Surviving Raine

By Shay Savage

Copyright © 2013

Shay Savage

All Rights Reserved

Cover design by Aymee Zayas

and Iron Clover Photography

Dedication

To the many fans who wanted to see this to happen.  As always, I write for you.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 – Lost

Chapter 2 – Heat

Chapter 3 - Salt

Chapter 4 – Pain

Chapter 5 – Fish

Chapter 6 – Game

Chapter 7 – Hurt

Chapter 8 – Kiss

Chapter 9 - Hold

Chapter 10 - Baby

Chapter 11 – Land

Chapter 12 - Food

Chapter 13 - Fury

Chapter 14 - Sick

Chapter 15 – Grow

Chapter 16 – Gift

Chapter 17 - Shot

Epilogue – Gaze

Quoted Poetry Credits:

Chapter 1 – Lost

My head was pounding, and I was pretty sure the whole room was spinning.  Okay, it wasn’t spinning, just rocking.  Despite the copious amount of alcohol I’d ingested last night, a rocking room was normal since I lived on my ship.  That didn’t exempt me from a hell of a hangover, though.

I rolled over and let the temple-splitting pain run its course before forcing my body to comply with my wishes and rise from my bunk.  I made my way over to the cubby-sized bathroom to relieve myself of whatever vodka was left in my system and wash some of the night-grime from my face.  If the passengers on this ship could see their captain in the morning, they’d probably disembark as quickly as possible.  They might even be willing to charter a canoe to navigate the Caribbean instead.

Not that I was going to look significantly better in the afternoon.

I looked in the mirror, which was usually a mistake.  This time was no exception.  I hadn’t shaved in a few days, and I looked like I felt – gritty and hung over.  The pale blue irises that stared back at me were surrounded by red and dull from lack of real sleep.  There was still a bit of a mark on one cheek from last week’s bar fight in San Juan.

After giving my teeth a quick once-over with the brush, I tossed on relatively clean cargo shorts and a rumpled polo shirt that was lying on top of the dresser.  I looped my belt around my waist and headed out of the forecastle.  At this ungodly hour of the morning, that is – about 7:00am, ship time – I hoped not to run into anyone else.

Usually, most of the passengers that chose to sail with me were not morning people, and I was free to walk about my home without running into them.  Apparently, this trip had one early riser.  A tiny little dark-haired girl with tanned legs curled up underneath her sat near the mainmast with a book in her lap.  Weird.  At least she was far enough aft and engrossed enough in her literature that she didn’t notice me.

I entered the pilothouse and gave a nod to the nighttime helmsman.

“You look like shit,” John Paul chuckled.  At six-four and two-hundred plus pounds of solid muscle, you didn’t argue with John Paul.

“Thanks,” I replied.  John Paul was my one and only friend, which was perfectly fine with me.  I had met him right after I graduated from high school out on a shooting range over ten years ago.  That’s when I fucking loved guns.  I had been good with them, too.  Probably still was, though I hadn’t pulled the trigger on one in quite a while.  It’s too easy.  I’d rather use my fists if I really needed to.  “How’s The Oblation running?”

“Smooth as always,” John Paul said, tilting his favorite cowboy hat back a little on his head.  He looked me over and rubbed his fingers around on his chin, which was covered in fine, dark hair. “Any survivors?”

“I didn’t wake up with anyone ugly,” I replied, grabbing the pack of smokes off a short table next to the wheel.  I pulled a lighter out of one of the pouches on my belt, right next to my favorite jackknife, and lit up.

“Well, that’s a bonus at least,” John Paul said.  He handed the wheel over to me with a nod.  I sat back on the stool, tossed one arm casually over the top of the wheel, and looked out over the bow at the slow rolling waves of the Caribbean.  I took a long drag and exhaled smoke off to one side.

“Remember that bitch in Puerto Rico?” John Paul asked, as if I was going to forget her.  “You didn’t even realize she was on the ship when we left!”

John Paul chortled, and I cringed.  I was stuck with her for four days until I could get her back.  If I had just picked up a tourist or a local, that would have been one thing, but this one had been a working girl.  Cost me a fucking fortune.

“She wasn’t ugly,” I mumbled.

“She wasn’t hot, either,” John Paul said.  All right, I had to give him that.  At least I had made sure I got my money’s worth once I realized I was stuck with her for a few days.  She may not have been the hottest, but the chick had a tongue that wouldn’t quit and she sucked cock like…well, like a pro.

Which she was.

“Fuck off and get some sleep,” I told him.  Thinking about it was making me a little uncomfortable in my shorts.  I must not have gotten any action last night after the vodka shots.  John Paul laughed and headed off to bed for the morning.

John Paul was about the only person in the world, aside from those who were actually out looking for me, who knew my background.  He was like a brother to me, despite our bickering and arguing.  It was always in good fun.   I could trust him, and it was good to have someone to trust.  It almost made life bearable.  Throw in a couple of women and a bottle of something strong, and suddenly all was good in the world.

It was John Paul’s idea for me to buy The Oblation in the first place, knowing full well I wouldn’t object to taking him with me.  She was a one hundred and five foot traditional gaff-rigged, three-masted schooner, and she could sleep twelve passengers and a three person crew.  On day trips we could take nearly fifty out at a time just hanging out on the deck.  That money was pretty good, but the big bucks were in taking a few filthy rich, high society idiots on their own private pleasure cruise.

Usually it was a ritzy family vacation or some debutante on their bachelorette cruise.  I got a lot of action on those trips, half the time from the soon-to-be bride.  The current excursion was a five-day sail, running out of San Juan, stopping in the British Virgin Islands for snorkeling or whatever, and then continuing to Anguilla to some high class resort there.  I didn’t get involved in any of the tourist crap.  I just owned the ship, sailed it during the day and spent my nights drinking, either on the ship or off.  It didn’t matter to me.

Sometimes I fucked one of the passengers, but that was purely because my hand had gotten tired.

I wasn’t a people person, and one thing I tried not to do was to associate with any of the passengers at all.  If I could avoid even seeing them, that made for the perfect trip.  Other than the one sitting under the mast with her book, I hadn’t laid eyes on any of them yet, but we had just left port yesterday.  I did most of the actual sailing, John Paul did the tour guide shit, and Alejandro, John Paul’s bunkmate, did the cooking and whatever else was needed.  The three of us knew how to sail most anything, and we all got involved in the mechanics of making the ship go where we needed it to go.  I wouldn’t even have any passengers, but I had to make an honest living somehow.

I didn’t have a lot of experience in my nearly thirty years when it came to honest livings.

I stubbed the cigarette out and chugged some of the “special” coffee out of the thermos John Paul left for me.  I probably should have had something to eat, but my stomach just wasn’t ready for that yet.  Maybe a little later.  I lit up another smoke.

After a couple of hours, the passengers started to wake up and come out on the foredeck where I couldn’t help but see them.  I usually looked surly enough they didn’t try to spend a lot of time talking to me, but there was always one who would attempt to truly engage me in conversation.  I just didn’t feel up for it this morning, so when an overweight, balding guy came up and started babbling, I smiled dumbly and responded with “Yo no hablo Inglés,” and he left me alone.

I chain smoked and ignored passengers until noon, when I ate a bit of something Alejandro brought up from the galley and let him hold the wheel so I could take a piss.  The rest of the afternoon was spent in much the same way.  About the time the passengers were having dinner, we arrived in Cruz Bay for the night.  They’d spend the rest of the night and next day there with their snorkeling and shopping and whatever the hell else they did on shore.  To me it meant better booze than what I had on the ship and a good hooker.

Once we were docked and John Paul took over for the night, I made my way to the closest drinking hole and ordered three shots and a beer.  After the shots were gone, I sat back and nursed the longneck, watching the people around me.  I saw the chunky guy who tried to talk to me earlier, but he was busy trying to talk to the early-rising, bookworm girl with dark hair and long legs.  I couldn’t see her face from where I was sitting, but she had to be twenty years younger than the guy.  Unless he was seriously loaded and sporting a ten inch cock, she was way out of his league.

He must not have had either because she got up and left after just a few minutes of listening to him babble.  As she was walking out the door, a black-haired island girl walked in wearing clear heeled shoes.  Just what I needed.  I didn’t waste any time but walked right up to her, whispered a number in her ear, watched her eyes light up, and took her back to my cabin.

I wondered if she was even eighteen as she rode my cock half the night.  Not that it mattered around here – sixteen was good enough, legally.  Being a U.S. man, though, I had a thing against girls under eighteen.  It just didn’t seem right.  I guess for what I was paying her, she would agree to be whatever age I’d be comfortable screwing.

She had really nice tits, and I spent a lot of time sucking on her nipples.  She tried to convince me I made her come just from licking them, but I knew the difference between a real orgasm and a fake one.  I wasn’t doing it for her, anyway – I just liked sucking on tits.  I didn’t need to make her come – she was getting money out of this, not orgasms.  She was supposed to make sure I got off, and she didn’t disappoint.  I did feel her come on me once, so she got her bonus, too.

Once I was done with her, I handed her the cash and told her to find her own way home.  She smiled, fanned through the bills, and offered to meet up with me the next time I was in the area.  Yeah, maybe.  She was cute enough.  Beats beating off.

She left an actual fucking business card on the dresser as she left.  Who would have thought they had them?

I spent the next day at the same bar, getting way too fucked up to fuck anyone.  I stumbled back to the ship about ten minutes after we were supposed to set sail, flipped John Paul off, puked over the bow, and finally dropped onto the floor of my cabin.  I saw a couple of the passengers eyeing me before I slammed my door and sealed it.

Yep, the room was definitely spinning this time.  Why the fuck did I do this?  Again?

Because it keeps you from seeing all those faces all night long.

Oh yeah.

I lurched into the bathroom and puked again.  I tried to get a washcloth wet so I could clean off my face, but I couldn’t seem to stand up long enough to reach the sink.  I crawled back into the main room of the cabin and managed to get close to my bunk, if not actually on it.  I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep.

* * * * *

I woke up when I hit the ceiling of my cabin.

Yeah, the ceiling.

At first, I figured I was having a nightmare because it didn’t make any sense for me to be where I was.  Besides, nightmares were a common enough experience in my life, but when I heard the siren going off, I knew whatever was going on, it was really going on.  I crawled over the ceiling and reached up to get to the handle of my cabin door.  Once I got it open, water started rushing in.

I grabbed my belt and wrapped it around my waist, securing it quickly.  I could hear wind and rain, but it wasn’t heavy.  It certainly wasn’t heavy enough to cause us to capsize; it was just heavy enough to make it hard to see what was actually going on.  I headed aft, wading through water as it poured in, seemingly from all sides.  It was almost pitch black, and I could hear screaming coming from the passenger cabins.

“Heads up!  Lifeboats – port and starboard!” I yelled out.  I couldn’t see anyone, but I could still hear them yelling.  I thought I heard John Paul’s booming voice from behind me, yelling something about a second wave.  I felt the whole ship jar and roll again before blinding pain hit the side of my head, followed by darkness.

I didn’t think I was out long, but I woke up with a mouthful of seawater, choking and coughing.  I pulled myself back onto my feet, trying to figure out which way was up.  I looked off to my left and saw nothing but water through the gigantic hole in the bulkhead.

I went the opposite way of the gaping hole, trying to get my bearings.  The only thing I knew for sure was we were right-side up again.  I slipped on the first step, banged the crap out of one knee, and tried to keep moving through the intense ache.

Suddenly, I was topside – staring straight into the broken chunk of the mainmast of The Oblation.  There was one large, torn piece of canvas hanging from a three foot section of it.  It was all the sail I could see.  Whatever hit us, hit us hard.

I clambered over debris until I came to the port bow and looked over the side.  Both lifeboats were gone, but so was half the hull.  I made my way back to the other side, confirming the other lifeboat was also gone.

Shit.

The Oblation was starting to tip, and the foredeck was rising up in front of me.  I slipped on the wet deck and nearly fell as I made my way back up to the pilothouse, where there was – I hoped – a life raft still stowed under the decking.  It was there, and I yanked it out of the compartment and ran up to the bow.  I looped the painter line around my wrist and threw the whole container into the water.  It jerked on my arm and inflated in just a few seconds.  I wrapped the line around the bolt near the bow and ran back to what remained of my ship’s mainsail.

I climbed up as far as I could and yelled out, but heard no one else.  Had they all already abandoned ship?  Were any of them still below deck?  I had no idea how long I was unconscious, and the ship was sinking quickly.  I yelled out once more and listened closely before deciding everyone else must have already gotten away, or maybe they had already drowned.

Images of Alejandro and John Paul jumped around in my head, but I had to push them away so I could think and react.  If there was anything I knew it was how to deal with panic-inducing survival situations.  I hadn’t had to do it out at sea before, but I had certainly had my fair share of urban encounters.

All right, quite a bit more than my fair share.

I took a deep breath, steadied myself, temporarily erased anything non-survival related from my brain, and mentally prepared myself to jump overboard.

I made my way towards the starboard bow as the rain began to pour out of the skies harder, and the wind tossed my hair into my eyes.  I reached the end of the line holding the raft and yanked at the bolt. Somehow, I had managed to get the line stuck, and the damn thing just wouldn’t budge.  Another wave crashed up and filled my eyes with salt water.  I shook drops from my face and hair and pulled the jackknife out of my belt.  I cut the cord, and the lifeboat released from the side of the ship into the rough water.  I went tumbling in after it.

I hit the water chest and stomach first, which fucking stung and almost caused me to lose my grip on the line.  I pulled – hard – arm over arm with my eyes closed tightly, trying to keep the salt water from burning them.  I could feel my biceps starting to fatigue, and the muscle pain shot up into my shoulders.  I kept pulling, kicking my bare feet in the water to try to get a little more leverage.

The rain continued to pelt my back, and the wind drove waves up and over my head.  I wrapped my hand around the loose rope and finally got to the life preserver connected to the side of the raft.  I pulled the thing off the side and wrapped it around one shoulder before the next wave knocked me under again.

I came up sputtering and used the rope to guide me to the rungs on the side of the raft.  Finally, I touched something solid and reached up, hauling myself over the edge and dropping hard on the bottom of the small life raft.   I took a second to calm my panting breaths while I lay on my back with the rain stinging my skin.

I rolled over and coughed, removing the water still in my mouth and lungs and looked out over the waves.  I could see well enough to know The Oblation was pretty much completely destroyed.  The storm was minor – and there was no way it would have been the cause of all the damage I could see from where I was.  I rolled quickly and pulled at one of the sealed plastic containers tucked into the side of the raft.  I retrieved a signal whistle and blew it three times.

Nothing.

No response, no yelling – nothing.

I blew again.

And again.

Pieces of the mast floated into view on the top of one of the waves, along with part of a sail and something I thought might have been a chunk of futtock.  Someone’s suitcase rose up on a swell, and then slowly began to sink.  It went past something wavy and oddly shaped – like a bunch of snakes all coiled together.  I couldn’t figure out what it was, and rubbed at my eyes.

When the wave slipped back down I saw it again.  It wasn’t part of the ship, and I was relatively sure it was one of the passengers.  The water was too rough to try to maneuver in the right direction, so I grabbed the life preserver and dived in.

I swam under and reached whoever it was just in time to grab a hold of strands of hair and coil them around my fist right before they dropped too low in the water for me to have hopes of latching on.  If the person had worn a shorter hairstyle, I wouldn’t have been able to reach.  Thankfully, whoever it was didn’t weigh much and didn’t struggle.

Shit.  I could be risking my life for a body.

Another wave hit just as I was taking a breath, and I took in a mouthful of water.  I didn’t actually inhale it, but I didn’t get any air, either, and my lungs were starting to burn.  I pulled up on the hair in my fist until I could get a better grip on the actual torso.  I managed to grab what was, undoubtedly, a boob, so at least I knew I was saving a woman.  I pulled her up against my chest and leaned back, trying to simultaneously float on my back, use the life preserver to keep me above the wave swells, and keep the head of one of my passengers above water.

I got a couple of good breaths and started to pull in the rope.  The added weight wasn’t helping when the waves crashed around us.  More than once I considered just letting her go because my arms were starting to hurt really, really bad.  I didn’t know who she was, but I couldn’t quite manage to intentionally let go of her.  If one of the waves took her from me, well, that would be a different situation, but I wasn’t going to just let go of her no matter how much it hurt.  I may be a mostly uncaring ass, but that was going too far.  Besides, I’d been hurt a lot worse than this and still pushed through.

My hand touched the end of the lifeboat, and I struggled to pull both of us over the side.  I got her in first, and then tumbled in after her.

I was balanced on my knees and one hand, breathing heavily with the other hand over my chest.  The rain still poured down on me, and I knew I didn’t have any time to rest.  I mentally yelled at my muscles to get going again and sat up.  I leaned over the chest of the woman I had pulled from the water, just to check.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Fuck!”

I quickly pulled her upright and flipped her over my back, pushing my shoulder into her diaphragm.  Her mouth dropped open and water released from her lungs, pouring out of her mouth.  I flipped her over onto her back and tilted her head to open her airway, checking her mouth for any obstructions.

A for airway, B for breath, C for circulation…

Her airway was clear, but she still wasn’t breathing.  I placed the first two fingers of my hand against her neck and felt the faintest thump of her heartbeat under the pads of my fingers.  If she had a pulse, she must have been breathing recently, which meant she still had a chance.  I placed my hand on her forehead, tilted her head back and covered her mouth with mine.

I blew a long, slow breath into her lungs, then tilted my head to the side and watched her chest fall.  I turned back to her mouth and breathed into her a second and third time.  My fingers went back to her neck and verified her pulse was still there before I breathed for her in another three-breath segment.

It didn’t take long, thankfully.  I was exhausted, and there wasn’t much chance of me being able to continue resuscitation for very long.  If she had needed chest compressions, we were going to be in a lot of trouble.   After only a dozen breaths, she coughed, sputtered out more water, and then took several gasping breaths before passing out across my lap.  At least she kept breathing on her own, and her pulse felt a lot stronger.

I took a couple of deep breaths for my own lungs and turned my face up to the sky with my mouth open, drinking in the rain drops and hoping the raft was set up to automatically start collecting the fresh water.  I was going to have to check that before I did anything else.  Fatigue now was bad, but it was still better than dehydration later.  I figured I would locate John Paul and the better equipped lifeboats when the sun rose, but I didn’t want to be wrong.

Thankfully, the water collection did seem to be set to go, I just needed to attach a little collection tube from the built in gutter in the ceiling of the raft to the plastic collection bag inside.  I pulled the canopy over the top part of the raft; sealing it and leaving just a small part open so I could bail out the water that had already gotten in from the rain and the waves.

I was feeling a little dizzy and figured I wasn’t going to be able to do much more.  Every muscle in my body was screaming at me to just sit down for a minute.  The thing was, if I did stop, that would be it.  I’d be out in a second, and if I didn’t do the important stuff first, we were both going to die before I woke up.

I looked back over to the girl I pulled from the water and heard myself gasp as I saw red marks all over the floor.  I reached to her and turned her over, checking her back, under her hair, and up and down her limbs, but I didn’t see any sign of injury.  While I was laying her back down, I saw a drop of red fall and hit her shoulder, so I reached up to my own forehead.

I guess I hadn’t noticed it, since the rain and sea water kept washing the blood away, but there was a pretty good gash on my left temple.  It probably wasn’t too serious, though still worthy of stitches.   Head wounds meant blood, so there was a lot of blood.  I dug around in one of the sealed pouches until I found first aid supplies. I covered up the cut with some gauze and tape.  Hopefully I’d find John Paul in the morning so he could stitch it up.  Like I needed another scar.  At least it was up near my hairline and would probably be covered up most of the time.

I checked myself over for any other injuries but didn’t see anything.  I took a quick inventory of what was on the life raft and found two thin pieces of cloth that were probably supposed to be used as both towels and blankets.  Maybe even sails, though they weren’t big enough to make any difference at sea.  I used one to dry off the floor in the back of the raft and pulled the drenched girl back away from the raft’s opening, near the dry spot.  I tried to make her at least look comfortable, and as I moved her arms and legs so she didn’t look too awkward, it briefly registered that the passenger I pulled from the water was the early-rising bookworm.  Of course, now that I had pulled her over to the dry side of the raft, it wasn’t so dry anymore.

Fuck it.

I looked out and watched The Oblation as it finally gave up and sank under the waves.  She had been my home for three years, and now she was gone.  I wouldn’t let myself wonder about John Paul or Alejandro or the other passengers.  The lifeboats were gone, so I was going with the assumption that the rest of them were on board one of those.  In daylight I should be able to signal them.

I made my body continue on.  I dropped the two floating anchors and affixed the rest of the canopy, sealing us inside the life raft.  Everything was well secured, I had the water collection going, and I wasn’t bleeding anymore.  I checked my sole passenger’s breathing again and watched the last pieces of my home sink into the darkened sea.  I took one more deep breath, flopped onto my back next to her, and finally surrendered to exhaustion.

I guess I really didn’t need a schooner after all.

Chapter 2 – Heat

I woke to screaming.

“Holy shit!” I sat up in complete darkness and reached around towards the noise until I got a hold of the girl’s arm.  She swung at me wildly, so I gripped both her wrists to keep her from hitting me as she continued to scream.  “Come on, babe, relax!  It’s all right.  You’re all right!”

She went from screaming to throwing herself against my chest and clinging to me.  I let go of her wrists and felt her hands go up and over my shoulders with her nails digging into the skin on my back and her sobs shaking both her body and mine.

Comforting someone else was definitely not a strong point of mine.  I just didn’t do that.  I rarely even wanted to touch a girl after I fucked her.  I didn’t have the slightest idea where to put my hands, and I couldn’t even see her anyway, but she was holding onto me, and didn’t show any signs of letting go.  I was too damn tired to argue with her about it, so I didn’t push her away.  I mean, she did almost die, and though I didn’t really want to think about it, I knew how far we were from land.  If we found the others at first light, we’d probably be okay, but otherwise our chances weren’t all that great.

So I let her hold onto me, and I even put my arms around her awkwardly.  She kept crying, and I didn’t say anything because I had no idea what I should say.  I guess I could have lied to her and told her everything was fine, but I didn’t think there was much point in that.  I reached over and grabbed the waterproof flashlight from its sealed bag, secured it in one of the loops on the inside of the raft, and turned it on.

She jumped when the light went on, and her breathing caught in her throat as she let out a soft sob.  Her fingers dug into my flesh again but not quite as hard as before.  I didn’t think she was actually breaking the skin or anything.  She glanced quickly around the raft, pressed her cheek into my chest, and closed her eyes.

She went still kind of suddenly, and I listened to make sure she hadn’t stopped breathing again.  I noticed her breathing was now really steady and figured she must have passed out or maybe just fallen back asleep.  I didn’t want to wake her up and listen to her start screaming again, and I really, really wanted to lie back down.  I shuffled our positions around a bit until I managed to lie down on my back with her still sprawled over my chest, holding tightly to my shoulders even in sleep.

It wasn’t comfortable, not in the least.  I was still completely exhausted and figured I’d drop right back off anyway, but I was wrong.  Between her lying on top of me and the crashing waves and wind from outside the canopy, I couldn’t fall back asleep at all.  I sighed heavily and looked down at the young woman lying on top of me, bathed in the light of the flashlight.

She was in her early twenties, maybe, with long hair, bits of which were plastered all over her face, shoulders, and back.  She was slim and wore a blue one-piece bathing suit with a pair of shorts on over it and no shoes on her feet.  If she had been in flip flops or sandals like a lot of the ship’s passengers wore, she probably lost them to the storm.

She had really nice skin – all smooth and lightly tanned all over, not like a lot of chicks who were tan with blotches and shit when she didn’t get her suntan lotion put on in the right place.  I kind of wanted to run my hands over it and see if it was as soft as it looked, but I figured that probably had its own special scale of inappropriateness.  It reminded me of warm caramel, and I had the idiotic notion that she might taste like caramel, too.

I settled for checking out the rest of her visually instead.  She was pretty small – I didn’t think she could have been much over five foot two and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds or so.  Next to my six-two, ten-years-of-body-building frame, she looked like a child.  I could probably lift her over my head with one hand.  Of course, she had been lying on top of me for a while now, and she was starting to feel a little heavier.

Her leg shifted, and holy fuck if she didn’t rub her thigh up against my groin.  We were in a life raft, for the love of God, in the middle of the fucking Caribbean, and I was getting a hard on from a half-drowned stranger lying on top of me.

Well, at least we know I’m still a guy.

She was kind of hot, from what I could tell anyway.  She was also breathing and female, which is all I usually required.  I tried to remember what her boob felt like when I grabbed it in the water, but I had been a little too preoccupied with trying to stay alive to commit it to memory.

Damn, I was fucked up.

Besides, she was just another one of the high society bitches that chartered ships for their little personal pleasure cruises because they were far too good for the “normal” cruise ships that went all over the place carrying “normal” people.  She wasn’t my type, and I definitely wasn’t hers.  My type was more likely to cost me a little cash, but at least I knew where I stood, and I didn’t have to call them later or buy them any fucking flowers.  Who knew what her type might be?  One thing I knew, I didn’t have the blue blood that was always the top requirement on the list.  Maybe if I took a shower and shaved, she’d probably look me over and maybe consider giving me a tumble.  In the end I wouldn’t be good enough to wash her Chihuahua.

I must have fallen asleep eventually because the next thing I knew there was natural light coming through the translucent sides of the raft, and it was really getting hot.  This was partially because the sun was cooking us in there, but also because I had a sweaty girl lying on me.

I slid out from under her, cringing when our stuck-together skin peeled apart audibly.  I set her down relatively gently and scooted myself over to the raft canopy opening.  I pulled back the seal and opened up the front piece, nearly blinding myself as the sunlight flooded in.

I took a deep breath and shook my head, trying to get the sleep out of my system.  My head was pounding, but without my usual spiked morning coffee and half pack of cigarettes, I didn’t think it was going to improve anytime soon.  My arms and shoulders were sore and my back was stiff.  It was also really fucking hot in what was basically a small greenhouse on the ocean with the equatorial sun beating down on it.  All and all, I felt like shit.

The waves were a lot calmer than they had been the previous night, thankfully.  I glanced back over at the girl, who was still out of it, and then whipped open my fly and pissed over the side.  I managed to tuck myself back in just as she rolled a little and groaned. Not that I really cared, but she probably didn’t want to wake up to me waving my cock around.  She only murmured something unintelligible and stilled, not yet awake.

I looked over the horizon and saw…water.

I maneuvered part way out of the small opening in the canopy and looked all the way around us.

More water.

Shit.

With no sign of any other lifeboats, I had to fight down the nervousness I was starting to feel in the pit of my stomach.  The life raft was equipped with three days worth of food and water for four people.  I could collect more water as long as it rained, and I could certainly make the food last for more than six days – probably as many as ten or twelve – but after that it was going to get nasty.  I looked over at the sleeping form behind me.  With her size, she was going to dehydrate fast.  She was probably on the verge anyway, considering the amount of seawater she swallowed.  I’d last a lot longer than she would.  My stomach lurched a little again.  It occurred to me I hadn’t felt that particular pang since the last time I was in a tournament.

I crouched with my head out of the opening and secured the flap to the top of the raft.  In the back of the raft, near the sleeping passenger, was another, smaller opening.  I released that one, too, so we could get a crosswind going through the inside of the raft.  It wasn’t going to make much of a difference with the heat, but it was marginally better than nothing.

I really wanted a drink.

I settled for a small amount of water instead.

The girl rolled again, and I could hear the sound of her skin clinging to the bottom of the inflated raft.  I thought about how she was probably used to silk sheets and that kind of shit and almost laughed out loud.  I shifted back towards the opening because she looked like she might wake up, and I didn’t want her freaking out on me again.  I sat back down and watched as she opened her eyes and looked right at me.

She had really nice eyes.  I mean, just fucking fantastic – all dark brown and deep and really wide open, like if you looked into them you could fall in or get lost or something – and she was staring right at me.  My own reaction to her gaze actually surprised me more than her eyes themselves.

She sat up and pushed herself against the backside of the raft, as far away from me as she could get.  Not that it was all that far – the raft was only a ten-footer, so you’re never very far from anything on it.  Her eyes stayed on me for a moment, and then she took in the rest of her surroundings.

When she looked away, I wanted to go over to her and turn her back so she was looking at me again.  I didn’t do it or anything; it was just weird that I wanted to.

She started to say something, but her voice was all scratchy when she tried to talk.  She raised her hand up to her throat and coughed a couple of times before she tried again.

“What happened?”

“My ship sank,” I said, completely unnecessarily.

“How did I get here?” she asked.  “The last thing I remember is trying to get up on the deck, but when I did, there was a big wave.  I fell in the water.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.  “I pulled you out.”

“I don’t remember that,” she said.

“You were half-drowned and unconscious,” I told her.

“Where’s everyone else?”

I shrugged.

“Are they…?” Her eyes got all wide again.

“I don’t have any idea,” I told her.  “I’m going to see if I can spot any of the other lifeboats.”

“Did everyone else get in one?”

“I just told you, I have no fucking idea!” I snapped.  I hadn’t really meant to, but I felt like absolute shit. I really needed a drink, and I really didn’t want to be talking about this.  I tried to calm my voice down a bit.  “Now stop with the twenty questions.”

She pulled back and just stared at me again with her mouth hanging open.  Fucking high society bitch.  She had probably never heard a real f-bomb before.  She had better get used to it.

I pulled the canopy back a bit more and got hit with a decent sized trickle of rainwater overflowing from the gutter system.

“Damnit!”

I yanked off my waterlogged shirt and tossed it off to the side.  I would need to remember to hang it up, or it would never be dry.  It was bad enough my shirt was wet, but wasting the water was going to come back and haunt me later.  Landon would have fucking killed me for wasting water under these conditions.  I wondered if I could somehow get it out of the shirt.

I heard a gasp behind me and immediately regretted not just keeping the soggy shirt on.

“Wow, your arms are…um…” the girl stammered at me.  “And your back…”

I felt my whole body go rigid and my hands clench into fists.

“What?” I snarled, glaring back at her over my shoulder.  If the prissy bitch had a problem with my body, she could fucking keep it to herself or go overboard.

“You just…um…look really strong.”

“Oh.”  I didn’t know how to respond to that.  I thought she was talking about the scars.  Sailing takes strength, but I was built up long before I started sailing.  John Paul made sure I still worked out a lot to keep me in shape and make up for the poison I drank.  Our professional lives might not require it anymore, but John Paul’s favorite saying was still “Strong people live longer.”

I lifted the canopy up the rest of the way and squinted out over the sea.  I wondered if a pair of Ray Bans was included in the survival kits.  I shaded my eyes with my hand and scanned the horizon again.

Nothing.

I turned around quickly, making the raft rock a little.  The girl scurried to the other side as I approached the sealed pouches near her.  I continued on like she wasn’t even there.  I found what I wanted – a pair of binoculars and one of three flares.  They would show up better at night, that was for sure, but chances were the other lifeboats would be closer now than twelve hours later.  They had outboard motors, where the raft only had a pair of oars which were almost totally fucking useless.

I moved out towards the opening again and launched the first one.  It was incredibly bright, even in the daylight, and I watched it rocket up three hundred meters before it started back down, glowing all the way.  It went out right before it hit the water.

I used the binoculars to see if I could see any sign of…well, of anything.

Nothing.

There weren’t even any cumulus clouds on the horizon, which would give me at least some sort of direction to head since clouds would normally form over land.  The wind was sending the current south-southwest, which was not ideal.  From where we were last on The Oblation, the closest land was southeast.

“Fuck.”

“What is it?”

I felt all my muscles tense.  This chick and all her stupid ass questions were going to drive me insane.

“Well, let’s see,” I snarled, “I just realized I left my best pair of shoes in the closet back at home, and I really needed them for the mixer tonight.  What the fuck do you think it is?  Maybe a whole shitload of ocean and maybe a whole shitload of no land?  You think that might be it?”

“Why are you yelling at me?” she screamed and sobbed all at the same time.

The girl just pulled up her legs and practically curled up into a ball.  I hadn’t really meant to jump down her throat, but I had a problem with my temper.  Once it got started, it was a while before it managed to run its course.

“I’m a little fucking tense, all right?” I shouted at her.  “My home just fucking sank, it’s about a hundred and ten degrees in here, and I’m fucking annoyed and wondering why I ever bothered pulling you out of the fucking water!  Okay?”

She raised her hand and ran it under one eye.

I made her cry.

Shit.

I really didn’t mean to do that.  I had to get myself under control.  All the anger and tension was wasted energy, and wasted energy was wasted water and nutrients.  I closed my eyes and tried to take some slow, calming breaths, but it just didn’t help.  If slow, calming breaths were of any use, I would have quit smoking.

“Holy fucking shit,” I grumbled as a thought hit me that probably saved her life and mine.  I reached over and pulled open one of the pouches on my belt.  Inside was a small plastic baggie with three cigarettes in it – the emergency stash.  “Thank God.”

I pulled one of them out and then carefully sealed the other two back up in the plastic.  The lighter in my belt pouch was too wet and wouldn’t work, but there were waterproof matches in the survival gear.  I lit the smoke and leaned back against the inside wall of the raft, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply.  I took five long, deep drags before I opened my eyes again.  She was staring at me with those big, beautiful eyes again, and it was making my cock twitch.

Great – just what I needed.

She looked away from me and was rocking back and forth, all fidgety.  Watching her rock back and forth brought images to my head of ways I could make her rock back and forth.

Smoking under survival circumstances was undoubtedly a bad idea, but I had to be able to get myself together enough to calm down and think straight, so it was better than doing nothing at this point.

I took another long drag and blew the smoke out over the water.  I tried to savor it, knowing I only had two of the damn things left.  I could cope without the smokes if I had a bottle of something, but not having either was going to seriously suck.

She was still wiggling around where she sat which was going to drive me over the edge.

“What’s your problem?” I snapped again.  I hadn’t really meant to, I was just tense and pissy.  The smoke was helping, but what I really wanted was a drink.  I didn’t suppose anyone packed any of those little tiny airplane-sized booze bottles in the survival kits.

“I…um…” she stumbled over her words and looked away.  Even under her tanned skin, I could see red creeping into her cheeks.

“What?” I was annoyed now.  If she was going to complain about my smoking, I was going to lose it.

“I…have to go to the bathroom.”

I laughed.  I took one last long drag, getting it all the way up to the filter before I tossed the butt out onto the waves.

“Then fucking go!”

“Where?”

“Didn’t you notice the en suite bath?” I laughed again and then took a smidgen of pity on her.  “Over the side, where do you think?”

“Well…how?”

All right, she did have a point there.  Or rather, she didn’t have a point.  Or a pointer.  I had to laugh again at my internal joke.

“Just…I don’t know…hang your ass out over the edge.  Or get in the water.  Whatever.”

“I’d have to take off my suit.”

“So?”

She blushed again.

“What?  You want me to hang out in the next room for a few minutes?  I promise I won’t gawk at you.”

She didn’t move.  Well, actually, she was still fidgeting around; she just didn’t make a move to actually solve her dilemma.  If she kept this up, she was going to pee in the fucking raft.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve already checked you out front and back, had my mouth on yours, and my hand on your tit, so it’s not like…”

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.  I realized how what I had said sounded, considering she had been unconscious the entire time.  I shook my head.

“I didn’t mean…ah, fuck.”  I grabbed my shirt and flopped down on my back, covering my whole face up with the garment.  I lay there for a moment but didn’t hear her moving at all, so I yelled at her again.  “Get on with it!”

She moved.  I could hear her shuffle over to the front of the raft and then move around in one place, presumably taking off her shorts and her bathing suit.

“If you are going to get in the water, put the life preserver around your waist first and hold on to the fucking ladder.  I don’t want to have to dive in after your ass again.”

“Okay,” she said.  “Um…where is it?”

“Right outside the opening – on the left.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Whatever.”

I listened to her move around a bit more and then felt her move closer to the opening and off to the side.  There was a soft splash, and a minute later I heard her pulling herself back up onto the raft.

“There’s something similar to a towel over there,” I said, flinging my arm out in the direction of the back of the raft and waving my hand around.  “Make sure you dry off the floor, too.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Whatever.”

I listened to her move around some more, getting pretty fed up with just lying there, baking, with my fucking shirt over my head.

“Are you done yet?”

“Almost,” she said quietly.  Her voice still sounded scratchy.  “Okay, I’m done.”

I grabbed the shirt off my face and sat up, looking over at her.  She was adjusting the straps on her suit and still blushing.

“Do you know why my…um…throat hurts?”

“Yeah,” I said.  I didn’t elaborate.  After a minute she finally asked.

“Why does my throat hurt?”

“Because you inhaled a shitload of salt water,” I stated.  “It fucks up your throat and your vocal cords.  Give it a day; it’ll be better.”

“Thank you,” she said, again.

“Whatever,” I replied, again.

I shoved my hand down into the sealed up container for rations and pulled out a carb bar.  I tore it in half and threw one of the pieces at her.

“Eat it,” I instructed.  “You can have the other half in six hours.”

“Six hours?” she repeated.

“Are you a fucking recorder?  Yes, six hours.”

I knew I was being a bastard, but my brain was working overtime trying to figure out what our best course of action might be.  Having her here made it ten times more difficult.  If it was just me, I was pretty sure I would be fine.  There was plenty of food and water for just me.  I could fish, I could take care of myself, and I could stay alive under pretty extreme circumstances.  Having her here with me just…complicated everything.

I was used to death match.  Last man standing.  Every man for himself.  You didn’t help anyone else because everyone else was going to stab you in the back the first chance they got.  The primitive part of my brain kept telling me to chuck her overboard because her survival might cost me my own.

But I couldn’t do that.  I mean, she was just a tiny little girl.  Not a child, obviously, but she was just so small and she looked freaking helpless.  I had to stop myself from wanting to hold her and comfort her again, and maybe fuck her to make her forget about the horrible situation she was in.  Yeah, I definitely wanted to do that.

Toss her overboard or stick my tongue down her throat?  I couldn’t decide and it fucking ticked me off.

“Come here,” I told her, trying to keep myself from sounding too pissed off.  I wasn’t sure if it worked or anything, but she did scoot a little closer.  “You need water so you can digest what you ate.”

“I am thirsty,” she admitted.

I measured out about a half cup and held it out towards her.  When she reached for it, I held it back to my chest and out of her reach.

“Listen first,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.  “Lick your lips and then take a small mouthful of water.  Swish it around in your mouth, gargle with it, and then swallow.  Then lick your lips again.  Keep doing that until it’s gone.  Got it?”

She nodded, and I handed her the cup, watching her closely.  She did as I had told her and then handed the cup back to me.

“Put this on your lips, too,” I told her, handing her a tube of ChapStick from the survival kit.

“What’s this for?”

“Helps keep in moisture,” I said.  “It also helps with sunburn.  Stay the fuck out of the direct sunlight, got it?  As tiny as you are, sunburn would probably kill you.”

“I don’t burn easily,” she smirked.

I glared at her.

“You aren’t used to being in the direct sunlight combined with the reflection off the water without protection of any kind for an indeterminate amount of time.  Everyone burns eventually.”

She wiped the tube across her lips and handed it back to me.  I sealed it back up and put it away.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Daniel,” I said automatically.  I didn’t even think about it anymore when someone asked.  After four years, giving my fake name was as natural as my first name had been.

“I’m Raine,” she said.  “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“Whatever.”  I tried not to laugh at the name.  Aside from being about as pretentious as I might have expected, the fact that it was a weather pattern, not a name, was fucking hysterical.

“You could say ‘you’re welcome,’ you know.”

“I haven’t saved you yet,” I told her.  “You might hate me for not letting you drown.  At least it would be over then.  Drowning is quick at least.  Dying of dehydration while you’re starving, too?  That sucks.”

Now why the fuck did I go and say that?  I might as well go into a little detail about exactly what dying of dehydration entails.  I didn’t look up because I might have made her start crying again.

“You don’t think we’ll be found?”  Her voice was quiet, but at least it was steady.

“Hard to say,” I answered noncommittally.  “If we find one of the other lifeboats, we’ll probably be all right.”

“Where are they?”

I looked over at her and raised my eyebrows.

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked her.  “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘there aren’t any stupid questions?’”

“Yes.”

“Well, there are.  That was one of them.”

I drank a mouthful of water, and we sat in silence for a while.  Looking out the opening at the dark blue water, I was still really agitated.  Our only real hope was someone seeing the flare and getting to us before we drifted too far.  I reopened the survival kit and verified all the contents again.

“What happened to your head?”

“I got knocked around on the ship a bit,” I said.  I had forgotten about the cut over my eye, and now that she brought it up, it started hurting.  “Actually, I’m gonna need your help with it.”

“With what?”  She sounded all nervous.

“I need you to stitch it up,” I said bluntly.

“You need me to what?” she gasped, panic in her voice.

“I need stitches,” I reiterated.  “Considering keeping me alive is the only thing that’s going to save your ass, I think you might want to do it.”

“I’m not a doctor.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I responded.  I took the mini suture kit out along with some more gauze and an alcohol wipe.  “You’re a girl, so you ought to be able to do a simple fucking stitch.  In and out, just like getting fucked.”

I was again amazed at how well her blush showed up at the top of her cheeks.  It wasn’t exactly red, but her tanned skin deepened significantly in color.  Her big, beautiful eyes went wide, much to the chagrin of my cock.  Just what I needed, to get a hard on from a chick putting fucking stitches in my head.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said softly.  “I tend to get a little sick at the sight of blood.”

I looked at her in sheer disbelief.  She was squeamish, which was not what I needed, and I simply didn’t have time for that bullshit.

“You are going to have to get over that,” I told her.  “Get over it right now, because if you puke, you’re going to lose fluids.  If you lose fluids, you’re going to die.”

“You’re scaring me, you know.”

“Just stating the facts,” I retorted.  “Now get over here and stitch me up.”

I wasn’t going to give her any time to think about it.  I needed it done now before it started to fucking bleed again.  She took a deep breath, like she was trying to prepare herself, and then came over close to me.  I tied the end of the suture thread in a knot and then handed her both the thread and the surgical needle.  I took the bloody gauze off my forehead and she gasped, holding her hand over her mouth.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” I growled, staring her in the eye.  She looked into my eyes for a moment and then nodded her head slowly.  “Just put it out of your mind.  You’re playing seamstress on one of your dolls, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

I sat cross-legged in front of her while she got up on her knees to reach my head.  Even then she was just barely tall enough.  I took a couple of deep breaths myself, mentally preparing for the pain and trying to not be too obvious about staring at the milk mounds right in front of my face.  I could only see the tops of them, but her tits looked pretty fucking perfect.

She stabbed into my skin and I tried to force myself not to flinch.  It didn’t work completely but definitely got my mind off her boobs.

“Ow!”

“I’m sorry!” she cried.

“Just get on with it,” I snarled.

She stabbed into my skin two more times before the raft hit a large wave and threw her into my lap with the needle nearly drilling a hole into my skull.

“Fucking hell!” I screamed, shoving her off of me.  She was so light, I tossed her into the other side of the raft where she bounced against the fabric wall.

“I’m sorry!” she screamed again.

“Holy shit, bitch!” I yelled.  “You could have taken my fucking eye out!”

“I couldn’t help it!” she cried out.  “I didn’t mean to!”

I spent a few seconds collecting myself.  I knew she didn’t mean to, and sitting up on her knees like that wasn’t easy in a rocking raft.  I groaned, rubbed the new spot of blood off my head, and lay down on my back.  I looked to the other side of the raft where she was cringing from me.

“Fucking try again,” I demanded.

“No,” she said.  “You aren’t going to call me names and then expect me to help you.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I growled.  “My being alive is in your best interest.  Helping me is just like saving yourself.”

“You aren’t going to die from a wound that small.”  She scowled back at me.  “I’m not that gullible.”

“I don’t give a shit if you are gullible or not,” I said.  “Back in your little mansion at home, this cut isn’t dangerous.  Out here without antibiotics available, it could be my death sentence.  You want to risk my life and yours?”

She sat for a minute just looking at me, probably trying to decide if I was lying to her or not.  I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself back down, but it was too fucking hot to relax, and my head really ached now.  Finally, she moved back over to me tentatively, like I was going to fucking bite her or something.  She managed to finish after about four more stitches.

“I need something to cut the end of the thread.”

“I got it,” I said, pulling my jackknife out of its home in my belt.  I reached up, felt for the thread, and quickly cut off the end.  I kissed the flat part of the blade before sheathing it again.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Um…kiss the knife?”

“It’s my lucky knife,” I mumbled.

“Why is it lucky?”

I sighed.  This was shit I really didn’t want to discuss.  Maybe if I gave her a little taste, she’d get the idea and stop asking.

“Because it sliced me open and I didn’t die.  Seems lucky to me.”

She looked at me for a minute, and then her eyes flashed to my arm and back again.

“Is that the big scar on your back?”

I flinched.

“Yeah.”

“It’s from that knife?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I cut myself shaving,” I sneered, then sighed.  I really was just seriously tense.  I wasn’t this much of a sarcastic dick under normal circumstances.  Well, not quite this bad, anyway.  “Somebody fucking cut me, what do you think?”

“Did you need stitches?”

I had to laugh at that one.  I mean, it’s a seventeen inch scar – two inches across my right triceps, then the other fifteen continuing on across my back.

“A hundred and twelve inside, just to hold the muscle together,” I said.  “They stapled the skin – one hundred and forty-seven of those mothers.”

“Did it hurt?”

“No, I’m quite the masochist, so I fucking loved it.  Are you for real?”

“I meant the staples.  Did it hurt when they took them out?”

“Of course it fucking hurt.”  I shook my head in disbelief.  “There were staples in my skin.  A section of it got infected, too, so it was a lot of fun having them removed.”

“What happened to the person who did it?”

“Well, let’s see,” I started, using my most impressive sarcastic tone, “considering he cut me, and I ended up walking out with his knife, what the fuck do you think happened to him?”

“Did he go to jail?”

“He went to the fucking morgue.”

“Are you just saying that to scare me?”

“No,” I said, “I’m saying it to shut you up.”

It worked for a little while at least.  Her silence wasn’t helping though because I was still melting in the heat, agitated, annoyed, and wanting a drink about as bad as I wanted to jack off – and it was only the first day.  I pretended to be absorbed in some of the survival instructions that were sealed in one of the pouches.  Most of what it said was all common sense shit.  If you didn’t already know at least as much as what they had written, you’d never get as far as finding the fucking instructions.

Then she started in with the questions again.

“Were you always a sailor?” she asked.

“No,” I said.  “I just bought The Oblation a couple years ago.”

“What does that name mean?”

“Oblation?” I clarified.  She nodded.  “It’s an offering, like, to God or something.  Like communion.  John Paul named it.  He claimed we were offering ourselves to the sea or some such bullshit.”

“What did you do before you started sailing?”

Here was a topic best avoided.

“Not much.”

“You must have done something.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, you had to have done something to be able to buy your boat, right?”

“It’s a ship.  Or it was.  Boats are small, and size fucking matters.”

She gasped, looked down at her hands in her lap, and twisted her fingers around themselves nervously.  Like my cock had fucking ears, it decided it needed to prove my point about size.  I had to shift sideways to not be so noticeable.  How the fuck was I going to survive with this annoying, smoking hot bitch that I simultaneously wanted to fuck and kill?

I really, really needed to relax.

“You had to have money for your ship then,” she finally said, all soft as the teeth marks in her full bottom lip began to fade.  “Did you inherit it?”

“No, I didn’t fucking inherit anything,” I said, stifling a laugh.  “You have to have a family to inherit something from them.”

“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

She looked so repentant that I decided to at least give her a little something.  It would be better than her starting to ask questions about my fucking family.

“I was a fighter,” I said, not looking at her.

“As in boxing?”

“Something like that.”

“My dad watched boxing all the time,” she mused.  “Would he have seen you on television or anything?”

“I seriously doubt that,” I said.  I didn’t say anything else.  I didn’t miss the past tense reference to her dad, and I wasn’t going to ask about him.

“What happened to them?”

“What happened to who?”

“Your family.”

Fucking hell if she didn’t end up going there anyway.  I could feel all the muscles in my body tighten up.  I didn’t talk about my past, not with fucking anybody.  I didn’t even talk about that shit with John Paul, and he was there for a good part of it.  My hands tightened into fists, and I closed my eyes for a second before I looked back at her.

“You ask a lot of questions that aren’t any of your fucking business.”

Instead of cowering like she had every other time I snapped at her, I saw her eyes go dark as she glared daggers at me and stuck her hands on her hips.

“Did I commit some sort of major offense?” she snapped back at me.

“I told you before,” I snapped back.  “I’m fucking tense.”

“Well, is there something I can do to help with that?” she asked, “or are you just going to yell at me all the time?”

That was it.  I couldn’t hold my temper back any longer.

“Yeah, there is something you can do,” I said coldly, turning my glare at her.  “Come here and blow me.  That would probably ease a bit of my tension – especially if you swallow.”

Yeah, I know.  I couldn’t believe I said it either.

The look in her eyes gave me the idea that – regardless of our size differences – I was in a shitload of trouble.

I guess I really didn’t need relaxation after all.

Chapter 3 - Salt

I watched her eyes as they first widened and then narrowed.  Her jaw tightened as she clenched her teeth together.  Without taking her eyes from me, she moved herself onto her knees and slowly made her way over to me.  If I was a total idiot who knew absolutely nothing about women, I might have been stupid enough to think she was going to take me up on my…um…offer.  I wasn’t an idiot, and I knew exactly when someone was about to hit me.

She crossed the four feet between us on her knees and stopped when she was directly in front of me.  Then she hauled back and slapped me across the face.  It actually stung a little.

“Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,” she snarled.  “I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how much you know about survival, you do not talk to me like that.  I haven’t done anything but try to help you, and you have done nothing but act like a complete and total jerk.”

Without another word, she snatched the survival guide out of my hands and turned her back on me.  Because I certainly could be a complete and total jerk, the next words jumped right out of my mouth before I had the chance to think better of it and stop them.

“You don’t really think that hurt, do you?”

She turned her head to the side and looked over her shoulder.  I watched her glance over towards the opening to the raft right before she moved over towards it.  She looked around for a moment and then grabbed the little water cup I had handed her earlier.  She stuck her hand out of the opening, held the cup off the side, and then brought a cup of seawater back inside.  I narrowed my eyes as she turned back to me, moved just a little closer, and threw the water at my face.

“Fuck!”

I closed my eyes fast enough for them not to be hit, but the salt water wormed its way over and into the recently stitched cut on my forehead and fucking burned.  She tossed the cup at me, hitting me in the chest with it before it dropped into my lap.

“Satisfied now?” she asked.  “Or do you want me to come up with something more creative?”

I glared at her and tried to both wipe the salt out of my wound and not touch it at the same time.  I wasn’t particularly successful, so I glared at her again since I was good at that.  She ignored me as she violently turned the pages of the little survival guide.

There was definitely a part of me that wanted to crawl right over to the other side of the raft and strangle her.  I wouldn’t do something like that, of course, and it wasn’t just because she was a chick – I didn’t give a shit about that.  I’d hit women before and certainly done worse, but they were women who could compete with me physically and were expecting to be hit.  I couldn’t go being violent on someone so…small.  Then there was the part about me completely and totally deserving what she had done.  I couldn’t really fault her for that.

So I sat and seethed until I couldn’t seethe any more.  I was fucking hungry and fucking thirsty and fucking bored.  I couldn’t eat or drink because chances were I wouldn’t be able to keep it down come morning, and I couldn’t find any entertainment because the only person available to talk to had commandeered the only piece of material with writing on it that I could have read.

Fuck it all.

Just in case it wasn’t bad enough, I practically had to hold my hands flat on the bottom of the raft to keep them from shaking.  It hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since I had my last drink, so it was probably only psychosomatic at this point.

Lovely.

“This fucking sucks,” I finally said out loud.

“What does?” she snapped back.

I looked back up at her and glared again.  I tossed both my arms up in the air, wildly gesturing at the world.

“All of this shit.”

“And you need to take that out on me?”

“You’re the only one here to take it out on, so yes.”

“You need another cup of water?”  Raine tilted her head to one side before she cocked an eyebrow at me.

I was fairly certain she’d do it, too.  I managed to capture the words “Shut the fuck up, bitch” before they left my mouth and distracted myself by grabbing the binoculars to check the horizon again.

Still nothing but fucking water.

I took a deep breath to keep any potential panic from rising up.  It wasn’t like I had lost hope or anything since it hadn’t really been that long.  We weren’t low on supplies – yet – and we weren’t in bad shape physically – yet – but I knew how quickly that could change.  The longer we were on this raft, the worse it was going to be.

For once, it wasn’t just me I needed to look after.  There was the annoying, questioning, tiny little piece of seriously feminine, soft, brown-eyed, doesn’t-take-my-shit, fucking beautiful young woman who didn’t stand a chance on her own that I needed to protect.

I still didn’t know if I wanted to kill her or fuck her, but I knew which way I was starting to lean.  Something about being attacked by the tiny little thing was a serious fucking turn on.

“Look, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” she suddenly said.

I almost startled at her voice.  I really didn’t think she would be talking to me pleasantly any time soon.  I didn’t look at her.  Every time I looked at those eyes, I wanted to go find a tube of lotion and a titty mag.  Actually, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need the mag.

“Maybe we can start over?”

“Starting over rarely works out the way you think it will,” I growled.  Then I told myself to stop it because every time I got agitated or lost my temper, I lost that much energy for no benefit.  I also didn’t want another cup full of salt water thrown at me.

Every tournament is different.  Melee out in the open, with opponents everywhere, your anger is going to give you the advantage.  Not every match is like that.  Sometimes you have to use your head.  That’s where you have the advantage, and that’s where you are going to win.

I took a long, slow breath and tried to center myself.

“Okay,” I said as softly as I could and still have her hear me over the waves.  “We’ll start over.”

“Good!” she said and actually smiled a little.  “I’m Raine, and I’m really glad you didn’t let me drown.”

I considered making a stupid crack about her name being a kind of weather but held back for once.  I took another deep breath.  Might as well get it all out on the table.

“I’m Daniel,” I said.  “I’m an alcoholic and a chain smoker, and I don’t have any alcohol and only have two smokes.  I’m going to try to stop myself from being a total dick, but it isn’t always going to work because I’m already starting to get the shakes, and there’s still probably a decent amount of alcohol in my system.  This time tomorrow I’ll be a whole lot worse off.”

Raine sat still, just looking at me.

“You’re my responsibility,” I continued.  “It doesn’t matter if it’s a storm or a shark or a reef or anything else; it’s always the captain’s responsibility to keep the passengers alive.  I obviously did a shitty job with the rest since you’re the only one I got left.  I don’t like being responsible for anybody but me, and it pisses me off.”

I sat back and waited for her to confirm the whole situation was my fault.

“If you know you are an alcoholic, why don’t you try to stop?”

Why she decided to start with that little tidbit was beyond me.

“Knowing doesn’t give me a reason to stop,” I shrugged.

“Why do you drink so much?”

I could feel myself starting to tense up.  I had to make her stop asking about this kind of shit.

“I don’t talk about my past,” I stated.  “Asking me about it isn’t going to get you too far, and it will definitely piss me off.  If we’re starting over, just let it fucking rest, okay?  It will make not being a dick a hell of a lot easier for me.”

She looked over to me, and I waited for her to ask another fucking question.

“I understand,” she said.

I must have given her a look of shock.

“I’m not blind, you know,” Raine said.  She gestured towards me.  “You have obviously had it rough.”

“What, the scars?” I chuckled a little.  “Those don’t mean anything.  Like I said – I was a fighter.  Badges of honor and all that shit.”

“Can I ask you about the fighting?”

“No,” I said.  At least she was asking if she could ask.

“All right, I won’t,” she said.

I relaxed just a little, since she seemed to get it, and it looked like she wasn’t going to pry any more.  We sat in silence for a while as I looked out over the horizon and she paged, a little less violently, through the survival guide.

“You didn’t issue the anti-seasickness medication yet,” Raine said out of the blue.  “I’m assuming you’ve already appointed yourself as the person in charge.”

Going step by step through the survival guide.  Fucking fantastic.

“You want it?”

“I’m not seasick.”

“I meant do you want the position?”

“Being in charge?”

“Yeah.”

“No – you can have it.”

“Well, fuck,” I said, glancing over at her out of the corner of my eye.  “I thought I was going to get out of it for a minute.”

Raine giggled.

She fucking giggled, and the sound went straight to my cock.

Damn, if she wasn’t going to be the death of me.  I was pretty confident I could survive in a life raft for quite some time, but survive Raine without my cock jumping straight out of my shorts like a divining rod?  Not so sure.

“We probably should both take it,” I said.  “The sea’s usually pretty calm after rain, but it could pick up tonight.  Being in a raft is a lot more likely to make you sick than a ship.”

“Because it’s smaller?”

“Yeah, you feel the movement more.”  I shrugged.  “Seasickness has never bothered me, but it could in this piece of shit.”

I pulled out two of the tablets, and we washed them down with a small mouthful of water.

“Don’t forget to lick your lips,” I said.

Oh man, I should not have told her to do that.  Watching her run her tongue out over her full lips was just…fuck hot.  I definitely wanted to run my tongue over those lips, and because I am a complete and total masochistic moron, I gave her something to eat, just so I could watch her wash it down with another mouthful of water.  I had to actually turn away from her for a few minutes, pretending to screw around with the fastenings where the ladder was attached.  Then I found myself wondering what her nipples would taste like.  Images of little Hershey’s Kisses melted over her breasts started to taunt me.

Okay, I really, really needed to stop thinking like this.  If nothing else, I already seriously pissed her off with the “blow me” comment.  I didn’t think the chances of me getting my lips anywhere near any part of her body were very good.

We’re starting over, I reminded myself.

Yeah, I doubted that was going to include her forgetting that particular verbiage anytime soon.  I was just going to have to find some other way to occupy my mind.

So, I started wondering what DTs were going to feel like.  Why?  Because, as previously stated, I was a complete and total masochistic moron.  Shakes – yep, definitely going to be looking forward to that.  Hot and cold flashes, heart rate fluctuations, sweating, lack of muscle control – lots of fun stuff to look forward to experiencing.  Oh yeah – and the vomiting, which is the one thing that might just kill me under these circumstances.

It occurred to me that I had better teach Raine some of the more practical bits of survival knowledge she just might need if I didn’t make it.

“Come here.”

“What?”

“I want you to know how to work the water collector.”

She crawled over to the opening, and I gave her a brief overview of the gutter system, the collection tube, and bag.  I showed her how to pinch it off and replace it with a new bag without losing any water and finished off the lesson with her having a good drink and me watching her lick her lips.

“I am really hot.”

I managed not to comment.

“I feel like I could drink it all, but I guess that’s probably not a good idea.”

“Yeah, that’s a really bad idea.”

“How much water are you supposed to drink?” Raine asked.

“A liter a day will keep you healthy,” I told her.  “You can survive on a lot less.”

I looked over to her and took in her tiny frame.

“You’re going to stick with a full liter as long as we can afford it.”

“Why?”

“You’re too small,” I said, shaking my head, but I felt the corner of my mouth turn up a little because something about how much smaller she was than me was just…interesting, I guess.  “You’ll dehydrate a lot faster.”

“Is there enough?” she asked.

“For now, yes.”

“If it doesn’t rain again?”

“There are other options.”

She sat looking at her hands in her lap and biting down on her lip.

“You mean like…drinking urine, right?”

I tried to keep myself from laughing out loud, but a bit of a snicker escaped me.

“Only in movies, babe,” I said, shaking my head again.  “Urine is about as salty as sea water, and a lot more gross.”

Raine smiled and nodded.

“I’m rather glad to hear that,” she said.  “What do we do if we run out of fresh water then?”

“Long before we run out, the first thing that will happen you will stop eating, whether there is food or not.  Digestion takes a lot of water, especially to digest proteins.  You can have carbs a little longer.”

“Just me?  You won’t stop eating?”

“I already stopped eating,” I said, “but I’ve been through a little starvation before.  I’m not too concerned about that.”

“You should eat while we have food, shouldn’t you?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe in a couple of days,” I said.  “I won’t drink any more today, either, because I’m probably going to be really sick.  The less I take in now, the less I’m gonna lose tomorrow.”

“Why will you be sick?”

I fought the urge to tell her to use her fucking brain.  I mean, I had told her, hadn’t I?  I’d been thinking about it but not talking about it.  Just because I told her I was an alcoholic didn’t mean she understood what that really meant.  I took a deep breath and tried to control my voice.

“Because I’m a fucking alcoholic,” I said through clenched teeth.  “By tomorrow morning all the alcohol will be out of my system, and my body is going to be seriously pissed off about it.”

I held my arm out straight in front of me so my hand was just a foot away from her face.  My fingers bobbed up and down uncontrollably.

“I’ve already started getting the shakes, and I’m probably going to start throwing up continually by noon tomorrow.  I might start hallucinating, and if that happens, I know I won’t be of any use to you.  That’s why you need to remember all this shit because I may be out of it for a day or two.  You can’t drink too much or too little water.  You have to eat half a carb bar every six hours, and you have to watch for other ships or boats or anything else to come by.”

Raine looked from my shaking hand to my eyes – I felt my heart skip a beat – and then back down to my hand again.  Her brow wrinkled up in thought, and she gnawed on her bottom lip again.

“You better tell me everything I need to know pretty quickly then,” she said.  “I’ll probably want to go over it a couple of times, and it’s probably good to do that while you still can.”

I nodded, seeing the sudden determination in her eyes.  It was good to see her losing some of the panic she was feeling before.  Of course, that may have had a lot to do with me being a dick as well.  We went over the survival guide, and I continued on with the shit she really needed to know, like how to set off the flares and how to use the signal mirror.  We talked about keeping dry as much as possible and above all, saving energy.

“The more you move around or get worked up about shit, the more energy you use,” I explained.  “You have to conserve energy because energy uses water and dehydration is what is going to kill you.”

“Okay,” Raine said.  “I get it.  You’ve said that ten times now.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t fucking forget it, should you?” I snarled, and she flinched, her eyes darkening at me.  I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair.  “All right, what do you still have questions about?”

“What if we run out of fresh water?”

“That won’t happen before I’m back to my shitty self,” I said. “Really, you can actually drink a small amount of seawater without it making you sick, but only do that if there isn’t any fresh at all because it isn’t going to help much, either.  There are some other ways to get fresh water if it doesn’t rain.  It won’t be much, but it will keep you alive.  That won’t be for a week or so, though.  In general, hope for rain and always be prepared to collect it when it comes.”

“How do you know so much about surviving like this?” Raine asked.  “I mean, did you just learn it as part of getting a boa…er…a ship?”

“No, I learned it before that.”

“Were you a boy scout?”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that one.

“No, definitely fucking not.”

“May I ask how you learned?”

I glanced over at her and met her eyes.  I knew what she was doing – asking me if she could ask instead of just asking the actual question.  She was giving me the easy out.  I looked away from her and down at my hands.  The shaking was worse.  I couldn’t hold them steady at all.  I wondered how long DTs usually lasted.  I’d never made it very far in the past – it was just so much easier to take a drink instead.

“Someone taught me,” I said.  “He was a retired Navy SEAL, and he taught me just about everything I know.”

“What was his name?”

“Landon,” I answered.

“Will you tell me about him?”

Did I want to talk about Landon?  Good question.  The answer wasn’t so straightforward.  In a word, no – I didn’t want to talk about him.  However, I probably could talk about him without saying all that much, and maybe Raine would be appeased.

“He was…kind of like a father to me, I guess,” I finally said.  “I never had a father, so I think that’s what they’re supposed to be like.  I looked up to him, anyway.”

“I can’t imagine you looking up to anyone,” she said and smiled a little.  “You’re so tall, I mean.”

“I’m not that tall,” I responded.  “It’s just that you are just a couple inches away from being a midget.”

“I am not!” she cried with mock indignity.  I smiled a little.

“Landon thought it was important to be able to handle any kind of…situation.”

“Like surviving at sea?”

“At sea, in the desert, in the jungle, in a cave, downtown Manhattan – whatever.”

She giggled again.

Holy shit.  What was it about that sound that got me so worked up?  I took a deep breath and said a mental “down boy” prayer to my crotch.

“Is he…still alive?” she asked.

“As far as I know,” I said.  We were approaching dangerous territory faster than I would have liked.  “I haven’t talked to him in a while.”

“I lost my father a few years ago,” Raine said.

I had expected as much.  I tilted my head in what I hoped came off as a sympathetic gesture.  I debated asking her what happened to him, but I really didn’t want to get into such depth of conversation – not with her or anyone else.  Too much talking about oneself was dangerous.  I kind of liked listening to her talk, though.  About the time I decided to go ahead and ask her, she opened up her mouth and told me anyway.

“He was a police officer,” she said quietly.  “He died in the line of duty.”

Great.

I wasn’t sure if it was irony, karma, Murphy’s Law, or fucking feng shui, but it just figured her dad had been a cop.

“I was still in high school when it happened,” she continued.  “And all that was kind of a nightmare, really, so I got my GED, got emancipated, and spent a couple years in college.  I couldn’t really cope and dropped out last spring.  I’m planning to start again in the fall, though.  My friend Lindsay convinced me to take this cruise so I could relax and have a good time before I start my life over again.”

Raine issued a short, humorless laugh.

“Relaxing, huh?”

“I’ll let you know when the spa opens,” I said.  I meant it as a joke and hoped it didn’t come out too harsh.  “You picked the wrong vacation.”

“I would say so, yes,” Raine agreed, “but it could be worse.”

“How the fuck could it be worse?” I snorted.

“Well, at least you found me,” she said, shrugging.  “I could have drowned, or I could have ended up on a raft by myself and not know what to do.  If I have to be on a life raft out in the middle of nowhere, I have the feeling you are the person to be with.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to think about exactly what she was saying.  I knew she just meant I had essential survival skills, but she just sounded so grateful.  I don’t think anyone ever really talked to me – or about me – in that particular tone before.

“Yeah, if you were really unlucky, you would have ended up with John Paul.”

“I thought John Paul was sweet.”

“You talked to him?”  Stupid question.  Of course she had talked to him; he was practically a one-man cruise director.  He talked to everyone.

“Yes,” she confirmed.  “Alejandro was making waffles for breakfast, and John Paul told me to have it with blueberries instead of strawberries.  He said Alejandro bought the strawberries super cheap and they were absolutely nasty.”

She giggled again.  Damn.

“The blueberries were really good.” Raine smiled, looked straight into my eyes with her dark brown lashes half obscuring her irises, and giggled again.

Holy shit.  I had to stop breathing for a second.  She said something else, but I totally missed it.

“What?”

“I said, did you have the waffles with blueberries, too?”

“No.” I shook my head, “not my kind of breakfast.”

“What is your kind of breakfast?”

“Coffee with Kahlua and a half pack of cigarettes.”

“Seriously?”

“Only thing that keeps me awake.”

“What about lunch?”

“Oh, I usually eat lunch,” I said.  “Whatever Alejandro brought to the pilothouse I would eat.  I’m not too picky about food, as long as it isn’t crappy food.”

“What’s crappy food?” she asked.

“You know – like chips and red meat and candy and shit.  I never eat that stuff.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not good for you.”

She laughed out loud, which was almost as cute as the giggling, but not quite.

“You drink and smoke breakfast, but you won’t eat a candy bar?”

“Yep.”

“Does that really make sense to you?”

“Yep.”

“Do you think you could explain it?” she asked, tossing a handful of hair over her shoulder.  “Because I think that sounds absolutely ridiculous.”

“It isn’t fucking ridiculous,” I growled, glaring at her.  “Alcohol gets processed by your liver and doesn’t affect muscle mass.  Chips and other shit like that are wasted calories in fat which slows you the fuck down.  Red meat is too hard to digest, has too much protein and too much fat.”

“What about the candy?”

“It rots your teeth.”

Raine smiled with one eyebrow arched towards me but didn’t laugh again.

“Change the fucking subject,” I warned.  “Otherwise I’m going to start being a dick.”

She smiled without the cocked eyebrow and nodded.

Raine asked me about living on the ship and talked about a lot of trivial shit like people she knew in high school and movies she had seen over the winter.  She talked a lot about her friend Lindsay, the one who had talked her into a cruise.  I just sat and listened and felt my stomach start to churn and my hands start to shake more.  I wished to God I had a fucking coffee with Kahlua right at that moment.

If you can’t change it, don’t fucking think about it.  It’s nothing but a waste of time.  Focus on the things you can do.

Yeah, well, there weren’t a whole lot of things I could do right at the moment.  Sorry, Landon.

It was starting to get dark again, so I demonstrated setting off the flare in actuality instead of just in theory.  I spent a few minutes looking over the horizon again, hoping to see the lights of some ship out there, but there was still nothing visible.

I was really tired and starting to feel a little sick to my stomach.  I was pretty certain it wasn’t from the rocking motion.  I skipped the nighttime “meal” and stretched out on the floor of the raft, leaving the blanket-towels to Raine if she wanted them.  She spread one of them out on the other side of the raft and then tried to give the second one to me.  I shook my head and waved her away.

