by Henry, Jane
“Cy,” she moans, but I only growl in response. The need to fuck her permeates every pore of my body, every thought in my mind, my instincts fully trained on fucking this woman until she screams for mercy. I managed to tame my need to fuck her last night, but now I’ve lost all self-control.
I unzip my pants, grab my cock, spread her legs, and thrust so hard she screams, but as I sink into her hot, slick pussy, her screams grow hoarse. I silence her with my mouth on hers, gentle at first, then a rougher clash of teeth and lips. I bite her lip and her tongue touches mine, pulling away at the faint coppery taste of blood, my growl deepening. When I release her wrists, she throws her arms around my neck, pumping her own hips as I fuck her hard. Her nails scrape my back, and I slam my palm on her thigh, the impact stinging my hand. She whimpers and moans but submits.
She won’t control this. I will.
I thrust again and again, her hot, tight cunt gripping my cock with every fevered movement, until she relinquishes everything, submitting her body to mine. When she screams my name at the top of her lungs, my own climax rips through me. My muscles contract and my pulse races, and fevered ecstasy washes through my limbs.
I own her.
She belongs to me.
I will mark her so even the skies above know she belongs to me.
My pulse begins to slow, and I stare at her wide-open eyes, and slightly parted, swollen lips. She brings a hand up to her mouth. “Turn around,” she says.
“What?”
“I want to see your back.”
I give her a view of my back.
“My God.”
I pull out of her with great reluctance. “What?”
“I scratched your back. What the hell?”
“And I bit your lip.”
She sticks her tongue out curiously as if to check and runs it along her lip. “No, I think I’m okay. But what the hell was that?”
“I woke up and needed to fuck you,” I say, as if that explains anything.
“I woke up and needed to be fucked, so that was convenient. But now I need to go… clean up or something.”
I nod, and take her by the hand, helping her to her feet. “We need to eat breakfast, clean up, get some water, and find your fucking backpack.”
“We sure as hell do.”
“What kind of medication do you have in there?” I ask her. I need to know. Is she sick?
She gives me a pointed look. “Birth control.”
Jesus. Has the island affected me so badly that I’m operating under animalistic instincts? How the hell could I have not thought of that?
“We’ll find it.” Jesus, we’ll have to.
She gets to her feet and stretches, yawning, then looks at the foot of the cave. “Can’t say it was the most comfortable sleep I’ve ever had. Any chance we can make our way down to the shelter you built?”
“Yeah.” Will can kiss my ass. I’ll bring her to the shelter and get us outfitted properly. We’ll make it our own.
“But wow, is that beautiful,” she breathes. Standing at the foot of the cave, we get a full view of the valley below. The beach stretched out beyond the trees, the fingertips of sunrise painting the pale blue sky with ribbons of gold and cotton candy pink.
“It is,” I tell her. “As much as I want off this island, there are some things I can’t help but appreciate. And that’s one of them.”
We walk in silence down to the water; drink fully, and then clean up a bit.
“Coconut for breakfast?” I offer. “Today we’ll catch some fish.”
“Sounds good.” I appreciate the fact that she isn’t griping anymore about eating food in the wild. I crack open the coconuts and we eat, sitting by the embers of last night’s fire.
“You know,” she says, looking up above her to the trees. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that was a bird’s nest up there.”
I look to where she’s pointing.
“Hell yes, it is,” I say, getting to my feet.
“What are you doing?”
“Need to see if there are any eggs in that nest.”
She grimaces but doesn’t protest.
I’ve had enough practice climbing these trees that it’s an easy matter for me to shimmy up the trunk and haul myself up. There are three large, rounded eggs nestled in a nest in the branches.
Score.
“I need something to put them in,” I say to her. “I can’t hold them and get back down.”
“Can you take the whole nest?” I look carefully at the interlaced twigs and shake my head. “No. If I take it off, it’ll fall apart.”
“Okay. I can catch them?”
I look down at her. She’s already assuming a catcher position, her legs spread apart and knees bent, her hands cupped in front of her. It’s honestly kinda cute.
“Babe, if you drop them, we lose a meal, and meals are fucking hard to come by here.” Not sure she believes that, though, because oddly since she arrived, we haven’t had an issue.
Her brows furrow together, and she nods with determination. “Got it. I won’t drop them.”
I give her a curious look, but she stomps her foot. “C’mon. We don’t have all day here.”
This girl is something else. “Alright,” I agree. I take one of the eggs out. “Get ready.”
I toss it as gently as I can. With a little squeal, she catches it in her cupped hands.
“Yes! One.”
She gently places it on the ground, then assumes her position again. “Ready!”
I smile. Adorable.
I toss the second one down, and she catches that, too, and lays it beside the first.
“Do it!” She’s ready for the third. I take the third, but when I toss it, something catches her eye and she looks away.
“My backpack!”
The egg smashes on the ground, the shell cracking and raw egg splattering near her feet. She doesn’t even notice.
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter under my breath. Did Will bring her backpack back?
I shimmy back down the trunk, frowning at the smashed egg on the ground, and with a sigh pick up the two that she caught. She’s already over by her backpack, unzipping it and inspecting the contents.
