by Sara Cate
“It’s not raining,” he says, then smiles suggestively. Tanner doesn’t have perfect teeth or romance novel lips. Instead his smile is a little crooked and chapped. I find myself studying his mouth anyway.
“We should probably give it another day,” I say, furrowing my brows in an expression as serious as I can manage without cracking a smile. “We wouldn’t want to get caught out hunting if the monsoons should come.”
Tanner shakes his head. He is desperate to get away from camp, to have a moment without thirty-one pairs of eyes watching his every move.
“If you’re afraid of a little water, you can stay here. Spend another exciting afternoon picking and eating plants. Crabs for lunch. Crabs for dinner. Your favorite,” he says with a wink.
I wrinkle my nose up. Crabs will be the death of me. I remember that crabs are a fancy thing to eat, or they were when I was a kid, but here, we have more crabs than we can possibly consume. They crawl up the beaches, and scurry around our ankles. They are huge and keep us fed, but I am so, so tired of crabs.
“Not a chance,” I laugh. “But it’s your turn to convince Cade.” We both look over at Cade who is just now wrestling himself out of the bed he and Tanner share.
“Even our serious friend gets bored sitting around camp. He’ll go.”
I hope he’s right. The idea of escaping the rest of the group and hunting just the four of us has already planted itself in my mind, and once I have an idea, it’s hard for me to let go.
Lena will be eager to leave. She’s losing her mind out here, and I don’t blame her. Whereas I have let go of life before, Lena has grasped it with both fists. When others raided the plane for clothing, food and supplies, Lena was busy dragging books up the shore and laying them over the branches of trees to dry. She is always reading about the life she cannot have.
I crouch down beside her and gently tap her shoulder. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. There is work to be done.”
She groans and pushes my hand away. “It can wait.”
I lean down and whisper in her ear. “Even if it involves Cade and Tanner and no one to interrupt?”
She turns her head to face me, one blue eye popping open in a squint, the other squeezed tight against the sun.
“I’m listening.”
“We’re thinking a hunt,” I say, and she pulls up to a sitting position.
Lena’s hair is golden and wild, falling down past her hips in giant waves that I envy. She twists it into a knot with years of expertise and spears a stick at just the right angle to hold it in place.
“Our group is too tired for a hunt,” she says, scanning the camp.
“Exactly,” I answer, one corner of my mouth twisting up in a smile.
The last three weeks we have been hit with hard weather. Heavy rains followed by scalding sunshine make for island storms. The older of us are tired and weak, the younger, need to take care of them. We haven’t hunted in going on ten days, and that is the perfect excuse for the four of us to escape.
Catching my meaning, Lena casts a glance in Cade’s direction. We don’t talk about it, but I know her as well as I know myself. Somewhere in Lena’s brain, Cade has already built himself a room.
He looks over at her while pulling a once-white T-shirt over his firm tan chest. If I wasn’t convincing enough, that certainly was.
Lena hops to her feet. “Give me half an hour, and I’ll be ready.”
She grabs her denim shorts and favorite tank top off the rock beside our bed, and heads down toward the shore.
Half an hour on the island means nothing. We haven’t had a working clock in three years, but we still say things like that, as if it makes us less lost.
2
True to his word, Tanner talks Cade into going with us, and in no time the four of us are hiking into the thick of the forest. I carry a child-sized backpack stuffed with rags and a spear. I probably look silly with a faded cookie monster adorning my back, but it’s the best bag for transporting eggs. The bigger ones leave too much room for movement, and we have lost eggs in transport before. That’s not a thing you can afford to do when you live on an island with birds who only lay one egg every fifteen months. We have to hunt them while they are nesting and if we are lucky, find an egg in the process.
I never hunted before the crash. It wasn’t your typical thirteen-year-old girl activity, but my father was a hunter, and he often spoke of how quiet you had to be to track an animal. We didn’t have that problem. The birds on the island were bold, unapologetic and in no way weary of us. After all, it was us who didn’t belong there. They had lived uninterrupted for years.