“I don’t need it,” I said.  “It might get a little cold after a while though.  Keep it.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s what I fucking said, wasn’t it?”  Damnit.  I really needed to stop doing that, but I hadn’t operated with a verbal filter for a long, long time.

Raine glared long swords at me but refrained from doing anything violent.

As the sun set completely and enclosed us in pitch blackness, I closed my eyes and listened to her breathing slow down, but never regulate enough to indicate sleep.  I couldn’t manage to drop off, because of all things, I was feeling fucking guilty about what I had said to her before.  I wasn’t going to apologize because…well…because I just didn’t do that.  Probably because I had to be a dick to keep people from cozying up to me, and I definitely didn’t like to ever admit I’d been wrong.  Regardless, I felt like I ought to say something.

“Raine?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for…um…stitching up my head and shit.”

“You’re welcome, Daniel.”

I guess I really didn’t need to be a complete dick after all.

Chapter 4 – Pain

My gut hurt.

I didn't bother trying to open my eyes - my head hurt bad enough with them closed.  Along with my head and my gut, my chest, back, arms, legs and pretty much everywhere else hurt, too.

Oh – and everything was shaking.  I couldn’t even tell if I was hot or cold because I was shaking so much I couldn’t really feel my skin.  The shaking was in the way.  It didn’t make any sense to me, either.

I was certain if I moved I was going to puke.  I was reasonably sure if I did not move I was also going to puke.  The only real question was whether or not I could make it to the raft entrance and get it opened before whatever was in my stomach decided to come out.

I moved as quickly as my shaking limbs would allow.  Thankfully, even with the shaking, I did get the damn thing open and the flap pulled back.  The heated sea wind hit my face, and the fresh air calmed my stomach for about thirty seconds.

Those thirty seconds were followed by the most violent vomiting I had ever experienced.

I rocked back and forth on my knees, heaving what little had been in my stomach into the sea.  After a dozen retches I was only dry-heaving, which I always thought was worse than actual puking.  It wouldn’t stop, and my stomach muscles were aching even more.

My hands were shaking so bad, I was having a hard time just keeping myself perched on the edge of the raft without just tossing myself overboard.  I could feel my heart beating so hard in my chest, I wouldn’t have been totally shocked to see it come bursting right out of my skin.  Sweat began to pour down the back of my neck, which just had to fucking stop because I was going to get dehydrated enough as it was.  I gripped the hem of my shirt and pulled it off.

“Daniel?”

I felt a soft hand touch the top of my shoulder, and I immediately pulled away from the sensation.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed, not even knowing why.  At the very least, I was already hypersensitive all over.  Even the feeling of my knees against the bottom of the raft was pissing me off.  The last thing I needed was her hands on me, trying to give me some kind of fucking comfort.

I would have yelled a few other choice words at her, but my body starting heaving again instead.  It felt like it went on forever, but eventually it stopped long enough for me to drop down to my side and curl up in a ball for a while.  My head began throbbing again, and my heart was still beating rapidly.

I was using up a lot of energy which I really couldn’t afford.  There was nothing I could do to stop it unless there was a distiller in the survival kit.  I’d have to make sure to add one of those for next time.  I had a brief image of John Paul right after we bought the lifeboats for The Oblation.  He packed a bottle of rum in with the rations.  If I had gotten to one of the fucking lifeboats, I’d have some goddamn alcohol.

“Holy fucking shit!” I yelled out, beating my hand against the flexible side of the raft, which was wholly unsatisfying.  I kept cursing and ignoring whatever the fuck Raine was trying to say to me.  I was yelling too loud to actually hear her over myself.  I felt her fingers against my arm again, and I shoved her.

“I told you not to fucking touch me!  How fucking stupid are you that you can’t follow the most basic instructions?”

I heard a sharp intake of breath and didn’t care how fucking shocked she might have been.

“Should have fucking let you drown!”

My hands covered my face, and I tried to rub my fingers into my eyes.  They itched.  Actually, my whole face itched, and I scratched at the thickening beard on my cheeks.  My ears itched, too.  So did my arms.  My hands were all sweaty, and when I tried to scratch at my arms, the sweat clung to my skin and just made me itch more.

“Daniel, stop,” I heard Raine say.  Something was wrong with her voice – she sounded strange.  I felt her hand on top of mine as she tried to pry my fingers off of my skin.  I shoved her away.  “You’re going to make yourself bleed.”

“I’ve bled before,” I barked.  “What fucking difference does it make?”

I looked down at my arms and saw the long red streaks I had made on them with my fingernails.  Shit.  I couldn’t think about it for too long, though, because I was suddenly retching over the side again, bile burning up my throat.

When that session was over, I tried to sit up with my knees close to my chest.  My heart raced, my hands shook, I was sweating all over, and I was fucking cold despite the sun blazing in through the canopy.  I put my head in my hands and just listened to myself breathe for a while.

“Do you want some water?” Raine asked.

“No, I don’t want any fucking water!” I yelled.  Why did she keep talking?  It occurred to me that somehow this was all her fault anyway.  I pulled my hands from my face and glared at her.  “What the fuck did you do, anyway?”

“Do?  I haven’t done anything.”

“What the fuck did you do to make my ship sink, bitch?”

“Daniel, you aren’t making any sense,” Raine said, flinching away from me.

Like there was somewhere for her to go.

“Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”

“No, Daniel,” she said softly.  “I think you’re sick.”

“Sick?” I laughed and shook my head at her.  “You think I’m sick?  Baby, you have no idea all the sick, twisted shit I’ve done.  The number of people I’ve slaughtered, the number of women I’ve fucked.  Shit – I don’t even remember how many!”

I squeezed my eyes shut and just rocked back and forth, trying to keep pace with the shakes.  At least I felt like I was trying to do something even though it wasn’t actually helping or anything.  The pain in my head and my stomach was a lot like getting shot.  It ached and stabbed and burned all at once, and there was no way I could move my body into a position where it would stop hurting.

I linked my elbows around my knees and put my forehead down against my arms.  I kept rocking and trying to relax my muscles, but they were too tense.  They wouldn’t loosen up no matter what I said to them.  There was something soft on my shoulder, running up and down it.

One fucking shot…that’s all I needed.  Just one fucking shot – vodka, rum, even fucking gin.  It didn’t matter what.  Just one little sip of anything to take the edge off.  I could make it through if I could just take the edge off.  I’d even settle for a fucking American beer.

“One fucking shot!” I screamed out, causing Raine to jump and let out a little squeaking sound.  I narrowed my eyes, realizing she had been touching my shoulder again.  “Are you a fucking mouse?”

“No,” Raine said cautiously.  “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you fucking squeak,” I snarled.  “Don’t do that again.”

“You startled me.”

“I’ll do a whole hell of a lot more than that if you don’t shut the fuck up and quit touching me.”

I watched her eyes darken for a moment but couldn’t watch her face transform into that nasty little “I’m not taking any more of this shit” look she had yesterday because I was puking over the side again.

When I managed to pull myself back away from the water again, I felt my whole body go limp, and I lowered myself down on my side.  I pulled my arms up and covered my face with my hands while I tried to figure out just how in the hell I managed to end up like this.

Left in a bar as a toddler.  No parents to be found.  No one interested in becoming my parents, either.  No one wants to adopt a kid whose parents didn’t even want him.  Different foster homes every couple of years until I started getting into trouble.  Then it was group homes and eventually juvenile detention.  Nice start to life.  No wonder I was so fucked up.

“Please, talk to me, Daniel.”

I heard her voice again but didn’t want to yell at her any more.  My throat felt like I had been yelling all day, and I probably had been.  I took another deep breath and felt a sob come out of my chest.  I didn’t realize I was crying.  Fucking crying.

“They could have just left me in a fucking dumpster or something,” I heard myself sob.  “Save the state a lot of cash.”

I heard her move a little closer to me, and I resisted the urge to lash out at her, at least for a few seconds.  I didn’t want her anywhere near me.  I didn’t want anyone anywhere near me.  I sure as hell didn’t want anyone watching this happen to me or looking at me while I was crying.

I felt her hand on me again, tentatively stroking from my lower back up to my shoulder blades and then back down again.  It was strangely comforting even though I didn’t want it.  Her touch was so light, I could only barely feel it.

“Are you talking about your parents?”

“I don’t have any fucking parents!” I yelled, the sorrow I had been feeling immediately replaced by the most intense anger.  I needed her to just stop talking and leave me alone.  “How many times do I have to tell you to shut up and quit touching me, you stupid cunt?”

I could feel her stiffen, and she immediately withdrew her hand and backed away from me.  It was about time.

My chest tightened, and I tried to push myself back up so I was sitting, but I slipped back down.  It took three tries to sit up, and by then my chest hurt so bad I was fairly certain I was having a heart attack.  I tried to get my breathing under control, but short panting breaths were all I could manage.  My head got a little foggy as I hyperventilated which shot me into a panic.

I tried to stand up, which is a really bad idea on such a small raft on the ocean.  It pitched wildly to the side, sending me flailing into the fabric wall before I fell on my face.  I felt the stitches in my head rip open.

Fucking awesome.

Note sarcasm.

I pushed the flat of my palm against my head and then brought it away.  Blood was clearly visible on my hand, and I could feel it start to trickle down the side of my face.  I reached up to touch it and cringed as I ended up smearing it into the stubble on my face.

I growled incomprehensibly and slammed my fists into the floor of the raft on either side of me.  The urge to hit something a hell of a lot harder was damn near overwhelming.

Note to self: next life raft gets equipped with a punching bag to go with the bottle of rum and carton of cigs.

Holy shit, I had forgotten about the smokes I had with me.  I felt an immediate sense of relief as I pulled at the pouch containing the two I had left.

Getting the pouch open on my belt with my hands shaking was nearly impossible, but at least once I got the baggie out, I could just dump the smokes onto the floor of the raft.  I grabbed the lighter and put the cigarette between my lips.  The lighter had dried out enough that it sparked, but with my shaking hands, I couldn’t hold the damn thing on long enough to light it.  I kept trying, and the edge of my thumb was getting raw from flicking the wheel over and over again while the lighter got hotter on the metal end.  Eventually, I managed to burn my thumb and still didn’t have the cigarette lit.

I let out a long string of curses before my eyes met up with hers again.

“Get over here and light this fucking thing for me.”

Raine’s eyes narrowed, and she just looked at me for a moment as I held the cigarette and the lighter out to her, my hands making them vibrate in the air between us.

“Are you fucking deaf now, too?”

“No,” she said, her voice sounding relatively calm, all things considered.  “I’ve never lit one before.  I mean, I’m not sure how…”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I screamed.  “Just fucking light it!”

I threw the lighter at her, which she managed to catch.  I thought better of throwing the smoke because if it got wet or broke, I was going to seriously lose it.  I put my shaking hand out again and held it there until she took it from me.

“Just do it,” I snarled again.

“Are you going to keep yelling at me?”

“Quit doing shit to piss me off,” I retorted.

“Not being a smoker pisses you off?”

“At the moment, yes.  Now light the fucking cigarette.”

She held it between her fingers like a joint and flicked the lighter.  She didn’t put it in her mouth or inhale, so of course it didn’t work.

“You are stupid, aren’t you?” I growled.  “Put it in your mouth and suck, bitch.”

“Look,” she said, holding both the smoke and the lighter out towards me.  “I’ve just about had enough…”

“You look,” I interrupted, staring into her face and glaring at her.  My tone dropped low.  “Stick the fucking cigarette in your mouth and light it for me, or I swear to God I’m going to beat the shit out of you and throw you to the fucking sharks.  Are we clear?”

Her eyes grew wide, and I could see her swallow hard.  She slowly brought the cigarette up to her lips and the lighter to the end of it, never taking her eyes from me.  The tip glowed red for a second before she started coughing and held the now lit smoke out for me to take.

I almost dropped the damn thing after all of that.  I closed my eyes and sucked smoke through the filter and into my lungs.  I didn’t even open my eyes again until I was halfway done with it.  I tried to slow down a little, knowing once it was gone there was only one left.  My hands were still trembling as I held it up to my lips, and I started rocking back and forth again.

I smoked the cigarette down to the filter and tossed the butt out the opening.  Once it was gone, I glanced at Raine out of the corner of my eye.  She wasn’t looking at me but was sitting with her legs curled under her and just staring down at her hands in her lap.

Shit.

I had basically told her I was going to kill her.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, but not very loud.

“Do what?”

“What I said…about beating you up and sharks.  I wouldn’t fucking do that, okay?”

“Good to know,” she said quietly.

Shit.

I was about to say something else when I doubled over, and a stabbing pain raced through my gut again.  I ended up on my side with my arms wrapped around myself.  I think I might have screamed.  The shaking suddenly stopped, but I started retching again.  I couldn’t make it to the side, so it was good there wasn’t anything in my stomach for me to throw up.

“Daniel, what should I do?”

I felt my muscles tense up and my vision blurred.  I tried to open my mouth and tell her to shut the fuck up again, but it wouldn’t open and I couldn’t move my tongue.  It felt too big for my mouth.  I was abruptly staring at the domed canopy above me, and I could feel my body jerking against the floor.

Oh shit, I thought.  I’m seizing.

* * * * *

Something soft was making slow, deliberate lines from my temple, through the hair behind my ear, and across my jaw before starting over at my temple again.

My eyes were closed, but I could hear gentle splashing of waves against the side of the raft and feel the cooling evening breeze through the openings in the sides.  My head was still pounding, but at least it felt like the shaking had stopped.

I was pretty sure I had a seizure though I had never had one before.  I knew it was a possibility.  I hadn’t been without alcohol in my system for that long for a good four years.  My body just couldn’t take it.

I took a couple of deliberate breaths and tried to take inventory of myself.

I was lying on my right side with my right arm bent up, and my head was resting on my forearm.  There was something soft under my arm – probably one of the towels.  My knees were drawn up, and all the muscles in my stomach felt like they had been punched repeatedly.  Actually, most of my body was feeling like I had come really close to losing a fight which hadn’t happened too often.  My throat and mouth were really, really dry.

The something soft was still stroking slowly from my temple to my chin.  There was something similar running over the knuckles of my left hand, which was stretched out away from my body a little and slightly elevated from the raft bottom.

I cautiously opened my eyes and saw Raine sitting next to me with her legs crossed and my hand in her lap.  She was stroking the back of my hand with her thumb.  Her fingers briefly obscured my view as they passed back over the side of my face.  The sensation was…calming.  When my eyes settled on hers, I could see the tears running across her cheeks.  I tried to comprehend why she would be crying and could only come up with one answer – she was crying for me.

She shouldn’t be doing that.  If there was anyone who didn’t deserve her tears, I would be that person.  My heavy eyes closed again, and I tried to open my mouth.  My lips felt cracked and dry, and trying to wet them with my equally dry tongue didn’t make a whole lot of difference.  I tried taking a deeper breath – I wanted to tell her not to cry for me – but no sound came out.  She should be saving her tears for someone else.  My head was still pounding, and though the memories weren’t clear, I knew I had said some pretty fucking horrific things to her.

I tried to gather some saliva up in my mouth to wet my lips again.  I paired that up with another breath in hopes of telling her to stop crying for me.  I only actually managed to get one word out, though.

“Stop,” I murmured in a throaty, croaky voice.  I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to convey that I was completely unworthy of her tears.  Obviously what I said and what I meant didn’t come out right at all, and she immediately pulled her hand away from my face and moved a half foot away from me entirely.  My hand dropped out of her lap and onto the floor of the raft.

No, I thought.  Don’t stop that…

Shit.

Not only had I managed to convey the wrong message, now she thought I didn’t want her to touch me when that was actually feeling pretty good.  I wanted her to keep touching me the way she had been, but I couldn’t get any kind of words out to tell her.  As a flash of memory reminded me I had been repeatedly throwing up for hours, I realized the main reason for this was some pretty severe dehydration.  I needed water.

I tried to push myself up with my hands and immediately fell back to the floor.  My head swam, and my fingers were starting to shake a little.  I tried again.

“Daniel – please, just stay down.   There’s nowhere to go.”

I let myself drop back down and closed my eyes for a moment.  I tried licking my lips again, but there wasn’t enough moisture to make any difference.  My breathing was still ragged and ineffective, and my stomach felt like it was on fire.  I forced a couple of slow deep breaths into my body and opened my eyes to her.

“Water,” I croaked.

She nodded and quickly brought me a cup.  She had to hold my head up so I could drink it, but I was too fucking thirsty to care about how humiliating it was for her to have to do that.  I managed to get a couple of mouthfuls down my throat before she lowered my head back down.  She sat next to me but still kept a little distance between us.  I looked up at her and wanted to tell her to keep touching my face like she had been, but even with the moisture from the drink of water, I couldn’t do it.  I tried to get the words out, but they just wouldn’t come.  With a lot of effort, I managed to reach out with the hand she had been holding so it was a little closer to her.  I found the energy to turn it palm up and then looked back into her eyes.

Raine looked from me to my hand and back again.  She slowly reached out and took my hand in hers, watching for my reaction.  I looked from our hands back up to her face and tried to give her a wary smile, but it hurt to move even that much.  I closed my eyes and sighed as she pulled my hand back into her lap, and her soft fingers began caressing the back of my hand.

* * * * *

It was dark when I opened my eyes, and I felt a little well of panic form before I pushed it down and reminded myself where I was.  As my eyes adjusted to the nearly pitch black inside the raft, I could make out Raine’s form lying next to me, just a foot and a half away.  I could still feel our hands clasped together.

Her fingers were all intertwined with mine, and I tried to remember the last time I held a girl’s hand without actually having my cock shoved up in her at the same time.  Hand holding took time, and most of the chicks I had been with recently charged by the hour.  The last time I had participated in this particular act probably went back to Jillian, but I quickly put thoughts of her out of my mind before I became downright violent.

I watched as best I could in the darkness as my thumb ran over her palm so I could feel how soft her skin was.  Her fingers twitched just a bit, so I stopped.  I didn’t want to wake her up, and touching her was giving me ideas about other places I could be touching her.  Any additional touching was going to lead to an activity that wasn’t the best idea under the circumstances.  Conserving whatever meager energy I had left was pretty important at this point.  I pulled my hand out from under hers and immediately noticed a strange sense of loss when I wasn’t touching her anymore.  I shook my head and pushed myself up to a sitting position.

My head was still throbbing, but not as bad as it had been.  It was probably due to dehydration as much as any residual delirium tremens effects, so I reached over and got myself a cup of water.  I took the first mouthful, and then I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth where it felt like raw meat.  I must have bit down on the inside of my cheek at some point because it really hurt.  My thumb rubbed the skin just under my bottom lip and came away with dried blood.

Fucking lovely.

I grabbed the towel that Raine had apparently put under my head and stuck it out the opening long enough to get the corner wet.  I rubbed my face, neck, and hands with it and then washed it out again.

I smelled like I had just spent a couple of days in a sealed up raft, sweating and puking.  I tried to wash some of my upper body as well and then used the corner of the towel to clean my teeth off a bit.  I finished by washing out the towel in salt water and hanging it up inside the raft to dry.

I looked back to Raine, who was still sound asleep but looked restless.  I reached over and looked through the carb bars in the survival kit.  There were three fewer bars than the last time I looked which meant – if she had followed directions – I had been out of it for a good thirty-six hours.   I took a deep breath and ate one of the bars.  I figured at this point I was going to need the energy, and eating the whole thing was probably for the best.  I hadn’t had one in nearly two days, anyway.

Two days, which meant it had been three days since The Oblation sank.  I checked the flares and saw the last one was gone.  I tried not to mentally calculate our chances without signal flares, but I couldn’t really help it.

I grabbed another cup of water, making note of how much was left.  I needed to get myself back into shape before I could really start rationing.  I probably needed to consider fishing as well.  I hoped to God it would rain soon, but not storm.

I heard Raine shift and roll before she sat up and yawned.  I didn’t look at her.  I was fundamentally embarrassed that anyone – least of all some high society chick I didn’t even fucking know – watched me puke and cry and God knows what else I did while I was out of it.  I wasn’t much for vanity, but I couldn’t have looked too pretty through all of that.  It wasn’t like I could really avoid her on a ten-foot raft though, so I sighed and sipped at the cup of water for a minute before I finally looked over to her.  Aside from looking like she probably hadn’t slept more than an hour, there was a barely visible bruise on her right cheek.  My stomach lurched and tightened.

“Where did that come from?” I asked, almost a thousand percent sure I didn’t want to know the answer.

“What?”

“The fucking bruise on your face.  What the fuck happened?”

Her eyes flickered away for a moment, and then she looked back to me and locked her gaze with mine.

“You hit me,” she said in the most calm, matter-of-fact tone I had ever heard.

Oh shit.

Oh shit shit shit shit shit.

I tore my eyes away from hers, unable to look her in the face anymore.  I didn’t remember doing that, but the way she put it…I knew it wasn’t just my hand accidentally connecting with her face during a seizure.  I must have really hit her.  I must not have hit her very hard because her cheek was lightly bruised.  If I had hit her hard, her jaw would be broken, or worse.  I’d killed with a single punch to the face before.  When I closed my eyes and thought about the shape and angle of the bruise, it was pretty obvious – I must have backhanded her like some sort of abusive fucking boyfriend.

“Shit...I didn’t…  Fuck!”

What could I really say?  Nothing adequate.  So I dug my fingers into my hair and said nothing.  Regardless of how light a touch it may have been, I did hit her, which I counted as one of the worst things I had ever done in my life.  The people who had died at my hands didn’t count because they knew what they were getting into.  Hitting some chick because she probably said the wrong thing at the wrong time – that was just fucking…wrong.

“It will heal,” she said with a shrug.

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“I don’t remember doing that,” I finally told her.

“Well, I won’t forget it,” she responded.  “So I guess that makes up for you not remembering.”

“I really should have made sure there was something to drink on here,” I said, half thinking out loud.  “If I just had something…”

“Seriously, Daniel?”  Raine looked up at me and shook her head.  “After all of that, all you can think about is how you still want a drink?”

I chuckled, though I knew she wasn’t trying to be funny at all.

“You ever been around an alcoholic before, Raine?  We’re kind of a fucked up bunch.”

“I have not,” she admitted, “but I am getting the idea.  I guess I always thought people who were alcoholics didn’t know they were.  Once they realized it, I thought they’d get help or something.”

“Hmm, maybe,” I said with a shrug.  My stomach was starting to feel a little better with a bit of food in it, so I went for a third cup of water.  After four, I’d have to lay off for a while, or I was going to be sick again.  I poured the cup and looked back at her.  “But when you know exactly what you are and don’t give a shit, that’s kind of different.”

“But that part is over now, right?” she asked.  “I mean, now that you’ve gone through that, you don’t have to drink anymore.”

“But I will.”

“Daniel – you had seizures three times.  I thought I wasn’t going to be able to help you for a couple minutes.  You were shaking so hard – I couldn’t hold you down on your side, and you were having trouble breathing.  You could have died.”

“Yeah, I know,” I responded.  “It doesn’t change anything.  If we happened to land on a beach in the Virgin Islands right now, the first place I’d go is the nearest bar.”

“That’s insane.”

“Maybe.  As long as I don’t ever get this far away from a bottle again, it won’t matter.”

“But…why?”

I shook my head and narrowed my eyes.

“Is it because your parents abandoned you?”

“No,” I said, glaring at her.  I must have said something about them when I was out of it.

“Is it because of Jillian then?”

“Don’t ever say that name again,” I snarled.  I had to look away from her.  Obviously I had talked way too much.  I wondered what else I said.  “I told you, I don’t talk about my past.”

“All right,” she said, tilting her head and looking at me sideways.  She raised herself up on her hands and knees and crawled over to the opening of the raft and pulled back the flap a little.  I couldn’t help but watch her backside as she moved away from me.  I hadn’t really looked at her from that angle before, and there were very sudden, graphic images going on in my head that involved her ass and my hands.  “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I said, and then looked up to her face.  “What?”

“I need to use the en suite bath,” she said with a wry smile.  “A little pretend privacy, please?”

“Oh,” I said and slowly turned my back so she could take off her clothes.  I was starting to feel a little better physically.  There were carbs in me, and I was a bit rehydrated.  I tried not to listen to her movements too much or think about how that round ass was now bare and sliding into the water.  I wondered how tight she would be as little as she was.

I really needed to stop thinking like that.  I was instantly rock hard and pretty sure jerking off in the raft wasn’t going to go over well.  I wondered if I could get in the water under the pretence of taking a dump and jerk off instead.  I shifted a little and tried to think about something – anything – but the naked woman behind me.

“I’m done,” she finally announced.  I kept myself from adding anything colorful to her remark, like how she would only be done when she was screaming my name.  I turned back to her and was met with a better view of the bruise on her cheek which killed my erection pretty quickly.

I remembered wanting to belt Jillian a couple of times towards the end, but I had never done it.  I’d never hit anyone who wasn’t really asking for it.  Well, at least I hadn’t before now.

Shit.

I shifted and moved a little closer to her, my eyes trained on the bluish mark on her cheek.  My left hand reached out to her, and she flinched.  My hand froze in midair, and I looked at her eyes for a moment before reaching out again.  My fingers touched under her jaw line, and my thumb gently brushed over the mark.  It was worse than I had originally thought since the angle hadn’t been right when I saw it before.  Now I could see it quite clearly.

“Why did I hit you?” I asked.  “I don’t remember.”

“I kept touching you,” Raine said with a shrug.  “You told me not to touch you anymore.”

“I remember saying that,” I confirmed.  “Why did you keep doing it?”

“Well…it may sound a little weird,” she said.

I arched an eyebrow at her, willing her to go on with it.

“I used to work at an animal shelter,” she started.  “It was before Dad died – while I was in high school.  There was one summer when a bunch of pit bulls were brought in.  They had been trained to fight, and they weren’t used to being around people.  I helped one of the trainers try to get them acclimated so they could get adopted.”

She looked at me through her lashes and then looked back to her hands.  My thumb traced over the mark again.

“Acclimated?”

“Yes,” she nodded.  “They weren’t used to any kind of affection or anything, so they would either bark at you or cringe when you tried to touch them.  You kind of…remind me of them.”

“I remind you of a dog?”  My fingertips slid under the ridge of her jaw line.

“Not exactly,” she shook her head a little but not so much that I had to remove my fingers from her face.  “You just…don’t seem to know how to deal with people.  When you said you were a fighter, it just made me think of the dogs.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to decide how I felt about being compared to a dog.

“So what does all this have to do with touching me?”

“Part of the rehabilitation for the dogs was to handle them a lot,” Raine explained.  “At first they would growl and snap.  I got bit more than once.  Eventually, you hoped they would get used to it and end up…well, liking it.”

Her voice lowered along with her eyes.

“You were kind of the same way,” she said.  “So I thought if you got acclimated to me touching you, you wouldn’t be afraid of me, and I could help you.”

“Afraid of you?” I scoffed.  My fingers trailed over to her neck underneath her ear while my thumb still traced over the blue mark.  Her skin was amazingly soft, and my eyes dropped down over her bathing suit-clad body for a moment.  Her shoulders trembled, and I looked back up to her eyes.  “I don’t think that was it.  I think you were just pissing me off.”

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree, then,” Raine retorted.

A small laugh escaped my lips as I listened to her words and processed them.

“Did it work?” I asked.  “Did you find homes for the dogs?”

“For some of them,” she said, her eyes darting away from me.

“What about the rest?”

“We had to put some of them down,” Raine said quietly.

“I don’t go down easily,” I said, chuckling at the double entendre.  The thought of going down on her was actually pretty enticing.  “You’ll have to find some other way of taming me.”

My hand went back to stroking over her skin near the mark on her face.

“Why are you doing that?” Raine asked, her voice soft.  I ran my thumb back and forth over her cheek again.

“Maybe I’m just getting acclimated to touching you,” I said.

“Do you think I might adopt you?”

Interesting choice of words.

“Not quite what I had in mind,” I said, not completely sure what I did have in mind.  “Or maybe I’m feeling a little guilty about it, and massaging bruises makes them go away faster.  I’d give you an ice pack, but I don’t have one.”

She leaned back a tiny fraction of an inch, but not far away enough for me to drop my hand.  Her eyes stayed on mine as my thumb found its way around and brushed over her lips.  I could see both fear and excitement in her eyes.  I wondered which was more dominant and how she would react if I just went ahead and made the first move.  I leaned in close to her, tilting my head to one side and bringing my lips to her left ear.

“Or maybe I got acclimated to touching you,” I said into her ear.  I felt her shiver a little.  “Maybe I decided I liked it.”

I ran my nose down the ridge of her jaw to her chin.  I felt her take in a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and then let it out slowly.  I tilted my head again, positioning my lips just a couple inches from hers.  I looked from them back to her eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I leaned in closer, my eyes never leaving hers.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“Why?” Raine’s voice was breathy and strained.

“I want you to get acclimated to having my lips on you,” I responded as I finished closing the gap.

I couldn’t believe how soft her lips were against mine, even softer than the skin below her ear.  Maybe it was because mine were still dry from the recent lack of moisture in my body, or maybe it was just because hers were like that anyway.  I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.  They felt good against me, and she was definitely responding, so I couldn’t help but tilt my head the other direction and kiss her again from a different angle.  And again.

I pulled back and looked at her for a moment, trying to relax my breathing a little and gauge her reaction.  Raine’s eyes were wide and bright, and I could feel her heart rate increase under my fingers near her neck.  I placed my lips on hers again, meaning to be gentle, but when my tongue touched her lips and she opened her mouth, I must have lost a little sanity for a moment.

I grabbed her head in my hands and plunged my tongue into her mouth.  I moved forward, up on my knees, and pushed her body backwards with mine until she was lying underneath me.  When her back hit the floor of the raft, I dropped one hand down her side, brushing lightly against the material of her bathing suit until I reached the bare skin of her thigh.

It was an insanely stupid thing to be doing, I knew.  When you were trying to conserve energy and water, the last thing you wanted to do was engage in any sort of rigorous activity.  My cock trying to rip through my shorts was definitely looking for something rigorous and was definitely only interested in hydration as it was necessary for lubrication.

I ground my hips into her, finding some wonderful, warm friction between her legs as I grabbed her knee and brought it up over my hip.  My mouth continued to assault hers, and my other hand went from her shoulder, down to her waist, around the front, and up to cup her breast.  I could completely cover it with my hand, and I felt myself smile against her lips as my thumb brushed her nipple, and I thought about getting it in my mouth.

I guess conserving energy wasn’t that important after all.

Chapter 5 – Fish

Even with the heat and cramped conditions, her skin felt fantastic in my hands.  I tried to touch her everywhere, and just my hands weren’t enough, so I pulled back from her mouth and trailed kissed over her jaw and down to her neck.  All the pent up energy that had been collecting inside of me flowed out of my hands and mouth and pooled everywhere I could touch her.

“Daniel?”

I grunted into her neck and continued kissing her there.  Maybe someday I’d hear a woman say my actual name again.

“Daniel – stop.”

My thumb grazed over her nipple once more while the word she spoke traveled around in my head, trying to connect with something cognitive.  Maybe all that blood rushing to my cock did affect my ability to think.  My lips hovered above the skin of her neck, and my hands stopped moving.

“Why?”

I paused, which was extraordinarily difficult, and panted against her.  All my muscles tensed and waited and begged to continue grinding against her body – to release the tension.  I waited for her to say something like “let me take my clothes off” or “I want to be on top.”  Those words would do nicely.

“Please, just stop!”

I pulled back, confused, and looked at her eyes.  The fear and excitement I had seen before was gone, replaced by fear alone.  Shit, she almost looked like she was going to cry.

It occurred to me what a total fucking moron I was, going at her like this.  She wasn’t some whore I had just picked up in a bar and offered a wad of cash to calm me and satisfy my need for releasing somewhere other than into my hand.  She had just put up with me acting like a total dick towards her, calling her every name in the book, fucking hitting her, and here I was thinking she might actually want me to screw her.

What an ass.

I pushed off of her and rolled onto my back, tossing my arm over my forehead and trying to force my rapid breathing into something more regulated.  My dick wasn’t best pleased at the whole change in position and complained painfully to me.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

Here was where socially acceptable people would apologize for acting in such a way, but I didn’t because I don’t.  Apologies are useless, so I never offered them.  It wouldn’t change anything, so I just lay there with my eyes closed, willing my cock to deflate and stop being such a fucking nuisance.

“I’m sorry,” I heard her say, which made me laugh.

“What are you sorry for?” I snorted.  She didn’t answer, so I didn’t ask again.  Instead, I concentrated on thinking about anything other than her body, or the way her lips felt against mine, or the taste of her skin, or my dick trying to leap out of my shorts.

About ten minutes after forever, I sat up and glanced over at her.  She was just laying there with silent tears staining her face, not looking in my direction.

What an ass.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” I said, glancing at my watch.  If I acted like nothing had happened, maybe she would just forget the whole thing.  I moved over to the bag with the rations and tore one of the carb bars in half before I tossed it over to her.  It landed just next to her hip.  “You need to drink, too.”

She sat up, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand and taking the cup I offered without saying a word.  She wouldn’t look me in the eye, either, which sucked because I rather liked her eyes.  She drank her water and ate in silence.

Shit.

“Don’t worry about it, okay?” I said, trying to at least not let her think I was pissed off at anyone other than myself.  “I just got a little carried away.”

“You just…surprised me,” she finally said.  “I didn’t think you would…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but she really didn’t need to.

“I never lost my horny teenage tendencies,” I said with a shrug.  At least there was no longer a really visible bulge hanging out in my pants.  She looked like she thought I was going to try something again, so I moved over to the raft opening and looked out over the water with the binoculars just to give myself something innocuous to do.

Water.

Again.

There also weren’t much more than a couple of little fluffy clouds visible, which meant rain wasn’t very likely anytime soon.  I looked over the water supply and figured we were still good for three more days.  Now would probably be a good time to get something other than the ration bars into our systems, but I would have to wait until nightfall.

I started digging through the rest of the survival kit and came up with some line and hooks for fishing which probably weren’t going to be a lot of use here.  If we found land, I could use them, but not on a raft.  I put them back in their sealed pouch and looked over the small knife that was also there.  It wasn’t very big, but it might be useful if I didn’t already have a better one.  Of course, I could lose that one in the water, which would suck.  I took the little one out and tested the blade on the side of my thumb.  At least it was sharp.

“What are you doing?” Raine asked.

“Waiting for night,” I replied.  It was a stupid response, but I didn’t feel much like talking.

“Are you going to stab me in my sleep?” she said, and I looked up quickly to determine if she was joking or not.  I couldn’t tell by her expression.  She just looked…resigned.  I narrowed my eyes and shook my head.

“Of course not,” I growled.  “Why the fuck would I do that?”

“How would I know?”  She shrugged and rolled the empty cup back over towards me and the kits.  Obviously, she didn’t even want to move closer to me, but I couldn’t really blame her for that.  “Why do you do anything you do?”

“Because I’m a selfish bastard, usually,” I said, “but killing you off wouldn’t really benefit me.  Besides, I’d never kill someone when they were sleeping.  That’s just against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“Rules of combat.”

“Were you a soldier?”

“No.”

“What kind of combat?” she asked.

“Do we really need to go over this again?” I retorted.

“You’ve already told me a lot,” she said, tilting her head and raising her eyebrows at me.

Shit.  I was afraid of that.

“What did I say?”

She looked away and then finally moved her eyes back to me.  I just looked right back at her, waiting.

“You kept talking about all the people that died,” she finally said.  “You said you killed a lot of people.”

I tensed.  If I had told her too much or if she figured out what I did, she could be in a lot of danger.  If she ever talked about it to anyone else and someone believed her, she could get herself killed.  I turned my gaze on her and spoke slowly.

“Tell me exactly what I told you.”

She shifted her eyes away from mine and bit down into her lower lip nervously.

“I didn’t understand a lot of it,” she said.  “You said something about tournaments and about people dying in them.  You said you always won.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what else did I say?”

“Nothing else about fighting.”

Good, but not necessarily great.  I also felt a little bit of…remorse?  Like it would have been better if she did know.

“What else did I say that wasn’t about fighting?”

“You talked about…a woman,” she said.  I didn’t miss how carefully she avoided saying the name, which was a good move on her part.  I didn’t want to know what I said about her.

“What else?”

“You just kind of…mumbled stuff.”  She looked down at her hands in her lap and started twisting her fingers around each other.

“Bullshit.  What else did I say?”

Her eyes darted back to mine and then away from me, confirming she was holding something back.

“You kept asking me why no one wanted you,” she finally said.

I laughed.

“Well, it’s good to know there’s some part of me that isn’t a conceited dick.”

“You just want people to think that,” Raine said.

“I don’t give a fuck if people think that or not,” I shot back.

“I held you,” she said, her voice was tense and gaining in volume.  “I held you, and you cried, and you asked me why no one had ever wanted you.  You asked me why your own mother didn’t want you.  You asked me why it hurt so much and if I could make it stop hurting.  I may not know a lot about you, but I know you aren’t as much of a badass as you want people to think you are.”

“You know that, do you?” I sneered, tired of this psychoanalytical game she was playing.  A string of curses formed in the back of my throat and were on their way out when I stopped and let out a long, deep breath.  I was suddenly very, very tired, and I dropped my head into my hands.

“Look, Raine,” I started with a sigh, “I know you are just…trying to help – or whatever – but I really don’t want to be helped.  I like being drunk, and the first opportunity I get, I’m going to get drunk again.”

“I want to know why,” she said simply.

“Why what?”

“Why you became an alcoholic,” she said.  “I just watched you go through hell and just about drag me through it with you.  I want to know why.”

“We’ve been through this,” I reminded her.  “I don’t talk about my past.”

“Well, that was before I kept you from choking to death,” she launched at me.  “It was before I cleaned blood off your face when you tried to bite through your cheek.  It was before you called me every name in the book.  It was before I held you while you cried for four hours straight, and it was before you fucking hit me for trying to help you!”

Wow, I didn’t think I had heard her curse before.

My first reaction was to yell back at her, and I came very, very close to doing so.  My second reaction was to say fuck it all and throw her off the raft, but it was just a fleeting fantasy, not something I really considered.  I thought about tossing myself off the raft, too, figuring that was probably the best thing for all concerned.  Then I considered just turning away and giving her the silent treatment indefinitely.  As much as she liked to talk, it would probably kill her.

The decision I finally made probably shocked me more than it did her.

“Fine.  I’ll tell you.”

“You will?”

“Yeah, but not until night.  I need an actual fucking meal before I get into any of that shit.”

“Meal?” she asked.  I could hear the glimmer of hope in her tone.  “How are you going to manage that?”

I looked over to her and gave her a half smile.

“Wait and see.”

* * * * *

The water was calm which was going to make everything a lot easier.  I made sure the lead was fastened tightly around my stomach before I pushed off of the raft with the knife in one hand and the waterproof flashlight in the other.  I used the make-shift snorkel constructed from the tubing holding the raft’s canopy to breathe while I remained relatively motionless just under the waves.  Only the flashlight moved – bobbing up and down and flashing around in the water.

I don’t know how long I was out there, only that I was nearly exhausted and ready to give up when a two-foot long Black Jack saw the light and came over to check it out.  It swam around me in circles for a few minutes before it finally darted in close enough and tried to nibble at the light in front of my face.

I was instantly alert, and all the fatigue left me.  For a moment, I could see and hear everything around me clearly, even through the murky water.  I knew the location of every muscle in my body and the relative tension of each.  My skin tingled, waiting for the moment when I would strike.  It was the same feeling I had at the start of every tournament.  Anticipation for the battle, yes, but so much more than that.

Total awareness.

You will feel it when you are ready.  Absolute focus.

The knife went right through the side of the big fish, and the creature jerked swiftly right and left.  I already had an arm around it, feeling its scales cut into my bicep and ignoring the pain as they imbedded in my skin.  I twisted the knife back and forth before yanking it up and into the base of the skull.  It stopped its jerking and sank onto the blade.

I broke through the surface of the water holding dinner over my head and saw Raine up on the edge of the raft, clapping her hands with a huge smile on her face.  I couldn’t return it because the snorkel was still in my teeth, but I could feel the corners of my mouth trying to smile back at her anyway.  I shoved the flashlight into my shorts and used the rope lead to get myself back to the edge of the raft where I spat out the snorkel.

“Oh, wow!  I have never seen anything like that!” Raine shouted, looking like she wanted to start jumping up and down and probably toss herself right off of the raft.

I lifted the fish onto the folded down canopy and pulled myself up after it.  As soon as I was back in the raft, I felt her arms wrap around my shoulders and her lips momentarily press into my cheek.

“That was the most incredible thing I have ever seen!” she squealed.  She looked flustered as she moved back away from me.  “I mean – I couldn’t see very well because of the water, and you drifted a little ways away, but I could see the light, and I saw the fish try to jump out of the water, and you just held it, and…”

“Raine!  Relax!”

“How in the world did you do that?”

I arched an eyebrow at her and gave her a half grin.

“I’m just that good,” I answered, winking at her.

“Oh, Daniel!” she exclaimed, her eyes darting down to my bicep.  “You’re bleeding!”

I looked over to my arm and saw about a dozen scales imbedded in my skin.  I quickly yanked them out and held the towel to my arm for a minute.

“It’s not deep,” I said.  Raine had her hands over her mouth and looked like she wanted to puke.  “Don’t you dare get sick on me!”

She nodded and swallowed hard.

“Besides,” I smiled up at her, opening my eyes wide, “I like a little pain and blood – it makes people think it was a lot harder than it really was.”

“You look so smug right now!” Raine laughed.

“Well, I know what’s coming next,” I said.

“What’s next?” she asked, her jovial tone dropping down a couple of notches.

“You get the best part of the fish.”

“I do?”

“Yep.”  I sat down and handed her the light so she could point it down where I was working.  I ditched the crappy little survival knife and reached across the raft to my jackknife instead.  I split the fish open from the top and carefully cut around the vertebrae, paying special attention not to pierce the spinal column.  “You might have to close your eyes and not think about it, but this is definitely the best part.”

Raine sat back on her heels, eyeing me warily now.  She glanced as I pulled out the entire length of vertebrae with the intact spinal column.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Well, if I were you,” I told her, “I would not ask any questions, close my eyes, and just do what I’m told.  I figure you’re going to want all the gory details though, aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“You’re sure?”  I took a deep breath and proceeded after another quick nod.  “The spinal fluid is mostly water, and unlike the water in the rest of the tissues, there’s almost no salt in it.  It’s the freshest water you can get out of the ocean, but you have to drink it now because it’s going to leak out quick.  I don’t want it wasted.”

“You want me to…drink…”  She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Sit back,” I said, nudging her with my shoulder.  For once, she did what I said and dropped from her knees down to her ass.  It made her chest bounce a little, which made me smile a little.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I answered, shaking my head to clear it.  I was a sick fucker; I knew that.  I was probably the only man in existence who could get horny from pretty much any physical activity.  Fishing was no exception.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Just close your eyes and open your mouth.”  I couldn’t help but smile more and raise my eyebrows at her.  “When I tell you to suck, suck.”

“Oh, very funny,” she snapped back at me.  “I’m not going to…”

“Don’t think,” I interrupted, tilting her head back a little with my finger under her chin.  “Don’t taste.  Just drink it down as fast as you can.”

“Why me?” she asked.  “Why don’t you drink it?”

“You need it more than I do.”

I don’t know how she managed to do it, really, but she closed her eyes and opened her mouth, and I cut through the spinal column and held it up to her lips.

“Suck hard,” I said, trying not to picture myself putting something else in her mouth.  She did, grimacing at first, and I thought she might not finish it.  “Don’t stop!”

She listened and gulped it all down quickly.  It would help her a lot with the digestion of the fish’s flesh.

“That was really, really disgusting.”

“Beats death,” I shrugged.  “I thought you looked kind of hot doing that.”

“You are sick.”  Raine’s face turned into a grimace, and she looked around the raft nervously.

I shrugged again since I didn’t have any argument against that.

“Ready to eat?”

“How are you going to cook it?”

“Seriously, Raine?” I stifled the laugh.  “Princesses like you know all about sushi.  I should be charging you at least ten bucks for every piece.”

“Raw?”  She cringed and made her face scrunch up.

“All you have to do is imagine the rice and wasabi,” I smiled, trying to put her at ease a little.  I cut off a piece and downed it myself, trying not to chew it too much because it really wasn’t particularly tasty.  I cut another one and held it out to her.

Raine looked at the piece of raw fishy-flesh between my fingers then back to me.  She did that a couple of times before she finally took it and shoved it into her mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly.

“That’s awful,” she said.

“I know,” I replied.  I smiled at the face she was making and tried not to laugh out loud.  “But it’s a shitload better than nothing.”

“If that’s what sushi tastes like, I’m glad I never had it.”

“You never had sushi?” I marveled.  “I thought all you high society bitches were weaned on that shit.”

“Why do you think I’m rich?” she asked.

“Because you were a passenger on my ship, and it costs a fucking fortune to travel like that,” I answered.   “You have to be.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said.  “I told you, my father was a cop.  He didn’t make a lot of money.”

Well, yeah, I did remember that.  I kind of figured mom must have been a doctor or an executive or something.

“How’d you get on my ship?”

“I used the settlement money from the state,” she answered.  “I never wanted it, but I got it anyway.  Lindsay convinced me to use most of it for the cruise.”

“You should have booked a chalet in Aspen or something.”

“I think you are probably right.”

“But hey, if you had done that,” I said, holding my arms out wide and smiling, “you wouldn’t have met me and had the time of your life with the biggest asshole in the Caribbean detoxifying right in front of you!”

At least I made her laugh.

“You are an ass,” she agreed.

“I know,” I said, still smiling.  I held up a chunk of fish meat.  “At least I’m a useful ass.”

“Why are you so…cheerful all of a sudden?” she asked.

I tore another chunk of muscle with my teeth and ate it, looking at her and debating.

“I always feel this way after a fight,” I finally said.  “Leftover adrenaline or something.”

“Is that when you started drinking?  To get rid of the extra energy or whatever?”

“No,” I said shaking my head and scowling.  “I might have a beer or something, but I never really drank after a fight.”

“When did you start to drink more?”

I looked over to her and knew this was exactly what she was waiting for, and she wasn’t going to let me out of it until I gave her some answers or fucking gagged her.  I did want to gag her, but not quite in that way.  I know – I’m fucking depraved.

“I didn’t start really drinking until after my last fight.”

“Did you lose?”

“I never lost,” I snorted.  Losers didn’t walk away from a fight.

“Tell me about it,” she insisted.

“Finish eating and let me clean this shit up first,” I said with a sigh.

My mood fell a bit, and we ate in silence until neither of us could eat any more.  I let us both drink a little more water than usual since we had enough for now, and the proteins in the fish would take more water to digest.  I thought about taking a few of the bigger pieces of flesh from the Black Jack and cutting them into strips so they could dry, but I doubted we would have enough water left to eat them after a day or so anyway, so it all got pitched over the side.  Raine helped me clean off the top of the canopy where we cleaned and ate the fish, wash out the towels, and get the canopy back in its track so it would offer us sun protection come morning.

Once we were back under the canopy and settled in, I sighed and looked over to her.  She was barely illuminated by the little solar powered battery light at the top of the raft canopy.  The light would only last a couple more hours, and I wondered how long it would take me to tell her all of this.

Part of me was glad – looking forward to it, even.  I’d never told anyone how it all happened.  Most of me was about as scared as I had ever been because I didn’t want her to know all of this about me.  I took a long, deep breath and decided to just get on with it.

“I’m going to tell you a bunch of shit that’s totally illegal,” I said to Raine, looking her in the eye.  “On the off chance we live through this, you can never tell anyone about it.  If you do, someone’s likely to track you down and kill you.”

“If you’d kill me for knowing, why tell me?”

“It wouldn’t be me tracking you down,” I said.  “Understand?”

She nodded and agreed not to repeat anything I was about to tell her.  I didn’t know if I could trust her or not, but I was going to tell her anyway.

“The first time I sent someone to the hospital from a fight was third grade.”  I waited for her gasp and wasn’t disappointed.  “Yeah, I was a dick then, too.  He only needed a couple of stitches, but still – I started early.  I had a lot of energy and a lot of tension, and I didn’t know what to do with it.  I always had problems with my temper, and anytime I got pissed off about something, I usually talked with my fists.  No one ever really tried to get me to channel all the energy and anger somewhere else until Landon, and I was nearly an adult, then.  If I remember right, I already told you the deal with my real parents.”

“You said they abandoned you,” Raine confirmed.

“Yeah, I guess so.  I was three when the owner of some hole in the wall bar in Chicago’s Southside found me crawling around underneath a pool table after the place was closed.  He had never seen me before, so he called the cops and I became a ward of the state or whatever.  At least, that’s what one of my foster mothers told me.  I don’t remember that far back.”

“I was in eleven different foster homes from then until I was fourteen.  That’s when the kid I put in the hospital needed a lot more than a couple stitches.  I ended up in a juvenile detention facility for a few months.  The foster parents said they didn’t want me back, so I got put in a group home.”

“I think I was in that one for about eighteen months.  I beat the shit out of anyone who came anywhere near me, so most people didn’t.  I had a pretty decent reputation when this girl was brought in.  See, the group homes were really kind of a campus with a boys’ side, and a girls’ side, and a big building in the middle where everyone ate and had school classes and shit.  The first day I remember seeing her, we were sitting down to eat, and some dick walked behind her and groped her.  She went fucking ballistic, screaming and crying.  They ended up having to sedate her to haul her out.”

“I didn’t think anything about it – that kind of shit happened all the time – but a couple days later she came up to me in the yard and sat down about three feet away from me.  I just glared at her and asked her what the fuck she wanted because I’m a dick.  That’s when she made me a deal that no hormonal teenage boy would ever pass up.”

I looked over to Raine and saw she was staring at me intently, just waiting for me to go on.  I wondered what she would think of me when all of this was over.  I wondered if I should even tell this part of the story.

“Those homes were…well, brutal.  All kinds of nasty shit happened there because there were too many kids and not enough staff or money or whatever it was.  People didn’t fuck with me because I’d cracked someone’s skull open the second day I was there, but there were plenty of opportunities for guys to…”

My mouth shut and I didn’t want to go on.  I hadn’t thought about any of this shit in so long, and at the time, none of it had really even bothered me.  The fact that it didn’t bother me then was really bothering me now.

“Go on,” Raine said softly.

“Shit,” I mumbled, then just spit it out.  “Chicks got raped all the time because there was no one there to stop them.  This chick wanted me to act as a…bodyguard, really.  She didn’t like people touching her when she wasn’t expecting it and wanted me to stick around her and keep any of the other guys from fucking with her.  She snuck over to the boys’ dorm every night and sucked me off for protection.  It was totally fucked up, but she begged me to do it, so I did.”

“What was her name?”

I realized I was rocking back and forth and made myself stop.  I could feel all the extra energy building up inside of me again, with nowhere to go.  Maybe the decent meal, such as it was, gave me more energy than I was going to be able to handle in this little raft.  That could be bad.

“Theresa,” I finally said, not looking over to her.  The memory hit me right between the eyes, and my head actually hurt saying her name out loud.  I couldn’t do this.  I couldn’t talk about this shit, so I skipped ahead a couple years.

“I ended up on the streets when I was seventeen,” I continued.  I saw Raine’s eyes narrow slightly, realizing I had just skipped over a big chunk of time.  Tough, she was just going to have to deal with it.  “One night, I watched a fight between a couple of kids in an alley, and when it was over, all the people standing around them started passing money back and forth.  The guy that won the fight got a big wad of it handed to him.  Next thing I knew, I was street fighting for cash.”

“About three months afterwards, I was in a really nasty fight.  The guy I took down was a big name in street fighting, and all the bookies and shit had ten to one odds against me.  When it was over and he was still lying in the street bleeding, there was only one guy besides me collecting any money.”

“He came up to me and started asking me a shitload of questions.  How long I had been fighting, how I ended up on the streets – lots of bullshit like that.  Then he asked if I wanted to make some real money fighting, and I said ‘hell yeah.’”

“He asked me two more questions, and my answers changed everything.”

I stopped, running over the scene from my memory a few times, wondering how things would be different if I had said yes instead of no.

“What did he ask you?” Raine prompted.

I was rocking back and forth again and seriously doubting whether or not I should be saying any of this to her.  I also knew our chances of survival were going down really, really quickly.  Maybe I needed to tell this shit to someone before I actually died.

“He asked me if I was afraid to kill.  Then he asked me if I was afraid to die.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no to both,” I told her.  “That’s how I met Landon.”

I paused and thought again about all the shit I was contemplating telling her.  Once I kept going from this point, there was no turning back.  She’d have enough information to get herself killed if she ever talked about it to the wrong person.

“You can’t ever tell anyone about this,” I reminded her.  “No one – ever.”

“I won’t tell anyone, Daniel.  I swear.”

“Okay,” I nodded.  Maybe I needed to trust her with this.  Maybe I needed to tell her.  Maybe that’s why she was here with me.  “We probably need to start right there.  My name’s Bastian, not Daniel.”

I guess I was going to tell her everything after all.

Chapter 6 – Game

There.  I did it.  I told her my real name.  I didn’t know why, but it felt good saying it.

“Why did you say it was Daniel?”  Raine cocked her head to one side and looked at me quizzically.

“I’ve gone by Daniel for years – ever since I quit fighting.”  I looked down at the floor of the raft, as if there was something interesting there.

“Why did you change your name?”

“You’ll have to wait until I get to that part,” I said.  I tilted my head the opposite way of hers and gave her a half smile.

“Go on, then.”

“Are you sure you want me to?”

“Yes, I am.”  Raine stopped twisting her fingers around long enough to look up at me through her dark lashes.  Some of her hair had fallen into her face, creating a curtain in front of her eyes.

I took a couple of deep breaths and wondered what I should say next.  I didn’t want to go into a lot of detail.  She might think she wanted to hear this shit, but the particulars were pretty ugly.  While I was trying to decide, Raine spoke again.

“I ended up adopting one of those pit bulls, you know.  His name was Mister Fluffy.”

“Mister Fluffy?  Seriously?”  I laughed and Raine laughed along with me.  I tried to picture that name on a tag hanging from the studded metal collar of a short-haired pit bull.  “Mister Fluffy, the pit bull.”

“He was my best friend,” she said with a glorious smile that jumped from her face right to my dick.  “He had a really rough start in life, but he ended up with a yard to play in and a basket full of tennis balls, so it wasn’t all bad.  I think he ended up pretty happy, but he was always skittish around strangers.  I always felt bad that he could never tell me what happened to him.”

“So I’m back to being a dog again?”  If she thought she was being subtle with her analogy, she was seriously wrong.

“If you want to think of it that way.”

“If you refer to me as ‘fluffy’ in any way, I’m going to get pissed.”

She laughed again.

“I’ll try to remember that,” she said.

I took a deep breath and got on with it.

“We went for a ride in Landon’s Mercedes and eventually stopped at one of his apartments.  He ordered me dinner, which was the first decent meal I had in…well, maybe ever.  I don’t know.  He told me he wanted me to fight for him, but the fights were different from what I was used to seeing.  He told me not everyone comes out of the fights alive and asked me what I thought about that.  He was seriously understating everything, but I didn’t know that at the time.  He told me I could make a shit-ton of money and have chicks begging me for my cock if I was any good.  I knew I was good, so I said I was interested.”

“Landon took me to watch a tournament about a week later.  I met a bunch of other people that ran the games then, too.  It became pretty clear that I was basically Landon’s new racehorse, and as far as the rest of them were concerned, he owned me.  That kind of pissed me off until he told me how much money I’d make if I won the first game.  For a kid who had never had anything, it was too tempting.  I couldn’t turn that shit down.”

“What was the game, Dan…um…Bastian?”

“We went into a big warehouse,” I continued.  “Landon told me this was a small tournament – a kind of beginner’s game.  Small area – only the size of the building.  Some of the bigger tournaments went on for miles through all kinds of terrain.  We went past an area that was all windows, and you could look down into kind of an arena down below.  Some people were standing around there, looking through the windows, placing bets and shit, but most people were in the next room.  Mostly guys but a lot of women, too, all done up in fucking cocktail dresses and diamonds.  There were observation windows like the first one, but there was also a huge wall full of closed circuit television monitors.”

“Each one showed a different area.  A bunch showed the big arena area from different angles, but others showed empty corridors, stairwells, and rooms filled with boxes or crates.  Then there were six cameras that were moving around.  I figured out later that they were attached to helmets on people in the tournament and whenever they turned their heads, you saw what they saw.  It made you feel like you were in there.”

I stopped for a minute and took a deep breath.  I was hitting that point of no return, and I glanced over to her one more time to see if she really wanted to hear the rest of this.  She was staring at me intently with those soft, brown eyes, and I was nearly torn in two with the simultaneous desires to protect her from knowing any of this shit existed and telling her everything.

“Go on,” she said.

“Why do you want to hear this?” I questioned.

“Because I saw what it did to you,” Raine told me.  “I want to know.”

I looked back into those eyes but saw nothing to indicate her decision wasn’t complete, so I went on.

“Five guys, one chick, and about fifteen minutes.  That’s all it took, and there was one camera still moving on the chick who was left standing.  She ran out to the middle of the arena area and waved to everyone watching while the other players were carted off.  The guys placing bets were just like the ones on the street, but the amounts – those were a lot different.  On the street, I’d maybe make a couple hundred bucks on a good fight.  Since the first one I watched was smaller, the stakes weren’t quite as high, but the winner walked out with a quarter million.”

“A quarter million dollars?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.  “Not bad for fifteen minutes of work.”

“How did she get so much?”

“Just like with any gambling, it’s all about who loses the bets.  With six people to bet on, a lot of the betters are going to lose.  When you bet fifty grand on a game, it adds up fast.  That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do it, even after watching the first game.  Landon knew I wanted to play and then spent two months training me.  He said I was the best he had ever seen, and I started making a ton of money right away.”

“Bastian, I don’t think I understand.”  Raine rose up a hand and stopped me from going on.  “How did they fight?  What happened to the other people in it?”

I had hoped she would get it right away, so I wouldn’t have to be so blunt.  I also kind of hoped she wouldn’t get it at all.  Obviously, she was going to make me spell all this shit out to her.  I drummed my fingers on my knee for a minute, trying to think of a way to explain.

“It’s like a live video game, you know?  We’d all be put in an area, and there are cameras everywhere, so the people who are watching and betting on us can see everything from every angle, even as the players see it.  In most games you went in with nothing but whatever you were wearing – no weapons or anything.  If you looked around, you could find something – pieces of pipe, knives, ropes, wrenches, candlesticks – you know, the whole ‘Clue’ complement.  There were special tournaments with firearms and all kinds of shit like that, but those were really exclusive.  I was only ever in three of them.  You fought the other players, and the last man standing won.”

“What do you mean, exactly – ‘last man standing?’”

I took another deep breath.

“Whoever was still alive.”

“You mean you…just killed…?”

“I won because I killed everyone else there.”

I just blurted the last bit out, and watched a modicum of understanding flare up in her eyes as they went wide and she comprehended exactly what I was saying.  For a while she just sat, taking it all in and looking up at me like I was going to tell her I was only joking or something.

“You are like the pit bulls.”

I glared at her.  I wasn’t a fucking trained dog.  I knew what I was doing, and I loved every minute of it.  My head was starting to pound again, and I didn’t feel like arguing with her about it.

“Maybe,” I said with a shrug.  “Not really, though.  I had a choice.”

“No,” Raine said with conviction, “you didn’t.”

“Of course I did.”

She let it go.

“And this was a…game?”

“That’s how we saw it, yeah.”

“You did it for money?”

“Millions,” I confirmed.  “In my first fight, I made enough to take me from the streets to a penthouse apartment.  I went from going to sleep hungry every night to five star restaurants.  Instead of stealing bus fare, I was driving a fucking Ferrari.  My hand got replaced by ten women a night begging me to fuck them.  They’d actually line up outside my hotel room and just wait their turn.”

“I made a name for myself pretty quickly because I was faster, and smarter, and more brutal than any other tournament player Landon had ever seen.  In one night, I went from nothing to something.  I fought and won three to five games a month for almost seven years.  I got stabbed in the back – you saw the scar – beat up, shot, burned, you name it, but I never lost a game.”

* * * * *

The light was out, but I knew Raine was still sitting in the darkness and trying to wrap her head around everything I told her.  I was kind of surprised she asked me to stop before I just couldn’t go on anymore.  Now that I was no longer going forward with the story, I found myself backing up to the parts I skipped over – mainly, Theresa.

In my mind I could still see her clearly – blonde hair, long legs, and blank, expressionless eyes that screamed “I’ve seen too much.”  I remembered the way she’d always sit hunched over, like she was trying to make herself invisible.  Whenever any other guys came near, she’d immediately move over and stand in front of me so I could put my hands on her hips and show whoever it was that she was claimed.

I remembered how, for the first couple of months, she’d suck my cock every night, but I wasn’t allowed to touch her while she did it.  I just leaned back on my elbows and let her go at it.  Once she trusted me more, I could put my hands on her shoulders but never her head.  She hated that.

I knew she’d had some fucked up shit done to her before, but she never told me what or who.

Raine shifted around, and I could hear her fold up the towel and lay down on it.  After a few minutes, I heard her take a deep breath before dropping off to sleep.  I spent about an hour watching for lights of any kind on the horizon but saw nothing, so I lay down to sleep as well.  I should have known better because the kind of dreams I hadn’t had since I went to bed drunk every night started coming back.

Theresa walked slowly away from me, waving her hand and looking at me with her half closed, dead blue eyes.  An owl flew across my line of sight, and I watched it as it flew up into the air and landed on the branch of the big tree in the yard of the group home.  When I looked back, Theresa was gone.  The new counselor was gone, too.  I knew he was going to hurt her, but I just kept standing there, watching the owl up on its perch.  Then I was in a bathroom, looking down a line of showers.  I hadn’t been in here before, but I knew where I was.  I took a couple of steps forward and slipped in a bright red pool on the ground.

I sat straight up and covered my mouth to stop any sound from coming out.  Sweat dripped into my eyes until I wiped my brow with the back of my hand.  I tried holding my breath to stop it from coming out so fast, but I couldn’t.  I had to allow myself to pant until my body calmed down a little.

I pulled back the flap to let in some fresh air, allowing the light from the full moon to pour in around me.  With shaking hands, I pulled the last cigarette out of the pouch on my belt and lit it.  At least the regular deep breathing that goes along with smoking helped me to relax a little.  The visions were still in my head though.  The nicotine didn’t do anything to help with that shit.

I smoked and tried to think about doing shots in the bar the night before The Oblation capsized.  I thought about the hooker who left me her business card and how good it was getting off in her.

It didn’t make any difference.  All I could see was a pool of blood on the floor of a little walk-in shower stall, and all I could hear was the last conversation I had with her as it played through my head.

“Can I ask you a question, Bastian?” Theresa asked.  She used the back of her hand to wipe off the corner of her mouth.

“Sure,” I said, pulling my jeans back up and lighting a smoke.

“Do you like me?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said – do you like me?”

“I like the way you look up at me when your lips are wrapped around my cock,” I said with a laugh.  She looked away and didn’t join in my laughter.  “Shit, babe – I was just fucking with you.  You know I like you.”

“What if I didn’t want to do this anymore?”  Theresa waved her hand between the two of us.

“You want to stop?” I said with a scowl.  “This was your idea, not mine.”

“I’m not saying that – just wondering if you would still like me then.”

“This is a fucking stupid conversation.”  I sat back against the wall and played with my cigarette.

“You should stop smoking.  It’s bad for you.”

“What the fuck, Theresa?”

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

I brought the cigarette back up to my mouth and sucked hard before flicking ash out over the water.  I watched it float off, spinning around in the wind until it hit the black water and disappeared.

“Bastian?”

I took another drag on the cigarette, not wanting any of this last little peace of mind to be wasted.  I didn’t look at her.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure,” I said.  My voice sounded dead, even to me.  I took the final drag off the final cigarette, cringed at the taste of burning filter in my mouth, and tossed the butt into the water.

“What happened to her?”

“Who?” I asked, knowing full well who she meant.  How she knew I was thinking about her, I couldn’t fathom.  Women’s intuition, I guessed.

“Theresa.”

My shoulders tightened, and I closed my eyes for a second before looking back out over the water.  I slowly closed the flap back up and moved myself back before lying down a couple feet away from her.   I shifted, tried to find a more comfortable position on my back and stared up at the dark canopy.

“She killed herself,” I finally said.

I heard Raine scooting across the floor, moving closer to me.  I turned my head to look towards her and saw her reach her hand out to me.  Her fingertips met the hair near my temple, and she stroked down over my jaw and cheek, and then under my chin before she reached back up to my temple and started all over again.  I flinched at first but didn’t back away, and she didn’t stop.

Raine moved a little closer to me, and I felt my breath lodge in my lungs and refuse to come out as she wrapped her arm around my head and brought me against her shoulder.  Her fingers kept tracing over my cheek.

All my muscles tensed up, and I simply didn’t know what to do, so I froze.  For a few minutes, I did nothing.  With closed eyes, I lay there on my side next to her and just felt her fingers caress me.  Of its own volition, my hand reached out and tentatively crept over her abdomen until my arm encircled her waist.  I pulled her against me and opened my eyes, looking up at her.

I could only barely make out her face and her eyes in the darkness, but I could see her sad smile, and her eyes held an expression I didn’t think I had ever seen before.  I didn’t know what to make of it, so I just stared at her for a while as she ran her fingers over my face.  Eventually I tilted my head back down, settling against her shoulder, and letting the darkness swallow me back up.

* * * * *

The situation was becoming more desperate.

There was a day’s worth of water left, assuming I didn’t start cutting the amounts in half.  I didn’t really have much choice.  I decided to cut myself back more than Raine – I really didn’t think she could afford it.

I heard her waking up behind me and handed her a half cup of water without saying anything or meeting her eyes.  I didn’t understand exactly what happened between us the previous night, but I was about as uncomfortable with it as I could be.

“I think I felt better after eating that fish,” Raine told me.

“I’m sure you did,” I said with a nod.

“Will you try to get another one tonight?”

“If I do, you better be in the mood for spinal fluid.  You can’t eat any more fish.”

“Why not?”

“Because the water level is getting low,” I told her, trying not to sound too pissy because I was pretty sure we’d been over this shit before.  “It doesn’t look like there’s going to be any rain anytime soon, so no protein.  It takes too much water to digest proteins.  Don’t drink any more than I give you and only one and a half of the ration bars today, too.”

“Getting bossy, aren’t you?”

I glanced over to her with narrowed eyes, but she was smiling at me.  Maybe she was joking, but I wasn’t very sure, and I definitely wasn’t in the mood for it.  At the rate we were going, we would be out of water too soon.  There were no signs indicating land was near, and we had to be way too far south to be in the normal shipping lanes at this point.  In other words, we were almost completely screwed.

I needed to think and come up with a plan.  I needed to get us the hell off this raft and onto some land where finding water was more likely.  I needed to be able to think with a clear head, and I just couldn’t.

Whenever I tried to focus on something I was doing, I felt her body pressed up against mine.

Whenever I lost focus on what I was doing, I could feel her torso moving slightly up and down as she breathed in her sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel her hand running over my face.

This was completely and totally fucked up, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I tried watching for any signs of ships, or land, or a fucking sea turtle I could strap a note to, but there was nothing. I was starting to get agitated and was actually considering going for a swim just to get some of the energy out.  As it was, I drummed my fingers against the binoculars or on the side of the raft.  Sometimes I pulled at the unraveling hem at the end of my shorts, or I went through the survival packs for the umpteenth time.

I was so wound up, I couldn’t even hold myself still.

“You are driving me crazy,” Raine voiced.

“Why don’t you kiss my ass?” I snarled.  I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down.  “I’m fucking bored.”

I couldn’t take it anymore and pushed myself up to the raft opening.  After securing myself to the lead, I stripped down to my boxers and dived into the water.  I swam against the current, knowing full well I was using up energy I should be conserving, but I wasn’t going to do myself or Raine any good if I was a complete nutcase.

The water was cool, and I thought I should probably soak my shirt and let Raine wear it to keep from getting too hot.  Doing that too often was a mistake since the salt water could cause sores on skin, but at some point there was a tradeoff between the sores and heat exposure.  At least the nights had been cooler.

I swam a little and then floated on my back, staring up at the sky and trying not to think about anything.  Telling Raine all that shit about me brought too much of it to the forefront of my mind, and I didn’t like it.  Visions of fights traipsed around in my head, but those didn’t bother me too much.  When my thoughts went to a darkened, smoke- filled room and sixteen people standing against a wall…that’s when I had to flip over and start swimming again.

I wanted a fucking drink so I wouldn’t be thinking about any of this shit.

I opened my eyes and blinked against the sting of the salt.  A flash of yellow skimmed near my shoulder.  Then another one went by.  And another.

I broke through the surface and yelled over to Raine.

“Pull the canopy back and flatten it out like I had it last night!”

