Night, Sea, And Stars

by Heather Graham

  “He must have been very young.”

  Skye winced. “Yes, twenty-five. He died just a year ago.” She was gazing into Kyle’s eyes, and it was as if she were hypnotized. She kept wanting to continue talking, although it made no sense. She had never discussed Steven with Ted, but here she was, talking and talking…

  She told him about the years of cobalt, chemotherapy, and radiation. About the fear, about the hope. About Steven. His wonderful optimism. His appreciation of life. That one terrible time he had broken…

  Kyle listened to her, startled by the depth of tenderness she could evoke within him. He wondered at her halted speech, certain that she was sharing emotions with him she had never shared with anyone before. He became more and more certain that she didn’t, after all, belong to another man. Not in a real way, the way that mattered most.

  He rose slowly from his side of the table as she finished speaking and walked around to wedge himself beside her and lean a thigh against her. With thumb and forefinger he gently tilted her chin, bringing her eyes to meet his, lightly brushing the soft skin of her cheek. Caught by that power in his eyes, Skye watched as his lips descended very slowly over hers, catching them in a soft, gentle caress. His lips moved enticingly against hers, warm and giving. She was ready to accept them, ready to part her mouth with invitation and savor all his masculine sensuality. But his kiss was too brief, too tender. The tip of his tongue flicked sensuously over her lower lip, and then, to her surprise, he released her, a deep heat of fire still in the luminous green eyes. “I won’t ever let the fire die out at night,” he promised her, a rueful half smile curling his lips beneath the stubble of beard. “Never.”

  Then he was standing. Mesmerized, Skye watched as he walked away, moving down toward the surf, now dark and ominous with the coming of the night.

  “Where are you going?” she finally called out, reminding herself that she really didn’t want him near her, but still aware that something had changed between them. She needed to break the hold he had, she was afraid, but she needed him…

  “I’m going swimming.”

  “Now?” Skye protested with confusion. “It’s dark.”

  He was whistling, but the sound was rather strained. “I know it’s dark. I want to go swimming anyway.”

  He didn’t want to go swimming; he needed to go swimming. He had to do something to work away his tension and his growing desire.

  He had sensed the give in her, had known that she would have yielded had he pulled her into his arms.

  But it wasn’t the time. He wanted two things when he finally claimed her as his own—that she know and accept whom she lay with, and that no ghosts come between them.

  He didn’t really comprehend his own feelings, but he knew that he wanted her in a way he had never known.

  And he knew he would never allow her to return to another man, civilization or not.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Something was crawling on her.

  Blinking at the light of dawn, Skye became more and more aware of the creeping sensation. It had begun near her ankle, and now seemed to slither up her leg.

  Groggy from having just awakened, she sat up with a frown, knitting and creasing her brow. She blinked again and stared down at her leg.

  It was a beetle. Dark brown, a good two inches long, slithering up her leg, its antennae flickering with each of its erratic movements.

  Skye curled her face into a mask of sick horror. “Oh, Lord!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs, flying to her feet with a furious movement and striking at the creature at the same time She missed, then stared with amazement and panic as the creature spread wings and began to fly, lighting upon her elbow, soaring again as she brushed it off.

  Very feminine panic-driven shrieks tore from her as she lashed out at the creature. Had Skye been rational, she might have calmed herself for she didn’t have a paralyzing fear of insects, but just to waken and to see such a large one crawling over her…

  Awakened by her ear-splitting screams, Kyle, too, tore to his feet, eyes wide, body tensed as he searched out the danger. “What? What’s wrong?” he demanded again, his vision focusing on Skye and the bizarre, ritualistic dance she seemed to be performing.

  “Oh, my God!” her voice wailed with cringing disgust and terror. “It’s in my hair!” Like a flash Skye was bolting for the beach, her feet barely touching ground. Still bewildered and fearful, Kyle raced after her, reaching her in thigh-high water where she was furiously dunking her head. Firmly grasping her shoulders, he pulled her up and held her a few inches from his chest, trying to make sense of her thrashings and exclamations.