Lena and I hung back, choosing to follow Cade and Tanner up and away from camp. Focusing on his strong back and the sound of his voice traveling down toward us, I can’t push away the thought that I don’t know what it is like to lust after someone who isn’t Tanner. Cade belongs to Lena and the second youngest man in our group has already begun to sprout grey chin hairs.
I don’t get to press my lips to Tanner’s or draw a hand along his course cheek, but I tell him things with my eyes, and right now with him ten paces ahead I am begging for him to turn around and find an excuse for the four of us to split up.
He just keeps climbing. We are two miles in when Lena asks to stop for breakfast. Tanner looks irritable, but Cade has already set his bag down and begun pulling dried fish from the zipped pouch. If Tanner is the brawn of our group, Cade is the scholar. He never makes a choice he hasn’t first thought through a dozen times. Of course he brought breakfast and water too.
I sit close to Tanner. So close that our thighs touch, and I wonder if it does strange things to the pit of his stomach the way it does mine. Across from me Lena is finding a seat in the shade, and I catch Cade watching her, even though his eyes dart away when she sees him.
In Lena’s books all of these close calls would lead to the bedroom. The subtle contact, the long glances, that feeling deep in our cores, it’s supposed to end with traveling hands. But sex is forbidden in our group.
Now at twenty, I feel the full weight of my vote, and though I know it was right, my body has a hard time reconciling, especially when Tanner peels the shirt from his back and tucks it into his bag. I lick my lips and try not to think about how badly I want them to travel from his collar bone to the place where his hips form a V and disappear beneath his shorts.
When breakfast is finished, we pack up and continue following the sound of the birds. There are many of them and they are dumb, never shying from us, practically yelling welcome from the land nests they’ve built near the caves. We are halfway up to where the nests are when a light breeze becomes a heavy wind and the clouds above us darken.
Cade glances up at the sky and scowls. “We shouldn’t have come today. This will be a storm before we even reach the nesting area.”
We all know he is right, but that doesn’t stop Tanner from beginning to walk faster up the path.
“We have to turn back,” barks Cade.
“Says who?” he challenges.
Cade’s eyes fly to Lena and then me. “No bird is worth getting caught in a monsoon…with them,” he adds at the end. I can’t tell if he is worried we will get hurt or worried that getting stranded with us will lead one of them to make a move they can’t take back.
Suddenly I want him to have to make that choice. I don’t need to read any romance books to know that his body pressed up against mine, while rain runs rivulets down his bare chest is worth shooting for.
“I’m not going back,” I say. “It’s been days since we had real meat. If the storm is too heavy we can take refuge in the caves.”
Cade shakes his head. “No, we need to go home. The others will understand.”
“Fuck the others,” says Tanner, and my eyes snap to his. He doesn’t use language often, and I am incredibly turned on by his assertiveness. “I want meat.”
“You’ll get over it,” says Cade, shaking his head as he takes Lena by the elbow and turns back toward camp
.
I look to Tanner, expecting him to follow. The four of us always do what is expected, but Tanner’s feet are planted and his expression is hard.
“I’ll see you back at camp, with game.” he says.
Cade pauses and turns back toward us. “If you want to be stupid, so be it. Christa, lets go.”
Inside I am scared shitless. But outside, I cooly answer, “I’ll stay as well.”
Lena’s eyes widen, and I know what she is thinking before she says it.
“You can’t! We can’t be alone together. You know the rules.”
“So enter camp one at a time,” says Tanner with a shrug. “No one has to know you walked back alone. Christa and I will do the same once we’ve finished.”
The wind grows stronger even as we stand there arguing.
“If you want to make it back before this thing hits you had better go now,” urges Tanner.
I can tell that Cade is torn. He doesn’t like to break the rules. When we were kids and we snuck out of camp at night, he would make himself sick just thinking about getting caught.
