Redemption

by R. R. Banks

  What had that left him thinking and feeling?

  I knew that it had to be that moment that had caused him to withdraw so much and what was causing me to question what I was feeling now.

  "You’ve been cramped up in here for a while," I finally managed to say. "Maybe you'd like to get down to the water, wash up a bit and change your clothes."

  Hunter nodded.

  "That sounds amazing.” He looked around the cave. "Where's Gavin? I’m feeling a little shaky and I’m not sure that I can get down to the water myself."

  I looked around as well even though I knew that the other man wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen him that morning.

  "I don't know. Maybe he went back to work on the shelter. He was fairly certain that the storm was going to hit yesterday, but it didn’t, so I think that he’s getting more anxious the longer that he has to anticipate it."

  Hunter let out a sigh and nodded.

  “Alright,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to try to make it.”

  He started to climb to his feet and I reached forward to grab his arm.

  “I can help you,” I offered.

  Hunter looked at me and I felt the spark again. I had taken his glasses off when he fell asleep so now I was gazing directly into the indescribably sexy green pools without the glare of the lenses blocking my view. We stared at each other for several long seconds, the heat between us evident even though neither of us said anything. I took hold of his hand with one of mine and gripped his elbow with the other. I could feel his muscles trembling as he started walking and I knew that is muscles were feeling the strain from the time that they had been unused. After a few steps, however, he seemed to find his strength again and was walking with greater stability. I didn’t let him go, not wanting to trust too much in his tired body and cause him to fall and hurt himself again. With Gavin missing, I was fairly certain that I wasn’t going to be able to haul Hunter back into the cave and figure out how to nurse him back to health for a second time. We made our way carefully toward the pool and as soon as we approached it I felt my face heat up, the memories of the time that I had spent in that water thinking about Hunter still fresh in my mind.

  “Um,” I said, looking around when we got to the edge of the water. “I’ll turn around so you can get undressed. Just get in the water and let me know.”

  I turned around even though that was the absolute last thing that I wanted to do in that moment and waited while I heard the soft thud of his pants hitting the ground and then the light splash of him step down into the water. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would look like for that spectacular body to dip beneath the surface, but I didn’t turn around until I heard him call for me.

  I didn’t bother to take off the gym shorts and shirt that I was wearing. It was hot enough that they would dry when I got out, and even if they didn’t, I had done what passed as laundry on the island and would be able to change into yet another set of gym shorts and shirt that I had snagged from Gavin’s supplies. I didn’t love that I was wearing his clothes, but I would rather deal with that than live in the same dress that I had arrived in or try my hand at weaving leaves into an Eve wardrobe. I walked down into the water with him carrying one of the coconut halves that I had emptied out and put by the side of the pool. I filled it with water and used it to rinse Hunter’s back. I wanted to resist touching him, but I couldn’t. I poured another shell of water over him and reached out to gently run my hand across his skin. His muscles were firm and perfectly formed beneath my palm and I heard him let out a sigh when I touched him.

  I stepped slightly closer to him and whispered for him to tilt his head back. When he did, I poured water over his hair and reached up to tousle it with my fingers. Hunter moaned slightly and I bit down on my lower lip to control the surge of desire that rushed through me. I continued this way, helping him bathe away the dirt, sweat, and tightness of lying in the cave for two days.

  “Does the bite still hurt?” I asked.

  Hunter shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “Not really. A little achy, maybe, but nothing like it was.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  I was nearly against him now, my wet clothes the only thing that was keeping me from being able to feel the warmth of his skin on my breasts. I ran my hands over his shoulders and along his arms, savoring the smoothness and the feeling of the muscles just beneath. This man was young. Too young. But I couldn’t resist him. I ran my hands around to the front of his body and over the top of his chest so that they just grazed his collarbones.

  “Turn around,” I whispered in his ear.

  He complied with my request and turned. The water was low enough that it hovered just beneath the delectable deep V of muscles over his hips. When he shifted, the water moved, revealing the hint of coarse, curly hair at the bottom of the V. I flattened my hands on his chest and let out a long breath, comparing the rhythm of our hearts as I felt his against my palm and mine against my ribcage. I was so invested in Hunter that I didn’t even notice that the sky had darkened and the pressure of the air around us had gotten more intense until it felt like the jungle itself was closing in around us. In an instant, though, the sky opened up and a deluge of hot, steaming rain cam streaming down on us.

  I let out a cry of surprise and jumped back from Hunter.

  “Get back to the cave!” he commanded and I did as he said, fighting against the resistance of the water to get back to the bank.

