The young woman smiled. “I’ll be right back with your orders.”

  But before she could walk off, Roselle was closing a hand around her left wrist. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

  “Aurora,” she said sweetly.

  “Aurora. I like,” Roselle said. And before the shy, twenty-something knew what was happening, he’d spun her so that her back was to him and slid an arm around her waist. His other arm wrapped around her shoulder. Roselle drew her back against him, so that his arousal pressed into her lower back.

  “You sexy as fuck, mami.” He spoke low in her ear. “How many strokes does it take to get you to squirt?” Who said the word tact was in his vocabulary? Roselle was known to be bold, after a few drinks, and especially when Brenda was out of sight. He knew what he was here on the island for, but—hell—if he could get himself a dose of some island pussy while working on his marital issues, then it was a win-win.

  The sex ep on the plane with LaLani in the bathroom should have been it for Roselle. He knew it. But—shit, he was surrounded by too many fine-ass women to not sample as many as he could without getting caught.

  Temptation was a motherfucker.

  But the chase was so much better.

  Roselle ground his erection in the young woman’s back, and she blushed as his hand rose sensually up her left side until it was cupping the outer curve of her breast.

  Isaiah eyed him. This muhfucka wildin’ for real, he thought as he slowly shook his head. “Yo, man, chill,” he said. “Let her go get my drink—first, before you start molesting her.”

  Roselle extended his long tongue and slowly licked the side of her face. “Yeah, go on ‘n’ get my man’s drink, baby. I got something for you when you get back.” He lightly smacked her on the ass just as she scurried away, then sat back down on his double-chaise lounge. “Man. I’m tryna freak,” he boldly stated. “You muhfuckas can sit around and look at ass all day, but I’m tryna stick this dick in something wet.”

  “Man, sit ya drunk-ass down somewhere,” Isaiah joked. “You better go stick that shit in that big-ass ocean out there.”

  Roselle laughed. “Fuck that. I want it in something tight and wet and exotic.”

  “You better use ya damn hand, bruh,” Isaiah warned. “You wanna be out here fuckin’ random ass. Ya ass fuck around ‘n’ catch some exotic shit you can’t get rid of.”

  “No doubt,” Kendall added. “What would your wife say if she found out you were out here mauling the help?”

  Roselle finished off his drink. “Man, what my wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her. What you think they’re over there doing on the other side of the island, crocheting?”

  “Probably talking shit about us,” Isaiah admitted over a laugh.

  “Yeah, that too,” Roselle stated emphatically. “But they’re also over there looking at another muhfucka’s dick, and probably letting him feel all up on her. All in jest.”

  “Shit. Then I need to go shake his hand,” Isaiah said. “And then hand him over my marriage license, so he can take over the headaches.”

  Kendall laughed. “Both y’all crazy, man. I can’t speak for anyone else’s wife, but . . .” He paused when Aurora returned with their drinks. He waited for her to set them down on their individual tables, and then eyed her as she walked off.

  Roselle had since moved on from her, his attention back on the big-assed beauty twirling her hips, watching him watch her.

  “I know for a fact Krista isn’t letting another man touch her,” Kendall continued once the young woman was out of earshot. “And she’s damn sure not dick watching.”

  Roselle pulled his gaze away from the women dancing and gave Kendall a questioning look. “You sure about that?”

  Kendall nodded. “Yup. There’s not a doubt in my mind.” He sipped his beer.

  “That’s what’s up, if you have it like that,” Roselle said. “But I know for a fact Brenda’s freaky-ass is licking her lips and talking shit and—”

  Kendall gave him an incredulous look. “You’re cool with that?”

  “Hell yeah,” Roselle admitted. “She can let him get her all hot ‘n’ bothered and then bring that sweet kitty home so Daddy can beat it up for her.”

  Isaiah shook his head. “So you’re cool with your wife cheating on you?”

  Roselle frowned. “Hell nah. I’m cool with her flirting. Big difference. My baby’s a big flirt, but she’s definitely not giving up the cookie to any other muhfucka. She’s too in love with this quarter-pounder to play herself like that.”

  Roselle took a long swallow of his drink, before standing and facing Isaiah and Kendall. “I’ma tell you cats this—you ready?” He took another large swig from his cup, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Wait for it . . .?”

