved against hers. Heat rolled through her body immediately, low and dizzying.
Then another pair of hands touched her.
Lila.
Light fingertips against Heidi’s bare shoulder.
Tentative for half a second.
Then not tentative at all.
Heidi broke the kiss with a startled breath as Lila stepped closer behind her, dark eyes searching her face carefully like she was still waiting for permission to disappear.
Instead, Heidi turned toward her.
And kissed her too.
Different.
Completely different.
Lila kissed like surf against rock—warm, sudden, consuming. Rum sweet on her tongue, one hand sliding into Heidi’s hair while the other settled against her waist possessively enough to make Heidi shiver.
“Oh,” Jacques murmured softly somewhere beside them.
Not upset.
Definitely not upset.
The room shifted around them after that.
Slowly at first.
Then all at once.
Laughter between kisses.
Hands wandering.
Clothes dropped carelessly onto the floor tiles one piece at a time.
Lila’s crop top vanished somewhere near the couch.
Jacques’ shirt disappeared next.
Heidi’s sundress pooled around her feet while warm island air moved against newly exposed skin.
The apartment suddenly felt smaller.
Hotter.
Charged with something reckless and inevitable.
Lila laughed breathlessly when Jacques kissed the side of Heidi’s throat while Heidi tangled both hands into Lila’s dark hair.
“This feels….” Heidi whispered.
“Good” Jacques replied against her skin.
His hands moved lower, fingertips slipping beneath the thin fabric of Heidi’s thong while Lila kissed her harder, more confident now. The room blurred softly around them—ocean air, tangled shadows, half-drunk laughter dissolving into heat.
Heidi’s head tipped back instinctively when Jacques’ mouth found her throat.
“Fuck,” she breathed softly.
Lila smiled against her shoulder.
“There she is.”
Heidi laughed breathlessly.
“I hate both of you.”
“No you don’t,” Jacques said calmly.
He pulled down his pants and began to stroke his very large, and very thick endowment.
“No,” Lila agreed. “You really don’t.”
The three of them drifted backward toward the bed in tangled stages, stopping every few steps to kiss again, laugh again, touch again.
Messy.
Unplanned.
Intimate in a way none of them had expected.
Not some polished fantasy.
Real.
Lila climbed onto the bed first, dark hair falling around her shoulders while moonlight painted silver across her skin. Heidi stopped for half a second just to look at her.
Jesus Christ.
Lila looked like the island itself—sun-warmed, dangerous, impossible not to touch.
“You keep staring at me like that,” Lila teased softly, “and I’m going to get a complex.”
“Too late,” Jacques muttered behind Heidi.
Lila spread her legs. And began to rub herself in circles.
His hands slid slowly over his cock, Heidi lay down beside her, opening her legs in the same fashion, kissing Lila deeply. Two beautiful women lay before him now.
“I am a lucky man”
And Heidi—
Heidi felt herself letting go.
Not just physically.
Emotionally.
The constant tension she carried inside herself loosened little by little beneath their hands. For once, nobody wanted explanations from her. Nobody needed her to perform strength or competence or emotional stability.
They just wanted her.
Warm.
Laughing.
Breathing.
Alive.
Lila kissed along Heidi’s shoulder, down to her nipples, slowly while Jacques’ mouth moved against hers again, and for one dizzying second Heidi thought:
Maybe this is what healing feels like.
Heidi lay back against the white sheets, open beneath Jacques as he settled slowly between her thighs, his forehead resting briefly against hers while his hands moved carefully along her hips. Above her, Lila watched the two of them for one breathless moment, heat and curiosity softening her expression as Jacques traced himself teasingly against Heidi’s parted lips, drawing a trembling gasp from her mouth. Then Lila moved closer, graceful as a wave folding over the shore, positioning herself above Heidi so that all three of them connected at once—mouths, hands, breath, skin—until the boundaries between them blurred into one slow, shared rhythm. .
It no longer felt like three separate people.
It felt shared.
Circular.
Like each touch traveled through all of them at once.
Every gasp from Heidi pulled another from Lila.
Every movement from Jacques answered by the slow roll of Lila’s hips.
Every kiss deepening the next one.