“He must’ve come last night,” she says. “Oh, God, do you think he was here when we—”
“I don’t give a fuck if he was. Let him. I want it super fucking abundantly clear that you’re mine.”
She looks at me curiously for a moment, and nibbles her lower lip, before walking over to me. When she reaches me, she gets up on her tiptoes and puts her hands on my shoulders, lifts her face to mine, and kisses me. The kiss starts out tender and sweet, but soon she presses her body up to mine when I deepen the kiss.
She pulls away and whispers in my ear. “You’re right, Cy. I want him to know that, too.”
Ten
Harper
I pull away from him with reluctance. Knowing that there’s another man on this island who’s watching us creeps me out. I’m not afraid, though. I can defend myself I have to. I can defend us. And there’s not a doubt in my mind that Cy will. Sometimes when I’m near him, I feel like he’s part beast, and it isn’t just that he’s bearded and wild. It’s who he is. How he holds himself. Hell, the way he walks and talks.
Something about waking up on this island, having slept in the same clothes I wore the day before, disheveled and starving, makes the reality of my situation a lot more real. I don’t let myself think about it, because if I do, I’ll cry.
I can’t spend the rest of my life on this island. I won’t.
The ship came here once. It will come back again.
I turn away from him and see the cracked egg on the ground.
“Oh, shit. Man. I totally flaked out, didn’t I?”
He shrugs, and bends to pick up the two remaining eggs. “There are two of us, and we have two eggs. We’re good.” I’m glad he doesn’t scold me for not paying attention. I wouldn’t blame him if he did. That was my fault.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I shouldn’t have let myself be distracted.”
“Harper, enough.”
I hate when I drop the ball. I hate when I don’t do what people are depending on me to do.
We don’t say much else as he builds up the fire again. “How are you going to cook those eggs?” But he has a plan, involving some sort of flat rock and frying them, and it’s messy, but in the end, we have cooked eggs. They’re larger than chicken eggs, so it’s almost like having two each.
“What kind of birds did these come from?”
“I’m not sure, but they’re edible, like chicken or turkey.”
“Not exactly the cruise buffet, but not bad,” I tell him. “But I’d give damn near anything for a cup of coffee.”
“Anything?” he asks teasingly, raising a brow at me.
“Anything,” I repeat. Does he actually have coffee? “Yes, I will absolutely whore myself for a cup.”
That makes him give me a low, rumble of a growl. “Wish I had some,” he says. “I would take you up on that.”
He smiles, and as he looks at me, his gaze grows dark. I bite my lip and shift a little beside the fire. I’ve never been around a man who looks like him, and it’s doing something to me. I feel a little shy when I lick my lip, feeling where he bit me. My body has been marked by him, but it only excites me.
“So,” I say casually, looking away so we don’t tear each other’s clothes off right here and go at it again. What is it with this place? “Can you tell me about yourself? Where did you live? What did you do?”
He stands and stretches, and I swallow hard looking at his tats and muscles. Fuck, he’s beautiful, ruggedly handsome, and uncivilized. Raw alpha male, unencumbered by anything to hold him back. It’s a damn good thing we’ve managed to establish some form of trust here. He’s not the type I’d want to be on the wrong side of.
“I fought,” he says simply. “Gotta be honest, I didn’t remember much about who I was or how I got here until recently. It’s coming back in bits and pieces.”
I frown. “Like you hit your head and got confused or something?”
His jaw tightens and he’s quiet and sober for a moment before he nods. “Or something. I know I grew up on the streets, inner city New York. I don’t remember parents or siblings. When I was old enough, I made my money in the ring as a teen, then enlisted the day I was old enough to. Never looked back.” He gathers a few twigs to clean up the area by the fire and tosses them on the pile. “You?”
I stand and smooth out my wrinkled skirt. “I grew up in the midwest,” I say, and my mind is immediately transported to the tiny house I grew up in, surrounded by corn fields, the laundry hanging on clotheslines outside. It was a simpler place and time. “Both of my parents were teachers and valued education. I learned to read at a young age, and I was writing by the time I was five.” I give him a small smile. “I’ve been a journalist since I graduated college. Got the job I have now after grad school.”
Had? Will I make it back? Will my job still be there for me if I do?
He beckons for me to follow him back to the cave. When we reach it, I take out clean clothes and thank you Jesus, my toiletries.
“You mentioned a brother,” he says.
“Yeah.” I swallow hard, suddenly choked up. “Daniel is my younger brother and I’m his guardian.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t ask questions, and I don’t supply any more details. I don’t want to talk about the accident, my parents, or my brother’s brain damage.
“You write about feminism?” he asks, folding the makeshift blanket and placing it under his arm. His question surprises me. I wasn’t sure he was paying attention.
“I do.” I say nothing more right now, because something tells me he’ll have opinions on the subject matter, and I don’t want to get into it right now. I reach into my bag and breathe out a sigh of relief. My pills. But then I frown. The food is gone. “He took the food I had in here.” It wasn’t much, but it was mine, the jerk.
