When Santo glanced to Zanipolo, leaving him to explain, the younger man grimaced. “She was in the ocean a long time and spent most of it battling high waves that were tossing her around a bit,” he began carefully. “As a result, she is exhausted to the point that her thoughts are sluggish and a bit scattered.”
“How long was she out there?” Raffaele asked with a frown as he switched his wet briefs for the dry ones.
“Hours,” Zanipolo said, handing him the jeans he’d collected off the beach and brought back for him. “Since shortly after sunset, I think.”
Raffaele frowned at this news as he dragged on his pants. The sun had set before seven and it was ten thirty now. Jess had been in the water for nearly four hours. That was a long time to be struggling with waves and trying to swim to shore. It was no wonder she had lost consciousness by the time he got her out of the water. In fact, he was surprised she was already up and about. She was recovering quickly. It suggested a strong constitution, he thought as he did up his jeans.
Straightening then, Raffaele raised his eyebrows. “So? What else did you learn? Who are this Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria you mentioned? I presume you read those names from her memory?” he added. Despite what Zani had said, Jess hadn’t mentioned the name. Before Zani could respond, he asked, “What was the ship she escaped? Some kind of dinner tour?” Even as the words left his lips, Raffaele suspected that couldn’t be the case. She was wearing swimsuit bottoms, and a torn T-shirt, not exactly dinner attire, even if that dinner was on a boat.
“It was a pirate ship.”
Raffaele stiffened, his eyes widening with disbelief. “What?”
Zanipolo shrugged helplessly. “That’s what I got from her memory. She was on a pirate ship with vampires, and Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria were some of the crew.”
“Vampirates,” Santo growled.
“Vampirates?” Raffaele echoed with amazement.
“Her name for them in her head when she thinks of them,” Zanipolo explained. “But appropriate from the few memories I saw,” he assured him, and then added dryly, “She appears to have a penchant for nicknames. For instance, until I told her your proper name, she was thinking of you as Penisocchio.”
“What?” Raffaele gasped with shock.
Zanipolo nodded. “That’s why I told her your name was Raffaele when I did. I was finding it difficult not to burst out laughing every time she thought the name,” he explained, and then taunted, “But again, the nickname was appropriate.”
Raffaele closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t need to ask why Zanipolo thought the nickname appropriate. The minute he’d set Jess down on the couch and stepped back to look her over in her skimpy outfit he’d started to develop an erection. Her gaze sliding over his body hadn’t helped the situation much either. Just recalling it made him start to harden again. Mouth tightening, he opened his eyes, and raised his eyebrows.
Zanipolo grimaced. “Like I said, her thoughts are a bit scattered, but from what I could sort out, it looked like they went to the Seaquarium—”
“Some of the people on the beach had gone there. What is it?” Raffaele asked.
“You didn’t even look at the pamphlets I gave you, did you?” Zanipolo asked with disgust.
“I looked at some, but there were a lot of pamphlets,” Raffaele said defensively.
“Well, you can look up what it is later, because that’s not the important part. It’s when the boat that took them to the Seaquarium got back that matters. That’s when the pirates, or vampirates as she thinks of them, approached the returning guests. They lured a bunch of them to their sloop with some story of feeding the sharks, including her cousin Allison. Allison in turn dragged Jess along.”
“But they weren’t feeding finned sharks,” Raffaele guessed grimly.
Zanipolo shook his head. “Jess apparently happened on one of the rogues starting early on a guest.” He grimaced with distaste at the memory. “It was pretty bad.”
“Gruesome,” Santo added.
“Yeah.” Zanipolo shook his head as if trying to shake the memory away, and then continued. “The rogue she interrupted was Ildaria. She took control of Jess and sent her to kiss someone named Vasco, who I think was the ship’s captain, so maybe the head rogue.”
“Kiss him?” Raffaele asked with a start, his mouth turning down at this news.
“That’s what I got,” Zanipolo said apologetically. “But like I said, it all gets a bit scattered once she walked in on the rogue chewing on some guy named Tyler. She was kind of traumatized at seeing that. Hell, I was traumatized seeing it secondhand.”
“Yes.” Santo nodded. “Very traumatizing.”
Raffaele’s mouth tightened, but he nodded. “Okay, so the rogue sent her to kiss the captain and then what?”
Zanipolo shifted, looking reluctant to continue, but then sighed and said, “It got a bit heated, and then the cousin attacked them, I think.”
“Yes,” Santo agreed.
“And then the captain took both women down to his cabin.”
Raffaele stiffened, alarm coursing down his back. “Did he bite her?”
“No,” Zanipolo said at once. “No, I don’t think he did that.”
Raffaele’s eyes narrowed. “Did he rape her?”
“No,” Santo assured him.
“She escaped before things went that far,” Zanipolo added.
“That far?” Raffaele echoed. “How far did things go?”
Zanipolo hesitated, and then glanced to Santo. The bigger man was opening his mouth to answer that question when the sound of a door closing had all of them glancing toward the sitting room.
“Jess must be out of the bathroom,” Raffaele muttered, and led the other two men back out to the sitting room, only to find it empty.
“She’s gone,” Zanipolo said with surprise, staring at the open bathroom door.
It was Santo who spotted the note on the coffee table and picked it up. Moving to his side, Raffaele looked down at it. It was on the resort notepad that had been sitting on one of the end tables earlier with a pen with the resort’s logo lying next to it. He had noticed it when they first arrived. Apparently, not finding them in the sitting room when she’d finished in the bathroom, Jess had decided to leave rather than wait to find out where they’d gone. She’d left a nice thank-you note, though, he thought as he read it.
Hey, guys!
Thank you for all your help.
I have to go have the front desk call the authorities to help my friends.
I’ll return your towel as soon as I can.
Thanks again,
Jess
“If she tells anyone there are vampires out there—” Santo began in a concerned rumble that died when Raffaele cursed and hurried for the door.
Clutching the still-damp life vest with one hand, and the front of the towel with her other to be sure it didn’t slip apart, Jess hurried to the stairs and jogged lightly down them. She thought she heard a door close as she turned the first bend and started down the next flight, but didn’t slow or stop to see if it might be Raffaele or one of the other men looking for her. She didn’t have time to explain things to them. That was why she’d simply scribbled a note and left when she stepped out of the bathroom to find the sitting room empty. She’d known they’d want her to tell them how she’d wound up floating around in the ocean, and that was a long conversation, and one Jess wasn’t even sure she should have . . . with anyone. They’d think she was nuts.
The thought made Jess frown. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to say to the authorities to get them to call in the coast guard and go after the pirate ship, but was hoping something would come to mind before she reached the hotel lobby.
The sound of feet pounding down the stairs above her made her heart jump suddenly. Intellectually, Jess knew it was probably one of the men, or all of them, simply looking to help her. But her body responded with the panic of a rabbit being chased by a fox, and despite the fact that every muscle in her body was still weak and rubbery from her marathon swim, Jess broke into a run as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
There were two routes to the hotel lobby. The inner path alongside the system of pools that filled the center of the resort, and the outer path that ran between the buildings and the tropical forest that surrounded three sides of the resort. Jess chose the outer route. It was a sloping path the staff used to push carts and luggage carriers down and was longer, but the inner path finished with a set of a good thirty steps leading up to the lobby. Jess just didn’t think she had the strength and energy needed to manage the steps.
She was halfway up the sloping lane and breathing heavily when Jess realized she could no longer hear the pounding of feet behind her. Whoever had been on the stairs hadn’t come this way, she realized with relief, and allowed herself to slow, but only a little. It was dark on the path and she was a woman alone in a world that apparently had more dangers than she’d ever imagined, so she continued at a fast jog. But the rush of adrenaline that had sent her running out of the stairwell in the first place was quickly draining away, leaving her weak, shaky, and feeling like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. The combination forced her to slow to a walk. Even so, Jess was gasping for breath when she rounded the curve at the top of the hill and bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” she wheezed, pressing a hand to the stitch that had developed in her side. Jess was so exhausted that she didn’t even look up to see who she’d bumped into, but simply stepped to the side. The front entrance of the lobby was just steps away now. She could make it.
“Wait. Jess?”
A hand caught her arm as she continued forward, and Jess paused and swung back, her eyes widening as she recognized Raffaele in the lights from the porte cochere where vehicles picked up and dropped off hotel guests. It must have been him on the stairs, and he’d obviously taken the shorter, inner path and beat her up here.