Raine nodded through her confused expression and did as I told her.  I dived back under, twisting my body around to get a better view of the huge school of Yellowtail Snappers – hundreds and hundreds of them.  There were so many, I couldn’t miss.  As they swam around me, I flexed my fingers a couple of times, resurfaced for one last gulp of air, and went to work.

Catching fish bare-handed isn’t as tough as it seems when you know what you are doing.  I came at them from the bottom and grabbed them by the gills before flinging them up into the air and onto the raft.  Within about ten minutes, there were a dozen of them flopping around on the top of the canopy.

I climbed back aboard and tried to shake most of the water off of myself before getting off the edge of the ladder and back into the raft proper.  Fish were flopping everywhere, so I wasted no time grabbing my knife and getting to work.

“We’re not eating any of it,” I reminded Raine.  “This is just for the water, which is more important.”

She nodded, took a deep breath, and let me tip the torn open spine of the first fish into her mouth.  I took the second one, and then gave her the third.  They weren’t as big as the Black Jack, but there were plenty of them.  We went back and forth like that until they were all gone.  It took a little coercion, but I got her to suck the fluid out of the eyes as well.

“I think that saved us a good day’s worth of water,” I said as I tossed the last of the fish bits off the raft.

“How much water is left?” she asked.

“It was just enough for today,” I admitted.  “Now we can lengthen that out another day.”

“You are incredible,” Raine said.  She fixed her shining eyes at me, and I couldn’t help but feel it.  I gave her a crooked smile back and tilted my head to the side.

“It’s true,” I told her.  “I am.  You should try me out sometime.”

She tilted her head up, and her eyes focused on my mouth.  It seemed like I could hear her heartbeat in her chest as she raised herself up just enough to touch my lips with hers.

I tried to hold myself still because what I really wanted to do was shove my tongue down her throat, pin her down on the bottom of the raft, and tear the swimming suit right off of her.  I wanted to feel her bare skin in my hands.  And fuck, I really wanted to get my dick between her legs.

Instead, I remained almost motionless and let her mouth touch mine slowly, remembering how soft her mouth felt on mine the first time, and noting subtle changes in the moisture of her lips from then to now.

Raine pulled away, and I opened my eyes to look at her.

“Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to,” she answered, her eyes looking away from me.

“You know when you do that, I just want to fuck you as quickly as possible.”

“Did you ever think of moving a little slower?” Raine suggested.  “Not all relationships have to have sex right away.”

“I don't do relationships,” I told her.  “I try to keep things a little easier.  No flowers, no commitments.  Just fucking.”

Raine’s face darkened and she looked away from me again.  I couldn’t tell if she was mad or just embarrassed, but I wasn’t going to let her think I could be anything other than what I was.  That nasty, evil part of me who could snap a guy’s neck and fuck his girlfriend afterwards told me to fucking lie to her and get her naked, but I couldn’t do that.  Not to her.

“That’s not quite what I’m used to,” she said after a few minutes of silence.

“Well, I learned my lesson,” I told her.  Before she could open her mouth, I shut her down.  “And no, I do not want to talk about it.”

“Do you want to start back up where you left off last night?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to talk,” I said.  Her eyes looked downcast, and she seemed so disappointed, I got pissed at myself.  “Why don’t you tell me something about you instead?”

“Okay,” Raine said, scrunching up her face a little.  “What do you want to know?”

I thought about it for a minute and wondered what I did want to know about the woman next to me.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty,” she responded.  “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine,” I said, “but I’m asking the questions here.”

Raine smiled and waved her hand, indicating for me to continue.

“What are you going to study in college?”

“I don’t know yet,” Raine said with a blush.  “There are a lot of things I might like to do, but I haven’t been able to pick one.”

“How did you end up on The Oblation?”

“I told you – my friend convinced me.”

“She convinced you to go on a cruise,” I clarified.  “What made you pick my ship?”

“I thought it was pretty,” Raine said with a shrug.  “I’m not one for big crowds, so I wanted the private charter.  I loved the look of your kind of boat…”

“Ship,” I growled.

“Ship,” Raine corrected.  “I thought it looked like an old pirate ship or something.  It looked…exciting.”

“Have you had enough excitement yet?” I asked.

“Quite enough, thank you!”  Raine smiled.

“How did you get the money?”

She looked back down at her fingers and slid her teeth over her bottom lip again.

“I got a settlement when my dad died,” she said.

“Yeah, you said that.  Why did you get the settlement?”

“He died in the line of duty,” Raine said softly, “but he was sent somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.  The private investigator had some information that one of his superiors sent him there on purpose, knowing he would be in over his head.  They ended up giving me the money to avoid the civil suit, but it really came down to him being sent into a situation where he shouldn’t have been.  He wasn’t supposed to be there, so he shouldn’t have died.”

“Where did they send him?”

“No one would ever tell me,” Raine said with a shrug.  “That was part of the lawsuit.  I didn’t care about the money; I just wanted to know what happened to my dad.”

“So what happened to him?”

“Well, from what I could get out of the testimony that was made public, he was executed.”

My stomach muscles tightened up in my gut, and I felt a shiver run down my back.

“Who executed him?”

“It was a crime lord,” Raine said.  “Dad was just a small-town cop – he never should have been wherever he was.  He had no idea what he was walking into.”

“What did he walk into?”

“They wouldn’t tell me,” Raine said.  “There was someone who was there – someone from the organization who offered up his testimony to keep from going to jail, but it was all closed courtroom.  They wouldn’t even let me in, and all the transcripts were classified.  They said it was all too confidential and the investigation was still going on and all these other lines.  I didn’t know what to believe.  I think they gave me all the money just to keep the lawyers from making it more public.  My lawyer was happy with the money and told me I should just take it.  No one else would touch the case, so I did.  It wasn’t what I wanted, so I never spent any of the money before this trip.”

I didn’t even hear the last part of what she said.  I tried to swallow but I couldn’t get anything through my throat.  Various thoughts gathered around in my head like a rugby scrum, and the final conclusion made me want to vomit.

“Raine…” I said softly, finally getting my mouth to form some sort of actual, intelligible word.  “Raine Gayle?”

“Yeah, how did you…?”

“Henry Gayle’s daughter,” I interrupted.  It wasn’t a question; I knew it was true.

I remembered her name from the trial.  One of the lawyers said the daughter of the cop was trying to get access to the courtroom.  Landon used his influence to make sure that didn’t happen.  I looked down at my hands, waiting for them to start shaking, but I think even my limbs were in too much shock to do anything.

“Daniel, how do you know my father’s name?”

“It’s not Daniel.”  As soon as I said it, I regretted it.

“Sorry – I forgot.  Bastian…” Raine paused and then repeated my name.  “Bastian?”

Ah, shit.  I really, really needed a drink now.

“Sebastian?”

She looked up at me, blinked twice, and then looked away.  Her head snapped back to me, and her eyes went wide.

“Sebastian Stark.”

My mouth wouldn’t respond to any mental commands, so I went with a nod instead.

“You were there.”

I nodded my head again.

“You’re the one who testified against the man who killed him.”

Another nod.

“You…you watched him die?” Her voice broke on the last word, making it sound like a question.  I could no longer move my head.

I guess I didn’t need all that anonymity after all.

Chapter 7 – Hurt

All my muscles were tensed and ready, as if they perceived a threat similar to the beginning of a tournament.  There was something different in the feeling, and when I realized my muscles were tensed for flight, not fight, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  My natural reaction had always been fight – I had never run from anything in my life.  What was it about this miniscule little girl that scared the shit out of me?  Once she understood everything, she was going to hate me, and the thought was extremely unnerving.  I didn’t want her to hate me.

I waited in silence and watched Raine warily.  I couldn’t even name all the emotions passing over her face as she put the little puzzle pieces in their proper places and realized how big a dick I really was.  Her mouth kept opening up a little like she was going to say something, but then she’d stop and look away from me.

I’d been there when her father was killed.  I heard him beg for the mercy of death as they tortured him.  I heard him cry for his daughter.  I heard him beg for his life before I watched the barrel of a gun point at his head.  It didn’t matter at that point – he couldn’t have survived what they had done to him.  Regardless, I just sat in my seat and didn’t move when the trigger was pulled and his brains splattered on the wall behind him.  I never moved.  I never protested.  I just watched it happen.  Three of them had died before I had managed to stand and move towards them.  At that point, John Paul had grabbed one of my arms and Landon the other, keeping me from going forward.  I still didn’t speak, didn’t tell them to stop.  Gayle and his partner were tortured the worst because they were cops, but they all died.

One by one, they all died while I stood there and watched.

My memories were interrupted by a deafening roar as Raine suddenly threw herself at me.  Her little fists were pounding on my chest while tears rolled down her face.

“You have to tell me what happened to him!” she screamed at me.  “You have to tell me!  Tell me now, Bastian Stark, you son of a bitch!”

I was still so tensed, I couldn’t even understand what she was doing at first.  Once I realized she was trying to hurt me, I couldn’t figure out what I should do about it.  I could let her continue, since the most damage she was going to do to me was some slight bruising.  No, that wasn’t going to work because she was using up a ton of energy – energy she couldn’t afford to waste.  I could cold-cock her and knock her out – she might be more sensible when she woke up.  No, I couldn’t do that.  Shit, I’d already hit her once.  I wasn’t going to repeat that, no matter what the reason.  I was going to have to find a way to subdue her…gently.

Was that even possible?

“Raine, for fuck’s sake, stop it!”  I tried wrapping my hands around her arms and pulling her away, but she continued to struggle against me, screaming and crying.  When I let go of her, she went back to her ineffectual poundings, which didn’t exactly hurt but were starting to be fucking annoying.  Finally, I just wrapped her up in a bear hug and held her against my chest, mostly immobilized.

She fought against me for a while but eventually gave in to exhaustion.  Her heavy sobs shook us both as she cried against my chest the same way she had the first night on the raft.  Every few minutes she would reiterate that I had to tell her what happened to him.  I didn’t answer her, though. I knew no one in their right mind really wanted to know how someone they loved died – not when it was like that.

Eventually, she calmed and I lay back, bringing her with me and keeping my arms wrapped around her.  She let out one last shuddering breath and seemed to give up.  Her eyes closed, but I didn’t think she was actually asleep.  I ran my hand over the top of her head, intrigued by the soft texture of her hair.  When she had touched my hair, it seemed to have relaxed me a little, so I thought maybe I could do the same for her.

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked after we had laid there for quite some time.

“No,” I responded.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to remember it.”

“I need to know,” Raine insisted.

“You want to know,” I corrected.  “The problem with that is you can’t ever un-know something.  If I tell you, and you don’t like what I have to say, I can’t take it back out of your brain.  Believe me, you don’t want to know this.”

“Tell me, please.” Raine raised her head from my chest and looked at me with reddened eyes framed in deep, dark lashes.  I didn’t know if it was the look in her eyes, the nature of her request, or just the way she said “please” that destroyed my resolve.  Whichever it may have been, I gave in.  It was possible she could have asked me for anything in the world at that point and I couldn’t have denied her.  I couldn’t let her know that, though.

“All right,” I said, taking a deep breath, “but not now, and I’m not telling you all of it.  I just…can’t.”

Raine nodded and turned her head so her cheek rested on my chest again.  I ran my fingers up and down her back in silence for several minutes.

“You were the one he was thinking about when he died,” I finally said.  “The last thing he said was, ‘I have a daughter named Raine.’  Then he was shot.”

I felt her tears drop onto my chest again, and her body shuddered once before her grip tightened on me.

“Thank you, Bastian.”

“Don’t thank me for that,” I snarled at her.  “Don’t thank me for any of this shit.”

“Tell me something else,” she pressed.

“Not about that,” I said.  I’d beg her if I had to.

“Will you talk to me about something else?”

I felt my body start to relax immediately.  I’d be willing to talk to her about most anything else at this point.  I’d tell her about Theresa or Jillian or any other part of my fucked-up life if she would just stay away from that one particular subject.

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know – tell me something else about you.”

“You’re a glutton for sob stories, huh?”

“I want to know more about you.”

“You’re not right in the head,” I scoffed.  I took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.  “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me how you got that scar on your back.”

“I told you already,” I said.  “I got stabbed.”

“Tell me the whole story,” Raine clarified.

“I’ll tell you,” I said, “but then you have to tell me something about you.”

“Deal,” she said, and I thought I felt her smile.

“There was this guy named David,” I started.  “Tall dude, drank a lot, had been playing the games a long time, and he’d won far more than I had.  I don’t know how many, I just know that the bookies were giving him a lot better odds than me or any of the other players.  We all knew he was a dirty player – if you could really call it that in a game without rules.  He’d get someone to tell him where he could find the weapons on the course so he would get to them first or smuggle in something – I don’t know what.  He definitely didn’t play fair.”

“The game was in the desert – somewhere in Africa in the savanna or whatever.  I don’t know, but it was fucking hot.  It had been going on for about three days, I think.  There were two dozen of us at the beginning, but we were down to three: David, a chick that called herself Honey, and me.  It was a no weapons tournament, but there was still a lot of stuff around you could use.  I’d been hiding out for a couple hours on top of a pile of rocks.  You couldn’t have seen me from the ground.”

“How big an area was it?” Raine asked.

“Maybe two or three square miles, all fenced off so you knew where the boundaries were.  Not huge or anything.  We were air dropped.  All the spectators were set up in some posh hotel in Cairo.  I think that was it, anyway.  Really, I have no idea where we were.”

“I bet they were in the air conditioning,” Raine mused.  “I could use some of that right now.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I laughed.  I paused for a while, thinking about the air drop and the giant pile of elephant shit I nearly landed in when I hit the ground.  Raine turned her head back to look at me, her eyes expectant.  “Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” I took another breath and kept going.  “I watched Honey as she came up over the bank, watching all around and looking for me or David.  I had a garrote I made out of the bottom of my shirt.  I had already taken out two other players with it.  I jumped down from the rock and made her the third.”

“You strangled her?”

“Yeah,” I said softly.  I waited for her to try to get away from me, or at least get herself on the other side of the raft, but she didn’t move.  I felt her hand twitch where it was resting on my stomach, but she didn’t make a move to leave.  I paused for another minute before going on.

“I was just finishing with her when David came up behind me.  I don’t know where he got the knife – there weren’t supposed to be any weapons at all in this game except ones you made yourself.  I heard him behind me just before he swiped it across my arm and back.  I managed to turn so the first hit wasn’t lethal, like it should have been.”

“I guess I lost it at that point.  I don’t remember it hurting right then.  I just remember being pissed off that he had that thing at all.  I’d been in enough knife fights to know how to play, though.  I dodged him when he took another swing at me, and we went back and forth for a bit.  I got a couple good punches into his face, but I couldn’t get as close as I wanted with him waving the fucking knife around, and I kept feeling blood running down my back.”

“David was good,” I said.  “I have to give him that.  He knew how to fight, with or without the weapons.  Maybe if he hadn’t stabbed me, he would have won.  Since he did stab me, and it was deep enough that I bled all over the ground, he ended up losing his footing in the pool of blood.  I got on top of him, smashed his hand, took his knife, and slit his throat.”

I stopped, and Raine was quiet for a while.  For a minute, I thought she had fallen asleep, but she finally had something to say.

“This really was a game for you?”

“That’s how I saw it, yeah.”

“That’s really kinda messed up, you know.”

“No shit,” I said with a humorless laugh.  “I don’t recall telling you I was anything other than a lunatic.”

Raine’s finger was slowly moving back and forth over a spot on my stomach where there was another small scar.  I couldn’t even remember how I got it, but it sure did feel good to have her running her finger over it.  Of course, that made me wonder what it would feel like to have her fingers running over something else.  I needed a distraction before my shorts busted open.

“It’s your turn,” I told her.

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about your last boyfriend.”

“Seriously?” she asked.  “You want to hear about my love life?”

“Yeah,” I said, smirking.  Then I realized how bad an idea that might be, considering our positions.  “But you might want to get off me because I’m bound to get excited by the details.”

She slapped her hand playfully against my chest, but she did sit up.  I did the same and watched her out of the corner of my eye while she seemed to be composing herself.

“I’m going to assume by the look on your face that you aren’t seeing him anymore?”

“No, I’m not,” Raine said.  “He was really just a friend to me.  He helped me after my father died.  I loved him, in a way, but not the way he wanted.”

“What was his name?”

“Andrew,” she told me.  “His father was my father’s best friend, and we grew up together.  After my father died, he came over a lot and just helped me through all of it.  He’d drive me to the courthouse and wait while I met with the judges and then console me when they told me no – when they told me no again.  I think I just needed his closeness at the time, but he wanted something more.  So, I gave it to him.”

“Did you fuck him?”

“Do you always have to be so crass?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, I’m not going to talk about that,” she said with conviction.

“You did fuck him,” I said with a laugh.

She smacked me playfully again and damn if the sound of her skin hitting mine didn’t get me thinking about other ways our skin could be making contact.

“Come on,” I said, figuring if she could pressure me into talking about shit I didn’t want to talk about, turnabout was fair play.  “Tell me.”

“He was my first,” she said softly, “and I was his.  We were in the back of his dad’s minivan parked on a deserted road.  Neither one of us knew what we were doing.  Frankly, the whole thing was a disaster.”

“So you had crappy first time sex,” I clarified.  She wouldn’t be the only chick to say that.  “Did you do him again?”

“We tried a couple more times,” Raine said with a giggle, “but really, it wasn’t much better.  It didn’t hurt, but I still don’t know what the fuss is all about.”

“The fuss?” I said, leaning back away from her a bit so I could look at her from another angle.  “The fuss is how fucking awesome it feels, babe.  Didn’t you notice?”

I let out a short laugh.

“It was…okay.”

“Okay?  That’s all you can say about it?  I mean, I’m not a chick, but the ones I’ve fucked thought it was better than okay.”

“Well, that’s not how I felt about it,” Raine grumbled.

“Holy shit,” I said as the realization hit me.  “You never did come, did you?  You guys didn’t know what you were doing, and he couldn’t make you come.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her shoulders moving up and down.  “I mean, it was nice after a while, but…”

“Nice?  Just nice?  Yeah, baby.  I’ll tell you one thing for sure; you didn’t have an orgasm if it was just nice.”

“Whatever.”

“Seriously, Raine?”  I shifted my position so I was looking at her straight on.  “You’ve never had one, have you?”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed again.  No wonder she seemed so uptight about the whole thing.  She had no idea what she was missing.

“Stop laughing at me!”

“Really, babe,” I said, trying to stifle my snickers but not being overly successful.  It was just too incredible.  “I’m not laughing at you; really I’m not.  I just can’t believe a girl as fucking gorgeous as you hasn’t had a team of guys begging to bring you to orgasm.”

I could see her cheeks darken with her blush as she looked down at the floor away from me.  She must have had offers – she said she had gone to college for a while, right?  There was no way a chick this hot walking around campus wouldn’t be invited to every frat party in town.  If she went to just one single party, there was no way some guy didn’t try to get up in there.

An image of Theresa flashed through my head for a second, and it suddenly occurred to me that something like that could have happened to Raine, too.  I mean, it wasn’t a crime reserved for the underprivileged or anything.  Date-rape in college was a fucking epidemic.

My hands clenched into fists.  If someone had done that to Raine, I’d paddle this fucking raft to wherever the hell she went to school and kill the motherfucker.

“Raine…”  I had to clear my throat to keep going.  “Did someone ever…hurt you?  Like that?”

“What?”  Raine looked up to me.  The look in her eyes was so confused; I knew immediately I must have been wrong and relaxed a little.

“Thank God,” I mumbled.

“Oh!”  Raine’s eyes got wide and she shook her head violently.  “No, nothing like that.  I just never really dated after Andy.”

So, either she turned down the offer to go to the parties, or she pushed the guys away.  Why would she do that?  Mourning for her father?  Ticked at the ex-boyfriend who couldn’t get her off?  Or did she just not think she would ever enjoy it?

That idea just pissed me off.  Of course, my mouth tended to go on about its merry way without consulting my brain and often took my body along with it, so the next thing I knew, I was propositioning her.

“I could do it, you know,” I heard myself say.  My voice had dropped down low, but I knew she still heard me.  I could hear her breathing increase over the soft lapping of waves against the edge of the raft.  I leaned over only a little, bringing my mouth closer to her ear.  “I could make you come without even touching you.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath, and then she froze, motionless and not breathing at all.  I exhaled slowly, blowing warm air over the skin of her neck.  Her arms broke out in gooseflesh.

“I really didn’t want to have this discussion in the first place,” she said, turning away from me with a shiver.  She ran her hands up and down her arms.  “And now it is definitely over.”

She ended the conversation, but that didn’t stop my mind from thinking about it some more – quite a lot more, actually.

* * * * *

She had only been awake for a half hour or so, but I could have sworn Raine was trying to go for one of those world records where people sat still the longest.  I didn’t know what her problem was, and I was annoyed with myself for agreeing to talk about her father the previous night.  I was equally annoyed with myself for offering to get her off.  She wasn’t the kind of girl I was used to, and I honestly didn’t know how to interact with her without making an ass of myself, so I was trying not to talk at all.  If I said anything at this point, it would end up being bitchy.

I collected what morning dew there was from the canopy and added it to the water container, sealing it tight.  There wasn’t more than half a cup left.  There wasn’t enough water to last half the day, and there hadn’t been any other schools of fish close to us lately.  The only thing I had seen was a small shark, and cartilage fishes were useless for water.

Raine shifted again, and this time I caught the grimace on her face.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in pain or something,” I stated.  “What hurts?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her eyes looking away from me quickly as unease crept into her face.

“Bullshit.”  I looked her over for a moment and watched her squirm in her bathing suit.  Then it hit me what was wrong with her.  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “You’re chafing in that suit, aren’t you?  And those shorts are that stretchy crap that doesn’t breathe.”

She glared over at me and pursed her lips together, negating the need for a verbal response.  She had to get out of that suit before it became a serious issue.

“All right, Raine,” I said sternly.  “I’m only saying this once.  You have to get out of the bathing suit and those shorts.  The chafing is fucking annoying when you’re on your beach vacation.  Out here it’s a little more serious.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Look,” I growled, “the chafing is going to react to the salt water, and you’re going to end up with sores and even boils.  If those get infected, you’re dead – got it?  I’ll try to avert my eyes until you fucking heal, but you have to take the fucking suit off.”

“As if you would,” Raine snorted.  “It’s not bad – I’ll just be careful.  There’s no way you could not look at me in this sized raft.”

She was right, of course, and if I was going to be totally honest with myself, I wouldn’t even have tried to avoid staring at her.  I liked the idea of having her lying around here naked.

“Well, how about I take mine off, too?”  I suggested with a smirk.  “We’d be even.”

“Not even close,” she smirked back.  She waved her hand in the air but generally pointed in my direction.  “You’re probably making all of this up just to get me out of my clothes.”

“Sure,” I smiled right back at her.  “I actually planted that rash between your legs as well.  Sneaky bastard, aren’t I?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” she snarled, her anger at me and the situation obvious now.  She glared up at me.

I wondered why she suddenly decided to get so feisty.  Insanely, it was making my dick hard, which wasn’t going to help my case at all.  I needed her to realize how serious this was, and I wasn’t sure she was going to buy into it with my cock pointing at her and practically jumping up and down at the thought of maybe getting her naked.

I really had to stop thinking like that.

“Look, Raine,” I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable.  “You really do have to get out of the suit.  I’m not just fucking around.  Salt exposure is as bad as sunburn, and we can’t risk anything like that happening to us.  We’re too low on water for any risks.  You might be a little…embarrassed, but that beats dead.”

“I’m not going to die of chafing,” she scoffed.

“At home, you never run out of water, either.  The rules are different here.”

She looked over to me, and I watched her resolve start to crumble in her eyes.  It was replaced by frustration first and then something that looked like a cross between collapse and absolute terror.

“Raine,” I said, trying to keep my voice soft.  An idea sprang to mind.  “Look, my shirt and boxers are cotton, which is a lot better than your suit.  The boxers will be big on you, but it will give you the airflow you need for the rash to heal.  I’ll even wash them out for you.  I can go with just my cargo shorts.  Would that be all right?”

She looked up at me and her eyes danced all over my face.  I figured she was probably trying to figure out if I was trying to deceive her in some way.  Finally, she dropped her eyes down to the floor and nodded.

I didn’t have a lot of modesty, so I just went ahead and stripped, noticing Raine turning away and hiding her eyes.  I chuckled and pulled my shorts back on.  It wasn’t the most comfortable attire without underwear, but I’d live.  I’d also go naked before I let myself start chafing.  I washed out both the boxers and my shirt as best I could with sea water.  I wasn’t sure if it made a whole lot of difference or not, but it seemed like a good peace of mind thing to do.  I squeezed out the material so it would dry faster and handed them over to her.

“Make sure the shorts are totally dry before you put them on,” I said.  “Now get the suit off before it gets any worse.  I’m just going to take a little nap, okay?”

I dropped down on my back and tossed one of the towels over my face.  It was hot and uncomfortable, but she had to get out of those clothes or she was going to be shit deep in trouble.  I breathed slowly and steadily, making sure everything but my rising and falling chest was still.  After several minutes, I heard her shuffling around, but she still wasn’t changing her clothes.

“Damnit, Raine!”

She squeaked again.  I fucking hated that.  I sat up and glared at her.

“Just take the fucking suit off, or so help me God, I will tear it off of you.”

“Fine!” she yelled back at me, her eyes darkening at me.

“Do it now!”

“Not when you’re looking!” she screamed, her voice raising in pitch and sounding like she was going to break down again.

“I won’t fucking look,” I snarled back, “but I’m giving you about ten seconds to get that shit off.”

I silently counted to ten and then started towards her.  She squealed and moved to the back of the raft, her back pressed against the canopy.

“I’ll do it!” she screeched.  I stopped my forward movement and sat back on my heels, staring at her.

“Why are you doing this?” Raine asked, her voice dropping down in volume.  There were tears in her eyes, but I wasn’t going to let that sway me on this one.

“I told you.” I glared at her.  “It’s fucking dangerous.”

“What difference does it make to you if I survive?”

I felt the anger welling up inside of me, but there was something else there as well.  I’d watched people die – lots of people.  Some of them asked for it.  Some of them deserved it.  Most of them were just playing the game for the money, just like I did, but there were some I watched that didn’t have to die.  Some shouldn’t have died, and I wasn’t going to let that happen to her.  Determination I probably hadn’t felt in years slipped down and coated my insides like that pink shit Alejandro used to try to give me for hangovers.  It completely engulfed me, my reasoning became crystal clear, and I knew exactly what I was going to do.

I reached over and grabbed her face between my palms.  I brought her up close to me so I could stare right into her eyes.  I was almost touching her forehead with my own, and I could feel her breath coming out of her barely opened mouth and brushing over my lower lip and chin.  I didn’t want there to be any kind of miscommunication on this one, so I spoke slowly and carefully.

“Raine, I couldn’t save your father, but no matter what we run into, no matter how long we’re out here, no matter what God or Satan or whoever the fuck else throws at us, I’m going to save you.”

I guess I didn’t need all that apathy after all.

Chapter 8 – Kiss

It had been a day and a half since the water ran out.

The gutter system caught a bit of dew from the air, and I gave it all to Raine.  It wasn’t enough, though.  It wasn’t near enough to keep her going.  Every time I glanced over at her, I wondered what her eyes were going to look like when she was so dehydrated she couldn’t lift her head anymore.  She had lost weight, and she had already been too small.  She had to roll the hem of my boxers and tuck them in some elaborate, almost-in-a-knot way to get them to stay on her hips.  The shirt nearly dropped to her knees, covering the boxers anyway.

It had gotten to the point where she wasn’t even completely coherent any longer.  She talked about her dad sometimes as well as her friend Lindsay and other people she knew in school.  She also had started asking the same questions more than once, which frustrated the hell out of me.  I wasn’t a lot better off, though I was still with it enough to know how much she had deteriorated over the past few hours.  I was used to extreme circumstances – I’d lived and killed in them.  I was also a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than she was to begin with, so there was simply more water inside my body.  I still felt like shit, and my head was starting to get dizzy when I moved around too fast.  My arms and legs itched like a motherfucker, too.

Mostly, she slept, which was good.  She talked when she dreamed, but most of it didn’t make any sense to me.  Once she said my name.  I didn’t know what to think of that and tried to ignore the little flutter of…something inside of me when she said it.

I reached over and ran my hand down Raine’s forearm, careful not to wake her as I pulled lightly at her skin.  Normally, skin elasticity would have caused it to jump right back, but hers didn’t anymore.  It stayed in a little upright, wrinkled pucker for a few moments before smoothing out again.  I thought her heartbeat was a little faster as well.

Your body can survive in amazing situations; you just have to convince your mind to do what you tell it to do.

“Bastian?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it time for more water?”

I sighed and tried to keep myself from jumping down her throat.  She had asked the same question an hour ago, and there wasn’t any water then, either.

“I have to find some first, babe.”

“There isn’t any, is there?” she asked after a moment.

“No, Raine,” I said.  I moved backwards a little until I was in a good position to lie down on my back next to her.  “It’s all gone.”

“Are you going to look for fish again?”

“I just did,” I said.  “No signs.  Now quit talking and rest.”

“Will you talk to me?”

“What do you want me to say?” I asked.  I knew what her answer would be.  She always said the same thing.

“Tell me something else about you.”

“Aren’t you tired of hearing about my fucked up life?”

“No,” Raine said.  Her voice cracked, and I could tell it was taking too much effort for her to even talk.  “I want to…understand you.”

“You be quiet and I’ll talk, okay?”

“Uh huh.”

I tried to think of something I could tell her that I hadn’t already talked about.  I hoped if I just stalled long enough, Raine would fall asleep again.

“Tell me about Jillian,” Raine said.

“No,” I snapped.  “I told you before, don’t say that name.”

“I told you about Andrew.”

“I don’t fucking care,” I snapped again.  “Don’t say her name.”

“Well, what will you tell me about?” she growled right back at me, her voice suddenly steady again.  I supposed I should have seen it as a good sign.  She was annoyed, which meant she was more lucid than she had been a while ago.  I also knew it was a fluke, and unless I found her water, it wasn’t going to last.

“How about telling me why you started drinking so much?”

“It helps me sleep.”

“Is it hard for you to sleep?”

I sighed and tried to relax the muscles across my shoulders and down my arms.  I leaned back on my elbows and looked sideways at her.

“Can’t you just ask me something easy?” I asked.  “Like my favorite food or something?”

“Okay, what’s your favorite food?”

“Pizza.”

“Okay, mine’s chocolate cream pie,” Raine said, smiling a little and looking up at me.  “Now why do you have to drink in order to sleep?”

I growled and shook my head.  She wasn’t going to give up.  Stubborn bitch.  At least I wasn’t calling her that out loud anymore.

“I have nightmares,” I admitted.

“I know,” Raine said.  I looked over to her sharply, and she lifted her shoulders a little and dropped them again.  “I could tell.”

It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but I guess I never thought about how it might look to someone else.  I hadn’t had anyone with me when I slept for a very long time.  I wondered what I had done or maybe even said.  I decided I might not want to know.

“What are they about?” she asked.  Her voice was soft and somehow warm as well.  When I looked over at her, her eyes showed only concern, maybe curiosity, and a deep need for understanding, but no pity.  If I had seen pity…well, I don’t know what I would have done.

“A lot of things,” I said quietly.  “Sometimes fights, sometimes about stuff I saw in foster care or the group homes, sometimes I dream about being in jail.  It kind of made me claustrophobic, being locked up all the time.”

“You were in jail?”

“Juvenile detention, really,” I corrected, “but it’s basically jail.  All the same rules, just a little more free time and your record gets wiped when you turn twenty-one.”

“What did you do?”

“I beat up one of the counselors at the group home.”

“Why did you do that?”

“He fucking deserved it,” I heard myself snarl.  “If they hadn’t pulled me off him, I would have smashed in his head and skull-fucked him.”

I couldn’t talk about this.  I couldn’t.  I squeezed my eyes shut, but I still saw it all again.

I turned around, suddenly realizing Theresa had been gone too long.  I had lost track of time listening to the guy from the zoo talk about the owls, and she hadn’t come back outside.  I looked around quickly, but she definitely wasn’t in the courtyard.  I stalked off into the main building and down the hall - towards the girls’ bathrooms.  Tony was walking the opposite way, a snarky smile on his face.  He tilted his head to one side as he passed me and tossed a single word in my direction.

“Yummy.”

I started running, but I was too late.  She was on the floor in a puddle of her own blood.

“One of the counselors,” I heard my voice creep through my lips, almost against my will and definitely against my better judgment.  “He had been looking at her, and she told me he was creeping her out.  I wasn’t paying attention, and he got to her.”

“Got to her?”

“He fucked her in the girls’ bathroom while I was out in the courtyard,” I blurted out.  “I wasn’t there to protect her, so she killed herself.  She was supposed to be able to depend on me, but obviously that’s idiotic.  I couldn’t stop her from dying, so I figured I’d kill him.  I fucked that up, too.  If I had known all the ways to kill quickly then, he would have died before they could stop me.”

“One of the counselors raped Theresa?”

“Yeah.”

“Bastian, I’m so sorry…” Raine reached out, and her fingers grazed over my leg.  I pushed her hand away.

“I should have killed him,” I grumbled.  “He didn’t even get charged.  He told them I beat him up after he caught us in the bathroom together.  I got fifteen months for assaulting him and the statutory rape of Theresa, posthumously.”

“Oh my God.” Raine’s hand reached up and covered her mouth.  “Didn’t you tell them what had happened?”

“Of course I did!”  I was angry now.  Maybe at her, maybe at the world, but she was the only one there, so she was destined to get the brunt of it.  “Who do you think they believed – the counselor or the delinquent?  Yeah, it’s an interesting system we got, huh?”

“You dream about that, don’t you?  About finding her, I mean.”

It wasn’t really a question, and it made me wonder again just what I had maybe said or done in my sleep.  I tried to rein in my anger a little and nodded in response but didn’t look at her.  I reached my hands up to my head and twisted my fingers through my hair, tugging at it and closing my eyes against the slight pain in my scalp.

“She found her own way out,” Raine said.  “It was her choice and not your fault.”

“She wouldn’t have done it if I had been there for her.”

“Maybe not,” Raine said.  “Maybe it would have just been on a different day.”

“I still fucked up,” I insisted.  “Her only mistake was thinking she could rely on me.”

“You aren’t all bad, Bastian.”

“Yeah, I’m a fucking philanthropist.”

Raine started to push herself on to her elbows like she was going to get up and move towards me, but her hand went to her head and she started to slump to one side almost immediately.  I moved over to her, fighting my own dizziness, and caught her before she fell back to the floor of the raft.  I slowly lowered her onto her back again.

“Stop that shit,” I told her.  “Just stay where you are.”

“See?” she said with a sly smile.  “You aren’t so bad, are you?”

“Whatever.”

“My hero,” she giggled, which turned into coughing.  For a minute I thought she was going to gag up bile, but I got her rolled onto her side and her coughing quieted.

“Go back to sleep, Raine,” I said.  “You need to rest.”

“I don’t want…”

She was out before she finished the sentence.  I decided to try fishing again.

* * * * *

My head swam as I pulled myself out of the water and fumbled with the tether around my waist.  I was empty-handed again, but at least Raine hadn’t been disturbed by either my fishing expedition or my subsequent return to the raft, so she wasn’t going to notice.  She was still asleep, as she had been for the last few hours.

There hadn’t even been any dew on the canopy this morning.

Raine’s pale, dry cheeks puffed out a moment as she seemed to sigh in her sleep and roll slightly to one side.  Her darkened, hollow eyes opened for a moment, searched around the raft, and closed again without any signs of recognition.  I dried myself off, pulled my shorts on, and crawled over to her side.  The last two times she woke up she had been pretty incoherent.  I needed to know if she was still the same or getting worse.

“Raine?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you awake?”

“I’m not sure,” she said after a moment.  “I thought I was, but everything is so red.”

“Red?”

“Yes, red,” she repeated.  “Like clown hair.  It’s so soft.  Your hair is soft.  I want to touch it.”

“You’re being silly,” I told her.

“Maybe,” she said.  “It is soft though.  Can I have some more water now?”

“Not yet, babe.”

“We still don’t have any, do we?”

“Not right now.”

“It’s been too long, though – hasn’t it?”

“Hush, Raine,” I finally growled.  “Your questions drive me nuts.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she said quietly.

“It’s not you,” I said.  “I’m just a moody asshole, remember?”

Her dry lips curved up just a little before falling back into place.  I watched her tongue come out and trace over them, but there wasn’t any moisture to leave behind.

“I’m dizzy,” Raine said.

“I know,” I replied.  “Just stay where you are.  Don’t try to move around so much.”

I lay down on my back, staring up at the dark canopy of the raft.  As much as I didn’t want to think about it, my overactive mind figured she might have as many as six hours left but not much more than that.  I was starting to shake and itch again, and I seriously doubted I would have the strength or muscle control to pull myself back onto the raft another time, so no more fishing.  I wouldn’t be far behind her – a half day, maybe.  A half day lying here with her body.  I didn’t think I’d be able to just toss her overboard, not unless I went with her.

“Bastian?” I heard her soft voice struggle to get enough volume to reach my ears.  I leaned a little closer and saw her hollow eyes looking deep into mine.  “Bastian, I’m scared.”

I rolled and reached around her torso with one arm, slipping the other one under her shoulders so I could pull her close to me.  I held her head against my chest and wrapped my arms around her tiny, gaunt frame.

“Don’t be scared, Raine.”  I closed my eyes and hugged her to me.  My eyes squeezed shut, and my lips pressed into her hair.  “I’ve got you.”

I could feel her body slump into mine, and I had to listen close to her breathing to make sure it remained steady as she drifted off to sleep.  I tried to take a deep breath myself, feeling the dark unconsciousness of deprivation overcoming my mind and body.

“I’ve got you,” I repeated, wondering if she still believed I could save her.

* * * * *

Dizzy, dark, chilled, dusty…I ached when I tried to move, so I stayed still.  Even opening my eyes required far too much effort.  My back and arms were chilled, but my chest and legs mingled with the warmth of another body.  Had I let some chick stay with me after I fucked her?  It seemed out of character, to say the least.  I never kept someone in my bed.  I didn’t like it.

This felt different.  I did like it.  Whoever it was, she was warm and soft but very small and felt frail in my arms.  I immediately wanted to hold her close so I could keep her safe – protect her from whatever else might have been out there in the dark.

I had to be dreaming because none of this made any sense.  I couldn’t be dreaming because I didn’t have dreams about warm, pleasant, feminine bodies pressed up against mine.  I had dreams about blood, death, and pain.

There was a strange sound in this dream, if it was a dream.  I couldn’t place it.  It was a tapping, plopping sound.  I opened my eyes to see what it was, but they immediately closed again without focusing on my surroundings.  It was easier to stay where I was and hold on to…this body…this woman…this…Raine.  It was Raine.  That’s who I was holding.  If I could just figure out what the damn drippy noise was, I might regain a little sanity.  A memory of one of my foster parents taking me camping with two of the other boys they fostered danced around in my head.

We had hiked up to a camping area, set up the tent, and then spent the next three days playing cards while sitting on top of damp sleeping bags.  Eventually, the trench we dug around the tent wasn’t enough, and the whole place flooded.  The sound was annoying, and I ended up punching one of the other kids for getting his muddy feet all over my pillow.  When we got back to civilization, I was sent back into group care again.

I moved my head from side to side, enjoying the tickling feeling of her hair under my chin.  Some of the strands were stuck in my beard.  That was all right, too.  I felt light and…well…kind of happy, which I didn’t really know how to handle.  She felt good against me, and I wanted her to stay there.  It was probably trying to figure out happiness that made me realize something was really wrong here.  It could have been that plinking, plopping, dripping sound as well.  It seemed to be a little louder.  Raine’s breathing didn’t sound quite right, and her heart was beating awfully fast for sleep.  Raine needed something – something important.  I needed to know what the strange, reminds-me-of-camping sound was, and I needed to remember what Raine needed.  Her name provided me with the single answer to both questions.

“Rain.”

I pushed with my hands on the bottom of the raft while my mind raced in abrupt, sharp focus.  If the collection system was working properly, it should be collecting the rain pelting the top of the canopy.  We should already have water to drink.  Raine needed the water.  She was going to die if she didn’t get it, but the muscles in my arms groaned and argued with me, refusing to hold me up.

I dropped back down again, trying to cradle Raine’s body against mine so I didn’t crush her.  The rest of my body gave up, too, and I lay on the floor, hugging her to me and feeling the slow rise and fall of the waves underneath us.  I tucked my forehead back into her hair and tried to breathe normally.  Being here felt good – much better than trying to move.  If I just rested here for a little while I could go and get…whatever it was I was supposed to get…or do…whatever.  I’d do it later.  I needed to rest now.

“Get the fuck up.”

“Screw you, Landon,” I grumbled at him.  “We’ve been at this for five hours.  I’m taking a fucking break.”

I heard the soft click of his Glock and slowly opened my eyes to see it pointed between my eyes.

“You rest, you die,” he said.  His voice was cold and emotionless.  “You think they’re going to wait for you to wake up for a fair fight?  If you aren’t up for this, just say the word and I’ll end you right now.  I’m not going to waste my time on some pussy who needs a fucking nap.”

I shoved against the floor of the raft again, cringing a little when Raine’s head dropped off of my arm and onto the floor.  My stomach lurched, and my head pounded.  I had to force my eyes open and look down to my legs to make my muscles move.  It wasn’t that far to the collection containers, and the first one was already nearly full.  Through the haze of the pain in my brain and the shaking muscles of my arms and legs, I switched the valves so water would run to the second container and pulled out the nearly full one.

In the event of loss of cabin pressure, please place the oxygen mask over your head before assisting children or other passengers.

In other words, help yourself first, even if you don’t really want to.  You can’t help anyone when you’re dead.   I had to have enough strength to help Raine drink, or neither of us would make it.

The hardest part of extreme thirst is convincing yourself that a little water is better than a lot.  Your body doesn’t believe you no matter what the logical part of your brain is saying.  I sat down slowly, tucking my legs in and holding the cup in my shaking hand.  I poured slowly, just the single cup, and took a sip.

My throat was dry enough I don’t think the water actually reached my stomach.  It hurt to swallow.  I sipped again, swishing the water around in my mouth first and licking my lips afterwards.  I drank half a cup, and then sat unmoving for a while.  I wasn’t sure how long it was exactly – my “waterproof” watch had stopped working after my second fishing expedition – but I tried to wait at least fifteen minutes before I drank the rest and brought the second cup to Raine.

She wouldn’t wake up, so I had to hold her up by her shoulders to get her head in the right position to drink and tilt her chin up to get her to swallow.  Honestly, it was probably easier that way than having to fight with her to keep her from drinking too much at once.  I got half the cup into her before lying her back down.

I lay next to her after drinking another half cup.  The rain was still coming down steadily, and at this rate, we’d have another week’s worth of water before morning.  I refused to lie back down at this point because I was afraid I would fall asleep and I needed to get more water into Raine.  I started counting her breaths, and after one hundred and eighty I sat her up and gave her more.  Raine’s eyes opened for a moment, and her hand reached up, like she was trying to touch the cup, but it dropped back to her lap instead.  At least I didn’t have to tilt her chin up to get her to swallow this time.

We went back and forth like this for a couple of hours.  Raine had consumed four cups at that point, and I had drunk five.  It was enough for now, and I finally allowed myself to lie back down beside her, immediately pulling her against my chest and holding her head to my shoulder.  She sighed and her warm breath tickled my skin.

“I knew you would,” she mumbled against my shoulder.

“Would what?” I asked, but she was already out.  I took some more deep breaths, trying to keep my mind from thinking anything before I hugged her to me again, closed my eyes, and let myself drift off as well.

…there is darkness all around and cloth touching me on my shoulders, tickling my skin like spider webs strewn across a forest path.  I shudder and try to close my eyes, but then I can’t see the darkness, and I have to watch it.  If I don’t watch it, I’ll never know when something comes at me.  I hear footsteps and hold my breath, as if that would help.  Bright lights fill the tiny room, and a strong arm hauls me out and into the room.  Screaming…yelling…fists against my back...I try to curl up into a ball, but he holds me up higher so he can reach more of me…

…blood everywhere – all over me, all over the knife in my hand.  I am pretty sure I have been shot near my shoulder – not bad, but it burns like a bitch.  I took a good blow to the head, too.  How many are left – two or three?  There is movement off to my right, and I jump up, ready to face the next one…

…the ring sparkles in the light when I place the little satin black box, lid open, on the dash and drive out of the parking lot.  The prisms go off in every direction, flicking into my eyes through my sunglasses.  I can’t stop myself from smiling.  I’ll wait until the weekend and give it to her then.  I can’t wait to see it on her finger…

My eyes flew open, and I had to stop the scream trying to come out of my mouth.  There was sweat on my forehead, which I’m sure I should have seen as a good sign.  Before the rain, there wouldn’t have been any moisture on my skin at all.  I stared at the ceiling for a while, drank more water, gave Raine a little more water, and then stared at the ceiling some more.

* * * * *

The rain stopped, and the sun came out.  It was steamy and hot for a while, then clouded up again and sprinkled some more.  Even with the quart and a half we had each consumed, there was still another week’s worth of water in the containers now.

An unlucky seagull bobbed up and down on the waves near the raft.  I turned Raine’s swimsuit into a net while she was sleeping, which she did not appreciate in the slightest, and managed to catch it.  Raine did seem to appreciate being able to eat something, though.  I told her catching birds was all about knowing which direction they were going to fly, along with a little bit of speed.  Sea birds weren’t that quick getting out of the water.  I liked watching her eyes light up in wonder or awe – if that’s what it was – when I did something that impressed her.

“I never thought something like this would taste good,” Raine said, popping a thin piece of raw, stripped meat into her mouth.

“Starvation does that to you,” I said with a shrug.

“Still, I would have thought it would only be palatable at best, but this actually tastes good.”

“It doesn’t,” I assured her.  “It’s just your mind making it taste like chocolate pie.”

“You remembered,” Raine said with a smile.

“Of course I remembered,” I said.  “I’m not stupid.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Raine said.  I looked over to her sharply.  “I mean, you’re very well spoken for a high school dropout.”

“I still got my GED.  Actually, Landon insisted on it.”

“That’s it?”

“No.”

“You went to college too, didn’t you?”

“Correspondence schools, but yes,” I said.  “I have a master’s degree, actually.”

“Really?”  Raine’s shocked expression amused me.  I decided to take it a step further.

“In English Literature.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” I said.  “Do you want me to quote you something?”

“Yes, I do.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.  I hadn’t really wanted to be called out on my bluff, but leave it to Raine to want some Shakespeare or whatever recited to her.  A couple of sonnets went through my head, but I decided on something a little more fitting to our situation.

“When the waves are round me breaking,

As I pace the deck alone,

And my eye in vain is seeking

Some green leaf to rest upon;

What would not I give to wander

Where my old companions dwell?

Absence makes the heart grow fonder,

Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!”

“Paradise lost?” Raine said, not sounding completely sure of herself.

“Very good.”

“Another one, please?”  She looked at me, and her teeth bit into her bottom lip.  I took a slow, deep breath and told my cock to cut that shit out.

“I am as a weed

Flung from the rock, on Ocean’s foam to sail

Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.”

“Apt,” Raine nodded.  “But I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one.”

“Byron,” I said.  “Not a poet I like so much.  Too much whining.”

Raine laughed.

“Don’t you know anything romantic?” she asked, “or is it all related to the water?”

“I know a few.”  I looked at her sideways.  She smiled and blushed, which gave my cock a good kick-start.

“Where true Love burns Desire is Love's pure flame;

It is the reflex of our earthly frame,

That takes its meaning from the nobler part,

And but translates the language of the heart.”

“Beautiful,” Raine said, “and it sounds familiar.”

“Coleridge,” I told her.  “Had enough?”

“Maybe for now,” Raine said with a nod.  “I can’t believe you have a master’s degree.”

“Why not?”

“It just doesn’t…fit.”  Raine tilted her head to one side and looked at me thoughtfully.  “Or maybe it does.  Actually, now that I’ve heard you quote poetry, I think it does fit.”

“You should rest,” I said, shaking my head.  “You obviously need some sleep to gain your senses back, and you need to save your strength.”

“I feel like all I have done for days is sleep.”

“It is all you have done,” I confirmed.  “That doesn’t mean you don’t need more.”

Raine sighed and gave in, scooting herself to the back of the raft.

“Shouldn’t you rest, too?” she asked.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt,” I said.  “I’m going to try fishing again at some point but not yet.  We shouldn’t eat anything else again right away anyway – our stomachs need some recovery time.  We have plenty of water for now, so it is a good time to eat.”

Raine straightened out the blanket-towel and spread herself out on top of it.  I finished the cup of water in my hand, checked the collection system, and sealed up the front part of the raft before I moved to lie next to her.

Once I lay back down, I immediately put my arm around Raine’s shoulders and pulled her to me before I thought about what I was doing.  I froze up instantly, not sure how she was going to take the gesture.  I had held her for the better part of the last two days, but she had been dehydrated, near death, and scared.  She had color back in her face now, and her eyes were bright again.  She probably didn’t want me touching her at all.

While I debated what I should do, Raine rolled to her side, wrapped her arm around my waist, and placed her head on my shoulder, just like she had during most of the last forty-eight hours.  Her hair spewed out all over me, and I found it oddly comforting.

“Will you tell me something else about yourself?” Raine asked quietly.  I could still see the sparkle of her eyes in the receding light.

“I don’t know what else to tell you about,” I said.  “It’s all just as fucked up as what you already heard.  You have to be some sort of glutton for sob stories.”

“No, I don’t,” Raine said, shaking her head.  “I told you – I want to know you.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to understand,” she said again.  “If I understand, maybe I can help you.”

“Help me what?”

“You don’t have to live like this, Bastian.  There are other options.”

“There aren’t any options,” I said, trying to keep myself from actually snarling at her.  “This is what you get, Raine.  An alcoholic, mean, fucked up asshole.  Once someone finds us, you aren’t going to have any use for me at all.”

Raine’s hand touched the side of my face, and her fingers trailed through my thickening beard. I slowly turned my eyes towards hers and tried to keep my breathing steady.

“You are more than that, Bastian.”

“I’m a selfish bastard as well,” I said, trying to control my voice and even smile a little.  Raine’s eyes narrowed.

“If you were, you wouldn’t have testified.”

“I didn’t want to go to prison.”

“That’s not the only reason though, is it?”

I looked at her eyes, glad to see the deep brown irises had light and moisture in them again.  I could have run with John Paul in the beginning, and prison never would have been a possibility, but if I had, they would have gotten away with it completely.  Besides, I hadn’t been able to sleep at night.  I thought if I helped put them away, I would be able to sleep again.

Fat chance.

Maybe if Franks had gone to prison as well, I wouldn’t have started drinking myself into oblivion.  Then again, I would have probably been a drunk either way.

“All of my reasons were selfish,” I told her.

“I don’t think I believe you,” Raine replied.  Her fingers started massaging the skin under my beard, and the sensation was almost enough to make my eyes roll into the back of my head.

I reached up and placed my palm against her cheek, slowly tracing her cheekbone with the edge of my thumb.  My movements almost echoed her touch against my cheek, and I found both acts similarly comforting.  I didn’t understand what I was feeling.  I understood desire – I knew why I wanted to fuck her – the reason for that was just too straightforward.  I wanted to get my cock inside of her so I could have a good orgasm that didn’t involve my own hand.  This I knew.  This I understood, but wanting to simply…run my hand over her face…I didn’t understand this.  I didn’t recognize this feeling.  Her skin was soft under my fingertips, and I watched her tongue dart out of her mouth, moistening her full lips.

I’m not sure if I consciously moved forward or if I was somehow magnetically drawn closer to her.  The tip of my tongue touched my bottom lip, and I watched Raine’s eyes drop to my mouth and then back up again.  I hesitated, not sure how she was going to react.  I didn’t want to scare her.  I didn’t want to push her.  I didn’t want her to push me away again.  I didn’t want her to think I was only interested in fucking her.

Her eyes stayed on mine, and her breathing increased its pace.  I moved a little closer, slowly positioning my face just above hers with my lips almost touching her mouth.  I stopped, waiting for her to tell me to get away – either with her words or her eyes.  Instead, I felt her hand brush through my beard again, her fingers curving under my jaw and applying slight pressure to bring me closer.

My eyes closed, and I touched my lips to hers – softly, gently, slowly.  I kissed both of her lips at once, then the top one, then the bottom.  I didn’t press, but kept my touch light and unhurried.  Each time we touched, the kiss lingered just a little longer than the last.

I stopped, my lips still barely touching hers, and met her eyes.  They were so bright and full of want and need that it was difficult not to press my body against hers, drive my tongue into her mouth, and just take her as quickly as possible.  But I didn’t want to do that.  I wanted to kiss her again, so I did – softly, slowly, and over and over.  I tilted one way, then the other, wanting to taste every part of her lips.  I didn’t push my tongue at her; I just kissed her gently, lovingly…

I pulled back, met her eyes again, and I felt my chest clench as nothing short of sheer terror rippled through my skin.  This feeling wasn’t new – I’d been here before.  I’d felt this way before, and I had vowed to never let this happen again.

I should want her for one reason and one reason only.  Sex was good – you could have sex, feel good, and then move on – no emotional attachment.  I was good at that.  I knew what to expect, and I always made it clear what should be expected of me.  I didn’t want to feel anything more – not for Raine or for anyone else.  You could stab me, shoot me, beat me beyond recognition – I could cope with that kind of pain.  You couldn’t make me feel for you – couldn’t make me want to care because caring meant hurting in a way that I couldn’t handle.  I was not going to let this happen.  Never, ever again…

Raine’s voice broke me out of my mental tirade against myself.

“She broke your heart, didn’t she?”

My hands balled into fists, my eyes closed tightly, and I held the air in my lungs a moment longer before slowly letting the air back out.  I didn’t want her to say anything.  I didn’t want her to know.  Most of all, I didn’t want Raine to realize I wasn’t worth anything other than physical release, the same realization she had before she laughed at me and told me to wise up.

Her hand moved against my cheek, running her fingers over my skin and back into my hair.  It felt good – it felt too good.  I couldn’t do this, so I pushed away, turned my back to her, and moved over to the front of the raft to pour a cup of water.

“Bastian?”

“Just…don’t,” I growled.  “Don’t fucking say anything.”

“Bastian, you don’t have to be afraid of me,” Raine said.  I could see her sitting up out of the corner of my eye.  She looked so much stronger already, and she hadn’t even eaten much.  My shirt slid partway off her shoulder, exposing her collarbone.

“I’m not fucking afraid!” I yelled, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.  “I’m just…not good at this.  I’m not good for this.  If you want to fuck, we can fuck, but I’m not doing…this.”

I waved my hand in her general direction.  I didn’t know what the fuck this was, but I knew it wasn’t going to work for me.

“You deserve more, Bastian.”

I laughed.

"I'm a nutcase, Raine," I told her.  "I'm a murderer and a drunk.  I use women as a place to stick my cock.  That's who I am.  You don't want to delude yourself into thinking I'm something else."

"Maybe in the beginning I would have believed you," she said.  "I don't believe you now.  I've seen you, Bastian – the real you.  I know what's inside that thick skin you try to use as a shield.  I've seen you at your worst, and I'm pretty sure I saw you at your best just a few minutes ago.  If not then, it was when you told me not to be scared.  You can't fool me anymore, Bastian.  I know too much.  I know you've been hurt, and I know you're scared."

"I'm not..."  I couldn't even bring myself to finish the sentence.  I stared down at the empty cup in my hands until her fingers reached over and took it from me.  I glanced up at her and saw the start of tears.  Fuck.

"Let me in, Bastian," she whispered.  "Tell me what she did to you."

I stared at her, the internal war within my mind escalating beyond control.  I wanted to tell her.  I didn’t want to tell her.  I wanted to hold her and feel something for her.  I couldn’t do that.  I wouldn’t do that.  I needed her to understand that I couldn’t be that for her.  I was so fucked up, I didn’t even know where to start, so I went back to the basics and closed up.

"She didn't love me back," I finally said with a shrug.  Pathetically, I felt the shield go back up around me.  I could shut myself down – I knew how to do that.  I knew how to shut out every emotion, every feeling, and every thought that wasn’t what I wanted to think about.  It was comfortable and safe.  "No big deal."

"Bastian..."

"Raine..." I mocked, tearing my eyes away from her.  "Just fucking let it go."

"How about we make a deal?" Raine said.

“Not likely,” I said.  I continued not to look at her.

“You haven’t heard it yet,” she said softly.  I sighed heavily, and she continued on.  “How about I let you…um…do what you said you could.  You know…without touching me?”

My ears, eyes, and several other parts of me perked up.

“You mean make you come?”

“Um…yeah, that.”  She turned the darkest shade of red I had seen on her yet.  “I’ll let you do that, and then you tell me what she did to you.”

“You’re serious,” I said, trying to figure out if this was some sort of prank or not.  My dick was willing to believe it was not some sort of joke and decided to make me as uncomfortable in my shorts as possible even though I was going commando.

“I think so,” Raine said softly.  Her eyes dropped down to her hands in her lap.  “I mean, what you said before – about me not knowing what it really felt like?  Or what it was supposed to feel like, anyway.  Well, I was thinking about that when I…um…when I thought maybe we weren’t going to make it.”

I think my hands started to tremble.  I wanted this.  I wanted to do this.  I didn’t want to want this.  I didn’t want to feel this way.  Even if it was the closest I got to fucking her, I wanted to do this.  I couldn’t let myself feel anything, though.  I couldn’t want it too much.

“So, I’d let you do that,” Raine continued, “and then you tell me about…um…about the woman that hurt you.”

Even the briefest mention of her, though not by name, was almost enough to kill my erection.  I’m not sure if I was more pissed off at my dick for constantly being in overdrive or Raine for bringing all this shit up over and over again.  My fingers tapped against my knees, and I realized I had way too much energy in my body again.  The water and the food had reenergized me, and I didn’t have anywhere to put the excess. No wonder I couldn’t think straight.

"Let me see if I understand your proposal," I said, trying to keep my twitchy cock from getting too far ahead of the situation.  "I make you come, sans hands, and then I get to tell you all about the bitch that fucked me over?"

"Yes."

"How exactly is this a deal?" I asked.  “It sounds like I get to satisfy both your cunt and your curiosity."

"Don't say that word!"  Raine cringed.

"What, cunt?"  I laughed.  "Why not?"

"It's foul."

"So am I," I reminded her.  My leg was starting to bounce up and down, and I couldn’t make it stop.  I hated when it did that.

"It's an act."

"An act?" I scoffed.  "I've had my dick in as many as six women in one night.  I never fucked the same one two nights in a row because there was always another one just waiting her turn.”

“But you weren’t like that with Jillian, were you?”

“Don’t fucking say…”  I felt all my muscles tighten up again, and I closed my eyes and tightened my jaw.  I wanted to yell, scream, curse, and maybe do worse.  My mind and body were going in too many different directions.  I didn’t want to talk about her; there was no question about that.  The thought of seeing Raine with her head tossed back and moaning…well, that I definitely found very intriguing, and the thought had brought my dick right back up to attention.  Actually, he was just about to start marking his territory – maybe even designing a little flag to make sure all the other cocks out there knew which areas he claimed – at the very thought of maybe going a little further with Raine.  At the very least, he hoped to get the chance to jack off, either with or without her assistance.

And then there was that other, little bitty, stupidly moronic, and possibly masochistic part of me that just wanted to wrap my arms back around her, kiss her gently, and tell her I was going to protect her.  I wanted her to run her hand though my hair because it calmed my body as much as any exercise.  I wanted to feel the warmth of her body next to mine while she slept.  I wanted to feel her breath against my cheek.  These were the dangerous thoughts.  These were the ones I didn’t want to have.  But I did want them.  I wanted to feel this way.  I didn’t want to feel this way.

Fuck!

Somehow she had managed to move back up close to me again.

“Bastian?”

“What?” I snapped, my voice more harsh than I meant to be.

“I’m sorry, Bastian.”

“For what?” I asked, confused now.  My head was starting to pound with all the different directions it was trying to go at once.

“I already know she hurt you.”  Raine reached back up and placed her hand on the side of my face again.  My leg stopped jumping around, and I felt an automatic, slow exhale escape my lungs.  “I don’t need to know the details.  I’m sorry I pushed.  I just…I want to know you.”

“You really ought to stay away from me,” I warned her, and at the same time I leaned into her touch.

“That doesn’t seem possible at the moment,” Raine smiled and glanced around the small craft.  “Even if it were, I wouldn’t want to stay away from you.”

“I’m not…a nice guy, Raine.”  I didn’t know how to make her understand that there wasn’t anything else to me despite what she wanted to believe.  I was what I was – violent, crude, and utterly unlovable.  Maybe if I told her everything, she would understand, but I really didn’t want her to know.

“I think maybe you should let me decide that.”  Raine dropped her hand from my face and put both of her fists on her hips.  “You know, I’m starting to get a little tired of this.”

“What?” I asked.  I shifted back a little, and I was pretty sure my cock might have actually shrunk back from her glare, too.

“You took care of me,” she said, her darkened eyes staring into mine.  “You watched over me and took care of me all this time.  I would be dead if it weren’t for you.  I’m tired of you telling me you’re some kind of evil creature.  If you were evil, you never would have pulled me out of the water.  You never would have taught me how to use the collection system or the flares, and you wouldn’t have held me at night when I was scared I was going to die!”

“You want me to list all the nasty shit I’ve done in the past couple of weeks, too?”  I didn’t know if it was her words making me angry or if it was because she wasn’t touching me anymore.  I probably should have known the real reason, but I didn’t want to let myself know.  “I bet my numbers are going to outweigh yours.  Did you forget about me backhanding you?”

“No, I did not,” Raine snarled, “but drunk and detoxifying you isn’t the real you.  You can’t hide from me anymore, Bastian!  I have seen into you, and I don’t understand why you won’t just admit it!”

“Because I’m fucking terrified of feeling something for you, okay?” I screamed back at her, and my whole body went cold.

I guess I couldn’t shut down completely after all.

Chapter 9 - Hold

I dropped my head into my hands.  I’d always had a problem keeping my mouth shut, and obviously today wasn’t any different from any other day in the past.  I closed my eyes and dug the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.  I was not trying to hold back tears.  I wasn’t.

“I know you are, Bastian.”

I had a flash of implausible thought focused on Raine reading my mind, but I then realized she was referring to my previous statement.  She meant the words that never should have left my mouth in the first place, not my internal ramblings.

“I didn’t mean…I’m not…I mean…look, Raine…”

I didn’t really have anything coherent to say, so I gave up and dropped my head again.  When Raine spoke again, her voice was quiet and concerned.

“Are you saying that because you think we’re going to die?”

“No,” I responded, keeping my hands over my face.  There was a long pause before I could manage to speak again.  “That would make it easier, actually.”

“Why do you say that?”

Because you wouldn’t have the chance to hurt me.

“Because I’m not going to care about anything if I’m dead,” I said out loud.  “You probably won’t give a shit at that point, either.”

My leg was bouncing again, and it was going to drive me insane.

“Bastian…”  I heard her moving close to me and looked up quickly.  She was reaching out to touch me, and I flinched back, pushing with my heels to move away from her.

“Don’t!” I growled.

“Don’t what?” Raine asked.  She stopped coming closer.

“Don’t touch me,” I clarified.

“Why not?”

Because I want it and I don’t deserve it.

“Just don’t fucking touch me!”  My hands were starting to shake along with my leg, and I wondered if you could go through withdrawal twice without actually imbibing in between.  Long story short – I wanted a drink.  I fucking needed a drink, and there was nowhere to get one.  My hands found my hair and tugged against the roots.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Stark?”

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” I snarled.

“You aren’t seriously pining for that bitch, are you?  I mean, really, she’s fucked half the guys in the organization, and that’s just this week.”

“Don’t you fucking talk about her that way!” I screamed, heading towards him and ready for blood.  I watched my fist connect with his temple.

This sort of thing was exactly why I lived in a fucking bottle as often as possible.  I didn’t need this.  I didn’t need to be thinking about this shit and remembering all the fucked up moments in my life.  I certainly didn’t need this tiny little girl fucking with my life this way.  I needed time to clear my head, and I needed to be away from Raine before she sent me completely over the edge.

Over the edge.

That’s what I needed.

I pushed past Raine and crawled over to the raft opening.  I raised myself up on my knees and started unbuttoning my shorts.

“What are you doing?” Raine cried out.

“I need a swim,” I said.  I rose up enough to pull the shorts down over my hips and then twisted a bit to pull them off.  I grabbed the end of the tether and started tying it to my waist.  Once it was secure, I looked over my shoulder to see Raine with her hands over her face.

“I don’t care if you look, you know,” I said bluntly.

“I do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to,” Raine said softly.

“Are you afraid you are going to like it?” I taunted.  I wanted her to be angry with me.  I wanted her to scream obscenities and tell me what a fucking asshole I was.  I didn’t want her help, her kindness, or anything else from her.  I couldn’t let myself feel anything for her, and pissing her off was the best recourse for making sure she hated me.  I needed to be able justify whatever it was I was trying to bury inside myself, and she needed to stay the fuck away from me before I brought her down to my level.

“No,” Raine said.  I didn’t need to see her glare – I could hear it.  “Why are you going swimming?”

There was fear in her voice, and it occurred to me she probably thought I wasn’t coming back.  I wanted to yell at her to not be so fucking pathetic, but couldn’t bring myself to do it even if it would be the means to the end I sought.  Everything in my body was tensed, and I could feel my muscles rallying around the contradictory mental messages to run, to fight, to embrace, to kill…

“I have too much energy and no where to put it,” I told her.  “There aren’t that many options around here.”

“Well, what are your options?”

“Besides swimming?”  Distracted by her question, I looked around and considered the options.  I came up with nothing that didn’t involve getting Raine in a similar outfit to the one I was wearing at that exact moment, minus the tether.  Well…maybe even with the tether.  Shit.  “If this fucking raft came with a weight room, I’d be set.”

“I think it’s located right past the en suite bath,” Raine smiled, and all thoughts of making her hate me vanished.

I looked over to her, my eyes dropped down her body and back up again, but for once I wasn’t actually thinking about getting her naked.  I was actually wondering if she’d be adverse to me using her in a totally different way.

“How much do you weigh?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s kind of a personal question,” Raine said, her face turning red.

“Maybe a hundred pounds?” I pressed.

“One-fifteen, if you really have to know.”

“Maybe when you first got here,” I said.  “I bet you aren’t more than a hundred now.  Good enough, though.  You can be my weight room.”

“What in the world are you talking about now?”

“I want to start with bench pressing you, and then see what else might work.  I have to get rid of some of this energy, or I’m going to go ballistic.”

“There is no way I am going to let you bench press me,” Raine said, her voice firm.

All right, she had a point.  Though I was pretty sure I could do it, the logistics of the act inside an inflated raft floating around on the sea would be a little difficult.  Fucking her would be really interesting, though.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  That could be extremely interesting…

I had to stop thinking like that.

“Maybe next time,” I shrugged, turned, and dived in the water, almost wishing I had forgotten the tether.  I sank into the waves, toying with the idea of just untying the damn thing, though I would never actually do it.  Aside from the fact that my death would pretty much seal Raine’s fate, giving up just wasn’t something I did.  No matter what, if you just kept fighting you could persevere in some form or another.  Shit, with what I had been through, if I was going to off myself, I would have done so already.

I swam against the waves, mostly doing a basic crawl stroke and kicking furiously behind me.  I wasn’t into form or anything that might be considered value-added strokes – I just wanted to get as much energy as possible out of my body before it exploded either in anger or something much worse.

Stroke, stroke, kick, kick, breathe…

I focused on telling my body what to do, breathing, and not thinking until the buildup of lactic acid in my muscles told me I had probably had enough.  I lifted my head and treaded water as the waves lifted me into the air and lowered me again.  I looked back over my shoulder and saw the raft bobbing up and down on the swells – a bright orange blob in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.  I thought about the woman inside of it, and my mind wandered to the sensation of her hand against my face.

Stop thinking.

I tried floating on my back and staring up at the clouds for a few minutes, but the waves were a little choppy and kept trying to dunk me under.  I also couldn’t stop my mind from thinking back to Raine – how smart she was, how brave she was, and how she refused to put up with my shit.  It made me smile and cringe at the same time.  I reached down to my waist to grab the tether and hauled myself back to the raft, ignoring the burn in my biceps.

I pulled myself onto the edge of the raft and shook water from my hair.  I sat there for a moment and watched the waves crawl up my dangling legs and then recede back down again.  My head hurt, and the light from the setting sun was amplifying the pain.  The swim might have been good for relieving some stress, but the saltwater soaking into my skin wasn’t going to help with my headache too much.

After I had officially wasted enough time staring at the sea, I shook my hair out again, twisted around, and slipped through the opening of the raft.  Raine was on the other side, turned sideways and graciously looking down at her hands in her lap.  I toweled off and pulled my shorts back on because keeping them off would annoy her, and I really didn’t want to do that anymore.  I should have done it anyway because pissing Raine off was in her best interest.  Despite the swim, I realized at once that I was still fidgety and, quite frankly, still conflicted and bitchy.