  “What, Skye?” he shook her, his eyes still dark with the fear and concern he tried to control. “What is it?”

  “Is it out? Is it out? Oh, God! I can still feel it!” Pulling from him with amazing strength, she slipped beneath the surface of the water again. Sure she had gone mad and striving for patience, Kyle fished her out again, this time looping his arms around her in a hold she couldn’t possibly escape.

  “Is what out?” he demanded, taking in her wide, dilated eyes, the wet tendrils of hair that dripped down her face.

  “Look!” she repeated anxiously.

  Kyle placed both hands on her head with a frown and carefully separated her hair, searching for he knew not what. Finally convinced that there was nothing there but a wealth of hair, he nodded. “What was it?”

  “A roach,” she told him with a shudder.

  “A roach?” he yelled, face hardening with furious exasperation and hands held tightly around her head. “You just cost me ten years of life and a head full of gray hair over a roach?”

  “It wasn't an ordinary roach!” Skye snapped indignantly. “It flew!”

  “A palmetto bug!” he railed. “Dammit, Skye, you scared me half to death over a bug that can’t even hurt you!”

  “It was in my hair!” she shouted, wondering how he could be so dense. “It was crawly and disgusting!”

  Suddenly, looking into her delicate but outraged face, the amber cat eyes ablaze, her hair in scraggly clumps, Kyle burst into laughter. He laughed so hard that he released her and stumbled to the shore, where he sank to the sand, still overcome with laughter.

  Skye watched him, then bit down on her lower lip. She walked over to him with great dignity and looked down at his face, eyes alight with a twinkle, pearl-white teeth perfectly displayed as his full lips split wide through the amber beard to grin ear to ear.

  “Oh, my God!” he chuckled, staring up at her, “All that over a bug.”

  “It certainly wasn’t funny!” Skye snapped, crossing her arms over her dripping shirt.

  Kyle tried to sober himself, but couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Skye, it was funny.”

  She was half tempted to laugh with him. With his lean, sinewed body so dark against the sand, his eyes seeming to sizzle, his hair in a damp wave against his forehead—growing longer every day—he had never seemed so appealing, so boyishly endearing, despite the shaggy growth of beard. His lips, curled full and sensuously in that broad smile, seemed to beckon to her with bold mystery. She should laugh and fail down beside him…

  But she didn’t laugh. She couldn’t fall down beside him; she still had too many reservations. And those reservations hurt. Coupled with the perhaps ridiculous horror she had just experienced over the bug, restraint and the entire dismal beginning of the morning weighed down on her like lead. The reality of everything that had happened slapped her in the face.

  She suddenly believed she would never, never get off the island. Day after day something new and horrifying would happen. Back at home they had surely given her up for dead. If another storm came and they survived, it wouldn’t matter, because drug dealers would return and probably kill them anyway.

  Without another word to Kyle she spun on her heels and returned to the hut, where she lay down. She didn’t cry; she was just empty. Emptier than she had ever been in her life.

  Kyle watched her go, his
laughter slowly fading. Her reaction shocked him. She always had a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at herself. Her wit could be piercing, but it was always there.

  Frowning, he shrugged off the incident, assuming that she was in a foul temper and would simply just have to work it out. With a little curse he rose. He was damned if he was going to play nursemaid to a fit of the sulks. She was just going to have to snap out of it without an ardent apology on his part.

  She remained in the hut while he ate a banana and consumed a coconut—fruit and milk. She was still there when he rinsed his face with fresh water and did his best at scrubbing his teeth. Totally irritated, he finally decided to leave her and scout the foliage again for bits and pieces of plane debris.

  Kyle returned hours later, further irritated by a fruitless search beneath the scorching sun. A quick glance told him that Skye had moved; she was no longer sequestered in the hut, but sitting on the beach—staring out at the ocean.

