by Henry, Jane
She pauses her pacing again and grabs at her bag, her eyes wide on me as if I’m about to attack her and hell, I might be. I don’t trust this lust and craving inside me.
“Yeah. Protein bars and nuts, but not much else.”
I can’t even see straight, the need to eat the food she has is that strong. I snatch it out of her hand.
“Wait!”
I tear it open, ignoring her.
Her eyes widen when panic flits across her features. “Do you mean to tell me there’s nothing to eat on this island?”
“Depends,” I tell her wryly, reaching my hand in her bag with trembling fingers, like a vampire who’s just smelled blood. “Do I look like I’ve been eating three squares a day?” The contents of her bag spills onto the beach in front of me, and when I see cellophane wrappers I fall to my knees. I grab a package of salted nuts, my mouth watering. I swallow hard and my stomach aches with hunger when she sprints toward me.
“Hey! Don’t go through my things!”
“I’m not going through your things,” I say in a growl.
“Eat what you want, just don’t touch my stuff,” she says, scowling at me.
I don’t give a shit about her stuff, but apparently, she does, because she’s picking things up at a frenzied pace, her cheeks flushed a vibrant shade of pink. Maybe I should pay attention to her things. I look down and realize she’s shoving her panties and bras and something else—a thick pink vibrator in her bag. My lips tip upward for the first time in a really, really long time and my dick hardens.
Looks like someone really was taking a much-needed vacation. My mind goes to deep, dark places. Being around a woman like her tempts me in ways I haven’t been tempted in ages. A different kind of hunger grows deep in my belly, and it unsettles me.
I’d give her good reason not to need that thing. I would fuck her until she screamed my name and prayed for deliverance. I would give that woman orgasms that would rock her to her very core and leave her panting for more.
What the hell has this island done to me that I’m reduced to animalistic instincts in the presence of a woman? It’s fucking weird as hell.
“Give me that,” she says, and her voice wavers as if she’s about to cry.
I’m growing impatient, letting her do her thing while looking out for Will. I tip the rest of the nuts in my mouth, chew thoughtfully, and shake my head at her.
“You know, princess,” I drawl, my casual tone belying the anger she’s inspired in me. It isn’t just her, though, it’s the whole fucking situation. I want to break things with my bare hands. “Your ship has fucking sailed. Maybe you should think twice about treating me like your enemy, when you don’t have so much as dinner to put in your belly or a roof to put over your head.”
She looks at me in bewilderment, and I finally realize she’s going through some kind of shock or denial.
“Were there others?” she whispers, wrapping her arms around her body and shivering, holding her bag to her chest.
“Yeah,” I say with a sneer. “The point is, it isn’t as easy as you might think. You can fight me all you want, but in the end I’m the only one you’ve got here. Me, and that sneaking, selfish bastard, if he doesn’t manage to get himself killed.”
I hope he’s close enough to hear me.
“How long have you been here?”
She’s still standing in front of me, wrapping her arms around herself.
I look away. I don’t like this question, because I don’t have an answer.
With a forced sigh, I raise my eyes heavenward. “Too fucking long.”
“Jesus,” she whispers. She blinks, then clears her throat and shifts uncomfortably. “It’s like you’re Rip Van Winkle or something.”
I sigh. “I wish. That would’ve been a mercy. I’ve been awake the whole time.”
Six
Harper
* * *
A disconcerting sense of foreboding comes over me at his words.
Too fucking long.
He’s been stranded here. How long? He says there are only three—maybe two of us—on this island.
Why am I here?
I swallow hard and try to put on a brave face, but what I want to do is bury my head in my arms and weep. I never should have gone on that cruise. I knew I should’ve stayed home.
“Can you… can you ballpark it?” I ask, my voice higher in pitch than normal, taking on a frenzied sort of note. “A day, a week, a month…years?”
