by Marni MacRae
Today and last night on the raft, Lucas had been kind, even funny and handled me well with my exuberance and my insistence on finding us on the map. He had to be worried too, and hurting and hungry and neither of us had coffee, but he was behaving like a really nice guy. I studied him closer as he flipped through the pages, holding up the book on the page with the map and glancing around us, perhaps looking for a compass in the sky or any sign at all that might give him a reference to where our little raft drifted.
He had dark hair, a dark brown that curled naturally and flipped out a bit at his neckline. His eyes were that crisp, clear blue that made me think he could see what I was thinking when he looked at me. He was tall, that I had noted before, but not skinny. I wouldn’t call him wiry either, his long arms and legs were well wrapped in muscle and from what I had felt beneath his shirt as I lay against him last night, his chest was well wrapped as well. A tall, strong, pretty man. The stubble on his face would turn to a beard in another day or two, it had red streaks in it, a throwback from some Irish heritage I guessed, but my eyes kept wandering to his mouth. His smile flashed straight white teeth each time he let one slip, but his lips looked soft, inviting and I began fantasizing about how he would taste. I had already become addicted to his scent, the comfort and warmth of it. I wondered if his taste would compare. Looking up from his mouth, I saw he had caught me looking and was staring at me in much the same way. I shrugged and grinned.
“You’re the best view I have.”
He didn’t move or respond. He just kept looking. I wondered what was going through his mind. If he still thought I was silly. If he wondered what I tasted like. Stop it Sophia, no romance. Just survival. But it was hard to not look, not to wonder. Our eyes locked, and a slow smile began to warm his face. It reached all the way up to his eyes, where the creases there crinkled in slight crow’s feet and his dimples flashed, making me smile in return.
“What?”
“You're the only woman I've met, who manages to look sexy without having showered in three days and with a dress wrapped around her head.”
I grinned and reached up to touch my turban. “Wow, that's a really nice thing to say.” I almost blushed when he said sexy, but clamped down on the flush and tilted my head, still staring at him.
“How long has it been for you, Lucas? Since your divorce.”
His smile faded and I almost regretted asking, but he had asked me and I wanted to know how far along he was in his healing.
“Six months.” He set the book aside and turned his full attention to me. “It’s been six months. And I know you’re right. It does get easier, has been getting easier.” He looked out to sea. “When I got here, to the Maldives,” he waved his hand toward the north, “I was hurting. We planned this trip for over a year, every detail and penny. We had saved up and looked forward to it. Then sometime last year she started to grow distant, and, well,” he paused, took a breath and turned to face me again. “She met someone else, got pregnant with his child, and left me.”
“Oh!” I clapped a hand over my mouth. I'm sure my expression showed pity and shock, but that was just awful. He loved her. She hurt him.
“God, that is terrible.” I finally said. “Why did you come on this trip? You had to know it would hurt.”
“Yes, I knew. But I wanted it to.” He shrugged, “I wanted all the hurts to be done and over with, get them out of the way. The trip was non-refundable. I took a loss on her ticket but didn’t care. Mostly, I didn’t want to be in the same town when her baby was born.”
“My God,” I whispered. “No wonder you were having a bad day yesterday. And here I was, some silly socialite not letting you brood. Sorry about that.”
“I’m not. Don’t apologize.” He shook his head and leaned toward me slightly. I couldn’t read his expression, but I thought he looked … happy. “You're the first thing to make me smile in a really long time, Sophie. Even on this raft, even if we get out of this and go home and we never see each other again, I'm grateful I got stuck here with you. It put things in perspective.” He reached out and touched the turban on my head. “I’m glad the pirates didn’t take your exuberance.”
Leaning back again, he picked up the book and beckoned for me to join him on his side of the raft. “I think I may have found something in here.”
“Really! You found us?” I had been distracted by his comment that we would never see each other again if we got rescued. When we got rescued, I quickly corrected. The thought depressed me, but his announcement of having found a clue pushed that thought aside.