But Lena calms him. She always has, and her hand placed lightly on the small of his back pulls him from the battle inside his head, and soon she has convinced him to do as Tanner suggested and head back toward camp. Each of them entering on their own.
3
My heart is beating fast and hard and not just because the incline to the caves is difficult. Tanner and I are alone together for the first time in seven years. We aren’t children anymore, and I feel a dangerous pull in his direction. If he notices, he hides it well because his face remains focused as he continues up the steep incline.
The sound of the birds grows frantic as the warm wind picks up all around us. I should be worried, but I’m more excited than anything. A thick layer of rain pelts us, gluing my thin red tank top to my skin and highlighting every muscle along Tanner’s well sculpted torso. We pass a massive tree, and I wonder what it would feel like to make love up against it, the rough bark at my back while I wrap my legs around his waist and give in to years of untapped desire. I want him so badly it aches, and he’s just climbing up the hill like spearing a bird is his most pressing urge.
He’s not going to get that bird anyway, because the warm wind has turned into a fierce wind and I barely have time to worry about whether or not Cade and Lena have made it back before I lose my footing and slide legs-first down the muddy trail. I shriek for help clawing at the path for something to hold on to but coming up empty as long grass slips between my fingers. When I do come to a stop, it is because my hip connects with a boulder, and I yelp so loud that Tanner’s careful dissent to help me becomes a dead sprint, the mud flying up in sprays behind him as he pulls to a stop at my side.
He’s yelling something, but I can’t hear him over the sound of the rain slapping itself against everything under the sun including us. He pulls me to my feet. His hand connects with the palm of mine deliberately, and even in the storm I register that this is only the fifth time we have touched on purpose.
I try and dig into the ground with my shoes, but they are years old and most of the traction has worn off with age. Frustrated, Tanner heaves me over his back and orders me to hold on as he trudges up the hill, me squeezing tight around his neck and hips as he carries both of us up and under the mouth of the cave.
I know I should let go, but I’m still shaking from the urgency of it all. Finally, he pries my hands from where they hang around his chest and sets me down with a splash. The cave is full of water as we enter, but we’ve been here before, and we know there will be pockets of dry land inside the further we walk. It reminds me of a mermaid’s lagoon. Of course, I know those aren’t real, but the look of this place, with its heavy rock formations above and crystal clear water forming pools in the mass cavern, it doesn’t seem real either.
The further we enter, the darker it gets, and we have to stick close to each other so as not to get lost. Deep in the cave, there is a break in the ceiling. Rain pours in from above, but it also lets in enough daylight to keep us from shivering in pitch black.
Tanner sets his bag down on a dry hunk of land that juts out from the cave wall, and I follow suit. He looks over at me, and his serious expression morphs into a grin.
“So I guess I should have listened to Cade.”
“Always,” I laugh, loosening the laces on my mud soaked shoes and placing my socks inside them so they won’t drift off if the monsoonal rains continue.
“In my defense,” he says. “We would have been heroes if we arrived back at camp with meat and eggs.”
“Now we’ll just be in trouble,” I answer. I’m still wearing a smile, but we both know there is a little truth to what I’ve just said.
“The only rule we’ve broken is being alone. Those rules are stupid anyway,” says Tanner, picking up a rock from beside him and tossing it into the pool ahead. It sinks with a heavy plop. “We aren’t animals. Just because I’m a man and you’re a woman doesn’t mean we can’t be alone together without…” His cheeks redden, and he doesn’t finish the sentence. Maybe, it’s not an animal feeling for him, but I certainly imagined doing things with him against that tree that no one could excuse as innocent.
I know I am about to cross a line, but I don’t care. We may never get this chance again.
“I don’t want to follow those rules anymore.”
Tanner doesn’t look at me, instead he rubs another rock against the palm of his hand. “You know there are reasons…”
I toss my head back and groan. “Yes, Tanner. I know there are reasons, but don’t you ever have an urge that’s louder than the voice in your head saying no?”