He only polishes off the nuts, wads up the empty wrapper, and shoves it into a side pocket of my bag, but he doesn’t answer my question. He stalks off away from the beach.
“Get off the fucking beach before you give yourself sunstroke,” he says over his shoulder. I want to rail at him and tell him to fuck off, that he has no right to tell me what to do, but I don’t want to be stupid, either. He’s right, even if he’s a douche about it. I will burn if I’m in direct sunlight too long, and I don’t want to deal with that.
So, I follow him, with great reluctance, and mumble under my breath, “Obviously. Stop telling me what to do. I’m not the enemy here.” He doesn’t respond, just walks through the woods in his loping stride.
“Stay behind me,” he says over his shoulder. “I don’t trust the bastard to not attack us.”
I grit my teeth together. Back at home, I wouldn’t do a damn thing if a man like him told me what to do, but I’d be stupid not to follow his lead here. As far as I can tell, he might be my only potential friend on this island.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Be quiet.”
I clench my fists and follow. The thick palm leaves overhead cover us enough to give me protection from the sun’s brutal rays. I wish I wasn’t wearing flimsy, delicate sandals. I look to his feet. They’re bare, tan, and rough. He doesn’t even flinch when he steps on rocks or tree roots, but my own feet are already aching.
He knows his way. He’s used to the terrain. He’s been here a very, very long time. I have so many questions I don’t even know where to begin, and I’m not sure he’d answer them anyway. I’m not sure if he even could.
“This way,” he grunts, pointing in the forest to the left, when he freezes.
I look to where he’s staring. He’s shaking his head, his eyes wide and mouth opened as if he’s in shock.
“What?” I ask. I look to where he does but all I see is trees.
“Coconuts,” he says, as if that explains anything at all. “Christ. They weren’t here before. I know they weren’t here before.”
That makes no sense, though. How could a whole patch of coconut trees suddenly appear? It makes me wonder at his level of sanity.
Before I can respond, he’s running to one of the trees, and he’s climbing the smooth, narrow trunk.
“Catch them or let them fall, but don’t get hit by one,” he says, and before I can really process what he’s doing, large, ripe coconuts are falling all around me. I catch a few but let the rest fall, until there’s a small pile by my feet.
I look up in surprise when he swings from a branch on the tree and lands on his feet beside me.
“Open your bag.”
Grumbling to myself, I do what he says. It makes sense, I just hate the way he orders me around. I unzip my bag and he shoves as many coconuts in it as he can.
“Perfect. Those will last for a little while.” Without asking me, he reaches for my bag, yanks it out of my hand, and slides it onto his back. I let him. The bag is damn heavy.
“We’re almost there. Keep up.” He turns his back to me and starts climbing up again. I don’t ask him where “there” is. I’ll see soon enough.
Within a few minutes, we’re at the top of some sort of hillside. I can still see the shore, but it’s a good way off now. I wonder if it’s a mistake being up here. What if the ship comes back? Will I be able to get there in time?
I’m hot and sweaty and thirsty as hell, and I feel like I need a really good cry.
I miss Dani
el. What’s he doing right now? How will I get back to him?
And God, I was almost raped today. I saw a man killed, and now I’m with another man that seems to hate my very presence, in the middle of God knows where, food scarce. I hate this.
When we reach the cave, he tosses my bag down, takes a knife from his waistband, then sits on the ground.
“Sit.” He points to the ground. I sit and glare, though I’m pretty sure it’s lost on him. He could try to be a bit more civilized. I’ve never been one of those girls that like the alpha male, the bossy guy who thinks he has to protect everyone and everything around him. I can hold my own, thank you. But, he’s about to give me some coconut, and I’m starving, so I don’t quibble.
He looks around him for something.
“Need to catch the water,” he says.
“I’m guessing you have no bowl,” I mutter, barely stifling the desire to roll my eyes.