“Maybe, look.” He pointed a finger at the bottom of the map. “We started up here and took the Lady Sun to here.” He indicated the last atoll in the chain. “Then the pirates boarded, and we came down this way.” He ran his finger into open water. “I have no idea how fast we're drifting or where the currents run, but it’s a good bet we're somewhere in this area.” He drew a small circle with the tip of his finger, “Which, according to page thirty-two, is one of the two shipping lanes in this area.”
“You did it!” I hugged him, wrapping both arms around his neck, then leaned back, still hugging him and kissed him soundly on his cheek. “And no math, so your brain should be just fine.” I felt his chuckle in my chest, pressed up against him as I was and the vibration set off a chain reaction in me. I loosened my grip and began to pull away just as his hands came up behind my back. We were staring at each other again, and I felt an overwhelming urge to put my mouth on his, to taste how warm it must be. To press against his body, feel the strength in him, borrow his heat and sweet scent and be home for a moment. But I didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do. We might ruin everything, the companionship we found, the partnership, by attempting something that was surely doomed. He was a wounded man, and I wasn’t going to be the one to put us in an awkward place when we had no way to escape each other.
I drew back from him, all my senses screaming at me to go the other way. Kiss him, taste him, grab him. My chest was growing tight with the sudden draw and desire I had for this moment to become something else entirely.
Lucas didn’t let go. His eyes were on my mouth and he ran a hand up the small of my back, pressing me closer till I was back where I had been, my chest pressed against his and my arms wrapped around his neck. He didn’t move further. I dropped my head toward him and laid my brow against his.
We sat there, less than an inch between our mouths and neither one of us moved. I was suddenly too warm. I could hear my heartbeat, I felt his through my breasts and the flood of desire and need that hit me, made me gasp. I let go of his neck and ran my hands down to the front of his chest, then slowly up to his shoulders.
“Lucas,” I whispered, “we …” I didn’t know what I was going to say. I just couldn’t stay like that a moment longer. My insides were roiling and reason was quickly escaping the decision-making realm of my brain.
“Shouldn’t.” He finished for me. But he didn’t move.
His breath was warm against my mouth and his skin was like touching the sun. I took a breath and then slowly, I sat back. My hands ran down his arms, over the bandage on one side till they ended in his grasp. I was practically panting. I hadn’t been with a man in two years, but at this moment, I was more aroused with Lucas than through my whole marriage to the Snake. I didn’t want to let go, so I sat holding his hands and he sat calmly looking at me. I could see the pulse in his neck, it was keeping time with my own … so he, too, must be affected. That comforted me. I didn’t want to feel like the floozy again. At least the attraction is mutual. But I still didn’t know what to do, or want to let go.
The weather decided for us. In a split second, water was pouring from the sky.
Chapter 9
I was so startled I let out a little scream, and we both looked up to see big thick clouds sweeping in from the west. The sun still shone from the east, and the air weighed as hot as ever. It was such a strange sensation to be drenched by warm rain while the sun still lit up t
he day.
Lucas was laughing and still looking at me. He pulled me forward by my hands that were still clasped in his and said in a seductive voice, “Our first shower together. Got any soap?”
I pushed back and threw him an exasperated look. The rain had put a damper on the heat brewing between us but had in no way doused the fire.
“No soap, but I'll definitely enjoy the shower.”
We laughed like kids as we moved around the raft that was now slick and shiny with rain. I had never experienced such a torrential downpour before. It brought weight to the term ‘raining buckets.’ Within minutes, the raft began to hold water and we both realized that the storm represented both a curse and a boon.