“Of course, he did. Bastard.”
I don’t mention that he took some food himself yesterday, but yesterday seems like a very, very long time ago.
“I think we should go to the beach today,” I tell him. “That way, if the ship comes, we’re right there.”
He doesn’t respond, just gathers up his few belongings, but his lips are tight, and it makes me angry. Does he not care at all?
“They’ll come,” I tell him, arguing the point he doesn’t voice. “It doesn’t make any sense that they would just leave. Especially, when they realize I’m not there, and—”
“Harper. Listen to me.”
He stands with his hands on his hips, and I try to pretend like I’m not feeling the pull again. I’m hyper aware of his strength and raw masculinity, and it’s so damn disconcerting I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know much about psychology, but the logical part of my brain tells me that this isn’t normal, that there’s something going on here that neither of us fully comprehends. Our attraction to one another is abnormal.
I think?
How would I know? I’ve lived a carefully regulated life. The men I dated were educated and refined. We used condoms and discussed everything, and when I broke up with them it was after a series of logically thought out reasons.
Every time. Every damn time.
“They’re not coming back, babe.”
“Yeah, I know you think that,” I say nonchalantly, and even as I speak, I know this will anger him. “But I don’t believe you.”
I’m pulling a brush through my hair and untangling it, and it feels nice to actually have a little sense of normalcy.
He takes a step toward me. “You don’t have to believe me. I’m telling you, you being brought here wasn’t an accident.”
I feel my blood pressure rise. Does he know something? “Oh, yeah?” I ask, pointing my brush in his direction. “You don’t know that, Cy. You’re not God. You’re not a magician.”
He crosses his arms over his chest—his beautiful, muscled chest—and shakes his head.
“I’m not, but I’m also not stupid.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
He takes a step toward me.
“And I am?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I didn’t say that. I’m not the enemy here, Harper.”
“Right,” I say through gritted teeth, waving my brush at him. “I know that.”
He isn’t the enemy, but he’s also not my friend.
“This conversation is going nowhere,” he says. “Let’s go to the beach. We’ll see for ourselves which one of us is right soon anyway. And for the record? I sure as fuck hope it’s you.”
“Really?” I ask him. The hopelessness of it all, the near desolation I feel being alone with him on this island, wells in my chest and I feel I’m going to cry. But I won’t show weakness. I fucking won’t.
He takes another step toward me. “Really,” he says. “I hope they do come to save us. But babe, they won’t.”
“You said that,” I say, my hands shaking with anger. “Stop saying that. Shut up!”
With another step in my direction, he’s standing toe to toe.
“No,” he says. “I’ll always speak the truth. I’m not a liar.”
“Oh, how noble,” I say. I’m not sure why I’m so angry at him, but when he reaches for me, I shove him away. He stumbles and nearly falls. “Don’t touch me.”
His eyes flash at me with a warning I should heed. He isn’t safe. I shouldn’t provoke him. But God, I’m angry.
“I’m going home. I’m going to find a way.” Now that I’ve gotten started, I can’t seem to stop. I go on irrationally. “And when I get back there I’m going back to my job and I’ll write about this, about the caveman I found on the island who always knew everything.”
“Nice,” he says sarcastically. “Terrific. You do that.”
“How even in th
e middle of nowhere he thought that somehow his patriarchal ways were needed.”
This is the stupidest argument I’ve ever made, but I’m out of my element and reaching for anything to get my footing again. I’ve worked my entire life defending the plight of the repressed woman, only to be manhandled by this ogre with no help for it.
He’s so close now I can see a smudge on his cheek where he must’ve rubbed soot from the fire. He smells like burning embers, and when he takes another step toward me, I remember. The way it felt to be pinned beneath him and fucked. The way I felt strewn over his lap while he spanked me. The way his touch ignites me.
“You know what you need?” he asks. His voice is all rumbly and dangerous. My belly clenches with need and arousal, goddammit.
I swallow hard and I feign bravado, because I’m quaking inside right now. “Something tells me you think you know exactly what I need.”
He shakes his head at me. “You need a real man to take care of you.”
I’m so taken aback, I laugh out loud. “Is that right? And let me guess. You’re the perfect one for the job.”
But apparently, he isn’t finished yet. “You need to be put in your place,” he continues, reaching for my hand. At first, I think he’s actually trying to be all tender, when he plucks my hairbrush from my fingers.
“You asshole,” I hiss. Is this still present day, or have I somehow been magically transported back in time? It’s like he’s some kinda goddamn Scottish highlander who thinks he’s the boss of me, that just because I’m a woman I need keeping. Give me fucking heels and a broom.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s kneeling and hauling me over his lap.
“Stop!” I shout, because I know what this brought me last time, and who the hell does he think he is?
But he’s bigger and stronger, and it’s an easy matter for him to turn me over his knee and pin me there. Now I know why he took that brush. My solid, wooden hairbrush. Jesus. Without a word, he smacks my brush down so hard on my ass that I scream out loud.
“Ow! Hey!”
“You need someone to take you in hand,” he says, with another hard thwack of the brush.