by Kelli Walker
Where the hell was Val?
Despite knowing nothing about her, I felt my worry growing. She had gone off somewhere and I wasn’t with her. What if she had tripped? Or gotten herself tangled up in a vine? Or encountered a predator that could poison her? I didn’t know what the fuck was on this island. I didn’t know what she could have gotten herself into.
I turned my eyes out towards the lingering darkness as it slowly approached.
The cloud cover overhead was barreling over the moon, sealing off the rest of the light I had. I tried to listen beyond the thunder and the rustling of the leaves as the wind kicked up. I walked along the water’s edge, shivering my ass off as the coolness of the water brushed against my muscles.
Fuck. The jungle was cold at night.
“Val! Where the hell are you!?”
How far had she gone out? Could she even see the fire roaring in our cave? Even if she was hurt and calling for me, I couldn’t hear her. And even if I wanted to go find her, the wilderness had been swallowed up by darkness. The ground shook violently with the thunder and lightning temporarily eliminated the world around me.
And I saw nothing but trees and fucking dirt.
“Val! Can you hear me!?”
The sound of rain off in the distance made my curse underneath my breath. Waves crashing against the shoreline and swallowing up the island hit my ears and made me worry. How close were we to that water? Would the levels of the brook rise? I didn’t know if that cave was far enough off the ground for us to stay safe, and the only woman that had those answers was out doing god-knew-what or passed out somewhere or slowly dying with no one to help her.
I wasn’t leaving her side again.
“Val!”
I walked along the bank of the small river calling for her, trying to see if I could hear her. I listened out for my name or any sounds of pain. Wailing or crying or thunderous cursing. She was the only one with the GPS tracker. The only one with the mind and intelligence to get us out of this situation alive. I’d never get off this damn island if something happened to her, and if she was out there hurt because I didn’t have the balls to override her decision to go alone, I’d never forgive myself.
Without her, I was dead. And I knew that.
“Valencia!”
I roared her name out as I cupped my hands over my mouth. My body shivered with the cold and I felt it seeping deep into a place I didn’t know to exist. My abdomen hurt. My legs ached. My shoulders had been so tense for so long that just moving them made me wince in pain. I looked back at the mouth of the cave and could barely see the flickering flame of the fire. I had no idea if it was because it was dwindling or if it was because I had walked out that far.
Then, I heard it.
“Silas?”
Val grunted and I whipped my head around to follow the sound. I squinted into the darkness and picked up the pace, rushing to the edge of the forestry. A shadowed figure came looming out from the trees, and I rushed my arms around her body and picked her up.
“What are you doing? Put me down.”
“Rain’s coming soon. We have to hurry. Stop fucking arguing and just go with it,” I said.
I felt something hitting the side of my thigh, but I ignored it. I ran as fast as I could with her against my body. Her head fell to my shoulder and her arms wrapped around me, but her legs dangled as if they were too weak to do anything. I panted as I steadied my feet. My body drew its energy from her radiant warmth as I charged along the shoreline. We had to get into the mouth of that cave before the clouds opened up. We had to get near the fire before--
As if the jungle was mocking us, a blanket of water poured down onto our bodies. In seconds, we were soaked, and my legs moved faster than they ever had before. I felt Val’s jaw trembling against my neck, her teeth clattering from the cold quickly settling into her body.
The rain was so thick I could hardly see through it.
My lungs burned and the rain hurt my eyes as I got us back to the cave. I scooped her up into my arms and benched her over my head, placing her gently into the mouth of the cave. Then, I got a good glimpse at what she had been carrying. She was clinging to six headless snakes and two massive leaves from some tree in the woods.
Holy shit, she had actually found us food.
Planting my hands into the side of the cave, I hoisted myself up into its dry warmth. I tossed a massive log onto the fire before I settled down beside Val, listening as her teeth chattered away. Val stood to her feet as she shuffled side to side, and the second her hands grasped the hem of her shirt I couldn't look away.