As quickly as possible, I piled all of the life vests on top of the luggage to attempt to keep it dry. Lucas pulled the metal can to the middle of the raft and opened the lid letting it capture as much rain as possible to save for drinking water. With all the rain gathering in Ducky’s bottom I was sure it would take forever to dry out, and the extra weight would threaten the raft’s ability to carry our load. I stripped off my tank and quickly began sopping up the water and wringing it out over the side. I hesitated briefly, thinking perhaps I should wring it out in the metal can, but the water was not very clean. With the salt in my tank and mine and Lucas’s dirty shoes, the rain water would probably make us sick and defeat the purpose in the end if we threw it all up. So I went back to sopping and wringing. My tank was so small it didn't seem to be doing much good, so I stripped the dress from my head and began using it instead. The cotton of the dress held much more water, and soon I appeared to be making some progress.
Lucas had joined me in my attempt to bail. He had both the shirt off his back and the one off his head, sopping up the large puddle in Ducky’s middle. Glancing up briefly I caught sight of him. Stripped to the waist with the bandage on his arm flashing white against tan skin. He was a true sight to behold. I had been right. His body boasted well-wrapped muscle all over. It was distracting and beautiful, like watching a work of art or an opening scene to porn, I couldn’t decide. I came to my senses and realized I had been sitting staring, when he stopped and stared back at me. I gave him a sheepish grin and, ducking my head, I went back to sopping up water with my dress and wringing. Sopping and wringing.
The storm moved quickly. As suddenly as the sky had opened up and dumped, it just as suddenly turned off the faucet.
I finished wringing out the dress and took a break for a moment. The sun was still shining strong. The storm moved northeast, and not one cloud blocked the rays of the hot ball of fire that now turned the air into a warm wet mass, making it hard to breathe.
Lucas was grinning, kneeling in the middle of what was left of the puddle, shining with his wet skin and those damn distracting muscles. I threw my dress at him and it landed with a splat against his chest.
“Well, now I've had the shower you said I needed.” I fished around for my tank, found it beneath my legs where I was kneeling and rolled to the side to pull it loose. The raft was slippery, now that it was wet and I went sprawling, sliding straight into Lucas’s knees.
Laughing and moving very carefully, Lucas closed the lid on the metal box and slid it toward the back of the raft on its life vest water sled. Then, still kneeling, towering above me, he leaned down and placed and hand on either side of my waist.
“You look cleaner.” His hair was dripping, the drops landing on my face. I lay smiling and half laughing, on my back in a puddle, in a raft, half-dressed, beneath a half-dressed man. It was actually fun for that brief second, no worries of death and doom, no thoughts of starvation, or thirst, or rescue. Just this view of Lucas and the warm bath I lay in.
A drop landed on my mouth, sliding down my lower lip, I licked it off, and Lucas tensed. The fun suddenly turned back into the moment just before the rain had started. We were trapped again, where I couldn’t move toward him, and he wouldn’t move away.
Lucas’s arms straddled my sides, his body leaning over me, blocking the sun. His eyes were roaming, taking in my wet form, and I suddenly realized I was wearing all white. White bra, white pants, white panties. I may as well have been nude for all the coverage my wet clothing provided, and he saw that. It was clear by the change in his expression and the sudden stillness in him. His eyes traveled back to mine.
Another drop fell, it landed on my top lip this time, and as I parted my mouth to let it slide inside, Lucas lowered his head and caught it. His mouth closed over my upper lip, warm and soft and tasting of salt and rain. I had nowhere to go; I couldn’t back away. I didn't want to tell him this was a bad idea because this was all my body was screaming to do. My hands reached up to his chest, damp and warm, firm and wide. He pulled his head back far enough to see my eyes clearly, and I knew he was offering me a way out. To say no. To answer the question his mouth had posed without words, but with the sharing of that raindrop.
I was powerless to do anything but what my body commanded, and then I stopped attempting reason altogether. The scent of him surrounded me, and I reached my hands into his hair, pulling his mouth back down to mine. He came willingly, and then we were both lying in the puddle. Our legs tangled together, his hands on my waist, his mouth as warm and sweet as I thought it would be. I couldn’t taste him enough. I arched toward him, my mouth begging his to give, and we opened up to each other, our tongues dancing, teasing. The wet skin between us was slick and warm. His long, strong, arms wrapped around my whole body and pulled me close. We were almost sewn together, the entire front of me was in contact with him. His legs tangled with mine, my breasts pressed against his chest, and our mouths catching and tasting and reaching. It felt as if my ears were ringing and I would vibrate apart with need. I wanted more of him.