The rhythm built naturally between them until it almost stopped feeling physical and became something softer, stranger, more intimate than any of them expected.
Heidi felt adored.
Not consumed.
Not used.
Adored.
Then Lila’s hand slid slowly along the inside of Heidi’s thigh.
At first it was soft.
Absentminded almost.
The kind of touch meant only to soothe, to explore, to keep all three of them connected in the same slow rhythm they’d fallen into together.
Then Heidi flinched.
Not pleasure.
Pain.
A sharp involuntary wince tore through her body before she could stop it.
Jacques immediately lifted his head.
The shift in him was instant.
One second earlier, the room had been warm with breath and skin and tangled laughter, the three of them moving together beneath moonlight and salt air like the tide itself had pulled them into the same bed.
The next—
Everything snapped sideways.
Lila frowned immediately, fingertips pausing against Heidi’s leg.
“What’s that?”
Heidi froze so hard it hurt.
Shit.
Lila shifted carefully above her, pushing herself up onto one elbow while her hand moved more deliberately now along Heidi’s thigh. Moonlight spilling through the curtains caught the mark fully for the first time.
Dark red-purple against warm skin.
Swollen.
Bruised deeply around the edges.
Not a playful bite.
Not a lover’s mark.
Something harsher.
Something that looked almost violent in the pale silver light.
Jacques followed Lila’s gaze downward.
For one surreal second, Heidi watched the realization move across his face while he was still between her thighs, breath still uneven, skin still warm from moments earlier.
Then everything in him changed.
Completely.
The lazy heat vanished from his expression.
The softness disappeared.
Jacques looked down at the bite and went utterly still.
Not angry.
Not jealous.
Worse.
Alarmed.
He slowly pulled back from Heidi, removing himself carefully as though sudden movement might somehow make the thing worse. The mattress shifted beneath them while cool island air suddenly rushed against Heidi’s overheated skin.
The room felt colder instantly despite the tropical heat pressing against the windows.
Lila sat back fully now, dark hair falling over one shoulder while she stared at the mark with growing unease.
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s nothing,” Heidi said too quickly.
Both of them looked at her.
Neither believed her for a second.
Jacques stood beside the bed now, completely naked and devastatingly beautiful beneath the moonlight, but there was nothing seductive left in him anymore. His entire posture had sharpened into something alert and serious.
Dangerously serious.
He looked like a man ready to go to war.
Lila reached toward the bedside lamp and switched it on.
Warm amber light flooded the room.
The bite looked worse under it.
Much worse.
The bruising spread outward beneath the skin in deep violent shades of crimson and purple, the shape unmistakable now. Teeth marks. Human enough to recognize immediately.
But somehow—
Wrong.
The punctures looked too deep.
Too deliberate.
Almost animal.
Lila touched the skin around it gently and Heidi hissed through her teeth.
“That’s fresh,” Lila murmured quietly.
Heidi swallowed.
“It is.”
Jacques crouched beside the bed slowly, eyes locked on the wound with an expression Heidi had never seen on him before.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
“Who did that to you?” Lila asked softly.
The question landed heavily in the room.
Outside, waves crashed somewhere below the apartment while the curtains drifted in the ocean breeze behind them. The island carried on breathing quietly while inside the room all three of them sat suspended in sudden stillness.
Heidi looked away instinctively.
And both of them noticed.
Of course they did.
Jacques’ voice lowered carefully.
“Heidi.”
She hated how gentle he sounded suddenly.
“How did this happen?”
The memory hit her instantly.
Green eyes glowing in the dark laundromat.
Saltwater dripping from bronze skin.
Huge hands gripping her thighs hard enough to bruise.
The vibration of the washing machine beneath her back.
And his mouth—
God.
His teeth sinking into her flesh while pleasure and pain blurred together so completely she hadn’t known where one ended and the other began.
But beneath the physical memory was the part she still couldn’t explain.
That impossible feeling.
Like the stranger had not simply touched her body.
Like somehow he had reached inside her.
Changed something.
Heidi wrapped her arms around herself instinctively.
“This guy wondered in last night,” she admitted quietly.
Lila blinked.
Jacques didn’t move at all.
“At the laundromat?”
Heidi nodded once.
