Hadn’t this bitch read the pamphlets?

  It clearly stated that it took about six weeks to strip down most couples’ defenses, to chip through their denial, make honest personal assessments of their relationships, and finally get to the crux of their marital discord. And, in doing so, it eventually raised many thorny questions. Should couples stay? Can trust be rebuilt? Can passion be reignited? Can they forgive and move on? Or should they throw in the towel and head for divorce court?

  Although couples were removed from their families and careers and the daily routines of their lives, they gained so much more—a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships with one another, while on a beautiful tropical island.

  Oh. And lest she forgets . . . they would be paid a substantial lump sum of money (a hundred grand, to be exact!) once they successfully completed the six weeks.

  The caveat was this: There was one flight in, and one flight out. In order to leave the island, unless it was an emergency, both partners had to be in agreement about leaving.

  If not, they stayed.

  Stuck.

  Forced to make the best of a failed situation.

  Dr. Dangerfield ran her tongue over her teeth, and then forced a smile.

  “Liken your stay on Paradise Island,” she suggested, “to an intensive boot camp experience, minus the drill sergeants shouting in your face. However, as in any boot camp, there will be obstacles that you all must face, some as a couple, others done individually. And it is my hope that each of you will afford me a glimpse into your relationships, so that I might be able to help you maximize your emotional and sexual experiences.”

  Krista nearly frowned as she shifted in her seat and gripped her purse.

  It was all nonsense. But coming home with a hundred grand in her hand made it that much easier to keep her mouth shut. Besides, she wanted to prove to Kendall that whatever marital issue he thought they were having was all in his damn head, thank you very much.

  Krista was as sexually free with him as she was going to be. However, she’d be damned to hell if Kendall thought for one minute that she was going to discuss the most intimate, the most private, details of their sex life with some stranger. Therapist or not, she didn’t need therapy—or coaching in how to be a good wife and lover.

  She was both.

  Krista glanced over at LaQuandra, and then Brenda. Mmph. Now those two heifers, they needed it, coaching and mentoring, more than she ever would. No judgment, though.

  She then cut her eye over at Roselle and bit back a sneer.

  Ooh, he was a dirty son-of-a-bitch, that one there.

  Cheating-ass bastard. No-good motherfucker.

  She made a quick mental note to pray a few extra minutes tonight. She’d already prayed while on the ride from the landing strip, and had asked her Savior to bridle her tongue, to keep profanity at a minimum. No more than two to three curse words a day. Yet, so far, she’d already managed to exceed her limit.

  She shifted in her chair as Dr. Dangerfield’s voice reeled her attention back into the room.

  “The goal,” Dr. Dangerfield continued, “is that you leave Passion Island after your six-week stay empowered. That you leave here more passionate, more attentive, more loving to one another. That you prioritize passion back into your lives, and be more creative in pleasuring your partners . . .”

  Brenda cut an eye over at Roselle. Being creative wasn’t the problem. It was his damn cheating.

  Roselle squeezed the inside of Brenda’s thigh as if he knew what was running through her mind, while he kept his gaze on Dr. Dangerfield. She was sexy as shit. And, although the dress she was wearing wasn’t clingy or tight-fitting, he could tell that underneath the gauzy fabric, she was hiding a bad-ass body.

  “We all crave passion,” Dr. Dangerfield continued, meeting the gaze of everyone in the room. “Brenda and Roselle Woods, LaQuandra and Isaiah Lewis, Krista and Kendall Evans . . . each of you want to be desired, to feel special and needed, by your respective partners . . .”

  The three couples, subconsciously, were in agreement with her. They wanted to be appreciated, to be respected, and, goddammit, be—with the exception of Krista, who thought all was good in her bedroom—sexually fulfilled.

  Dr. Dangerfield noticed the way Krista was staring at her, sizing her up almost, or maybe she was simply sitting there daydreaming. She decided to call Krista out. “Mrs. Evans, is there something you would like to say?”

  Krista blinked, caught off guard by her directed question. What the hell? When she finally spoke, there was a crack in her voice. “No. Not at the moment.”