I heard him make a small noise in the back of his throat, like a growl, and he moved his mouth down my neck, biting and kissing as I pressed into him. Our centers were lined up perfectly, and I was unable to stop myself from thrusting my hips toward him. His arousal was apparent and as strong as mine. He pressed back and then Lucas’s lips took mine again.
“Oh God,” I whispered, against his mouth, “How can this be happening?” My hands were on his hips, pulling him closer, trying to get every piece me in contact with him. The need had become so large it hurt, the craving in me for him. I had never experienced such a rush of passion. Such a clawing for release. It was like a drug, and I didn’t recognize me. I just wanted. Needed. Only need. My hands ran up his back. That huge, strong, back that blocks out the stars, that carries all that weight. “Lucas ...” His name came out of me in a half moan.
“Sophia.” He bit my neck.
Another moan, “Oh God, Lucas.”
I bit him back and then found his mouth again. We were grabbing and touching, and tasting each other in such an explosion of intensity, that when he stopped and pulled away, I thought I would die. I had just lost myself. When his body left mine, I lost all feeling, thought, warmth.
I looked up at him in confusion, and he, looked up at the sky.
“Sophia,” His face was alive and smiling when he looked back down at me. “A plane!”
* * *
I hadn’t heard it. The blood rushing in my ears, and my focus being consumed by the taste and enjoyment of Lucas, had completely blocked out the far off droning sound of the plane.
I struggled to my knees, using Lucas’s body to climb to an upright position, and looked to the sky, in the direction he was now pointing.
We yelled. Together we yelled, and screamed, and waved our arms. Ducky sloshed around on the water as we clamored for balance, trying to make as much movement as possible, throwing our arms out wide and calling out.
“Hey, over here! Over here!”
We both knew no one could hear us. Logic was inconsequential though, and we screamed anyway.
“Help! Hey! Help us!”
The small plane was flying lower than a large airliner would, but it was too far away. I could make out its wings, nos
e, and tail, but no detail. I wondered if we looked like a shadow on the big open ocean to them -- the pilot or the passengers. If we looked like seaweed or flotsam, or jetsam, or if they noticed us at all. We waved and yelled, and the plane slowly crossed the blue, blue, sky. Heading north. Not turning. Not slowing. Not rescuing us.
In the space of a few minutes, it was gone, and the silence was deafening. Lucas and I knelt in the center of Ducky, our arms hanging limply at our sides, our faces turned north to where the plane had disappeared.
We didn’t say anything. I slowly sat down. I looked at my hands, already turning brown from one day in the sun. They were tinged with red, and I knew I should hunt down the sunscreen and reapply. But I sat there, my mind blank, and my nerves numb.
Lucas was there, suddenly. His hands took mine, and he knelt in front of me. I lifted my face to look at him and saw he had a strange expression on his face. Not defeat, or disappointment, not resignation or anger. I couldn’t place it at first, but then he spoke quietly, and calmly, and I figured it out.
“No rain, Sophia. No excuses. No plane.” He reached out and lightly ran his fingers down my cheek. “No reason at all not to.”
What I saw in his eyes was desire. And peace. A strange combination, but I saw clearly, that he was actually fine with no rescue. That the interruption of the rain, the bailing of the raft, the plane that couldn’t possibly see us, they were only pauses to what we both knew would happen. What we wanted to happen. And it all rushed back. Just like that. A flood of heat and desire, the painfully sweet need. And we agreed. Without words or explanation. Having each other, and this new thing we had found, this joy in each other, rivaled rescue. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that maybe I would regret it. Maybe I wouldn’t, but there was nothing to stop us. No reason to not revel in this passion and thrill of attraction. Being happy or worried in the raft would not alter whether we were rescued, we were here, and I wanted him.