Jacques’ expression darkened slightly.
“I don’t know,” she repeated, louder this time. “I don’t know who he was. I don’t know where he came from. I barely even…” She stopped suddenly.
Because saying it out loud made it sound insane.
Lila moved closer beside her carefully now, concern replacing the earlier heat entirely.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
Heidi did.
Lila’s expression had gentled completely.
“What happened?”
Heidi took a shaky breath.
“I thought he was drunk at first. Or maybe hurt.” She swallowed hard. “He came in from the beach soaking wet. Barefoot. I don’t even know how he got there without me noticing.”
Jacques’ jaw tightened.
“And then?”
Heat flooded Heidi’s face despite herself.
“Then we…”
Lila’s eyes widened slightly.
“You slept with him?”
“No. It wasn’t…” Heidi stopped again, struggling for words. “It didn’t feel normal.”
Jacques looked at the bite again immediately.
“No,” he said quietly. “I imagine it did not.”
The room fell silent again.
Outside, the ocean crashed harder against the shore now, the sound echoing faintly through the open windows.
Jacques finally lifted his eyes back to Heidi.
“Did he tell you his name?”
“No.”
“Did you see him leave?”
Heidi’s stomach tightened.
Because that part unsettled her most of all.
“No,” she whispered.
Lila stared at her.
“What do you mean no?”
“I woke up alone.”
“But he did this to you downstairs?”.
Heidi nodded.
“I don’t remember anything really after we spoke”
Lila and Jaques exchanged concerned looks.
The lamp beside the bed cast long shadows across the room now, turning the white sheets gold while the bite on Heidi’s thigh burned beneath all three of their attention.
Jacques was a lover in every sense of the word. It lived in the way he spoke to women, the way he touched them, the way he listened when they talked instead of simply waiting for his turn to speak. Even at his most reckless, there was reverence in him. He flirted shamelessly, drank too much, disappeared into too many beautiful bodies and too many long nights—but Jacques Laurent respected women. Deeply. Almost religiously. It was woven into him somewhere beneath the whiskey, the cigarettes, and the endless performance of being the island’s charming man of the night.
And seeing that bite on Heidi changed something in him instantly.
Because whatever had happened in the laundromat had not felt seductive to Jacques.
It felt wrong.
Heidi was not his in any possessive sense. Neither of them had built their relationship that way. They existed in soft undefined spaces—shared beds, shared mornings, quiet intimacy without ownership.
But affection was still affection.
Adoration was still adoration.
And the sight of bruised teeth marks buried deep into Heidi’s skin awakened something old and dangerous behind Jacques’ eyes.
Not jealousy.
Protection.
The kind that arrived silently.
The kind that made a man start thinking about violence very calmly.
Lila stared at the bite in horrified silence.
And beneath the shock, something sharper flickered across her face too.
Lila had spent most of her life pretending not to care too deeply about anything.
It was easier that way.
The ocean took people.
Tourists left.
Friends drifted.
Men promised forever and disappeared by winter.
Even her father had paddled out one morning beneath a perfect sunrise and simply never come back.
So Lila learned young that attachment was dangerous. Better to joke first. Better to flirt first. Better to keep everything moving before grief had the chance to settle its weight onto your chest.
But Heidi—
Heidi had slipped past her defenses quietly.
Somewhere between watching the lights flicker on in the laundromat each morning and hearing her laugh at the bar tonight, Lila had started caring without realizing how far gone she already was.
And now there was another man’s bite buried deep into Heidi’s skin.
Violent enough to make her flinch.
That realization hit something primal inside Lila immediately.
Not ownership.
Not jealousy.
Something more instinctive than that.
Fear.
Because Lila knew desire. She knew roughness. She knew the difference between a lover’s mark and something that carried the wrong energy behind it.
And whatever this was—
It unsettled her.
Deeply.
She reached toward Heidi carefully again, fingertips brushing lightly against the skin just beneath the bruising as though trying to comfort damage she didn’t fully understand.
“Heidi,” she said softly, voice stripped completely of sarcasm now, “that man hurt you.”
Heidi opened her mouth to argue automatically.
But the words never came.
