Especially when Tai is gazing at me in such an intense, almost primal way, like I’m the hottest thing he’s ever seen. It’s hard to feel anything but desired.
God, I hope that’s not all in my head.
I am starting to flush though, just from his gaze, so I quickly get to the edge of the pool to cool off.
“Careful!” he cautions me as I step on the slick rocks.
They’re as slippery as ice.
Before I know it, I’m falling.
I pitch forward, so I fall right into the water.
On my stomach.
SPLAT.
Ow.
I haven’t done a motherfucking belly flop since I was a kid, and with boobs it’s a whole new painful ballgame.
I lift my head, trying to swim, my skin burning.
My face is burning too, from embarrassment. So much for the water cooling me off.
“Are you okay?” Tai asks, though he’s also laughing as he swims over to me. I guess it serves me right.
“I’m fine,” I mumble, trying to find my footing, my toes skirting over the slimy rocks at the bottom. Ick.
“Not the most graceful, are you?” he asks, grinning at me. A lock of hair has flopped on his forehead and I kick forward to reach out and brush it off his face. My fingers tingle as I touch his skin, my breath catching in my chest, not just from treading water, but from how close we are to each other. He briefly dips his chin and mouth into the water, his eyes alternating between flirty and intense.
I don’t mind either look.
“Hey, I’ll have you know that I was able to do yoga on your boat. How many people can say that?”
He spits out a bit of water and grins again, those pretty white teeth against his skin, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “I watched you do yoga. You fell over a lot.”
“The boat was constantly moving!”
“Any excuse,” he says.
I’m about to ask him to do yoga on dry land, just to see if he can do a standing split without falling over, when something BRUSHES AGAINST MY LEG.
“Ahhhh!” I scream, and with rapid-fire kicks I manage to lunge at Tai, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs going around his waist.
“What is it, what is it?” he asks as I hold on tight, trying to get as much of my body above the water as possible. I’m aware that he’s having to tread water extra hard, now that I’m clinging to him like a bear climbing a tree.
“Something touched my leg!”
“Are you sure it wasn’t your other leg?”
I’m not sure. “It wasn’t my other leg! It was a thing!”
“A mysterious water thing?”
“Shut up,” I growl in his ear, holding him tighter. I have to say, it’s making me feel better.
“It was probably a fish,” he says. “That could be our lunch.”
“You didn’t even bring a rod.”
“I can spear fish.”
I pull back to look at him, our faces just inches apart. He’s gazing at me through black wet lashes. Lucky bastard. I can’t get that look even with a million coats of mascara.
“You spear fish?” I ask, my voice quieter now, since our lips are so close.
“Mmmhmm,” he murmurs, his weighted gaze on my mouth. “I can spear a lot of things.”
Oh jeez. I’m suddenly, painfully aware that if I let myself lower on his waist, just a little, the tip of his dick will touch me in just the right place. That’s assuming he has a hard-on, and from the way he’s looking at me, I’m pretty sure he does.
I’d wager…
Before I even know what’s happening, I lean forward, my body operating on instinct only.
And I kiss him.
I can’t help it.
All these weeks of wanting to do this, wanting to know what his lips feel like against mine, it was inevitable that I’d lose control.
He stiffens at first, hesitating, then I feel the muscles in his back relax as he kisses me back.
And…shit.
I mean…wow.
He’s a good kisser.
Lips soft but firm, his tongue slow and teasing at first, then as his mouth opens, becomes hungrier, greedier, I feel like I’m about to be devoured, god I want to be devoured, and…
We both slip under the water, submerged, still kissing, Tai unable to keep us both afloat.
Then we break apart, coming up for air.
I stare at him.
He stares at me.
A goat stares at the both of us.
“Oh my god!” I cry out suddenly at the goat who has appeared in the foliage behind Tai.
Tai whips around. “Oh. Hello. A goat.”
The goat opens its mouth and lets out a horrible bleat that sounds more like a human scream.
“Holy shit,” I swear, my heart racing fast for so many reasons. “What is up with that goat?”
The goat does another bleat, then turns around and runs back into the trees.
Tai watches it go, his back to me, and in that moment I realize he’s trying to put distance between us, between what had just happened.
I kissed him. He kissed me back.
Maybe he needs time to process.
“Tai?”
He slowly turns around, treading water. He looks at me. The expression in his eyes has changed. It’s harder somehow. Distant.
“It’s just a goat,” I tell him, half-joking.
He doesn’t smile.
Shit. Did I screw everything up?
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, my stomach all swirling with knots.
“Why are you sorry?” he asks. He doesn’t swim any closer, his voice is flat.
“For kissing you.”
“You have to stop apologizing for those things.”
“Then I’m sorry…for whatever has made you turn cold like this.”
He frowns, his gaze turned away. “I’m not cold…I…”
“If you’re still mad about the boat, I get it. I hate myself for what I did and I’m so, so sorry. It was an accident, I—”
“Stop,” he says sharply. His brow furrows sympathetically, face softening. “I’m not mad at you Daisy. I was mad. I was…scared. And I’m sorry I took it out on you, I shouldn’t have, and I know you obviously didn’t do it on purpose. I know it was an accident.” He pauses, worrying his lip between his teeth. “I should have told you this earlier and I’m a dick for not doing so. Sometimes my stubbornness gets the best of me. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my head…it’s like I can’t see the big picture anymore.”
My chest feels lighter, like it suddenly has wings. I can’t help but smile at his forgiveness. I mean, yes, it would have helped if he told me this earlier, but still.
“I totally get it,” I tell him.
“You don’t,” he says softly. “I never hated you, Daisy, but I hate myself. Because I know it’s my fault.”
“Your fault? I’m the one who pushed autopilot.”
He shakes his head, the pool reflecting in his eyes. “I should have been more prepared that night. I shouldn’t have even gone to sleep, should have stayed up with Richard. You…I let myself be distracted by you, Daisy. I went to sleep because I wanted to at least sleep with you. Beside you. Just once. You make it so hard to think about anything else. And that’s my job. I need to be thinking about everything else. I’m the captain and it’s my duty to look after the ship, to look after everyone and make sure they’re safe. And that night, I couldn’t do it.”
Oh. Well, jeez.
“You did make sure everyone is safe, Tai. We’re all here, we’re all alive. I know you didn’t save the boat but it’s still on the reef, it can be salvaged.”
“No,” he says angrily. “It can’t be. It’s gone. She’s gone.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking about the boat or his sister. It might be both.
I swim toward him, placing my hand around his waist.
“Please, Daisy,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. “I can’t…”
I ignore the sting of rejection.
“You did your job, Tai. You saved us. You got us off that ship. Now we’re here and we’re alive. Let yourself feel that. Let yourself be alive, too.”
I watch him closely, the way he’s breathing heavily through his nose, the pain on his brow. I’m probably making things worse. I should probably let go.
“I was married,” he says. The words come out heavy, sinking into the water.
I let go of his waist, shocked. “What?”
He glances at me briefly. “I was married. For three years. Her name was Holly. Is Holly. She’s still out there, married again, with kids. Which is fine, that’s something she always wanted. Can’t say I did.”
I’m so stunned, I don’t even know how to file this information into my brain. He was married? What else is he keeping from me?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
He shrugs with one shoulder out of the water. “Wasn’t important.”
“It’s kind of important.”
“Why?”
“Because…maybe it explains why you’re so grumpy.” One of the explanations anyway.
“Can’t a man be a grump? Does he need a reason?” he says half-heartedly.
“How long ago? I mean, when did you get divorced?”
“Four years ago or so? It was amicable.”
“An amicable divorce? That’s hard to believe. What happened?”
He sighs. “Nothing happened. One day she decided she didn’t love me anymore. She never cheated, I don’t think. She just decided I wasn’t worth fighting for. She wouldn’t do couples counselling, wouldn’t listen to my side of things. The side that told her I loved her. She just…suddenly didn’t care anymore.”
“God,” I whisper.
“I’m over it now,” he says. “But it took some time. Not only to get over her but to get over the damage she did. Makes it really hard to trust someone, you know?”
Yeah. I know.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“Me too. But it’s for the best at any rate. You want to know the funny thing? I’d been screwed over before that. I thought Holly was different. Special. She worked at the marina with me, she was low-maintenance, she was one of the boys. She wasn’t…”
“Like those other girls?” I fill in wryly.
“Yeah.”
“Girls like me?”
He gives me a puzzled look. “She wasn’t anything like you, Daisy.”
Then he dives under the water, swimming past me, heading for shore.
I decide to stop being a pervert for once and not watch him get dressed. Besides, my mind is tripping over what he just said. I don’t know what any of that meant.
What I do know is that he thinks I’m a distraction, and apparently not in the right way. Not a distraction he wants.
You’re not what he wants, I tell myself. Part of me thinks that maybe that’s just because we’re on this island. Maybe when we get back to Fiji…
And then what? Even if he gives into you in Fiji, he’s going back to New Zealand, to his life there. And you’re going…who knows where.
Besides, he didn’t just drop the marriage bomb on me for no reason. That was his way of saying not now, not ever. As if the reason before wasn’t enough.
I can’t help but feel completely deflated and disappointed. I kissed him. What the hell was I thinking?
I get out of the water and get dressed, while Tai fills up water bottles from the stream, popping in some purification tablets.
“Should we head back and tell the others?” I ask him when we’re ready to go.
“I think we should follow this stream, see where it leads. If there’s anything on this island, people will take advantage of a water source.” He peers at me. “You up for it?”
“Up for anything,” I tell him, though really I just want to get back to camp and have some alone time, try to make sense of everything that just happened.
Even though more time to dwell on the rejection will just make me feel worse.
He nods and I follow him down the stream for about twenty minutes or so, the refreshing dip in the pool undone by sweat and grime, until the forest seems to open up.
Suddenly we find ourselves on a beach.
Another side of paradise.
“Bloody hell,” Tai says in awe.
I have to agree.
The lagoon on this side is much bigger and is peppered with islands. Some of them look like tiny little outcrops of sand and a few palm trees, the water shallow enough to walk to, others are larger and further away. It’s like a whole new world over here, with a million shades of blue.
“This is incredible,” I say, looking down the beach. There are plumeria flowers everywhere here, pinks and whites and yellows, their beauty and fragrant smell peppering the beach. I stop by one of the trees and take a deep whiff of a blossom. Heaven.
“Daisy,” Tai says with urgency. “Daisy, come here.”
I turn to where Tai disappeared in the opposite direction, behind a grove of palm trees.
I duck around them and see what he’s staring at in disbelief.
My god.
It’s a building.
Fourteen
Tai
The building that Daisy and I are gawking at looks like it was erected in the 1970s and never used again. It’s a bungalow, raised a few feet off the ground with a short flight of stairs heading up to a deck, the wood gray and faded from the elements.
“It’s a leftover from the Dharma Initiative,” Daisy whispers from beside me.
She might not be far off there.
“We should look around for a hatch,” I tell her, “see if there’s a Scottish guy down there pushing a button.”
She gives me an impressed look.
“You’re not the only one who watched Lost, Gingersnap,” I inform her, walking toward the building.
“I’m surprised you’re not calling me Freckles,” she notes. “Considering.”
“Have to be original with my nicknames, don’t I, Gilligan?”
I can practically feel her roll her eyes from behind me.
I’m glad we’re back in this space again, where we can talk and poke fun at each other. I hated being mad at her, and I really had no reason to. I knew she had made a mistake, I knew that the boat running aground was an accident. At the very least, she didn’t do it on purpose.
I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to grapple with my anger, most of it directed at myself, some at Daisy, and some at the ocean itself, for trying to take more lives that matter to me.
I’ve been in rough shape, to say the least, even though I’ve done my best to hide it. I have to. I feel responsible for my crew, for my friends…for Daisy. Now that we’re on land, I feel it’s my purpose to keep everyone safe until we get rescued. My job as captain isn’t over yet.
“Who wants to go inside first?” Daisy asks, before she quickly adds, “Not it.”
I stare at her for a moment, at the cheeky smile on her peach-colored lips.
Lips that I tasted, lips that left me hungry, starving for more.
Kissing her was probably the highlight of my year, if I’m being honest. I can’t remember the last time I felt so ravenous for someone, not just physically, but emotionally. On another level. Like I’ve had this cage built inside my chest for far too long, rusted shut from the sea, and someone has finally found it. She hasn’t made her way in yet, but I think she’s trying, and I desperately want to let her.
But I can’t. Because I’m not built that way. Because Holly did such a number on me, I know if I give into Daisy, there would be no turning back. She would own me, all of me, and I would be at her feet—hook, line, and sinker.
I can’t let that happen.
For one, I need to keep my head on straight until we’re rescued. There is no way around that.
For two…I’m afraid.
I’ve had my future dashed before. I’ve had my hopes and my heart ground up into du
st. Call me a coward, but I’ll do anything not to go through that again.
Even if that means saying no to Daisy.
Even if all I want to do is say yes.
“What?” she asks me. “You’re looking at me weird.”
I clear my throat, giving her a quick smile. “Just trying to figure out when you became such a chicken.”
Good job, Tai. Deflection.
“Chicken?” she repeats. She laughs. “That’s rich.”
She puts her hand at my shoulder and pushes me forward.
“You’re the brave spear fisherman Maori warrior. You go check it out.”
I shrug and walk through the overgrown grass to the bungalow, carefully going up the stairs alongside vines that have wrapped themselves around the railing. So far they seem to hold.
The deck seems to hold too, and I poke my head in through the doorway.
It looks like no one has been in here in a long time, though it’s not as bad as the outside.
There are three sets of bunkbeds, one against the back wall, the others on either side of it. The bunkbeds are bare, just wood slats, which is probably for the best considering a whole world of creatures could make their home in old mattresses.
There’s nothing else in the room except a low table against the opposite wall, and there are four windows, the shuttered kind with battered screens. The door is off the hinges, and while some vines have snaked in across the floor and there are bugs scurrying about, I think I may have found our new sleeping quarters.
“It’s not the Four Seasons,” I tell Daisy as I exit and come back down the stairs. “But we can make do.”
She scrunches up her nose. “Anything gross?”
“Not really. Go take a look.”
She hesitates and then goes up the stairs. I can’t help but stare at her ass as she goes, the way they look in those jean shorts turns my brain to mush.
You idiot, I can’t help but think. She had her legs wrapped around you, talking about spearfishing while you were naked, inches from your cock, and you didn’t do a fucking thing.
She pops her head back out of the bungalow. “It’s okay...Doesn’t look very comfortable but at least it’s off the ground. I may need you to kill all the spiders though.”
“I will slay whatever dragons you wish,” I tell her. I walk around to the front of the bungalow and peer around it. There’s another building a few yards away.
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