One by one, her clothes fell away, until she was in nothing but her bra and underwear.
Water dripped down her back as her thick scars finally came into full view. Thick, braided lines raced from her shoulders to her lower back. Across her spine and side to side, as if she had been physically whipped by something. My entire body tensed and an anger unlike anything I had ever experienced rushed to the pit of my gut.
Who the fuck did that to this beautiful woman?
“Come on. Up,” Val said.
She grabbed my arm with her cold hands and helped me to my feet.
“What?” I asked.
She groaned and rolled her eyes, as if I had asked the dumbest question in the world. Her hands worked my white shirt over my head and she tossed it to the side. Her fingers worked with my belt, ripping it from the loops of my pants before she quickly undid the button. The zipper rushed down, she dropped to her knees, and she took my pants along with her.
I quirked my eyebrow and shook my head. Under any other circumstance, I would’ve pinned her to this cave and fucked her senseless. I couldn't help but admire her body. The toned muscles of her arms and the smooth lines of her stomach. Even her thighs pulsed with a visual pleasure that left my cock aching for more.
This woman was going to be the death of me.
“Step out of them and get your shoes and sock off. We have to warm up.”
“Doesn’t warming up include clothes?” I asked.
“Not when they’re soaked with rain, it doesn’t.”
“Then what does it entail?”
She grabbed my arms and forced me to sit back down, then she stepped her feet between my knees. She kicked my legs apart before her ass came towards my groin, and I scooted back as my eyes widened. She sat between my legs and pressed her back against me, making me colder the second her clammy skin touched mine. Then, she reached for my arms and wrapped them around her before she reached for my legs and closed them back around her body.
“Body heat,” Val said.
With my arms around her and my cock millimeters away from blowing it all to bits, she reached for the first snake and began to skin it. She just… pulled at the skin where the head used to be and stripped it all the way down. The movement was mesmerizing, and when she was done skinning it she put it on one of the massive leaves she brought with her.
“Are there any twigs?” she asked.
I forced my gaze away from her body before I reached out and grabbed one I hadn’t used yet.
One by one, she skinned the snakes and staked them onto sticks. Then, she propped them up over the fire so they could cook. She leaned back against me and sighed, nestling into my muscles while her smooth skin teased me more. I closed my eyes and bit back a growl. She felt precious in my grasp. I wrapped my arms tighter around her and pulled her closer, then linked my legs over hers.
“The closer we can get, the better,” she said.
But she didn’t have to worry. I had every intention of getting as close to her as I could. Between the toned muscles that showcased her strength, the smooth lines that boasted of her curves, and the staunch lack of clothing between our connection, there was no way in hell I was letting go of her. Val was an enigma wrapped in a beautiful mystery, and a part of me felt honored to be with her in what I was quickly coming to understand to be her own natural habitat.
I buried my face into the crook of her n
eck and felt her jump. I grinned against her skin as she pulled away, and I whipped my gaze up to hers and took in the confused expression in her gray-speckled brown eyes.
“My face is cold,” I said.
It seemed to be enough of an explanation for her, because her cheek came back and pressed against the side of my head as I burrowed myself into her body. Her smell. Her musk. The way her body wiggled back into mine. I’d never been with someone where words weren’t necessary to bond. I’d never been with anyone where I didn’t require entertainment to be entertained. Val had not simply piqued my interest, she had planted within me a craving for her. A want to get to know her fully and completely.
My eyes peered out from her neck as she reached over to turn the snakes and I felt the abrasiveness of her scars rake against my abs. This woman might not have needed someone to save her, but she sure as hell needed someone to understand her. Someone to listen to her. Someone to support her in whatever it was she fought with on a daily basis.
And even though I didn’t know her--even though I didn’t understand what drew me to her--I had every intention of making that person me.