  The ground was already slick as I ran back toward the cave and I nearly lost my footing. As I started to stumble, I felt Hunter grab onto my arm and lift me so that I didn’t fall. Above us, a bolt of lightning sliced through the sky and the jungle rumbled with a massive crash of thunder. It reminded me of the night that we had escaped from the cruise ship, but this storm seemed to have come on faster and far more vicious than even the storm on the water. I was thankful when I got beyond the mouth of the cave and into the dryness beyond. I went as far inside the cave as I could see with the light from outside.

  Hunter ran in after me and I noticed that he had gotten back into his pants.

  I guess running through the jungle naked wasn’t nearly as appealing as National Geographic would make it seem. Even Tarzan made himself a fancy loin cloth.

  “Oh, no, what animal was that?”

  “What?”

  I looked up at Hunter, not realizing that I had spoken out loud. I shook my head.

  “Oh, um, I was just thinking about Tarzan.”

  “You were thinking about Tarzan?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “He was human.”

  “What?”

  “You asked what kind of animal he was.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not him. I was thinking about his loin cloth. It was obviously made out of fur. So, which of his little animal friends and family did he kill off to turn into his wardrobe?”

  Hunter stared back at me and blinked a few times as if he was trying to process what I was saying in the context of something that actually mattered.

  “I ---” he started, but then stopped.

  “Never mind,” I said, trying to brush some of the water off of my skin.

  “Have you ever wondered why people run out of the water when it starts raining?” he asked. “It seems kind of silly. Like ‘oh no, we need to stop swimming, we’re going to get wet!’”

  I laughed.

  “I don’t think it’s necessarily the rain,” I said. A bolt of lightning lit up the cave and I pointed at the entrance. “It’s that.”

  I was walking toward the pile of supplies that I had built just inside the cave when a clap of thunder crashed overhead, so loud it felt like the Earth was going to split. I gasped and jumped toward Hunter. He reached out and caught me, drawing me close to him so that I was pressed to his chest. I lifted my eyes to look at him and found him staring back at me, his eyes darker. Suddenly I didn’t care about the storm around us anymore. All that mattered was the feel
ing of his arms around me and his chest against mine. Without thinking, I rose up onto my toes and touched my mouth to his. He tasted warm and delicious and I parted my lips slightly to seek more of it.

  Hunter’s hands pressed to the small of my back and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. I looped my arms around his neck and pulled myself up closer to him, not wanting any space between our bodies. As we kissed, I started to walk backwards, drawing him with me. I was easing myself down to my knees, trying to bring him down so that we could lie on the pallet that he had rested on as he recovered from the bite, when I felt him ease me away from him again. My stomach sank. This couldn’t be happening again. We had already gone through this and then back around in circles. With the storm raging outside, I didn’t have anywhere to hide and I certainly didn’t have any champagne to drown my embarrassment in.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound anywhere near as shrill as I thought that I might.

  “Nothing,” Hunter said. “It’s not that anything’s wrong, it’s just that…”

  He hesitated and I tilted my head to look into his face better.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “What Gavin said.”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t let him bother you,” I said. “There’s no point in giving him any more puff than he already has. He doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.”

  “That’s just the thing,” he said. “He wasn’t too far off.”

  I felt my mouth fall open, the surprise at his words palpable. My arms slipped from around his neck and he took a step back.

  “Exactly,” he said, starting to walk around me toward the back of the cave.

  “No,” I said, grabbing his wrist and gently pulling him back toward me so that he didn’t walk away. “Not ‘exactly’. Talk to me.”

  Hunter turned back to look at me and I could see the strain in his expression. This was obviously something that bothered him.

  “What is it that you want to hear? That I’m completely inexperienced with women and he humiliated me?”

  “Is that why you stopped me after the wedding?” I asked.

  My voice sounded weaker and more vulnerable than I would have wanted it to, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to understand what had happened between us, even if that meant putting myself in a position that I shouldn’t be in, that I didn’t want to be in.

  Hunter looked at me quizzically, as if he couldn’t understand why I would even ask that.

  “What else would it be?” he asked.

  “The fact that I’m so much older than you,” I admitted.

  Hunter scoffed and stepped up closer to me.

  “I don’t care how old you are,” he said. “You’re gorgeous. I noticed that the first moment I saw you.”

  “Then what?”

  “You are so beautiful and so confident. I’m intimidated.”

  “There’s no reason to be intimidated.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. I doubt you’ve ever had trouble attracting people.”

  “Hunter, you are beyond sexy. I haven’t been able to control myself since I saw you at the wedding.”

  “You’re the only one.”

  “So, you’ve never…”

  I hesitated, not really knowing how to word the question in such a way that I would get the information that I wanted without embarrassing him any further.

  Because this is just one of those casual questions that everybody asks all the time.

  “Once,” Hunter admitted without me even having to complete my thought. “And my confidence about whether that one time even happened is a little bit shady.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was in college. The one time that I decided to go to a party. I had heard about how much fun they were and that that was all I needed to get settled in and start having a good time in college rather than spending all of my time studying.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I quickly learned why people like me don’t generally go to those parties.”