  Annoyance surged through him as he saw also that nothing had been done. The water was low, the fruit supply low, and soiled dishes, which he had so painstakingly fashioned, still sat upon the table. He asked so little of her, he thought bitterly, taking all the real burden for survival upon himself, and now, in a fit of temper, she had neglected the few responsibilities that were hers.

  Long, swift strides brought him angrily to her side. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded bluntly.

  She didn’t bother to glance up at him; her eyes remained trained on the empty sea. “Does it matter?”

  “What?” he exploded.

  "Does it matter?” her tone was flat, despairing. “What sense does doing anything make?”

  “I don’t think I follow you,” Kyle said, his eyes narrowing as worry combined with anger.

  “It’s just not worth it,” she said, oblivious to his tenseness. “It’s like treatments—it just goes on for nothing.”

  Thoughts flashed rampantly through Kyle’s mind. He realized she wasn’t being hostile; she just didn’t give a damn. The insect had been nothing, but it had been the catalyst to flay her spirit when crash, storm, and danger had failed. It wasn’t a temper tantrum; it wasn’t something she could just snap out of.

  “I see,” he said slowly. “You just don’t care about living anymore?”

  A bare lift of the shoulders was Skye’s shrug. “Death can be preferable to slowly rotting,” she said.

  It was serious, Kyle decided instantly. Somehow she was relating their experiences to her brother’s slow agony, believing that each day was another step toward the inevitable. Why endure anymore when…

  He had to do something. Whether right or wrong, he had to take a step. Drawing on the anger that had faded with knowledge and then understanding, he reached down and jerked her to her feet, shaking her so that her head fell back.

  “Steven is dead, eh, so you might as well be?” Her eyes began to widen, the glimmer of topaz rising with her anger. She opened her mouth to protest, but he refused to allow her a word. “Well, I’m not dead, lady, and neither are you! And things aren’t even all that bad. We’re in one piece, we have water, food, and shelter. And even if it takes years for someone to come, honey, you’re going to survive and you’re going to learn to live and put in a full share—to accommodate me, because I want to live.”

  As he spoke, his hands left their grip upon her and his fingers began to work on her blouse, deftly unbuttoning despite her fumbled attempts to stop him.

  “What are you doing?” she charged. “I told you I don’t want you—”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn what you do or don’t want anymore!” Kyle snapped in command. “We’re both going to have a good dunking and then we’re going to wash your hair because you’re going to care about it to please me!”

  Kyle was moving with an agile speed that left all Skye’s stunned attempts to counter his actions just a few seconds too late. He spun her around to pull the shirt from her body, straitjacketing her with the material until it was freed and sent flying haphazardly into the sand. Trying to hang on to her bra, she was taken off guard and sent spinning into the sand when his foot tripped her ankles. An attempt to clutch at his arms as he reached for her shorts was futile as he simply jerked harder and sent her torso and head careening backward. Gasping and astounded, still too stunned to grasp what was happening, Skye choked out, “Stop it! Leave me alone! You can’t do this!”

  “Really?” he inquired curtly. “I don’t see anyone around who is going to stop me!”

  Frozen with shock as he momentarily released her, Skye stared blankly at him as he slipped out of his cutoffs and briefs. She vaguely noted how very brown he had become against the white of usually covered flesh. Then he was reaching for her again, a grim, determined set to his face that triggered her into action, but again a few seconds too late. He was on her before she had scrambled a foot in the sand, catching her around the midriff and dragging her into the water. When she lashed out furiously at him, he dunked her, holding her under until the mad flailing of her arms and legs ceased. Then he pulled her up, holding her at the small of the back with one hand, at the nape of the neck with the other. “Are you mad, Ms. Delaney?” he inquired, eyes glittering.

  She spat out wheezed oaths in reply.

  “Good,” he said simply. He released her, and she made a choking, scrambling effort for freedom again. He merely shot out an arm and pulled her back, dousing her once more in the sea. This time when he let her up, she stood still, shaking with fury and indignation.

