Beyond the Horizon Read online

  “I was…” My breath hitches as his large hands move over my collar bone and cup my breasts which are already heavy and achy for his touch.

  “Did I ever tell you that you have a beautiful voice?” he asks, an open smile warming his face as he squeezes my breasts gently before moving his hand lower over the softness of my stomach.

  “You did once, on the deck by your boat. You caught me singing then too…” Words and thoughts are snatched away as Malakai gently washes my pussy. He cups me there, just holding my warmth in the palm of his hand as he stares deep into my eyes. It’s one of the sexiest things he’s done.

  “You took my breath away, Connie. That morning, when I heard your voice, I was drawn inexplicably towards the sound. I didn’t know it was you until I saw you sitting on the bench with your eyes closed and your head tipped back…” He stops speaking for a moment and crowds me with his body, forcing me back against the glass partition that feels cool against my heated back. Water runs in rivulets over his skin, catching in the scruff on his face, dropping from his plump, kissable lips. I want to lick off every single droplet and a flush of red-hot heat blooms beneath my skin at the thought.

  He leans over and brushes his mouth against mine, parting the seam of my lips with the tip of his tongue, before murmuring against my mouth. “I think that was the moment I knew I was in trouble,” he explains, pulling back slightly and shaking his head as though he can’t believe we’re even standing here now.

  “In trouble?” I ask, running my hands up and over the dips and grooves of his stomach and chest. My fingers find purchase in his chest hair, and I tug a little, loving how his already stiff cock leaps at the sensation.

  His lip cocks up in a smile as his eyes darken with lust. “Yes. I knew you were an impossibility. I also knew I wanted you. That never stopped. Not ever. Not in all the times we were apart. I wanted you, Connie. I just didn’t know how to keep you.”

  “Shh, don’t. We’re together now, there’s no need to go over our past mistakes.”

  “But what if I mess this up?”

  “You won’t. I won’t let you,” I respond, my hands running over his slick skin, my fingers tracing the deep v-muscle that leads to his beautiful, angry cock.

  “I’ve never been in a relationship before…” he mutters, pressing his forehead against mine, his eyes fluttering shut as I palm his dick with one hand, and cup his balls with the other.

  “Me neither. We’ll figure this out together, okay?” I squeeze his thick shaft with the question. Malakai jerks in my hand and presses himself into me before dropping his lips to my mouth. “Okay,” he responds, then shudders as I use the tip of his cock to run between the seam of my parted slit. “You know I’m about five seconds away from fucking you, right?”

  “Oh, I know,” I reply, smiling beneath his kisses.

  Malakai rears backwards, his moss green eyes almost black with lust. “You’ve bewitched me,” he grinds out before drawing me into his arms and pulling at my hips so that I climb up around him.

  “You love it. Should I get on my knees and suck your cock again, or perhaps I should ride your face?”

  Malakai slaps my arse, leaving a sting that he smooths away with a kiss on my lips and rub of his hand. “You, Little Siren, are about to get fucked.”

  Dripping wet and filled with heat, Malakai carries me back into the bedroom and throws me onto the bed. I bounce a couple times, laughing the whole time as he storms towards the bedside cabinet and yanks open the drawer pulling out another condom.

  “No, don’t,” I say, rising up onto my elbows.

  “What?” he looks at me wide-eyed, a flush of heat evident beneath his beautiful tan.

  “I want to feel you bare, Malakai. I trust you to pull out when the time comes.”

  He does this kind of growly, rumbling noise that makes my heart thunder and my toes curl with anticipation.

  “You could still get pregnant…”

  “Would that be a bad thing?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.

  His mouth twitches and his eyes sparkle. “A child…”

  “I love you, Malakai. I want children one day, with you, if you’ll have me.”

  “Fuck, Little Siren. I couldn’t think of anything more that I’d want,” he responds, climbing on the bed. Sliding my legs wide, I make room for his huge frame. “Little Malakai’s and Connie’s running around, eh?”

  “They’d be beautiful…” I laugh.

  “They’d be trouble…”

  But all thoughts of children are forgotten the moment he slides into me bare and we fuck like two people who are hopelessly, head over heels in love.

  “Here, I’d like you to have this,” Malakai says, sitting down next to me on the deck a few hours later, just as the sun is setting over the horizon. Deep purples and pinks edged in gold and fuchsia spread out across the sky, reflected in the ocean below. The pristine white sand that my feet are buried in is pooled in a marshmallow light, dusting it a pale pink. I’m wearing my navy swimsuit and cut-off denim shorts, little specks of sand are attached to the suntan cream Malakai slathered over every inch of me a few hours ago.

  “What would you like me to have?” I ask, noticing he’s empty handed.

  “This…” he turns away and reaches for something behind him. It’s another notebook. This time it’s bound in dark cream leather, with the ocean and a moon imprinted on the surface. He hands it to me, chewing on his lip a little. I look from his face to the notebook and back again.

  “What’s inside?” I ask gently.

  “You,” he responds with a rueful smile.

  “Me?” My heart flips.

  He turns his gaze away from me and looks out to sea. “The notebooks I sent to you before were filled with all the darkness of my past. Those pages are full of all the monstrous things I did and all my scattered, broken thoughts. I thought you needed to read them. I guess I sent them to you knowing deep down that if you did read them, you wouldn’t want me. I can be self-destructive like that.”

  “Yes, I noticed that about you. You’re pretty good at pushing people away.”

  He glimpses at me and smiles a little before that smile drops like a stone in the ocean. “Part of me still believes you should read them, and an even bigger part is glad you didn’t…”

  “I don’t need to read them. I told you, I love who you are, not who you were.” Reaching for him, I squeeze his hand. It’s warm and strong, but right now he’s as fragile as I’ve ever seen him. Vulnerable in a way that breaks my heart.

  “This is who I truly am,” he says gently, pointing to the notebook in my grasp. “It’s who I’ve always been underneath all the darkness and the bad decisions I’ve made over the years.”

  “Hidden depths, just like the ocean,” I murmur, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “Something like that,” he agrees, pressing a soft kiss on my hair.

  “Do I need to be worried about what’s in here?” I ask after a while.

  “I hope not, but it is very honest. Underneath everything I’m a simple man, Connie. I wrote all those words right here on this beach as I waited for your siren’s call. They’re all heartfelt, some are even crude…” he coughs a little to hide his embarrassment.

  “Are all your dirty thoughts about me here too?” I ask, smiling, not daring to look at him because if that isn’t a turn on, I don’t know what is. Besides, we’ve spent all day making love and if I look at him right now we’ll end up making love all night too, and whilst I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful, I do really want to read what’s in this notebook.

  “Yes. All of them. Everything I’ve ever imagined, but mostly just one man’s need for a beautiful girl. My need for you…”

  “I’m a little nervous. What if I don’t live up to your expectations?”

  “Little Siren, you’re the real deal. You’ve already passed with flying colours.” He chuckles then, and the rumbling sound makes me grin stupidly.

  “Do I get a ten
out of ten?” I ask, lifting my head off his shoulder and meeting his fierce gaze.

  “Little Siren, we don’t deal in numbers, how can we when what we have is as bright as the moon and as vast as the ocean…?”

  Malakai presses a chaste kiss against my lips then jogs towards the ocean, diving into the water. I watch him for a moment, waiting for my pulse to settle then open the notebook, my fingers running over the pretty handwriting. He has a neat, almost delicate cursive that belies his strength and sometimes bullish behaviour. Quite a contradiction. Then again, it makes sense because like the ocean, he’s both gentle and calm, and stormy and dangerous.

  Settling myself into a more comfortable position, I lean back against the deck behind me and read…

  By the time I’m finished a couple hours have passed. Malakai is sitting on the shoreline, his lower half glistening with tiny beads of jewelled water as the waves lap around his legs. I approach him, my heart full of his words, his love for me. The tears I’d shed with joy and heartache have long since dried and I’m left feeling full, whole.

  Words have so much power, it’s why I love them so. Evidently, Malakai loves them too.

  I recall some of his phrases. His description of my most private parts had me blushing a deep crimson. Apparently I have a pretty sunset cunt. God, my core had clenched, and my clit had twitched at that description. Other paragraphs had me weeping at the pain he felt…

  You were so righteous in your anger that first time I returned. You lashed at me with your words and your rage. I deserved every one of them. Every single one, Little Siren.

  The last time someone raged at me like that was my mother when I’d refused to give in to my father’s demands. She was afraid of what he’d do to me if I didn’t obey. I loved her enough to make a stand. I’d been twelve. He’d beat me black and blue and the next day we left for your island. After my mother was murdered, I funnelled all the rage and anger and let it feed me. No one dared to face me after that.

  Until you.

  Do you know how much I wanted to pull you into my arms that day? I wanted to fall at your feet and beg for forgiveness, for your love, because even in your anger I’d felt it. I wanted to be yours so badly that all I could do was pull down that mask I’d worn every day since my father strangled my mother to death. I put up those walls, whilst your rage batted against me. I pushed back, wanting you to hate me, despite needing you to love me.

  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how much I wanted you then. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I hated myself for leaving you the way I did. I wasn’t man enough back then. I am now.

  If I’m a songwriter, then Malakai, he’s a storyteller. His notebook is filled to the brim with his words, with our story. It’s beautiful, painful, everlasting now that it’s scrawled in black ink across cream pages. I will treasure it forever.

  “The ocean’s calm today,” he says, staring out into the distance, not meeting my gaze as I settle beside him on the warm sand.

  “It is. I love it here, Malakai. I understand why this is the place you came to find peace.”

  “It’s easy to forget my past here. Easy to be who I want to be on this island with you.”

  Placing my hand on his thigh, I squeeze gently. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For your words. For allowing me to see into your soul. I’ve never read anything more beautiful. I’m touched, Malakai. I’m touched and so happy.”

  “I’m happy too,” he replies, letting out a deep sigh of contentment.

  “Is it all true, what you wrote?” I whisper against his skin, my lips brushing against his shoulder, my tongue soothing an old scar hidden by his tattoo, one made by his father’s hand.

  “Every last word, Little Siren. You’re my heart, my soul, my everything. This place wouldn’t feel the same without you in it. Nowhere would. As long as I have you, I have a home.”

  “We can’t stay here forever. At some point I’ll need to go back to the island, to Grandma,” I say, realising that I miss her, miss Lola and Rob. As beautiful as this place is, I want to go home.

  “I know that too.” He looks at me then with utter devotion. “Come here, Little Siren,” he says, patting his lap.

  Climbing on top of him, I straddle his waist and rest my forearms on his shoulder. “You mention the curse in your notebook. I didn’t think you believed in it?”

  “I don’t, not really.” Shifting forward, Malakai wraps his arm about my waist and holds me against him, his lips taste the saltiness of my collarbone then he presses his nose against the spot where my neck meets my shoulder and breathes in deep.

  “But you’re still afraid, of what?”

  “I’m afraid to lose something so precious when I’ve only just found it.”

  “Me too… Malakai, what if we’re heading for heartbreak? What if it’s true?”

  “Heartbreak will come regardless, Little Siren. I’ve lived through enough shit to know that we can’t ever escape the dark side of life. Death is a finality none of us can avoid. One day it will claim me, as it will claim you…”

  “I don’t like thinking about it.”

  “Then don’t. Don’t think about it. Don’t give it any power. Don’t give it any credence. Just be present in every moment, every day, with me by your side.”

  “I love you, Malakai Azaiah Dunbar.”

  “And I love you, Connie Silva, my Little Siren.”

  Cupping my face, Malakai kisses me softly, his tongue tangling with my own, his beautiful words filling me up with so much love I’m bursting at the seams with happiness. He worships me with his words, with his touch, with his tongue. Right now he’s loving me. He loves me.

  I knew he did, but hearing the words are a balm to my soul, they make me soar high, they make me shine and sparkle just like the moon cresting above us both now.

  In this moment, I understand that nothing in life is certain.

  We can’t see what’s coming any more than we can help who we fall in love with. I’m under no illusions that our future will be straightforward or easy, but we will work through whatever comes our way. Together.

  As we kiss and kiss and kiss, our tongues stroking, our hands touching, our hearts pounding and our souls soaring, I know one thing to be true above all else: I will love this man forever.

  I will love him in life, in death, for all eternity.

  This is our love story for however long it lasts.

  Forty

  In the end…

  Malakai

  Dear Little Siren,

  On our 35th wedding anniversary, I write these words with a heart full of endless love whilst you sleep peacefully beside me in the home you grew up in, on the same island we met and fell in love.

  You, Connie, have been my joy. My beacon in the darkest of nights and my reason for living. There hasn’t been one day that’s passed where I’ve longed for anything other than you. You’ve brought me happiness, a family, a home. You’ve given me a life that I never ever believed I deserved.

  Together we’ve brought up our three children who have basked in our happiness. Together we’ve shown them what it means to be utterly devoted to each other, to them. Now they have families of their own and have sailed away to find their own place in the world. I’m so proud of our children, of our two boys and our girl. My heart is so damn full, Little Siren. So full that sometimes I have to pinch myself in case this has all been a dream.

  I never told you this, but a few days after we returned to the island from Grace Bay Beach, Ma Silva took me for a walk along Broken Shores. It was the first time she stood on the sand for over thirty years. We talked about you, Connie, and she asked me to look after your heart. She asked me to protect you, to love you. Even though I’d already committed myself to you, I still held some fear back then, but I won’t ever forget what Ma Silva had said to me that day. She’d held my hand and looked out to the ocean and said, “Maybe this time her love for you will be strong enough to survive whatever fate has in s
tore, and if it isn’t, then at least you’ll find happiness however brief that might be. We have to take joy where we can get it.”

  She was right.

  Before I met you my days were dark, haunted by painful memories of all the terrible things I’d done. I will never get away from them, but together we’ve learnt to live in the moment. To live every day to the fullest. We’ve laughed, we’ve fucked and fought, but never once have we stopped loving each other. We have the curse to thank for that, and I for one am grateful because without it, we might never have had the courage to live every day as though it might be our last.

  I guess the only thing left to say is this: I may be the ocean, Little Siren, but you, you are the moon and I will forever be pulled inexplicably towards you by this invisible force called love.

  I love you.

  Forever yours,

  Malakai.

  THE END

  Coming soon

  As you know, Beyond the Horizon was a spinoff story to the Academy of Misfits trilogy. You’ve met Asia and her crew briefly in this story. If you want a taster of the delinquent kids from Oceanside Academy, then keep reading!

  Before you dive into Asia’s world, I wanted to tell you about a brand-new story set to release June 2020. Freestyle is the first book in the Academy of Stardom series and is on pre-order now.

  Think getting down and dirty in clubs, think dance studios filled with sweaty, tatted, criminal men and their girl. Think Step-up crossed with Breaking Bad. I can’t wait for you to join Pen and her crew of dangerous, breakdancing, sexy AF, boys.