Valencia
Being a true survivalist meant I couldn’t be weird being naked around other people. Especially during circumstances like the one Silas and myself found ourselves in. When the weather threatened to dip into ‘hypothermia-land’, the quickest way to bring up the body temperature was to fuse together and use body heat to warm back up. And with our clothes being soaked, the only thing we had going for us was the fire and the fact that we could press ourselves to the back of the cave to get away from the cold wind and rain.
The snakes were partially cooked through, so I wrapped them up in the two leaves I found in the forest and put them over the side of the fire. Neither of us could eat right now anyway. We were shivering too much, and the food would only come back up on us. I stepped away from Silas long enough to hang up our clothes so they could dry, but I knew they would still be damp come morning. I hadn’t prepared for a storm like this, so I didn’t have a way to hang them over the fire.
I only had a way to hang them up against the rough surface of the cave so they could drip dry in the smoke.
I was painfully aware of Silas staring at me, but I tried to ignore it. I went back and sat in his lap, rubbing my hands along his legs. They were getting warm, but the cold clamminess of his chest began to worry me. Silas was a big man, but between the fire I kept feeding and the heat my body was already emitting, he should’ve been getting warmer.
And he wasn’t.
He pressed further into me, his ice cold nose falling back to the crook of my neck. Him pressing closer towards the fire wasn’t good. Muscle took a longer time to heat the deeper the cold dove, but his skin shouldn't have been as cold as it was. I felt his jaw start to clench. Which meant he was only a few seconds away from his teeth chattering against one another.
Shit.
Silas was about to be hypothermic.
“Silas, can you hear me?” I asked.
He nodded his head into my neck, but he didn’t speak.
“I need you to use your voice. Can you hear me?”
“Y-Yes,” he said.
“What part of you is cold?”
“All… of it.”
That small conversation sent his teeth chattering and panic flooded my veins. I turned around in his lap and took a good look at him. And I felt like shit for staring the way I did. I tried to keep my head in the game, to remind myself that Silas was in a very dangerous zone with his body temperature. But It was the first time I’d ever been taken by the way a man looked.
And Silas was all man.
The swell of his chest was massive, bleeding into thick arms with muscles that had bulging veins. The rings of his abs teased the lines of his obliques that disappeared beyond the hem of his wet boxers. His legs were long. Fraught with muscle and twitching with the shivering his body had already started. The taper of his waist and the thickness of his thighs contrasted heavily, forcing my eyes to travel along his body simply to explore him.
I forced my eyes back up to his, taking in the way his lips turned blue.
“Can you feel this?” I asked.
I slid my fingertips along his lips and he quickly nodded his head.
“I need you to talk to me, Silas,” I whispered.
“Yes. I-I-I… can feel it.”
My hand cupped his cheek and my thumb grazed over his skin. He nestled into the palm of my hand, seeking any bit of warmth he could find. I’d never entertained the thought of having a man since I left home. Since I left behind my disgusting father to die in his own filth. But there was something about Silas I was drawn to. Something about him that tugged at a part of me I’d never thought about before.
I saw his eyes fall to the snakes sitting by the fire and my stomach growled with hunger.
“I know you’re hungry, too, but we can’t eat until we get warm. Our jaws are too sore to chew and our stomachs will only push the food back up,” I said.
“S-s-so… what do you, uh… suggest?” he asked.
My hands cupped his neck, feeling the ice in his veins slowly permeate the rest of his skin. I crawled into his lap, then wrapped my arms and legs around him. He managed to thread his shaking arms around my body, zapping any ounce of heat I had from my bones. I rubbed myself along him, trying to create some sort of friction even though our wet undergarments were working sorely against us.
He buried his face into my neck again and I bit back a sigh.
“Let me know when you’re warming up above your hips,” I said.
“What… do I need t-to… do for you?” he asked.
“Let your mind fall blank and focus on the fire. As the fire heats my body, the heat transference should heat your chest. Since I’m smaller and have less muscle than you, there’s a shorter transference time. So, let me know when your chest is warm. Then I can move, we can get your back turned to the fire, and we can get our stomachs full. All you need to do is focus on getting warm, Silas. Do that for me.”
I felt his cock growing between my legs, but I tried to ignore it. Typical for a rich man who probably thought he could have it all. And yet, it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. It was also a good sign. It meant his blood flow wasn’t compromised despite the cold settling into his body. But it would be very soon if we didn’t get his body temperature rising. I rubbed my hands up and down his back, trying to use friction as best as I could to warm this behemoth I was trapped with.
And even though I was warming above my hips, he still wasn’t.
I unraveled my legs from his thick body and knelt in front of him. I ran my hands from his back to his chest, massaging the muscles I felt clenching up against my palms. My back began to sweat and my stomach finally warmed, but nothing I tried worked with Silas. And it puzzled me. His body shook with cold and his eyes filled with fear, searching mine for any sign that something was turning in our favor. He knew something was wrong, and so did I.
But I wasn’t going to let this man die with me tonight.
“What h-h-happens if--”
“Don’t,” I said.
My eyes whipped up to his as my jaw clenched.
“We don’t entertain that thought,” I said.
I ran my hands along his chest and down his washboard abs. I dug my hands into his muscles, trying to unlock them as best as I could. I grabbed another log and tossed it behind me, feeling the fire roar and rage. Flames licked to the ceiling, dancing our shadows off the rock of the cave wall. And when I felt the rest of my body heat up, I quickly wrapped myself back around him.
A fully warmed body against his cold one would surely heat him up.
“What if… if I turned--”
“Just relax, Silas. Close your eyes and do your best to concentrate on the warmth around you. The mind is a powerful thing. Think about the sun. About lying out on the beach. About burning your skin underneath the powerful tropical sun I’m sure a
man of your stature enjoys.”
He tried to press a chuckle from his lips, but it only came out as a cough.
Shit.
I couldn’t put his back to the fire because if his strength gave out, he’d fall back into it. And I wasn’t strong enough without food in my system to haul his dead weight out of a damn fire pit. His arms threaded around me, sinking into my waist as my hands continued to rub his back.
His lips fell to my shoulder and I felt them quaking against my skin.
I had no idea why the fuck he wasn’t warming up. And it really started to worry me. There was no reason in this world why Silas shouldn't have warmed up against the contact of our bodies. No reason in this world why our body heat shouldn’t have warded off the chill that had settled into the marrow of his bones. I was running out of options as the storm raged on. Wind whipped by the flames of the fire, teasing the chill that had already encompassed most of our bodies. I cursed underneath my breath, knowing that the situation was forcing me into a situation I didn’t want to be in.
At least, I thought I didn’t want to be in it.
He started grunting with his trembling. A signal that told me his muscles were weakening from their shivering state. I slid from Silas’ body and fed more logs to the fire, then did the only other thing I could. I reached up and unclasped my bra, then slid my underwear from my body. I tossed them over to the side, no longer caring about drying off our clothes. Any cold we could get away from our skin, no matter how naked it made us, would help us out in the end.
I turned back towards Silas as the flames grew to dangerous heights in the cave, watching as his eyes caressed my body. I walked back over to him as the heat of the flames engulfed the small cave we were in and hooked my fingers into the hem of his boxers.
“Keeping this wet gear on is only going to make this worse. I’m sorry, Silas.”
I stripped them from his body, helping him lift his aching legs as he grunted in pain. Then, I settled my body back against his. Naked and trembling, with his arms clutching me tightly, we curled up together and allowed the most sensitive parts of our bodies to come together. We needed more circulation heat circulation. More of a blanket from the storm raging outside. Rain beat down and the wind hissed, pushing cold air into our space. Thunder cracked above us and lightning illuminated the outside, shrouding us in a fury that made me wonder how far the level of the babbling brook would rise.