  “People like you?” I asked.

  “Nerds,” he said without hesitation.

  The word wasn’t an insult or even an evaluation of him. It was just how he perceived himself within the context of the rest of the world.

  “You’re not a nerd,” I said, trying to comfort and reassure him even though he didn’t seem entirely bothered by the idea that he wasn’t one of the cool kids.

  Hunter looked at me with an expression that said that he wasn’t buying it.

  “Is that some of your guidance counselor bullshit coming through?” he asked.

  Guidance counselor? Oh, yeah. Third grade teacher and guidance counselor. Damn. I needed to get it together.

  “It’s just that I don’t think you should be talking about yourself like that.”

  “I was a math and science double major, involved heavily in the chess and astronomy clubs, and the most hotly sought-after Dungeon Master on campus. Among the 12 of us who openly knew what that meant.”

  “Dungeon Master?” I asked somewhat hesitantly.

  Somehow, I don’t think that this story is going to segue into him wearing leather and strapping people to walls.

  “Dungeons and Dragons.”

  Sigh.

  “Today’s episode was brought to us by squares,” I said.

  Hunter gave a short laugh.

  “Tell me about it. So, I agreed to go to this party with my lab partner.”

  “Was your lab partner a blond girl who wore way too much white and pink, and seemed to think that visiting the dining hall was a formal occasion that warranted the wearing of pearls around her neck and diamonds in her ears?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Bitches never change.

  “Was this party a sorority party?”

  “Yeah.”

  Yep.

  “Were you some kind of entry into a contest?”

  Hunter gave a deep sigh.

  “Yeah.”

  Great to know that there are some traditions that just won’t fucking die.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. I know that they gave me something to drink. A lot of somethings to drink. I loosened my tie. I might have ended up on a table dancing.”

  I had a sudden flash of his dancing from the wedding.

  “What kind of dancing?”

  “Viennese waltz.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, and to his credit, Hunter did, too.

  “Sexy.”

  “Apparently so because the next thing I knew I was waking up the next morning naked except for my glasses and one sock with the girlfriend of one of the fraternity members in bed with me.”

  “That’s some seriously 80’s teen movie stuff,” I said before it occurred to me that those movies came out when he was a toddler.

  “Well, I probably don’t have to tell you that things didn’t go terribly well for me after that.”

  “And you haven’t dated anyone since?”

  “I don’t think that that really counts as dating,” he pointed out.

  “Probably not.”

  “I’ve dated a couple of women,” he said. “But it never went beyond a few friendly dinners. Maybe a show. I have a hard time attracting women and those who I do aren’t exactly brimming with romance and sexuality. Either that or I just don’t inspire it in them.”

  “You keep saying that you have a hard time attracting women. I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. They just seem to kind of look through me. Either I’m the perfect friend material, or I’m wallpaper. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.”

  “There’s middle ground for me,” I told him. “You are much more than friend material.” I took a step toward him. “And you are definitely not wallpaper.” I closed the space between us and ran my hands down his arms, giving a little moan of appreciation at the feeling of his muscles. “Though I wouldn’t object to hav
ing you around to look at.” I got on my toes to draw myself up to whisper in his ear again. “Let me show you what that girl at the party couldn’t.” I brushed my mouth across his neck. “We don’t have to rush. We have plenty of time.”

  Without waiting for a response, I rested my mouth to his, rediscovering the kiss from when we were standing in the pool. He accepted it immediately, his mouth opening beneath mine and his tongue slipping past my lips to massage against mine. As our bodies responded to one another, drawing closer until we were pressed together, my wet clothing cooling some of the heat that we were creating, I again started lowering us to the ground. He came with me this time, allowing me to ease him to the floor of the cave and stretch him back against the blankets. Outside the rain was pelting the jungle, filling the cave with the music of the individual droplets hitting the leaves, rocks, ground, and water. It buffered us from the rest of the world, enhancing the space of privacy and luxurious pleasure that we were creating together.

  I wanted to introduce him to everything that he had been missing for so many years. I wanted to indulge his body and show him all that it was capable of receiving, and of giving. For so long sex had been an obligation, something that I did because it was another thing that was expected of me as a wife. This wasn’t about obligation or what either of us required from the other. Instead, this was about listening to our bodies and giving them exactly what they wanted, discovering pleasures within each other and within ourselves that were as wild and natural as the beautiful, if frightening, island around us.

  With Hunter stretched across the pallet, I stood and looked down at him. I ensured that he was watching me as I undressed carefully, gradually revealing myself to him. I didn’t know how far the night would take us, but I wanted nothing between us and nothing to stop us from whatever exploration we desired. There were no limitations tonight. There was nothing that was going to stop us.