Free The Little Death by P.J. Parrish

she whispered.
    And he did. For the next hour, there was nothing but the feel of engulfing warmth, the smell of sweat and salt spray, the tangy taste of her skin, the sounds of her cries in his neck.
    Then, suddenly, the game changed. She turned him onto his back and straddled him, taking control. Each time he was at the brink, she would pull back, teasing him, her hair damp with sweat on his chest, her mouth devouring him.
    When he could stand it no longer, he threw her on her back and entered her with a ferocity he had never felt before. She clung to him.
    “Die with me,” she whispered.
    Her body gave a final shudder that triggered his own. He collapsed on her, panting. It was a moment before the room swirled back. Another moment before he realized her arms had fallen from his back and she was not moving.
    “Hey,” he whispered.
    Nothing.
    He slid onto his side. Her body glowed with sweat in the candlelight, her head to one side, her eyes closed.
    “Hey,” Louis whispered. “Are you—?”
    Her chest wasn’t moving. He scrambled to his knees and gave her cheek a tap. “Sam, wake up!”
    Nothing.
    “Jesus,” he whispered. His eyes darted to the phone on the night table, then back to Sam. Without thinking, he slapped her hard.
    Her eyes sprang open, and she gasped, drawing in a ragged breath. She seemed dazed, and then her hand came up to her cheek as her eyes locked onto his.
    “I’m sorry,” Louis said. “God, I’m sorry, Sam. You were out cold, and I had to—”
    Her eyes had gone as dark as a night sky. She turned her head away as she rubbed her face. “I think you’d better go,” she said.
    Louis didn’t move.
    “Just go,” she said.
    He was so stunned he didn’t know what to say. Hell, what could he say? She had just ordered him out of her bed. He slipped out of the bed and found his clothes. When he was dressed, he looked back at the bed. Sam had turned on her side, away from him.
    He went out to the living room and let himself out the front door. It was only when he saw the black Jag parked in the driveway that he remembered he had come there in her car.
    Louis glanced up at the moon. It was probably only about three miles back to the hotel. He went down the driveway and scaled the gate. He turned north on the beach road, and started the walk back.

Chapter Seven
 
    The roads narrowed, the lots shrank, the towering hedges disappeared. As Yuba had said, the north end was different from the rest of the island.
    This was where Reggie Kent’s home was, up on the far part of the island where the “real people” lived. The people who ran the bookstore, the florist, the dry cleaner, the people who might not have inherited their millions but had socked away enough to stake a small lot in one of the modest neighborhoods of older bungalows that made up the north end.
    Two days ago, Louis might not have been attuned to the difference. To his eye, the homes they were passing now as the Mustang drove along North Ocean Boulevard were pretty damn nice. But after being in Sam’s bedroom last night—lying in her soft Egyptian cotton sheets, sated and sticky with salt spray, listening to the ocean hiss in the blackness—Louis understood with a sensory clarity that there were two worlds within this larger Palm Beach one.
    “I heard you banging around in the dark last night,” Mel said. “Where did you go?”
    Louis glanced over at Mel, then back at the road. “I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk on the beach.”
    “At four in the morning?”
    “Yup.”
    Louis was glad Mel let it go. He didn’t want to have to tell him about Sam. Or about the phone call with Joe. He didn’t even want to think about it too much, because he knew if he did, he would overthink it and overanalyzeit. He would maybe start listening a little too closely to that voice gnawing at his ear.
    You cheated on Joe.
    Screw that. She’s the one who ended it.
    You love her.
    I’m not a fucking monk
.
    None of this had been in his