  Dr. Dangerfield smiled. “Very well. Now, as I was saying . . . for some of your relationships, the passion you once felt for your partner has since waned. That is a natural course of any relationship. Life and the careers and the kids and family all happen. The fire dies down. You become complacent. You start to take one another for granted. And, somehow, you have forgotten about those things that drew you to your partners in the first place . . .”

  LaQuandra swallowed. You better preach! She felt as if Dr. Dangerfield was speaking directly about her miserable-ass marriage. It pained her to be so unhappy. To feel so damn neglected. If Isaiah just fucked her, beat her pussy up, all night long, she could think clearer. Maybe not be so on edge.

  LaQuandra believed she could eventually find a way to forgive Isaiah for fucking his baby mother, Cassandra—that trashy-bitch. What LaQuandra knew she couldn’t forgive was his disregard for her needs as a woman and his wife. She felt anger rising up within her like bile. She could almost taste it. And it made her sick.

  She shot a look over at Isaiah as he pulled his iPhone from his front pants pocket and glanced at the screen, more out of habit than anything else. There was no signal, so he slid it back down into his pocket.

  LaQuandra’s nose flared. “Really, Isaiah?” she hissed. “You really had to check your phone now? Who the hell you expecting a call from?”

  He shot her a side-eye glance. And then decided to ignore her.

  LaQuandra clenched her jaw, but then she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before she forgot her manners and set it off up in here. Oblivious to the glances of Krista and Brenda, LaQuandra reopened her eyes when she heard the silky sound of Dr. Dangerfield’s voice again.

  “Passion is an important component of a relationship,” Dr. Dangerfield stated, running a slender hand through her hair. “But do not be fooled for it is not the glue that will keep your relationships, your marriages, intact. It will not sustain your relationships. Some of you have altered your commitments to your partners and to your marriages and have forgotten to alert your partners of those changes. You have forgotten to inform them that you are no longer committed to being dedicated and loyal to them. And that within itself can make it more difficult to stoke the fires of passion in your marriages.”

  She paused, purposefully. Allowed what she’d already said to linger in the room a beat, before she continued. “Remember this: the heart wants what the heart wants, even when that which it wants is hurting us the most.”

  LaQuandra gritted her teeth, and looked over at Isaiah again. She felt like backhanding him.

  Dr. Dangerfield caught the scathing look that LaQuandra had given her husband and surmised their relationship was probably in the most trouble, just judging by the way they were sitting. Isaiah sat wide-legged with his arms folded, while LaQuandra sat, legs crossed, with her back to him. There was clearly no passion between the two of them.

  Passion was energy. It was intense. It was powerful. It was the essence of desire.

  And Passion Island was about cultivating those feelings. It was about reigniting—or igniting, in some cases—that spark. It was about renewing sexual energy.

  Every hosted couple’s retreat (and so far there’d been sixteen over the last three years) was all about teaching couples how to give and take, how to be more open, more receptive, more pleasing to one another, more passionate.

  Yes. That was always the plan.

  And yet the saying about the best-laid plans going awry held painfully true. Dr. Dangerfield had seen her share of unexpected breakups and divorces over the course of her career, but she’d also seen some of the most damaged couples heal and grow in forgiveness, in love, and in lust for one another.

  Yes. There was hope.

  Always.

  “Tonight you rest, ladies and gentlemen. But tomorrow, the journey begins. I’ll see you all at breakfast.” With that, Dr. Dangerfield sashayed off the stage, a grin sliding over her lips. She loved her work on Passion Island. It afforded her a bird’s-eye view, a front-row screening, of a couple’s indulgences as well as their indifferences in regards to sex and sexuality. So far, it had been a rewarding, sexually exhilarating experience. To inspire and arouse and challenge couples, to push their sexual boundaries, to test their commitments, and to dare them to be more open, more daring, and more sexual.