  Skye had entirely forgotten the deep and debilitating depression that had besieged her. She was convinced she was in the hands of a madman, and her mind ticked in double time, fighting the daze of disbelief, searching for a way to elude him. Her breasts heaved with the effort to draw breath, her hands formed into fists at her sides, the nails creating crescents in the flesh. She stared at him as he cupped water in his hands, dropped it over her shoulders, and followed its dripping trail with his hands, as if he held soap and bathed her. Skye’s ragged breathing ceased with a sharp intake as his fingers worked over her breasts, caressing and rubbing the nipples with rough thumbs. All the while his eyes held her, brashly, relentlessly challenging her. He continued to hold her in his imprisoning gaze while his fingers continued a downward route, sliding with languorous leisure over her rib cage, rounding her hips with insinuation, curving inward to shape with bold expansion over the trembling flesh of her upper thighs. An outraged, strangled gasp escaped her as he calmly explored further—drawing nothing more from him than a smile that was purely sensual. He laughed as she jerked away again. With that deep, throaty sound ringing in her ears Skye desperately tried to run against the pressure of the water, but it was clear why he was so easily amused. It took him less than two of his much longer strides to recapture her.

  Swinging her into his midriff hold again, Kyle walked from the water, undaunted that she once more flailed and kicked. Her energy was failing her, he thought with a smile, glad that her feeble efforts were having no effect upon the iron clamp of his arm. She was small, he decided wryly, but when at full swing, she was a hellion to handle.

  “Let—go—of—me!” she panted in a hiss.

  “Not yet. We haven’t finished your hair,” he replied cheerfully, depositing her with a sharp smack of wet flesh upon one of the stools. Before she could raise herself more than one inch, his hand was bracing her down. By stretching, Kyle could reach his coconut mixture and hold her at the same time; seconds later he was working it into her hair while she sat seething beneath him, alternating between raw fury and the impulse to burst into bewildered tears.

  “You’d better sleep with one eye open from now on,” she hissed. “I can promise you that you will pay very dearly for this—”

  “I think that should about do it,” Kyle interrupted, his fingers finishing their thorough massage of her scalp. “All we have to do is rinse it. I’ll get the water. No”—he paused, then gripped the long tra
il of her hair—“better yet, you come with me.”

  Skye yelped as a light jerk brought her trailing rebelliously along with him. At the hollowed sea grape trunk they had adapted to a water trough, he pressed her down, her back braced by the wood as he forcefully arched her neck with the skill of a haute couture hairdresser and saturated her hair with fresh water.

  It was difficult to keep his hands on her hair. With spread knees trapping her to the sand, chest and belly pressed to her arched ribs, he was in marvelous view of a long, graceful neck leading with finely chiseled lines and delightfully tanned skin to the firm mounds of high, full breasts. Smoothing her hair back from her head and squeezing away the excess moisture, Kyle finally released her.

  She fell fully into his form, grappling for balance in the small space between his body and the log.

  “Is—that—all?” she enunciated grindingly, teeth clenched, eyes blazing, entire body chattering with indignant fury. “Are we quite done?”

  “Un-unh." Kyle shook his head slowly. “Lady, we’ve just begun.”

  “No!”

  Her shrieked protest once again went unheeded as he lifted her high in his arms and stalked purposefully toward the hut. Skye was unable to read from the hard contours of his face that his conscience plagued him, which was just as well. He hadn’t really meant to carry matters this far, but what the hell, she was ready to kill him already.

  Might as well straighten it all out now.

  “Lady,” he told her briskly, “fact of life—life has changed. We are partners. Two—get this now—two working parts of a whole. If we spend the rest of our lives on this island, I plan to make it worthwhile for you—and you are going to damned well reciprocate starting right now.”

  Inside the hut he dropped her unceremoniously to the sheets of clothing remnants. She rolled frantically to the side but he was down beside her, both arms snaking out to lock her into an embrace. She had a flash vision of his face—lean, hard, determined—before his lips moved over hers to envelop them as his muscled body did hers.