His head snaps up, and he pierces me with dangerously sexy blue eyes. “Of course.”
“So why fight it?”
“You know why.” He answers and reverts to worrying a red line in his palm again.
That’s when I decide I don’t care anymore. There is no one here to tell us no. No one to stop me from being bold. For a brief second it dawns on me that our group is right. Men and women should not be alone together. It’s only been a few hours and already I’m ready to risk everything for the sake of attraction, but I let the revelation slip from my mind. Because right now, our group and their rules are the last thing I want to think about.
4
“What are you doing?” he asks when I stand in front of him and begin to draw my tank-top up and over my head.
“I’m covered in mud and so are you. Help me clean it off?” I ask, my voice taking on a pleading tone that causes him to clear his throat.
“Christa—” he warns, but I’m already too far gone.
With his eyes locked on mine I reach behind my back and unclasp my bra. For a second I hold the thin material to my chest. No man has ever seen me this undressed before. But then I catch the hungry way his eyes have left my face and are watching my hands, waiting for me to finish. I drop the cloth and his breath catches in his throat.
There is a rise in his pants that tells me he may be the first man to see my body, but he certainly isn’t disappointed. I slowly move my hands down my torso to where my shorts hang from my hips and when I pull the button free and shimmy them down to the cave floor, he licks his lips and a small groan escapes.
“Come in the water with me,” I suggest again, and he squeezes his eyes shut, tipping his head back to rest on the cave. If this is a mermaid’s lagoon then I am the most wicked of sirens. I will keep calling him until he gives in. When he doesn’t move from his spot on the floor I step closer and slowly, deliberately pull down my panties and place them in his open hand.
We don’t have a mirror in our camp, and I haven’t seen my body since I went from a fourteen-year-old girl to a woman, but I have a pretty good feeling my ass is solid gold because he springs from the floor of the cave and follows me to the lip of the pool.
Tanner peels his own clothes from his body, and I drink in every forbidden inch of him from the red scruff of his jaw
to the part of him that stands firmly at my attention.
“I don’t want you to regret this,” he says, realizing how close to the tipping point we’ve come.
“I would regret not doing this more,” I answer, and I pull him by the wrist into the pool. The water is warm from sitting still inside the cave, and for a moment the two of us just stand there, partially submerged, eyes locked on one another. I tuck a curl behind my ear and motion for him to close the gap between us. That’s when his eyes go from cool and considerate to urgent and wanting. He snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me so close that I can feel his erection pressing up against my core.
“If we start, I won’t be able to stop,” he warns, his lips grazing my earlobe and ending with a gentle tug.
Stopping is the last thing on my mind as I reach up onto my toes to press my mouth to his. For a second I can’t breath, can’t think, can’t imagine any moment past the one we’re in. One hand is tangling through my mess of dirty blonde curls, and the other is still pressing me to him. When he parts my lips with his tongue I vaguely remember that Tanner has kissed a girl before. A long time ago. Before we boarded the plane. This isn’t new for him the way it is me. I’m glad because his kiss is firm and urgent. I’ve waited way too long for there to be any bumbling and tenderness.
He steers me backward until my skin presses against the smooth wall of the pool. I think he will take me right there and I can’t help but think how this is so much hotter than making love against a tree in the middle of a rainstorm, but instead of lifting me from the hips the way I expect, his lips travel down my neck until his tongue finds the peak of my nipple and teases it with light circles that turn to a gentle tug. I tip my head back and moan with pleasure. The ache between my legs grows more insistent, and just when I think I can’t take it anymore, his hands scoop beneath the curve of my rear and I feel him pressing forward.
He tries to go slowly, to ease my pain, but once he’s had a taste he can’t back down and he pushes into me with a groan and a grit of his teeth. Once inside the shocking newness of it all gives way to a small fire burning hotter with each thrust. I rock my hips against his, urgent to be as close as possible, desperate to get closer to the part where years of yearning explode in pleasure.