  And she was allowed a voyeuristic view inside their private sex lives. She loved working with the ones who had kinky, secret fetishes that they’d kept hidden from their partners. Delicious scandal, that’s what she called it. She’d been a sex therapist with a booming private practice in L.A., for nearly fifteen years, but had been working with couples on the remote island since the concept of helping couples in unhappy marriages find their way back to loving and lusting one another came about three years ago.

  Her soror, confidante, and closest friend, who owned the island nestled eleven miles between Mo’orea and Tahiti, had approached her with the idea of turning this paradise into a tropical sex haven for couples whose relationships had become boring and mundane, where the lovemaking had somehow turned into a tedious task. Fucking had somehow become a chore. And couples allowed conflict and life’s problems to consume them, suffocate them, and snuff out the flames of passion needed to keep them sexually charged, hungry and eager to please one another.

  But Passion Island (somewhat like a long-stay hedonism resort but with therapy and lots of fucking—or not) was the fuel needed to reignite their fires, to reclaim lost desires—in each other and within themselves. Or it was the last stop before calling it quits. The choice was up to each and every one of the couples that made the sixteen-hour trek across the globe in search of truth and light.

  And, hopefully, find their way back to passionate love.

  Only time would tell.

  And Dr. Gretchen Dangerfield would be watching closely.

  Eight

  It was an hour before sunrise. And a full moon was still glowing midsky, slowly waning to give way to dawn. Yet, there was a thick blanket of fog still covering the island. Outside the villa, the melodic sound of birds chirping and the ocean’s waves crashing at the shore could be heard from the opened windows.

  Kendall pressed a soft kiss on Krista’s pubis and then licked over her clit, and she writhed against the budding arousal, against the burning need to have her husband inside her. All this kissing on her pussy was ridiculous. All she wanted was his dick.

  He’d wanted her last night. But Krista had been too tired and simply wanted to take a long, relaxing bath, then turn in for the night. And so she did, leaving Kendall up until God knew what time. And now here he was snacking between her legs, like she was some damn breakfast burrito.

  Goddamn him.

  Why did he have to make sex complicated?

  She didn’t need all this extra shit, all this teasing and playing.

  Kissing her passionately, brushing his lips along the column of her neck, caressing her body, and sucking her nipples, that was all that she really ever needed.

  It made her wet. It made her ready.

  Just his touch alone made her pussy churn.

  But Kendall trying to pleasure her with his mouth only frustrated her.

  And yet she grunted as his tongue flicked over the hood of her clit, and then he had it rolling around on his tongue like a Jolly Rancher, swiping it from top to bottom, side to side.

  “Mm, baby,” Kendall rasped, gazing up at her, his mouth wet from her juices. “Your pussy tastes so . . . good; so sweet . . .” He licked his lips and stroked his fingers down her glistening folds, before sliding his fingers into her pink center.

  Krista felt a scream bubbling up from the back of her throat. This unwelcomed invasion, this . . . this intrusion . . . of his fingers and tongue should have been met with more enthusiasm, more excitement. Instead, all it brought was a coiling frustration, a splintering need, to be stretched and filled.

  Why couldn’t he just fuck her? Stroke her pussy deep with his dick, instead of all this goddamn licking? She couldn’t understand Kendall’s (any man’s, for that matter) obsession with eating pussy, just like she couldn’t wrap her brain around women who loved sucking dick.

  But . . .

  God. It felt so dirty. And, and, and so—

  “Come in my mouth, baby,” Kendall murmured. “Fill my mouth with your sweet pussy.” His eyes were dark, glimmering in lust, as he looked up at her, his gaze heavy, filled with heat and hunger.

  Krista drew a gulp of air into her lungs. She wanted to take her hand and push Kendall’s head from between her legs and then slam her thighs shut.

  Fuck her already!

  Krista knew any other woman would probably be taking dirty delight in Kendall’s magnificent tongue work, the way he used his tongue to skillfully lave every nerve ending, every single nook and cranny of her pussy, every inch of her aching flesh. But all it did, this licking and teasing, was cause a hint of revulsion, no matter how slight, to swirl to life inside her.

  But then Kendall whispered, “Squeeze your titties, baby,” as he thrust his fingers firmly into her wetness, and her disgust quickly morphed into a tiny ball of tension.