  He belched.

  “Man, will you get on with it,” Isaiah said, “or sit ya drunk-ass down. You blocking my view.”

  “Fuck a view, bruh. Know this,” Roselle continued, “a wet pussy has no conscience. And neither does a dick when it’s hard and has no one watching it. Now you mofos can sip on that, while I go get me some ass.”

  He stripped out of his swimwear and then headed toward the group of dancing women, while Isaiah and Kendall looked on in wide-eyed amazement as Roselle hoisted the object of his desires up over his shoulder and then ran into the ocean with her, leaving his Speedos and his footprints in the sand behind him.

  “Damn,” was all either of them could say as they watched Roselle whisper something in her ear, and then watch her disappear under the water and Roselle’s head roll back.

  Thirteen

  “What is love . . . to you?”

  Dr. Dangerfield asked the question moments ago, looking over at Isaiah, but the question was meant for LaQuandra. And she still had yet to respond. She was pondering the concept, its abstraction. These days, the word love was elusive to her.

  Had she’d been asked the question this time last year, hell seven months ago (when Isaiah was still sharing a bed with her and fucking her down three times a week!), she would have said something goofy like, “Love is dancing naked in the rain.”

  Then again, she might have gotten all poetic and said, “Love is the beat of my heart, the nourishment to my soul.” Or she might have said, “Love is tattooed across my lower back centered over a red heart.”

  Oh. Wait. Maybe she would say some ridiculously dumb shit like, “Love is running through fire while having multiple orgasms.”

  Ironically, her horny pussy was hot and on fire. And she didn’t know how much longer she could go on without the feel of hands slowly roaming her body, while a hard dick was thrusting into her, burning with her, melting into her.

  She had yet to explore her secret fantasy of being fucked by a stranger, because, although it was a fantasy, it still felt wrong simply thinking about it.

  Passion Island was supposed to be about rekindling the romance in her marriage, to get Isaiah to see his wrongdoings (i.e., fucking that bitch, Cassandra!); that’s what she’d signed up for. Not this extra shit. The focus should not be on her.

  It was like this therapist bitch was trying to make her out to be the problem in their marriage, when Isaiah was clearly the one with the problem.

  Dr. Dangerfield kept her eye trained on LaQuandra, while Isaiah sat silent, the both of them watching her, waiting.

  LaQuandra drew in a breath and considered. What is love to me?

  The hell if she knew anymore.

  All she knew was, she wanted Isaiah to want her, to have naughty thoughts of her. She wanted her marriage. And she wanted her man.

  Because he was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  Because she accepted him for the man he was, flaws and all.

  Because—more importantly, if she were going to be completely honest with herself—she didn’t want to lose him to that bitch, Cassandra, or make it any easier than Isaiah had already made it for her to sink her cruddy acrylics into him.

  “The heart wants what it wants,” she heard Dr. Dangerfield saying, and she nearly rolled her eyes up in her head.

  She replayed the question in her head: What’s love to me?

  “I . . .” LaQuandra swallowed, overwhelmed with emotions—anger, confusion, fear, love. She felt like her heart was being crushed in someone’s fist.

  Isaiah was her everything, her entire world.

  She loved him desperately. Maybe that was the goddamn problem. She loved him more than she loved herself.

  God. What the hell was wrong with this picture?

  And what the hell was wrong with her?

  She dreaded her answer.

  “I don’t know,” LaQuandra finally responded. “I spent the first part of my life not knowing what love felt like. And then, as I became a woman and met Isaiah, I thought I had finally figured it out. Thought I knew exactly what it was.” LaQuandra looked over at Isaiah, and felt her mouth go dry as she tried to control the beat of her heart. She was hurt, plain and simple.

  Isaiah met her eyes, but said nothing. He felt beads of sweat glide down the center of his back, though, and his hands went clammy.

  Dr. Dangerfield gently said, “LaQuandra, why don’t you share what you’re feeling right now with your husband. Look at him and tell him how the lack of intimacy in your marriage has affected you.”

  Isaiah shifted in his seat, unsure if he really wanted to know. He wasn’t beat for a lot of talking, or listening to it. And yet he knew he owed it, his ear, to her.

  Isaiah calmly said, “I’m listening.”

  LaQuandra tsked. “Oh really? Now you’re going to listen? Why weren’t you listening when—?”

  Dr. Dangerfield cut her off. “LaQuandra, let’s stay in the here and now. You have your husband’s ear and his attention now, so talk to him.”

  LaQuandra felt her nostrils flaring. “Why don’t you fuck me, huh, Isaiah?” The word fuck came out harsh and dirty. That was what she wanted. To be fucked, hard and dirty by him, fucked in the same way she knew he fucked Cassandra. Obviously, the slutty-bitch was a good fuck for him to keep running back to her.

  She shifted her body, so that she was turned in Isaiah’s direction. “Why do I have to practically beg you, just to suck your goddamn dick?” she continued. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering. “Did you stop fucking me, so you could have an excuse to go over and fuck Cassandra whenever that whore spread her legs open to you?”

  Isaiah scowled. “Why do you have to always call her names, LaQuandra? She’s the mother of my child.”

  LaQuandra huffed. “And she’s still a goddamn whore.”

  Isaiah shook his head and then looked over at Dr. Dangerfield. “You see what I have to put up with? This shit?”

  “Oh really, Isaiah?” LaQuandra snapped incredulously. The fucking nerve of him! “What about all the shit I’ve been putting up with, huh? After everything that bitch put me through, disrespecting me. Coming to my job and attacking me, and you still take up for that ignorant, ghetto-ass bitch!” LaQuandra looked over at Dr. Dangerfield. “And you see he still didn’t answer the question, right?”

  Dr. Dangerfield decided to stay quiet and see how things played out between the two of them. The couple clearly had different communication styles. LaQuandra yelled and cursed. And Isaiah withdrew and became silent. Neither ever heard the other. But Dr. Dangerfield decided to wait it out. She wouldn’t play referee. And she wasn’t going to hold up a scorecard as to who raised the most valid points. But she would address them both as needed.

  Isaiah frowned. “What question, LaQuandra?”

  “I asked are you fucking that bitch?”

  Isaiah knew that wasn’t what he’d heard her ask him, but whatever. Deny. Deny. Deny.

  “No, I’m not fucking Cass.” He saw the doubt on LaQuandra’s face as her eyes stayed firmly on him, but she was talking to Dr. Dangerfield when she said, very softly (a stark contrast to the anger etched on her face), “He’s a fucking liar.”

  Isaiah went tense. Tight. And he was chanting in his head:

  Deny, deny, deny . . .

  “I have no reason to lie to you, Quandra,” he stated flatly. And yet he had every reason to stretch the truth, for no other reason than not wanting to hear her damn mouth.

  This motherfucker must really think I’m some stupid bitch. LaQuandra tilted her head and gave him an “oh really” look.

  “Mmph. Well, if you’re not screwing her,” she said disbelievingly, “then you must be out there giving that dick to somebody else because you sure in hell haven’t been giving it to me.”

  “There’s no one else, Quandra, damn,” Isaiah said, frustration lacing his tone.

  “You’re so full of shit, Isaiah,” LaQuandra snapped, and Isaiah saw her jaw tighten as fury marred her face.

  “How long has it been since you’ve been intimate with your wife?” Dr. Dangerfield asked Isaiah.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been a minute.”

  LaQuandra scowled. “It hasn’t been no damn minute,” she snapped. “Try months.” She looked at Dr. Dangerfield, who saw the hurt in LaQuandra’s eyes. “Who does that? Not fuck his wife? And I know his ass isn’t somewhere jacking his shit because he doesn’t like it. Ain’t no real man not fucking something.”

  Isaiah shook his head. “And you’re wrong. I do jerk off when I feel the need to. But you’re right, I don’t like to. I’d rather have it done for me.”

  LaQuandra sneered at him. “Yeah, I bet you do.” She huffed. “I’m stuck with a battery-operated playmate and my goddamn fingers, while you go off and fuck your trifling-ass baby mother.”

  “I don’t run off and fuck her,” Isaiah countered over his frustration. “Damn. Why the fuck are you so damn obsessed with Cass, huh, Quandra?”

  LaQuandra blinked. “I’m not obsessed with that bitch. What I am is pissed that you keep choosing that bitch over me.”

  “Listen. Stop that dumb shit,” he warned. “I haven’t chosen Cass over you. I’m with you, ain’t I?”

  Barely.

  And the question meant nothing to LaQuandra when he hardly ever made her feel like he was present in their marriage the way he used to.

  She huffed. “Isaiah, kiss my fucking ass. Okay? Don’t even try to play that shit with me.”

  “What shit, Quandra?” Isaiah felt himself becoming increasingly agitated. Perhaps it was the guilt getting to him. “Damn. What the fuck you want from me, huh?”

  LaQuandra blinked. She couldn’t believe his ass needed to ask. Wasn’t it obvious what she needed, wanted, from him? Hadn’t she been clear all these months and even now?

  Dr. Dangerfield slid her glasses up over her head and crossed her legs at the ankles. “Isaiah, can you tell me why you’ve withheld sex from your wife?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not beat for the bullshit.”

  LaQuandra’s eyes widened. “You’re not beat? You’re not beat for what, huh, motherfucker? I’ve been nothing but good to you, nigga. And time and time again, all you do is give me your motherfucking ass to kiss.”

  Isaiah frowned. “Then why the fuck are you still with me, huh, Quandra?”

  Good question. But goddamn him . . . this wasn’t about her.

  “Motherfucker, don’t you dare flip this shit on me. How about I ask you why the hell you’re still with me? Answer that, nigga!”

  Dr. Dangerfield cleared her throat. “LaQuandra, can you tell me how Isaiah not being intimate with you makes you feel?”

  LaQuandra blinked. Why was this bitch making the session about her? LaQuandra this. LaQuandra that. The bitch had yet to confront Isaiah’s ass on his bullshit and it was getting on her last damn nerve.

  She shot the therapist a scathing look. “Excuse you?”

  Dr. Dangerfield ignored the attitude, and rephrased her question. “Can you please put into words how Isaiah moving out of the marital bed has made you feel?”

  “Like I’m not shit,” she hissed. “Like I’m some fucking sidepiece he fucked at will, then discarded once he’d had enough. I feel like he’s more in love with that ghetto-trash bitch than he is with me. He treats me like I’m his problem. And not that bitch. She has been nothing but trouble from the moment he slid his goddamn dick in her. Not once has he ever checked that bitch anytime she said some slick shit about me. Not once. But the minute I call her out of her name, he’s quick to remind me that that bitch is his son’s mother and that I need to respect her.” She sucked her teeth. “Fuck that. I’m his wife. Not that whore! And she needs to respect me. The woman who puts up with all of his shit!”

  Isaiah bit his bottom lip, letting the truth of LaQuandra’s words slice into his guilt. She was right. He hadn’t really stood by her, or checked Cassandra’s ass whenever she disrespected his wife, which was usually any chance she could.

  “That EBT-having, Section-8 bitch calls my home and talks down to me, like she’s some boss-bitch, when all she is . . .” LaQuandra paused and shook her head. She felt the beginnings of a pounding headache pushing its way to the front of her head.

  “LaQuandra,” Dr. Dangerfield said gently. “I see how upsetting it is for you every time you mention Isaiah’s child’s mother. Why is that?”

  LaQuandra momentarily closed her eyes in an attempt to compose herself. When she reopened them, her pupils appeared wide and full of disdain.

  “I hate—” She drew in a breath. “I hate that woman. And I hate the fact that Isaiah lets her disrespect me and does nothing about it.”

  Truth was, she was jealous. But she would never openly admit that.

  Dr. Dangerfield could see Isaiah’s body tense, his muscles tightening as if he were a caged animal, searching for an escape.

  He was drained. And he had a splitting headache. He wasn’t built for all this back-and-forth shit. He wanted this session over, so he could get back to the villa, slip into his swim trunks and take a long swim.

  “Isaiah, what are you hearing your wife saying to you at this moment?” Dr. Dangerfield asked him as she observed his aloof demeanor.

  LaQuandra speared Isaiah with an impatient glare when he didn’t answer right away. “See this is the shit I’m talking about, Isaiah. You never fucking listen to shit I have to say.”