After a quick drink of water, I lay down on my back right where I was without looking at or speaking to Raine.  I tapped my fingers against the floor of the raft and stared at the ceiling.  I wasn’t sure how long I lay there without speaking, but I had counted well over two hundred taps on the floor, and I hadn’t started counting right away.

“Are you ignoring me now?” Raine asked, her voice quiet and full of trepidation, like she thought I might bite her or something.  It probably wasn’t a completely unreasonable assumption.

“Possibly,” I answered.  I decided not to elaborate, so for a while there was more silence.

“Mister Fluffy used to chew through his lead when he was left outside too long,” Raine said, totally out of the blue.  I felt the muscle tension return instantly.  “He would go and hide in the crawlspace underneath the house, and I’d have to crawl under there and get him out.  Dad thought when he was alone too long he forgot he had a family and got scared again, like he was when he was first brought to the shelter.  I always wondered if it wasn’t because he thought too much.  He really was pretty smart.”

“Are you comparing me to your fucking dog again?” I snapped.

“Not necessarily,” Raine said.  “Why?  Is that what you are doing now, hiding in the crawlspace?”

“Fuck off,” I growled.  There was something inside of me that wanted to apologize to her, but I shoved it down.  Apologies were pointless, and I wasn’t sorry.  Shields at full strength.  Engage!  “Your analogy is not only insulting but fucking stupid, and I’m pretty fucking tired of hearing it.”

I could feel the tremors in my hands again, signifying either the ineffectiveness of the swim or a reaction to the knot forming just below my sternum.  I tried to swallow and couldn’t.  I was going to hurt her but only because it was for her own good.  If I didn’t do it now, I would certainly do it later.  It was better to do it quick – rip that Band-Aid off.

“I wasn’t trying to insult you,” she whispered.  “Please stop shutting me out.”

“I never let you in, baby,” I sneered.  I managed to swallow this time though it hurt my throat.  Maybe I swallowed some salt water or something.  “You’d have to get in before I could kick you out.”

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Raine surmised.

“Look, the truth is, I’ve just had it with your shit!”  I exploded, pushing myself back up to a sitting position and glaring at her.  I grabbed my calves with my hands, hoping it would help with the tremors.  I was so fucking sick of my legs shaking, and I wanted a fucking drink fucking now.  “I’m not your pet dog, and I’m not your fucking pet project, either!”

“Bastian, I never said…”

“Just shut the fuck up!”

Stop it, stop it, stop it…

I didn’t know how to stop.  Everything in my body was so tight – so tense and hard – I couldn’t even stop if I wanted to – I was on complete, reactionary autopilot.  I managed to wrap my arms around my knees and lean forward a little, but that was it.  I couldn’t look at her because if I did my reaction would be – undoubtedly – violent.  I would either lash out more with verbal abuse or I would grab her and violently…beg her to hold me.  Fuck.

She was moving closer to me.  Why would she do that?

“Don’t fucking touch me!”  I jumped back and out of her reach before she could lay a finger on me.  I didn’t want her to touch me even if my brain was screaming for it.  She shouldn’t want to have her hands on me.  I was fucking toxic – ask any woman who knew me.  Well, ask the one who ever knew me.

On the other hand, don’t ask her.

My brain spun into old memories, out of control and unbidden by my conscious mind.

“You know what your problem is, Bastian?”  Landon placed one foot over the other on top of my cherry wood coffee table and sipped his scotch.

“I thought you said I was a dickhead,” I responded.

“That’s a symptom,” Landon corrected.  “Your actual problem is that you have no idea what kind of potential you have.  You have no idea what you could do, and your self-pitying nature means you’ll probably never actualize any of it beyond staying alive in the tournaments.”

“I don’t have any pity for myself,” I growled back at him.

“Don’t fucking contradict me,” Landon said, his voice soft and murderously cold.  I sat still and tried to steady my breathing. “‘If you call forth what is in you, it will save you.  If you do not call forth what is in you, it will destroy you.’”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means if you don’t ever allow yourself to be what you can be, you’re dead,” Landon said.  “Maybe you’ll still be walking around and the same shit will still spew out of your mouth, but you’ll be dead to everyone you know.  You can sit there and puff on your cigar, but you might as well be a picture in a fucking frame.  No life.  No spirit.  No soul.  You don’t have to live like that, Bastian, but if anything’s ever going to change, you’re going to have to let someone inside again someday.”

“Fuck that,” I responded. I glared down at the black satin box on the table next to Landon’s feet, resenting the fact that he had gone through my room to retrieve it just to call me out on my brooding.  I reached out and my fingers tightened around the box, which I threw into the fire before storming out of the room.

“That was an expensive tantrum, you self-pitying dickhead.”

“Don’t…” I whispered, not even knowing it was my own voice that called out in a nearly silent plea until it had happened.  Part of me was still inside my own head, listening to Landon berate me with the Gospel of Saint Thomas while my body was rocking back and forth uncontrollably.  I didn’t know what I was trying to say to her.

“Don’t what, Bastian?”

“Don’t listen to me.”  I could barely hear my own voice as I looked into her eyes, and then I knew exactly what I wanted.  I wanted her to touch me.  I needed her to touch me as badly as I had ever needed a drink in my life.  I felt like I might actually die right here in the raft if I didn’t feel her touch.  True to her intuitive nature, I watched her hand reach out to me, my eyes fixated on her movement.  I tried to hold my body still, but it just wouldn’t listen.

“You want me to touch you?” Raine asked.  I couldn’t tell if she was trying to get me to acknowledge it or if she was afraid I was going to hit her again.  I couldn’t say the words, but I tried to nod.  Raine looked at me tentatively but didn’t move.  I forced sound from my lungs.

“Sometimes…”  I started, but didn’t really know what I wanted to say, so I babbled.  “When I say something that…no, I mean…fuck!”

“I don’t know what you are trying to say,” Raine admitted.  I tried not to scream at her and forced myself to take a deep breath before speaking again.

“Raine, I never say sorry,” I told her.  “It’s meaningless, and it doesn’t change anything.”

“Bastian, please don’t try to explain.”

“I can’t,” I told her.  “I don’t know what to say.  I just need you to…”

I couldn’t finish, but I didn’t need to.  I felt her fingers glide over the backs of my hands and up my arms before running through my hair.

“It’s getting late, and I’m tired.  Lie down with me, please?” Raine asked.  She started to lean back right where we were.  Then one hand was on my face, the other in my hair, and my arms were around her.  Raine tugged at me until we were both lying down on the raft with Raine on her back and my head buried against her shoulder.  I stopped shaking, but I still felt the panic building up inside of me.  I shouldn’t want this.  This was going to lead to pain and not the easy kind.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Bastian.”

I tilted my head up from her shoulder, feeling her cheek brush against mine.  I looked at her, confused by her words, her tone, her actions – her everything.

“How do you know what to do?” I asked her.

“I don’t understand,” Raine said.  “How do I know what to do about what?”

“You make me calm,” I said quietly, “or at least calmer.  How do you know how to do that?  The way you touch me, the way you look at me…I don’t know what it means.”

For a moment, we stared at each other until I saw a tear drop from her eyelashes.  I reached up and placed my hand on her face, wiping the moisture away.

“Don’t cry.”

“No one’s ever done this for you before, have they?”  Raine’s tone was sad, but there was anger there as well.

“Done what?”

“Shown you any kind of affection.”

“Affection?”  I thought about the word’s definition and what it meant to me, quickly determining it meant nothing.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“No one’s ever cared for you,” Raine expounded.  “Or taken care of you.”

“Landon…”

“He did not take care of you,” Raine practically growled.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then began running her fingers through the hair on my face again.  “Not the way I mean.”

“He got me off the street,” I said, wondering what exactly I was trying to convey.  Was I defending him?  He gave me purpose at least, though the purpose itself was a little unconventional.  “It’s not like I was going to be useful to anyone else.  I was a violent, fucked up asshole.  I still am.  Why would anyone treat me like something I’m not?”

“You deserved affection, Bastian,” Raine’s voice was firm.  “You deserved it as a child, and you deserve it now.”

“None of them wanted me,” I heard myself say.  I looked up at her, and words just poured from my mouth without any conscious thought behind them.  “There was something wrong with me, and none of them ever wanted me to stay.  They’d keep the other kids.”

Another tear fell down her cheek.

“Don’t cry, Raine.  Not for me.”

“Someone should,” she said.  Part of me wanted to contradict her, and part of me just wanted to join her.  For a while we looked at each other, and I tried to understand what any of this meant.  I didn’t know how long it was before I spoke again.

“I want to, Raine,” I said quietly.  “I want to let you in. I just don’t know if I can.”

I pushed more tears away from her cheekbones before dropping my head back to her shoulder and pulling her body a little closer to me with the arm I had around her waist.  I closed my eyes and gave into the exhaustion.

…I have both a blanket, ragged though it is, and my bear, Snuffy.  I move some of the boxes out of the back of the closet and crawl behind them with the blanket over my head, obstructing my view of the closed closet door.  I am sure this time he won’t find me since I am completely covered.  I hear his footsteps, his loud voice.  The door is opened – I can see light through the blanket – and then there is brighter light as the blanket is torn from me, my arm wrenching painfully as he hauls me out.  I try to throw Snuffy back into the corner where he’d be safe, but he grabbed the bear from my hand…

I jerked awake, panting and sweating.

Raine was still in my arms…or I was in hers.  Whatever.  I had my arm wrapped around her midsection with my head still on her shoulder and her hand slowly tracing patterns through my hair.

“Shh…” I heard Raine’s quiet hush.  I turned my head to look up at her and found her staring down at me.  I just looked at her for a minute while her hand moved from my hair to my jaw, slowly caressing it.  Her lips turned up in the very slightest of smiles.

“I’ve got you now.”

* * * * *

The waves were calm and the morning air cool as I sat motionless on the edge of the raft.  The swimming suit-net I had previously constructed lay quietly across my fingertips, and my eyes were trained directly at three large brown pelicans floating on the water about twenty feet away.  They had apparently given up on the whole fishing thing as well and were just resting on the water.  They hardly took any notice of me or the craft floating near them.

I spread my fingers slowly over my thighs and then raised my hands up just a fraction of an inch, holding them quiet and still again.  Like catching fish, netting birds is all about patience.  Pelicans weren’t too quick when it came to taking flight from the water, which gave me an added advantage, however slight it may have been.

I pulled my feet up under me, balancing precariously on the edge of the raft and trying not to let the swaying of the craft freak the birds out.  Unfortunately, I had caught their attention and had to remain still in that awkward position while they eyed me for a minute.  Fortunately, that minute was enough for the raft to drift a little closer to the group.

Springing out away from the raft with the net outspread, I landed in the water on top of all three of them, and the beak of one was thrust through the net.  The other two were dunked but resurfaced quickly and took to the air, abandoning their companion.  I broke its neck and pulled at the tether until I reached the edge of the raft again.

I used a little of the water to clean the meat from the fragile bones.  Bird meat isn’t that great to eat raw because of their predilection for parasites, so I cleaned it carefully.  Making sure it was relatively safe was worth a little water waste.  I cut the meat into strips and lay them out on the canopy of the raft to dry in the sun.  It would make it a little more palatable at least.

When I slid back through the opening, Raine was awake and taking a drink of water.

“Full water rations today,” I told her.  “Tomorrow we go to two-thirds.”

“Good morning to you, too,” Raine responded dryly.  I stared at her for a minute, a dozen insults forming on my lips.  Then I remembered how I woke up, with her hand still tangled through my hair and my head using her stomach as a pillow.  She was warm and soft and…

Damnit.

“Good morning,” I mumbled.  “We’ll be having a late lunch, but we will be eating.”

“You found fish?”

“No,” I said.  “Pelican.  I’m sure it’s a delicacy somewhere, too.”

Raine snickered, and I smiled at the sight of her bright eyes and the sound of her laughter.  We passed the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon talking bullshit.  She talked about friends of hers and their crazy shopping habits, and I talked about how much juvenile detention sucked.  When I checked the meat again, it was dry enough to eat at least, so I pulled half of it in, handed Raine a chunk, and showed her how to tear it into smaller chunks to eat it.

“It’s your turn,” I told her.

“What do you want me to talk about?” Raine asked.

“Tell me about your mom,” I suggested, silently hoping I wasn’t treading on ground best left untraveled.  Then I wondered where the hell that thought even came from.  Since when did I give a shit?  Oh yeah, since now, apparently.  “You never mention her.”

“There isn’t a lot to say,” Raine responded.  She placed a small bit of pelican meat into her mouth and made a face while she chewed it.  I wasn’t sure if it was because of the taste or my question.  “When I was four, she died in a car accident.  I was in the backseat, but I don’t remember anything about it.  Icy roads, nasty curve that she must have taken too fast for the road conditions.  Dad almost wasn’t going to let me learn how to drive when I turned sixteen.  He never really got over her.”

“Do you remember her at all?”

“Yes, some things.” Raine looked up to me, then back down to her hands again.  “She was your typical post-sixties eccentric hippie.  I remember her always taking me places to plant trees and pick up paper along the road to recycle.  We even made our own paper from the stuff we found once, and then I drew pictures on it for my dad’s desk at the station.  She worked part-time at the hospital, so she was always around when I got home from school.  When I was little, Dad said she took me to the playground at a nearby park every day to ride the merry-go-round.  Apparently, I liked spinning in circles until I puked.”

Raine chuckled quietly.

“It sounds like you were close,” I said.  I’d long stopped feeling jealous of people’s relationships with their parents, but I still found myself wondering if my mother had ever done anything like that with me.

“We were,” Raine acknowledged.  “Her passing probably made me a lot closer to my dad than I might have been otherwise.  Being a single parent was hard for him, especially when I got older and he had to explain the facts of life to me.  I think he just about turned red when he had to talk about feminine hygiene!”

This time, Raine laughed out loud.  Her comment sparked another question.

“Um, speaking of such things…” I raised an eyebrow at her.  “We’ve been out here two weeks now and...well…are we going to run into that problem?”

Raine looked at me through narrowed eyes for a moment and then opened them wide with understanding.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.  “No, no…no worries there.  I have crazy cycles and really bad cramps, so I get that birth control shot.  I don’t have cycles at all anymore.  I had a shot right before I left for the cruise, and they are good for three months, maybe longer.”

“Well, that’s damn handy, given the circumstances.”

“No kidding!”

Like such topics tend to do, the conversation was killed.  We sat back, and I divvied out water and a little more bird meat.  I pretended not to watch her take the cup of water, lick her lips, drink, lick her lips again, and wipe her mouth.  After a couple minutes of that, I had to stop looking or it was going to be pretty obvious what I was really thinking about when it came to that mouth and those lips.

“Why aren’t you making me suck the spinal fluid out of birds?”

Raine shifted back on her heels and made another horrific face as she quickly chewed and swallowed the slim strand of pelican meat.

“I’m still thinking about it,” I told her.  “There’s more likely to be other things in a bird’s spinal fluid – parasites, viruses, and shit.  Birds are a lot dirtier than fish.  I wouldn’t even be eating it, but I’ve looked all over for a drive through and there aren’t any Golden Arches in sight.”

Raine giggled and pushed at my arm.  I leaned away with the slight force of her push and let myself rock back until my shoulder hit hers.  I gave her the half-smile I had been known to use on a few occasions before and watched her take her lower lip between her teeth and her eyes darken.  I licked my own lips and swallowed involuntarily.

“Is that why you went for fish before?”

“I went for fish because there weren’t any birds,” I replied.  “If I have to eat raw something, I’d rather eat fish.  This shit sucks big time.”

Raine laughed again, and I realized I was starting to say things just to make her laugh.  Another feminine laugh filled the ears of my memory, but this time I managed to push it away.

What I didn’t say to Raine, because I didn’t want to get her hopes up, was that pelicans never travel too far from land.  Their mere presence meant we were close, but without the means to guide us one direction or the other, we were completely at the mercy of the currents.  I glanced over at the wooden paddle where it hung, strapped to one side of the raft, teasing me with its ineffectiveness against the currents.

When I looked up, Raine had a very odd smile on her face that slowly turned into a bigger smile and then a fit of giggles.

“What are you laughing about?” I demanded.

“You’ve got…um…”  She started laughing harder.

“What the fuck, Raine?”

“You’ve got pelican in your beard!”  Raine’s eyes closed and she rolled over onto her side, holding her stomach and guffawing like the village idiot.  I reached up and picked a bit of pelican flesh off my chin and tossed it out the raft opening.  Raine continued to wail hysterically.  I tried to feel pissed off about it, but it wasn’t really working.

“Why is that so funny?” I asked.  Raine attempted – somewhat successfully – to respond between chortles.

“You’ve…got…a…pelican!” she screeched, laughing even harder, “in your…beard!”

Well, I still didn’t get it, but I wasn’t going to put up with any more of that crap.  I dove at her, grabbed her, and started tickling her sides.  The raft bobbed and rocked with the force, tossing us both around.  Raine screamed and tried twisting away, but I held her against my chest with one arm and tickled her with the opposite hand.  She slapped at the arm holding her and then tried to grab and hold the hand tickling her.  She was not the least bit successful in this endeavor because even when she did get a hold of me, she wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to hold me off.

“Stop, Bastian…please!” she begged.  I stopped the tickling long enough to let her catch her breath but kept my hold on her.  I swiftly turned her around so she was facing me and wrapped both arms around her middle with her legs straddling my thighs.

“I’ll stop if you kiss me,” I told her.

“Fine!” she cried out, raising her eyebrows at me.

“You have to kiss me right…here…”  I let go with one hand and pointed to the spot on my chin where the bit of pelican had been stuck.  Raine lost it, started laughing again, and kept trying to squirm out of my grip.  We ended up rolling to the other side of the raft until I finally stopped while lying on my back with Raine perched on top of me.

“Do you give up yet?” I asked.

“Yes!”

“Going to kiss me now?”

“Not there!”

“If you won’t kiss me there,” I teased, “you will have to kiss me wherever else I choose.”

“No way!” Raine said.  “Who knows what your perverted mind would choose!”

“Actually, it’s probably pretty obvious,” I smirked, raising an eyebrow at her.  “I do have a particular fondness for…”

“Don’t say it!”

Raine wrenched one hand away from my grasp and tried to tickle me.  I wasn’t particularly ticklish anyway, so she wasn’t successful.  I flipped us both over, causing the raft the lurch again, grabbed her hands and pinned them over her head.  She tried kicking, but I wrapped my legs around hers, slid my feet down her calves, and pinned her ankles with mine.

She was totally immobile under me, which my dick really, really liked.

“Let me up!” Raine cried, laughing again.  She struggled in my grasp for a moment before giving up and lying still.  She looked up at me, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths.  I pulled her wrists together, gripping them with one hand and used the other to point to my chin.

“Right here,” I said.

Raine contemplated for only a moment before raising her head just enough to give me a peck on the chin, then started giggling uncontrollably again.  I shook my head and released her, rolling off to the side and pulling her by her hip so she was still lying down but facing me.  I tried to glare at her, but her laughing was making me smile, which didn’t make for an effective glare.  Once she calmed down, she reached out to stroke the side of my face, then moved a little closer and pressed her lips against mine.

I felt her open her mouth and run her tongue over my lips.  I opened to her slowly, though I couldn’t explain my hesitancy, but as soon as her tongue touched mine, I couldn’t stop myself from pressing back and seeking out her mouth.  She felt good; she tasted good, and all I wanted to do was to make her feel the way I did when I was touching her.

Then I remembered there was something else I was supposed to do, so I pulled back much sooner than I would have preferred.  Raine looked at me with questioning eyes that were still dark with desire.  Yes, I needed to do something right now.

“I think you’re ready,” I said softly.

“Ready for what?”

“To feel an orgasm,” I said, raising my eyebrows and mentally daring her to say she didn’t want to do it.  She stared at me a moment, then nodded slowly.  I moved my hand away from her hip.

“Lie down on your back,” I instructed, making sure to keep my voice both quiet and low.  Raine did as I told her, and I could hear her breathing already becoming a little irregular.

I knew how to be charming, and I knew how to make a woman feel good.  When I had first told her I could make her come without touching her, it wasn’t a bluff – I had done it before, and I was pretty sure I could do it again.

Once she was settled, she looked up at me, her eyes wide and expectant.  I just looked at them for a moment before I moved very, very slowly towards her, balancing myself on one arm while the other reached across her, careful not to touch any part of her.  My head moved as well until it hovered over her, and I stared down into her eyes.  I moved a little closer, bringing my lips just a few millimeters away from hers.  Her back arched, giving me advanced notice of her intent to reach up to me.  I moved away as she tried to bring our lips together and gave her a crooked smile.

“No touching,” I reminded her gently.  I raised my eyebrows as she groaned quietly and settled back into place.  Her tongue darted out over her lips, and I had to stop myself from crushing my mouth down on hers and taking anything and everything I could get.  Looking down at her like this was more than enough to make my cock grow even harder.

I moved back, bringing my lips close to hers again, then I slowly moved over the edge of her jaw, exhaling warm air against her skin as I moved up to her ear.

“Reach your hand up and touch under the edge of your jaw with the pads of your fingers,” I told her.  Her eyes narrowed a little, questioning.  I smirked.  “I said I wasn’t going to touch you – that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to touch you.”

Raine’s mouth turned up into a smile, and she reached up to quickly run her hand over her cheek.

“Not like that,” I corrected.  “Always move very slowly, using a light touch with the tips of your fingers.  Barely touch your skin.  You’ll feel like you are only touching the hair on your skin, and it should tickle a little.”

Raine tried again.

“Yeah…that’s it.” I looked back into her eyes.  “Move your fingers down your jaw line and touch your lips with them.  That’s it…close your eyes and remember what it was like when my lips were on yours.  Warm…soft…”

I blew warm air across her ear again and watched her shiver a little.

“Take your other hand and put it at the hem of your…my shirt,” I felt myself smile.  I shifted my weight and moved across her face, my nose almost grazing her skin, but not quite, until I reached her other ear.  “I love seeing you in my clothes.  Your pussy is covered by the same cloth that touched my cock, you know.  I get so hard when I think about that.  Do you ever think about that, Raine?  Do you ever think about how my cock was in those same shorts?  The same shorts touching your pussy right now?”

“Yes,” Raine whisper-moaned.

“Did it make the muscles between your legs tighten when you thought of my cock being close to your pussy?  Did it make you wet to think of me there?”

She gasped and her fingers gripped the edge of my shirt.

“I thought so,” I growled into her ear.  “Touch your stomach, Raine.  Pull the shirt back and run your fingers across your stomach.  Gently now…just like the other ones.  Good…run your middle finger around your navel.  God, I wish that was my tongue on you.”

“You could…”  Raine started.

“No, no,” I said with a smile.  I blew across her neck and watched her shudder.  “That’s not the deal, is it?  It doesn’t mean I don’t want it to be my tongue, though.  Running over your sweet skin, tasting you…move your hand up under my shirt, baby.  Yeah…run your fingers over your breast.  Now close your eyes and just feel it.”

Raine followed my instructions, her teeth imbedded in her bottom lip and her hand moving visibly underneath the shirt to cup her own breast.  I watched her fingers as they started to close in around her nipple.

“Don’t touch that nipple, baby.  I didn’t tell you to touch that…no…run your thumb around it…Wait for it to get all hard and tight.   Oh yeah, I can see it now through my shirt…so fucking hot…”

Raine’s eyes remained closed, and I watched her chest rise and fall a little faster now.  Her teeth looked like they might be permanently dug into her lip, but despite the obstruction, little whimpered cries snuck out of her mouth.

“Take your hand out of the shirt, Raine,” I said.  “Reach across and run your fingers – lightly now – run your fingers up your other arm, the same way you touched yourself before…that’s it…very lightly…to your shoulder, up your neck and over your chin…slowly…now put your first two fingers in your mouth.”

Raine’s eyes opened, and she tilted her head to look over at me.

“Shh,” I said before she had a chance to argue.  “Put your fingers in your mouth and suck on them.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Raine complied.

“Good girl,” I whispered.  My arm was starting to get tired holding the majority of my weight, so I moved back across her body, bringing my nose extremely close to her neck and shoulders as I moved my mouth to her other ear.

“Run the backs of your fingers down your side,” I instructed.  “Now back up and under my shirt and rub those wet fingers over your nipple.”

I watched her hand under the shirt and had to tilt my hips a little farther away from her.

“That could be my tongue,” I said, blowing hot breath into her ear again.  Raine gasped and closed her eyes.  “Now roll your nipple with your thumb and forefinger.  Pull a little, just like if I was sucking on it.  Oh yeah…now the other side…”

I rose up on one hand, balancing over the top of her and using the other hand to shadow her movements over the top of the shirt, almost – but not quite – touching the fabric.  I watched my hand move with hers and heard myself groan a bit when Raine pulled at her nipple.

Her lids fluttered, and she looked at me with her eyes dark and her lips parted.

“So fucking hot,” I said to her.  “Put your other hand on your stomach…trace lightly with your finger over the edge of the shorts.  Slide the tips of your fingers under the edge…”

Watching her run her fingers under the hem of my boxer shorts – even when I wasn’t wearing them – felt like a defining moment of some sort.  I almost expected an orchestra to pop out of the elastic and start playing dramatic music.  When her fingers went under the fabric, I had just the smallest glimpse of dark curls of hair right next to the hem.  I wanted my fingers inside of her almost as much as I wanted my cock inside of her.

“Move your fingers lower,” I whispered in her ear.  “Slide them down over your clit, between those lips…find that place I want to be so bad.  Do you feel it?  Put one of your fingers inside, Raine.  Slide it in there…”

Raine’s back arched, and I had to recoil a little to keep from touching her as she twisted her head to one side.  She let out a long, soft moan that had my dick ready to fight its way right through the material of my shorts.  My cock was seriously ticked off not to be in those boxers right at that moment.

“So fucking sexy,” I murmured, daring to get close to her ear again.  “Are you wet, Raine?”

“Yes…”

“Tell me how wet you are.”

“Oh, God…Bastian…”

“Pinch your nipple again,” I told her.  “Rub your thumb over your clit.  That’s it, around in a circle.”

Sweat appeared on her forehead, and though the back of my mind registered the loss of water as important, watching her finger herself was just too incredible to even consider telling her to stop.  She could have my water.  She could have all the fucking water.  As long as I got to watch this, I could keel over right now and be perfectly content.

“Move that finger in and out, Raine,” I continued.  I was sure she was getting close.  “Roll your nipple with your thumb and finger…good…there ya go…so hot…All I can think about is my cock being in there.  I can almost feel it sliding up into you, just like your fingers are now.  Curl them up, Raine.  Curl your fingers up toward your clit – like you were trying to touch your thumb to your fingers through your body – and push down with your thumb…”

Raine let out a soft groan, and I blew across her ear once more.

“Roll your thumb in a circle…that’s it.  I want you to come for me, baby…let go…”

Her head tilted farther back, and her hair grazed my lips before I could move.  Her mouth opened, her eyes squeezed shut, and she cried out incoherently as her orgasm overcame her.  She panted out my name over and over as she came down, which was almost enough to make me come on the spot.

Raine opened her eyes slowly and immediately met with mine.

“So fucking hot,” I whispered again and leaned over as if to press my lips lightly to hers but still didn’t touch her.  Her panting breaths blew hot air into my mouth.  I pulled my head back and watched her eyes as I finally touched her again, sliding my hand down the outside of her arm.  When I reached the lower part of her arm, resting softly on her hip bone, she moved and quickly extracted her hand from the shorts.  I caught her wrist and leisurely brought her hand up until her slick fingers were right next to my face.  Raine’s eyes widened for a moment, and her skin darkened slightly, which made me smile.  I brought her fingers to my mouth and slowly sucked them in.

As I tasted her, all I could think was that this wasn’t even from the source, but only off of her fingers.  I wanted so much more.  I kept my eyes on her as I slowly removed her fingers from my mouth and licked my lips.  Raine whimpered a little.

“Bastian…”

“You taste incredible,” I said, and it was the absolute truth.  Raine’s cheeks turned crimson as her eyes left my gaze, and I could see her swallow hard as her heart continued to pound.

“Okay,” Raine said eventually as her breathing began to calm.  “I get it now.  I know what the fuss is about.”

I snickered as I wrapped my arms back around her shoulders.  I couldn’t stop myself from kissing her any longer, and this time when I hovered over her, I brought my lips down to hers.  I kissed her gently at first but then harder.  My own heart rate increased as I placed one hand on the side of her face to hold her to me, my tongue touching her lips and then exploring her mouth.  I wanted to touch more of her but hesitated because I didn’t want to push her any further than I already had.  If I started touching her much more, I might not be able to stop.  I pulled back at the thought, kissing her softly once again before settling back beside her.

“Do you want me to…um…?”  Raine glanced down, and I realized I still had a rather visible bulge on display.  I wasn’t sure exactly what she was offering, if it was indeed an offer, but her expression and continued look of insecurity told me everything I needed to know.  She wasn’t ready for that.

“No,” I said and then grinned down at her.  “Maybe later.  That was just for you.”

Raine pushed up and found my lips again, kissing me softly and wonderfully.

“Thank you, Bastian.”

“Anytime,” I responded.  “And I do mean that!”

“I know,” Raine said with another giggle, “but I think at this point, you have completely worn me out.”

“Wasn’t me,” I denied.  “I didn’t even touch you.”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around my shoulders to pull me down to her.  We kissed again before she took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and guided my head to her shoulder.  I stayed there for a while, but the sight of her breasts with their nipples still standing upright and visible through the shirt she wore was driving me insane.  I sat up and lowered my head back down on her stomach.  Granted, in this position I was closer to the Taj Mahal of existence, according to my cock, but it didn’t bother me as much.  Besides, I liked it there; I could still smell her orgasm.

Just since that morning, my cheek lying against Raine’s stomach had become my favorite place to be.  I could hear her steady heart beat from there. I could wrap my arm up her side and around her shoulder and touch her cheek if I wanted to, and most of all, Raine had easy access to my hair, which she played with while I closed my eyes and felt nearly peaceful.

If I managed to find more edible food and could call on the weather gods to make it rain every three days or so, I would have been perfectly happy staying right where I was for the rest of our natural lives.  I wondered how Raine would feel about that and remembered I still owed her something else.

“I guess I’m obligated to tell you another story now,” I said and immediately wished I hadn’t.  What was I going to say?  I couldn’t talk about her.  It wasn’t going to be possible.

“You don’t have to tell me, Bastian,” Raine said.  Her fingers continued to trace patterns on my scalp.  When she ran her fingers through the strands, it took longer than it should have for her to reach the ends.  I needed a haircut.  And a shave.  And a shower.  Probably a dozen other things, too.

“We made a deal,” I reminded her.  “I still think it was a shitty deal from my end, but I never back out on a deal.”

“I told you…”

“Actually, I have to take that back,” I interrupted.  I was undoubtedly stalling.  “I’ve skipped out on many deals, really.  Part of the game – form an alliance, and as soon as their back is turned – take them out.”

“That doesn’t sound very sporting.”

“It’s not like there was a ref looking for unsportsmanlike behavior,” I said.  “Kill or be killed.  If I hadn’t fucked over those people, you would be dead now.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Raine said, her voice both soft and hard at the same time.  I figured now would be an excellent time to stop talking, so I listened to her heartbeat, located just a little above my ear.  My fingers grazed her hip, and I stared blankly across the length of the raft.

Raine was going to let me off the hook, which was a damn good thing.  I wasn’t about to talk about the five months I was with her.  It was kind of ridiculous, really.  How could I talk about it when I couldn’t say – or even think – her name?

I focused on more pleasant things, like the look on Raine’s gorgeous face when she tilted her head back and came all over her fingers, whimpering my name.  I thought about what her fingers tasted like when I licked them afterwards.

I wanted her, and not just as a warm body to get my rocks off.  I liked having her close to me like this – touching my hair and just running her hands over me even when we weren’t really doing anything.  I most certainly wanted her, but how could I even think about it after what had happened the first and only time I had ever let anyone get to me?  No, I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t let her in for one major reason at least – I’d have to tell her about what happened before, and there was no way in hell I was going to do that.

“I met Jillian after a tournament.”

Fuck my mouth.

I guess I was going to talk after all.

Chapter 10 - Baby

“You don’t have to tell me.”  Raine’s voice was low and soft.

“Yeah,” I said.  “I think I do.”

“Not because you feel like you owe it to me,” Raine clarified.  Her fingers pushed my hair behind my ear before running down my jaw line.  If she kept that up, maybe I would be able to get through this.  “I don’t have to know.”

“I want you to know,” I said.

“All right,” Raine said after a moment.  “If it’s what you want.”

I nodded and wrapped my arm a little tighter around her waist.  Raine’s fingers kept repeating their motions from behind my ear, down my jaw, and back again, setting a slow, gentle pace while I talked.

“I had just won a tournament,” I said.  “Well, okay, that’s pretty obvious.  Anyway, it was a big one – one of those that had lasted a couple of days.  We were somewhere in Central America, I think.  I was trucked back from the place where I had killed the last guy, and they took me to this big ranch in the middle of a bunch of fields.  I kind of assumed they were cocaine plants, but I don’t really know what those look like and wasn’t about to ask, but shit, we were in Central America with a bunch of mafia types, for fuck’s sake.  It was probably cocaine.”

“When the truck stopped, I jumped out of the back and got surrounded by a bunch of people – some of the guys from the organization and a shit ton of chicks.  I mean, probably about twenty of them, all trying to get their hands on me and shoving each other.  I remember thinking I didn’t get it – I’d been in the jungle for the past two days, was covered in blood, had two broken fingers, and a decent sized gash down my side that needed stitches.  It’s not like I looked good.”

I stopped a second and lifted my arm, showing Raine the four inch scar underneath.  She reached around my back to trace it with her fingers a couple of times before she just left her hand on top of it.  Her other hand kept playing with my hair.

“So, in the back of these women, I see this other chick – she’s really tall and blonde with big tits, and she’s walking quickly towards us.  She stood out, no doubt about that.  The way she looked and the way she moved, she was every guy’s type.  I mean, straight women and gay guys would fall for her.”

I stopped talking again as images of her…of Jillian…when she first walked up to me flew through my head, both glorious and gloriously painful.  Raine’s fingers ran over my head a couple of times, and I managed to take a deep breath and start again.

“She pushed through the rest of the people crowded around me, walked straight up to me, and stuck her tongue down my throat.  When she stopped, she said the fight had been the most incredible thing she had ever seen and that I was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.  I thought she was a little crazy at first, but I usually ended up with a couple different women after a fight, so I didn’t think much of it.  After one of the doctors splinted my fingers and stitched me up, I went with her to this nightclub in the middle of the freaking coke fields.  So we danced and she drank…”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t drink then,” I said.  “I would have a beer or something, maybe a glass of scotch, but I didn’t ever get drunk.  Jillian drank a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” Raine said.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s all right,” I replied.  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a minute, and then kept going.  “That shit doesn’t really matter, anyway.  Basically, we hit it off.  She came to the room they had set up for me, and we fucked all night.  That wasn’t unusual, but what was different was that she stayed there until morning.  I usually kicked the chicks out of the room afterwards.  I didn’t like having them there when I was trying to sleep.  What was even weirder was what happened when we got back to Seattle.  She was at my apartment more often than not; she was at all of my games, betting shitloads of her daddy’s money on me, and we’d fuck like rabbits at least four times a day.  We went on like that for about six weeks, and everything was perfect, as far as I was concerned.”

“Before Jillian, I was with a different girl most every night.  After tournaments, it was more like two or three of them would come back to the hotel with me.  You would have thought switching to a one-woman relationship would have been hard for me, but it wasn’t.  I loved it.  I loved being with her; I loved coming home and having her there with me in the apartment, and I loved turning other women down because I was with someone.  It’s like that was how I was supposed to be. I guess I just didn’t know I was that kind of boy before then.”

“I felt like there was finally something good in my life – something that meant something.  I started talking to her about maybe retiring.  It’s not like I needed any more money at that point.  I’d been in tournaments for over six years by then and had enough money to live off the interest forever.  Jillian’s family was loaded, so there wasn’t any need for us to do anything other than whatever we wanted to do.  I figured we’d be set, and she wouldn’t worry about me when I was…well, when I was working.”

“That changed a bit when I came back early from a trip.  Some tournament that ended up being cancelled – not sure why.  It happened occasionally.  Either the local authorities started snooping around or whoever was supposed to be backing it up financially ended up in a river.  Regardless, I came back early.  We had an office building downtown, and I stopped off there before going back to the apartment.  It should have been empty, but…well…it wasn’t.  I walked into the office, and when I opened the door…”

I stopped and let the tension wash over me.  My hands were clenched into fists, and my throat went dry.  I couldn’t even say it.

“What the fuck?”  He lifted his head up and looked towards the door.  He looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember his name.

“Bastian!  You aren’t supposed to be back yet!”

“Wha…what…?”  I couldn’t even get any words out.

“She was with someone else, wasn’t she?”

“Um…”  I had to clear my throat to continue.  “Yeah.”

“Oh, Bastian.”  Raine’s hand stroked from my temple to the back of my head.  “I’m sorry.  That must have been horrible.”

“It was,” I agreed.  “I stormed off, and she followed me back to my place.  She said it was a mistake.  She missed me, and she was lonely and she swore it wouldn’t happen again, so I forgave her and we made up.  The second time it happened…”

I heard Raine gasp, but I didn’t pause.

“…I told her I couldn’t live like that.  I needed her to be with me only, and I didn’t know how to trust her anymore.  She said she’d never do it again, and then she said she wanted to…um…make a gesture.  She wanted to do something special to show me how she felt.”

I stopped talking.

“Fuck, I can’t do this.”

“It’s okay, Bastian,” Raine said, her hand on the side of my face again.  “Just take some deep breaths, and talk when you’re ready.”

I nodded and tried to do what Raine told me.

“What did she do, Bastian?”

“It’s not what she did,” I clarified.  “It’s what she asked me to…well, or let me…fuck.”

I stopped talking again and sat up.  Raine’s hands fell away from me, and I watched her sit up as well.  It took me several deep breaths before I could convince myself to go on with this shit.

“I’d always been really, really careful when it came to sex,” I told her.  “I’d never fucked without a condom.  Ever.  Not once.  Not even when I was with Theresa as a teenager and certainly not when I was with different women all the time.  I got checked out every six months – everything you’re supposed to do.”

“Jillian said she’d prove how much we meant to each other by letting me…” I grimaced, remembering her words and how they made me feel like she meant everything she said.  I remembered how much I wanted it even though I hadn’t even considered it before.  I remembered how fucking stupid I was.  “She said she’d let me…come in her.  She said doing that would prove how much she wanted us to be together – how much we should trust each other.  She was on the pill…she said she was on the pill.  Fuck, I wish I had a drink…or at least a fucking cigarette.”

I ran my hands through my hair, reached over for a cup of water, and downed it quickly as if it were a shot of vodka.

“Looking back…well…I was just a fucking moron, I guess.”  I had to keep going, or there was no way I would be able to finish.  “I should have realized what she really wanted.  I don’t know how I would have, but I definitely should have.”

“We were together for two more months after we…um…changed our habits.  I was on cloud nine, and I had decided to officially retire and ask Jillian to marry me.  I even bought a ring that cost me a whole fucking tournament’s winnings, but I wanted her to have the best.  I hadn’t even met her parents, but I wanted them to know I had just about as much money as they did, so they would know I could take care of her.  Shit, I gave her fucking everything she wanted – the money that woman could spend on shoes alone…”

I stopped and collected myself again so I could speak a little slower.

“I was going to surprise her,” I said.  “I had the ring, and I was going to pick her up at her place and take her out to dinner, maybe walk along the Sound or something to propose.  I was supposed to be training that night, but I blew it off.  Landon was pissed when he found out.  Anyway, I went to her place and she was, again, with another guy.”

“The two times before when I caught her, she immediately began crying and begging me to forgive her.  She had told me how much we were meant to be and how weak she was and all this other bullshit.  This time was different.  When I walked in, they were on the couch and she was riding him – she loved being on top.  She looked over her shoulder when she heard me and just let out this big, exasperated sigh.  She looked back at the guy and told him she’d be back in a minute, got up off of him, and shoved me into the kitchen.  She barely even paused to put a robe on herself.”

“Is this him?”

“Yeah,” Jillian grumbled.  “Give me a minute.  This needs to be done anyway.”

“No problem, babe.”

“I couldn’t even say anything while she stood in front of me and told me we were done, that she was marrying the guy in the other room.  She said what a great fuck I was and how she got what she needed from me.  She rubbed her stomach at that point, but I didn’t get it – not until later.  I was just trying to comprehend the half-million dollar diamond in my pocket and how it was supposed to look on her finger.  I think I must have told her I wanted to marry her because she laughed and said there was no way Daddy would let her marry someone with my background.  She said I wasn’t even close to being what she would consider marrying and that I needed to wise up and realize my place in her society.  She pointed down at her feet when she said that.”

“I ended up just walking out,” I continued.  “I guess I was in shock or something.  I walked back to my apartment, which was a good two hours by foot, trying to understand what had just happened.  I kept replaying the whole thing in my head until I remembered exactly what she had said – that she got what she needed.  At the time, I must have thought she was just talking about the sex, but the image of her rubbing her stomach kept flickering around in my head.  I had just gotten home when I realized exactly what she meant – she was pregnant, and the baby was mine.”

She didn’t make a sound, but Raine moved over so she was sitting very close to me and placed her hand against the small of my back before moving it slowly up to my neck and into my hair.  She leaned against me lightly.

“I went kind of ballistic at that point, I guess,” I went on.  Moving through the rest of this fucked up story had to be quick, or I would never get through it.  “I trashed my apartment before jumping in my car and going about ninety back to her place.  It was too late – they were already gone.  I got on her computer and found out they had bought two tickets to Italy and were leaving that night.”

“That’s when John Paul called,” I said.  “She had called him and I guess told him some of what happened.  He told me to stay right where I was, and he’d come to get me.”

“I didn’t realize you knew John Paul then,” Raine said.

“Yeah, I knew him,” I answered.  “John Paul was Landon’s other fighter, but that’s a whole different story.”

“I’m sorry,” Raine said.  Her fingers began to massage the back of my neck.  “Go on.”

“I wasn’t about to listen to him and stick around.  I wanted to stop her from getting on the plane.  I thought if I could just talk to her and tell her how much I needed her and how I was going to retire and that I had a plan for us…I thought if she would just listen…just for a minute.  I didn’t get the chance because John Paul must have been pretty damn close to her place when he called.  I was backing out of her driveway, and he slammed into the back of my Ferrari, the bastard.  We ended up in a fist fight, and it’s probably a miracle one of us didn’t kill the other.  Maybe we would have, but Landon pulled up, got out of his car, hit me in the side with a Taser, and drove off again.  John Paul knocked me unconscious and hauled me back home.”

“Over the next week, I talked to a few people and figured it all out.  Ian, the guy she was going to marry – he couldn’t have kids, and Jillian’s daddy wouldn’t let her marry someone without the ability to give him an heir.  She’d lose her trust fund if she didn’t have a baby.  She wanted me to father it because I was pretty, according to one of her girlfriends, and she heard I was strong and smart.  I must not have been too smart since I was obviously stupid enough to eat what she was feeding me.”

I was silent for a while, thinking about all the people who seemed to know what was going on, all those who left me in the dark as I fell for her lies.  I had been relieved to find out John Paul hadn’t known anything about it – they had been keeping him in the dark as well.  I didn’t find out until much later, but Franks had known from the beginning and had actually arranged for her to be in Colombia to get started on her plan.

"What happened to them?" Raine asked.

"I have no idea," I told her.  "Once I had it figured out, I decided to track her down, but Franks forbid me from doing so.”

“Who is Franks?”

“Oh…um…well,” I hesitated.  Telling her who Franks was would be a mistake – a big one.  “He was one of the guys in the organization.  Kind of a…um…you know – he was important, I guess.”

I changed the subject quickly.

“I didn't care what he said and was going to find her anyway, but Landon stopped me."

"How?"

"By putting a gun to my head."

I grabbed my boarding pass and started heading to the international departure gates.  When I turned the corner, I found myself staring directly at him.

"Get in here," he commanded.

He pulled me by one arm into a storage area.

"I have to go after her, Landon," I said frantically.  "You don't understand.  She's..."

"Pregnant, yes, I know."

“Did everyone fucking know what was happening but me?” I screamed.

“Keep your voice down, dickhead,” Landon snarled.  “Not everyone, but plenty of people. I told you not to get attached to her.  If I had realized you would be stupid enough to ride her bareback, I might have said something more convincing.”

I heard the soft click of the Glock in his hand, just there to make the point.

“She can’t just walk away from me like this,” I insisted.  “She just isn’t thinking about what she’s doing.”

“She obviously thought it all through,” Landon contradicted.  “You are the one who isn’t thinking.”

"I'm going after her!" I yelled and shoved Landon in the chest.  Without even seeing him move or understanding what had happened, I was face first on the floor of the storage room with Landon's knee at the back of my neck.  I felt the cold metal against my temple.

"I don't teach my students all of my tricks, Bastian.  Don't forget that.  I warned you about her, but you weren't interested in listening.  I’m not going to have one of my fighters going after Franks' niece and her fiancé.  Go home."

"I have to talk to her!" I yelled from my supine position.

"If she wanted anything to do with you, she’d be here now," Landon said.  "I know you were stupid enough to fall for her bullshit, but it’s time to smarten yourself up now.”

I tried to twist out of his grip but was completely immobilized.  Part of me tried to memorize just how he was holding me down so I could use it in the future.  The rest of me wanted to end it now.

"Just fucking shoot me then!" I screamed at him.

"No," he said.  "That bitch isn't costing me a fighter.  I need you in the arena in six days."

"Fine!” I growled.  “That sounds like the perfect opportunity!"

"Bastian."  It was the cold, deadly voice.  It was the ‘don't fucking move, and give me your attention’ voice.  It was the voice of complete, murderous rage.  "If you don't win your next three tournaments, I swear I will find that bitch myself and kill her and the baby.  Are we clear?"

“You wouldn’t,” I said softly, hoping against hope he wouldn’t really do that, but knowing in my dying heart there would be no hesitation on his part.

“Seriously?”  He laughed, but there was nothing funny about it.  “In a heartbeat.  I wouldn’t even bother washing the blood out of my shirt until I got home.”

"I love her."

"I know,” he said, removing his knee from my neck and allowing me to stand.  “You'll hate her soon enough.”

"Landon was right," I told Raine.  "I was in hell for a while, but it really didn't take that long to hate her.  Still, I wanted to know something about where she went, what happened to her and the baby, but no one would tell me.”

"You have a child," Raine said, half statement, half question.

"Yeah, I guess so.  As far as I know, anyway.  He or she would be almost five now."

“Bastian, I’m so sorry,” Raine said, reaching out to rest her hand on my knee. I shrugged off her comment.

"So, like I said in the short version," I said with a completely unconvincing smile, "she didn't love me back."

"I think there's a little more to it than unrequited love," Raine said.  She was angry; I could hear it in her voice.  "She used you."

"Yeah, I guess."  I realized I was completely exhausted, both mentally and physically.  “When I thought back on all of it, I knew it had all been a set-up.  She had planned for me to catch her in the act the other two times, so she would be able to convince me to fuck her without a condom.  I never did that again – not with anyone – and I made sure even if one of them broke or something, nothing like this could ever happen again.”

“How did you do that?”

“I got a vasectomy.”

“Oh my God,” Raine whispered.  I glanced to her eyes and saw the tears coming.  I didn’t want her to cry, but I figured I needed to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.

"What she did to me hurt too much," I said.  "I'm not sure I could love anyone again after that, which is why whatever it is that’s going on here…well, I just don’t know if I can deal with it.  Even if I could, you shouldn’t have to."

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Don’t you see, Raine?” I looked over to her and stared.  “Jillian showed me what should have been obvious all along.  Why would anyone want someone like me for a husband or a father?  My blood parents deserted me, no foster home wanted me around, and I was a professional killer, for Christ’s sake!  I wasn’t good enough for her, and she made that abundantly clear!  And now some…some…”

The words got stuck pushing against the insides of my chest and throat.  I finally managed to shove them through, but it physically hurt to do so.

“Some other guy has my family.  My kid and the woman who was supposed to be my wife are being loved by another man.  I wasn’t good enough.  I’m not good enough…don’t you see that, Raine?  I wasn’t ever going to be good enough for them, and I’m never going to be good enough for you!”

I wasn’t even sure how Raine managed to pull me against her chest and lay me down.  All I know was that I was suddenly sobbing with her arms wrapped around my shoulders, holding me tightly.  I could hear her voice in my ear and feel her warm breath flowing through my hair.

“Not good enough,” I mumbled against her.  “Don’t touch me…you shouldn’t touch me…”

Despite the words I heard coming from my mouth, I made no move to push her away, and Raine didn’t let me go.  I don’t know how long she held me while I cried for the family that should have been mine.  If only I had been worthy of such a gift, but I wasn’t and I was never going to be.  I would never father another child, and I would never be deserving of a woman’s love.  How could I have expected Jillian to love me when obviously my own mother had not?  How could I have thought I might have been a suitable husband and father to anyone?  I was a brutal, inebriated killer and nothing more.  I should end up alone – it was fitting and just.

I didn’t know if I actually calmed down, but I did get even more tired, and I stopped shaking in Raine’s arms.  I started thinking about how completely ridiculous I was – crying over this shit as if I hadn’t brought it all on myself.

Raine spoke, bringing me out of my self-deprecating thoughts.

"That's when you started drinking, isn't it?"

"Kind of," I admitted.  "That was the beginning, but I got much worse after my last fight."

"What happened then?"

That was the day I watched sixteen people get slaughtered.

“I don’t think I can do any more right now,” I said.  The last thing I wanted to do was talk about her father at this point.  I had said far too much as it was, and I was starting to feel like I was going to pass out from the emotional exhaustion.

“I don’t blame you,” Raine said.  I was about to ask her what she meant, but she went on without prompting.  “I think if someone had done that to me, I would have ended up buried in a bottle as well.”

“No one would do that to you,” I said, the very idea making me see red.  If someone hurt her like Jillian had hurt me…well, I’d make it my life’s mission to tear the fucker apart.  Slowly.  “If anyone did, I’d fuck them up.”

“Bastian?”

“Yeah?”

“It doesn’t change anything,” Raine said.

“What doesn’t change anything?”

“What she did to you,” Raine clarified.  “What you did afterwards – it doesn’t make any difference.”

“It doesn’t make any difference?”

“I still feel the same about you,” Raine said.  “What she did wasn’t your fault.”

“I wasn’t worth it,” I reminded her.  “I wasn’t good enough for…”

“Bullshit.”

I had to glance up at her face because it was about the second time I had heard her swear.  Her eyes were narrowed, and she glared down at me.

“I was stupid,” I reminded her.  “I can’t let myself be that stupid again.”

“Trusting her may have been ill-advised,” Raine agreed, “but caring about someone, even someone who you realize later doesn’t deserve it, isn’t stupid.”

“It sure as hell wasn’t smart,” I argued.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Raine repeated, making each word sharp and clear.  “You didn’t deserve to have that happen to you, and I’m not going to think less of you for it.  I’ve told you before, but I guess I need to say it again – I’ve seen you, Bastian.  I know who you really are behind that armor-plated shield of yours.  Now that I understand some of the whys, I only know I want to be there for you more than ever.”

“I’m not good enough for you, Raine,” I said softly, earnestly begging her with my eyes to believe me because if she didn’t, I wasn’t going to be strong enough to stay away from her.  I wanted her too much now.

“I think I’m the one who gets to decide that,” Raine said.  She raised an eyebrow at me and then leaned down to place a firm kiss against my lips.

“You should decide to tell me to fuck off,” I told her.  “It’s your best option.”

Raine gave me half of a sad smile and then slowly shook her head.  Both her hands came up and grasped the sides of my face before she reached for me again, her lips meeting mine and pressing against me slowly.  She broke away and leaned her forehead against mine, staring directly into my eyes with those beautiful, deep brown irises that made me want to drown in a sea of chocolate.

“Will you try to let me in, Bastian?” Raine asked.  Her fingers traced over my jaw.  “Just try?  I won’t hurt you – I swear I won’t hurt you like that.”

“You’re already in,” I confirmed.

I guess I didn’t need to be alone after all.

Chapter 11 – Land

I sat at the edge of the raft opening, staring out into the darkness and trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me.  I hadn’t been able to sleep at all even with Raine running her fingers through my hair.  Once she had finally drifted off, I extracted myself from her hold and came here to sit and contemplate…nothing.

I hadn’t known what I was going to feel or how I was supposed to feel when I revealed everything about Jillian and the baby, and I was kind of surprised that I felt mostly empty inside.  Maybe it was just reliving all of that shit again – remembering everything I had tried so hard to forget while inside of a bottle or a shot glass.  Maybe all I was really feeling was hatred of myself, which was such a familiar feeling it didn’t register as anything to my brain.  That could be it.  If I had stuck with my usual, misogynistic ways, I never would have fallen for Jillian’s scheme, and I’d be a very different person now.

Wouldn’t I?

I tried to imagine where I would be now if I had never met her or she hadn’t taken off with Ian.  Again I was faced with nothingness.  Would I still be fighting?  I was getting a little old for that shit.  I’d be thirty this summer.  Maybe I’d be training other fighters, or maybe I would have retired and opened up a brothel or something to pass the time.  Maybe we’d be living in a penthouse – Jillian, me, and the baby.  Maybe I would have taught the kid self-defense or read books to it every night.  Maybe we all could have lived on the boat together and hired a tutor to live with us.  I wouldn’t be here; that’s for sure.

I wouldn’t be here with Raine.

Fuck.

I didn’t love Jillian anymore, and if I was to be completely honest, I wasn’t sure if I ever had.  Maybe it was just having someone who I thought was permanent in my life was what I loved about our relationship.  Maybe I was in love with the idea of love.  I was happy with her, though – I remembered that.  I had been happier than I ever had been before.

“She makes me feel like I’m actually worth something,” I said to John Paul.  I put the free weights down next to the bench and sat up.  “Besides Landon, no one ever wanted a stupid punk kid like me.  Landon had his own reasons, and those didn’t have a lot to do with me.  Anyway – I make him a shit ton of money.”

“Landon cares about you, too,” John Paul said.  “He has a fucked up way of showing it, but he cares about both of us, and not just because of the fighting.  He sees something more in you, too.  If I fucked up, he’d kick me out in a heartbeat.  I think you could do just about anything, and he’d still take you back like the prodigal son or something.”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I have thought of him as a father from time to time because he’s the closest thing I ever had to one, but he’s certainly threatened to blow my brains out more than once when I fucked up.”

“He didn’t do it, though.”

“No, but he would have.  I don’t think he likes Jillian much, but he won’t say why.  It’s not like she’s a gold-digger.  Jillian doesn’t need my money.  It’s good to know she wants just me and not because of something else.”

“It’s a good feeling,” John Paul agreed.  “You guys sure do look good together – that’s for sure.”

“It’s not about that,” I said, shaking my head.  “I love her, John Paul, and she loves me, too.  I’m really thinking about retiring and buying her a big ass ring.”

“Fucker,” he laughed.  “I should get to retire first – I’ve been doing this longer.”

“Yeah, and maybe someday you’ll do it right!”

He punched my shoulder, and we laughed before we went back to the free weights.

I didn’t know what I was now.  Happy?  Sad?  Empty?  Nothing?  Yes, that was probably the most accurate way to describe me.  Nothing.  I glanced over my shoulder for a second at the sleeping, dark-haired woman on the floor of the raft behind me.  When I looked at her, the emptiness evaporated faster than the dew from the collection sheet on the top of the raft’s canopy.  I’d told her more than I had ever told anyone.  She knew things I had never told Jillian, or John Paul, or even Landon.  She knew me, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next.

When I looked at her, held her, and felt her hands on me, what did I feel then?  I didn’t have a name for it.  Happy didn’t describe whatever it was.  That could be a part of it, but there was something else inside as well, and not all of it was good.  I also felt panic inside when I thought of her, and I wasn’t sure why.

Because you know she’s got her barbed hooks inside of you, and if she pulls out now, she’s going to be taking a pound of flesh and then some.

I wanted to tell her more.  I wanted to tell her everything.  I wanted her to know everything about me, about John Paul, about the things that happened to me in jail.  I even wanted to tell her about the night her father was tortured and executed along with fifteen others right in front of my eyes while I stood there and fucking watched it happen.  Yeah, what would she think of me then, when she finds out I never said a word?  When she knows I didn’t do anything to stop them?

I shook my head from side to side violently, trying to force the sights and sounds to remain contained as they attempted to break out into my conscious mind.  I could hear the screaming, see the looks on their faces as each one of them realized they were next, feel the splatter of blood on my skin, and smell the sickening stench of death.  I swallowed hard, trying to force bile back down my throat.

I wanted a drink.  I wanted a drink so fucking bad it fucking hurt.

I looked up into the eastern sky as the sun’s rays slowly broke over the horizon, telling myself over and over again not to think.  For a moment, I just stared, eyes narrowed, trying to figure out the trick of the light causing the diffraction of the sun’s beams off to one side.  A small band of cumulus clouds brightened the sky with gold and orange hues.  There was a tinge of green on the underside of the closest clouds.

Four pelicans flew overhead towards the west.

I realized my breathing had escalated, and though I fought against hyperventilating, I welcomed the rush of adrenaline.

“Raine, wake up!”

“Hmm?”  She rolled and rubbed at her eyes.  Her eyes meeting mine was the only thing I could have considered more beautiful that the sight on the horizon.  “What is it?”

“Land.”

* * * * *

“There ya go,” I said, watching Raine tie the edge of the blanket-towels-turned-into-sails down close to the canopy top.  “Just keep a good hold of it – we don’t want to land on the windward side.”

“Why not?”

“If there are reefs or rocks, they’re more likely to be there.  The leeside of the island – if it is an island – is more likely to be sandy.  Reefs are the real danger right now – they could tear the raft up.  If we make land, we’re going to need everything we got until we figure out where we are.”

“Do you think there are people there?”

“I have no fucking idea,” I growled.  “Now don’t start with the questions.  Just hold on to that sail.”

I adjusted the pair of floating anchors, which would help us from capsizing in the waves as we approached shore.  Though being in a survival situation on land was much better than in the water, landing on shore in an inflated raft was dangerous at best.  I picked the paddle up and started pulling us around the left of the slight peninsula jutting from what looked to be a small island.

It had taken most of the day just to get this close.  The “sails” we made weren’t doing a lot for us, but they were better than nothing and it gave Raine something on which to focus her energy.  Otherwise, she’d start asking me her customary five thousand “I’m nervous and babbling” inane questions and I’d lose it.  Paddling was only slightly beneficial, though I hoped it would become more useful as we got closer to land.  Another hour went by, and the sun was starting to descend towards the horizon in the west, and a small, sand-covered beach was now to the east of the raft.  I paddled harder, trying to make some kind of progress, and saw a small section of reef near the closer edge of the beach.

“We have to get further out,” I said, pointing towards the reef.  “If we hit the reef, it’ll tear up the raft.  Pull the rod for the sail to the right about twenty degrees, and then let the wind catch the sail again.”

“Too far,” I growled as Raine moved the sail but brought it back about thirty degrees.  I fought down the urge to yell at her, which was becoming a little more difficult as fatigue began to set in.  “Move it back ten degrees.”

“I don’t have a compass up here, you know!” Raine snipped back.  She was tired as well, I knew.  She was also undernourished and not used to this kind of physical exertion.  I told myself to feel sympathetic, but it didn’t work.

“Didn’t you take geometry in high school?” I snapped back at her.  “Ten fucking degrees.  It ain’t that hard.”

Raine said something under her breath, but the wind took the words away from my ears, which was probably for the best.  She adjusted the sail again, and the raft shifted in its course.  I went back to paddling, keeping a close eye on the reef as we passed it by.  We were still way too close for comfort – there was no telling when an offshoot would suddenly appear under the water and take us down.  I went back to hard paddling in order to keep us as far away as possible.

Two more hours passed.

No matter how hard I paddled, we just weren’t moving.  The riptide was pulling us farther out, and we were still too far from the beach to try and swim it.  That was a shitty option anyway because I needed everything on the raft – nothing was expendable.

“Tilt the rod to the side!” I yelled out at Raine.  “We need to aim for the other side of the beach!”

“Why?” Raine yelled back over the sound of the crashing waves.  “It’s farther!”

“Don’t fucking question me!” I growled.  “Just do it!”

Raine scowled and moved the sail slightly.  It rippled and lost wind, then immediately filled up again, pulling the raft to one side and nearly making Raine lose her balance.

“Be careful!” I screamed at her.

“I’m trying!”  She was close to tears, but I just didn’t have the time to deal with anything other than the immediate situation.  I felt myself shutting down – turning everything off except what I needed for right now.  If we could get farther down the beach, we might get out of the riptide and be able to make it to shore.

It was more than an hour of heavy paddling and sail adjusting before we finally pushed past the tide, and we could steer back towards the beach.  My arms ached, but I pushed the pain down, refusing to acknowledge it.  The anchors were starting to drag in the sand, which was both good and bad.  Good because it meant I could probably get out now and bad because it was slowing us down.  Deciding it was still too soon, I paddled against the drag of the anchors, forcing my brain to ignore the increasing pain through my back and shoulders.

I could finally see the sand bank below the waves and tossed myself overboard, pulling the lead behind me.  I heard Raine scream out at me but ignored her as I pushed my feet to the bottom and started hauling the raft by the rope closer to the beach.  The sail was no longer effective, and trying to yell back at her was only going to compromise my resolve, so I just pushed on.  Through blind determination, I didn’t realize I had jumped out too soon – we were still too far from the beach.  My feet suddenly gave out as the sand bank disappeared from under me.

I went under, choking on seawater and feeling the rope cut into the skin around my stomach.  I pulled on it, and it tightened further into my skin, but at least I knew I hadn’t let go.  If I let go, the raft could have easily been pulled back out by the currents.  There would be no way for Raine to get it to shore on her own, and I probably couldn’t swim fast enough to get back to her.  I had to get across to the next bank, and to do that, I had to let some of the rope out.

I came up spurting water from my lungs, coughing and gasping for air right before another wave hit me.  Thankfully, it at least knocked me forward – closer to the beach.  I reached down while I was under, untying the lead from my waist and wrapping it around my arm.  My fingers clenched onto it – I could not let go.  No matter what, I could not let go.

I pushed up long enough to get another breath and hear Raine screaming my name.  When I went back under, I swam as hard as I could, feeling the weight of the raft and the crush of the waves all around me.  My limbs were already so tired they didn’t want to move, and I bit down into my lower lip just to focus on something other than the pain in my arms.  I needed air, so I pushed up again, took a quick breath, and continued on.

I pushed through the pain.  I swam hard.  Another breath.  I listened to her screaming because it meant she was okay and then pushed through the pain some more.

When my feet finally hit sand, I almost went into panic mode, believing I had gone backwards and was on the outer sandbank again.  When I pushed myself up and got my head above water, I could see the beach in front of me.  My feet dug in, pushed forward, and I dragged the raft behind me.  Raine was still yelling, though the tone of her cries was decidedly different.  Another pull and I yanked on the raft’s lead to pull it over the sand.  It was dragging hard now, and I wasn’t sure what the obstruction was, so I just pulled harder, my muscles straining and complaining about the exertion.  Most of my body was out of the water, but it wasn’t registering.  I just kept pulling on the rope.  Even when I heard splashing behind me and felt Raine’s hand on my shoulder, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

“Bastian, you did it!” she cried out.  Her arms were around my neck, but I shook my head and pulled again.  Raine held on, her hand on the side of my face, trying to turn my head to look at her.  “Bastian – stop.  We’re on the beach!”

My feet heard her, apparently, because I stopped walking and turned to look at the raft.  It was half in and half out of the water now, still rising and falling a little with the remaining waves as they crashed against the beach.  I turned around, wrapped the rope around my waist again, and pulled hard, then again, and again, until the raft was completely beached.  I looked around, trying to determine if we were at high or low tide.  It appeared the tide was high at the moment and was probably going out, but I couldn’t tell for sure.  My mind started checking off the important things I had to consider.

Raine was on the beach, and she was safe for the moment.

The raft was out of the water, and high tide meant it shouldn’t be pulled back out again.

There were still two liters of water left on the raft, which would be enough to get us through a day or even two easily if we were careful.

We were on land, and our chances of survival were now exponentially higher than they were an hour ago.

There were trees, which meant shelter and hopefully a source of water as well.

The sun was setting, and our immediate need for shelter would be delayed until the sun rose again.

There were probably edible plants in the area, and fishing would be easy with the reef on the other side of the beach.

There was a cliff, which also meant a high probability of a water source, as well as a place for a signal fire.

We were going to make it.  I could make this place work.  I could save her.

I vaguely registered my body hitting the sand before I passed out.

* * * * *

“Does it hurt?  Huh?  Huh?  Does it?”

Maniacal laughter filled the room.  Gunter held up a long serrated knife dripping with blood, and showed it to the last of them…the sixteenth one.  The last one was older and nearly calm, or maybe his brain had just shut down at this point.  Gunter’s previous victim was still twitching a little, but I didn’t think he was still alive.  I hoped he wasn’t.  Landon’s grip on my arm tightened.

“One last show, Gunter!” Franks laughed.  “It’s almost time for the salad course.  We don’t wish to be late for dinner.”

“Turn him around.”

I started to move forward, but an owl landed on my shoulder.  When I looked at it, it wasn’t an owl any longer.  It was Landon.

“Don’t move, Bastian, for fuck’s sake.  You think he’d hesitate to kill you, too?”

Disorientation met me when I woke.  The light was all wrong, and the familiar feeling of riding on waves was curiously absent.  The texture of the surface where I lay was also wrong, though Raine's familiar and comforting weight was on my chest, and that was completely and totally right.

I had definitely been awakened by a nightmare, but I thankfully couldn’t remember many details.  I thought it was about Theresa since I remembered something about an owl.  I swallowed hard a couple of times, noting how dry my throat was.  I opened my eyes and looked up at clear sky and bright stars.  I was lying on the beach in uncomfortable, damp shorts.

Land.

Despite Raine's weight on my torso and the nightmare, I felt lighter. Here I could survive and keep her safe.  We would be able to find everything we needed.  I took a deep breath and raised my head to evaluate our surroundings.  There were drag marks near my feet, and I surmised Raine had tried to pull me farther up the beach but hadn’t been very successful.  I must have passed out hard.  We were far enough up the beach to stay out of the rising tide's path anyway, and the raft, still secured to my right wrist, was not in danger of floating off.  I loosened the rope from my wrist and felt the blood flow a little better before I lay my head back down against the damp sand, wrapped my arms around Raine, and slept.

I woke to Raine's fingers gently brushing sand from my stomach.  There was light in the sky but not much.  The cliff behind us would block the sunrise for another hour at least.  I tightened my grip around her waist, holding her to me for a moment before relaxing again.

"We'll be okay now, won't we?" she said.

"Yeah," I replied.  "We should be.  I need to look around when it gets a little brighter.”

“Is this from the rope?” Raine asked, her fingers gliding an inch below my navel where an ugly red streak marred my skin.  It looked a lot worse than it felt.

“Guess so,” I said.

“You scared me,” Raine said, tucking her forehead between my neck and shoulder.  “When you passed out, I couldn’t wake you up.  I didn’t know if the tide would come in or not, but I couldn’t move you.”

“Look down the beach,” I said.  Raine’s eyes followed my outstretched arm.  “See the line of debris?  That’s the high tide line.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You just might learn a lot in the next day or two.” I smiled when she looked up at me.  “We have a lot of work to do today.”

“We do?” Raine questioned, tilting her head to the side.  “What, exactly?”

“First, we need to make a shelter,” I said.  I pointed up to a group of palm trees and the coconuts at the very top.  “Then we start collecting those.”

“Coconuts?”

“Yes,” I said.  “Food and water all at once.”

“There are a bunch of them on the ground,” Raine noticed.

“Yeah, but they’re dry.  We need the green ones for the water.  There may be water up the cliff, but there’s definitely water in the coconuts.  Go with the sure thing.  We can make a solar still this morning and then look for a better source of water later.”

“A what?”

“I’ll show you.”

“You’re the boss,” Raine said with a shrug.

“Am I now?”  I raised my eyebrows at her, rather liking the idea of being the boss when it came to her.  I considered the long list of things I might ask her to do.

“Don’t get carried away!” Raine laughed.

“Damnit,” I growled.  “Do you have to fuck up my good time?”

I grinned, and she laughed again.  We got up, brushed a lot of sand from our skin and clothes, then I took her hand and led her over to a group of smaller trees with trunks the right size for building our first shelter.  I used the knife from the survival kit to cut them down – wanting to keep my jackknife sharp for hunting – then placed them deep into the sand on the top of the dune near the beach.  I had six long poles about eight feet apart forked together at the top with a longer, thicker pole over the top of them.  Though obviously fatigued and possibly suffering from minor muscle atrophy, Raine helped me place as many straight, long poles as we could find over one side, then covered the whole side with palm fronds.