  She drew in a ragged breath as Kendall’s fingers moved methodically through her slickness, plunging in and out of her body, over and over, as he licked and then sucked her clit into his mouth.

  Her eyes had fallen shut. And all Krista could think to do was ball her hands into tight fists, and then open them wide, her fingers spreading out, before clawing at the sheets.

  “Put it in me,” she pushed out impatiently, her eyes flashing open. “Give me the dick, Kendall . . . now.”

  He bit back a curse. Why the fuck couldn’t she just chill, just lie back and give into the pleasure? Why couldn’t she simply find a way to sink into the lust and allow him to love her with his mouth and lips and tongue? Why couldn’t she let him pleasure her in a way that pleasured him? Tasting her turned him on. Wedging his tongue in between her opened slit aroused him.

  So why couldn’t she allow her man to love her there—he licked over her slit? And right here—he flicked his tongue over her clit?

  Krista squirmed. She fought off the sensations, and pressed her thighs together, squeezing him there, and then trying to push his head away.

  Kendall caught her hands with his and held them. “Stop fighting it. Give me what I want, baby.” It sounded almost like a plea than a request. “Open your legs,” Kendall prodded gently, gazing up at her. His voice was deep and smooth and dark with desire. “Let me have you, baby.”

  Yes, she had a choice to stop this right now, or lie here and be devoured like some early morning buffet. She chose to open her legs. And still she didn’t appreciate him subtly forcing her to submit, because all he was doing was filling her body with more and more heated frustration.

  She was wet enough, and still Kendall kept licking and sucking, licking and sucking . . . licking, licking, and licking, over and over, until Krista felt herself going limp.

  “Fuck me,” Krista whispered, her voice barely audible. She squirmed her body as the already hard pebbles of her nipples tightened more.

  Fuck.

  He wasn’t done drinking in her juices, but he eased up and covered her body with his, and held himself on his elbows, careful not to crush her. Positioning his semi-erect dick at her juicy entrance, Kendall pressed himself there and then leaned in and attempted to kiss her, to share the taste of her on his tongue with her, but Krista quickly jerked her head away and his cunt-drenched lips caught the side of her jaw instead.

  Kendall frowned and cursed inwardly again. Krista knew how to fuck up a man’s wet dream with her frigid-ass bullshit. Fuck it. If she wanted the dick, then he’d fucking give it to her.

  She lifted her hips, inviting him, silently welcoming him where she’d wanted him to be in the first place—inside her. But Kendall pulled back from between her legs and sat back on his calves. “Get up and turn over,” he said, no demanded. “Get up on your knees.”

  Finally. What she’d been waiting for. Hard dick. Krista scrambled, eagerly willing to assume the position. Doggy-style wasn’t her favorite position, but she’d take it. She’d let him hit it from the back as long as he was giving her the dick.

  “Arch your back,” Kendall instructed. She did. And then she felt Kendall ease behind her. He pulled open her ass cheeks and thrust forward in one big surge, stuffing the entire length of his dick inside her, not caring that he was being forceful as he impaled her.

  Krista gasped as she felt him stretching her wide and she dug her fingernails into the sheets. “Oh! Oh . . .”

  Kendall glanced down, drawn by the sight of his dick gliding in and out of Krista’s pussy as he rapidly thrust in and out, pounding into her, making her ass bounce. And staring back at him, nearly winking at him, was her puckering asshole; all brown and tight and moist from the mixture of her juices and his spit that had slid down into her crack while he’d been eating her out.

  He swallowed. Gritted his teeth, and tamped down the tugging urge to lick her there.

  “Unh, unh, unh . . . oh, yes,” Krista moaned, feeling her orgasm quickly tighten in the pit of her stomach. “Mm. Yes, yes . . .” She could feel his dick hitting the mouth of her cervix and she groaned. Cried out his name.

  Ooh, it felt so good. His dick. The pounding. God, yes . . . Kendall slammed in and out of her with a fury that shocked and aroused her.