Because somewhere deep down beneath the heat and confusion and impossible attraction of that night in the laundromat—
Part of her feared Lila might be right.
For a while, nobody moved.
The room stayed suspended in that strange fragile silence that comes after intimacy breaks apart unexpectedly. Warm sheets tangled around bare legs. Moonlight and lamplight mixing softly across skin. The ocean breathing outside the windows like the island itself was listening.
Heidi sat against the headboard with the sheet pulled loosely across her lap, her thoughts moving too fast and too slowly at the same time.
The stranger’s face still burned behind her eyes.
Green eyes.
Saltwater skin.
The impossible weight of his hands on her body.
But now those memories had changed shape slightly under Jacques and Lila’s reactions.
Before tonight, the bite had felt secretive. Strange. Erotic in a way she didn’t fully understand.
Now it felt ominous.
Lila curled quietly against Heidi’s side first, resting her head against her shoulder without asking permission, one arm draped lazily across Heidi’s stomach beneath the sheets.
Protective.
The realization hit Heidi softly.
Lila wasn’t trying to seduce her anymore.
Not now.
She was staying close because she was worried.
Jacques moved more slowly.
He stood near the open window for a long moment completely naked beneath the drifting curtains, one hand braced against the frame while he stared out toward the black water below the cliffs.
The breeze moved through his dark hair.
Moonlight carved silver along the sharp lines of his shoulders and back.
Beautiful man.
Dangerous thoughts.
He lit a cigar quietly, the flame briefly illuminating the tension still sitting hard in his expression before smoke curled upward into the warm island air.
For once, Jacques Laurent looked older than his charm.
Older than his flirtation.
Like there were stories living behind his eyes he had not yet decided to tell.
Heidi watched him carefully from the bed.
“You’re scaring me a little,” she admitted softly.
Jacques glanced back at her.
Immediately his expression gentled.
“I do not mean to.”
“But you know something.”
A long silence followed.
Not denial.
Which somehow felt worse.
Finally, Jacques took a slow drag from the cigar and looked back toward the ocean again.
“This island has old stories,” he said quietly.
Lila groaned softly against Heidi’s shoulder.
“Oh no.”
Jacques ignored her.
“Men from the sea. Spirits. Gods. Curses. Islanders tell many things after enough rum.”
“And you believe them?” Heidi asked.
Another pause.
Then:
“I believe islands are older than we are.”
That did not answer the question.
Which meant it answered it perfectly.
Lila shifted closer against Heidi instinctively.
“That bite doesn’t feel right,” she murmured sleepily. “That’s all I know.”
Heidi looked down at the dark mark on her thigh beneath the sheets.
It throbbed once.
Slow.
Heavy.
Almost alive.
A shiver moved through her.
Then Jacques crossed the room finally and climbed carefully back into bed beside them. The mattress dipped beneath his weight while the scent of tobacco, salt air, and warm skin wrapped around Heidi almost immediately.
Without speaking, he settled beside her and pulled her gently beneath his arm.
Heidi melted against him before she could stop herself.
Lila remained curled against Heidi’s other side, half asleep already, one bare leg tangled lazily with hers beneath the cool white sheets.
The three of them fit together strangely well.
Like something accidental that should not have worked but somehow did anyway.
For tonight, at least.
Jacques rested back against the headboard with the cigar balanced between his fingers while the girls slowly drifted toward sleep against him.
Lila’s breathing softened first.
Then Heidi’s.
But just before sleep fully took her, Heidi looked once more toward the open windows where moonlight spilled silver across the floorboards.
Beyond them, the ocean stretched black and endless beneath the night sky.
Waiting.
And somewhere far below the apartment, beneath the crash of waves against the shore, Heidi could have sworn she heard something moving in the dark water.
Something alive.
Jacques tightened his arm around her slightly as if sensing the fear moving through her thoughts.
“We deal with it tomorrow,” he murmured softly.
His voice vibrated warm against Heidi’s temple.
Tomorrow.
Yes.
Tomorrow they could worry about mysterious strangers and island legends and impossible bites.
Tonight, wrapped in cool sheets between three warm bodies while cigar smoke drifted lazily through the moonlit apartment, Heidi allowed herself—for the first time in years—to fall asleep feeling less alone.