“It doesn’t look anything like the huts on Gilligan’s Island,” Raine observed.

“I’ll work on that tomorrow,” I snorted.  “I’ll see about making one of those bicycle carts as well so you can fan yourself with a palm frond while I drive you around the island.  Maybe some bamboo golf clubs, too.”

Raine giggled and placed a few more fronds over the top.  I pulled one back and showed her how to lace the top layer together to make a more watertight roof.

“It might not look like much,” I said, “but it will give us what we need for now.  I will build you something better in time.”

“I was only joking,” Raine said, looking down at the ground for a moment before glancing back up at me through her lashes.  I took a step forward and lifted her chin with my forefinger.

“I know,” I told her.  “I’ll still make you something better.”

I placed my lips against hers for a moment and was rewarded with her glorious smile when I pulled back.  I toyed with the idea of turning the kiss into something more, but irrespective of my protesting cock, I needed to get her basic needs taken care of before I could consider indulging my baser ones.

“Now we find water,” I said.  “I’m going to climb up there.  You are going to start digging.”

“Digging?”

“Yeah, you can use the paddle from the raft to dig in the sand.  It should make things go pretty fast.  We need a hole about three feet across and two feet deep.  Find a place on the beach that will be in the sun most of the day.”

“O…kay…”

I winked at her and then walked over to the first of the coconut trees.  I took a deep breath, hoping I could remember how to do this.  I placed one hand on the far side of the trunk and the other one right in front of me at the same level as my chest. I found my center of balance and then jumped, placing my feet on either side of the tree.  I pushed up with my legs, allowing my hands to rise up with me, then held on and jumped with my legs again.  Using this method, I quickly leap-frogged my way to the top and started throwing green coconuts down to the ground.

By the time I had cleaned out three trees, Raine had a pretty good start on the hole for the still.  I went to the raft and pulled the top part of the collection canopy off the roof.  It was clear plastic and exactly what I needed.  I collected as much greenery as I could from the edge of the jungle area and brought it back to Raine.  Once we had the hole finished, I placed one of the water containers at the bottom of the hole and placed the greenery all around it.  Then the plastic sheet went over the top, and I anchored it down with a few rocks. Finally, the last, smaller rock went in the center of the plastic – right above the water container.

“The green plants are full of water,” I told Raine.  “Once the sun reacts with it, it will form condensation on the plastic which will then run into the water container.  It won’t be a lot, but between this and the coconuts, it will be enough until we find a better source.”

“You really are incredible,” Raine said as she wrapped her arms around my neck and brought her lips to mine.

“And you have been in the sun too long,” I said, forcing myself to pull away from her.  I ran my finger over her warm cheeks.  “Let’s get you under the shelter.  You need to drink, and eat, too.”

Raine protested, but I reminded her she had already appointed me boss, so she had to do what I said.  I cracked open two of the coconuts, and we shared the water inside before eating the nutmeat.  After our snack, I decided to see what I could find on the reef while Raine rested out of the sun.

There was a decent-sized outcropping of rocks on the south side of the beach, which served as a home to a variety of potential meals – including crabs and mussels.  The mussels were easy – I just pulled them off the rocks and tossed them into one of the plastic bags that previously held part of the raft’s survival kit.  When I leaned over to pull some out from in one of the tidal pools created between rocks, the sun hit the water so I could see my reflection.  Damn, I looked rough.

Once I had a decent number of mussels, I sat back and looked into the water again while running my hand over the full beard I seemed to be sporting.  I released my jackknife from my belt, ran water over my face, and started shaving it off.  It took a while since it was pretty long, but I managed to get it done without cutting myself, thanks to the sharpness of my knife.  I looked back into the pool, turning my head so I could see different angles.  I checked my face with my fingers, found a bit I missed and corrected it.  I ran my hands over my cheeks and neck, pretty impressed that I could get such a close shave under these circumstances.  My reflection informed me I was at least passable, so I kissed the edge of the blade, folded the knife up, and put it away.

I grabbed two crabs off the rocks and smashed them open before adding them to the bag.  I ended up being pinched by one in the process, but it didn’t break the skin.  I would have to be careful about that – the lack of antibiotics was probably the biggest concern we would have now.  I picked up dinner and started into the green area at the edge of the beach, picking up pieces of wood that would burn well for a cooking fire before heading back.  Raine wasn’t at the lean-to shelter when I got back, which pissed me off until I saw where she was.

I looked out over the water and saw her out there up to her shoulders but not out far.  She must have been sitting down in the sand in what would have been water up to her thighs if she was standing.  She was running her hands all over herself with water and a glob of sand apparently trying to take a bath.

I kept my eye on her as I placed the wood into the fire pit I had constructed earlier, just a few feet from the shelter.  Raine was now running her hands through her hair, trying to remove sand with her fingers.  When she held her arms up to pull each strand out straight, I could easily see the curve of one of her breasts from the back.  That’s when my eyes registered her clothes lying in a pile on the sand not too far from the water’s edge and realized she was out there completely naked.  Not surprisingly, my cock was very appreciative of this bit of information, and he jumped up to attention, trying to get a better look as the waves splashed around her.

Lucky waves.

I should have averted my eyes as soon as I figured all this out, but there wasn’t any way in hell I was going to do so.  Ultimately, I was still an asshole.  Instead of acting the part of a gentleman, I made sure the fire was going well and walked onto the beach, trying to be as quiet as possible.  It wasn’t difficult to come up to the edge of the water without being heard since the surf was pretty loud.  She was still mostly covered by the water, unfortunately, but she had to come out sometime, so I sat on the sand just a foot from her discarded clothing and watched.  After about five more minutes, Raine seemed to finish her task and started to get up, turning as she did.  I got a pretty decent glimpse of a beautiful pair of breasts before she saw me.

“Oh my God!” she screamed, dropping back into the water on her stomach.

I knew I was being an ass, but I couldn’t help it.  I laughed out loud.

“Need some help?” I offered with a cocky grin.

“You scared the crap out of me!” she yelled back.  “Go away!”

“You were supposed to stay out of the sun,” I reminded her.

“I wanted to try to…clean up a little.”  She looked up at me with narrowed eyes, and then cocked her head to one side.  “You shaved.”

“I figured I was overdue,” I said.

“I didn’t recognize you,” she said.

“There isn’t anybody here but me, babe.” I laughed again, but the look on her face silenced me fairly quickly.  She was biting into her lower lip, but not in the inquisitive, shy way I was used to seeing.  She blinked her eyes a few times.

“I wasn’t sure…I mean…” She stopped talking and tilted her head down towards the water.  Her breathing was faster.  I had the feeling her heart rate was probably up, too.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, and it was sort of true.  Startle with the hopes of maybe getting a better look at her naked body, yes, but not actually scare.  “Who did you think I was?”

“I didn’t know at first,” she said, and tears suddenly burst out.

“Shit, Raine,” I said as I stood up, but then I didn’t know what to do.  If I went out to her…well, she was still naked and obviously a little upset about that, too.  If I took her clothes out to her, they’d get wet, which also wasn’t a good idea, and now that she was crying, all I wanted to do was hug her.  I growled at myself, took a few steps away, and then turned my back to the water.

“Get out of the water and put your clothes on,” I told her.  I heard the water splash as she hurried out, still crying.  Finally, she said okay, and I figured I was good to turn around.  I took half a dozen steps to reach her and wrapped my arms around her waist.  “Why are you crying?”

“I really didn’t know who you were at first,” she sniffled.  “Just for a second, but I was…naked...and then I thought I didn’t know where you were.  What would I do if you weren’t close by?  And I got scared…and then I realized it was you…”

She sobbed again, and I held her tighter, not knowing what else to do.

“Come on back to the shelter,” I said softly.  “You really need to be out of the sun.”

She didn’t move, so I picked her up, held her up to my chest, and walked back up the dune to the shelter.  Raine wrapped her arms around my neck and held on to me tightly, still crying and getting my shoulder all wet.  I wanted to be pissed off about it, but I wasn’t.  I just didn’t want her to be so upset.

“Raine, please stop,” I said when I reached the lean-to.  I didn’t know if I should put her down or not, so I just held on to her and stood there like an idiot.  “I don’t know why the fuck you’re crying anyway!”

“I don’t know either!” she sobbed.

How the fuck was I supposed to deal with that?  I turned around and ducked through the entrance backwards, and then sat with Raine in my lap.  I moved my hand to the back of her head and held her against my shoulder.  It’s not like it could get any wetter at this point.

“Please stop,” I said softly.  “We may have more water here, but that doesn’t mean you should waste it on crying.”

“I c-c-can’t hel-help it!”

“Take a deep breath,” I told her.  I felt her chest rise and fall a couple of times.  Slowly, she began to relax against me, the shock wearing off.  “Better?”

“A little,” she confirmed.  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

As if I was really trying to frighten her.  What the fuck?  Did she think I would really do that?  Well, yeah, she might.  It’s not like I’d shown her anything other than the jackass I could be.  I took a deep breath and huffed it right back out.

“I was only playing with you,” I finally said under my breath.  “I didn’t know you were going to get scared.  I kind of forgot I shaved at all when I realized you were out there in the buff.”

“You could at least say you’re sorry,” Raine grumbled.

“I never say ‘sorry,’” I reminded her.  “It’s completely meaningless, and it doesn’t change anything.”

“It would mean something to me,” I heard her whisper under her breath.

I started to shake my head and considered telling her the five thousand reasons apologies were completely pointless.  Those words didn’t change anything.  You can’t take back something you’ve said or done, and throwing a couple more words onto the end of it didn’t erase what had occurred.  I could tell her I was sorry, but it wouldn’t change the fact that I had scared her and made her cry.  I couldn’t stop that from happening now because time just didn’t flow that way.

In my mind, I heard the sound of shattered glass.

“You stupid, stupid fuck!”  The tall man with dark hair on his face screamed, and I tried to get out of the kitchen chair faster than he could reach me.  I failed and he grabbed me by my ankle, pulling me off the chair and letting me fall to the floor.  A piece of shattered glass embedded itself in the palm of my hand.

“Stop your little girl crying!” he screamed.

“I’-I’m-I’m s-s-sorry!”

“Shut up, you stupid little shit.  Sorry doesn’t change anything!  Sorry is fucking pointless!  Sorry doesn’t make that glass magically fix itself!  It ain’t gonna make the money to replace it fucking appear out of the air!  Don’t you ever fucking say sorry again, you stupid, stupid…”

Memories I don’t think my conscious mind had ever revealed to me flowed through my head.  I wasn’t sure who he was…my father?  A foster parent?  I didn’t know who he was, only that he terrified me, he hurt me, and I hated him.  What I did know was that anything that was meaningful to Raine mattered more to me than anything I may have believed before.  I didn’t give a fuck about what anyone else might have said or cared about.  Raine’s thoughts and opinions meant more, and whatever Raine wanted – if it was within my power – I was going to give to her.

“I’m sorry, Raine.”

I guess I didn’t need to be such a dick after all.

Chapter 12 - Food

A few feet from the lean-to, Raine and I sat on large palm leaves around a fire, popping bits of the first cooked food we had consumed in weeks.  The cooking fire was nothing but hot red coals now, and since we were done with the actual cooking, I threw a couple of green palm fronds on top of it, creating a column of smoke.

“Why did you do that?” Raine asked.  She had finally calmed down enough that she was no longer sniffing, and her breathing was steady again.  I still didn’t understand why she freaked out on me, but at least she seemed okay now.

“It will help keep the bugs away,” I told her.  “It’s good for keeping other animals away as well, though I don’t think there is much here besides those tiny little lizards.  They aren’t even big enough to eat.  We should still always keep the fire going, especially at night.”

“I thought I’d never eat cooked food again,” Raine said with her mouth full.  “I can’t believe how much better it tastes!”

She was right; it did taste a thousand times better.  It would be easier to digest, and maybe she’d get a little weight back.  I didn’t like how thin she was and wished I knew how to cook better so she would eat more.  After we made some progress with shelter and water, I’d have to find something more carbohydrate-rich for her to consume.

“I’m a pretty shitty cook,” I said with a shrug.  “Too bad Alejandro didn’t get stranded with us.  He could make most anything taste good.”

I considered how life on the raft might have been different had Alejandro been there and decided I could put up with my own cooking.  For starters, there hadn’t been enough water for two.  We’d all be dead by now if he had been there.  I had more selfish reasons as well and realized I was not at all sorry to have been put in this particular situation with Raine alone.

“What do you think happened to them?” Raine asked softly.

“No way to know,” I responded.  “It’s best to assume they got on the lifeboats and were picked up.  All of the boats had been launched,” or were lost, I thought but didn’t say, “by the time I got topside.  There wasn’t anyone else on the ship but me by then.  At least, I couldn’t find anyone else.”

“What are we going to do now?” she asked.  “I mean, do you have any idea where we are?”

“I have a guess,” I said.  “There’s a decent sized island chain north of Venezuela.  I think we’re somewhere along there, just given currents and how long we’ve been in the open water.”

“Are any of them populated?”

“Lots of them,” I confirmed.  “This island looks pretty small, but once we get a little more settled in, I can explore a bit.  There might be a settlement or at least some evidence that people come here sometimes.”

“What if you find someone?”

“I’ll hope that they speak Spanish,” I said.  “I don’t know any of the island dialects.”

“What if you don’t find anyone?”

“We’ll be okay here,” I assured her.  “There’s probably a decent variety of things to eat, and as long as we find a reliable water source we won’t have any problems at all.  If there isn’t any fresh water, there are still enough options between rain, the coconuts, and the still.  It won’t be great, but it’s enough to live on.”

“Do you know what kinds of plants are edible?” she asked.

“Yes, I know a lot of them.  There are some ways to figure out if something is edible, too, but testing stuff isn’t always safe.  As long as I can find plants I recognize, I wouldn’t bother with it.”

“So we could look for those tomorrow?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, “shelter and water first, then food.”

“Why?”

“Survival 101,” I responded.  “You can live three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food.  It’s not exact, obviously, but it tells you where to put your priorities.  We have some shelter, but it isn’t going to last long if there’s a storm.  It’s good enough that we’ll look for a water source tomorrow and then work on building a stronger shelter.  After that, we’ll find better food sources.”

“Lindsay always told me she couldn’t live without a shopping mall within five miles of her,” Raine said.  “It’s kind of funny how little you really need to live.  I wish I had a toothbrush, though.”

“We can make those,” I said.  I jumped up and went to a shrub with woody stems.  I pulled off a relatively green one and stripped the leaves down so there was nothing but stem.  I cut a piece of it off about six inches long and stuck one end in my mouth and started chewing on it.  I handed a second one to Raine.  After a minute, I pulled it out and showed her the frayed ends.  “It works pretty well, actually.”

Raine did the same and was pretty delighted with how well it worked.

“Can you get one of these in mint flavor?” she laughed.

“I doubt it,” I said, “but you really don’t need the toothpaste as much as toothpaste manufacturers want you to believe.  It’s the bristles that really do all the work.”

I drank a little more of the water we had collected on the raft and handed the container over to Raine.  She drank as well and then looked up at me.  She had a strange expression on her face, which I didn’t understand at all.

“We should probably see if it worked,” she said and then quickly moved over to me and caught my lips with hers.

I didn’t give a shit if the makeshift toothbrushes worked or not because Raine’s lips were on me, and that’s all I found particularly noteworthy.  I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her closer, reaching into her mouth with my tongue.  I had become so accustomed to her scent and taste, they were almost as ingrained in my senses as my own.  With her teeth cleaned, she still tasted like my Raine.

My Raine.  Where the fuck did that come from?

Raine maneuvered herself onto my lap, placed her hands on either side of my face, and kissed me deeply.  She backed off after a minute, her fingers trailing over the now smooth skin on my face.  She scowled.

“You don’t like it?” I asked.

“I do,” she said, “but it does make you look very different.  I was just wondering how you managed to get it so smooth.”

I pulled out my knife and flipped it open.

“It’s really, really sharp,” I said.

“Makes me wish I had one, too,” Raine said.

“You have something you want to shave?”  I cracked a smile, unable to help myself and my wandering imagination.

“I’d love to shave my legs,” she said, a blush suddenly covering her face, “and my…um…armpits.”

She giggled, which made me laugh, too.

“Why the fuck are armpits funny?”

“They aren’t,” Raine said.  “I’m pretty glad I’m in your shirt now instead of a bathing suit.”

“I really don’t give a shit,” I told her honestly.

“Well, I do.  I guess it’s ingrained in me.  The perils of popular female hygiene culture.”

“Let me do it,” I said suddenly.  My cock jumped to attention at the thought, though I couldn’t have explained why if someone had asked me.  The idea of shaving her was just…hot.  Sliding my knife blade over her skin…yeah, I definitely wanted to do that.

“Do what?” Raine asked with her eyes narrowed.

“I’ll shave you,” I clarified.  She started shaking her head immediately.

“No way!  You give me the knife, and I’ll do it myself!”

“Have you ever shaved with a knife like this?” I argued.  “There is no way you wouldn’t end up slicing yourself open, and in case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t a fucking first aid station around.  I can do it without cutting you.”

“You are serious, aren’t you?” she asked, her eyes big and round and glaring up at me.

“Very much so.”  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.  I looked at her legs, really just noticing that there was a decent amount of hair on them.  I didn’t care, so I hadn’t paid attention before.  “Let me do it.”

“You really want to?” she asked again, trying to comprehend my implausible suggestion.

“Raine, I really, really want to.”

“You are sick!”  She laughed again and slapped me on the shoulder.

“Let me.”  I was starting to sound like I was begging, and I didn’t give a shit.  It would be worth it, so I’d beg if that’s what it took.  My voice dropped low as I moved closer to her.  “I want to.  Please?”

Raine looked back into my eyes and obviously decided I was completely serious.  I glanced away for a minute because I realized she was going to say no, and I didn’t really want to watch her refuse me.

“Okay,” she suddenly blurted out, “if you really think you can – without cutting me, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t cut you.  I swear you won’t get cut.”

“All right, but this is against my better judgment.”

I smiled and motioned for her to come closer.  I reached out and took her heel in my hand, pulling her foot into my lap.  I felt my tongue dart out and slide over my lips as I looked down at her gorgeous leg.  Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about her wanting to shave even when my beard was starting to itch and annoy me in the heat.  I’d been with women all over the world, and plenty of them didn’t shave, so it didn’t really bother me.  The thought of shaving it off of Raine, though, was certainly an intriguing idea.

I slid my finger down the skin of her calf, brushing the stubbly hair on her leg all in the same direction.  I heard Raine catch her breath, and I gave her a half smile before I did the same on the other side of her calf.  The skin of her legs was ashy and dry from exposure to salt, and bits of it flecked off under my fingers.  I found myself wanting to lick them to see if the smooth, caramel color would come back with the moisture.

“We need water,” I said.  “Hand me the container on the left.”

“You’re going to use fresh?”

“No – that one’s salt water,” I replied.  “I brought it up here in case we needed to douse the fire.  I don’t need that much, and you’re not going back out in the sun.”

She handed it to me, and I poured some of the water over my hand before I ran my palm up her leg.  I could have poured it directly on her, but where was the fun in that?  The color came back with the flow of water, smoothing out the dry skin even if it would only last a short time.  After drenching her skin to make it wet and the hair easier to remove, I slowly guided the knife to her ankle and placed it against her skin with the sharpest side angled up.

“Don’t move,” I murmured.  “Moving would be bad.”

“I won’t,” she whispered back, her words all breathy and running their way down to my cock.  I shifted her foot a little to one side, so my cock wouldn’t end up smacking into her as I ran first my hand, then my blade up her skin.  After the second swipe it left her skin smooth and soft behind the knife’s trail.

I didn’t know how long it took; I only knew I loved every minute of it.  When I was done with the second leg, I was really quite appreciative of how smooth her skin was without the hair and how much I wanted to run my hands over it, which I did.

“Do you think your hands will help with any additional hair removal?” Raine teased.

“I’m just making sure I didn’t miss any,” I insisted while I ran my hands up the back of her thighs for the third time.

“I think you were very thorough,” Raine said.  She pulled her leg back a little and out of my reach.

“Spoilsport,” I grumbled, and Raine laughed.  “How about the rest?”

“The rest of what?”

“Armpits?”  I waggled my eyebrows at her.

“You are crazy.”  Raine shook her head.  “I can’t believe I let you do my legs.”

“I want to do the rest, too,” I said again.

“That wouldn’t be so easy,” she said.  “The sleeves are…in the way.”

“I guess we’d have to move them, wouldn’t we?”

“Move the sleeves?”

“Take the fucking shirt off,” I said, moving a little closer and grabbing her waist.  Raine laughed and tried to roll away from me, but I pulled her back and placed my lips against her neck and shoulder.  “Take it off…I promise not to gawk.”

“You are a terrible liar!” Raine screeched as I tickled her.  “Just admit, for once, that you want to see my boobs!”

I captured her mouth with mine again, kissing her and stroking my tongue over her lips.  When I pulled back, I ran my nose over the line of her jaw until I reached her ear.  I don’t know if it was shaving her, seeing her partially naked earlier in the day, or wanting her just because I was always a horny motherfucker.  Whatever it was, I didn’t feel like trying to hide it any longer.

“I want to see your boobs,” I whispered to her.  “I want to touch them and taste them, and I don’t want to stop there.  I want to make you come again.”

“It’s about time you said so.”  Raine’s soft voice reverberated in my head.  Her fingers were in my hair, and she pulled my lips to hers.  As she kissed me, I realized she hadn’t said no, and I wondered how good an idea it might be to push my luck.  My cock was very, very interested in pushing my luck.

My fingers coiled around the hem of the shirt and slowly started pulling it up.  I went as slow as humanly possible, giving her every chance to stop me, but she didn’t.  She let me keep going until I suddenly had to break away to pull it up over her head.

They were completely symmetrical and round and soft and absolutely, stunningly, incredibly beautiful.  Slightly lighter than her more-often-exposed skin, her breasts reminded me of cream.  The darker nipples just screamed at me to suck on them, but all I could do was stare at them and lick my lips.

“I don’t think you even know where armpits are,” Raine snickered.  “You seem a little…focused.”

“Fucking gorgeous,” I muttered, half to myself, half to her.  Raine turned her head to the side, a slight smile spreading over her lips.  She moved to cross her arms over her breasts, but there was no way I was going to stand for that, not now.

Maybe never again.

“I can’t shave you like that,” I told her, shaking my head.  I pulled gently at her wrists and moved her arms up over her head, grasping both wrists in one hand while supporting her back with the other.  I lay her down on the fronds near the fire with her arms up over her head.  God, she was beautiful.  My eyes never left her breasts, and it took all the self control I had not to bury my face between them.

“You have to stop looking at them if you are still going to…um…shave me.”

“Unfortunately, you are probably right.  It may take some time for me to inspect my work when I’m done, though.”

Raine giggled, which brought me out of my tit-induced trance.  I washed the knife off and doused her armpits in water.  She gasped at the cold liquid, and then giggled, claiming I was tickling her.  I didn’t really mind since the more she moved, the more her breasts moved along with her.  She must have caught on to this fact and eventually calmed down so I could get to work.

It didn’t take very long, and soon I had put my knife away and was just running the backs of my fingers over her now smooth skin, letting my fingers trail a little lower each time I traced over her.  On the last pass, my hand moved all the way down her side and found the skin covering her hipbone just above the fabric of my boxer shorts on her body.  I caressed it lightly with my fingertips before moving my hand both up and around the front.  I moved slowly, giving her every chance to stop me if she wanted to, but she didn’t.  She did grab onto my hair and raise her head to bring our lips together.  My hand kept traveling around though, moving upwards and searching out skin I hadn’t touched before.  When my hand reached the underside of her breast, I felt her fingers grip my hair a little tighter, but she didn’t pull away and she didn’t stop kissing me.

The skin of her breast was incredibly soft, and my cock was in danger of busting right through the buttons of my shorts and maybe taking a little trip all on his own.  I had the feeling he was already contacting “AAA” for a Triptik and probably trying to book a hotel in pussyland.  He knew exactly where he wanted to be, and he also knew just how close his goal was.  I had to stop this because if I didn’t…well, things were going to go in a certain direction very quickly, and I wasn’t so sure that was the best idea.

“Raine,” I pulled back from her lips and found that I couldn’t actually break contact, so I moved over her chin and down her neck instead.  “Raine, you have to stop.”

“Why?” I heard her ask, and at the same time her hands started traveling down my bare shoulders to the small of my back.  She gripped my skin tightly for a moment, and then one of her hands came around the other side, tracing my abdominal muscles.

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to get to the point where I won’t be able to,” I warned.  It was bullshit, of course.  I could stop at anytime, but it was going to get to the point where it would be very uncomfortable to stop, and it would get to a point where I really, really didn’t want to stop.  Unless I was going to get inside of her, then it really didn’t matter where we stopped.  Fuck.

“What if I don’t want you to stop?”  Raine’s breath was hot against my ear, and she took my earlobe in her mouth, sucking on it and nibbling it with her teeth.

“Holy fuck,” I growled.  “Don’t do that…just…shit…”

“You want me to stop?” she asked, innocently.

“Fuck no,” I answered.  “I don’t want you to stop, but you probably should anyway.”

“Not unless you tell me to,” she said, and her hand dropped lower, past my abs.  I could feel her finger following the narrow trail of hair on my stomach until it reached the top edge of my shorts and then started pushing inside.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.  My tone was a lot lighter than the words themselves.

“Number sixteen in the survival guide,” she replied with a shrug.

“Number sixteen?”

“Take steps to maintain morale.”

Two of her fingers found their way into the top of my shorts.  Another inch and she’d be touching the end of my dick.

“Don’t, Raine,” I said, placing my hand over hers.  “Please, I can’t take it.”

“Bastian, I want to,” she said.  She wriggled out from below me, and I sat back as she rose up on her knees a little taller, so she was almost looking me in the eye.  She pulled her hand out from under mine and placed it on the side of my face.  “I want you, Bastian.  Please.”

Oh God, did she really just say please to me?

“Raine, I don’t want to…” I stammered.  I don’t want to what?  Fuck her?  I sure as hell did.  I wanted to fuck her so bad it hurt, and not just because my dick was trapped in my shorts.  What didn’t I want to do?  Use her?  Debase her?  Reduce her to nothing but a place to shove my cock, like I did all the others?  “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.  You…mean more to me than just a…a…a quick fuck.”

“Is that what this would be?”

“Yes,” I said, though my throat was suddenly dry, and speaking was getting difficult.  Then I heard what I had just said.  “No!  I mean…fuck, Raine!  I don’t know what this is!  I haven’t known what any of this has been since…since…”

“Since when?”

“Since I woke up and you were just…touching me.”  There was a minute of quiet while Raine looked contemplative.  She finally spoke.

“After you had the seizures?”

“Yeah.”

“You told me to stop.”

“I just wanted you to stop crying,” I said.  “You shouldn’t be crying for someone like me.  I didn’t want you to stop touching me.”

“You were telling me about the foster homes you were in,” she said softly.  “You were crying, too.  I couldn’t help it.”

“I don’t remember that,” I admitted.  “I…don’t usually do that.  I don’t usually talk about all the shit in my life.”

“You did the other night,” she reminded me.

I nodded and turned away from her with the intent of just getting out of there before it became something I couldn’t handle.  Again.

“Bastian, there is nothing wrong with crying.”

I laughed but didn’t find anything particularly funny.

“Yeah, as a fighter, crying in the arena was definitely highly regarded.”

“Stop that,” Raine said, her tone a little harsh.  I looked back to her and narrowed my eyes, but she threw it right back at me.  “There’s no one here for you to impress but me.  I’m not impressed by your brawn or your macho ideals.”

Raine placed the palms of her hands on either side of my face and turned my head to look into her eyes.  I was overwhelmed by whatever I saw there – I still didn’t know what it was, I only knew I needed it.

“Didn’t I just show you what a dick I am a little earlier?”  I asked her.  “I scared you because I wanted to try to see you naked.  I’m an asshole, and I don’t even know why you let me touch you.”

“You aren’t,” Raine said.  I started to correct her, but she actually placed her hand over my lips.  “I’ve been sleeping next to you for almost three weeks, Bastian.  Do you know you talk in your sleep?”

“I…what?”  Holy shit.  I had no idea I did that.

“You talk in your sleep, and I know how often you have nightmares.  I’ve heard you talk about some of the things that have happened to you.”

“They’re just dreams,” I said quietly through her hand over my mouth.  “They don’t mean anything.”

“I’ve seen you, Bastian.”  Raine’s voice was low, soft, and unmistakably confident.  “I’ve seen you.  Not who you pretend to be, not who you try to hide behind, not the drunken whore who uses booze and women to try to forget everything in his life.  I’ve seen the real you.  Please, Bastian.  Please don’t hide him from me anymore.”

“I don’t know how else to be,” I said.  “If I could be…something…someone else…for you, I’d do it.”

“I know you would,” she said, and her lips covered mine again as my hands found her hips and pulled her closer to me.  I didn’t know if she was right, and I didn’t know if there was a difference between who she thought she saw and who I really was.  I didn’t know if I could be different than I had always been, but right now she wanted me, and whoever I might have been before didn’t matter.

“I want to be,” I mumbled against her mouth, the words just spilling out without any real, conscious thought behind them.  “I want to be…for you…”

“I know,” she murmured back.

I wrapped my arms around her back and pushed myself up, so I was on my knees in front of her, just as she was on her knees facing me.  I pulled our torsos together, feeling the warmth of her bare skin against my chest.  My hands moved around to her sides and then slowly traveled upwards until I was cupping both of her breasts in my hands.

Raine’s hands tangled in my hair, crushing my mouth to hers.  This time, when I felt her palm against my stomach, I didn’t try to stop her.  Her fingers loosened my belt and then pulled it easily from the loops of the shorts.  There was a little tug at the buttons and then I felt the fabric loosen around my waist.

I hissed when her fingers dipped into the hem of my shorts and stroked over me.  I heard her sharp intake of breath and watched her eyes get wide when she ran her fingers all the way from tip to base and then tried to wrap her hand around me.  Her fingers didn’t meet on the other side, and when she looked up to me with those big brown eyes, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and give her a crooked, cocky smile.

“Oh my…um….wow, Bastian.”  Raine took a deep breath before continuing.  “I don’t know if that’s going to…um…fit.”

I smirked and gave her a little shrug.

“Only one way to find out,” I said matter-of-factly.  I didn’t want to tell her that there had been several women too small for me to get completely inside of them.  She already looked a little on edge, and worrying about it wasn’t going to change anything about our respective anatomies.  “Raine…you don’t have to...”

“I want to,” she whispered.  Her head tilted up, and her eyes met mine.  I could see the desire inside of them – the lust – and something else.  Something I hadn’t seen in any other woman before her.  She pulled her hand back and pushed my shorts off my hips.  They slid down my legs and landed in the sand quickly followed by my boxer shorts, which had previously been covering Raine from my sight.  As soon as my shorts were on the ground, her fingers were coiled back around my dick.  It would have been extremely distracting, except she was also now naked in front of me.

I brought my hand up the outside of her thigh and then dragged it over her stomach, brushing the coarse hair I found before cupping her gently.  I didn’t hesitate to reach between her legs, wanting to touch her so much it might have permanently maimed me somehow if I didn’t.  As soon as my fingers ran over her, I could feel how wet she already was.

“Jesus, Raine…”

“What?”  She sounded almost panicked, like maybe I had found something horrible.

“You’re so wet, so ready…shit…I want to be in there so much.”

My mouth found her neck, and I starting licking and sucking on it.  The tip of my finger found her entrance, and I slowly pushed it up inside of her.  She was so fucking tight I could barely get it in there, and when I realized how firmly she was going to grab my cock, I just about lost it completely.  I placed my forehead against her shoulder and tried to slow down my breaths.

“Fuck, Raine, you feel like a fucking virgin.”

“I’m not,” she said softly, and for a minute I was really pissed off about that.  I remembered the name she said – Andrew – and I wanted to get him into an arena so I could rip his fucking head off for touching her.  Then I remembered he couldn’t even make her come; I was the only one who had done that to her, and I didn’t even need to touch her to do it.

“He didn’t give you anything,” I growled harshly.  “As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t fucking count.  I’m going to make you scream when you come.”

“Geez…Bastian.”  Raine’s hand gripped my shaft a little harder, and her fingers started stroking me up and down.  It felt fucking fantastic, but it wasn’t what I wanted.  I wanted her warmth, her wetness – I wanted my cock surrounded by her, but I was going to have to get her ready for that.

I moved the single finger I had inside of her all the way up, then brought it back down again while my thumb stroked over her clit.  I curled my finger up and felt her legs begin to shake as I withdrew and then added a second finger.  I kissed down over her shoulder and to her collarbones and then brought my other hand up to hold her breast as I finally sucked her nipple into my mouth.

“Ohmygod!”  Raine cried out, and her hand gripped my dick again.

“Shit!  Raine, if you do that again, I’m going to come all over you.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be,” I growled, nuzzling against her nipple with my lips.  “It feels so good…your little hand trying to hold on to me.”

“I still don’t know how you’re going to fit,” she whispered, stroking me slowly again.

“I’m going to make you come,” I told her. “Then you are going to be so wet and ready for me, I’m going to just slide right into you.”

Raine whimpered, and I released her breast from my lips but not my hand.  My fingers twirled over her moistened nipple while my mouth went after the other one, tugging it gently with my teeth until Raine’s fingers were nearly pulling my hair out.  I was glad she was grabbing my hair harder instead of my dick because if she did that one more time, I probably would leave a sticky mess all over her stomach.

I had to stop thinking about that or it was definitely going to happen.

My mouth and fingers worked her nipples, while my thumb worked her clit, and I even managed to get a third finger inside of her as she started to rock against my hand and moan.  I glanced up to see her with her head thrown back and her neck exposed, looking so fucking gorgeous I could have just stared at her for hours.  I curled my fingers and bit down on her nipple – not too hard, just enough to send a shockwave through her system.

It worked, and she did scream my name, which just made me want to do it all over again.  I pulled her hand away from my cock and lay her on her back before her legs gave out on her.  She was breathing hard, and the rise and fall of her chest was cause enough for her tits to get more attention.  I slipped my fingers out of her, slowly drawing them up and over her clit.  I wanted to taste her, but my cock just couldn’t wait anymore.

“Are you ready, baby?”

“Yes…Bastian, please!”

I fucking loved that she said please.

I gripped my shaft and held the head of my dick so it brushed over her pussy lips.  I slowly moved it up and down, coating the head in her moisture and smiling as she tossed her head from side to side and tilted her hips up, ready for me.  I positioned myself over her opening, pausing just long enough to make sure she wasn’t changing her mind, then slowly, slowly started pushing forward.

Just the head stretched her more than my fingers had, and I stopped a minute when I was just barely inside of her, waiting for both of us to get used to it.  Her body clamped down around me, and I wanted to come right at that moment, but I forced myself to calm enough to push forward again.  I squeezed my eyes shut…another inch…then another.  Oh fuck, she was so tight.  I felt her hands on my shoulders, her fingernails digging into my flesh, and it felt so good I could hardly stand it.  I stopped, pulled back an inch, then pushed forward again, hearing myself groan in response as she slowly began to encompass me.  Pull back – push forward…just a little deeper.  Oh…shit…  I glanced down…I was almost all the way in her.  I pulled back a final time, and then eased forward until I was home.

“You feel so good,” I mumbled, tucking my head against her shoulder.

It had been approaching three weeks since I’d been inside a woman and years since I’d been inside one without some kind of barrier.  I tried to convince myself these were the reasons it felt so vastly different when I found myself buried to the hilt inside of Raine.  Physically, she was tight, warm, wet, and her muscles were clenching around me in the most delicious way, but I’d felt all that before.  I’d fucked thirty-year-veteran whores and barely-out-of-high school virgins.  Some felt better than others, but it wasn’t the physical that made it different.  When I connected with Raine physically, I could feel every bit of her soul within my own.

It had never even occurred to me before that I might have a soul.

“God…Raine…” I heard myself whisper against the skin on her shoulder.  I pulled back the tiniest amount and then pushed forward again, feeling most connected when I was completely inside her.  I said a silent prayer, thanking the pussy gods for her being able to take all of me.  I raised my head and looked into her eyes, seeing a small tear in the corner of each.  Shit.  “Are you hurt?”

“No.”  Raine shook her head.  “You feel…perfect.”

Her eyes sparkled, and she tugged my head down to hers so she could kiss me.  I was in awe of her – her beauty, her strength, her courage, her…everything.  Maybe being inside of her just made all of that come to the surface, I wasn’t sure.  One thing I did know immediately – if I somehow lost this, if I could never have this again, if something jeopardized her in any way whatsoever – it would kill me.

My mouth moved over to her ear, gently licking and sucking it as I started moving in and out of her – never pulling out too far because I couldn’t stand the thought of it.  I went slowly because I wanted it to last forever and also to give Raine a chance to adjust to me.  I could have just pounded into her, like I had done to countless others before, but I didn’t want to – I wanted to take it slow with her, and I wanted to stay inside of her as long as possible, and I wanted to…I wanted to…I wanted to...

Make love to her.

I was also going to want to do this again.  It wasn’t even over, and I knew once would never, ever be enough.  A hundred different places and positions danced around in my head – I wanted them all with her.  I wanted to practice until I knew just how to make her come as fast as possible and also how long I could make her hold out.  I wanted it all.

My pace increased but only slightly, and only at the urging of Raine’s hips.  I felt the pattern she set as she raised up to meet my thrusts and matched it.  Soon, she was moaning under me and moving her hips from side to side.  I reached between us, running the pad of my thumb over her clit as she cried out, and her body started clamping down on me.

She shuddered under me and all around me.  Her fingers dug into my shoulders as her back arched, and she tossed her head to one side, allowing me to suck on the pulse point at her neck while her muscles squeezed down on my cock.  It was glorious.  It was divine.  It was perfection, and I was taken by surprise by the suddenness and intensity of my orgasm.  I held her tight to me – nearly pulling her off the sandy ground below us – and screamed into her shoulder, my mouth against her skin, trying to hold back the intensity of my cries.

I came inside of her, feeling myself filling her completely with everything I had, from my ineffective semen to my intense need to feel her skin against mine and the sheer, raw emotion I felt for her as she cried my name out again and again.

Collapsing onto her, I released panted breaths against her throat.  The fingers wrapped around my shoulders slid upwards and into my hair, holding my head tight against her skin.  I kept my grip on her until my breathing started to slow and the intensity of what I was feeling began to ebb, but not disappear.  Still, I held her tight against me, afraid if I moved too much I would slip out, and I wanted to stay exactly where I was.  Maybe forever.  I wondered how she would feel about that.

“I’m staying here,” I said into her ear as I pushed with my hips.  Raine let out a short laugh and wriggled her backside a little.

“I’m okay with that,” she responded.  “You feel so good there.  I honestly didn’t think you were going to fit!”

“I’m really glad I do,” I said, “because I’m staying right here for as long as possible.”

I started kissing her throat, then her jaw, and finally her lips.  Before long, I started moving in and out of her again, the slickness from ejaculating inside of her allowing me to move easily even though I wasn’t really hard anymore.  I released her lips and moved down to her breasts, sucking each nipple into my mouth in turn while my hand took care of the other one.  It didn’t take long before I was hard again and thrusting into her faster, listening to her moans and bringing her back to the brink of bliss.

She screamed out my name, and I couldn’t hold back anymore.  If anything, the second orgasm inside of her was even better than the first.  I wouldn’t have thought it possible.  Afterwards, I still wasn’t interested in pulling out, so I maneuvered my hands between her ass and the sand, pulled her against me, and rolled so she was lying on my chest, but I stayed inside of her.

We didn’t speak or move for the longest time.  Much like after telling her shit about my life, I wasn’t sure how I felt at that point.  I knew I wanted this – I wanted her to lie on top of me for the rest of forever.  I wanted to hold her and keep myself right where I was until I got hard again.  Then I could start all over.  Of course, that wasn’t really an option, and eventually Raine mumbled that she needed to get up, and I had to relinquish my hold.

We walked to the water by starlight, washed off in silence, and then walked back to the shelter.  I lay down first and opened my arms for her to curl up next to me.  Once she lay down, I felt her shiver from her wet, naked skin.  I grabbed the blanket-towels from the raft and wrapped them around her, using both those and my body heat to keep her warm.

Raine let out a soft sigh, and I listened to her breathing regulate.  The backs of my fingers stroked over her cheekbone, and I could see the corner of her mouth twitch in the moonlight.  She was so beautiful, it was almost painful to watch.  I felt her body relax against my chest and knew she was asleep.  For a while I lay there, looking down at the beautiful woman in my arms trying to sort all this out in my head.  I sighed and looked up to the roof of the shelter.

“I don’t understand this,” I said softly.  “I wanted to fuck you that first night on the raft, but that was just because I wanted to get off and you were there.  I still want to fuck you, but the reasons are all different. I’ve never felt like this after sleeping with someone…or during it…shit.  This didn’t feel like I was fucking you…it was something else.  I don’t know what it is.  I want to be with you, and touch you, and hold you.  I have this overwhelming desire to protect you and make sure you’re safe.  Every time I look at you, it’s like my chest gets crushed, and I just want to stare at you and hold on to you and tell you everything is going to be all right.  I don’t know what this is, Raine.  I don’t understand what you’re doing to me.”

I felt her fingers against my jaw and glanced down into her opened eyes.  Fuck.  She hadn’t been asleep after all.  Her mouth turned up into a beautiful smile, and her response ended me.

“I love you too, Bastian.”

Her words coated me like warm caramel, and I was immediately wrapped in the meaning behind her short, simple, insanely complex sentence.  She had a name for what I was feeling even when I did not.  I had thought what I felt for Jillian was love, but it was nothing compared to what I felt for Raine.  I would do anything to guarantee her safety, and I would do anything to make whatever this was between us continue for as long as possible.  I wanted to be with her, next to her, under her, on top of her, beside her, inside her – I wanted everything with her.

“Is that what this is?” I choked out, the sudden emotion of it hitting me square in the chest.  If I hadn’t already been horizontal, I’m sure I would have fallen over.

“That’s what this is, Bastian.”  Her hand slipped back down to my shoulder, and her eyes closed again.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be and doing what I should be doing.  I was complete when we joined, and the reason for my existence was suddenly revealed to me – I was here to save her and to love her.

“I love you,” I said simply and felt her smiling lips press once more against my chest before she fell into sleep.

* * * * *

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I woke up without the remnants of a nightmare in my head.

In the dream I had been having, I was behind the wheel of my schooner and Raine was sitting up ahead of me, leaning against the deck railing with her hair blowing out to one side as we skimmed the waves of the Caribbean Sea.  I was smiling, she was beautiful, and when she turned to look back at me, she placed her fingers against her lips for a moment and blew a kiss in my direction.  I had a cup of coffee in my hand, and when I took a sip of it, it was just plain, black coffee.

I rolled to one side and pressed my lips to Raine’s cheek before forcing myself to get up.  There was a lot I wanted to get done today, and if I lay next to her long enough for her to wake up, I’d want to get my dick back into her.  If I did that, the morning would be gone before we even realized it.

The last four days had been incomparable bliss as far as I was concerned.  We had located water up the cliff in the form of a small stream – it was barely a trickle out of the rock, really, but more than enough for us to live on indefinitely.  The water from the still and the coconuts allowed us not to have to travel to the stream every day, and the water from those sources was also a little fresher than the water coming out of the rock, which had a bit of a sulfur odor to it.  Raine would drink it without complaining because frankly she didn’t complain about much of anything, but she always wrinkled her nose.  I kept the still going for the couple of cups of water it provided daily, making sure she got it all because I didn’t really give a shit about the smell.  Fish and other seafood were plentiful and easy to find and catch here, and the coconuts had at least added a little something else to our meals.

All that survival shit was great, but what mattered the most to me occurred after the sun went down.  I had always had an insatiable sexual appetite, but with Raine, I found I was just as satisfied if she curled up next to me when we slept.  It wouldn’t have mattered if we had sex beforehand or not because her being there was what I really cared about.  I still fucked her every night, but I didn’t feel like I had to.  I just wanted to fuck her all the time, so I also fucked her at least once during the day, usually near the edge of the water after her “mandatory” bathing and shaving were complete. I kept telling her I had to do the shaving because she couldn’t handle the knife as well, but that was bullshit.  Shaving led to laying her down in the sand and listening to her scream my name when she came.  She kept saying we were making love, but I called it fucking because it annoyed her, and the look on her face when I said it made me laugh.

I knew it was lovemaking.  I couldn’t have explained why it was different, but it was.  Even when I was fucking her hard, it was still making love.  It didn’t make any sense when I tried to think about it, but my body knew the difference.

Between sexual escapades on the beach and trips to the water source, I had also started making her a place to live that would be a shitload better than the lean-to shelter we currently used for sleeping.  This one would have a floor, which is what I was making first.  It was only going to be about twelve feet square, but it would be elevated and keep her out of the wet when it rained.  It had taken me the better part of a day just cutting a bunch of stalks all the same length until I had enough and then twisting vine into rope to wrap it all together.  Raine watched for a couple hours before she started to get the hang of the ropemaking and eventually weaving, too.  She picked up on everything really quickly, and it made me feel proud.

Raine was awake by the time I got back with a little seafood breakfast, hanging out near the edge of the water and washing herself off with seawater and sand.  It worked surprisingly well for removing dirt, and Raine said it was a better exfoliation product than some of the stuff Lindsay spent a small fortune on.  Of course, she was there without a shirt on, and I couldn’t help myself at that point, shaving included or not.  Breakfast was forgotten as I lay her down in the sand and made her mine again while the morning waves rolled over our feet.

“Are we spending another day getting nothing done?” Raine giggled.

“Not today,” I said, reluctantly pulling out of her and dragging us both into the water to rinse off.  “I need to find us a little more dietary variety, so I’m hiking today.  You wanted to finish your weaving.”

We walked hand in hand up the beach to the shelter.  I kissed her forehead before getting ready to head off.  I grabbed the plastic bags from the raft and Raine’s swimsuit-turned-net and shoved them in the pockets of my cargo shorts.  I reminded Raine to stay the fuck out of the sun because her skin was still really dry.  I didn’t care how much she liked to tan; I wasn’t taking a chance on her burning.  If I had to warn her again about how dangerous sunburn could be, I was going to lose it.  She rolled her eyes at me and claimed she was the wrong skin type to burn that easily, which drove me nuts, but at least she agreed to stay near the shelter.  She was working on weaving some mats to sit on and was talking about trying to make plates as well.

“Be back soon?”

“Three hours,” I said.  “Maybe more.  When I clocked it, the walk across the island west to east was about fifty minutes.  I think north to south is closer to an hour and a half, and I’m heading south.  I’ll be back before supper, though.”

“There’s plenty of fish,” Raine nodded towards the drying racks I had constructed.  The hanging strips of fish had become our primary food source.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m going to look for something else.”

I kissed her once more on her lips, forcing myself away before I became too involved.  If I lingered for even a couple extra ones, I’d have her naked on her back again within a few minutes and I’d never get her something better to eat.  I didn’t care so much about my own nutrition, but I had to think about what she needed.  Even though I had taken her in the sand less than an hour ago, I always seemed to be ready for more.

The jungle south of the cliff was still unexplored, and I was hoping I'd find something else to eat there.  She hadn't actually said anything, but I could still tell Raine was as sick of seafood and coconuts as I was.  I hadn't mentioned it, but we were also in serious need of some more dietary diversity.  There wasn't enough nutrition in what we had been eating.  We needed some plant variety, and I was hoping to find that as well.  I marched my way into the jungle, turning south and marking my path with notches in the trunks of trees I passed.

I lucked out pretty quickly on the first find – sweet almonds.  Fat and protein were definite plusses, though these were still under-ripe.  In a few weeks they would taste a lot better, but I wasn’t about to wait that long, though, so I collected a couple handfuls.  Later, I found a large stand of canna lilies and dug up the root stalks.  They could be mashed into meal, combined with water, and boiled to make something kind of like oatmeal that would at least fill up your stomach.  There were a ton of them, too.  We were going to need the carbs, so I dug up a lot of them before moving a little deeper into the jungle.

“Oh yeah!”  I actually yelled out loud, frightening a small group of colorful birds from their perches up above my head.  I had to stop myself from performing an actual John Paul-style fist pump.  I ran the last few steps and dropped to my knees next to a vine covered in light green, three-pronged leaves that reminded me of spearheads.  I ran my hand down the thick, prickly stalk until I found where it went into the ground and immediately started to dig.  Within a few minutes of digging in the soft sand, my hands were full of thin, somewhat underdeveloped tubers – tropical sweet potatoes.

The almonds had been a great find as well as the canna lilies – but sweet potatoes would be the thing that saved us from what killed sailors more than any other nutritional problem – scurvy.  The sweet potatoes would be full of good old Vitamin C.  I was instantly ravenous.  Even thinking about eating something other than another fucking fish or mussel was enough to make my stomach growl repeatedly.  Glancing around the area, I got a good view of some of the more unique parts of the landscape to make it easier to find again.  In addition, I subtly marked the spot where I found them by bending two thin branches of a nearby tree to point towards the little crop of plants.  I realized afterwards that I didn’t have to be sneaky about it since there weren’t any opponents to compete against here, but it was habit, so I did it.

I wrapped the sweet potatoes up along with the lilies and almonds and headed back towards the beach.  I found myself a little excited to be able to show Raine what I had found.  There were still a couple of hours before sunset, so we’d have plenty of time to get the almonds out of the fruit and wash the tubers.  I wondered if Raine knew of some clever way to cook any of this stuff.  I could heat something over a fire and boil water, but that was just about it.  At least she wouldn’t have to eat fish again tonight if she didn’t want to.  We could make something that resembled an actual meal because I was fucking starving for something different, and she’d smile and be happy and I’d make love to her on the sand.  Within a couple of days, I’d be able to make love to her in our new shelter.  Maybe it would even qualify as a house.  Whatever it was called, I was going to feed her decent meals and make love to her in it as often as possible.

That’s when I heard her scream.

All thoughts of food and sex disappeared from my head, and instinct took over.

I had just come over the hill hiding the open beach from my view.  I heard the scream right as I looked down from the top and saw Raine, arms held behind her back by a deeply tanned man in jeans and a plain white T-shirt.  There were three others all gathered around her – laughing, jeering.  The one standing in front of her reached out, gripped the hem of her shirt, and pulled it up, exposing her breasts as they all continued to laugh.

“Bastian!”  Raine’s scream pierced through my ears, my head, my heart.  I didn’t even feel my feet start to move or consciously register the gathered nutrition as it fell from my arms; I was just suddenly flying down the sandy bank, already seeing their blood on my hands.

I’d slaughter every last one of them for even considering touching her.

I guess I wasn’t all that hungry after all.

Chapter 13 - Fury

Five hundred feet away.  The darker skinned guy with dreadlocks held the hem of Raine’s shirt up high and chortled as he started reaching for her bare breast.

Four hundred feet away.  One of the other two, a short and chunky man with dirty blond hair, moved to one side, making sure he had a better view.  His hand dropped to the front of his pants so he could palm his dick.

Three hundred feet away.  The bastard with the buzz-cut and beer gut placed his palms against Dreadlocks’ back, pushing him forwards and making his hand collide with Raine’s breast.  They all laughed.

Two hundred feet away.  The motherfucker with the slick, black-colored ponytail, who was holding Raine’s arms backwards, pulled back harder, making her cry out.

One hundred feet away.  They all turned to look at me as a guttural, infuriated roar erupted from my chest.

I collided with Dreadlocks before anyone else could move, throwing him several feet backwards into the sand with me on top of him.  I didn’t recall pulling my jackknife out, but it was already embedded in his neck, and blood spurted out in violent streams, matching his heart rate.  He tried to scream, but a wet, rasping sound was all he could make with the knife in his throat.  I twisted the blade, severing his left carotid artery before one of the others grabbed my shoulders and started pulling me off of him.  It was Buzz-cut, the fucker who pushed Dreadlocks into Raine.  If he hadn’t, the fucker never would have had the chance to touch her – not like that.  I started seeing everything through a crystal clear, red haze.

My mindset was complete.  I could have been in any environment – in any arena, in any jungle, or on any beach.  There was nothing inside my head but the deaths of the motherfuckers around me, and I would not be stopped until they were all nothing but lifeless flesh.  I didn’t think about it or rationalize it, it was just automatic.  This was my element.  This was my forte.

Buzz-cut yanked on my elbows, and I let him haul me upright and grab onto my elbows behind my back.  He was screaming and cursing in Spanish, but the words themselves didn’t register.  Dreadlocks rolled onto one side, his hand gripping the side of his neck as blood continued to drench the sand from the hole where my jackknife was still embedded.

The chunky blond guy in shorts who had been fondling himself came up in front of me, brandishing a switchblade.  I snarled at him, egging him on with incomprehensible taunts.  He took a step forward, holding his knife in front of him, waiting to jab it into my gut.  I pushed back against Buzz-cut’s chest, ignoring the pull on my shoulder sockets, and Chunky took another step forward.  Stupid fuck.

I wrenched forward and then angled myself back, using the guy holding on to me as leverage.  I brought my legs up high and wrapped my ankles around Chunky’s neck.  The muscles in my legs constricted, pulling him up between my thighs, and I twisted the lower half of my body to the side.  I heard the distinctive crack as the strength of my femurs broke his neck, and he fell to the ground with his mouth opening and closing rapidly, trying to make a sound.

As my legs dropped back to the sand, I bent at the waist and brought Buzz-cut up and over my back to land on his companion.  As I dove towards him, my left hand went to his throat, but the angle was awkward due to the position of the dying fucker with the knife lying next to his outstretched hand.  As Buzz-cut tried to reach for the knife, I pounded my right fist into his face over and over again.  I smashed my fist into both of his eye sockets, and blood poured from his eyes, mouth, and nose.  My fist continued to do irreparable damage to the bastard’s face as I registered Raine’s screams to my right and glanced over to her.

Ponytail was dragging her backwards through the shallow water towards a small speedboat anchored just a few feet from the beach.  I hadn’t even seen the boat before since my attention had been otherwise focused.  They were almost to the boat itself, and he grabbed Raine by the waist, throwing her up and over the short bow before I could react.  I pulled myself up onto my feet and jabbed my heel out to Buzz-cut’s knee as I rose.  The sharp cracking sound of his knee bending back at the wrong angle, breaking his leg in the process, was drowned out by his screaming.  Buzz-cut with his now broken knee and fucked up face was immediately forgotten as I shoved away from him and started towards the boat.

Pressure in a tight, distinct line registered on the back of my right thigh, just above the back of my knee, followed by the pain.  I ignored it and ran on.  Ponytail was on the ladder running over the side of the boat, and then he was on board and the motor started up.  My feet pounded on the wet sand as he floored the gas.  The boat tore out across the water.  I was too far away.  I couldn’t reach it in time.

One hundred feet away.  I watched impotently as my reason for existence was roughly grabbed and thrown to the floor of the boat.  My gut wrenched, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

Two hundred feet away.  I watched the motherfucker raise his middle finger to me and heard his laughter before he turned back to his cargo.

Three hundred feet away.  Raine was screaming again, and I saw Ponytail’s foot rise up and kick towards the bottom of the boat.

Four hundred feet away.  I felt blood dripping down the back of my leg and hoped whatever the injury was, that it would be enough to kill me, but I doubted it.

Five hundred feet away.  I saw the anchor for the boat still partially buried in the sand near the edge of the water – and the long rope attached to it.

My feet splashed in the shallow water, and the drag from the waves pulled at my legs.  I dove through the air in one huge leap and wrapped my wrist around the rope to the anchor.  I raised my other hand to grasp the rope a little higher up and started to pull.  Sharp, intense pain traveled up the back of my leg as it hit the water.  I tightened my shoulders and biceps to keep my arms from being pulled out of their sockets as I rocketed forward.

The boat began to drag me behind it, and keeping my head above the water was nearly impossible.  Salty fluid filled my nose, and I coughed to get it out, which only caused me to inhale more water.  Tilting my chin to my chest, I could no longer see in front of me, but at least I could keep from drowning before I got to the boat.  I kept pulling with my arms, ignoring the pain in my biceps, my lungs, my leg.  Counting each pull with my arms, I measured the distance in my head until I was nearing the back of the boat and the propellers.  By some miracle, the fucker hadn’t turned around to see me hanging on to the rope.  I held on tight to a large knot tied in the line – as close as I could get without hitting the propeller – and reached around to the side to pull my body up to the edge.  My fingers scraped over the rough surface, but I corrected my grip and pulled myself onto the ledge at the back of the boat.

Raine was on the floor with blood coming out of a cut on her lip, and that motherfucking bastard was standing over her.  As my feet hit the deck, he turned, and his eyes widened as he realized I was really there.  His shock didn’t last long, and he reached down and pulled Raine onto her feet, held her in front of him, and wrapped his fingers around her neck.

“You might as well let go,” I said.  My voice was calm, and the back of my mind registered it as Landon’s voice of death.  In my mind I wondered if I had ever sounded like this before.  “No matter what else happens here, you are going to die.  That’s a given.”

“Bastian…”  My name was nothing more than a whisper on her lips.

“Shh,” I responded.  I didn’t look at her.  I couldn’t.  I was so focused on him, I couldn’t even see her in his grasp.

“I’ll kill the bitch,” the motherfucker growled.  He was trying to keep his voice steady and tough, but he was failing.  His eyes showed it all – he knew he was going to die.

“Take your hands off of her now, and I promise to kill you quickly.”  I took half of a step towards them and saw his fingers tighten against her windpipe.  “You know you’re already dead.  It’s just a matter of how long I make it last.”

“I’ll kill her!”

“How?” I purred at him.  “You aren’t holding a weapon.  Can you hurt her faster than I can get to you?  Are you willing to take the chance?  I have all kinds of ways of making you feel pain.”

He moved but not in the direction I expected.

Being surprised in battle is not something that had happened to me very often.  I could only assume I was severely out of practice when I didn’t catch on to his plan until it was too late.  Using his body, he shoved Raine to the side of the boat, over the edge, and into the water.  He spun around to face the controls and cranked up the gas.

I had very little time to act and no time to think.  Raine was behind us, unprotected in the waves.  The boat, which could be our best rescue chance, was at full throttle and heading out to sea.  Most importantly, I definitely, definitely was not going to let that asshole live.  I had to go after Raine immediately because she could drown in minutes, but I couldn’t leave him on the boat.  There was only one option left.  I jumped for him, grabbed him by his ponytail, thankful he had enough hair to form a tight grip, and leapt overboard with him in my grasp.

The boat continued to move at top speed out to sea.

Ponytail’s nails dug into the skin of my arm just above where I held him by the hair.  I had to use the other arm to keep my head above water, searching the slow moving waves for a sign of Raine.  I saw her about a hundred yards away, bobbing up and down in the currents.  The shore was another thousand yards behind her.

Shit.

“Raine!” I screamed out at her and saw her turn in my direction.  I wanted her to head towards me, not towards the shore like she would be inclined to do.  I needed her with me.  I had to have her close where I could touch her and know she was safe.

I kept the hand holding the half-drowned bastard under the waves, feeling his struggles subside.  I wasn’t going to be able to kill him the way I wanted to – slowly and painfully.  It was going to have to be fast so I could get Raine back to shore.

I pulled Ponytail up closer to me, his head above the waves again as I swam towards Raine.  She was doing well, treading water and keeping herself afloat.  I wished I had my knife on me so I could at least cut the bastard I was holding.  I looked back to his face, and he spat seawater at me.

I swirled in the water and brought the fucker up close to me as he struggled to get out of my grasp.  I grabbed one of the loops on his jeans and brought his torso up close to mine and then brought my knee up quickly, crushing his balls up into his body.  He yelled and started thrashing around in the water.  With a quick jerk of my neck, I nailed his nose with my forehead, and blood started gushing into the water.  I shoved him back underneath the waves and started swimming to Raine again.

The hands gripping my arm became more desperate, clawing at my skin for a minute before the movements slowed and then stopped.  I shook the bastard by his hair once and then let him go.  He didn’t resurface but slowly sank into the waves.  I resisted the urge to drag him back to shore, resuscitate him, and then beat his ass more thoroughly.

It took several more minutes, but eventually I reached out and felt the skin of Raine’s arm.  She immediately wrapped both arms around my neck and held on as tight as she could.

“Loosen up a little, baby,” I said.  I grabbed her waist under the water and held her against me for a moment before moving her to my back.  “Hold on tight, but let me breathe, okay?”

“Yes.”  Raine’s hot breath in my ear should have been both comforting and soothing, but my mind was still too focused, too eager to kill.  I couldn’t think about much of anything but getting back to the last motherfucker who had dared to threaten what was mine and finishing him off.

We were a ways out but not a distance I hadn’t swum before, and nowhere near too far even though my right leg was getting a little tired and achy.  Raine’s arms around my neck were almost cutting off my air, but I kept trudging on until my feet were finally in the sand and then out of the water.  I reached up and grabbed her forearms and pulled them gently from around my neck, having a little bit of difficulty with that because she didn’t seem to want to let go.  I took that as a good sign – she must not be badly hurt.  I pulled her around in front of me and took her face between my hands.  I scanned her up and down.  Aside from her busted lip, I didn’t see any blood or signs of further injury.  I glanced out over the water and saw the boat barely still visible on the horizon.  I turned back to Raine.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, my words clipped and strained.  My muscles were still desperate to latch on to something and squeeze the life out of it.

“I don’t think so,” she responded through deep breaths.

I let go of her without another word and stomped across the sand to where Buzz-cut was still lying in the sand, trying to both hop and drag himself away simultaneously.  It wasn’t working well with one leg, and he had only managed to move himself about two hundred yards down the beach – like he could go somewhere and fucking hide from me.  I didn’t even have to run to catch up with him.

When I reached him, I grabbed his injured leg, pulling and twisting it as he screamed.  He flipped over onto his back, and the look of terror in his eyes reminded me of how Raine had looked as Ponytail had held her.  It was the same look on her face when Buzz-cut had shoved Dreadlocks to make him grope her.  I felt my chest tighten, and I increased my grip on his ankle until I could feel the outline of the bone against my thumb.  Keeping up the pressure, I jerked it hard to the left, listening to the snap of the bone before his howls drowned out all the sound around us.

He still had a bloodied knife in his hand, and he tried to get near enough with it to cut my skin.  He didn’t even come close, but I got tired of dodging, so I kicked his hand, breaking two fingers and causing the knife to fly off into the water.  He turned his head, his eyes searching for the lost weapon.

“You want it back?” I snarled at him and then laughed.  “You want to fucking cut me, you fucking son-of-a-bitch?  You want to cut me?  Let’s go get your little toy, shall we?”

I dragged him to the water and shoved his face into the wet sand.  He struggled under my grip until I pulled him up by his ears just long enough to take a breath before I shoved him back down under the shallow waves.  I found myself wishing he had a ponytail, too, so I could yank him around by it, but I made do with what was there.

Images of Buzz-cut pushing Dreadlocks kept infiltrating my brain as I started slamming his head into the wet sand repeatedly.  His face was a bloody mess of shallow cuts and scrapes.  I caught a glimpse of the knife just a few feet away, hauled him up, and dragged him over to it before throwing him headfirst towards the weapon.

“Come on, you pussy!” I screamed.  “Pick up the fucking knife!  Pick it up, and I’ll fucking gut you with it, you worthless piece of shit!”

He was moaning and bawling and wouldn’t even go towards the slim blade.  He put his broken hand up over his bleeding face and begged me not to kill him.

“You were dead when you first laid eyes on her,” I said softly.  Landon’s voice was back on my tongue.  I took three steps to reach him, grabbed the knife out of the water, and pulled him back onto the dry sand.  I pushed the knife towards his face, making sure he got a good look at it before I opened him up, throat to gut.

He gurgled, and blood began to pour from his mouth.  The fingers of his good hand gripped my wrist, but there was no power behind it.  I punched him in the stomach, feeling the gash open wider and his insides start to pour out.  I punched his face, feeling his nose break underneath my knuckles.  It felt fucking fantastic, so I did it again and again.  Eventually his hands fell to the sides of his head and he stopped struggling.  My fists continued to pound into his face.  Sometimes I felt my fists hit sand, but that didn’t necessarily mean I missed my target.  I alternated left and right, throwing punches to what was left of his face and to his chest, listening to the sound of breaking ribs.

“Bastian!  Bastian, please stop!  Stop, Bastian!  He’s dead, Bastian…please stop…”

Eventually I heard her, though I’m not sure how long Raine had been begging me to stop.  Her hands were on my shoulders, trying to pull me from the mutilated corpse underneath me.  I stopped the movement of my aching arms and leaned back on my heels.  Slender fingers wrapped around my bicep and yanked at my arm.  A sharp pain in the back of my leg shot up my thigh from its focal point above my knee and then cascaded all the way down to my ankle.  My leg tried to buckle, but I told it to cut that shit out and stood up straight.

My chest heaved as I tried to take in enough breath to counter the adrenaline surging through my system.  It didn’t work, and I just ended up panting.  I had to make myself stop, or I was going to hyperventilate.  I looked around the beach.  Were there any more of them?  There were four – where’s the fourth body?  Then I remembered – he was left to die in the water.  There were three bodies on the beach, one at my feet and two a little farther away.

Raine’s fingers were tracing up and down my arm.  When I glanced down, I saw her fingers had stopped at the point where the blood covering my arm and hand started.  It was even worse on the other side.  My stomach and chest were splattered with the red fluid.

A hundred images passed through my brain.  How many times had I stood in the center of an arena, bloodied hands held high in victory while I heard the cheers of rich fuckers betting on the deaths of those who played against me?  How many times had the elation of winning rolled over me as the blood of my opponents dripped down my arms?

“Come wash off,” I heard her tiny voice say.  Mindlessly, I let her lead me to the water’s edge, then inside the shallow waves where I could clean the blood from my hands, my arms, my legs, and my stomach.  Fuck, it was pretty much everywhere.  I walked out farther and ducked under the waves for a brief moment.  Raine stayed close to me, which was good.  If she had tried to walk away from me, I just might have lost whatever control I had left.

When I stepped back into the shallow water, Raine took my hands in hers and turned them, palms up, then palms down again.  I watched her fingers trail over my cracked and bloodied knuckles.  It should have hurt, but I felt nothing.  I needed to feel something.

I grabbed onto her hands and then ran my fingers up her arms.  When I reached her shoulders, I pulled her to me, crashing my lips down to hers.  She winced, and I tasted her blood on my tongue, stupidly remembering too late that her lip was split.  I moved to the side of her mouth that wasn’t injured, and one of my hands wrapped around her hair.  My lips moved over her jaw while my other hand dropped down to her waist and wrapped around her back.  The heat from her body covered my wet skin, demanding attention.  It was all I could feel – her heat, her life.  It was mine.  She was mine.  I thought about how she looked at me in the life raft while she held my hand and cried.  Visions of her laughing as I tickled her danced through my head.  I remembered the sensation of joining with her for the very first time and how right it felt.  I knew those men had wanted to take that from me – take her from me – and my anger and hatred came rushing back.

“I need you,” I growled and grasped her more tightly around the waist, bringing my immediately hard cock closer to her core.  “Now.”

I practically shoved her down on her back in the sand and only barely stopped myself from tearing the sopping wet clothes from her back.  Instead, I ripped my boxers down her legs and threw them off to the side.  I yanked her shirt over her head before fumbling at the buttons of my pants.  Once they were out of the way, I lay on top of her and hitched her leg up over my hip.  I was buried inside her a second later.

Maybe I thought I was going to be instantly calmed once I was inside of her, but I wasn’t.  If anything, I felt more desperate and volatile.  They had tried to take her from me.  If I had still been in the jungle…if I hadn’t gotten back to the beach in time…I would have just come back to find her gone.

“Mine,” I growled and slammed my hips against her, feeling my balls smack against her round ass as my cock rammed into her.

What would I have done?  If I had come back and not been able to find her, what could I have done?  I would have seen the footprints and maybe found evidence of where their boat had landed.  I would have known what they were or what they likely were.  She wouldn’t have left voluntarily without me, would she?

“Only I do this to you,” I hissed into her ear.  “Only me!  Do you understand?”

I didn’t wait for an answer; I just increased the speed of my hips as they collided with hers.  Images of what they would have been doing to her now if I hadn’t shown up when I did accosted my brain.  With four of them, they could have easily restrained her, held her down in the sand, and taken their time…if I had been even ten minutes later than I was, I would have seen…

“NO!” I heard myself scream.  One of my arms wrapped around her shoulders while the other one dropped down to put pressure on her lower back, bringing her up and against me harder.  “You’re mine…they can’t…never, ever…I won’t let anyone…”

I felt Raine’s arms coil around my shoulders and her legs wrap around my waist.  Her fingers fanned out over my shoulder blades, and then gripped down on my shoulders.  I didn’t slow down.  Pressure began to build up in my legs, and again I felt a shooting pain behind my thigh but ignored it.  I was concentrating a little higher up and was not to be distracted by something as frivolous as pain.