“No, but I have shells.” He comes back a moment later with shells the size of my head. I blink in surprise. I’ve never seen anything like them. I watch, rapt, while he opens my bag and takes out a few coconuts. The rest spill onto the ground around him. Placing one on the center of a shell, he takes his huge knife and whacks it along the center of the coconut with rapid, solid strikes. His muscles bunch and stretch, and he’s the epitome of strength wielding the cruel weapon. I can’t look away. It’s weirdly hot, seeing him bare-chested and muscled, whacking the coconuts with gusto, like some island version of a lumberjack chopping wood. I squirm uncomfortably at the raw display of strength.
Oblivious to my musings, he turns the coconut, then whacks it again until the hard, brown shell cracks. Clear liquid drips down and gathers in the base. Lifting the coconut, he carefully catches every drop, then hands me the shell.
“Drink,” he orders. “It will prevent dehydration.”
“Then why don’t you drink?” I ask. I’m not sure why I feel such a strong urge to push back against him.
“I will,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “Ladies first.”
I wonder if he’s testing to see if it’s poisoned, and I eye it warily.
He growls.
“Drink the fucking water.”
I frown at him so he knows I don’t do this willingly, and he better not get used to his highhanded communication methods working, but take the shell and tip some into my mouth. It’s warm, and lightly sweet, but somehow refreshing. I continue sipping it while he splits the coconut in half.
“Here,” he says a moment later, handing me a shaved slice of coconut meat on the end of his knife.
I take it. “Thanks.”
It’s creamy and rich, and my stomach growls in appreciation. I’ve only had coconut it its processed form, shredded and sweetened, this is completely different. We eat in silence, then he cracks open another and another, until our bellies are full and empty coconut shells litter the ground around us.
He sits back and shakes his head. “Doesn’t make sense,” he says. I look him over. He almost looks like could be on vacation, bare-chested, wearing a faded pair of jeans.
“What doesn’t?” I ask. He looks at me as if he just remembered I was there, then shakes his head.
“You’re here,” he says. “The coconuts showed up. It’s almost as if—”
He freezes when we hear something crashing through the woods. I sit still, not sure what it is he sees or hears, and I know instinctively to be quiet. I look from him to the woods again. The sounds are heavy and clumsy but light, clearly not the sounds of a man trying not to be discovered. A moment later, he’s on his feet.
“What the hell,” he mutters.
I look and stifle a scream when a passel of rodent-like creatures goes scurrying past us a few yards off. Mousy brown with sleek fur and tiny ears, they’re almost the size of rabbits. Squirrel-like in appearance with beady little eyes and curved backs, but they don’t have the fluffy tail a squirrel has.
I hate rodents so much I shudder, pulling back into the cave to get away from them, but Cy lifts his machete and goes after them.
I gasp. “You’re going to kill them!” I say, my voice a squeak. Oh, Jesus Christ on a cracker, he’s killing rodents for dinner. My stomach swirls with nausea, and I’m afraid I’m going to lose the coconut I ate.
“Stay here,” he orders, then he’s gone.
As if I’m going after him on his rodent-hunting mission? I close my eyes and whimper. How did I get here? This is torture. Am I dreaming? No, I’m not, but if I were it would definitely be a nightmare or something.
I whimper when I hear a scuffle and squealing, and I shove the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.
Oh God oh God oh God.
In a few minutes he comes back, holding several limp carcasses in his hand.
“Oh my God, you did not,” I moan, covering my mouth with my hand. “I’m not eating them!”
He laughs mirthlessly and shakes his head. “You can be a princess and starve to death or eat and live. You can skip the agoutis.”
Agoutis?
“Suit yourself. Don’t eat them, even though half a dozen Latin American countries consider them fine dining.” He’s sitting outside the cave doing something with his knife, but I can’t bear to look. “But don’t come crying to me when you’re so hungry you can’t even remember your own fucking name.”
“I’ll find my way out of here,” I insist. “I’ll get back on that ship.”
