by R. R. Banks
I was starting to reach up to bury my fingers in his hair when the deck beneath our feet lurched. I gasped and clung to Hunter’s shoulders.
“What the hell was that?”
The deck lurched again and I heard an ominous cracking sound.
“We need to get off the boat,” he said.
“What?”
There was another crack and I felt the wood of the deck drop several inches.
“Get off the boat!” Hunter demanded.
He pushed me gently toward the ladder and I followed his guidance, scrambling down the rungs and back into the water. Hunter followed behind and he was barely off of the bottom rung of the ladder when I heard a series of loud, deep cracking sounds and the boat seemed to collapse in on itself. He reached out and curled around me, turning his back to the boat until the majority of the sound deadened and then guiding me to swim toward the beach. I splashed my way through the pool and up onto the sand. As soon as I was a decent distance away, I turned and watched as the boat split and pulled away from the sandbar that had been holding it since we crashed onto it.
The waves, still choppy from the storm, grabbed onto the pieces and started dragging them out into the water. It seemed like it happened in an instant, but I didn’t truly know how long I was standing there watching as the pieces disappeared. Soon all that was left was a few bits of debris floating on top.
“I guess I’m not sleeping in the cabin tonight,” I said. I whipped around to face Hunter. “Now what the hell are we supposed to do?”
“Exactly what we said. We clean up. We rebuild. It’s not like that boat was a viable transportation method.”
He walked up further onto the beach and started scooping debris up and tossing it to the side. I watched him as he moved along the sand and noticed that different piles were forming. He was dividing the debris that he was finding and weeding out the supplies, separating them into a pile of items that had been destroyed by the storm and those that could still be used. There had been a hint of anger in his voice when he said that last sentence and I tried to understand what he was feeling, what had changed so drastically. I watched him toss an armful of broken branches toward the pile of tattered shelter remains and saw his jaw twitch, then saw him pick up an empty supply box. He glared at it for a few seconds and then threw it toward the pile of supplies he didn’t think that he could salvage.
Oh, no. Gavin. That’s what was bothering him.
I climbed up the sand toward him and reached for Hunter. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and I felt the electricity between us as my fingertips touched the sun-warmed skin of his back. He shrugged me away, but I grasped his upper arm anyway, turning him around to face me.
“The only reason that I care where Gavin is or what happened to him is because I’m angry that he found a way to get off of here and he just left us. It’s not him that I care about. That’s not what matters to me.”
I saw his eyes scan my body and knew that he was looking at the clothing that I was wearing. I didn’t think of them as anything but the clothes that I had grabbed from the supply chest. It barely occurred to me that they were Gavin’s, that he had once worn them. I tucked my finger beneath Hunter’s chin and tilted his head up, kissing him, then took a step back away from him. I took hold of the hem of the shirt and pulled it off over my head, letting it slip from my fingers onto the sand. Hunter swallowed as his eyes traveled down my body and onto my breasts.
When I could see that I had his full attention, I tucked my thumbs into the waistband of the shorts and eased them down so that I could kick them off.
“Go ahead,” I said softly. “Touch me.”
Hunter stepped forward and lifted one hand to stroke his fingertips along my collarbones the way that I had trailed kisses along his, the night before. He brought them down, tracing the swell of the side of my breast. That soft touch was intoxicating, but I didn’t push him to go any faster. His fingers curved beneath my breast and then up the center of my chest, applying light pressure so that I could feel his touch against the bone. When they reached the soft spot between my collarbones again, he repeated the slow exploration along my other breast. It was barely a touch, yet it had an impact on me that was indescribable. I felt my breath getting shallower, gasping from me raggedly as my skin started to tingle under his fingertips and radiate across me.
He finished the circuit and then ran his fingertips down the center of my chest again, following the bone down until it reached my belly and continuing on to stroke down my stomach and dip into my navel. Hunter brought his fingers across my lower belly from hipbone to hipbone and then rested both hands on my hips. I felt him guiding me down as he lowered to his knees on the sand. He pressed his hand to my chest, guiding me back to lie down the way that I had stretched him out on the pallet. I drew in a shuddering breath trying to quiet my shaking as he continued to explore me slowly and carefully. He touched me with the same patience and reverence that I had touched him and I offered my body to him, not wanting to rush him or to push him to go any further than he was ready to go.
Hunter came down to lie on his side beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off of his body. He leaned down and kissed me again, then ran his fingertips down the center of my body again, gliding closer to the apex of my thighs, but hesitating, seeming unsure of going any further. Finally, I rested my hand over his, easing it down toward my core. Before I brought it fully down, I looked up into his eyes. If I had seen any hesitation there, any questions, I would have stopped him, but I didn’t. Instead his eyes were like embers, the middles glowing intrigue, desire crackling at the edges.