“Mine,” I muttered as I pounded into her again, my words keeping time with my thrusts.  “You’re mine…mine…mine…no one else...ever…ever touches you…”

I was over the edge a second later, thrusting into her forcefully and muffling my screams in the crook of her neck.  I shoved my hips against her a couple more times before collapsing on her body with my lips pressed to her throat.  My hot breath blew out of my mouth in heavy pants, reflecting off her skin and warming my face.

My arms were still underneath her, one on the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades.  I tightened my muscles to bring her closer to me as images of the four dead bastards and what they might have done to her danced around my masochistic head.  I don’t know how long we were lying like that, but as my mind returned to the present and focused on what was happening around me, I suddenly felt her trembling and realized she was crying.

Holy shit.

She wasn’t just crying, she was literally sobbing silently underneath me.  Her shoulders were shaking, and when I moved off of her, regretting the cool feeling of the evening winds on my dick as I slid out of her, Raine let out a long, heart-clenching wail.  She didn’t let go of my back, and her forehead was up against my shoulder.  I could feel tears moistening my skin.

A thousand thoughts went through my head.  Had I hurt her?  The raw emotions I felt when I had to be inside of her were overwhelming and undeniably strong, and I realized I had been rough with her in my need to make her mine again.  I hadn’t even made her come.  I wasn’t any better than the fucker who had taken her virginity and given her nothing in return.  No…I wasn’t like him.  I was far, far worse.  I had gone and killed four people in front of her and then fucked her to make myself feel better.

Fuck.

There had been no cheering when I killed the last of the bastards.  No one was passing money back and forth with smiles and congratulations.  No one was handing me a wad of cash and clapping their hands on my back.  She had been crying when she pulled me away from Buzz-cut’s body.  She had undoubtedly been terrified when they were holding her and probably even more frightened of me as she watched me murder four people.

Then I fucked her in the sand.

“I’m sorry, Raine…I’m so fucking sorry…”  I tried to wipe tears off her cheeks, but they were coming too fast.  “I didn’t mean to…”

Didn’t mean to what?  Kill them?  Fuck her?  I did mean it.  I wanted it.  I needed all of it.

“You shouldn’t have watched…” I continued to stammer.  “Fuck, baby…I’m so fucking sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry!”

It occurred to me that I was probably the last person she wanted around her at the moment, and she might very well be better off on her own for a while.  I let go of her, feeling her slump back into the sand before I started to stand back up.  Before I could move very far, her hands grabbed my wrists like shackles and she screamed.

“Don’t let go!”  She continued bawling and tried to talk through the tears, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying most of the time.  The only thing I could comprehend was the phrase she kept repeating: “Don’t leave me!”

“I won’t,” I said quietly.  I sat back on my heels and dragged her up against my chest.  Her arms went around my neck in a death grip that rivaled her hold on me when we were in the water.

“Tell me you got me,” I heard her whisper through her cries.

“I’ve got you, Raine,” I said.  “I’ve got you.  I’m so sorry…”

We sat on the sand until the sun began to set.  Not knowing what else to do, I picked her up and cradled her in my arms, holding her close to my chest while I walked slowly up the sandbank to the shelter.  My right leg tried to buckle again, but I trudged on.  I glanced sideways at the three bodies on the beach and realized I was going to have to do something about them – probably after Raine was asleep.

Frowning at the lean-to, which was starting to sag a little more than it did when we first built it, I wished I had the new shelter completed, but I’d have to make do with what was here.  I dropped down to my knees on the palm frond floor and lay Raine on her back.  She kept her grip on my neck, so I lay down beside her and wrapped her up in the blanket-towels and my arms as she continued to cry quietly.

I was still in a bit of a blood-lust haze, and the combination of that familiarity and the completely unfamiliar action of trying to comfort this woman was so completely incongruous, I really didn’t know what to think or feel or say.  I had to physically force my hands not to shake because the urge to kill was still running through my veins even though I knew there was no one left.  This feeling was not unexpected – I always had it after a tournament, which was at least part of the reason I would spend most of the night afterwards fucking.  It helped with the pent-up energy, and even some of the need for violence.  This was so different, however, because even though I wanted to fuck her again, I didn’t want to feel violent towards Raine.  The ambivalence was mind-blowing.

I swallowed hard and tightened my hold on her.  The shaking of her limbs had slowly subsided, and she was now sniffing against my shoulder.  I felt her take in a deep breath and try to let it out slowly, but it caught in her throat a couple of times, making it ragged and uneven.

I wanted to do…to do…something.  At least say something, I just didn’t know what to do or say.  While I contemplated, Raine sighed heavily and dropped off to sleep in my arms, letting the exhaustion overtake her.  My thumb wiped the remaining tears from her face, and my lips pressed into the hair at the top of her head.  I was exhausted as well and tempted to just join her in slumber, but I knew I had work to do first.  Waking up to the remnants of this nightmare is not what I wanted her to do in the morning.

I snaked out from under her, hoping there would still be enough light for me to get rid of the bodies on the beach.  As soon as I tried to stand, my leg gave out from under me and I had to catch myself awkwardly on my hand to keep from falling on top of her.  I hissed softly and then twisted to look at the back of my thigh.

Looking at it wasn’t enough of a reminder at first, but then I thought back to right after I smashed Buzz-cut’s knee.  I remembered the pressure at the back of my leg and knew I had been cut.  It wasn’t horrible, but it didn’t look good, either.  After shuffling a couple of feet out of the lean-to, I turned my leg to the side so I could get a better look.  My fingers went to either side of the cut, pulling at it slightly to see how deep it really was.  More blood began dribbling out of the wound.  It needed a handful of stitches, undoubtedly.  I wondered if I could do that to the back of my leg and decided I would never get the angle right.  I’d have to have Raine do it.

When I looked back to her, she was on her side and completely out.  There was no way I was going to wake her up at this point.  I took a deep breath and pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the pain and my body’s desire to let my leg buckle.  I forced my leg to take my weight and hobbled off to the beach, deciding to ignore the blood running down the back of my calf until a more opportune time presented itself.  It wasn’t bleeding enough to cause any serious concern, so I didn’t worry myself with it at all.

I found our clothes still lying in the sand.  At least the tide hadn’t come in and washed them away.  Now that would have sucked.  They were wet and sandy, so I shook them out a little before tossing them up the beach close to the small dune below the shelter before heading towards the bodies.

The bodies were easy to spot, obviously.  I could see darkened pools of blood all over the sand and wondered how the fuck I was going to get all that cleaned up before morning.  I sighed and debated the best course of action for the corpses.  Toss them out to sea, and they just might end up washed back on shore.  Raine didn’t need to see that.  I decided on cremation and started pulling the bodies together on the beach.

The stench was just fucking incredible.  I shook my head as if that would make the smell dissipate from the air around me.  I dragged the final body – Dreadlocks – over to the burning pile.  Like a fucking sledgehammer, it hit me that he had had his hand on her breast.  I lost it.  I completely and totally lost it.

My fists flew out, pounding flesh and bone into the sand.  My hand opened and clawed at his skin, scarring and tearing at it.  I retrieved my jackknife from his neck and cut the skin around his head, ripping the coiled hair away and flinging it into the fire where it sizzled and added to the stench.

By the time I was coherent enough to try and calm myself, the scraps of flesh in front of me were no longer recognizable as human.  It didn’t help.  I wished he’d magically spring back to life so I could make him hurt again.  I wanted to tear out his entrails and shove them down his throat while he choked.  I wanted to slice off each finger that had made contact with her skin, one knuckle at a time, and pound them into his skull with a fucking hammer.

Looking down, I noticed I was not only still naked but covered in thick, coagulated blood again.  I pushed myself off what was left of Dreadlocks and threw the scraps into the huge fire.  Once he was burning nicely, my feet carried me back down the beach and to the water’s edge.  I went into the water to wash the blood off and ran through the last few hours in my head primarily from the time Raine stopped me from further mutilating a corpse on the beach to carrying her back to the shelter.

I had to be the biggest dick to ever live.

After everything she had been through – and I didn’t even know what they might have done or said before I got there – I threw her down in the sand and fucked her like a common fucking whore.  I sure was a hell of a catch.  Note sarcasm.  I had to be the worst fucking…what was I?  Her boyfriend?  Girlfriend wasn’t enough to describe what she was to me, and I had probably just fucking ruined it like the stupid motherfucker I was.  I wondered if I could manage to beat myself up like that guy in Fight Club did in front of his boss.

Growling at myself, I stomped up the beach, pulled on my nearly dry shorts, and tossed my belt over my shoulder.  The back of my leg stung from the contact with the saltwater, but I deserved whatever fucking pain I had because I was such an ass.  Actually, I undoubtedly deserved a lot more.

Raine’s bloodcurdling scream brought me out of my musings.  Despite the pain in my leg, I ran back to the shelter.

“Raine!  Raine, what is it?”

“Bastian!” she screamed again and threw her arms around my neck.  The sobs and shakes were back, and I could barely stay upright between my injured leg and her added weight.  “You were gone…you were gone…”

“Jesus, Raine, I’m sorry,” I stammered.  After never uttering a single apology in my entire adult life, how many fucking times had I said “sorry” to her automatically in the past few hours?  “I was just down the beach, baby.  I wasn’t far.”

“Don’t leave me!”

“I won’t, baby,” I maneuvered her back onto the fronds on the ground and lay beside her, trying not to wince too much.  “I’m right here.  I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

“Tell me you got me!”

“I’ve got you.” I held her head against the crook of my neck and shoulder and whispered into her ear, “I’ve got you.  Baby, you’re safe.  Don’t be scared.  I’ve got you.”

I closed my eyes and just held her against me, telling her over and over again that I had her – she was safe.  I moved her so she was on her side, but I was still over the top of her, keeping her warm and surrounding her body with my own.  I wrapped my arms and even one of my legs over her, cocooning her in my embrace and holding her as tightly as I dared.  Outside the shelter, I could still hear the crackling and see the flickering light of the macabre bonfire on the beach.

“Why did you build a fire?” Raine asked softly, her eyes still hidden in my neck.

“Just a little cleanup,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask any more of her usual questions but knowing she would anyway.

“You burned the bodies?”  Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Yeah.”  I sighed heavily and waited for the next barrage of questions.

She was quiet for all of about thirty seconds.

“What about the bones?”

Of all the ridiculous things to harp on, she decides to wonder which body parts are going to burn best.

“I’ll get rid of them when the fire’s out.”

Again, another thirty seconds of blissful silence.

“Who were they?” she asked, her fingers digging even deeper into the skin of my shoulders.  I shook my head, not really wanting to give her my assumption on the matter.  Even though I had told her about all the shit I did, and she now knew some of the sordid details of life outside the law, I didn’t want her to know everything.  I didn’t want to tell her about the stuff that was, in my opinion, much worse, the kind of shit I wouldn’t touch no matter what the stakes or the payoff, but I knew plenty of people who did.

“Hard to say,” I shrugged.  I tried to brush it off, but she wasn’t buying it.  Apparently, I was a fucking shitty liar when it came to her.

“Who were they, Bastian?” she repeated.  Her hand went to the side of my face and tilted my head towards hers.  “Tell me.”

“You really don’t want to know.”  I took a deep breath and blew it out my nose, not wanting to go there.  Knowing what they could have had planned for her in my own head was bad enough.  I didn’t want those thoughts going through hers as well.  She glared at me, and I knew any more fight on my part was pointless.  I sighed heavily and closed my eyes.  “Slavers, I think.”

“Slavers?”

“Yeah.”

“As in people who…sell people?”

“Yeah.”

“What would they have done with me?” she asked quietly.

“Raine, for fuck’s sakes,” I growled.  I had a limit, and I had reached it.  “You don’t want to think about it.  I don’t want to think about it.  Don’t make me fucking say it!”

This time she lasted a whole minute.

“I was so glad when I first saw them,” Raine said, and I felt her grip on me tighten a little.  “I had no idea…”

“What do you mean?”

“When I first heard the boat,” she clarified.  “I ran down to the beach, and when I got their attention and I saw the boat turn, I was jumping up and down because I was so happy to see them.  I couldn’t wait for you to get back so I could tell you we were rescued.”

“Oh.”  It was my only response.  The more I thought about it, the more I found the whole idea unsettling for multiple reasons.  My focus had been on ripping the motherfuckers apart, not how they got here or why they chose to land here.  They probably would have gone right by if she had been asleep and not heard them.

“I thought they were going to help us.  I’m so stupid.”

“It’s okay, baby,” I told her, holding her head back down to my shoulder and kissing her softly on her forehead.  “You couldn’t have known what they were.  It doesn’t fucking matter now because they aren’t going to fuck around with anyone else.”

Two minutes.

“You scared me.”

“I know.”  What else could I say?  Shit.  “I’m sorry, Raine.  I didn’t mean to scare you, especially…after…on the beach, when I…shit.”

“That didn’t scare me,” she scoffed.  “You just…needed it.”

Yeah, I needed to fuck her senseless after she had been in danger of being gang-raped. I hadn’t asked her or anything I had just taken from her because I wanted it.  Nice.  What a fucking asshole.

“Why are you looking like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you are mentally beating yourself up.”

“Raine…shit.”  I took a couple of deep breaths but couldn’t look her in the eye.  “It just…proves I’m not…good enough for you.”

“Bastian, that doesn’t even…”

“I made you cry,” I said softly.  The words hurt coming out of my throat.

“You didn’t make me cry,” Raine insisted.

“Why were you crying then?” I demanded.  I didn’t know what she was trying to do – make me feel better for being a dick?  I wasn’t going to put up with that shit.  What I had done was…fucking horrible.  It was probably worse than when I hit her.

I’m such a fucking asshole.

“It was just…everything,” Raine finally answered.  “I was so…elated when I first saw them and realized they had seen me and they were going to land.  When they got to the beach and came up to me, I knew something was wrong right away.  I didn’t know where you were or when you would be back.  They…they surrounded me.”

Her voice dropped low, and I pulled her closer to my chest.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she continued.  “I knew I should scream in case you were close enough to hear me, but I couldn’t make any sounds.  Then the one guy grabbed me and…and then you were there, and I knew I would be all right, but then he pulled me onto the boat, and you couldn’t get there…”

Her breath hitched, and her fingers pulled at my skin.

“How did you get on the boat?  I couldn’t figure it out.”

“He didn’t pull in the anchor, so I went up the anchor line.”

“I’m glad you’re so strong,” she whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear.  Her fingers traced over my bicep.

“At that point, I was too.”

Raine nodded before going on.

“Then I was in the water, and I couldn’t get to the surface at first.  When I did, I heard you calling for me, and you got to me and held me…and then we were out again and you wouldn’t stop hitting…I didn’t think you would ever stop.  There was so much blood, and I didn’t know if it was yours or theirs…You didn’t hear me even though I was yelling at you…”

She took a couple more deep breaths.

“Everything happened so fast.  It was almost like watching a movie in fast forward.  I thought they were going to…hurt me and you, too, but then all of a sudden, you had me and you were all right.  You said you needed me…and I felt safe again.  Afterwards, I think it just all kind of came crashing down on me.  I was crying because of everything else…the stress of it all, I think, and the relief that it was over, not because you wanted to-”

“I didn’t even make you come,” I interrupted.  “I used you.”

“You needed me,” Raine corrected, her hand on the side of my face again, turning me so I had to face her.  “That’s not the same thing.”

“I took from you.”

“I gave to you.”

“Bullshit.”

“You listen to me, Sebastian Stark,” Raine suddenly snapped at me.  She raised herself up so she was high enough to look down at me even though we were both lying on our sides.  Her stare made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  “Did I use you just now when I made you hold me and tell me I was safe?”

“No!  Shit, Raine…I wanted to!  You were upset, and…”

“Thank you for making my point.”

My mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t seem to find any kind of actual word to go with the action.  Damn if I couldn’t argue with her logic.  When she cried and wanted me to hold her, there was nothing in the world I wanted to do more, not because I wanted it or needed it, but because she did.  I wanted to be there for her, and anything I could do to make her feel better would be done.  If she had explained that cutting off my left nut would help her heal, I’d do it in a fucking heartbeat and with a smile on my face.  Is that what it was like for her?  Did she want to let me do that, just so I would feel better – fuck her on the ground without even thinking about her needs?  She couldn’t want that.  No one would want that after what had just happened.  I had pushed her down on the ground and practically forced myself on her…

And she wrapped her arms and legs around me, just like I needed her to.

I reached up with my hand, wrapped my fingers in the hair at the back of her neck, and pulled her lips to mine.  I kissed her slowly, trying to make up for what I had done even if she had been all right with it.  Stroking her lips softly with mine once more, I brought her down to rest her head on my chest, making sure she fell asleep first before I allowed myself to drift off.

I guess there was more to this love shit after all.

Chapter 14 - Sick

My eyes opened, and the first thing I really noticed in the darkness was my head pounding.  I was on my side under the palm-frond canopy roof.  Raine’s back was against my chest, and my arm was wrapped around her middle, holding her tight against my body.  She wasn’t shaking anymore.  I must have fallen asleep.  Aside from my head, my leg was throbbing as well.  It felt hot, too.  Not a good sign.  Not a good sign at all.  I closed my eyes and everything went dark again.

I walk over the low hill near the shelter, my hands full of roots and leaves.  I'm thinking about how to best cook the food when I look out towards the beach.  I see them immediately, and I know they have her.  She's on her back in the sand, and Ponytail is holding her hands above her head.  Dreadlocks is on top of her, and the others stand behind him, waiting their turn.

I start running, but no matter how fast my legs move, I'm not getting any closer.  I can see her face clearly, her tears glistening in the afternoon sun.  She's screaming, but I hear nothing.  Dreadlocks climbs off her, and Buzz-cut moves into place.  Somehow I trip over the roots I had been holding and sprawl into the sand, my leg screaming in pain.

My chest was so fucking tight from trying not to scream, I couldn't breathe.  I felt Raine lying on her stomach beside me, my arm wrapped securely around her back, and her head lying right next to mine on the palm fronds.  I pushed back away from her as quickly as I could without disturbing her sleep.  I rolled over to my left side and tried to push myself up on my feet, but my right leg gave out and I slid awkwardly to the ground.

I nearly choked trying not to yell.  Holy shit, my leg hurt, but I couldn't think about that just yet – there was something quite a bit more pressing I needed to do first.  Forcing myself onto my hands and knees, I crawled as quickly as I could with my leg dragging on the ground behind me, barely making it to the edge of the jungle outside the shelter before the contents of my stomach spewed out on the ground.  I tried to expel the images crashing through my head at the same time, but they wouldn't leave.  I kept seeing them all holding her down and the look on her face as her eyes met mine.

I vomited again, and my leg gave out again, leaving me lying on my side in the scratchy sand.  I could feel beads of sweat dropping from my back and the rapid beating of my heart.  I shook my head violently and tried to right myself but couldn't.  My eyes reached out to the smoldering coals in the beach and the nondescript, shadowy pile on top of it.  I thought I could make out the shape of a skull, but I couldn't be sure.  I wanted to smash it.

If I had been any later...

I lay on the ground for a few minutes, trying to control my breathing and heartbeat, but completely failing to force the images of the nightmare out of my head.  I might as well have actually seen it.  The need to hold onto Raine and verify her safety abruptly overwhelmed me, so I crawled back to the shelter while trying to ignore the pain in the leg I dragged behind me.  It didn’t matter – nothing mattered but keeping her safe.  Raine had flipped over and was lying on her back.  I scooted my body up close to hers and wrapped one arm around her waist, but it wasn't enough.  I slipped my other arm under her head and around her shoulders and pulled her tight against me, but it still wasn't enough.

Raine mumbled quietly in her sleep as I pulled her head against my chest and placed my chin on top of her head.  Though it fucking hurt because it put a decent amount of weight on my aching right leg, I tossed my left leg over her body as well.  Once I was essentially completely wrapped around her and at least half on top of her, the panic finally began to dissipate.  There was no way anyone could take her from me without me knowing about it.  If anyone tried, I’d fucking gut them.

I took a few long, deep breaths and slowly dropped back into sleep.

This place smells a little funny.

“We’re going to play a game, Bastian!”

I look into her eyes, which are green like mine – she showed me in the mirror.

“Game?”

“Hide and seek!”  She’s talking softly, and I don’t understand why.  “You hide right under here, and Daddy will try to find you.”

She points underneath a funny looking table.  It’s green on the top, and there are little pockets in the side filled with colorful balls.  I nod and crawl underneath.

“Make sure you stay quiet so he doesn’t find you.  That would ruin the game, and he’d be mad.”  I don’t want him to be mad.  I don’t like it when he is mad.  She reaches under and touches my face softly, then ruffles my hair.  I like it when she touches me like that.  “I love you, Sebastian.”

I sit underneath the funny table for a long time.  Daddy hasn’t found me, so I must be doing a good job of hiding.  There’s a white cup under the table.  When I hold it and squeeze it, it cracks.  It’s soft, and I take it apart, stacking the pieces up into a tower.  When it falls, I do it again.

One of the colorful balls drops on the floor next to the table, and a man with a beard bends over to pick it up.  He looks at me and starts calling out.  Then a lady comes and asks me what I’m doing under there.  I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.  A couple other people talk to me, and I smash up the cup pieces a little more.  I don’t know if I should tell them I’m hiding or not.  After a while, a lady wearing a blue coat with gold buttons crawls under the table and pulls me out.  I scream because Daddy will be mad if the game is ruined…

I could hear my name being called, but I couldn't manage to really put any meaning behind it.  I was trying to understand the images in my head – completely new but hauntingly familiar at the same time.  Small hands pushed against my chest and shoulder, and the words moved from gibberish to actual English in my ears.

"Bastian, get up!"

"No," I mumbled back.  She was safe where she was.  I didn't want to move.

"Bastian, please!  You weigh a ton and you're all sweaty!"

It was fucking hot, but that wasn’t all that surprising.  We were on a tropical island for fuck’s sake.  I could feel sweat clinging to my back, and I was fairly certain Raine and I were kind of stuck together.  I didn’t mind it, though, so I didn’t move even when the little hands started hitting me harder.

“Damn it, Bastian,” she growled into my ear.  “I have to pee, and you are crushing my bladder!”

I grumbled but rolled enough so she could slip out from under me before I slumped back onto my stomach.  I could hear her moving out of the shelter, and I didn’t like it.  I wanted her to be closer to me, but I was so fucking tired I couldn’t even open my eyes long enough to keep watch over her.  My ears picked up on her movements, and I listened to her take a few steps away.  Even that much energy proved to be too much, and I felt my head swimming before I let the darkness of sleep try to take me.  I don’t think it was more than a couple of minutes before I heard her voice again.

“Bastian, wake up, please?”

I could feel small, cold hands on my shoulders, shaking me.  Trying to open my eyes seemed like such an effort, and I really didn’t want to bother.  The cold hands were a shock, though.  The rest of my body felt so hot, and my leg was throbbing.

“Can you hear me, Bastian?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.  Opening my mouth wasn’t quite as much effort as my eyes.

“What happened to your leg, Bastian?  You’re cut and…and it’s all red.”

“Fucking hurts,” I grumbled and rolled a little to my side.  Fuck, that hurt.  There was no point in being awake if it was going to hurt like that.  I rejoined the darkness.

I sit up in my seat as the jury is brought back into the room.  I see Landon’s head tilt slightly, but Franks doesn’t move a fucking inch.  His attorney leans over, whispers into his ear, and Franks nods.

“Mister Foreman,” the judge addresses the juror who had remained standing.  “Have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

The bailiff takes a piece of paper from the juror’s hand and gives it to the judge.  He opens it, reads it, and drops it down on the bench.

I can feel my heart pounding.  The next few seconds will decide so much, so much – justice for a bunch of people I didn’t know but watched die.  Possibly life or death for me, but that didn’t matter so much.  I can see Landon looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

“How do you find the defendant, Joseph Franks, in the matter of the first charge – murder in the second degree of Officer Henry Gayle?”

“We, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty.”

My stomach lurches, and I am unable to swallow.

“How do you find the defendant, Joseph Franks, in the matter of the second charge – murder in the second degree of Officer Michael Walton?”

“We, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty.”

I have to fight with my body to stop it from doubling over.

“How do you find the defendant, Joseph Franks, in the matter of the third charge – murder in the second degree of Mister Roland Nickles?”

“We, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder.  Landon pulls me off the bench in the back row and out the door as the juror’s words continue to pound into my skull.

“Nothing…he’s going to get nothing!” I scream.  Landon’s fist connects with my jaw, knocking me sideways.

“Shut the fuck up,” he commands.  “Gunter is going to get life.  He’ll be fucked up the ass and probably killed off in the first week.  You can’t have everything.”

I’m hauled outside into the bright sunlight.  There is a cab waiting.

“What the fuck?” I question.

“It’s been fun,” Landon shrugs.  He looks at me for a moment.  “Don’t ever try to contact me again, son.”

There’s a duffle bag in the back of the cab, cash in bundles, account information for a bank in the Cayman Islands, and a passport in the name of Daniel Greene…

There was something cold on my face.  Cold, soft, and wet.  I tried opening my eyes, but it was so bright, and my eyes felt heavy.  I could hear a voice, and I knew the voice to be Raine’s, but the words were incomprehensible.  I was swallowed up by the darkness again.

Vodka burns down my throat.  I’ve been here in this same place for what feels like days.  Showgirls walk around in ridiculous outfits while businessmen chat up businesswomen and an Elvis impersonator leads happy couples to an alcove where they can be wed in a makeshift gazebo right next to the casino.  I throw back another shot, lose a grand in another hand of blackjack, and start looking for someone to fuck…

…blood is everywhere – the bathroom floor, the shower, all over her hands and wrists…oh fuck, she nearly went down to the bone…

…an owl flies past me, soaring high above the beach.  I walk down the sand as the sun begins to set.  They’re holding her down there – down by the water.  They’re touching her, and she’s screaming, and I’m watching the owl as it flies over the tidal pools…

Opening my eyes took way too much fucking energy.  I closed them again, but I knew I didn’t want to go back to sleep either because every dream was worse than the last.  I could hear a mumbled voice, which switched into actual words and eventually into someone telling me not to sleep anymore.  Raine.

“Please, Bastian – please stay awake!”

I forced my eyes open again.  The sun was too fucking bright, and it was making my head hurt.  Why the fuck was I rocking back and forth?  I realized Raine’s cold hands were on my shoulders, shaking me roughly.  Why were her hands so cold?

“Bastian, I don’t know what to do.”  Raine’s voice sounded so small and so far away.  I tilted my head a little, trying to get a better look at her face, but everything was blurry.  Even through my blurred vision, I could see her anxiety.  Even without my vision, I could feel it in her.  I didn’t want her to be upset about anything…I wanted to tell her it was all okay.

“Don’t…”  I tried to make words, but they just didn’t want to come out.  My throat was dry, and I coughed once.  Raine’s hand was suddenly on the back of my neck, tilting my head up and pouring water into my mouth.  I drank it greedily until she pulled back the container.  I coughed again.

“Don’t be sad,” I finally got out.

“You’re so sick,” she said quietly.  At first I tried to figure out if I had made some off-color joke, but I didn’t think I had.  I narrowed my eyes, trying to understand.  “Your leg was hurt – cut, I think.  I stitched it up like I did your eye, but it’s really red and swollen, Bastian.  I think it’s infected, but I don’t know what to do!  You told me how dangerous…”

Her voice cracked, and I watched her hand move up to cover her mouth.

“Infected?” I heard myself mumble out loud as my brain tried to remember what the fuck that meant.  I tried to raise my head, but it was so damn heavy.  I was lying on my side, and I rolled onto my stomach with the intent of verifying her thoughts about my leg, but I couldn’t hold my head up enough to get a good look at it.  My thigh fucking hurt, that was for sure.  I felt Raine’s hands on my head again, and she raised me up so I could look down at the back of my leg.  The skin around the slash was deep red – almost black – and oozing.  Holy shit.  “Yeah, that’s bad.”

“Please, Bastian…tell me what to do,” she begged.  “I washed it off with the fresh water, and I’ve tried to keep it covered up some of the time, but then I thought maybe it would heal better if it was exposed to the air.  You have a fever, and I can’t…I can’t…”

She took a deep, choking breath that ended up in a sob.

“I can’t remember if you’re supposed to feed a fever and starve a cold, or feed a cold and starve a fever!” she blurted out.

It fucking hurt, but I couldn’t help but laugh, which led to coughing, which really fucking hurt.

“It’s not funny!” Raine yelled at me.

“It’s okay, babe,” I said after she gave me some water to quiet the cough.  My eyes went a little swimmy as she laid my head back on the palm leaves in the sand.

“What else can I do?” she said softly.  “Please, Bastian…I have to do something.”

“Lobelia,” I mumbled and shook my head, trying to make myself focus.  If I really did have a fever…well, that wasn’t a good thing.  I remembered the little blue and yellow flowers from the jungle and figured they had to be better than nothing.

“What?”

“Need Lobelia,” I repeated.  “And charcoal.  Mix ‘em together with water and boil them over the fire.”

“Bastian, I don’t understand.”

“Fights infection,” I said, trying to be clearer.  Some of what she was saying was starting to make sense – I remembered being cut.  My leg was infected; I could feel the heat.  If it was as bad as it felt, it could kill me.  If it killed me, Raine wasn’t going to make it on her own.  I couldn’t let that happen.  I had to make her understand.

I reached out my hand and pulled back the palm frond on the ground until I could see the sand.  I slowly drew the shape of a flower with two small, thin petals at the top and three larger petals at the bottom.

“Lobelia,” I said again.  “Bright blue, yellow spots in the middle near the stamen.  Big bulge under the flower, right before the stem.  Long, skinny leaves, big stalks.  They were everywhere back in the jungle – big bunches, you can find them.”

“What do I do with them?”

“Crush whole flowers in water with charcoal from the fire.”  I had to stop and take a few breaths.  I felt cool water over my forehead as Raine ran some wet cloth over my face.  “Boil it if you can.  Use a seashell if there’s one big enough.  Just put it on top of the coals.”

“There are.”  Raine nodded her head.  There were still tears running down her face.  “There are a bunch of shells that are big enough.”

“Use the poultice to cover up the cut,” I told her.  I tried to reach up and wipe the tears away from her face, but I couldn’t make my arm move.  Raine reached down and took my hand in both of hers.  They were still wet from the cloth she had used to wipe me down.  “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Okay,” Raine said and nodded again.  She looked down to my rough diagram of the flowers and gave my hand a squeeze.  “I’ll find them.”

I was out again before my hand dropped back to the ground.

* * * * *

I jerked awake from another nightmare.  My entire body ached but no more than it ever did after a weekend of too much booze and a couple of whores.  I rolled a little to one side and then the other, trying to stretch out my back and get my bearings.

No booze, no whores, I thought to myself.  I had Raine now, and I felt the corners of my mouth turn up a little.  I shifted my leg and felt a twinge of pain run all the way up it.  I raised my head, looked over my shoulder, and down to the offending thigh.  I couldn’t see any wound because it was covered up with some dark fabric, which was also quite wet.

What the fuck were my boxer shorts doing wrapped around my leg?

I shifted, but they didn’t fall off.  That’s when I saw some of the rope from the raft also wrapped around my leg, holding the boxers in place.

“Don’t move, damn it!”

I felt soft hands against my shoulders, pushing me back onto my stomach.  I looked up to a completely bare Raine – all bare skin and tan lines – crouched over me and adjusting the wrap around my leg.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, confused and agitated.

Raine’s eyes darted to mine, and I watched her eyes go from intense worry and frustration to instant relief.

“Bastian!  Did you just swear at me?”

“Fuck, Raine,” I growled.  “Don’t I always?”

She sat back on her heels and graced me with an incredible smile.

“I can’t believe I would ever consider an f-bomb to be the most beautiful word in the world.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“No, but you have been,” Raine said with another smile.  “You had a fever – a really high one, I’m pretty sure.  Do you remember any of it?  You told me what plants to find.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” I said.  I brought my arm up and bent it at the elbow so I could lay my head on it.  I closed my eyes and sighed.

“How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” I answered.

Raine’s eyes closed for a moment, and I watched her take a deep breath.  When her eyes opened again, all the pain and stress were evident in her irises even amongst the obvious relief.  I reached out with my hand and touched her knee.

“It’s okay, baby,” I said softly.  I didn’t know if it was or not, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that.  If I had such a bad infection I was out of it with fever, I was lucky to have my eyes open.  My eyes being open made me think I’d be all right.  If I was going to die, I would have already.  “I’m a tough motherfucker.  No infection will get me.”

Raine let out a sharp laugh, which quickly turned into sobs.  I rolled onto my side and held my arms out.  Raine immediately came to me, her head against my chest and her arms wrapped around my neck, just like the very first night in the raft.  I held her as tight as I could even though my arms were really fucking sore.

“I was so scared,” she cried against my skin.  I just held her and kissed the top of her head, trying not to pass out while she was still crying, though my body and mind were begging me to do just that.  After a few minutes, I felt her relax a little and take a few deep, sniffling breaths.

“How long?” I asked.

“Three days,” Raine said, immediately understanding my question.  “I didn’t realize it at first – you were really hot and sweating, but I thought it was because…well, because it’s hot here.  I figured you were exhausted after…after…the day before, so I didn’t even think to try and wake you for a while.  But then you wouldn’t wake up, and I saw the back of your leg…Oh, Bastian, it looked just awful.”

“Shh,” I whispered to the top of her head, “I got you.”

I felt her relax into me almost instantly.  I dropped down to my back, somewhat painfully, and took her with me.  I tried to move my hand up and down her back since I thought that was supposed to be soothing or something, but I was still really, really tired.

“I thought you were going to die,” Raine said through the tears collecting on my chest.  “I didn’t know what I would do…without you…”

“You’d be okay,” I tried to reassure her.  “You’ve learned how to find water and how to fish…you’d do just fine, baby…”

Raine stopped crying for a minute and sniffed, then looked up to my face, her eyes showing her confusion.

“No, I wouldn’t be,” Raine shook her head slowly.  I watched her hands come up and slide across my jaw, scratching over the several days’ worth of growth with the tips of her fingers.  She held my face in her hands and leaned closer to me, her voice earnest.  “I’d die without you, Bastian.  Even if I lived, I’d die inside.”

My chest clenched at her words, and I tried to find some way to respond to her, but my brain offered me nothing comprehensible.  I just stared into her eyes for a while until the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly, and then she laid her head back on my chest.  With my head resting on the sand beneath me, I let unconsciousness overtake me.

* * * * *

The same dream woke me up for the third time in a row.  Details were sometimes different, but the main events were the same – they’re always holding her down, laughing as she’s screaming, forcing themselves on her over and over again, and I can never get there fast enough to stop it from happening.  The last couple of times I had managed to keep myself from throwing up, but that revelation pissed me off.  It had been like that with other dreams – they would disturb me so much I would get physically sick, but once I got used to the dream it wouldn’t happen anymore.  If I got used to it, it would never go away.  The idea of seeing those images for the rest of forever was almost enough to make me puke anyway, but I managed to hold it in.

The second time I woke up, Raine opened her eyes as well and made me roll onto my stomach so she could change the dressing on my leg.  I got a bit of a look at it since the moon was nearly full and bright in the clear sky.  It looked pretty gross, but it also looked like it was starting to heal.  She did a neat job of covering the poultice she made by pulling my folded-over boxer shorts up my leg, then wrapping a piece of rope around it so it was just tight enough to keep it from slipping while I slept.

Of course, that also meant Raine was going around completely bare.  I wasn’t sure what had happened to my shirt, but she hadn’t bothered to put anything on since I came to my senses.  Not that I was complaining, though I wasn’t so sure most of my body was ready for that sort of activity.

The last time I woke up from the same nightmare, the sky was starting to brighten and a cool breeze rustled the palms all around us.  I looked around our little shelter and growled at myself.  I hadn’t made it structurally sound enough, and it was starting to fall apart already.  I needed to get working on the new one.  I’d apparently lost three whole days where I could have probably gotten at least half of the new one done.  Now I was going to have to get my leg in better shape before I could make much progress.  Or…I could push myself until I dropped.  That was probably the better option.

“You have to be hungry.” Raine’s soft voice came from under me.  I had pinned her down in my sleep again.  It felt better that way – knowing she was safely under me.  I rolled to my side and let her up.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Got any pancakes?”

Raine laughed and shook her head.

“I’ve got fish and a couple of the roots I found in a pile in the sand.  They taste like sweet potatoes.  I figured you found them, and since we’ve both been eating them the past few days, they must be safe.  Oh – and there are some almonds left – they are almonds, right?”

“Yeah, they are.” I smiled.  I didn’t even think about what she would have been eating the last few days.  Apparently she was a lot better at taking care of herself than I thought she would be – and me too, apparently.  “And the roots taste like sweet potatoes because they are sweet potatoes.  There’s more not too far off – maybe a fifteen-minute walk from here.  I’ll show you.”

“Why don’t you give yourself a few days, hmm?”  Raine smiled at me.  She walked to the other side of the shelter, and I watched her hands reach behind the palm-frond wall.  When she brought them back, my shirt and her other pair of shorts, the ones made out of that stretchy material that had chaffed her before, were in her hands.  She slipped them on, so I couldn’t watch her walk around naked anymore.

“No fucking way.” I scowled.  Fuck, if I couldn’t watch her naked, I sure as hell wasn’t just going to sit around all day.  “I’ve had worse than this, and I’m not going to sit around and wait for it to be all better.  It’ll feel better when I get moving on it, anyway.”

“You’ll just make it worse,” Raine said.  I started to hoist myself up, and she actually came closer to me to put her hand on my shoulder and try to hold me down.  As if.  I stood up anyway, even with her hand pushing all of her weight down on me and wobbled a little.  It hurt, no doubt about that, but like I had already told her, I’ve had worse.

“See?” I said when I managed to steady myself a bit.

“I see you barely standing on a leg that really shouldn’t be holding your weight yet,” Raine argued back.

“Bullshit,” I responded.  I took an unsteady step forward, and my leg buckled, but I didn’t fall.  Raine’s arm went around my waist, but I pushed it away.  “I don’t need any fucking help!”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Bastian!” Raine yelled.  “You most certainly do!”

“I do not,” I growled back.  “I don’t need it, and I certainly don’t fucking want it!”

We argued for another ten minutes before she finally gave up on my stubborn ass and went over to the fire, muttering to herself about unreasonable idiots.  I hobbled around the area right outside the shelter, making sure there was something at least somewhat sturdy near me at all times so I didn’t fall over.  I was fucking pissed, though I wasn’t exactly sure why.  There were too many things in my head for me to sort out.  There were the dreams, being out of it and useless for three days, and my failure to completely protect her.  I should never have left her alone.  I should have been back to the beach faster.  I should have…

My mind continued to list all the points where I had fucked up.

As I walked…well…limped around on my leg, Raine shot looks of death over at me every couple of minutes, but I pretended not to notice.  It really, really, fucking hurt to walk, but damn if I wasn’t going to do it anyway.

“Get up, you son-of-a-bitch!  You aren’t hurt that bad!  Fucking GET UP!”

I shook my head to free it of Landon’s echoing words and settled myself down on the opposite side of the fire, smiling up at Raine with a self-satisfied grin.  She rolled her eyes and used two blackened sticks to pull cooked sweet potatoes from their resting places on top of hot rocks.

“Are you just going to smirk at me now?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I answered with a shrug.  I received another eye roll from Raine as she placed the hot vegetables and some dried fish on a couple of large clamshell plates and came around to sit next to me.  We ate in relative silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable or anything.  I’d smirk when she looked over to me and then she’d roll her eyes and eventually laugh.

After we ate, I relented and let her check out the cut on my leg.  I decided it was probably doing well enough to go without the Lobelia poultice, which wasn’t a popular decision.  Raine argued briefly, but I managed to talk her out of putting it back on for now by saying she could put it back on at night.  I honestly didn’t know if it was healed up enough or not, but it didn’t look too bad, and trying to walk around was hard enough without that shit on me.  I’d let her slather me up again before we went to sleep if she was going to insist on it. Besides, I didn’t want her wearing those stretchy shorts.  I wanted her back in my boxers.

When I tried to stand back up from sitting down for so long, I didn’t do so well.  I didn’t actually fall, but I didn’t get up on the first try, either.  Raine came to my side and tried to help me again, but I didn’t want it.  I wasn’t used to help like that and honestly, having her argue about putting the poultice shit on me was pushing it.  If I could have reached it myself, I wouldn’t have let her do it at all.

“Cut that shit out!” I snarled at her as she tried to wrap her arm around my waist and help me balance.

“I’m just trying to help!”

“I know – cut that shit out!  I don’t want any fucking help!”

She sighed and backed off.  After another hour of stumbling in the sand, I stripped a sturdy limb off one of the trees and made myself a walking stick.  I didn’t admit that I needed one or anything; I just said I liked having it.

Another eye roll.

I used the stick to lower myself down to the floor of the shelter and tried not to grimace as I put more pressure on my leg.  Raine brought me some water to drink and then started weaving a bunch of fronds together.  I looked over to the far side of the shelter and saw several things she had made, including four rectangular, flat mats, which you could probably sit on or place your food on to keep the sand away from it.  There was a misshapen, short-sided, roundish basket on top of the mats, and it looked like Raine was trying to make another basket now.  She had the bottom woven and was trying to curve a piece of coconut palm frond around to the side of the flat part to start the sides of the basket.

“The first one didn’t work out so well?” I inquired, feeling strangely timid about asking.  Raine looked up at me and scowled as I pointed over to the misshapen basket.

“This is a lot harder than it looks,” Raine said but didn’t sound angry or anything.  “I remember making baskets and such from art classes in school, but the material was all uniform and easier to work with.  Trying to make these fronds into a square basket didn’t work at all.”

“That was supposed to be square?” I chuckled.

“Don’t push your luck,” Raine snapped but then smiled.  “You know how to do everything.  Can’t you weave a basket?”

“Never have,” I admitted, “but I think you are doing great!”

“Uh huh.”  Raine shook her head and started weaving again.

“I’m going to start on the shelter again,” I told her.

“Not yet,” Raine said.  Her tone was completely straightforward and dismissive.  She wasn’t interested in hearing any arguments from me.  I was going to argue anyway.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing shit, you know,” I snapped.

“Normally, of course you are,” Raine replied, “but you need to give yourself a chance to heal more.  You might get sick again.”

“I’m not going to get sick again,” I said.  “I’m also not going to fucking sit around watching you make shit while I do nothing.”

“Feel free to try your hand at weaving,” she said, pointing to the large stack of stripped fronds.

“Fuck that.  I’m working on the fucking shelter.”  I reached over for the walking stick and started to push myself up until Raine’s voice reached my ears again.

“Bastian?”  I had to stop because her tone was no longer snippy or angry.  When I looked back over my shoulder, I could see the beginning of tears in her eyes.  “Please don’t.  I know you want to, and I know you don’t like not being able to be physical, and I know you don’t want help, but you scared me when you were so sick.  Please, please take it easy.  Okay?”

Fuck me.  Seeing those tears in her eyes made me want to drop down and give her anything and everything she wanted whether I wanted to or not.  That pissed me off, but not at her, just at myself.  I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before opening them again.

“Fine,” I grumbled, feeling like shit because I really didn’t mean to upset her.  I pushed myself up from the ground using the walking stick and stepped out of the shelter.  She had to sleep sometime – I could always work on shit then.  I took a few steps out into the sand before sitting down next to the fire.  I tossed a few little bits of sticks and debris into the coals and watched them flame up but bored of that quickly.

I wanted a fucking drink.

I looked out over the beach and noticed a dark spot close to the tide’s edge.  It was the charcoal remains of the bonfire I had made before the fever hit.  I could tell there weren’t any human remains lying around out there and wondered what happened to them.

“What did you do with them?” I asked, just loud enough for her to hear me.

“With what?”

“The…um…bones and shit.”

“I buried them,” she answered simply.

My head snapped back to look at her.

“You did?  Where?”

“On the north side of the beach,” she said.  “Up near the edge of the jungle.  I didn’t really want them very close.  I used the oar to dig a hole – just like we did for the solar still.  I didn’t dig it deep enough to…um…bury them all, and they…they didn’t all fit in one…um…grave…so I dug two.”

“Shit, baby – I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You shouldn’t have had to do that.”  I murder four bastards and she has to clean up after me.  Fucking lovely.

“I didn’t want them…just sitting there.  You weren’t in very good shape at the time to help out.”

“I know – that’s what I meant.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop beating yourself up for something you couldn’t control.” Raine tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, daring me to argue with her.

“I could have controlled it,” I said, rising to the challenge.  “I shouldn’t have let that motherfucker cut me.”

“Bastian, there were four of them.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter how many there were!” I yelled.  I didn’t really mean to be yelling at her, but she jumped back anyway.  Images from my dreams flittered past my conscious mind.  I slammed my fist against the sand and wished to God I had a fucking bottle of fucking anything.  “I should have moved faster.  I should have killed him with the first fucking punch.  I should have ripped his goddamn throat out for fucking touching you, and I should have fucking been there when they showed up so none of that shit would have happened at all!”

She was beside me before I was done screaming, and at first I considered pushing her away.  I wanted to because I didn’t deserve to have her next to me in the first place.  I’d let her down.  She could have been killed or had something far, far worse happen.  I fucking let her down.  I wasn’t there for her.  The last thing she should offer me was any comfort.  I wasn’t there when she needed me.

But there she was, kneeling in the sand next to me and wrapping her arms around my head, holding me against her chest while she stroked the side of my face with her fingertips.  I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around her.  I buried my face in the spot between her neck and her shoulder.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” I mumbled.  “I should have been there.  They never should have touched you.  I’ll never, never let anyone hurt you again, Raine.  I swear to God.  Never!”

“Shh, Bastian.”  Raine’s hand stroked over my hair, around my ear, and down my rough jaw.  “It’s all right.  I’m all right, and you will be, too.  You saved me, Bastian.  You saved me from them.”

“They…they…” I swallowed hard, trying to figure out why words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.  My hands were shaking, so I held her tighter, trying to stop the rush of adrenaline running through my system, but it didn’t help.  My heart rate increased, and I was close to hyperventilating.  Through pants, I pushed out some words, but I probably didn’t make any fucking sense.  “They never…they shouldn’t have come so close to you…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I should have been there faster.  I never…should have left you…those fucking bastards fucking touching you…”

“Bastian, please, calm down,” her voice whispered into my ear.  “I’m okay.  You saved me.  They didn’t hurt me, Bastian.  You were there in time.”

“But it was so close…I keep seeing them…in my dreams…and they’re…they’re…hurting you, and I can’t get to you.”

“Oh, Bastian…”  I felt both her arms wrap around my head as she started to rock slightly back and forth, telling me over and over again that it was only a dream.  She was safe.  I had saved her.  They hadn’t touched her like that.

“I want you,” I breathed against her skin.  “I need you…please, Raine…”

Everything was blurred, and I wasn’t even sure how she managed to strip off her shorts so quickly and without letting go of me.  My hands grasped at her back, holding her against my chest as much as I could.  I felt her hand releasing the buttons on my shorts, which she pushed down just far enough to be out of the way.  A moment later she was pushing against my shoulders until I lay on my back in the sand.  She straddled me, gripped my cock by the base, and guided me into her.

We hadn’t been like this before – with her on top of me.  I preferred her under me with me in control.  I don’t know why – I just did.  We hadn’t even tried it any other way.  This was…different…and as soon as my shoulders hit the ground, I felt a shift in my head, and I went with it.  My eyes closed as her body enveloped me, and I let my mind go blank so I could just feel.  I felt her flesh, her warm breath, and the deeper, internal connection that had nothing to do with the placement of our bodies.  I felt my desire for her, and I felt her love for me as she leaned forward and ran her hands over my shoulders and neck before fingering my jaw line.  I felt everything as I let her take me – mind, body and soul.  I didn’t know if she wanted it or needed it like I did, but I gave it to her anyway.

I lay my head back and placed my hands on her hips and let her set the pace as she raised herself up just enough for me to slip out of her about halfway.  Then she brought our bodies back together, burying me in her warmth.  I didn’t know how long she moved on top of me, owning me on a deeper level every time she brought me inside of her, but by the time I released into her, I was completely spent in more ways than I could possibly name.

* * * * *

Pointing my toes out as far as I could, I grimaced through the tight pain in my lower thigh.  I brought my knee up to my chest and felt more of the sting from the healing cut.  It was better; I could clearly see that today.  Raine insisted it was because I finally listened to her and stayed off it most of yesterday and today, but I didn’t buy that shit.

I didn’t tell her I didn’t buy it; I let her believe what she wanted.

After completing all the physical therapy exercises I could remember from the multiple times I had been cut, bruised, battered, or broken, I sat in the sand and watched the waves for a little while as the sun started sinking lower and lower.  I had taken it easy again today because tomorrow I was going to get moving on the new shelter whether Raine liked it or not.

As if she could hear what I was thinking, Raine walked up behind me with a new batch of infection curing paste, wearing a smile and nothing else.  Nakedness seemed to have become her preference, which fucking thrilled me.  When I was in a little better shape and able to move around more, I was definitely going to take advantage of that shit.  Probably a dozen times a day.  My cock responded regardless of the physical shape I was in and usually liked to make his presence known as soon as her tits got into view.  I tried not to look any lower because busting out of my shorts would suck.  They were all I had.

Part of me wished I had thought to strip the bodies of the motherfuckers of their clothing before burning them up since we certainly could have used it, but even when I thought about it afterwards, I probably would have ripped the shit up by now, anyway.  I didn’t want anything that would remind me of them.  The dreams were bad enough.

“I can’t believe you happened to see the right kind of flowers,” Raine said after I flopped down on my stomach and let her go to work on my leg.  “How did you ever remember such a thing?”

I chuckled slightly and felt one side of my mouth curl up.  I glanced off into the distance, looking at nothing and then glanced at her over my shoulder.

“I may have had an ulterior motive,” I admitted with a slight, one-shouldered shrug.

“Ulterior motive?” Raine repeated, questioning.  She scowled at me.

“Yeah, well…” I stammered a little.  “The more common name for Lobelia is Indian Tobacco.  I remembered seeing them because I figured I could try drying the leaves and rolling them into smokes.”

Raine’s mouth dropped open, and I cringed a little, waiting for whatever onslaught might be coming.  I knew she didn’t like it, which is why I hadn’t gotten around to trying it out yet.  Well, that and the whole nearly dying thing.  Even before my leg was hurt, I hadn’t gotten around to it because it wasn’t the right time.  Air, shelter, water, food – after that you can fuck around with shit you want.  I had just gotten to the food part.

Surprisingly, instead of yelling, Raine started laughing.  I looked up at her with narrowed eyes, wondering if she had somehow caught my fever because she sounded like a total loon.

“What the fuck are you guffawing at?” I growled.

“The irony!” Raine said with another laugh.  She held her sides and bent at the waist.  Once she managed to upright herself and wipe the tears from her eyes, she explained.  “Do you realize your addiction to smoking probably saved your life?”

I smirked.  Yeah, she had a point.  That shit was pretty funny.

Leaning on the walking stick, I pushed myself up and let Raine lead the way back to the shelter.  Once the sun went down, we pretty much dropped off.   We might talk for a bit, but it was too dark to do anything except fuck, and as much as I wanted it, certain parts of my body didn’t want to hold me in that position very long.  I could let her be on top again, but the last two times we had sex it had been all about me.  I wanted the next time to make up for it, which meant I needed my fucking right leg not to give out on me.

I waited until Raine lay down before I joined her, so once she was in whatever position she wanted to be in, I could basically crawl on top of her to sleep.  It didn’t always drive the nightmares away completely, but it sure as fuck helped.  She didn’t question it, and I was glad for that.  She seemed to understand even though we hadn’t really talked about it or anything.  After having the same fucking nightmare three times in a row, I lay myself on top of her the next night, and she didn’t complain.  It worked, or at least I didn’t have the dream about her.  The other dreams were still there, but I was used to having those all the time.

Raine lay on her side and looked up at me as I lay down next to her.  She raised her head a little so I could wrap one arm underneath her and the other on top of her.  I felt her forehead on my shoulder, and I tilted my head to press my lips against her cheek.  I rolled a little and crossed my leg over the top of both of hers, effectively immobilizing her and making damn sure there was no way she was getting out from under me without me knowing about it.

Safe.

After we had both shifted a little to try and get more comfortable, I tilted my head to look down at her again.  Her dark eyes stared up at me and made my heart start beating faster.

“We’re even now,” I told her.  I traced my thumb over her cheekbone.

“What do you mean?”

“You saved my life,” I said with a shrug.  “We’re even.”

“Hardly,” Raine snorted.  “You told me what to do.  I just crushed up some flowers.  I don’t think that really compares.  Even if it did, we still wouldn’t be even.”

“Why’s that?”

“You saved me from drowning, then from dehydration, then from those…thugs.  I only saved you once.”

“You’re wrong,” I said with conviction.  “You also saved me when I was going through detox.”

“You might have been fine without me there, too,” Raine insisted.  “Even if we count that, it would still make the score three to two.”

I reached down and grasped her hand in mine before bringing it up and holding her fingers splayed out against the left side of my chest, right up against my heart.  I could feel it beating through my chest, so I knew she could, too.

“You saved me in another way.”  I looked into her eyes, wanting her to understand what I meant so much.  “You gave me something…no, someone…to live for.  There was no reason for my existence before you.  We’re definitely even.”

Raine continued to stare right back at me before she broke out in a smile and nodded slightly.  She pulled her hand out from under mine and reached up to run her fingers over my cheek and into my hair where she knew I liked it best.

“All right,” she finally agreed.  “We’re even.”

As far as I was concerned, what she had done for me outweighed any of the shit I had done for her.  When I thought about why I pulled her out of the water in the first place…well, I didn’t really know why.  Maybe it was because she was there or because I didn’t have anything better to do at the time.  It could have been because I was the captain and she was a passenger, and I felt some kind of fucking duty.  Maybe I didn’t know what else to do.  I certainly didn’t save her from dehydration – the fucking rain did that.  Maybe this last time was different.  I felt my muscles tighten for a moment, but her hand in my hair kept me from getting too worked up.  It’s not like I thought about it – I just reacted.  They had to die, plain and simple.  What she had done for me…it meant more.

Actually, what she had done for me – that was completely different from any of the stupid or instinctual shit I had done.  She kept pushing even when I was being a royal asshole.  She pulled things out of me I never wanted to talk about, and for the first time in four years, I was sleeping without alcohol, and the nightmares weren’t too bad as long as I was holding her tightly.  She gave me her warmth and her touch, and she took care of me when I was hurt.  I felt her lips touch mine as I let the ramifications of her final gift to me warm my soul.

She gave me her love.  On top of that, she showed me how to love her, too.  She wasn’t holding my past against me though I know it certainly wasn’t something she approved of or anything.  She was accepting what I was and who I was even when I was being a moody little bastard, and she loved me anyway.  Not only did she bring me back from almost certain death from infection, she was teaching me to care about life again when a month ago I had been pretty convinced my future consisted of nothing but drinking myself to death.

I guess I was going to live after all.

Chapter 15 – Grow

It took over a week to complete the shelter, but in the end it fucking rocked.  It was about ten feet on each side and had a floor that was placed up on rocks to keep it off the ground a little to avoid any flooding if we had a good storm.  So far, it had only rained on us a few times, and those had always been light showers.  It rained enough to fill up our water containers and keep us from having to trek over to the water source for a couple of days.  The three sides of the shelter made the whole thing nearly six and a half feet tall, so I could walk around inside without stooping over.  The roof had a skeletal structure of woody branches topped with the sides of the raft, which I had completely ripped apart.  Raine had nearly become hysterical when I started tearing it up.  Apparently, she thought we might need to use the raft to get off the island someday.  It took some convincing, but she finally realized if we ever left here, it wouldn’t be on that piece of shit.  The parts of the raft were a lot more useful to us than the whole of it would ever be.  I asked her if she ever wanted to be in the same position again – low on water, unable to find more food – and she agreed that she didn’t, but that didn’t stop her from crying over it for an hour.

Fuck, that woman could cry when she wanted to.  I couldn’t say that I actually minded or anything, but sometimes it scared the shit out of me.  I didn’t know what to do other than hold her and wait for her to be done.  She said that’s all she wanted, but it still made me feel fucking useless.

On top of the roof there were palm fronds laced together above the raft parts, so there was no way any rain could get inside.  The roof tilted slightly towards the back, and I had included using some of the gutter system from the raft to direct the water from the roof off to the side, where part of the raft’s former canopy would collect it for drinking and cooking.

Inside the shelter, Raine had lined our sleeping area with dry grasses covered by the floor of the dissected raft.  It wasn’t a designer mattress by any stretch of the imagination, but it was reasonably comfortable, and it kept me from bruising her backside when I fucked her.

A couple of the mats she wove were kept by the fire so we didn’t have to sit in the sand, and the others were at the entrance to the shelter.  There wasn’t a door or anything, but the palm frond roof reached out a little farther in the front so it stayed dry just outside, too.  We found a bunch of larger clam shells to use as dishes and shit like that.  I didn’t really care, but Raine seemed to like having her food on some sort of plate.  She also taught me how to use chopsticks to eat, which I had never tried before.  All right, so they were two little branches about the same size, but the idea was the same.  They took a while to get used to, but I eventually figured out how to grasp things instead of stabbing them with the tip of the stick.

The baskets Raine figured out how to weave were pretty fucking clever.  She gave up on the flat, square bottoms, which never worked out right, and now made them more like hanging baskets, with two sides woven together at the bottom and open on the top.  She gave the baskets handles and we used them for collecting food and also to hang on the walls of the shelter.  I carved wooden hooks out of coconut shells and put them all over the place so the food wasn’t on the ground, waiting for mice or something to tear into it.  It gave us a place to hang clothing to dry, too.

It’s a good thing I didn’t listen to Raine very much when it came to building the place with my leg in its condition.  Only three days after it was done, we had our first really big storm.  I had been watching the dark clouds come in from the west and knew it wasn’t going to be a little rain shower long before it got to us.  I only hoped the shelter would hold.  I thought it would.  I hoped it would.

“We’re going to want to bring the fish inside,” I told Raine as I pointed up at the sky.  She looked over from the constructed drying rack near the fire to the sky and then back again.  “We won’t be cooking anything for a while, either.”

“Is the storm going to be bad?”

“Do you see a weather radio stuck to my head?”  I raised an eyebrow at her.  “I have no fucking clue, but the wind is already picking up.”

We brought in everything that could get damaged if it got wet and hung the blanket-towels from the raft up over the open entryway to the shelter as the first of the rain started.  It picked up pretty quickly, and before long the rain was coming down in sheets.  We both moved towards the back, and I dropped down on the mattress while Raine sat a couple of feet away, staring at the rain coming down outside.  The shelter entrance faced east, so rain wasn’t getting in very much – just a little bit of mist near the front – but I could tell after the first hour Raine was getting nervous.

“Why don’t you lie down?” I asked.

“I’m not tired.”

“What does that have to do with it?” I wiggled my eyebrows at her and opened up my arms.  She sighed heavily but scooted over and let me pull her down next to me.  “It’s all right, baby.  The shelter can take this.”

As if to mock me, the wind gusted right then, shaking the long poles at the corners.  It held through it, but it didn’t help with Raine’s stress.

“You got me?” she asked softly and granted me a twitch of a smile.

“Yeah, I got you.”  I wrapped my arms around her a little more securely, crossing my arm over her chest and wrapping the other one behind her shoulders.  She immediately started tracing the outline of my bicep.

“I love your arms,” she said, almost too quietly for me to hear.  Her finger trailed all the way down to my wrist, then back up to my shoulder where she outlined the muscles there.

“I thought you loved my dick,” I teased.

Raine chuckled and sighed at me.

“I like that, too, but your arms are my favorite part of you.  They make me feel safe.”

“I’ll always keep you safe,” I told her.  I tilted my head to the side, looked into her eyes, and smiled down at her.

“I know.”  Her finger moved up my neck and over my jaw until she was cupping my cheek.  “But when you hold me like this, I feel extra safe, like nothing could possibly happen to me.”

“That’s the way it is,” I said nonchalantly, “and I might never let you go, so you should be good forever.”

She giggled and snuggled against my chest.

“So it’s official; you only want me for my body,” I surmised, knowing it would get a rise out of her and wanting to keep her nicely distracted from the wind outside, which was picking up again.

“Bastian!  Of course not!”

“I don’t know…if my arms and my dick are the best parts…”

“That’s not what I said!” Raine defended.  I laughed out loud and hugged her a little tighter.  “My favorite thing about you is your incredible will to survive.”

“Well, I had to learn a lot of that shit for the tournaments.”

“I didn’t mean knowing how to find food and water.”  Raine shook her head, tickling my chin with her hair.  “I mean everything you have been through – even when you were a little boy.  You always came through it when I think a lot of people would have given up.”

“Not in my nature, I guess.”  I shrugged.  It wasn’t a matter of getting through it.  I tried to find ways of forgetting it.  “There’s a lot more to you than there is to me.”

“Oh, really?” Raine questioned.  “Like what?”

“Well, there’s your tits…oh, and your ass…I love your ass…”

She smacked me on the chest.

The rain was literally pouring out of the sky in huge sheets now.  The collection area in the back of the shelter was full and overflowing.  I kept talking to keep her distracted from the weather.

“I like the way you look at me,” I said seriously.  “Sometimes when you do, your eyes light up, and I think maybe I could be lucky enough for you to care about a fucked up asshole like me.

“That’s love, you know,” Raine said with a smile.  “I see it in your eyes when you look at me, too.”

“It’s easy to love you,” I said, running my hand down her side and over her hip and then back up to her shoulder.  “At least, it was once I stopped fighting it.”

“You did fight it,” she acknowledged.  “What made you stop?”

“Your…acceptance of me,” I said.  “That’s really my favorite thing about you.  I don’t know why you put up with my shit, but I’m glad you do.”

“You aren’t that hard to accept, Bastian.”  Her hand reached up into my hair.  “You were very…trying in the beginning.  A lot of that was the alcohol in your system, I think.  Considering how much stress you were under, I can understand why you behaved that way.  I know my dad would become quite a bear sometimes when his job would stress him out.”

“I don’t think I can just blame it on stress,” I huffed.  “I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t have been like that if you had met me at a bar or something.”

“I bet you could be very charming when you want to be.”

“Yeah, but I would just be hoping to get my dick in you.  If you didn’t seem like the type to put out, I would have found someone who would do it for money instead.”

“Bastian!”

“It’s true.”

“You’re just trying to make it difficult for me to argue with you about it.”

“There’s no argument,” I insisted.  “Are you fucking blind to all the crappy shit I’ve done to you?  I scared you half to death when you were taking a bath, I bitched at you constantly when my leg was healing, I fucking hit you…”

“Please don’t bring that up again.”  Raine closed her eyes and shook her head a bit.  Every time she tried to tell me I wasn’t such a bad guy, I’d bring that little tidbit up.  At some point, though, she needed to see what I was.  She seemed to want to believe I was some kind of fucking hero.  I wasn’t.

“All the shit I’ve done, Raine.”  I stopped a moment and took a deep breath.  “I’m a…a…murderer, for fuck’s sake.  Sometimes I can’t comprehend why you would let me even touch you.”

“You did what you had to do at the time,” Raine reasoned.  “I’m not going to pretend I like it, but I understand, given the circumstances.”

“You’ve got to be completely insane,” I told her.  “Not that I’m arguing with it, because I’m not, but you can’t be right in the head to take all of it in stride the way you do.”

“Maybe,” she admitted, “but I don’t think so.  I think if someone had loved you the way you deserved a long time ago, none of that would have happened.”

“Maybe I’m just unlovable.”

Raine turned her eyes on me, and her glare would have made me take a step back had I been standing.

“That is not true!” she yelled over the sound of the pounding rain.  “Just because no one ever took the time to get to know you doesn’t mean you are unlovable.  Don’t ever say that again!”

“Shit, Raine,” I growled and pounded the back of my head against the make-shift mattress.  I was starting to get fucking pissed.  “Even as a kid no one fucking wanted me.  You know the one thing in common with every single foster parent who kicked me out?  The same thing they had in common with my real parents - me.  That’s it.  At some point I had to accept that I was the fucking problem.  I’m not a nice guy, Raine.  Haven’t you fucking noticed that?  Why do you think I was so good at fighting?  Because when people piss me off, I want to kill them.  That was my value to Landon.  That was the only time anyone ever had any use for me.”

“Bastian, you are about the most useful person I have ever known, and that was long before I saw you fight.”

“But I only know that shit because of fighting.”  I had no idea where I was going with this shit.  It had started out as a means to distract her from the storm, which was really raging outside now, so mission accomplished.  I hadn’t actually intended to get into it this deep, and now I was officially in over my head.  When Bastian Stark gets in over his head, the asshole comes out.  Long before my brain listened to the words it was forming, they were already out of my mouth.  “The only reason you even fell in love with me was because I saved your life.  There’s probably a fucking syndrome with your name on it.  Fuck, if any other guy from the ship had been on the raft with us, you’d probably be fucking him now instead of me!”

Raine gasped, and I think my heart actually stopped beating for a few seconds.  Holy shit, I didn’t even know where that came from.  I guess on some level, I believed it, but I sure as hell never meant to say it.

“Fuck, Raine…”  But I didn’t have any kind of follow up sentence to offer her.

“Bastian, do you really think so little of me?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”  I didn’t even like how the words sounded in my ears.  I thought the fucking world of her – how could she not know that?  Oh yeah, because I’m a complete dick.

“Do you really think I would give myself to you because you are the only other person here?”  She pushed against my arms and sat up, staring down at me.  “Do you think I have sex with you because I’m just bored, and you’re the only guy around?  Is that really what you think?  You think that I would or could replace you with just any guy’s penis?”

I didn’t even know how to answer her, so I kept my stupid mouth shut.  I had the distinct feeling that if it had not been for the rain, she wouldn’t still be in my presence at all.  When I realized she was going to wait for me to come up with an answer, I still didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t think you’re like that,” I finally said.  “I never did, and I don’t know why I said that.  I never know what to think about you.  I don’t know why you…why you do anything for me.”

“Because I love you.”  There were tears in her eyes now, and it fucking tore me apart.

“I don’t understand that, either.”

“Because you are worth it,” she said with determination.  I started to argue, but she placed her little hand right over my mouth and told me to shut up.  “I love you because of you.  Not because you’re strong enough to kill people.  Not because you know everything there is to know about how to survive out here.  Not because you’ve saved my life over and over again.  Certainly not because you’re the only guy in the general area.”

“I love you because you are worthy of my love,” she continued.  “I love you because you show me every day how much you care about me and how much I mean to you.  You show me when you worry about me getting sunburned, when you make sure I eat a bunch of different things to stay healthy, and when you make love to me.  I love you because under all that brawn, you are gentle and caring.  I love your internal strength and willingness to persevere, no matter what life has thrown at you.  I love you because when you recite poetry to me, I can hear in your voice how much you mean it.  I love you more than anyone and anything in the world, and I can’t imagine my life without you now – not here, not anywhere else.”

She moved her hand away from my mouth and sat back, her arms crossed.

“And don’t you dare say to me that my love is misplaced, because it’s not.  I love you, Bastian Stark.  You are worthy of it, and nothing you say is going to make that change.”

I didn’t know what to say.  Any words I could have invented on my own would have been inadequate, so I used someone else’s.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet which still clings fast to the heel that crushed it.”

Raine’s eyes met mine again, her tears still staining her cheeks.

“I’m a heel, Raine,” I told her.  “You’re my beautiful violet, and I’m always crushing you.  You take away my nightmares, and I probably add to yours.  I don’t think I will ever believe I deserve you, but I love you more than I can even describe.  I don’t know if I can ever…be better for you, but if you’re willing to keep forgiving me for being a complete idiot, I’m willing to keep trying.”

“You are forgiven, my strong, beautiful, gentle idiot.”  Raine’s smile covered me in her love.

While the wind and rain battered at our shelter, I reached up and pulled her down to me, my lips gently caressing hers.  I rolled her onto her back on the mattress and showed her how much her words meant to me the only way I knew how.

* * * * *

If I really wanted to, I could have figured out exactly how long it had been since we arrived on the island, but I didn’t really care anymore.  On the raft I paid attention based on how many days of water we had left, but here it was not an issue.  If I was going to estimate, I’d say it had been about two months since the ship sank, but I didn’t know for sure and most importantly, I didn’t give a shit.

“I’m going to go wash off,” Raine informed me.  She smiled shyly and looked away, which just about made me laugh out loud.  I’d fucked her three times since lunch, barely letting her up long enough to get something to eat before I was in her again, and still she played bashful when she looked at me.

Fucking incredible.

“It’s your own fault for wandering around naked all the time,” I said with a grin.  “I can’t help but take advantage.”

“Shall I stop?”

“Fuck no!”