He doesn’t reply, just continues his preparation with his knife. When he’s done, he brings them to an open space surrounded by large rocks that looks like a fire pit of sorts.
“We should be safe here,” he says. “Will ought to be hiding from me, not looking to attack, though we we’ll take precautions.”
I draw in a breath and let it out slowly. “Can you tell me anything at all about this place? How you got here?” I ask him. “I—I’m completely in the dark.”
He gives me a grim smile, and I have to look away as he begins skewering the skinned animals on sticks.
“Now that I’ve had a little something to eat? Yes. My name is Admiral Cy Kaufman. US Navy SEAL. I, and five of my companions, landed on this island. We don’t know how we got here. We have no idea how to get off. We don’t know how long it’s been.”
“How many of you were there?”
“Six, but now there are only two. I think.”
I stifle a groan. “And I take it the other guy isn’t friendly.”
“Yep.” He turns the sticks over the fire, and to my surprise, it smells like roast chicken.
“You keep saying this doesn’t make sense,” I say. “What doesn’t?”
He waves his hand at the forest. “All of it. The way…” his voice trails off and he points to his temple. “The way I think. The way I act. The fact that we had literally almost nothing to eat for days, then suddenly you show up and there’s food practically falling from the sky. You come on a boat, after years and years of no one coming here at all? It doesn’t add up.”
It doesn’t make any sense to me either. “Were you all Navy SEALs?”
A muscle clenches in his jaw as he turns the meat over the fire. “Don’t remember.”
I nod slowly. “What can you tell me about your life back in the states?”
His eyes meet mine, panicked for a moment, before they shutter. “I’ve forgotten a lot, but what I do remember comes in waves. I know I was in the military. I know I was raised in foster homes. I know my name is Cy Kaufman.”
I don’t respond at first, worrying my lip and looking away from him. Either he’s undergone some type of trauma that impacted his memory, or someone tampered with him. And if someone’s tampered with him…
I shove the thought away. Sometimes my imagination gets away from me. I have to stay logical.
“What about you?” he asks.
“What about me?” I frown at him. It makes me uncomfortable turning the attention onto me.
“Who are you? Why are you here? What do you do?”
I shrug. “A few weeks ago, I got notified that I’d won an all-inclusive cruise. I almost didn’t take it. I have—”
No, I’m not going to tell him about Daniel. I’m not sure how much I want to tell him.
“I have a job I’m responsible for,” I tell him. “But something like this doesn’t come up often, so I took the opportunity.”
He nods, removing the roasted meat from the fire. “And you went on the cruise. You checked it out ahead of time?”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t a scam?”
“Of course not. I’m here, aren’t I?”
He purses his lips and slides the meat off the stick onto one of the shells. “My point precisely.”
I don’t understand what he’s talking about. I look about the cave. It’s dark and cooler than on the beach, but the back of the cave opens behind us. I shiver. I hate to think of what creatures could come join us. I want out of here. I remember my room on the cruise ship, luxuriously appointed and cozy. And my home—God, my home, that I worked so hard to furnish so it was my little haven. My house in the country, a fair drive away from the city, small but idyllic, with its wrap-around porch and swing and maples by the front yard. The interior was decorated in “modern country” design, complete with refinished wood and minimalistic decor. It was my little oasis.
He points the end of one of the sticks to the roasted meat. “Help yourself.”
Oh hell no. I will starve to death before I eat a rodent. I swallow the bile that rises in my throat. “Uh, no. I’m good.”
He sits beside me, tears off a bone, and starts to gnaw the meat right there in front of me. I turn away so I don’t hurl. Gross.
“You might regret that later,” he says. “Food isn’t always plentiful here. When it is, you eat.”
I don’t respond, because if I open my mouth, I’m going to be sick.
We sit in awkward silence while he eats every last bit of meat, and I wonder what I’m going to do next. He answers my question when he stands, stretches, and yawns.