<span class="bbc_u"><strong>Morning</strong></span><br/><br/>It was a gorgeous and soothing and very early Saturday morning as Gabriel Collins sipped a cup of coffee and looked out onto the natural glory and unmatchable ocean front scenery that filled his eyes.  Temptation Island, the name itself was one that made him wince and smile all at once, and such was his life, and the role he played in it.  Corporate Compliance, his job sounded so intently moral and upright and beyond reproach, yet here he was, in the midst of an isle and locale named after the very devil he danced with each day.  There was an irony in it and not lost at all upon Gabriel, in fact he enjoyed the hell out of it.  He made this possible.  Not the resort itself, he hadn’t created the natural beauty here nor carved out and built up the sensual decadence of the resort itself, its temptations both of flesh that was plentiful and perfect, and in simply losing one’s self in the wanton hedonism that filled the soul of all who stayed here any length of time.<br/><br/>He laughed a soft chuckle to himself, his beyond beautiful, brilliant and charming bride still asleep as he stole away a few moments not for himself, but to confess to himself as he did every day of his life.  The people that employed him paid him richly, though his salary seemed logical as it was a fraction of the enormous fines Medex paid to settle the government’s suit half a decade earlier.  Pay a very nice penny to Gabriel to prevent sending a lot of nickels and quarters to the coffers of the regulatory beasts that breathed down their necks every day…that was the public face of it, the corporate compliance plan that he drafted had a starkly dulling power and bureaucratic beauty to its legalese sprinkled length and audacious claims of corporate piety and pureness of purpose and policy.<br/><br/>And then there was the reality of what he did, of why Medex paid him so handsomely.  It wasn’t to simply prevent the regulatory boogeymen from haunting their bankrolls and damaging their image in the press along the way, oh that was certainly a part of it, but any man or woman could accomplish that, and fuck the company to a flat and pitiful bottom line all along the way.  No, that was the trick of it.  Gabriel knew what the laws and regulations said, what the corporate compliance plan demanded and promised, he knew the lines that could and must never be crossed, but he also knew and manipulated and massaged and spun so many more lines in a way that few others ever could.  His position of piety had one true purpose…to find the way every rule, line, the meaning and very letters of words could be parsed out and danced between to allow Medex to walk on the very edge of those few unbreakable lines and never, ever fall over.<br/><br/>In essence, he enabled them to cheat, but just enough, to lie, but never completely, to steal, but never in a way that could be traced to them…to break every regulatory and moral commandment, except for those rare few unbreakable vows and promises, the ones that he walked and danced upon every day as he made it possible for other men and women in the company, for the organization itself, to make obscene profits, to milk, bilk and seduce money from the pockets of others and into their own, without ever falling over that dark edge they once had, and that was so much steeper now after their original sins had been caught and their punishment meted out.  Whenever someone needed to turn a limit into the nearly limitless, they looked to Gabriel for guidance.  Not forgiveness, but permission, the permission to break, tweak and slip around, preferably the latter, all of the rules and barriers and stop signs, save for those very few that he allowed no one to cross.  When it came to those critical and unthinkable lines to never cross, break or breach, Gabriel’s words, memos, his very looks carried the lightning and thunder in them and everyone from the CEO on down obeyed his demands and commands when he gave them in that way.<br/><br/>STOP meant STOP, but because they could count on him to know and enforce only those hard and fast and rarer than one might think lines and rules, while everywhere else, everything else, once he gave his permission and advice, his guidance, became a GO light to engage in capitalistic bacchanalia.  They knew he was watching, from close or afar, always knowing that excessive excess was their goal, more and more and then even more, and that he was quietly there, enabling their sins and guarding those last few pure, cardinal lines from them, and them from crossing those lines and falling into the tragic danger and lost careers and fortunes that lay just beyond those singularly unapproachable horizons.  That was what he confessed each morning to himself, just as he had then in the midst of the carnally natural beauty that this place was, and by the time his cup was empty, his guilt was assuaged and he became that creature they needed him to be once more…time to wake Erika and revel in her beauty, a transcendent beauty that made this isle seem like it would be nothing special at all if he were here and she were not.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://quotesfact.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Christoph-Waltz-Net-Worth-is-23-Million-Dollars.jpg)</div><br/><span class="bbc_u"><strong>That afternoon</strong></span><br/><br/>The weather was perfection, sunny, with a few wispy clouds that seemed to simply paint their delicate decorations upon the royal blue of the sky, as a viscerally fragrant sea breeze blew in from the darker blue of the frothing ocean surf, cooling their flesh as Gabriel, in swim shorts and loose, unbuttoned short sat watching the scenery with Erika beneath the umbrella he placed just so to protect her perfectly creamy and pale flesh from the nearly equatorial sun’s blazing rays.  They had two more nights here, but Sunday night was always a quiet time of packing up bags and clothes, souvenirs and memories to take home to Richmond with them on the early Monday flight out.  This was the last full and real day and night of their much needed vacation and Gabriel turned to look at and drink in the depth of his wife’s luscious curves and picture perfect, pin up picture perfect, loveliness.<br/><br/>She was younger than her, but neither an innocent babe by the time they wed, and it worked because of that and much more.  It worked because they loved each other, had tasted much of what the world had to offer first and decided on each other, but even paradise gets a bit stale after seven years and  Gabriel’s fortieth birthday had passed that week,  His hair was nearly dark as his eyes for the most part, but his beard teased at the distinct and distinguished grey that was arriving more and more of late, though having a drop dead gorgeous wife tease you about becoming a silver fox took the sting out of that, and yet didn’t.  She noticed, she liked, but she noticed.  And he noticed that her eyes, their delicious hue able to melt his heart and stiffen his cock in a singularly spectacular look she tossed his way with such ease, he noticed that they looked his way, but also danced with particular decadence across the form and figure of a certain fellow they seemed to happen upon several times that week.<br/><br/>Gabriel wasn’t the sort to believe in coincidences and more than a few men had found themselves irresistibly drawn to her presence over the years, sometimes without even realizing the impossible power her beauty had to do such things.  He wasn’t a stalker sort, and Gabriel had to admit that it might be that Erika was drawn to have them set up each day at the beach near to where he was.  Both were allowed to look, their relationship mature and trusting, and, well, damn, as he said on rare occasions, had he been a woman, Gabriel surely would be spying the darkly beautiful man himself.  The words spilled from his lips without conscious thought, but once out, could not be taken back,<br/><br/><strong>“Shall we have him, Love?”</strong>he asked his wife, his Erika, adding after a very purposely pregnant pause,<strong>“For drinks, of course, perhaps dinner?  Surely you have enjoyed drinking enough of him in this week enough to make any man thirsty for a taste of your charming company…as I always am…we likely won't ever see him again, after all...”</strong><br/><br/>And so it was out there, and though he didn’t know it yet, so the new chapter to their story together began…<br/>