Raine quickly kissed my cheek and walked off into the edge of the waves.  I smiled as I watched the curve of her ass come into better view like I was some pervert checking out the high school cheerleaders.  I admired the late evening sun shining off her smooth skin as she sauntered away, swaying her hips in such a way that she had to have been doing it on purpose.  My cock twitched even though the little fucker ought to be tired out at this point.  What can I say?  I was always going to want her right here on this beach as often as possible.

I lit one of my homemade Lobelia smokes and leaned my back against a coconut palm tree.  Raine had given me some shit for making them, but she eventually gave up and seemed to be content with rolling her eyes at me when I pulled one out.  They weren’t chock-full of nicotine, like I would have preferred, but they did a pretty decent job of making me feel like I was smoking a Marlboro 100.  If I only had a bottle of vodka to go with it, I’d be set.

Yeah, you’d think after all this time the cravings would go away, but they fucking didn’t.  Sometimes I wanted a drink just as bad as I had the first night on the raft.  I’d go through DTs again just to get my hands on a fucking fifth of most anything.

Raine reached the tide line and walked tentatively into the water, testing the temperature with her toes before walking straight in.  I didn’t know why the fuck she did that – it was a pretty constant temperature so there weren’t any surprises or anything.  She always did it, though.  She walked in slowly, then shoved her toes underneath the sand and wiggled them around before she finally got around to actually getting in the water.

I continued to watch her ass as she wandered slowly into the calm waves.  She was so fucking beautiful, it drove me nuts.  She walked around naked most of the day unless she was going to go forage in the jungle or something.  It meant my cock was hard a good portion of the day, but I made good use of that, so I fucking loved it.  The new diet had brought back her curves, and though she had always been beautiful, she was simply stunning to look at now that she wasn’t so thin.  I had lost several pounds while on the raft as well, but as far as I could tell, it was mostly back.  If someone asked me to bench four hundred pounds, I might still have been able to do it.  Maybe.  Once the shelter was complete, I took to moving rocks around just to keep my muscles built up even though I didn’t really need them for anything.  Sometimes I moved them from one side of the beach to the other.  I got plenty of exercise existing around here, though, so it probably wasn’t completely necessary, but I did it anyway.  I wasn’t as buff as I had been when there was a gym readily available, but I guess I was still built enough.

Our Survival 101 grade was pretty much an A+.  We had water, shelter, and plenty of different food sources.  Between the shorts I wore, Raine’s shorts, my boxers, and one T-Shirt, we didn’t have much in the way of clothing, but we really didn’t need it, either.  Raine washed everything out every couple of days and hung it in a bush to dry, so it kept clean, but they were all getting pretty worn.  That was part of the reason for going in the buff most of the time – it saved wear and tear on the clothes for when we needed it.

I smoked the last of the cigarette and tossed the end of it into the fire.  When I leaned forward a bit and rested my arms on my knees, my leg cramped up.  My leg was still sore sometimes, especially when I sat in one position for a long time and when I first got up in the morning, but overall it wasn’t bad.  The scar was pretty nasty, but it just added to my collection.  I stretched my leg out in front of me and then pulled it back in close to my chest.  After doing that a couple of times, the cramp went away.  I glanced around the beach, then up to the shelter, wondering if there was anything I ought to do before nightfall.

The lack of any real need to get something done was nice, but it gave me a lot more time to think.  Sometimes that was good, and sometimes it wasn’t.  The nightmares never went away completely, but they weren’t as bad as they had been right after Raine was attacked.  They had me considering what kind of fruits there were around here that I could ferment into alcohol, but I really didn’t have more than a rudimentary understanding of how to do that, and Raine would fucking kill me if I tried.  The smokes were bad enough.  I got the shakes still when I thought about drinking, so I tried not to think about it at all.  Unfortunately, sometimes it just popped into my head whether I wanted it there or not.  I’d get pissy then, and Raine would take the brunt of it.  I didn’t know why she put up with my moody ass, but she always seemed to forgive me once I calmed down.  I guess she really didn’t have much of a choice.  It’s not like she could talk to anyone else around here, so she was pretty much stuck with me.

Even after she laid into me during the storm, it was those kinds of thoughts that tried to send me over the edge.  It was one thing to hear her say it and believe her while I had her wrapped up in my arms, but something entirely different when I thought about how things would be if we were somewhere else or if there were other people here.  It made my stomach hurt to think about it because somewhere deep inside of me, I was scared shitless of loving her and being loved by her – not afraid of the love itself but what it would do to me if it suddenly wasn’t there anymore.  I didn’t know what I was doing, and I knew I kept fucking up.  Someday I was going to fuck up in a way that my violet wouldn’t forgive, and that scared me enough to shut down again.  I didn’t, though.  I told her I’d try, so I would.

I looked over the beach and watched Raine rise out of the waves and walk back towards me.  When she got closer, her eyes narrowed and she placed her fists against her hip bones, glaring down at me.

“What are you looking all contemplative about?” she demanded.

“What?” I asked, a little startled.

“You’re sitting there brooding about something, which means within the next ten minutes, you’re going to bite my head off about the way I banked the fire or how I got too much sun today.”

“I’m not,” I lied.  We had developed an agreement of sorts, or at least an understanding, regarding my thoughts on her feelings for me.  I was willing to accept them, but that didn’t mean I was going to agree to believing I was worthy of them.  This had led to several opportunities for Raine to call me out when I was brooding about it.

“Liar.”

Shit.

“I’m trying, babe,” I said.  I shoved my fingers through my hair, noticing how much longer it was now.  I closed my eyes, soon feeling Raine’s hand against my face.  I sighed and let her tilt my head to see her.

“And you are doing beautifully,” she told me.  I shook my head once, took in her scowl, then smiled half-heartedly and nodded instead.

“It’s hard sometimes,” I admitted.

“I know it is.” Raine reached out her hands, and I took them in mine.  “I’m very proud of you.”

I think she intended to pull me up out of the sand, but I pulled her down into it instead.  She was on her knees next to me, and I placed my hands on either side of her face, kissing her deeply and running my tongue over her lips.  My hands ran over her hips and then up her sides, making her squirm a little as my light touch tickled her.  When my hands found her breasts, I broke away from the kiss and sucked the salty water off her nipples.

Raine moaned and arched her back, effectively pushing her breasts farther into my mouth.  Worked for me.  I ran my tongue around the nipples, each in turn, then lifted them a little, noticing how the improved diet had also brought back some of their fullness.  I licked and sucked and played with them until Raine moaned loudly and pushed me away.

“Lie down on your back,” Raine said.  She smiled and looked off to the side for a second, and I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering what she had in mind.  We had done it this way a few times, especially when my leg still hurt, and though I still liked being on top of her best – because I’m a controlling motherfucker – having her ride me wasn’t a bad thing at all.

“You’re scheming,” I accused but lay down anyway.  Raine didn’t immediately straddle me but started running her hands over my shoulders, down my arms, and then back again.  She traced the outlines of my pectoral and abdominal muscles before she leaned over and kissed the center of my chest.  I sighed in contentment, lay my head back in the sand, and just enjoyed feeling her hands on me.  She liked touching me this way, and I wasn’t about to complain.

Her hands stroked down my hips and then over my thighs and back to my stomach.  A couple of her fingertips brushed over the head of my cock.  I groaned a little as I felt her hand wrap around me and start stroking me up and down.  I opened my eyes for a moment, watching her hand try to wrap around my girth.

“There’s another of my favorite things about you,” I said in panting breaths.

“What’s that?” Raine asked.

“The way your little hand looks trying to reach around my cock.  Fucking gorgeous.”

“Hmm...really?” Raine said.  Immediately afterwards she bent at the waist, leaned over, and sucked the end of my dick into her mouth.

“Oh…God!  Raine!”  I sat up and put my hand on her shoulder, pushing her off of me.  I tried to regain some sort of conscious thought while memories of her wet mouth lingered in my head.

“You don’t like it?”

I looked into her eyes and realized there was hurt registering there.

“You don’t have to do that,” I told her.  I’d obviously said something about blow jobs way too many times because I did fucking love them, but I never meant for her to think she had to do that to me.

“I wanted to try it,” she said softly.

“Are you shitting me?” I gasped.

Raine shook her hear slowly and then ran her tongue over her lips, making me groan out loud.

“I want to,” she said again, and the next thing I knew she had me on my back in the sand preparing to suck me off.  Holy fucking shit.

“Relax,” Raine said softly.  “Just lay back for a few minutes.”

“A few minutes?” I scoffed and then inhaled sharply as I felt her lips brush over the end of my cock again.  “Fuck, baby, if you are going to do that, I won’t last more than a minute, tops.  Holy fucking shit…”

I heard her soft laughter, and then all other stimuli completely and totally vanished from my mind as her moist lips teased the end of my dick right before she took it in her mouth.  She ran her tongue over the back side as she sucked half of my length into her mouth at once.  Oh fuck – I was already touching her throat.  I felt her pull back suddenly, realizing her limit, then slowly go down almost as far again, hollowing out her cheeks as she went down as far as she could.

Looking down at her beautiful mouth as it wrapped around my dick was just far too much.  I tilted my neck and leaned my head backwards, closing my eyes and trying not to come instantly.  I felt her hand shimmy up the inside of my thigh until she was running her fingertips over my balls.

“Oh, shit…fuck, baby – that’s so fucking…ugh!”

Her fingers stroked my balls in time with her mouth sucking on my dick.  It had to be the best fucking feeling in the whole fucking world.  I felt the pressure building up inside of me, and knew I couldn’t last any longer.

“Raine – baby, I can’t hold off any more…I’m gonna come, baby…”  I reached a hand down and placed it on her head, trying to signal her to get off my cock before I blew in her mouth, but she didn’t.  Her eyes shifted up to mine, and the sparkle in them told me of her intention to keep me in her mouth while I came, which was far more information than I required to send me over the edge.

“Oh fuck!”  I screamed, and Raine continued to suck as I unloaded down the back of her throat.

It may have been longer than a minute – maybe.  I stared up at the clear blue sky and tried to remember my fucking name.  Holy fuck!  That had been the most incredible blow job I had ever received.  Just like everything else with her, it was instantly better because it was Raine doing it.

When I opened my eyes, Raine was sitting next to me, her legs curled under her with a self-satisfied look on her face.  I raised an eyebrow at her, and her face darkened slightly, making my cock twitch just thinking about how it was wrapped up by her lips, her tongue.

“Holy shit, Raine,” I said, shaking my head.  “What made you do that?”

“You said you liked it,” Raine mumbled shyly.  “I wanted to give it a try.”

“You’ve never done that before?”  She shook her head once and looked down at her hands in her lap.  I was more than shocked.  She had been so fucking good at it, I figured she must have had some practice.  I was extremely glad she hadn’t done it before because I would have wanted to break the face of whoever had been in her mouth before me.  “You’re going to kill me one of these days.”

“I am?”

“If you keep doing that, yes.”

“Do you want me to…um…not do it again?”

Realizing she had totally misunderstood me, I sat up and pulled her to me, my lips on hers, and my tongue reaching out to taste myself in her mouth.

“You were fucking incredible, and that was fucking incredible, and I definitely want you to do it again.  Fuck, if you want to practice five hundred different techniques, I’d be up for that, too.  You may end up killing me, but I’d be dying a happy man.”

“So…um…it was okay then?”

“Okay?  Fucking incredible, I said, and I meant it.”

Raine’s eyes glimmered, and her smile returned.

“Good, because I kind of liked doing it.”

“Fucking hell, woman.” I ran my hands down her arms and laced our fingers together.  I brought our hands up to my mouth and kissed the backs of her knuckles.  “We’d better do something domestic before I decide to fuck you again.  Now I owe you an extra orgasm later.”

Raine laughed and stood up, pulling on my arms.  I pushed myself to my feet and followed her back to the mats near the fire where we sat side by side, picking at the left over bits of seafood sitting out on one of the shells.  I ran my hand up and down her bare thigh, just watching the way my fingers looked against her skin and finally relaxing again.  I even yawned though the sun was barely setting.

“Did I maybe wear you out for once?” Raine asked with a giggle.

“I have enough energy to fuck you again, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

I received a full-blown laugh for that one.

“Bastian!  Why do you insist on calling it that?”

“Because that’s what it’s called,” I goaded.  It drove her nuts when I said it, which is why I kept saying it.  She’d get all mad about me being flippant or just downright obnoxious in my choice of words, but it was so worth it to watch her get all riled up over it.  Maybe that was fucked up; I didn’t know, but it sure as hell was funny.

“There are a lot of names for it that aren’t nearly as…vulgar.”

“Vulgar?”  I mocked surprise, placing my hand over my chest.  “You’re implying my speech might include vulgarities?  You fucking take that shit back right now!”

She rolled her eyes, and I chuckled.

“Lindsay swears all the time,” Raine said.  “She always did; even when we were in junior high school, she had a potty mouth.”

“Potty mouth?”  It was my turn to roll my eyes.

“Yes, potty mouth,” Raine responded.  “She used to end up in detention all the time for her language.”

“I’m surprised you hung out with her,” I said.  “I think you swear less than anyone I have ever met.”

“I’m trying to compensate for you,” she smirked.

“There is nothing about me that needs compensation.”  I took her hand and pulled it into my lap, then placed it on top of my cock.

“Don’t you ever get worn out?” Raine cried, pulling her hand away.  It might have caused me to pout.

“Not when it comes to fucking you, no.”

Another eye roll.  I gave her a half smile but stopped pushing because she probably did need a break.  We finished up the food a few minutes later while staring at the glowing waves and purple clouds under the setting sun.

“I’m never going to believe it, you know,” I said.

“Believe what?”

“That I’m worthy of you,” I clarified.  “No matter what you say or what you do, I just don’t see that happening.”

“Bastian…at some point…”

“Hold on,” I said, quietly.  For once I didn’t yell at her, though I kind of wanted to yell.  I took a deep breath because I had been thinking about this for a while, and about a thousand different possibilities went through my mind while I did.  They all sucked, so I was going with the one that sucked the least.  “I’m never going to believe it, but…Raine…”

I looked into her eyes and tried to hold her gaze, hoping I wouldn’t lose my nerve and say something assholeish again.

“I love you, and I need you to love me.  I want it…so, so much…I need it.  Even though I think it would be better for you not to care about me, I need you too much to turn away from it.  I’ll never walk away from you, Raine, I swear – I’ll be with you as long as you will have me.  If any motherfucker ever tried to take you from me, I’d fucking fight to the death for you.”

I was breathing heavily, and my heart was starting to pound.  I felt like I was in some kind of a panic, but I didn’t understand why.

“I’ll never give up,” I told her.  “I’ll fight for you, no matter what.  I don’t deserve you…I’ll never believe that…but I want you so bad…I need to be with you.  I just have to be, Raine…I don’t think I could live any other way anymore.”

“Bastian,” she whispered, “I’ll always love you, and there’s nothing that can change that.  Stop worrying – you have me.”

“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

“I give you my life, my love, my soul,” I swore to her.  “As long as I’m breathing, I’m yours.  Even when I’m nothing more than a fucked up dick, I still love you.”

She wrapped her arms around my head and held me against her.  I wished there was more that I could say, but my thoughts simply weren’t prepared to turn themselves into words.  I loved her, but the word itself was so inadequate, I had no idea what to say after it.  I had no purpose before her, no life, no reason to be – only existence in an empty, meaningless shell.  I was useless, pointless, inadequate…the list goes on.  I hated myself then, and I still did.  The difference was that I knew she wanted me.  I knew she loved me.  The single, brightest point in the universe wanted and loved me.

“Do you think anyone’s ever going to find us?” Raine suddenly said out of the blue.

“Yeah, eventually,” I said automatically and then wondered if I believed it.  I thought about it for a minute, and decided I did believe it.  Considering the fuckers who attacked her had been in a small-sized motorboat, we couldn’t really be that far from civilization.  We obviously weren’t in any kind of shipping lane, or we wouldn’t still be here, but eventually someone who wasn’t an asshole would have to come close enough to see us.  As long as someone came close enough, we’d eventually be picked up.

Then what?

I could get another ship, and Raine could come live on it with me, but would she even want to?  I had spent years on the water, but Raine had just been taking a vacation.  Considering how it turned out, she might never want to get on another ship again and I wouldn’t blame her.  So what would we do?  Go back to the States and set up house somewhere?  Then what?  She could go back to school, but what the fuck would I do?

Buy a fucking huge-ass bottle of vodka, that’s what.  Nice.

That’s when it hit me.

I didn’t want to be rescued.

Here on this island with Raine was complete and total paradise.  Everything we needed was within reach, and there was plenty for us to live comfortably for the rest of our lives.  It wasn’t a five-star Hyatt, but who the fuck actually needed any of that shit?  I didn’t need anything I couldn’t find within a half-hour’s walk.  I didn’t want anything else.  If we were rescued, everything would change.  The fact was, I couldn’t offer Raine anything other than taking care of her physically, which she wouldn’t fucking need once we were rescued.

She wouldn’t be stuck with me.  She’d have options.  Better options.  A shitload of them.

Fuck.

Even if we were together for a while, she’d find out pretty quick what an asshole I really was because the first fucking thing I was going to do was to get drunk off my ass.  She’d go back to school and end up with a study partner who was a guy, and I’d have to fucking kill him.  Just the thought of her being close to another guy was enough to get me worked up and wanting to punch something.

Raine took my hand, and we walked to the shelter together as the sun began to set.  She was going on about something, but I wasn’t really listening to her.  I just nodded and grunted every once in a while as I banked the fire for the night and Raine shook sand out of the mats.  She said something about her friend Lindsay, the shopoholic, and her escapades at a mall in Cleveland as we settled down on the mattress to sleep.  My thoughts were far too internalized to understand any of the details of her monologue.

There was no way being back in polite society with Raine would work.  Here was perfect.  Here I could be everything she needed because her needs weren’t complicated in this place.  Back in the normal world, I was nothing but a social misfit, just like the fucking Christmas toys in the Rudolph cartoon.  Raine had friends to take her shopping and people who cared about her.  She had potential, she had intelligence, she had money, and she had looks.  She wouldn’t need me for anything.

It was probably that thought that brought back the nightmares with a vengeance.

“You like that?  Huh? You gonna scream for me again?” He holds her hair with one hand, pinning her head to the ground.  The other hand twists the knife he has lodged in her side…

My jaw tightened, and it actually felt like I might bite through my own teeth for a moment.  The palm-frond ceiling of the new shelter was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.  I must have rolled off of Raine after I fell asleep because the nightmare was pretty fucking awful and I hadn’t had one like that for a while.  Well, a few days, anyway.  The scene was the same – they had her down on the beach and I couldn’t get to her in time – but the faces, the faces were all different.

My stomach cramped, and I wrapped my arms around my middle for a moment, swallowing hard and telling myself not to be such a pussy.  It was a dream, for fuck’s sake.  I forced my body to relax a little while I stared at Raine’s peaceful, sleeping form.  I tried to make myself focus on her face so I wouldn’t see anything else in my mind, but it wasn’t working.  I lay my fingers over the top of hers, thinking maybe the physical touch would help, but it didn’t make any difference.  I kept seeing his face – that bastard motherfucker who took what shambles of a life I had and fucking destroyed it.  Gunter Darke.  This time, his face had replaced Dreadlocks’ in my dream.  Franks held Raine down while Gunter’s body violated her and his knife tore into her flesh.

I couldn’t hold it back any longer, stumbled outside the shelter, and dropped to my hands and knees to get sick.  When I was done, I thought about going down to the water to wash off my face, but I didn’t want to be that far from her – definitely not now.

“She’s safe.”

I said it out loud, though under my breath, so I wouldn’t wake Raine.

“He never fucking touched her.”

Memories of her father’s face, not so unlike hers, as Gunter ripped into him flooded my brain.

“You like that?  Huh? You like that, pig?  You gonna scream for me again?”

“Did you have another nightmare?”  Her soft voice came to me from the night breeze.  I swallowed hard before nodding once.  Raine was next to me a moment later, one of her small hands resting on top of my shoulder, the other offering me a cup of water.  I washed out my mouth, drank a little, and then put it off to one side in the sand.  I reached over and pulled Raine closer to me, kneeling in front of her and pushing the side of my face into her stomach.  I breathed in her scent and tried to stop the shaking in my hands.

“I want a fucking drink,” I cried into her skin.

“I can’t give you that,” Raine said as her hands wrapped up in my hair.  “I can only give you me.”

“I love you,” I whispered.  “I’m sorry I didn’t help him.  I should have…if I had known you then, I would have fucking died to save him for you.”

Raine’s breath caught in her throat, and I felt her knees buckle a little.

“Will you tell me now?”  I could barely hear her.

Was it time?  Could I tell her?  I couldn’t give her the details – I wouldn’t.  But shouldn’t she know?  Shouldn’t she know I didn’t do anything?  Didn’t she deserve to know what a fucking useless bastard I was?

“I had just won my last fight,” I heard myself tell her.  “There was always a big victory party and dinner and shit afterwards when it was a big fight.  This one had gone on for four days, out in the middle of the desert in Nevada somewhere.  I came out barely scratched and was pretty fucking pleased with myself.  I think I netted over two million on that tournament.  God knows what Landon and Franks made off of it.  They flew us all back to this big resort in Seattle afterwards.  There was this luxurious balcony which looked over a dance floor and bar and shit like that – a live band, lots of tables and hookers and people just partying.  I was standing near the edge, just watching the people and getting my back patted by the guys who won something off my performance as they walked by.  There was another guy with me – Gunter.  Franks was his uncle.”

“Gunter Darke.  The man who killed my father,” Raine said softly.

“Yeah, he’s the one who was put away for killing all of them.”

“He died in prison.”

“Yeah, pissed off the wrong motherfucker, I guess.”  I tightened my grip around her middle and closed my eyes as the memories rushed over me.  “He was standing with me, and I was telling him about the last contestant I had killed when he suddenly stands up straight and points out over the crowd.”

“See that guy?”

“Which one?” I asked.

“The one on the far left side of the bar, with a Manhattan in his hand,” Gunter said.  “Big guy, dark jacket, dress shoes, no tie.  Fuck!  There’s two of them!”

“Two of what?”

“Cops, Bastian – they’re fucking cops.”

“How can you tell?”

“I can fucking smell them,” Gunter said with a grin.  “Just watch the way they walk – strutting with their arms out to their sides like they’re wearing guns even when they aren’t.  You ever seen those two before?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Fuck!  Hey, Franks!”

“I don’t know how he really knew they were cops, but he did,” I said.  “Franks flipped out and had security haul them up to the balcony.  When they didn’t answer his questions about what they were doing there, he had security go through the whole fucking place.  It took a couple hours, but in the end every single person who couldn’t be vouched for by one of the bosses was hauled up there and lined up against the back wall.  Sixteen of them altogether.”

“Those are all the people Gunter Darke killed.”

“Yeah, but he…he didn’t just kill them.  Fuck, if he had just shot them all in the head, I probably wouldn’t have left.  I probably wouldn’t have testified.  I’d probably still be fighting.  What he did…shit.  I can’t even tell you what he did to the guys, Raine, let alone the women.  I don’t want you to ever fucking think about it.”

“I think I know enough,” she admitted.

Thank God she wasn’t going to argue that point.

“I started to…I don’t know…go over there.  I don’t know what the fuck I was going to do.  Stop him?  John Paul and Landon, they held me back.  Said I’d just get myself killed, too.  I should have fucking done something.  I just stood there and watched it all.  Two of Franks’ bigger security guys were holding them, and Franks was giving Gunter suggestions about what to do next, and I just fucking stood there and fucking watched it happen…”

I stopped, a sob coming out of my throat, unbidden and uncontrollable.  Raine laid herself back in the sand, scooting down so when she reached around my head and pulled me to her, my cheek was pressed against her shoulder.  One of her arms wrapped around my shoulders, and her other hand ran through my hair, holding me tight against her.  I tried to focus on her touch and her scent filling my nostrils, but whether my eyelids were opened or closed, all I could see was their eyes as each of them realized they were next.  All I could smell was their blood.  All I could hear were their screams.

“I didn’t do anything, Raine.  I didn’t help your dad…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m so fucking sorry…if I had known you then…I would have done something to help him, I swear I would have, Raine…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”

“I know, Bastian.”  Her arms tightened around me, and she held me as close as she could.  I could hear her crying, too.  “There was nothing you could have done.  I know there was nothing you could have done.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why were they there, Bastian?  What were they all doing there?”

“I have no fucking clue, baby,” I answered.  “I don’t know how your father got there or why he was there.  During the trial there was another cop who testified – I think he was a supervisor or something – and he said they had been off the beat.  He said they weren’t supposed to be in that area at all and they hadn’t radioed in to say they were going to investigate something.”

“My dad would have radioed,” Raine said, not a doubt in her voice.

“That’s what the prosecutor kept saying.  None of them seemed to know what they were doing there, and I know that sounds really suspicious and shit, but I wasn’t paying close attention to that part.  It didn’t matter to me how they got there.”

“It matters to me.”

“Fuck, baby…I wish I could tell you.  I just don’t know.”

She held me…or I held her…I don’t know which – maybe both – for a long time.  The sand was becoming uncomfortable, but I didn’t really care.  I had told her as much as I could ever tell her about that night; I just needed to finish what was left before I couldn’t talk any more.

“It fucked me up, Raine,” I whispered.  “Even after all the death I’d seen – all the death I’d caused – I couldn’t sleep.  I couldn’t eat anything without getting sick, and I couldn’t get all their faces out of my head.  Every night, over and over again.  I couldn’t even leave my apartment for a while, and after about a month, I finally told Landon I was never going to fight again.  A week later, Gunter was arrested, ratted out his uncle, and the next thing I knew, I was agreeing to testify for immunity.  Landon found out, came over and beat the shit out of me, but I refused to back down.  I thought if I did that – if I helped put them away, maybe I could sleep again.  Either it was going to let me sleep or I was going to be dead anyway.”

“It didn’t work, though,” I told her.  “Even after Gunter went to prison, I still had the dreams.  Maybe because Franks was acquitted…I dunno…so I started drinking…a lot.  I drank when Jillian left, and sometimes it helped me forget for a while, so I started drinking when the nightmares kept me up.  After a while, they’d go away, or at least I wouldn’t remember them after I drank myself unconscious.  So that’s what I did…for years…up until we were on the raft.”

“You’ve talked about some of it in your sleep,” Raine told me.  “You talked about the trial when you had that infection, and you talk about Landon all the time.”

“I didn’t know I did that before,” I admitted.  “I never really slept with anyone but you.”

Raine let out a soft, snorty chuckle.

“I mean…”

“I know what you meant, Bastian.  It’s okay.  I know you’ve…been with a lot of women.”

“Not like you,” I said softly.

“I know that, too,” she said, trailing her fingers over my jaw.

“No one’s ever treated me like you do,” I told her.  “I was always…I don’t know…tossed out?  When I was a kid, I didn’t even have a real name.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of the social workers told me when I was older.  I had asked her where I came from and who my real parents were.  I was probably six or seven, I think.  I had just been transferred out of one foster home and into another.  I was still in the same school and accidentally got on the bus going back to the first home.  When I got there, the foster dad wouldn’t let me in even though it was raining.  He yelled at me and told me to stay outside.  The social worker came and picked me up eventually.  I asked her who my real parents were.”

“He made you stay out in the rain?” Raine gasped.  “How could anyone do that to a little kid?”

“He was pretty angry with me,” I said.  “I don’t remember why, though.  I assume I deserved it.”

“No one deserves that,” I heard her mumble, but I didn’t feel like arguing that point.  Obviously someone deserved it.  Me, for instance.

“Back then, I was just called Sebastian Smith.  I only knew my first name when I was found, I guess, so they just made up a name and a birthday and shit for me.”

“You don’t know when your real birthday is?” Raine sounded absolutely mortified.

“No,” I responded.  “They just took me to the doctor who told them I was probably born in May, and they picked a name and birth date to make the birth certificate.”

“Oh my God,” she mumbled, her fingers working their way up into my hair as I snuggled closer into the space between her neck and shoulder.

“It’s okay – I don’t really give a shit.”  I took a deep breath, inhaling her scent before I went on.  “The social worker said no one knew my real name, so they gave me that one.”

“How did you get to be Stark, then?”

“It’s Landon’s last name,” I said.  “I took his name about three months after I started fighting for him.  He’s the closest thing I ever had to a father, and I wanted a tie to someone, even if it wasn’t real.”

“Just like Mister Fluffy,” Raine said.

“Not the fucking dog again!” I growled, tilting my head to look up at her.

“He didn’t have a name either.”  Raine pushed my hair behind my ear and trailed her fingers down to my neck.  “I never knew where he came from or how he got where he did.  He had nightmares, too, you know.”

“The dog had nightmares?” I snorted.

“He did!” she insisted.  “He would whimper and growl in his sleep.”

“You know I don’t like that shit,” I reminded her, “comparing me to a fucking dog.”

“I loved Mister Fluffy,” Raine said quietly, “and I love you, too.  You have a lot in common.  He was fiercely loyal to me and would try to protect me when people he didn’t know came around.  It took a long time for him to trust me, but once he did, I couldn’t have asked for a better companion.”

I thought about it for a bit, but I still didn’t like it.

“What did he think of your boyfriends?” I heard myself ask.

“He didn’t like Andrew too much,” she said.  “He did eventually stop growling at him, though.”

“What about the others?”

“There weren’t any.”

“Why not?”

“No one ever…appealed to me in that way.”  I felt her shrug her shoulders.  “After my dad died, I had Andrew.  He understood what I was going through, so I didn’t have to explain it to him.  Once we broke up, I had so much else going on in my life when my friends were dating and stuff, it was just too much.  I didn’t want to have to explain to some guy why I would start crying out of the blue, or why I was in therapy, or why I kept visiting with lawyers even when they said they couldn’t do anything else for me.”

“So you never went out on another date?”

“Well,” Raine laughed.  “I tried to once.”

“Tried?”

“This guy asked me out when I first went to college,” she said.  “We went to dinner, and Andrew showed up and kind of caused a scene.”

“What did he do?”

“He was really mad when he found out I had a date.  He showed up at the restaurant and started questioning the poor guy.  He was acting like an overbearing parent, and when my date figured out he was my ex, he just threw some money down on the table and walked out.  He said he wasn’t going to put up with that kind of…stuff.  He never spoke to me again.”

“Andrew’s a dick.”

“He’s not; he just wanted to protect me.  He was afraid I would get hurt.”

“If I had been on that date with you, I would have fucked him up.”

“Bastian!  You can’t just do that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“You can’t just beat someone up for something like that.  People have a right to their own opinions, and you can’t hit them just because you don’t like what they do or say.”

“Some motherfuckers seemed to be of the opinion that you should be fucked against your will.  Do they have that right, too?”

“No, of course not.”

“I would have fucked this Andrew up,” I reiterated.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“It is as far as I’m concerned,” I grumbled.  “He did something you didn’t want and screwed up what could have been a good thing for you.”

“And if he hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t be here now.”

When she put it to me like that, all my arguments went out the window, so we lay on the sand in silence for a while.  The sky was starting to brighten and bring in a new day, but I didn’t really feel like moving from where I was.  I had way too many thoughts going through my head at once – the remnants of the dream, Raine’s date getting fucked up by her douche bag ex, being compared to the fucking dog again – and I couldn’t seem to make them stop.  I wished I had something I should be working on so I had a reason to get up and do something.  However, lying with Raine just felt too good, so I stayed where I was as the sun rose, and Raine kept stroking her fingers through my hair.

“What do you miss the most?” Raine finally asked.  “I mean, from the real world?”

I snickered at her, wondering if she thought this was actually some kind of fantasy.

“Booze, smokes with nicotine, and fucking huge Chicago-style pizzas,” I replied after a moment.  “What about you?”

“Showers.”  I felt her nod her head.  “A nice, hot shower would feel really, really good.”

“Yeah, that does sound nice.”  I thought about showering with Raine and almost forgot to ask her about anything else.  “So, is that it?”

“No…I miss sleeping with a pillow, too.”

“I still sleep with pillows,” I murmured softly.

“You use me as a pillow; that’s not the same.”

“It works for me,” I said.

“I’ve noticed!”  She giggled and went back to stroking my hair again.  A minute later she let out a genuine laugh.  “I miss underwear as well!”

“You have mine,” I reminded her.  “If you ask me, that’s almost as sexy as it would be if you were wearing a thong or something.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.  Seeing you in my boxers makes me want to rip them off you and fuck you in the sand.”

“You’ve done that.”

“True.”

“You’ve done that when I was wearing my own shorts as well,” she reminded me, as if I needed reminding, “and when I wasn’t wearing anything.”

“Well, no shit!” I laughed.  “What can I say?  I’m a horny motherfucker, and you’re beautiful in anything and nothing.”

“You are a little insatiable,” Raine agreed.

“Are you complaining?” I asked and then immediately realized I did not want to know the answer.  Fuck, I never should have asked the question.

“Not at all.”

Thank God.  If she had said anything else, I would have toned it down for her sake.  It would have been okay, but she was so fucking beautiful, and I couldn’t help but want her all the time.  I loved being here where I could take her whenever I wanted, and was thrilled she didn’t seem to mind.  I hoped she enjoyed it, too, but I had gotten lucky with the answer to my last question.  I didn’t want to push my luck by asking another.

“Are you getting hungry?” Raine finally asked.

“A little,” I said.

“Why don’t you get the fire built up, and I’ll see what’s for breakfast?”

“I guess.”

I reluctantly removed myself from lying on her and winced as my leg cramped up on me.  I pushed through the pain and flexed my thigh a few times.  It really wasn’t bad at all once I got moving on it.  Raine went back into the shelter, and I started tossing wood on the smoldering fire.  I pushed a bunch of the shit out of my head by focusing on the task at hand, but other thoughts came in to take its place.

I found myself thinking about John Paul a lot lately – where he was and what he was doing, assuming he had survived at all.  I honestly didn’t care if I ever saw him again, but it would be good to know if he was alive or not.  Since I had taken care of Raine’s needs, I had more time to think about what had happened that night.  I had certainly heard John Paul’s voice and assumed he got onto one of the lifeboats with the other passengers, but I didn’t know what had happened to cause the ship to roll in the first place.  I had theories ranging from the plausible to the extremely improbable, starting with the storm being worse than I thought and going all the way to wondering if Franks had decided to kill me off.  I doubted the latter.  If he wanted me dead, he would have found me long ago and taken care of it.  Why would he bother, anyway?  Gunter died in prison within six months, and Franks was completely exonerated.  Nephew or not, if Franks had cared about Gunter in the least, Gunter never would have been convicted.

After a half hour or so, the flames had burned down to embers and Raine started cooking a kind of stew she had come up with that included a mixture of the edible plants and fish.  It was pretty good, considering what she had to work with.  It had me wondering what her cooking would be like if she had a whole fucking kitchen to exploit.  I would have bet it was fucking awesome.

“Bastian?”

“Yeah, babe?” I responded while tipping a seashell bowl full of Raine’s stew into my mouth.

“I still miss my dad.”

Placing the shell on the sand next to the fire, I looked up at her and saw tears in her eyes again.  Reflexively, I wanted to both comfort her and beat the shit out of whatever had upset her.  Since she was obviously upset about her dad, I didn’t know what to do other than pull her into my lap and hold her.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I said when she finally took a deep breath and seemed to have calmed down.  “I should have done something…”

“Hush,” Raine reached up and placed her fingers over my lips.  She was getting to be far too fond of that particular act.  “You know, when I think about everything that has happened since I lost him, I have to admit that I’m pretty confused about my feelings.”

“How so?”

“I miss my dad,” she said again, “but if he wasn’t gone, I wouldn’t have you now.  I lost my dad, but through an extremely roundabout way, he brought me to you.  I…I don’t know how to feel about it now.”

My muscles tightened up.  She was right, of course.  If I hadn’t watched her father die, we wouldn’t be here right now.  If whatever events caused him to show up that night hadn’t occurred, Raine would still have her father but we would never have met.  For a brief moment, it all made sense.  Everything – from my parents ditching me, to juvenile detention, to the reason sixteen people had to be slaughtered – it all suddenly made sense to me.  Everything had to happen exactly the way it did to bring her to me.  Otherwise, there would have been no way for us to have ever met.  Henry Gayle had to die so I could be with his daughter, and I was abruptly glad it had happened.

I guess I was a selfish prick after all.

Chapter 16 – Gift

Blinking my eyes a couple of times, I knew right away I was awake way too early.  It was still quite dark out, and there weren’t even the sounds of any morning birds.  There weren’t any horrible images left over in my brain from a nightmare, so I didn’t know the cause of my sudden wakefulness, which confused me. I didn’t usually wake up without a reason.  I twisted my neck around a bit, stretching it out, and then tried to figure out what woke me up.

Raine was underneath me with her head tucked into my chest and her legs tangled up with one of mine.  Both of my arms were around her, holding her securely around her shoulders.  I rested my head on top of hers, nuzzling into her hair a little.  I heard her take in a deep breath, causing my arm to rise slightly, then let it out slowly.  She wasn’t asleep, so I started to untangle myself to roll off of her, but her fingers gripped my arm, holding me in place.  I gazed down at her, even more confused.  Usually if she woke up before me, it was because she needed to pee and wanted me off of her as soon as possible.  It was still so early in the morning, though, and that wouldn’t fit her normal routine.

“What’s the matter, baby?” I whispered.  I don’t know why the fuck I whispered – it wasn’t like someone else was going to hear me.

“Nothing,” she replied.  She cleared her throat and looked away from me.

“Bullshit,” I said.  I placed my hand under her chin and tilted her head back to look at me.

“It’s nothing, really,” she said again.  I scowled at her, and she sighed.  “It’s only…I just…I miss Lindsay!”

Raine broke out in tears and covered her face with her hands.  I moved my arm up around the back of her neck and held her against my shoulder, wishing I could do something about it.

“I want…to go…home!” she sobbed between broken breaths.

Fuck.

“Aw, baby.”  I wrapped my arms around her tighter and held her against my chest.  It fucking hurt, seeing her like this and knowing there was nothing I could do to make it any better, especially when it came to something I didn’t want to see happen at all.  I had no desire to go…well…anywhere else.  I didn’t have a home to miss unless I wanted to entertain the idea of hauling it up from the bottom of the sea.  I was also pretty sure trying to fit me into Raine’s idea of home was going to be problematic at best.  This was not something I planned on discussing with her – I didn’t see the benefit of doing so.

“I’m tired of waking up here,” Raine went on.  “I’m tired of eating the same food every day.  I’m tired of my skin being dry and flakey from washing in salt water.  I’m tired of wearing the same clothes every day.  I’m tired of-of-of…everything!”

She was getting close to becoming hysterical, and the idea of slapping some sense into her crossed my mind but only very briefly.  She shook, and she sobbed, and she screamed out her frustrations as I held on to her and tried to figure out what I could say that would make any difference.  It’s not like I could tell her it was going to get any better because I had no idea if that was true.  We could be found today or tomorrow or next year or never.  I couldn’t offer her any false hope, not just because it wasn’t available, but because I was afraid if I managed to get the words out of my mouth at all, she would immediately know I didn’t want it to happen.

“Raine,” I whispered as I slid my arm up around her head and held her closer.  I buried my face in her hair and inhaled, wishing I could offer her some sort of comfort but resigned to the fact that I could not.  She continued to cry, and I continued to have nothing to say of any value for quite some time.  Eventually, her crying subsided and she sniffed loudly.

“I want a fucking shower,” she growled.

I let out a short bark of a laugh.  I didn’t really mean to, but as infrequently as Raine uttered a curse word, her timing choice was usually pretty fucking funny.

“I know, baby,” I said.

“Why am I so upset now?” she wailed.  “It’s better here than on the raft, and I didn’t do this then.”

“Because you didn’t have the energy then,” I told her.  “I think you usually let it build up in you until you fall apart, which drives me nuts, by the way.  I wish I could do something to make it better.”

“You do.”

“Heh – right.  I’m probably the cause of half your stress.”

“When you get upset, you just explode over and over again,” Raine said with a nod and a somewhat tearful giggle.  “It makes you feel better, and you make me feel better.”

“I never feel like I can do anything to make you feel better,” I admitted.

“You hold me,” she said softly, her fingers tightening into my skin.  “You keep me safe.”

“Anytime you want,” I said.  I had to swallow hard to get past the lump in my throat.  I didn’t know where it came from – probably just from watching her cry.

I kept my arms wrapped around her until she slowly drifted back into sleep.  It was just a little bit brighter at that point, but I didn’t move to get up.  If all I could do was hold her, I was going to fucking hold her until she told me to let go.

She couldn’t tell me to let go as long as she slept, and she slept well into the morning, so I kept holding her well into the morning.  When she finally did wake up, she still looked tired, her eyes all red-rimmed from crying, and she complained of a headache.  I tried to make her tea out of some flowers that kind of resembled chamomile, but apparently it was pretty fucking awful, so I dumped it out and tried warming coconut milk instead.  That also failed, but at least she was smiling a bit.  I managed to grill a couple of crabs, which she seemed to like more than the other seafood, which got me a more genuine smile and a kiss.

We didn’t really do much else during the day, and the early evening brought rain, so we were stuck inside.  It wasn’t a big-ass storm or anything, just enough to soak me through to the skin when I had to leave the shelter to piss.  We finally gave up on the day, lay down on the mattress, and I fucked her slowly, holding out as long as I could and feeling her come all around me three times before I gave in.  Afterwards, I held her and listened to her breathing as she came down from the last orgasm and slowly drifted off into sleep.  I held her a while longer, listened to the rain ebb and finally stop, then rolled into position with my leg draped over hers and my arms wrapped securely around her body.  I lay my head on top of hers, inhaling the scent of her and letting it take me into sleep.

* * * * *

Her hand traces down the edge of my jaw, and I lean into the sensation.  When I open my eyes, she is smiling up at me, but it’s not from happiness.  Her smile is…sad?  She shakes her head slowly.

“It’s all right” she tells me.  “I know you would rather stay here.”

She is walking away from me, down the beach to a small motorboat anchored in the water.  John Paul and Landon are there, waiting for her.  They help her on board, telling her she has to be careful in her condition…

I take a few steps down the beach, intending to go after her, but the engine has started and they’re leaving me behind…

I woke in a cold sweat.  Though I wasn’t nauseated by this dream, it left me with a feeling of dread unlike any other I had experienced.  My chest was so tight, I wasn’t sure if there was enough room for my heart to keep beating or my lungs to keep sucking in air.  I had to get out in the open before I completely freaked out.

I extracted my arms and legs from Raine and pushed myself onto my feet.  Fishing my lighter and a fist full of the homemade cigarettes out of my belt, I took off down to the beach.

“It couldn’t fucking happen,” I told myself under my breath as if hearing the words out loud was enough.  “I had the operation verified.  Twice.  There is no way for me to get her pregnant.”

It wasn’t the idea of getting Raine pregnant that had scared the shit out of me, though.  I’d be concerned because there were things that could go wrong in pregnancy and delivery, but it didn’t actually scare me.  It was that look on her face – the one she had in the dream when she got on the boat without me.  The one that said she was leaving me behind.  The look that said goodbye.  I wouldn’t be seeing her again.  I’d never see the baby.  Never.

“Raine wouldn’t do that to me,” I heard myself choke the words out, and I felt hot tears stinging the back of my eyes.  “She’s not like that…she wouldn’t…she wouldn’t…”

But I didn’t think Jillian was like that either.  I loved her.  I was going to fucking propose to her.  I thought she loved me.  She told me she did so many times.  Sometimes, if I allowed myself to think about her or about the…the baby…I could still feel the ache in my chest.  As much as I could feel the remnants of Jillian’s betrayal, the idea of Raine ever walking away from me like that – knowing I wouldn’t see her again – made my entire body constrict, and it felt like all my organs would burst with the pressure.  I couldn’t breathe.  I was pretty sure my heart slowed down under the pressure.  If she ever did that – if Raine left me – it would kill me.  I didn’t doubt it at all.  The pain of her being gone would definitely kill me.

I shoved one end the smoke into my mouth and lit the other end.  I took several slow, deep drags, smoking half of the thing in under a minute.  It burned in my lungs, but that was better than the feeling of compression throughout my body.  As soon as I was done with the first one, I lit up a second, then a third.  The sun was starting to come up, and I needed to get my shit together or be forced to deal with all of her questioning.  I wasn’t up for that.  Not now.  Not yet.

My feet carried me down to the edge of the water where I stripped off my shorts and went for an early morning swim.  The water was pretty cold on my skin, so I didn’t stay long.  I pulled my shorts up over my wet body, not giving a fuck about how uncomfortable it was, and sat next to the cooking fire.  I picked up a coconut shell I was trying to carve into something useful, but I wasn’t sure what the fuck I was going to make.  I took out my jackknife and started whittling away at it, just to give me something to do.

“You’re up early,” Raine noted as she came out of the shelter.

“Had enough sleep, I guess,” I said with a shrug.

“Did you eat anything?” she asked.

“Not hungry,” I responded.  I didn’t look at her but kept my focus on the task at hand.

“What are you making?”

“No fucking idea,” I snapped.  I didn’t really mean to jump down her throat, but I didn’t want her questioning me, either.

“I’m going to get cleaned up.”  I watched her look at me out of the corner of my eye, her expression showing her confusion at my behavior.  She went towards the water, and I took out another smoke.  When she came back, she tried to get me to eat something, and I told her to fuck off, like the complete and total fuck-head that I was.  I was so pissed off at myself, I decided I had to get out of there.

I took off into the jungle, making some lame excuse about looking for something different to eat, and no, I didn’t want any company.  I avoided her most of the day, feeling like a total shit for doing so, but I couldn’t help it.  Every time I looked at her, my mind replayed her walking away from me.  I didn’t end up puking, but I sure as hell felt like I wanted to.

I went to bed early that night, by myself.

* * * * *

“Are you smoking another one of those?”

“Christ, Raine,” I growled when she startled me.  I thought by hanging out behind the rocks near the tidal pools on the north side of the beach might have exonerated me from the smoke patrol, but apparently not.  I didn’t think she would walk all this way just to find me, but I was obviously wrong.  I had been a grouchy son-of-a-bitch since that dream yesterday, and it had repeated itself early this morning.  I was trying to work it out in my head, on my own, which wasn’t working.  “I’ve had like…six of these today, at most.  Shit, I used to smoke three or four packs a day!”

Completely refusing to put the damn thing out, I took a deep drag and blew the smoke out my nose.  Despite promises not to smoke around her, I wasn’t going to put this one out.  She followed me out here; she could fucking put up with it.

“Are you at least planning on being helpful out here?”

“I told you I’d find some fucking mussels, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you said that yesterday, too.”

“Fuck it.”  I took one last large inhale and dropped the end of it in the sand.  I stomped over to the nearest rock, reached down below the water, and yanked a handful of mussels out.  I tossed them over my shoulder, where they landed at Raine’s feet.

“You are behaving like an absolute child!”

I was and I knew it.  It was part of the reason I was hiding out here smoking in the first place.  I was agitated, frustrated, and moody.  I had come out here to keep myself from taking it out on Raine, but lo and behold, here she was, fucking up my plan.  I threw another handful of seafood into the sand before sitting my ass down in the wet sand and lighting another smoke, not looking at Raine.  I didn’t want to see how pissed off she was at me.

“Bastian,” Raine sighed.  She dropped down in front of me in the sand, my T-shirt dropping a little off her shoulder and exposing her collarbone.  I wanted to lick it, but I restrained myself.  I didn’t want to fuck her, and licking would definitely lead to fucking.  Fucking could lead to…fuck, no it couldn’t, but the fucking dream had left me paranoid of fucking.  “What’s wrong?”

I took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm my heart and my nerves.

“What makes you think there’s anything wrong?” I finally said, knowing how fucking stupid it sounded.  Bastian Stark, asshole extraordinaire, decided to make an appearance and brought his shouty voice along with him.  “Why the fuck do you think I’d want to fucking talk about it, anyway?  Can’t you get the fucking idea that I want to be alone?”

Raine shifted back and away from me, and I was most appalled by the lack of shock in her expression.  She just looked…resigned.  She stood up, turned on her bare heel in the sand, and started to walk away.

The pain rippled through my body, causing me to inhale sharply.

“Raine!”

As soon as she stopped and looked back over her shoulder, I found I could breathe again.  I closed my eyes and tossed the rest of the cigarette into the water.

“I’m sorry…I’m just...fuck!  I want to behave like a dick and didn’t want to be around you when I was feeling like that.”

Raine regarded me cautiously and then took a few steps closer to me again, sitting herself down in the sand a few feet away.  It hurt that she didn’t want to come close to me, but I could hardly blame her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again.

“How do you know anything’s wrong?” I responded, like it wasn’t fucking obvious.

“You want to know what my first hint was, or do you want the whole list?”

“Surprise me.”

“You have had nine of those things,” Raine pointed to the butt end of the cigarette lying in the sand, “since breakfast, not six, and I’m pretty sure you smoked a couple of them when you woke up in the middle of the night, so those count, too.  You haven’t bothered to shave for three days, which isn’t all that abnormal, but you’re usually champing at the bit to shave me at least every other day.  That brings me to the biggest clue – you haven’t made a move on me since the night before last.  You went from trying to molest me fifteen times a day to nothing in over twenty-four hours.  Now will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Same old shit,” I mumbled.  I dropped my forehead down into my hands.  “I figured you were sick of hearing all of it.”

“Did you have a nightmare last night?” Raine asked gently.

“Yeah.”

“Which one?”

“A new one,” I admitted.  I rubbed my knuckles into my eyes and then left my eyes covered up.

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Not yet.”

“All right.”

One of the five million things I loved about Raine – she had finally figured out when not to press.  I had gotten around to telling her most everything anyway, and she seemed to know she’d get to hear it all eventually.  Sometimes it was just too hard, too raw.  I couldn’t talk about it then, and she understood when I couldn’t.  I heard her footsteps on the sand and felt her kneel down next to me.  Her hands went around my head, and she held me against her chest.

“Whatever it is,” she whispered against my cheek, “we’ll work it out together when you’re ready to tell me.”

“I don’t fucking deserve you,” I said softly.

“Yes, you do.”

I sighed, having no more energy to argue with her about it.

“Just…let me be for a while, okay?” I pleaded.  “I’ll come back in a couple hours, and I swear I’ll remember the fucking mussels.”

“If that’s what you need.”

“That’s what I need,” I assured her.

Raine kissed me softly on the cheek and stood, running her fingers through my hair briefly before she turned to go.  I closed my eyes again after she was out of sight behind the rocks and wondered what the fuck I did right in my life to have ended up in her presence.  Raine was my life, my saving angel.  I owed her something for everything she did for me, but what could I possibly do to make things better for her?  I couldn’t provide her with her friends or her home.  I couldn’t manufacture a wider variety of food, and I couldn’t take her to a hotel with a fucking Jacuzzi in the room.

I laughed out loud, and a wide smile crept over my face.  There was something I could do for her, and I knew exactly how I would do it.  I twisted around, looked up above me at the largest rock in the grouping, and immediately saw exactly what I needed.  I was so fucking pleased with myself, I collected a bunch more mussels, a couple of crabs, and even shaved before I headed back.  Shaving myself had definitely primed me for wanting to shave her, and I was certainly going to use that to make up for the last day and a half of not making her come.

* * * * *

“Hey, Raine!” I called and waved my arm around in the air when she looked up at me.  “I’ve got something for you.”

I had a huge fucking grin on my face, and when she walked over to me, her eyes held suspicion.  Chuckling softly, I took her hand and led her over to the tidal pool where I had set up my little…invention.  I leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“Take your clothes off, baby.”

“Again?” she smirked.  “At some point, you have to give me a minute to recuperate.  I was just going to wash off…”

“I know,” I replied with another goofy grin.  “Just take your fucking clothes off, baby.  I’ll leave my shorts on if you think that will make you more comfortable.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head but started undressing for me anyway.  I told my cock to stop paying attention, but he didn’t listen, as usual.

Once she was undressed, I told her to close her eyes for a minute.  She sighed heavily and grumbled at me, but did as I had asked.  I took her hand and led her back behind the largest rock.

“Keep your eyes closed, baby.”

“Whatever,” she mumbled.  She sounded just like me, which made me smile even more.

“Just another minute here.”  I reached up to the crack in the rock where the portion of the gutter system was lodged.  There was a scrap of the raft’s side walls wrapped around the end of it, and I had stabbed a bunch of little holes all over the middle of the piece.  One of the clamps that had been used to hold the ladder on the raft pinched the end of the gutter canal, holding back the water stored in a larger piece of the raft’s canopy – the clear plastic part which had been used on top of the solar still.  The water had been there over the past two days, soaking up the heat from the sun’s rays on top of the rock.  I released the valve and tested the temperature of the water.  It wasn’t hot by any means, but it was pretty warm.

I took Raine’s hand and held it out, letting the warm water dribble over her from the holes in the homemade spigot.

“Open your eyes, baby,” I whispered against her ear.  She did, and her eyes narrowed as the water splashed in her palm.  “Want to take a shower?”

“Oh my God,” Raine gasped, looking up over her head.  “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” I grinned, unable to contain myself any longer.  I kissed her softly on the lips, then placed the end of the spigot back at the top of the rock overhang and released the valve completely, so water began to pour out of it.  I took Raine by her arms and guided her into the warm stream.

“Oh, Bastian!” Raine screeched.  “This feels fantastic!”

“It’s all fresh water, too, baby.  Less dry skin, right?”

Raine tilted her head up into the stream and closed her eyes, a smile plastered on her face.  Her arms went up and gathered her hair together, holding it under the spout and letting it fall over her face and shoulders as well.

“There’s only enough water for about three minutes,” I admitted, “and it takes a couple of days to really warm up enough, but you should be able to use it about every other day as long as there’s enough water to fill it.”

“This is fantastic!”  Raine turned in a circle, letting the warm turrets of water pour over every inch of her.  My cock took notice again, but I told him to shut the fuck up.  This was for her, not him.  Raine hummed as she turned her face up into the stream again.  She twirled, she laughed, and she made me feel like a million fucking dollars for making it happen.  Way too soon, the water slowed, then stopped, but her smile continued.

“Want this?” I asked, holding up one of the blanket-towels for her to use to dry off.  I wrapped one of them around her body and then used the second one to dry her face and hair.

“Bastian Stark,” Raine said, looking me straight in the eye, “you are the most incredible man I have ever known.”

I beamed and stopped drying her face long enough to kiss her.

“You like it, then?”

“Like it?” she cried.  “I love it!  Thank you, Bastian.  Thank you so much.”

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me as tight as she could.  When she loosened her grip, she leaned back and gazed up at me.

“This, Bastian Stark,” she said, waving her hand towards the shower, “this is why I love you.”

I didn’t know if it was doing something like that for her or just her reaction to having it done, but something that afternoon was a turning point for me.  I felt different.  I felt lighter, more at ease.  It’s not that I ever doubted her feelings for me, but maybe I was finally starting to really accept them.  Whatever it was, I didn’t have that particular dream again, and the others slacked off a lot, too.  They didn’t go away – they never went away – but they weren’t nearly as frequent.

Over the next couple of weeks, we got into a pretty picture-perfect rhythm – we’d wake up shortly after the sun rose, mess around in bed for a while, then eat and do whatever it was we needed to do that day.  There usually wasn’t much, and we did most shit together, so it went by pretty fast.  We’d go up the hill to get water if it hadn’t rained recently, but usually we only needed to do that every three days or so.  If the weather was bad, we usually had enough food gathered and enough fish dried that we didn’t need to go out in the wet.  Raine told me more stories about Lindsay, and honestly, I think I was afraid to ever meet the girl; she sounded fucking crazy.  I told her how I met John Paul at the shooting range where Landon took us for target practice and how he used to make me work out in the fucking gym six hours a day.

We would eat again when the sun was high, usually something more like vegetables and coconut meat or the stew Raine had invented.  I had actually grown to like it quite a bit, and she’d make it for me most days.  After lunch, I’d take advantage of her and then I would smoke while she rolled her eyes at me.  I kept it down to three a day most of the time.  When she was looking.

Usually while I smoked, Raine would bathe in the shallow water.  Every couple of days I went down to the water with her, shaved her everywhere she would let me, and then fucked her in the sand with the waves sliding all around us.  Those were my favorite days.  Then in the evening, when the sun got low, we’d sit by the fire and watch it set down over the water.  Sometimes I’d tell her fucked up stuff that happened to me, and sometimes she’d cry when she missed her friends or wondered if she’d ever be able to go back to school again.  I’d hold her when she was sad because she told me that was all she needed me to do, and I was really, really trying to believe her.

It was fucking hard, though.

* * * * *

I loved mornings on the island.  Fucking loved them.  Emphasis on fucking.

I usually woke up before Raine, took care of any human needs, built up the cooking fire, then crawled back onto the makeshift mattress and held her until she woke up.  Once she did, she’d go take a morning piss, then come back for a few minutes of lying around, getting herself felt up by me, fucked hard, fucked soft, and then maybe get some breakfast.

I fucking loved mornings here.

Did I mention that?

Fucking loved them.

"What are you thinking about that has such a grin plastered on your face?"  Raine re-entered the shelter and lay back down next to me, her back against my chest.  I wrapped my arms around her, tossed one leg over hers, and put my lips up to her ear.

"I was thinking about getting my dick in your pussy," I murmured low into her ear.

"Such the romantic!" Raine chided.  I didn't need to be looking at her face to know she was rolling her eyes.  "Do you think you could be a little less crass?"

"I want to put my penis in your vagina?" I couldn't help but smirk.

"Being more scientifically correct is not the same as less crass!"

"Hrm," I hummed.  "It could be worse."

"I'm not sure how," Raine grumbled, but I could still hear the smile in her voice.  I wrapped my arm around her waist a little tighter, effectively pushing my erection into her back.

"I'm just dying to get my cock in your cunt."

"Bastian Stark!"  Raine screeched and tried to wriggle out of my grasp.  I laughed and held her tighter as she struggled ineffectively.  My finger grazed over her side and she laughed and twisted to get away from my tickling touch, which put some lovely pressure on my dick.  "You know, if you keep that as your modus operandi to get sex, you may never find yourself in that particular position again!"

"Oh," I said, feigning hurt.  I shifted down a little, positioning myself against her backside.  "Can I fuck you in the ass then?"

Raine squealed and began wiggling around again, trying to pull my arms away with her tiny little hands.  I was laughing, letting her make a little headway before reeling her back in.  She giggled and rolled, trying to push up with her hands on the shelter floor.  I let her get just far enough to make it easier to pull her over on top of me.

"You didn't say no," I told her.

"Absolutely not!" Raine yelled and pushed at my chest with her palms.  I held her tight.

"You are absolutely not telling me no?" I teased.

"Stop that!" she giggled.  "You know what I meant."

"I have no idea."

"I absolutely do not want you to do that," she clarified.

"Do what?" I pressed with a grin.

"Bastian!  You know what!"

"Go on and say it," I commanded.

"I don't want you to..." she erupted in another fit of giggles.  "What you said."

"Say it,” I growled, trying to keep a straight face but utterly failing.

"Argh!" she finally cried.  "I don't want you to...fuck my ass."

We both fell into a fit of laughter at that point.  When I could breathe again, I gently pulled Raine down to my level and kissed her softly.  I reached my hand around and grabbed her ass, pulling downwards and holding her against my growing erection while I kissed her harder.  She pulled back and straddled me, shaking her head and smiling.

"You are incorrigible."

"I know," I responded with a shrug.  I reached up to touch the side of her face, slowly running my fingers over her skin.  The way she was looking at me pulled at my heart.  She had looked at me in the past that way, and I hadn't understood it.  Now I knew what it was because the same feeling was reflected back in mine.

"I love you, Raine."  I pulled her face back to mine and kissed her softly, not giving her the chance to respond verbally.  I didn't need it.  Her eyes said it all.  Without moving my lips from hers, I gave her what she wanted to hear.  "I want to make love to you."

"That's more like it."  She grinned and opened her mouth against my lips.

“I want to make love to you,” I repeated, and because ultimately I am still an asshole, I added, “with my big…hard…cock.”

“Bastian!”  Raine smacked her hand on my chest but still laughed.  “Did you really have to ruin that for me?”

I took her face in my hands and touched my forehead to hers.

“No matter what actual words come out of my mouth – every time I think of you, every time I touch you, and every time I speak to you – I am making love to you.”

“Is that a poem?” Raine asked softly.

“Only if I write it down and publish it.”  I smiled and touched my lips to hers.  The light touch became more, and I sucked her bottom lip into my mouth, teasing her with the tip of my tongue.  Her hands found the back of my head and pulled me close.  I loved the fact that I didn’t have to waste a fucking minute taking her clothes off, and immediately started caressing her breasts, her hips, her legs.  She was so fucking beautiful, it fucking hurt sometimes.  I kissed a line up her jaw and to her ear, humming softly against her skin.

“I love how responsive you are,” I murmured low in her ear.   “Every time I touch you, I feel your skin react.  I hear it in your breathing, your heartbeat.  You do the same to me.  You know that, right?  You know how fucking much I want you all the time?”

“I know,” she breathed against my shoulder.  “I love you…I want you, please…”

“You never have to beg for this,” I assured her.  I rolled us over until she was on her back.  “I’m yours always…anytime, anyplace, anyway you want me.”

“I want you…now, please.”

I pulled back and looked down into her dark brown eyes, slightly hooded from want and need, but there was so much more in them as well.  There was trust.  There was love.  It was still so new and so unexpected, it took my breath away.

“When you look at me like that,” I said softly, “it’s like I’m looking at your soul, and you’re looking into mine.  You make me feel like I’m worth something when you look at me like that.”

“You are,” she said, smiling up at me and placing her hand on the side of my face, and while she held me there, I believed her.  I leaned down and placed my lips on her forehead, then her eyes, across her cheekbones, down to her throat.  I kissed right above her left breast and felt her heart beating underneath her skin.  Raine’s hands grasped my shoulders, moved down over my arms and back up again, circling my back and pulling me to her breasts.  I was only too fucking happy to oblige.

“Want to try something different?” I asked, running my tongue around her nipple.

“What do you mean?”

“Roll over,” I said quietly, watching her eyes to gauge her reaction.  “Get up on your hands and knees.”

“Bastian…I really don’t think I…”

“Not that,” I said, realizing she was taking my previous comment to heart.  I shook my head.  “I just want to fuck you from behind.”

She stared at me wide eyed for a minute, then slowly rolled herself over with her beautiful ass pointed towards me.  God, she was so fucking perfect.  I ran my hands over her backside, stroking her softly with both hands.

“So fucking hot,” I mumbled.  I ran my hands up her sides and positioned myself behind her.  Raine turned her head to look over her shoulder and bit down on her lower lip.  “I swear you’re going to love this.”

She still seemed a little apprehensive, so I kept running my hands up her sides, around her back, and over her hips.  I bent over and kissed her softly between her shoulder blades before slipping my hand around to her front, palming one of her breasts.  The other hand went lower, slowly running along her folds, finding her wet and wanting.

Using my fingers to spread her open for me, I slowly inserted the end of my cock just past her pussy lips, and then gently eased forward.  Raine groaned and dropped her forehead down, nearly to the mattress.  I pulled back slowly, and then pushed forward until I was totally encompassed by her warmth.

“Ohhh…my…Bastian…that feels so…different…”

“You like it?”

“Yes…you’re so…”

“Deep?”

“Yes…oh my God…”

I pulled back again and pushed into her a little harder.  Holy shit, she felt so fucking awesome.  I wrapped my arm around her hip, slipping my fingers through her pubic hair and finding the very top of her slit, slowly rolling her clit around with the tip of my finger.  She gasped again and pushed her hips back to meet me.  I heard myself breathe in sharply and then let out a groan of my own.

“God, Raine,” I grunted.  “You feel so fucking perfect…I love this…being inside you.  I love this…love you…so fucking good…”

“Oh, Bastian!  More!  Please…don’t wait…”

I pushed all the way against her, and then withdrew almost completely before slamming into her hard.  She screamed out, and I could see her fists clamp down on the material of the mattress.  I pulled back and slammed into her again and again until she was meeting me stroke for stroke.  My fingers matched our rhythm, and as I leaned over with my body on her back, I could feel her quickened breathing and the beat of her heart against my chest.  I sucked on the skin just below her neck before leaning back, changing my angle slightly, and giving myself a damn fine view.

“Fuck, that looks good,” I said, looking down between us and focusing on the point where we joined.  I had to close my eyes again or I was going to come before she did.  “I fit in you so good, baby…I can’t believe how fucking awesome that is.  Do you feel it, Raine?  You like that?”

“God, Bastian…yes!  Please…”

I had no idea what she was begging for, but I went on a hunch and increased my pace – both with my hand and my dick.  With small, tight circles I stroked over her clit as she made little gasping sounds, every breath coming out as more of a moan.

My hand moved from her shoulder to the small of her back as Raine’s body twisted into a beautiful arch, her head thrown back – nearly looking up at the ceiling of the shelter.  I supported her torso with my hand as she met my thrusts with her hips.  She was the most incredible sight I had ever seen.

Her muscles clenched around me…oh, fuck…I loved that feeling!  She moaned my name – a long, drawn out sound – and she pushed back against me, pushing me deeper into her with every thrust.  I fucking loved the sound of my name – my actual name when she screamed it out.  I couldn’t hold back anymore, even if I wanted to.

“Oh, fuck…yeah, oh baby…fuck…” I growled against the skin of her neck.  God, she felt so good.  I shoved into her harder, thrusting over and over until I held myself against her and came apart with a growl.  It didn’t matter how many times I fucked her, every single time felt like this – like heaven.  She felt so right wrapped around my cock, it made me wonder how I ever lived without her body as my sanctuary.

Her legs started to give out, and we slowly rolled to our sides.  Raine let out a soft hum as I held my hips against her so I wouldn’t slip out.  I loved staying inside of her afterwards.  Fuck, I could stay here all day long.  Fuck her, wait to get hard again, fuck her…straight on until nightfall.  I’d have to try that someday soon.  I’d suggest it today, but the food was on the other side of the fucking shelter and we hadn’t eaten yet.  Maybe if I got everything prepared tonight, we could try it starting tomorrow morning.  Yeah – that was a fucking awesome plan.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight against my chest.  This position offered a very nice bonus – when we were done, I didn’t have to worry about crushing her underneath me.  When I was on top, I always flopped on top of her after I came, but she said she liked it so I tried to stop worrying about it.  Leaning close to her, I placed one last kiss on her earlobe, sucking it into my mouth for a moment before releasing it.  Raine reached up behind her head, twisted to face me, and grabbed my head to pull my mouth to hers.

“Your hair has really gotten long,” Raine said.  Her fingers stroked through the strands, and I could definitely notice how much longer it took for her to reach the ends.

“I could try to cut it with my knife,” I said.  “Chances are it would be a really, really bad haircut though.”

“Only if you want to.”  Raine pushed a chunk of hair off my forehead and then captured all the hair on the sides of my head and pushed it behind my ears.  I growled and shook it out, narrowing my eyes at her.  Raine bit her lower lip and smiled coyly.  “I kind of like it this way.”

“I kind of like your hair spread out all over the ground while you’re lying on your back underneath me.”

“I think I could be bald and you’d still like me that way.”

“Most definitely.”  I pushed myself back away from her, forced myself not to pout externally when my dick slipped out of her, and crawled over her before standing up.  I grabbed my shorts off the shelter floor and shook them. “You might want to consider getting up.  Otherwise, I might eat all the breakfast.”

“I don’t know if my legs will ever work again,” Raine moaned from the mattress.

“Good!” I laughed and pulled my shorts up.  “I’ll know just where to find you when I want to fuck you again.”

“Incorrigible!”

“You love me this way,” I laughed and headed out the entranceway.

“I loved doing it that way.”  Raine’s eyes looked away as she smiled her shy smile, which made me snicker.

“Oh baby, I’m going to remember that.”

I sauntered out of the shelter feeling about as fucking pleased with myself as I could possibly be.  Raine loved the way I fucked her, loved the shower I made for her, and she loved me.  We had everything we needed – shelter, water, plenty of food, and each other.  This was my paradise.  I had no doubt about that.  I was finally starting to feel like maybe this was supposed to happen – maybe I was supposed to end up here, with her.  Maybe, by some warped, fucked up twist of fate, she was supposed to be mine.

I walked down to the beach, washed off, walked back up towards the shelter, and stirred up the fire a little.  I could hear Raine shuffling around inside, probably pulling whatever was for breakfast out of various baskets.  I didn’t care what we were going to eat, or even what she was doing.  She was here with me, nestled in our own little haven where I could look after her, keep her safe, and love her.

From behind me, I heard a deep, thunderous sound from off in the distance.  I knew what it was immediately.  I had heard it dozens of times before, right at the end of tournaments located out in the middle of nowhere.  Usually I heard it within a couple of minutes of dropping a lifeless body from my hands.  It got louder.  Much louder.

Raine came running out of the shelter behind me, still buck naked with her hand raised up over her brows to block the sun from her eyes.  The helicopter flew out over the beach, circled around slowly, and came closer to us for another pass.  I blinked a couple of times against the bright morning sunshine, focused a little better, and saw a frighteningly familiar hand waving frantically from the side of the craft.

It was John Paul.

We’d been found.

