If you wanted to, how would you kill your lover?
Freshly sacked from his professorship, Reuben could do without a month-long holiday on his boyfriend’s private island. But he may as well enjoy the perks while they last. As soon as details of his dismissal surface, he’s sure to wind up alone with his murder mystery fixation.
Born with a silver spoon firmly between his teeth, Leif Claeson is no stranger to loss. He and twin sister Petra could lose their father’s creaking multinational at any moment…unless they fulfil his last wishes to the letter. Then again, Leif has always been something of a wild card. He’d rather vacation with his lover than worry about the future. When a stranger crashes their holiday, Leif sees only the potential for blissful debauchery. Ruben disagrees.
Power and sex make for a potent cocktail and everyone in Leif’s inner circle has a stake in what becomes of this Hellenic paradise. As Leif and Reuben struggle to reconcile their feelings with the strange happenings on the island, a chain of events is set in motion that could endanger their very lives.
Reader Advisory: This books contains scenes of MMM ménage, drug use and murder.
General Release Date: 15th December 2015
Now
“You just let him walk away with an alleged murderer?” My heart slammed against my ribcage. Blood pounded against my eardrums. I still couldn’t see straight, the edges of the room blurred by a hangover.
“Hasn’t killed anyone yet.” It was a poor excuse from a man who had threatened point blank to reveal details of my latest disgrace unless I played ball.
As I looked on, Micah crouched and pulled up his pant leg to reveal an ankle holster. The faint light caught on the shiny black plastic. The boot-cut jean concealed it perfectly.
I wondered how often he’d worn it. Had he worn it when he’d backed me up against the tile wall? Had he brought it along while strolling around the island?
Hindsight bestowed a touch of danger to go with the stab of guilt piercing my insides at the thought of our little tryst.
“Of course,” I snorted. “Of course you would have a gun.” Stale liquor clung to the roof of my mouth, poison-slick.
Micah hoisted his gaze to mine, nonchalantly hitching up his dark eyebrows. “I came prepared.”
“Did you.” Trust was hard-won in my book and I didn’t have much to extend to a man who’d been spewing one lie after another since the moment we’d met. All I had were my common sense and his word that he was one of the good guys. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“And tell them what? That a man who fell and hit his head was actually struck by someone on this island? By one of us?”
“We don’t know that he was,” I argued. Backtracking on the case I’d made since we’d found the body on the patio, blood on the flagstone, blood in his thinning hair, took more out of me than standing. “We don’t know anything—”
“Reuben.”
My name in his mouth was a solemn call to order. I pressed my lips tightly shut. Panic was useless. Like it or not, I was playing his game.
“Then… Then I suppose we’d best split up,” I offered. “Ligeia’s pretty big. We’ll cover more ground that way.” And I didn’t have much faith that his bullet would find the right target.
A moment’s hesitation left me wondering if my suggestion would be vetoed. I had barely been cleared of wrong-doing. I didn’t expect our newfound alliance to last once Micah had a clear shot and the means for a quick getaway.
He nodded firmly. “Good idea. I’ll go around the court, try to get to the docks before they do. If they get off the island, we’ll have a problem.”
“Shouldn’t we tell the others?”
“There’s no time,” Micah answered.
His gaze bored into mine, so earnest that I wanted to believe him.
I rooted my feet to the tile floor as he moved closer.
“Look, I need to know that you’re with me. If you can’t do this…”
In the distance, waves crashed furiously against the shore. The folded open windows seemed to echo with the music of a roiling sea. Dark cloud had shrouded the starry sky, leaving us in a tiny pocket of electric light.
A moth fluttered by the wall fixture, dizzy and hypnotized by the iridescent bulb, having lost its way out.
A night for singed wings, I mused woozily, unsteady on my feet.
“I’m in. If I catch up…”
“Delay them,” said Micah. “Don’t let on that you know anything. If I’m right, you may be in danger, too.”
And if you’re wrong? I filed away the thought. The books I’d read and the boxset DVDs on my shelf at home were useless here. The mysteries I’d collected were sanitized, bloodless puzzles in which suspense never quite solidified into fear. I never worried about the detectives. I never felt for the victims.
I concealed a shudder when Micah slotted the clip back into his pistol. Like it or not, we were going hunting.
* * * *
Then
I tried to think of something to say. Anything at all would do. I was stuck gaping at the jagged white cliffs jutting out from the surf, so close that if I reached my hand over the side of the boat I could’ve brushed the coarse stone slabs.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” asked my guide, his accent adding a surfeit of sibilant consonants. “They call it the White Gate.”
Bile surging into my throat, I mustered what I hoped was an interested smile.
“No other way onto the island?”
“There is, but… Mr. Claeson wanted you to have the best.”
That explained the limousine at the airport and the ticket upgrade from Economy to First class. Money talks.
I struggled to disguise my discomfort as we emerged on the far side of the toothy cliffs into a generous inlet. Emerald waves lapped against the sides of the motorboat as my guide steered us toward the gray tongue of a pontoon. A narrow jetty extended to one side of the gulf, two yachts bobbing with the creak of oiled rope.
I gripped the lip of the motorboat and levered carefully to my feet. My stomach lurched. I’d left my sea legs somewhere back in Boston, along with my dignity. I wasn’t crazy about flying, but I would take the hazards of air travel over juddering boats any day.
If my nonchalant guide noticed my trepidation, he generously kept his opinions to himself.
“There you are!”
I would have recognized that voice anywhere, but over the delicate lapping of the sea against the jetty, it surprised me to discover it so close. I looked up just in time to earn myself an armful of pale, lanky Swede.
Doubt instantly ebbed back.
I was home.
Tipping back fractionally, Leif slid a hand behind my neck and pressed his lips to mine. He was heedless of the sailor watching us from the motorboat, possibly because Leif himself paid his wages.
The kiss was sweet and flavored with cranberries. I inhaled the faintly chemical scent of Leif’s sunscreen as we parted for breath.
For a moment we stood silently, taking each other in. He was flushed from the heat, sandy brown hair flecked with gold. His eyes crinkled when he grinned. Despite all my misgivings about this trip, the thought of holding Leif in my arms had been a constant pull. I’d thought of little but kissing him since the last time we were together. At my age, I should have made my peace with going weak in the knees for statuesque, handsome men. I had not.
“Mm, I missed that,” Leif confessed. “Sorry,” he added, grimacing as he brushed his nose to mine. “I’m a little sticky. Petra’s big on SPF.”
He pulled away before I could stop him. The cloying summer heat should have transformed the inches between us into a benediction. Instead, I instantly found myself missing the pressure of his eager embrace.
Leif squeezed my hand. “How was your flight? Is this all your luggage?”
My guide had finally finished tying off the motorboat and was setting my single suitcase on the jetty. It was small enough to pass for carry-on on the plane, the plastic only slightly dented by hard use. I’d picked it up for a conference in California last year, before all the mess began. I tried not to think that I would never again be invited to speak at academic gatherings.
“I pack light,” I answered in the face of Leif’s arched eyebrows. “Speaking of my flight…”
Leif had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “Are you totally pissed off?”
Courtesy of his generosity, I had enjoyed a single aisle seat, champagne at takeoff and landing and a gourmet meal along the way. Pissed off wasn’t the right word for how I felt.
I slipped my hand into Leif’s. “I’ll make it up to you later.”
“You don’t have to…”
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