I eased his hand down further and parted my thighs to open myself to him. We both gasped as his hand slipped between my legs and his fingers touched the warm wetness of my body. I guided him, easing his fingers through my folds so that he could become acquainted with the curves and dips of my body. Our hands moved together as I taught him how to touch me, showing him where to brush his fingertips and how hard to push to bring my desire up higher and higher. I felt him pulling his hand out from beneath mine and I felt a glimmer of worry, but then I saw him adjust his position so that he was propped up and leaning over me slightly.
Hunter reached up and brushed strands of my hair away from my shoulders. He ran his fingertips along each of my nipples briefly, and then he rose up over me slightly higher and blew a stream of cool air along my skin. My eyes closed and I shivered at the delicious, unusual sensation of his breath dancing across my chest and over the taut peaks of my nipples. He brought himself down further and continued to blow air lightly over my skin. I could feel my muscles trembling in response and the arousal of my entire body reaching an exquisite level that I had never experienced. I wanted to open my thighs, to invite him to touch me, but something held me back. Something told me that I needed to remain just as I was, allowing him to do as he pleased.
The touch of his fingertips was replaced by his mouth and Hunter kissed the valley between my breasts before following the trial that was still tingling with the touch of his fingers. As he made his way down my body, I felt the first waves of high tide touch my toes. The incredible contrast between the cold water and his hot breath sent a shiver of pleasure through me, seeming to cause my mind to sharpen its focus on Hunter’s touch. His hand returned to my thighs. I thought he was going to press them apart, but he didn’t. Instead, he ran his fingers in a feathery touch along as deep in my inner thighs as he could reach. He ran them all the way to my knees and then back to my hips, resuming the progress of tracing his fingers back and forth across my hipbones.
The longer he touched me, the more my desire grew. Though he seemed to be purposely avoiding touching me as I so desperately wanted him to, the way that he was exploring my body felt incredibly intimate, the warmth of his fingers seeming to partner with the cool of the waves that crept ever higher on my body, until I trembled against the sand. The waves were sliding along my legs now, licking at my thighs so that tiny, fro
thy bubbles slipped between them and danced on my clit. Beside me Hunter brought his mouth down to run across the side of my neck, his lips open just enough that I could feel the heat of his breath. He kissed down to my shoulder and the tip of his tongue traced the bone.
His fingertips seemed to count my ribs as they traveled down my side, then dipped into my waist. The waves were washing up higher now and I could feel the water sweeping over my hips. The pull of the waves rushing back into the ocean dragged the sand out from beneath me, creating another delicious sensation. It pulled me closer to the ocean and onto flatter sand, causing me to lay back completely. As if the position lifting my breasts up toward him was an invitation, Hunter dipped his head down and I felt the tip of his tongue rush across one nipple. He repeated this on the other side and I felt myself shaking harder, unexpected pressure building throughout my body.
Hunter opened his mouth over my breast, drawing it in so that his tongue stroked along the bottom curve and the gentle pressure tantalized my nipple. Just at that moment, a larger wave crashed over me, bringing with it a sudden orgasm that made me cry out and arch against the sand. I grasped at Hunter beside me, digging my fingers into his thigh as I rode out the throbbing spasms of pleasure that coursed through me. When they ended, I lay breathless against the sand, letting the surging and waning waves cool my skin and relax my twitching, trembling muscles.
Finally, I felt like I could open my eyes and I looked up at him. I gave a tremulous smile at the look of surprised awe in his eyes and reached my arms up for him. Hunter folded down into them, easing his body up and over so that he stretched over me. I relished the feeling of his weight pressing down on me and his mouth capturing mine for a long, languid kiss. I could have laid there for the rest of the day just enjoying the feeling of his heartbeat against my chest and his tongue sliding against mine, but all too soon the tide got too high and we had to move to prevent the waves from washing up over our heads.
I was still processing the incredible, unexpected climax when we stood and made our way back up the sand toward the piles of debris that Hunter had created. The sun warmed my bare skin and I felt strangely comfortable though I was walking completely naked along the beach. I knew that I was going to need to put clothes on again at some point if only to protect myself from the plants and bugs in the jungle, but I wasn’t in any hurry to cover myself and lose the awakening, delirious feeling that I had found. It was as though Hunter had opened something within me, connecting me to the natural essence within me, and I was ready to discover more of that wild.
Hunter and I exchanged smiles and went about gathering the debris that he hadn’t gotten to before I stripped down. I was gradually piecing together the collection of knives and tools that we had been using when I glanced back toward Hunter and saw him carrying a metal box tucked under his arm as he stared down at the sand. He was walking slowly, methodically, as though he were scouring the beach for something specific. As I watched, he suddenly dipped down and scooped something out of the sand. He shook it off and dropped it into the box and then kicked at the sand around him before moving on another two steps and repeating the scouring process. I was fascinated by the progress, unsure of what he was trying to find. He dipped down again and picked something else up. As he shook the sand off of it, I saw the sunlight glint off of it and realized that he was holding the foil packet of one of the condoms that had tumbled out of the supply box when he was getting a knife to work on the shelter before the storm.
My heart fluttered in my chest, and I looked away before he had a chance to notice me watching him, for some reason not wanting Hunter to know that I had seen him.
Talk about searching for hidden treasure.
I went back to gathering up the tools and setting them in a pile, intending to put them in the first box that I found cast onto the beach. Even though my body was still humming from the climax he had just given me, my mind was racing with thoughts of how much more we could discover together with those little treasures he was so carefully stocking away.
Chapter Sixteen
Gavin
I tore my shirt into long strips and wound one of them around the gash in my arm, using my teeth to help me tighten it. My arm ached and I could feel the blood pumping into it, trying to force itself against the pressure of the bandage. I opened and closed my hand a few times, trying to release the tension and ease the discomfort in the injury.
“I told them that the fucking storm was coming,” I muttered to myself because, frankly, there was no one else around for me to mutter to. “I told them. But did they care? Did they listen to me? Of course not. They are so wrapped up in making goo goo eyes at each other and not just fucking and getting it over with, or getting bit by fucking snakes and sprawling out in a cave to actually get ready for it.”
I tried to think of a few more ways that I could spit out some profanity, but I seemed to have lost the groove and just gave a defeated sigh and finished the knot of my bandage by tucking the ends underneath. The last thing I needed right then was to get the ends caught on one of the fallen trees and dislocate my shoulder. The storm had battered this island and I wondered how the other two had fared. If they had stayed in the cave, they might have gotten through it alright, but if they had tried to use the half-finished shelter they were likely pinned to the jungle floor with palm shards at this point. I spent a few seconds contemplating this, trying to determine if I really cared either way.
Of course, it hadn’t been the storm that had caused the injury that I was now hoping that I could keep from getting infected for however long I was going to be here. Open wounds in hot, humid weather were never a pleasant prospect. No, that had been my realization that in my haste to hop into the life raft and make my way to this island I hadn’t through to bring any food with me and that I needed to scavenge some. The other island had been abundant in fruit trees and the shallow tide pools near the shore made it easy to catch fish. This island, however, seemed little more than a tangle of trees and what few fish I had seen flitting around the water were not as simple to catch when I was without my spear. This had brought me up into the branches of one of the trees having a distinct difference of opinion with a large rat. I thought that it would make a tasty lunch and it thought that that wasn’t something that it was interested in doing.
I had perched on the edge of the branch, planning to drop down on the rat with the large stick that I held, but as soon as I started to shift my weight, the branch had given way under me and I fell down through the rest of the branches and into the undergrowth, catching my arm on the sharply pointed edge of one of the plants beneath. If I hadn’t actually seen it happen, I would have thought that I had been bitten by the plant because the wound was so deep and so painful.
Now I was sitting on the beach among the rest of the casualties of the storm, staring out over the grey ocean as it sloshed around, seeming to still be getting over the drama of the storm. I was trying to remember why I had gotten into this line of work, trying to remind myself why I hadn’t just gone into the meat packing business like the rest of my family, but right at that moment I wasn’t able to remember. It seemed like I had been doing this for my entire existence. As long as I could remember, this is what I had done, this is what had defined me as a person and had influenced not only my position in the world around me, but also how I perceived everything and everyone I encountered. It was difficult to form any type of relationships with the people I met when in the back of my mind there was always the possibility that the next week I could get assigned to snatching one of them and serving them up to people they had wronged. I made it a point to never seek out details about what happened to those people after I had given them over and cashed my check. It wasn’t like there was anything that I could do about it. What was done would have already been done and there was nothing that could fix it. Especially considering alerting any authorities to what had happened would have just sacrificed myself.
This meant that I went about my life fairly is
olated. I had gotten to the point that I eschewed using the internet because I didn’t want to stumble on news stories about one of the people I had been assigned by a client. This kept me from much of the communication and social interaction that everyone else had, only pushing me further into the lone wolf lifestyle. While this served my purposes and I was not one to long for a large passel of friends, and most definitely not a wife, there were times like this when I did wish that I had someone in my life who might notice that I had left on my boat and just not come back. At least then I could have a little glimmer of confidence that there might be someone looking for me.
As soon as that thought went through my mind, it occurred to me that there was someone who was going to notice my seeming disappearance, if it hadn’t already been noticed. My client. Though there was a little bit of wiggle room when it came to when I was supposed to deliver Eleanor, considering it had been pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly when I would be able to connect with the cruise ship and how long it would take me to get ahold of her and get her back to the mainland and the meeting point, the days were drifting by and soon my client was going to notice that I hadn’t shown up with my human cargo.
This was a client that had been hard for me to really wrap my head around. It wasn’t that I always knew why my clients wanted me to kidnap a particular person. In fact, I rarely got the whole story unless I was working for one of those particular type of wealthy man who got most of his personal joy from sitting around in his study sipping scotch older than my parents and waxing philosophical about how the person had unforgivably damaged their perfect lives. I usually had the opportunity to get a few little details about them, however, and could use those details to mask whatever personal feelings did manage to bubble up through the hard shell that I had formed over the years. When it came to Eleanor, I didn’t have that.