Rescued.

Fuck.

I guess paradise didn’t last forever after all.

Chapter 17 - Shot

“Is that…is that John Paul?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep the feeling of dread washing over me from affecting in my voice.  John Paul was waving frantically and screaming something at us, but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying over the noise.

“You should put some clothes on, baby,” I murmured, half in a daze and still staring at the large, black helicopter circling the beach as its pilot tried to figure out the best place to land.  She was in the shadows of the coconut palms, for the most part, so I didn’t think her nudity would have been readily obvious from the sky, but they’d be landing soon enough.

“Oh my God!” Raine screeched and ran back into the shelter.

I walked out onto the beach, shielding my eyes as the helicopter blades blew sand all over the fucking place.  Standing back out of the way of the blades, I was content to wait for them to stop spinning, or maybe until the occupants decided to change their minds and rise back up into the sky, never to be seen again, but apparently John Paul was not.  He leapt out of the vehicle and raced over the sand, ducking slightly to avoid the blades.  Suddenly, I was captured in a powerful bear hug and spun around in a circle.

“Holy shit, man!” John Paul screamed into my ear as he spun me around.  “I knew it!  I knew you weren’t dead!  Fuckers didn’t believe me, but I knew you wouldn’t go down – not like that!”

His arms were around my back and crushing my lungs.  I could hardly breathe, and all the spinning around in a circle was making me fucking dizzy and completely nauseated.  His cowboy hat flew off his head and flopped around in the sand, which at least gave me a better target.

“Fuck, John Paul!”  I smacked the back of his head, hard, but it’s not like he noticed.  “Breathing is kind of a hobby of mine!”

He dropped me back on the sand but kept his hands on my shoulders. I could breathe again, but the queasy feeling in my stomach stayed with me.  It’s not like I wasn’t glad to see him – I mean, I was glad he was alive and appeared to be perfectly healthy.  However, that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t want him here.  I sure as hell didn’t want him here with a fucking helicopter to ruin what had become my picture-perfect life.  If Raine hadn’t already seen him, I might have tried to convince him to just leave quietly.

“You look like a fucking hippie!” he laughed, grabbing the end of my hair in his fist.  I punched him on the shoulder and shoved him away from me.  He retrieved his hat and fitted it expertly back on his head.

“Fuck you,” I growled.  “Do you see a fucking barber shop around here?”

“I think if I had one of those little hair ties, we could make you a ponytail!”  John Paul laughed again and then looked over my shoulder.  I followed his eyes and watched Raine scurry up towards us, wearing her own shorts and my T-shirt.  My fists tightened, and I realized it was because she had chosen to put on her own shorts and not my boxers, and it pissed me off.  Ever since I had told her I thought she looked hot in my boxers, she hadn’t worn her own shorts.  Why the fuck did she suddenly change into her own clothes?

I knew it would change everything.  I fucking knew it.  We hadn’t even left the fucking island, and it was already different.

“Hey there, Raine girl!”

Raine girl?  I fought the urge to growl as he wrapped her up in his arms, and she hugged him back.  He spun her around once and let go of her, which was best for his own health.  What I really wanted to do was a combination of tearing his arms off and maybe beating the shit out of him for looking at her.  I wondered if he realized she was naked before and just how much he might have seen.  My eyes shifted back to John Paul’s, and I glared at him.  He looked at me cautiously, raising his eyebrows.

“John Paul!  How did you ever find us?” Raine squealed.

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” he admitted.  He looked over at me.  “You guys didn’t leave much of a trail.”

“I ran out of fucking breadcrumbs,” I snapped at him.

“Bastian!” Raine chastised under her breath.

“Well, what kind of trail did he expect me to fucking leave?” I yelled.

“You don’t have to be like that.” Raine stared me in the eye.  “He just saved us!”

I took a deep breath and shook my head.

“Don’t worry, Raine girl,” John Paul said.  “I’m used to him being a grump.”

I fought back the urge to slug him – again.

“Who the fuck is that?” I asked, trying to get the focus off my moods.  A tall, lanky guy jumped down from the helicopter and walked over to us.

“That’s Nick Sinclair,” John Paul said.  “He’s the only pilot who was still willing to look for you two.”

The guy was blond and displayed a big smile as he hurried in our direction.  He ran up and pulled Raine into his arms and gave her a big hug.  Raine’s obvious surprise told me she didn’t know him, and my first instinct was to move up close enough to pull her away from him – away from his touch – but I didn’t do it.  I wanted to, but somewhere between her change of clothes and his hands on her, everything changed.  I didn’t fucking know what I was supposed to do.  It was happening.  It might not have been exactly like my dream, but it was fucking close enough.  The only question was whether or not I stayed here alone.

“That’s from Lindsay,” Nick said as he released Raine and took a half step away, his hands still on her hips.  My hands clenched into fists, and it took every effort not to reach over and clamp one of them around his neck.

“Lindsay?” Raine cried out.  “Where is she?”

“Back on the mainland,” he said.  “We can be there in about six hours.”

“Six hours?” she screeched, then turned to me and threw her arms around my neck.  “Oh my God.  I can’t believe it’s over.  It’s really over.”

I didn’t respond as Raine kept repeating the same phrase.  I placed my hands on her sides and pushed her away from me.

At the time, I didn’t realize what was happening, but I was shutting down.  The walls were going up, and I was shoving everything and everyone away from me.  Part of me wanted to tell them all to just fucking go – I’d stay here – but there still wasn’t any fucking booze on this island, and I wanted a damn drink.

John Paul formally introduced me to the pilot, obviously not noticing that I wanted to kill the motherfucker.

“Good to actually meet you,” Nick reached out to shake my hand.  I took it briefly and then dropped it again.  “John Paul’s told me a lot about you.”

I looked over to John Paul with a scowl.

“Only the good shit,” he said with a laugh.

“I just radioed back,” Nick said.  “They’re just a step away from calling me a liar, but I guess seeing these two will make believers out of them.”

“Can we just get the fuck out of here?” I said to John Paul, ignoring the other guy completely.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he replied.  “Anything you need to get?”

“We should check the shelter,” Raine said.

“Why?” I asked, turning towards her.  “There’s nothing here worth taking back with you.  What do you want, a fucking souvenir?”

Raine stared at me for a moment, her brow furrowed.  She looked like she was about to say something, but then I realized my belt was back at the shelter and I wasn’t leaving without that.

“I have to get my belt,” I grumbled and turned away from her, stalking quickly up the sand towards the shelter.  My boxers were lying on the dried grass mattress, so I dropped my shorts, pulled the fuckers on, and then pulled my shorts back up, too.  I grabbed the belt off the hook on the wall and slipped it through my belt loops.  I didn’t even look at anything else inside but turned on my heel and nearly ran straight into Raine when I started out again.

“Holy shit!” I yelled as I grabbed Raine by the elbows to keep from knocking her over.

“Bastian, what’s…?”

“I’m done here,” I interrupted.  “If you want something, fucking get it so we can get the fuck out of here.”

I walked out, ignoring whatever she was trying to say to me.  I didn’t acknowledge John Paul or the other guy – Nick…whatever – as I walked by and dropped myself into one of the seats at the back of the helicopter.

“Ignore him,” I heard John Paul say.  “He’s always been a moody bastard.”

Focusing all my attention on keeping my hands from starting to shake, I strapped myself in, leaned my head to one side, and stared out the window.  I heard Raine approach with John Paul, and he helped her get the harness on once she was seated.  I was pretty sure he left his hands on her a lot more than he really needed to, but I guessed it didn’t matter anymore, anyway.  She wasn’t mine, not anymore.  I knew she wasn’t.  I knew it would happen like this.

Nick climbed in through the front and lowered himself into the pilot’s seat.  In my peripheral vision, I could see John Paul looking at me, but I acted like I didn’t notice.

“It’s a six-hour flight?” Raine inquired.

“No, we’re only about a half hour from where we’ll land this baby,” Nick said, tapping the controls as he prepared to take off.  He started the engine, and the blades began to rotate.  I watched them swoop by until I could no longer count the rotations.  “I don’t have enough fuel to get all the way back to Venezuela.  We can get a puddle jumper to take us there once we land.”

“Bastian?” Raine’s voice was barely audible over the engine noise.

“What?” I snapped back, not looking at her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s fucking wrong,” I snarled.  “Everything is fucking peachy.”

“You see why we always kept him away from the passengers?” John Paul said with a laugh.  “I bet he’s given you quite an earful over the past few weeks.  Sharks and that kind of shit suck, but I can’t imagine anything worse than having to listen to him bitch for weeks on end!”

“Fuck you.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without him,” I heard Raine say quietly.  I could feel her looking at me, but I didn’t turn towards her.

“He is a useful bastard, isn’t he?” John Paul said.

“Fuck you,” I repeated.

He just laughed and turned back around, looking out the front of the helicopter as we slowly lifted off the sand.  As we lifted off the ground, I felt as if my chest were being torn into two pieces.  Everything I ever wanted had been there, and now we were slowly moving away from it.  I’d never have that again.

“Rescue One to base,” Nick said into the radio transmitter.  A scratching voice acknowledged him.  “Castaways are on board!  ETA, ten forty-five.”

I watched paradise grow smaller and smaller as we headed west over the island.  Everything was happening so fast.  Thirty minutes ago, Raine was under me, screaming my name, and I was on top of the fucking world.  All of a sudden, I felt like the world had been whisked out from under me, and except when she glanced warily over at me, Raine looked almost as happy as I had ever seen her.

“So where are we anyway?” I asked over the noise of the engine.

“About fifty miles east of Bonaire,” Nick said.

“That’s it?” I asked, a little surprised we hadn’t seen more boat traffic if we were that close.

“Where is that?” Raine asked quietly.

“Netherlands Antilles,” I told her.  “Just north of Venezuela.  I can’t believe no one else found us before now when we’re this close to that kind of population.”

“Yeah, but no one comes out in this direction by boat because of the reefs,” Nick said.  He pointed out towards the water as we flew over the darkened shape below.  The reef was huge and pretty much encompassed our small island.  No wonder we hadn’t seen any other boats.  “They’re up at the top of the water and can rip ships wide open.  Some smaller boats can get through, and sometimes tourists go diving in the area, but it’s the off-season.”

“How did you know where to look for us?” I asked.

“We’ve been most everywhere,” John Paul said.  “Given the currents, you just about had to have drifted south.  We’ve been all over, from Aruba to Trinidad and Tobago.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t give up,” Raine chirped.  “How long were we missing?”

“Sixty-eight days,” John Paul told her.  “We stopped getting any help after thirty.  They said you must have drowned or died of dehydration by then, but I told them you wouldn’t die that way.”

I snorted.

“You’re both on a list to be declared legally dead next month,” Nick told us.

“I didn’t really know if she would be with you,” John Paul smiled at Raine a little sheepishly.  “We hoped so since we didn’t find a body, but we didn’t know.”

“Bastian saved my life.”  Raine beamed at me.

“That’s a switch,” I heard John Paul say under his breath.  When I glared up at him, he winked at me.  I had no idea what this Nick knew, but I didn’t need John Paul running his mouth like that.  It would have taken too much effort to un-strap myself from the harness just to move up front and smack him, so I ignored his stupid-ass comment instead.

“He saved me more than once,” Raine continued.  “He caught fish, and collected rain water, and told me how much we could drink every day.  We ate raw pelican, which was awful, but we only ate it because it had rained and we had water again.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked John Paul before Raine could recount all the shit that didn’t matter now.  He nodded his head to Nick.

“I’ll fly us back to Bonaire,” Nick said.  “From there, we get a small plane to take us to Maiquetía – the airport in Caracas.  We’ve been staying in a house I have rented while we’ve been looking for you – it’s close to the airport.  We can stay there tonight and then get the next flight booked back to the States.  There are some places to get you guys some supplies, too – clothes, shoes, whatever you need.  You can get cleaned up and go back home tomorrow.”

Home.  Yeah, where the fuck was that now?

No one spoke much for the rest of the ride.  We would have had to yell at each other over the noise anyway, so there wasn’t any point in talking.  Raine kept looking over at me and trying to get my attention, but I ignored her.  Part of me felt angry, and I could understand that part, but there was another part – one that went much deeper – and I didn’t know what it was trying to tell me.  My gut was tight, and I was having a hard time taking deep breaths.  I couldn’t look at either Nick or John Paul without wanting to punch the shit out of them, but when I stole a glance at Raine…well, that shit made my stomach cramp up more.  I was losing everything.  I was losing her.

Deep, deep inside of me, I wanted to fucking kill John Paul and Nick – and not in the figurative sense.  I wished John Paul hadn’t made it when The Oblation sank.  I wished Nick had given up like the rest of the would-be rescuers.  I wished they had run into a freak crosswind and crashed the fucking helicopter rather than having found us.  I knew how evil and callous that was even as a thought, but I couldn’t help it.  John Paul was probably the only person in the world I could consider a friend, and I would happily wish him dead if it would take me back to an hour ago and just fucking leave me there for eternity.  The farther away we were from my paradise, the more I wanted to curl up with a bottle and fucking forget everything.

Raine watched out the window as the island disappeared behind us, and the larger islands of the Netherlands Antilles appeared in front of us.  It wasn’t too long of a flight, and soon we were landing at Flamingo Airport.

It was all going to be different now.  I knew it would be.

* * * * *

I don’t know how I ended up in the fucking window seat.  I fucking hated window seats.

The prop plane had room to seat nine, not including the pilot.  There were only the four of us on it, though.  The pilot was a dark skinned-guy with tightly twisted braids hanging all around him.  It was so long, it made me wonder if it was all real or if he had fake shit weaved into his own hair.  He spoke English with a Jamaican accent, and I wanted to strangle him with a Bob Marley hat for being so stereotypical.  I didn’t speak to anyone during the flight, and as soon as we landed, I unclipped my seatbelt, climbed over Raine, threw open the door, and dropped onto the asphalt.  I got about ten feet before six people were in front of me, flashing fucking cameras in my face and yelling out questions.

About a half second before I would have thrown a punch, John Paul was in between me and the journalist in front of me, pushing gently against the guy’s chest and telling him to lay off for a while.  At least ten other guys dressed in uniforms approached, and a couple of them did a little crowd control.  The others escorted the four of us out of the landing area and inside to a lounge of some sort.  I had to take a piss, and I couldn’t decide if I was more annoyed that I couldn’t just whip my dick out and do it anywhere or gladder to be able to actually flush and wash my hands when I was done.  Raine was chattering away about how fucking awesome toilet paper was – well, she didn’t actually say fucking, but still – and I couldn’t take how fucking thrilled she was to be away from our island.

I locked the bathroom door, leaned my back against it, and lit one of the Lobelia cigarettes I still had in my belt pouch.  I guess I could have gone and bought some real fucking smokes, but I didn’t have any actual cash on me and I wasn’t about to ask anyone for some at this point.  I still didn’t even have a fucking shirt, for that matter.  Shit – I’d have to get some money so I could find a fucking drink somewhere.  My head was literally spinning – everything was happening way too fucking fast.  I was back where I could get smokes and alcohol and clothes and a fucking hooker, if I wanted one.  I didn’t want one.  I didn’t want any of that shit.

I wanted to go back home.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a minute and then took a final draw on the cigarette, which both smelled and tasted of home.  Part of it was comforting, but most of it just threw it all back in my face.  Everything I wanted and needed was there…or at least it had been.  Now there was nothing there for me because she was here.  But everything else here – everything in the real world – I fucking hated it all.  I hated the cities, the shops, the parks, the docks, the airports – fucking hated it.  And the people…fuck, I hated them the most.  I tossed the end of the smoke into the toilet and flushed it down.

As I opened the door, I heard Raine scream.

Visions of rapists, murderers, slavers, and drug lords ran through my head as I raced down the hall only to see her with a huge fucking grin and in some chick’s embrace.  The girl was dark-skinned, chunky, had wild, dark hair that was just all over the place and a voracious grin.  She was squealing at the top of her fucking lungs, holding on to Raine’s shoulders as they both jumped around in a circle.

“What the fuck are you screaming about?” I growled before I even realized what I was saying.

The chunky woman turned to look at me the same time as Raine did, and her eyes bore into my skull, narrowed, then slowly moved over to look at Raine.

“This is Bastian,” Raine said softly.  “Bastian, this is Lindsay – we were just happy to see each other.”

“You sounded like you were…fuck it.  Never mind.”  Now that I had a clear enough head to think about it, it hadn’t been a scream of fear or pain at all, but that didn’t stop it from scaring the shit out of me.

Raine’s eyes went to Lindsay’s, and she looked a little contrite.  Lindsay slowly looked from Raine, to me, and then back to Raine again.

“He saved me,” Raine told her, “more than once.”

Lindsay’s hands dropped, effectively releasing Raine.  She turned and glided up to me, tilting her head upwards and sideways before standing on her tiptoes to fling her arms around my neck.

“Thank you,” she said.  The sincerity was clear in her voice.  “Thank you for saving my best friend.  I don’t know what I would have done if I never saw her again.”

I didn’t respond, just looked over at Raine as Lindsay hugged me tightly for a moment, then she turned back to Raine and hugged her again, just for good measure.  She took a step back, placed her hands on Raine’s shoulders, and looked her up and down.

“What are you wearing?” Lindsay inquired.

“Well…um…this is Bastian’s shirt…” Raine started to say.

“I think we need to get to the market.” Lindsay nodded.  “Though you do look fabulous in basic black, that’s not exactly a flattering cut for you.”

Raine giggled.  I tried to mentally come to terms with her shedding the last of my clothing, and failed miserably.

In what seemed to be under five minutes, we had sneaked around the reporters and out of the airport, found a taxi, and been driven to the nearest shopping area.  Lindsay had given Raine one of her own shirts, which was too big and hung down low enough to practically display her nipples for the fucking world.  My cock was pleased as punch, but I wanted to throw a punch at anyone who looked at her, which included John Paul glancing sideways at her from the front seat.  I had put my own shirt back on, and we had both been given a pair of flip-flop shoes.

I fucking hated flip-flops.

Just sitting in the back of the cramped taxi, it was immediately obvious that Nick and Lindsay had something going on.  Raine’s face scrunched up a little as Lindsay wholeheartedly agreed to sit on Nick’s lap so we could all fit in one vehicle.  She didn’t seem thrilled with her friend’s obvious enjoyment in the pilot’s company, and I would have been lying to say I wasn’t intrigued as to why.  I also wanted to hold her on my lap and tell her whatever she was worried about would be all right, but I didn’t quite dare.  I hadn’t even touched her since we left the island.

The shopping area was a fucking nightmare.

It might have been a nightmare regardless of my current disposition, because trying to follow Lindsay and Raine as they sprinted through clothing rack after clothing rack was fucking exhausting.  I would have rather battled a fucking shark to the death than try to keep up with those two.  Take all of that and add my own issues, and you have what could only be described as a living hell.

For starters, guys stared at them all the fucking time.

I really, really wanted to go ballistic and throw her over my shoulder, then probably run off and hide her in the back of a cave somewhere, but I knew there wasn’t any point.  I was going to have to get used to the idea that she wasn’t going to be mine anymore.  Everything was different.  She had choices now.  At least, that’s what I kept telling myself until John Paul went and put his hands on her.

Raine had just come out of the women’s dressing room wearing a fairly short, flowing skirt with a blue and green tropical pattern on it and a tight, low cut blue shirt which showed off the tops of her tits and just about made my cock leap right off my body and start doing a little dance in the aisle.  I was stunned for a moment, but when my eyes met hers, and she was looking at me with that sweet little shy-seductive, lip-biting, sexy-as-fuck gaze, I was readying to throw myself down on my knees and tell her I’d do fucking anything if she’d just stay with me…even if it was only for a little while.  It didn’t matter how fucking unworthy I was of her, I had to do something – anything – to get her back.

Before I had the chance to say anything, John Paul came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her midsection, and pulled her back against his chest.

“Ooo…Raine girl!” he called out.  His hands rubbed against her hips.  “You are one sexy little castaway!”

“Get your fucking hands off of her!” I screamed and launched myself at him.  I grabbed both of his arms, still wrapped around Raine’s middle, with one of my hands, wrenched them up and over her head, then grabbed her with my other hand and spun her around until she was at my back.  A second later, I shoved John Paul backwards and into one of the racks of clearance items.

“What the fuck is your problem?” John Paul growled back at me.  He righted himself and took a swing at me.  I ducked, evaded his shot, and kidney punched him.  In the process I lost track of his other fist, which landed right under my jaw.  I lost my balance and had to take a couple of steps backwards to regain it.  At that point, Raine was shrieking at the top of her voice for us to stop and then started calling my name over and over again.  I felt hands on my arms – Nick trying to hold me back.  As if.  He wasn’t holding me tightly, and I didn’t find the guy particularly threatening, which was a good thing for him.  I chose to ignore the fact that he was touching me at all and yelled back at John Paul instead.

“Don’t you fucking touch her like that again!” I snarled.  Nick’s hands on my upper arms gripped a little tighter, and I let him hold me back.  The guy wasn’t scrawny by any means, but he wasn’t even close to the physical frames both John Paul and I possessed.  “I’ll fucking gut you if you touch her like that again!”

“You haven’t the slightest fucking idea what you even want, do you?”  John Paul smirked at me.  “You stupid, masochistic little troll.”

“You!”  Lindsay’s voice defied her size, and I suddenly found my arms full of clothing just as Nick let go of me – shirts, shorts, even a fucking pair of green lounge pants – and Lindsay’s hands were against my chest, shoving me backwards towards the men’s dressing rooms.  “Go try these on!”

“What the fuck?”

“Best to do what she says,” Nick’s voice called out from behind me.  “Honestly, it’s just a hell of a lot easier that way.”

I glared over the mountain of clothes in my arms at John Paul, who shrugged and took a step backwards, standing down.  He winked at me, his mouth curved up in a sly little smile.  The little fucker had done it all on purpose – just to get a rise out of me.  Well, it fucking worked.  Too taken off guard by Lindsay to do anything but listen to her, I stomped into the dressing room with whatever fucking clothes that half-sized maniac had shoved into my hands.  I ignored the bitch who tried to get me to take a little number to show just how many fucking items I was taking into the fucking dressing room, stalked all the way to the last stall, even though it didn’t look like any of them were in use, and slammed the fucking door behind me.  Before I had a chance to do anything but drop the pile of clothes on the little bench inside, the door burst open and Raine stood behind me.

“Do you want to tell me what in the hell is the matter with you?”

“I’m fucking fine,” I snarled.  “Now get the fuck out of the men’s dressing room.  What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong!”  Raine yelled.  She placed her tiny hands on her hips and scowled at me.

“Nothing is fucking wrong!” I screamed back at her.  She took a step back and stood flush against the dressing room door.  “What could possibly be fucking wrong?  We’ve been rescued, for fuck’s sakes!  Obviously everything is fucking perfect!”

“That’s what I’m asking you!” Raine yelled back at me.  “Ever since John Paul and Nick landed, you’ve been snapping at everyone, and I have no idea why!”

“I don’t even know where you live!” I yelled at her.  I wasn’t sure exactly what point that was supposed to make, but I made it anyway.  “What the fuck is supposed to happen now?  You go home, that’s what happens.  You go home and I…I…fuck, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Raine’s eyes widened, and she tried to take a step back, but she was already up against the door of the dressing room.  Her mouth opened and then closed again.  Her eyes danced around my face, probably trying to figure out what the hell she thought she saw in me in the first place.  I waited for her to tell me I could get lost because she didn’t have any more use for me and no one ever wanted me to hang around too long.  The walls around me solidified.

“You get to go home, too,” Raine said under her breath.

“I just left home.”  I didn’t mean to say it.  I never meant to tell her that.  I tore my eyes away from her, focusing on the pile of fabric that had slipped off the bench and fallen to the floor.

“You didn’t want to leave,” she said suddenly.  When I glanced back to her face, her eyes brightened with understanding.  “You wanted to stay there.”

I stared at her for a moment and then looked down to my hands, which seemed to be entertaining themselves by twiddling my fingers around.  It didn’t matter.  Staying there would have been pointless, if for no other reason than the lack of booze, smokes, and whores.

“Bastian…why?”

“You were mine there,” I said quietly.  “Making that work – I could do that.  Not now.  Now you are…everyone’s.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m everyone’s’?”

“John Paul, Nick, Lindsay – you belong to all of them.”

“Bastian, that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Well, you fucking asked.”

Raine sighed and closed her eyes.  I knew I didn’t make any sense – I couldn’t justify that shit to myself, let alone anyone else.  I couldn’t deny her a real life just because I was too fucked up to function around people.

“Bastian…are you jealous?”

“Jealous?” I snorted.  I wasn’t fucking jealous…was I?

“You are, aren’t you?”

“I’m not, I’m just…I just…I…I don’t want to share you!”

“Oh, Bastian!”  Raine let out another long, exasperated sigh.  “Going home is going to be really hard for you, isn’t it?”

“You’re my home,” I said quietly.  A big fucking knot crawled up my throat and lodged itself there.  I tried to take a deep breath, but it hurt.

“Then you know where your home is,” Raine said.  Her hand reached up and touched my cheek, and my hardened walls crumbled instantly with her touch.  She took another step closer.  “I know you’ve lost your home.  I know you’ve lost every home you’ve ever had, Bastian, but you aren’t going to lose me just because we’re in a different place.  I can still be your home.”

With her fingers tracing circular patterns over my cheek, I gazed at her and tried to understand.  She was telling me it wasn’t over.  I could still be with her.  She wasn’t telling me to go away – she was letting me stay.

“But…where would we…um…live?  I mean…would you want me to?  Live with you, I mean?”

“Yes,” Raine said definitively.  “You can stay in my house, at least for now.  We have time, Bastian.  We have time to figure out exactly what comes next.  I don’t have all the answers right now either, but I know whatever happens, I want you there with me.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do!”  Raine shook her head and laughed once, though there was no humor in the sound.  She reached up, taking my face in her hands.  “You adorable, wonderful, overreacting man.  I always want you with me.  If you don’t want to come to Ohio…well, I’ll go where you want to go, then.”

“You would?”

“Anywhere.”  Raine leaned forward and raised herself up while she pulled me down to her.  Her lips brushed mine, and all the words she had just spoken marched around in my head, creating little military formations and eventually firing a twenty-one-gun clue into my brain.

My hands found her hips, pulled her to me, and held her tight.  I opened my mouth, my tongue seeking hers.  She opened to me, kissing me harder and running her hands up into my hair.  In a complete storm of an indescribable group of feelings, I grabbed her hips, pulled her up and slammed her against the wall of the dressing room.  I didn’t stop kissing her – I just kept going while my hands found their way under the sheer skirt she had tried on.  My lips moved across her face, down her throat, then back up again.

“I like skirts,” I growled into her ear as my hand gripped her bare thigh.  Trailing up a little farther, I met with silken panties.  I gripped one side of them tightly in my fist before ripping them off.

“Bastian!  I haven’t even bought those yet!”

“I’ll replace them,” I promised.  My mouth found her neck again while my hand reached between her legs, finding her sex hot and wet.  Had there ever been a time she wasn’t ready for me?  “And I’ll tear those fuckers off, too.”

Raine’s giggle turned into a moan as I opened the front of my shorts quickly and slammed into her without warning.  Holy fucking shit, it felt like it had been days instead of hours since I had been buried inside of her.  It was home.  It was heaven.  And it was the only place I had ever truly belonged.

“I just couldn’t stand it, Raine…” I mumbled into her ear.

“What, Bastian?”

“You…not being mine.  I can’t stand the thought.  It fucking kills me to think that you’re not mine anymore.”

“I’m still yours,” Raine said, her fingers gripping the back of my head, holding my mouth to hers.  “Always yours…that hasn’t changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” I whispered into her mouth, my eyes squeezing shut against the sudden pain throughout my body.  I slammed her up against the wall, thrusting into her again and again, terrified that this might be the last time I ever touched her like this.

“Only the outside has changed,” Raine said.  She cupped my face in her hands and held me fast – forcing me to look into her eyes even as I continued to fuck her against the wall.  I don’t know how she managed to speak so coherently with me fucking her like that, but she did.  “Do I feel different inside?”

“You feel…fucking…incredible,” I growled, shoving my hips harder against her.

“Inside everything is still the same,” she told me.  “Everything I feel for you is on the inside, Bastian.  Only what’s outside has changed.  Inside, I still love you.  I’m still yours.”

I tucked my head against her shoulder, hiding my face in her hair.  One of my hands traced up her side and brushed the curve of her breast while the other gripped her ass firmly and lifted it to meet my body every time I pushed forward.

“I can’t lose you,” I cried into her hair.  “I just can’t, Raine…it would fucking kill me if I lost you.”

“I’m right here, Bastian…oh God!”

“The whole store can fucking hear you,” I growled into her ear.  “I bet they know my cock’s in you just from the way you say my name…oh, fuck…Raine!”

“Harder, Bastian…please!”

“Fuck, Raine!”  I slammed into her again, not even able to comprehend how she could put up with my caveman approach of fucking her in the men’s dressing room at a department store, let alone ask for it harder.  I wasn’t about to deny her what she asked for, but it still made me wonder what the fuck I had ever done to be worthy of her.

“Ohmygod…ohmygod…” Raine began chanting in a tiny, breathless whisper.  Her heels dug into my ass, and her fingernails nearly clawed through my skin as I kept pounding into her until I felt her stiffen and clench around me.  Not wanting to waste another moment, I let go, holding my hips tight against hers and growling low in my chest, forcing myself not to scream.

I held myself tight against her, which held her tight against the wall.

“Bastian…that was…”  Raine took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly.  “That was intense, to say the least, but I don’t understand why…”

“I’m fucking terrified, okay?” I interrupted.  “I could…wrap my head around it – around you wanting me…around all of this – when we were there, but not now, not here.  Not out here, where you have access to millions of other guys who aren’t as fucked up and worthless as I am…”

“YOU…ARE…NOT…WORTHLESS!”  Though she didn’t actually yell the words, her tone was loud and fucking clear.  The fingers she had buried in my hair tightened and pulled, twisting my head so I was looking right at her.  “You are the most wonderful, beautiful man I have ever known.  I love you, and that hasn’t changed just because there’s concrete under our feet instead of sand!”

“If you left me…”  I couldn’t even finish the thought, let alone the sentence.  My whole body tensed up again.

“I know you’re scared.”  Raine’s fingers traced over my jaw, and her voice softened.  “I understand that, Bastian.  I don’t know what else I can do but tell you to have faith in me – in us.  I want us to stay together.”

“I want to believe you, Raine – I really do, but…I just…”

“I know,” she said, her voice softening.  “I know how hard it is for you to accept it, but I still love you and that’s not going to change.”

“I love you, too,” I mumbled back, feeling completely chastised and a little whipped.  I didn’t mind feeling whipped, which also scared the fuck out of me.

“We’ll make this work,” Raine said, her lips trailing across my jaw.  “We’re still together, Bastian.  Even when we are in a crowd, we’re still together.”

I stepped back, my cock getting cold as it slipped out of her warmth.  I lowered her gently to her feet and started to yank my pants up from around my ankles.

“Take those off,” Raine said with a sigh.

“Why?”

“I need your boxers back now.”

“Oh…um…yeah, I guess you do.”  I snickered a little, dropped my pants, and watched her shimmy my boxers over her legs.  She checked herself in the dressing room mirror to make sure they weren’t showing.  I pulled my shorts back on and then realized Raine’s torn panties were still in my fist, so I shoved them into my pocket.  Raine leaned over and picked the lounge pants, a pair of shorts, and two shirts up off the floor.  She held them up for a moment and then shoved them into my hands.

“These will all fit you,” she said with a nod.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Bastian.”  Raine looked up and smiled slyly, “there is nothing I know more about than your body.”

I guess I couldn’t argue too much about that.

“If you ever want a refresher course, you make sure to let me know, okay?”

“I just might do that.”  Raine smiled, took my hand in hers, and opened the door.

There was a decent-sized crowd when we stepped out of the dressing room, some glaring, others smirking.  Lindsay looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I met her stare.  I pulled the panties I had torn off out of my pocket and tossed them at Raine’s friend.

“She’s gonna need a replacement for these,” I said with a smile and then sauntered off towards the checkout area.

* * * * *

“Hey, Raine,” Nick gave her a big, warm smile which made me want to punch him.  He held up a large bath towel.  “Since we didn’t get you guys to a hotel or anything, I figured you might at least want to spend a little time in the shower.  It’s a tiny thing, but the water’s heated.”

Nick had rented the four-room house near the docks about a month prior, and the three of them had been using it as a base of operations while searching for us.  Lindsay had been here since she discovered John Paul hadn’t given up hope, and she and Nick had obviously hit it off pretty well.  We had been there all of about fifteen minutes, and he was asking Raine to get naked.  All right, it was obvious that he was with Lindsay, who was also standing right there, and he was only trying to be nice, but it still fucking pissed me off.

“Oh my God, that would be awesome!” she responded, clasping her hands together.  I was torn between being happy for her because she was happy and pissed off that he, instead of I, had said something that made her so happy.  Even after the dressing room fuck, I was on edge.  I was seriously fucked up.  Once Raine disappeared into the washroom, I went outside to get some air.  John Paul apparently noticed.

“Hey, you want one?” he asked quietly.  I leaned heavily against the porch railing and moved my eyes from the harbor lights to the pack of Marlboros he had in his hand.

“Fuck, yes,” I said as I took one from the pack and lit up.  I drew on it heavily and turned around, leaning my back against the railing.

“You doing all right?” he asked.

“I guess.”

“You’re kind of quiet,” he noted.  “Not sure what I expected, but this isn’t it.  Or is this just you sober?”

I chuckled.

“Nah, I’m just not sure what to think right now.”

“Been an interesting couple of months?”

“You could say that.”  I took another puff, then another.  “Fuck, I’m getting an actual nic buzz off this thing.”

John Paul laughed.

I finished the smoke and tossed the butt into the street.

“What happened to The Oblation?” I asked, not completely sure I wanted to know.

“Underwater earthquake,” John Paul said without missing a beat. “We were basically right on top of it.  It wasn’t a big one, but it was enough to cause the wave that knocked us over when it first hit.  There was a second one about five minutes later, which flipped us back but took the mainsail with it.  Combine that with the rainstorm, and we didn’t have much of a chance, especially not at night.  I couldn’t see a fucking thing.”

“Did everyone else get to the lifeboats?”

“Most of them,” John Paul said quietly.  He looked away for a minute before turning back to me abruptly.  “The bodies of two of the passengers were found the day after they picked us up, near the wreckage.  They looked for you for a week, figuring you’d drowned, too.  It wasn’t until divers finally found the wreckage that we realized the inflatable wasn’t there, and everyone started looking for that.”

John Paul stopped and turned to me, his eyes intense.

“I didn’t know, man.  I didn’t know you were on that piece-of-shit emergency raft.  We almost didn’t even put that thing on the ship!  If I had known, Bastian…fuck…I would have tried to find you that night.  I thought you were in one of the other lifeboats.  It was a day and a half before the coastguard picked us up, and you weren’t there.  Holy shit, I just about had a fucking heart attack.”

He looked like he was going to cry or something.

“John Paul, it’s all right,” I told him.  “You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have fucking looked.  The radio on my lifeboat wasn’t working, the fucking piece of shit.  I just assumed you were on one of the others.  I didn’t know…fuck, Bastian…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t fucking apologize,” I said, sounding more harsh than I really meant.  “I don’t blame you for any of this shit.  Besides, it’s not like it was all bad.”

”Yeah, I got that idea.”  John Paul shuffled his feet and stared at the ground for a minute, and then looked back up.  “So…you and Raine are a thing, huh?”

I stared at him for a minute, trying to figure out what he thought of the idea, but his expression wasn’t giving anything away.

“We’ve been through a lot.”

“No shit.”  John Paul eyed me for a moment.  “You told her everything, didn’t you?”

“Why the fuck would I…” I stopped, realizing he already knew.  I don’t know how he knew, but he did.

“Did you figure it would help?”

“What would help?”

“Saving the daughter of one of the victims.  Did you think it would make the nightmares go away?”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I actually read the names of the passengers, asshole,” John Paul smirked.  “I knew before she even got on board.  Did it help the dreams?”

“I didn’t think…I mean…I never…when she told me…ah fuck!”  I gave up stammering like a fool and shoved the end of the smoke back in my mouth, inhaling hard.

“Coherent much?” John Paul snickered.

“I don’t know what I thought,” I finally said.  “Regardless, they didn’t go away.  They’re…not as bad…when I’m with her, but there are new ones, too.”

“New ones?”

“Yeah, don’t fucking ask.”

“Hrm.”  He looked over his shoulder and then lowered his voice.  “Did you kill four guys?”

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug.  “How did you know?”

“That’s what told me where to look,” John Paul informed me.  “Reports of them going missing went through the underground right after the official search was called off.  Given the location of where their boat was found drifting, I kind of had a hunch.  Someday you’ll have to tell me the whole story.  What did you do with the bodies?”

“Burned them,” I said nonchalantly.  “Buried the bones on the north side of the beach.  Who were they with?”

“No one I had heard of,” John Paul said.  “Drug dealers, a few other illicit activities.”

“I figured.”

“Not one of the big players, but still…we should make sure they aren’t found.  A connection could be made.”

“Probably.”  I didn’t really give a shit at this point though I knew I probably should.

“Did they try to take her?”  John Paul was always an intuitive guy.

“Yeah, but I think in the end they regretted it.”

“I bet,” he said with a humorless laugh.  “Want another?”

I took another cigarette out of the pack.  John Paul lit up, too.

“What about Alejandro?” I inquired.

“He’s good,” John Paul said with a nod.  “He says he’s never getting on the water again, but he’s good.  He got himself a job in a restaurant.  He says he makes pretty good money as a chef even though it’s just a small place.  Good food – Italian.  You would like it.”

“Where is it?”

“Key West,” John Paul told me.  “One of the touristy places.”

I nodded, stared at nothing across the street, and smoked for a minute.

“What now?” he asked.

“Whatever she wants, I guess.”  I turned and faced him.  “After everything that’s happened, I think she’d probably agree with Alejandro.  I kind of doubt she’ll be interested in sea-life.”

“Can’t blame her,” John Paul said.  “It was the first time she had ever been in anything other than a fishing boat on a lake with her dad.”

I felt like a shit for not even knowing that.

“Bastian?”  Raine’s voice came from behind us.

“Yeah?”  I turned to face Raine.  Her hair was pulled into a tight, wet, Medusa-looking coil all over the top of her head, and her skin glowed with the heat from her first real shower.  She was dressed in some short satin pajamas, which made me instantly hard.  It’s not that they were revealing or anything – they weren’t.  If they had been, I would have had to gouge John Paul and Nick’s eyes out.  That didn’t stop her from looking fucking gorgeous in them.  I watched her glance quickly down to the hand holding my cigarette and back again.  She didn’t even bother to roll her eyes.

“Nick helped me make up a bed.  I’m pretty tired, so I was going to go ahead and lie down.”

“I’ll be there in a sec,” I promised.  I took another drag of the smoke, and she finally rolled her eyes – which actually made me feel a little better because it seemed so normal – nodded, and went back inside.

“Who would have thought it,” John Paul snickered.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Someone finally tamed Sebastian Stark.”

I growled in my chest, tossed the second butt out into the street next to the first, and went back inside.  John Paul followed.

“Listen to this,” Nick said as John Paul and I walked into the small living area where Raine was fluffing up pillows on a pull-out sofa bed.  Nick placed a small radio on the coffee table and turned up the volume.  “They’re about to repeat it.”

“…could mean a lot of trouble for those on Capitol Hill.  In international news, the two missing people from this past April’s loss of the pleasure sailing vessel, The Oblation, have finally been found.  Ship’s Captain Sebastian Stark and passenger Raine Gayle are reported to be alive and in good health.  We have a news crew waiting in Miami now along with friends and family of the castaways.  They are expected to arrive in Miami late tomorrow evening.”

“Fuck…how’d they get my name?” I gasped.

“Right after the ship went down and you guys were reported missing,” John Paul told us.  “The media was all over it, and someone went digging for information on Daniel Greene.  When they didn’t find any, they dug deeper.  Your name’s been all over the news, even bringing up more shit about the trial.  They even talked about how a relative of...well, you know.”

“Fuck.”

“Cat’s out of the bag for now,” John Paul said.  “Nick and Lindsay both know about the murders and the trial.”

The way he said it – singling out those two details – was enough to tell me they knew nothing else.  They knew nothing about John Paul’s involvement and nothing about the tournaments.  They only knew I had witnessed murders and had testified against the killer.

“But this shit will die down,” John Paul continued.  “We can disappear again.”

He looked over at Raine quickly.

“If you want to, anyway,” he added.

I definitely wasn’t ready to deal with this shit.

“I think you guys are going to have quite a welcome,” Nick said.  “The press was all over this since it went down.  I bet you even get a call from Oprah.”

The reporter on the radio started talking about Raine’s father and about how I had been the informant who put his killer behind bars.

Definitely, definitely not ready to deal with this shit.

Raine had started to cry.  I didn’t know why exactly – talk of her father, the general stress of everything, or just her inclination to cry when all the stressful shit was over – and I was about to go over to her, but Lindsay beat me to it.  She put her arm around Raine’s shoulders, and I wanted to fucking rip it out of the socket.  I knew that was stupid, but I didn’t want her to get comfort from someone else.  I wanted it to come from me.

What an ass.

Raine sniffed and looked up at me, then at Lindsay.  She smiled at her friend, leaned against her for a moment, then walked out of her embrace and into my arms.  Raine turned her face into my chest and wrapped her arms around my neck.  John Paul was trying to suppress a smile and failing miserably.  I ran my hand up Raine’s back and extended my middle finger in his direction.

“You’re tired,” I said.  I ran my hand over her head, trying not to fuck up the little bundle full of hair on top.

“I think everyone is,” Lindsay confirmed.  I immediately liked her better.  Raine let go of me and hugged Lindsay. Everyone said their goodnights and then Nick and Lindsay went off in one direction, and John Paul went off in the other.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I just sort of stood there in the middle of the room.

“What’s wrong, Bastian?”  Raine’s voice was so quiet I could hardly hear her.

“Just thinking,” I responded, not really wanting to elaborate.  If I told her what I thought, she would either be pissed off at me, which was my preference, or she’d confirm exactly what I was thinking.  That was my nightmare – my constant, never-ending nightmare.

“About?”  She wasn’t going to let me off easy.

“If you…if you wanted me to sleep on the floor or something, I can.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Fuck, I don’t know!”  I tried to control my voice.  “You’ve got…choices again.  You don’t have to put up with my shit anymore.”

“Bastian…”

“Raine,” I mocked, then felt like a total shit for doing so.  She scowled at me.  “Fuck it, babe, you know I’m never going to be…”

“Don’t start that again.”  Raine crawled into the small bed and stuck her legs under the sheet.

“It’s different now.”

“It is not!” she yelled and then her breath caught in her throat and her hand moved up, settling on her sternum.  She spoke softly.  “Unless it’s different for you.”

I realized at that point it was my chance.  If I told her it was different for me – if I told her I didn’t want her anymore – she’d drop it.  It would be so much better for her – she could go on with her life and find a decent guy without a fucked up past and enough baggage to fill a Boeing 747.  She would be so much better off if I told her right now I only said all that shit so she’d let me fuck her.  I could make her believe it, too.

“Nothing’s different for me,” I said because I just couldn’t tell her that shit.  It would hurt her too much, and I was too fucking selfish to let her go like that.

“I love you, Bastian,” Raine continued.  “That didn’t end because we’ve changed locations.”

“But it will,” I whispered.  “It might…you know it might.”

“No, I do not know that,” Raine admonished.  “Neither do you.  Are you going to stop caring for me because you don’t have to forage for my food anymore?  Will you not want to be with me because I can shave with a razor again?”

“No.”

“Are you going to think less of me?” she pressed.

“Never.”

“Why would I think less of you then?”  She glared at me with her hands on her hips, which made me want to grab her and fuck her senseless.  I don’t know how screwed up that was.  I guess when it came right down to it, I always wanted to fuck her.  As per normal – I couldn’t argue with her logic.  If I did, I was being an ass and putting her down, which I wasn’t going to do.

“I don’t…fuck, you won’t, I guess,” I finally broke down.  “It’s harder to realize you ever thought anything of me at all out here with everyone else.”

“Well, I did and I do,” Raine informed me, leaving no room for argument.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, properly chastised again and fucking glad for it.

“Then come to bed,” she commanded.  She pulled back the blanket covering her legs.  “Because I’m feeling about as nervous as I can be, and I need you to hold me and tell me I’m safe.”

I couldn’t speak because I was afraid I might actually cry out with relief.  Instead, I just followed her instructions.

Raine was lying down on her side on the love seat converted into a bed.  It was a little wider than a twin-sized bed, but not by much.  I looked around the elongated room, then at the bed, then around the room again.  The door to the outside and the street was directly in front of the bed.  To the right was the door where Nick and Lindsay had retired, and the one to the left was John Paul’s.  I could see the eat-in kitchen and the open door to the bathroom.  I was edgy though I couldn’t place my finger on exactly why.  Raine scooted a little so her back was against the wall, but I shook my head, reached out, and pulled her closer to the edge, and then crawled over her so I could have my back against the wall.

The bed was cramped and would have normally been considered a little uncomfortable, but when you haven’t slept in a bed for quite some time, most anything would feel pretty fucking good.  Raine sighed, stretched, and placed her palms on my chest.  I pulled her close to me and assumed my normal position of wrapping myself around her and holding her tightly.  Raine hummed, smiled, and snuggled back against me.

“How’s the pillow?”

“Perfect,” Raine said with a smile.  I doubted that – it looked kind of stiff, but she wasn’t going to complain.

I looked up and down the room again, raised myself up a bit, and pulled her underneath me a little more.  Raine glanced up at me and gave me that small, seductive-shy smile that only she could pull off.  Naturally, my cock was very appreciative of such a look and took the opportunity to notice how close he was to the promised land.  In case I hadn’t made the connection, he pointed the way for me.

Nick seemed to think that was the perfect time to waltz in and grab a bottle of water out of the small icebox under the sink.  He glanced over and made eye contact with me, took a second to understand the situation, raised his eyebrows, and walked back out.

Raine glanced around, suddenly nervous.

“Bastian, I’m not sure we should…”

Fucking fabulous.

“We don’t have to,” I sighed, resting my head back on her shoulder and trying to compose myself a bit.  I tried to shift to a more comfortable position, but all I really managed to do was grind my erection into her stomach.

“Um…” Raine giggled.  “I can still feel you, you know.”

“Well, there’s only two ways to make him go down,” I told her.  “You either have to make him happy or give him some time to relax and get over it.”

She giggled.

“It’s all right,” I said, swiftly kissing her on the forehead.  “Just ignore the little fucker, and he’ll go away.”

“Little?” she snorted.  I cocked a half smile at her and then twisted my hips to rub against her again.

“Oops,” I said.  I wasn’t even trying to be sincere since there was no way she would have bought it.  Not to be outdone, apparently, I felt her hand slide up over my length and then stop at the waistband of my new, green lounge pants only for a moment before reaching inside.  She wrapped her fingers around my cock and gave him a gentle tug.

“Oops,” she repeated.  I raised my eyebrows at her as she started sliding her fingers back and forth over me.  My back arched and I thrust into her coiled fingers, happy for anything she’d be willing to give me.  Her touch felt so fucking good, I wouldn’t last long anyway.

“If you keep that up, I’m going to come all over your new pajamas.”

“At least my panties will remain intact.”

“But you’re going to have to explain the stain,” I laughed quietly until her hand stopped moving.  Then I groaned, realizing I might have just screwed up my own good time.  My hands ran down her sides until they came to the edge of her pajama bottoms.  I started pulling them over her hips, but her hands grabbed mine, halting the progress.

“I’m not getting naked in a house full of people!” Raine insisted.

“Is that all you’re worried about, taking your clothes off?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer but brought my hand farther up her leg until I had bunched up the satin fabric around the top of her thigh.  My hand slipped inside, going through the pant leg, finding her wet heat with my fingers and sliding up and down for a moment, then thrusting a finger up inside of her, my thumb against her clit.

“I can still fuck you with your clothes on,” I informed her.

“Bastian…someone could see…”

“They wouldn’t see anything,” I said.  I yanked the blanket up farther so it came up to my armpits and just about covered her completely.  “You’d be completely hidden.  You really think I’d let any of these fuckers see you naked?”

“But they might…oh…oh, that’s nice…”

I snickered and slid a second finger inside of her, my thumb continuing to rub against her clit.  When Raine started arching her hips up against my fingers, I knew she’d be up for more.  I pulled my fingers out slowly, stroking up and down a couple of times before grabbing my cock by the base.  I used my hand and cock to burrow back through her pajama pant-leg until I felt the tip come in contact with her heat.  I pushed slowly…really, really slowly…until I was inside her completely.

Resting my head on her shoulder for a moment, I felt her around me and let her feel me, too.  I hummed quietly against the skin of her throat, kissing her softly and then flicking my tongue over her flesh.  My cock glided out of her nearly all the way and then slowly penetrated her again.  I kept up the slow pace, wanting her to feel how much I loved her and needed her for as long as possible.

Raine’s hands stroked my face, my jaw, ran up into my hair, then down my arms.  She reached down and rubbed over my ass, digging her fingers in for a moment as I slid deep inside of her.  I looked down at her, and she gazed back up at me.  She looked so fucking beautiful under me like that.  It was enough to almost bring tears to my eyes.  I had to stop looking at her altogether, or I’d be fucking crying.

With closed eyes, I kept up my slow strokes and listened to Raine’s increased breathing.  Her hands wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me close to her.  My hand brushed over her nipple, pulling it into a sharp peak as she moaned softly.  I continued my way down to her stomach and then slipped inside her pajama bottoms and stopped at the place right above where we were joined.  I arched my head back just a little, and through the cracked-open slit in my eyelids watched John Paul walk into the room, halt in his tracks, and make eye contact with me.

I didn’t stop – I didn’t even change my pace.  Any change would have told Raine we had been spotted, and I didn’t want her to be embarrassed, so I just kept slowly pushing in and out of her, rubbing her clit with my thumb at the end of every stroke.  John Paul’s expression was strange, and I didn’t understand it.  He’d walked in on me fucking girls a couple of dozen times, and he never had this strange, half-quizzical, half look of wonder in his eyes before.

He moved completely silently, thank God, and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge just like Nick had done.  Was everyone around here fucking dehydrated?  He smiled once more and tilted his hat at me before returning to his own room and quietly closing the door.

Raine gasped, and I felt her clench around me.  While my thumb pushed against her clit harder and faster, I kept the same leisurely pace with my hips while she writhed and moaned under me, her muscles milking my dick and just about making me lose my mind.

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” I whispered with hot breath in her ear.  Her hands ran up my arms to my shoulders and then into my hair, pulling me over so she could cover my lips with hers.  I was all too happy to oblige, and when she leaned back against the pillow and smiled up at me, my body tightened and let loose, spilling into her with my eyes tightly closed, relishing the feeling of being with her, inside of her, a part of her.

“I love you,” she said softly.  Her hand reached up, and her thumb ran across my cheekbone, trailing moisture across my face.  I hadn’t realized it was there.

“Always?” I croaked out, my throat abruptly tight and dry.

“Forever.”  Her deep brown eyes tore into me.

“I’ll always be yours,” I told her.  “No matter how much of an ass I am, you know that, don’t you?  You know even when I’m being a fucked up asshole, I still love you, right?”

“I know, Bastian.”

I stayed inside of her, just like I always did on our island.  My fingers trailed over her face, down her neck, and to her shoulder, caressing her softly until her eyes closed and her breath regulated.  I lay my head on the top of the pillow above her head, and closed my eyes.  Then I noticed a distinctive clicking sound, and my eyes flew back open.

There was a clock on a wall shelf in the kitchen, just over the table.  I timed the clicking sound with the movements of the second hand and let out a slow breath to calm myself.  I needed to fucking stop that shit, or I was never going to get any sleep.

Raine shifted under me a little, and I tightened my hold on her.

What if it wasn’t just a clock?  What if this Nick fucker had only been willing to help John Paul in order to get to me or to her?  What if he worked for Franks?  What if people who did work for Franks found out where we were staying?  It wasn’t just me I had to worry about – I needed to think about Raine.

I felt possessive, protective, and paranoid.  How the fuck was I going to deal with other people around her?  I didn’t even like this Nick guy getting too close.  I didn’t trust him.  I didn’t trust anybody.  I had told Raine way too much, and I was pretty sure I had only told her because I hadn’t expected us to survive.  She was in danger now, too.

A car passed by the house, and the sound of the engine freaked me out for a moment before I realized what it was.  I tucked Raine’s sleeping form under me a little more securely, wrapping my arm around her head and holding her to my chest.  I raised my own head up a bit, analyzed the room for the twentieth time and then focused back on the front door.  Another car went by, and I felt myself tense again.  Nick walked back out of his room again, heading for the bathroom.  He didn’t look in our direction, which I thought was a little odd.  Why wouldn’t he look over to us?  Wouldn’t that be a more normal reaction?  He knew we could be over here fucking – wouldn’t most people try to catch a peek?

When he came back out, I was more alert, watching him intently and holding Raine tightly underneath me.  Nick’s eye caught mine, and I saw him recoil a little.  His eyes softened then, and he raised both his hands up in front of his chest, palms out, in a clear “I’m unarmed” gesture.  He kept them like that until he was back in his own room, and the door closed.

Back to paranoia.

It was certainly one of the reasons I drank and one of the reasons I didn’t spend any time with other people.  After spending years fighting for my life in a very real sense, nighttime was often a little nerve-wracking for me.  I hadn’t thought of it for some time, since The Oblation, the raft, and the island had all been very small, enclosed areas, where I was all right.  However, open areas – which were naturally more difficult to defend – tended to make me nervous.  The more people that were around, the more nervous I became until I blew up at someone.

I wondered if there was anything to drink around here.  I hadn’t seen anything – not even a fucking wine rack.  For better or worse, the one thing I wasn’t going to do was leave Raine long enough to go searching for a bottle of something.  Maybe in the morning.

The refrigerator kicked on right about that time.  The clock ticking seemed to be louder now as well.  It was a clock, wasn’t it?  I was pretty sure the timing matched the clock in the kitchen, but I didn’t know for sure and wanted to investigate, but I still wasn’t about to leave Raine’s side.  The night kept on like that, my eyes wide open, watchful for any potential threat to the woman underneath me.

Another car passed, its lights shining into the window in the front of the house.  My body tensed as the car seemed to slow, then stop, and then move on again.  I raised my head, trying to determine if it was still out there, maybe with its lights off now.

“What’s wrong?”  Raine’s soft voice snuck out from under me.

“Nothing,” I replied automatically, not wanting to alarm her.

“Have you slept at all?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Liar.”

I sighed and looked down into her eyes.  I didn’t know how she always knew, but she always called me out on my bullshit.

“I’m just not used to it all,” I said, using my head to gesture towards the room in general.

“All of what?” she asked.

“The noise,” I told her.  “The cars going by, the clock – whatever.  Not used to it.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Yeah,” I admitted.  There’s no way in hell I would have confirmed that for anyone else, but it was Raine asking.

“You got me, right?”

“I got you,” I assured her.  I took a deep breath and closed my heavy eyelids for a moment.  “You’re safe.”

“Good,” Raine said.  Her hand reached up and pushed my hair off my forehead and behind my ear.  I really needed a fucking haircut.  John Paul had been right about being able to make a ponytail with it if I were so inclined.  It still felt good when she did that, though – when she took hair off my forehead or my face and pushed it behind my ear over and over again.

She kept doing it, her fingertips just barely touching my skin.  I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath.  My eyelids grew heavy as her fingers stroked over my skin.  I settled my head against her shoulder, and the next thing I knew, the sneaky thing had put me to sleep.

* * * * *

Twelve noon, local time, was a stupid fucking time to be wandering around in an airport, but here we were anyway.  There had to be five fucking billion people in the place.  If we had to wait another fucking hour to get on our flight, I was going to slaughter someone, probably someone in a security uniform even though they were supposed to be keeping the crowds away from the long-lost castaways on the final leg of their journey home.

Fucking media.

We walked down the small terminal towards the gate where our plane would start loading in a half hour.  The two security dudes who stayed with us blocked off a bit of the area near the windows for the five of us to sit.  Nick was talking about the plane we’d be flying in – apparently he used to fly commercial aircraft as well – and Lindsay and Raine were beaming at him like he was some kind of fucking superhero.

I needed to get away – just for a few minutes.

I grumbled something about being back in a second but didn’t say it loud enough for anyone to actually hear me, just enough to claim later that I had.  While Raine fiddled around with the small travel bag containing a change of clothes and some toiletries, I slipped down the corridor.  When we had walked to our terminal earlier, I had seen the one thing I hadn’t managed to acquire since leaving the island, and I wasn’t going to waste another second without it.  I headed towards the airport bar.

Upon entering the room, I inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of leather barstools, beer, and sweet, sticky liquors.  Without hesitation, I walked straight up to the bar and ordered three vodka shots – top shelf.  The Bartender raised his eyebrows at me and then poured out each – all in good-sized shot glasses and pretty full, which is how they fucking should be – and set them in front of me.  I wrapped my fingers around the first glass and picked it up.  It was cool against my fingers, and my throat burned in anticipation of the fluid about to fill it.

“Bastian!”

Fuck.

Raine raced into the bar, nearly knocking over a couple of chairs and a table as she rushed past and collided with the edge of the bar right next to me.

“Stop, Bastian – please!”

“Why?” I responded, barely glancing in her direction.  I kept my vice-like grip on the glass in my hand.  The clear liquid sang out, begging me to taste it.

“You don’t need it.”

“Like hell I don’t.”

“If you drink it, it controls you, Bastian.  Don’t let it be like that.”

“Maybe that’s the way it should be,” I said.

“Bastian…don’t do this.”

“Do what?” I barked out a laugh.  “Drink?  I’m a fucking alcoholic, Raine.  I told you that the first fucking day.  That hasn’t fucking changed just because I didn’t have any alcohol available.  I never stopped wanting it.  Never.  You know this shit.”

“You don’t have to drink,” Raine said.  “I know you are an alcoholic, I know you want it, but you’ve been a sober alcoholic for over two months.  Don’t throw that away, Bastian.  Don’t you remember what you had to go through just to get dried out?”

“Of course I fucking remember,” I snarled.  “That doesn’t change anything.  I want a fucking drink, and I’m having one.  You’d be better off figuring that shit out now and probably find yourself a decent guy to be with instead.”

“Bastian, you don’t mean that.”

“I’m never going to be right for you, Raine,” I argued.  “I’m never going to be the guy who brings you flowers and remembers our fucking anniversary or buys you just the right gift for Christmas.  I’ve seen too much shit I’m not going to get over.  You deserve better than that, a lot better, and I can’t give it to you because I’m a fucked up drunk.”

I couldn’t look at her.  I just couldn’t.  Even when I felt her fingertips starting the familiar trail from my temple, around my ear, and down to the end of my chin, I couldn’t turn and face her.  It took every last ounce of control I had just to keep my hand from shaking around the shot glass.

“I don’t want anyone but you.”  Raine’s voice climbed up in pitch, and I could hear the tears in her tone.  “You once told me that you would fight any motherfucker who tried to take me from you.  Well, there’s someone trying to take me from you right now, and he’s in that glass in front of you.  You told me you would fight, Bastian.  Did you mean it?”

The liquid sloshed in the glass with the vibrations of my fingers, and I couldn’t make it stop.

“How many times have you berated yourself for hitting me?” Raine suddenly asked, her fingers trailing down across my shoulder and eventually wrapping around my forearm.  My throat tightened, and my heart clenched.  She had told me to stop bringing it up, and for the most part I had.  It didn’t keep me from thinking about it, especially when I thought about how much better she could do without me.  I was a little pissed she was using it against me now after all the times I had tried to use it against myself.  It didn’t make any fucking sense, but that didn’t stop me from feeling pissed about it.

“I told you to stop talking about it because it didn’t matter anymore,” Raine said.  “You aren’t that person anymore, Bastian.  I meant that.  I wouldn’t be with someone like that.  I couldn’t be with someone who I thought would hit me again.”

“I love you,” Raine said softly, her hand still on my arm, “but when you drink, you become someone else.  I can’t be with that man, Bastian.  I won’t be.  If this is what you really want…well, then I’m going to go now.”

I felt her hand drop, and I heard her footsteps as she walked away from me and towards the exit.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment I felt as if my whole life literally flashed in front of me.  So fucking cliché, but that’s what happened.  Everything I could remember – all the times I had been tossed out, unwanted, unloved…and I had moved on anyway.  I remembered every time I hit someone out of anger, frustration, hatred – either of myself or the person I hit – it didn’t matter.  I remembered all of it.  I remembered that fucker in the group home and the look on his face when he’d finished with Theresa – the same look he had when I was charged with assault.  I remembered the street fights, and I remembered the first time I killed someone in a tournament.  Then I remembered the second time.  And the third.  I remembered all of them.  I remembered the gut-wrenching feeling when I realized Jillian was gone with my child.  I remembered opening up a bottle of Jack afterwards and downing the whole fucking thing in a night.  I had done the same the next night.  And the next.

I remembered everything Landon had said to me.

If you aren’t up for this, just say the word and I’ll end you right now.

You have no idea what you could do, and your self-pitying nature means you’ll probably never actualize any of it beyond staying alive in the tournaments.

You don’t have to live like that, Bastian, but if anything’s ever going to change, you’re going to have to let someone inside again someday.

Get up, you son-of-a-bitch!  You aren’t hurt that bad!  Fucking GET UP!

I remembered the sixteen people who were herded together and tortured to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I remembered the first nightmare and the trial.  I remembered looking for a bottle of Jack and only finding vodka in the cabinet.  It knocked me out cold for the whole night.  I remembered everything that had happened.  I remembered all the reasons I took to the bottle.  I drank to forget it all.  I drank to make it all go away.  I drank because I thought I was a worthless piece of shit – unwanted, unneeded, and unloved.

With Raine, I felt different.

Raine wanted me.  Raine needed me.  Raine loved me.  She loved me.

I opened my eyes and saw first the glass of clear, unassuming liquid posed right before my lips.  Then I saw the bartender over the rim, looking at me quizzically and waiting for me to make a move.  His eyes flickered over towards the door where he could probably still see Raine on her way out.  On her way out of the bar, away from me and out of my life.

I wasn’t a strong person.  I was muscular, and I knew a lot of shit about how to survive, but when you got right down to it, I was weak.  I was weak, and on some level, I drank because I wanted to die and was too fucking pig-headed to just end myself.  I was going to let the alcohol do it for me.  That had always been in the back of my mind.  Eventually – either through the violence that ensued, the stupidity that followed, liver failure or a fucking overdose – the drink would kill me.  I had wanted to die.

Was I different now?  Did Raine make me different?  With her I had something I had kept at bay for so long, too afraid of being left again to let anyone get close enough to hurt me.  With Raine I had another chance – a chance at love, and even more so – a chance at life.  With her I could have a real life, without the constant threat of pain.  I’d lived through a lot of shit.  I’d survived abandonment, betrayal, endless violence, and the elements, but could I survive Raine?  Could I live with her, in her world like a regular person?  Was I strong enough to do that?

No, I wasn’t.  I was fucking weak.

She deserved better, and this would be a quick and easy way to end it all.

My fingers tightened reflexively around the shot glass, and my arm moved ever so slightly closer to my mouth.  I wanted it.  I wanted it so fucking bad.  It would take less than a second to drink it, and then I could forget everything again.  I could go back to the way it was before I had even met her.

I stared at the shot glass, precariously balanced between my fingers with the clear liquid sloshing slightly from one side to the other, a mere half inch from my lips.  Vodka – sweet, evil vodka.

Just one.

My head turned, and I looked over my shoulder at Raine’s retreating form.  My gut lurched, my jaw clenched, and shooting pain radiated from the center of my chest.  I looked back at the glass in my shaking fingers, and slowly lowered it back onto the surface of the bar.  When I looked at it, there was want.  There was need.  There was a shitload of fucking desire.  I was drawn to it as if it was calling my name sweetly and offering to suck my dick.  I fucking wanted it bad.  It felt like I needed it more than any other substance in the world.

But I could live without it.

There was something – someone – I couldn’t live without, though, and she was walking away.

“‘If you call forth what is in you, it will save you.  If you do not call forth what is in you, it will destroy you,’” I whispered aloud.  I pushed the glass away with my fingertips, rose off of the bar stool, and turned around to follow her.

I didn’t want to drink.

I wanted to live.

I guess I was going to survive Raine after all.

~~The End~~

Epilogue – Gaze

Landon

Over the rim of my champagne flute, I watched my former student tap his fingers against the table where he sat and glanced rapidly between the bar a few feet away on his right and the slender woman standing a few feet away on his left.  She was with a large group of people, including a local reporter with matching photographer, and seemed to blush with every other question posed to her.  My student looked down at the table and shook his head a little, like the motion could purge the thoughts from his head.  There was a glass between his hands obviously containing water.

Glancing at the woman, I wondered how much she knew.  Would he have told her about his past?  If so, how much had he revealed?  If she knew too much, well, that was going to be a problem.  It was one thing to send him off on his own with John Paul to watch over him, but something completely different for him to rejoin society with a woman on his arm.  Just having him out of the bottle was a risk, and he was clearly sober.

I took a half step backwards, further concealing myself behind a large ficus tree, right before he looked up.  His eyes took in the room – automatically sizing up every individual as a potential threat.  He was out of practice, no doubt, since this was the first time he had looked at anyone other than the woman and the bartender in seven minutes.  I’d taught him better than that.  The entire populace of the party could have switched in that amount of time.  He’d become complacent and lazy, obviously.  No wonder he ended up on a barely adequate raft instead of one of the life boats with radio equipment.  It was a wonder he didn’t end up dead on the open sea.  No, that wasn’t true.  That part didn’t surprise me at all – he was always resourceful, and when he put some actual effort into something, he was nearly unstoppable.

What I found most surprising was his continued will to live.  I wouldn’t have expected him to give up – he never gave up – but finding the motivation to endure beyond the norm?  That was most unexpected, and now that I had seen the two of them in the same room, I understood the true reason.  How in the world did the daughter of Henry Gayle end up on his schooner?  The odds were just too astronomical.  I didn’t believe in coincidences – not on that kind of scale.  This one approximated divine intervention.  I didn’t believe in that, either.

He never let the woman far from his sight.  That much was obvious as well.  He kept very close tabs on her and was clearly agitated when yet another male approached her.  I wondered why he wasn’t standing with her while she was interrogated by the press and considered the possibility he had already confronted one or two of them before my arrival and had subsequently been banished to the table on his own.  I wouldn’t have been shocked to hear he had had an altercation with the press.  His temper was both his greatest asset and greatest vice.  The idea of the woman sending him into a “time-out” for his tantrum, though – that was intriguing.  I found it both out of character and mildly amusing that he would allow himself to be instructed to behave in such a way.  I also had to admit I was a little shocked that he would even allow another woman into his life at all, considering the disastrous end to his last relationship.

He shoved himself out of his seat suddenly and reached for the pocket inside his jacket.  I tensed reflexively, my hand reaching inside my own coat pocket.  Had he spotted me?  I let out my held breath when I realized he was only bringing out a pack of cigarettes.  His eyes swiveled over and met the woman’s briefly, their non-verbal exchange speaking volumes to me.  He lit the cigarette while still in the smoke-free building, long before he actually reached the entrance to the outdoor smoking area.

Obviously, we were going to have to have a little talk, as much as I hated to do it.  I had hoped life on the sea would be enough to take him to some reasonably natural end, but it was not to be.  I only hoped this woman he had chosen was going to be up for what was to come.

I guess I wasn’t completely retired after all.

Quoted Poetry Credits:

Paradise Lost – John Milton

Weeds – Lord Byron

Desire - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Shall I compare thee to a summers day? – William Shakespeare

Forgiveness – George Roemisch

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 – Lost

Chapter 2 – Heat

Chapter 3 - Salt

Chapter 4 – Pain

Chapter 5 – Fish

Chapter 6 – Game

Chapter 7 – Hurt

Chapter 8 – Kiss

Chapter 9 - Hold

Chapter 10 - Baby

Chapter 11 – Land

Chapter 12 - Food

Chapter 13 - Fury

Chapter 14 - Sick

Chapter 15 – Grow

Chapter 16 – Gift

Chapter 17 - Shot

Epilogue – Gaze

Quoted Poetry Credits:

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 – Lost

Chapter 2 – Heat

Chapter 3 - Salt

Chapter 4 – Pain

Chapter 5 – Fish

Chapter 6 – Game

Chapter 7 – Hurt

Chapter 8 – Kiss

Chapter 9 - Hold

Chapter 10 - Baby

Chapter 11 – Land

Chapter 12 - Food

Chapter 13 - Fury

Chapter 14 - Sick

Chapter 15 – Grow

Chapter 16 – Gift

Chapter 17 - Shot

Epilogue – Gaze

Quoted Poetry Credits: