My chest rose and fell as I took a deep breath and pressed my lips against her collarbone. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt about my daily trips to the bar, but I still hadn’t had a drop since the night my schooner went down.
“Most of all, I love the way you love me,” she said. “I love the passion inside of you and how you make me feel like the most desired woman in the world when I’m with you.”
“I do love you,” I told her.
“I know you do,” she replied. She brushed her lips over my forehead. “I love you, too.”
I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat, held her a little closer, and closed my eyes. My mind relaxed along with my body, and I felt her fingers stroking my face as I slipped into slumber.
Smoke burns my eyes. Fifteen people have been slaughtered in front of me, but here I stand, unmoving. Landon holds one of my arms, John Paul the other.
They get to the last one—a cop from one of the smaller districts. I wonder why he’s here; it’s not his beat. Gunter Darke grabs him and spins him in a circle, and I watch his face change.
Raine takes his place.
I still can’t move. I still can’t speak.
Gunter pulls her down on her back, and Franks cheers. Four men approach her—a chunky guy, a guy with dreadlocks, one with a buzz-cut, and a guy with a long ponytail.
The uniform worn by the cop is gone, and Dreadlocks tears my T-shirt off of Raine as Buzz-cut and Chunky hold her legs…
I couldn’t breathe when I snapped awake. All the muscles in my chest were constricted around my heart and lungs. Sweat ran from my forehead into my eyes, and my limbs shook uncontrollably.
I gripped the edge of Raine’s pajamas. I needed her closer to me, but I didn’t want to wake her up. I tightened my fingers around the fabric until I could feel my nails in my palms. Pulling her body as closely as I could, I tried to keep myself from shaking, but I wasn’t very successful. I did manage to pull air into my lungs, but once I caught my breath, I had to focus on not hyperventilating.
Breathing through my nose, I tried to inhale deeply and let the air out slowly. It just made my chest hurt. I gripped Raine tighter and tucked my head into her shoulder.
Soft fingers caressed the back of my neck.
“Bastian?”
I couldn’t answer.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing,” I croaked. The word was utterly ridiculous.
Raine moved her fingers down to my chin and pushed my face to look at her. I did so reluctantly, and as soon as I met her eyes with mine, some of the tension faded, and I could breathe right again.
“Nightmare?”
I nodded.
“Can you tell me about it?”
I shook my head, and Raine nodded in response. She moved one of her arms around my shoulder and the other around my head. She held me against her chest as I tried to regain some semblance of sanity.
Raine knew me so well, it frightened me. Whereas she used to press for more answers, she was now quick with yes-or-no questions I could answer without speaking, and she knew when to give me a little mental space. Eventually I’d tell her what the dream was about, and she knew that.
Still, even when I heard her reasons, sometimes it didn’t make the feeling of inadequacy go away. Maybe it was all from the lack of affection during my fucked up childhood, like Raine thought, or maybe it was because the one man who did offer me any kind of parental connection was also the man who taught me how to be a killer—a damn good one.
Maybe it was because I missed being a killer.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered to Raine as my throat and mouth went dry. “I want a drink so fucking bad.”
“I know, baby,” she replied, “but you’re stronger than that.”
I closed my eyes a moment and shook my head vigorously.
“Only on the outside.” I met her eyes again. “You have more strength inside than I do.”
She moved her fingers into my hair and brushed it away from my sweaty forehead.
“You have more than you know,” she said. “You work at it every day, and every day you get stronger on the inside too.”
Everything in my head wanted to deny it. I didn’t feel strong. I just felt like drinking or fucking.
“I wanna fuck you,” I said. I saw the little twinge in her eye at the phrase but couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
“Always so crass,” she muttered.
I fought with my head for a way to explain.
“When I’m inside you, everything changes,” I told her. “It’s not about getting my dick wet; it’s about being so close to you that I can feel your strength in me. When I feel your arms on my back, and you hold me against you, that’s when I feel strong.”
Raine’s eyes softened and glistened a little. She ran her fingers over my jaw lightly as her eyes moved back and forth between mine. I wasn’t sure if she got it or if it made up for me being the crude asshole that I was, and just when I figured I couldn’t even make sense to myself, let alone her, she spoke.
“Fuck me, Bastian,” Raine said. “Hard.”
Without hesitation, I moved to straddle her. Pulling her up by her shoulders, I reached behind her head and pulled her mouth to mine. Our tongues touched with a frantic pace, and I wanted nothing more than to devour her. She gripped the back of my neck, holding my mouth to hers as she returned the kiss with as much passion as I gave her.
I couldn’t wait any longer.
Rising up on my knees, I pulled Raine into my lap. She reached down and angled my cock towards her opening, and I lifted her up and then slammed her down on it. She leaned backwards, and I held the small of her back with one hand while the other moved up to caress her breasts.
She moaned, and I thumbed her nipple as she worked herself up and down on my cock. Her skin was so soft on the palm of my hand, and I stroked each breast before reaching back around and grabbing her ass with both hands.
I took over, bringing her up and slamming her back down over and over again until sweat covered both of us. Raine’s breath covered the skin of my chest and shoulder as she held my biceps to try to keep her balance.
As if I would ever let her fall.
Our eyes met through a lusty haze, and I had no words for the emotions spreading through my body. There was want and need; there was love, but there was also so much more. Looking at her was like gazing into the eyes of an angel—a guardian angel—one who was sent from heaven just to save my sorry soul.
Raine’s cries echoed through the small bedroom, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, and creating the most enticing music to my ears. Laying her back down on the mattress, I grabbed her knee and pulled it up against my hip as I lay over the top of her and continued.
She wrapped her legs around me and dug her heels into my backside. The pressure from her lower embrace was more than enough to increase my pace to a furious pounding. My cock plunged in and out of her with long, hard strokes.
I panted with each penetration and gripped her ass and back as I drove home with each thrust of my hips. I dropped my forehead to her shoulder as my gut began to quiver, and my balls constricted. The tingling continued, built up, and exploded through my cock and into her body as I let out an incoherent cry.
Finally satiated, I slowed and eventually stilled, collapsing on top of her and trying to catch my breath. Raine’s legs tightened around my waist, and her arms gripped my shoulders. Pressing my lips to her neck in silent thanks, I rolled us both to our sides.
“You are my world,” I whispered against her skin. “I can survive anything as long as I have you with me.”
My storm was calmed. At least for now, I closed my eyes and slept without dreams.
The life raft is behind me, and the rope is wrapped tightly around my wrist. I reach out for the dark hair floating in the water, but I can’t quite grasp it. Someone’s suitcase floats in front of me, and I shove it out of the way. I can’t see her anymore. She’s slipped
under the waves, and it’s so dark, I can’t find her…
I woke gasping for air, but the warmth of the tiny body next to mine was enough to remind me where I was. I tightened my fingers around Raine’s T-shirt for a moment and tucked my face into her hair to breathe in her scent. It calmed me a little.
Initially.
It wasn’t enough.
Not wanting to wake her yet again, I pushed myself out of bed and moved into the living room. I found a pack of cigarettes on the table next to the couch and headed out to the balcony. I smoked two down to the filters before I managed to calm myself enough to get the worst of the images out of my head. Leaning back in the patio chair, I closed my eyes and inhaled the nighttime sea breeze.
It didn’t feel right to sit in a chair, so I got off of it and sat on the mat by the door. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around my knees. With my eyes closed again, I listened to the surf and told myself that none of the fucked up shit in my head was real.
The real part was sleeping in the next room.
Reminding myself that being with her was more important than anything else, I pushed off the balcony floor and went inside. I crawled back into bed and wrapped my arms around my Raine. I held her back against my chest and tossed my leg around her thighs. With her pretty much trapped underneath me, safe from dark waves, I finally relaxed. I didn’t get back to sleep at all, but focusing on her body lying beneath mine was enough to get me through the night.
Breakfast, however, was a disaster.
“We’re out of milk,” Raine announced. “We also need dinner stuff for tonight. I was hoping you would grill out.”
“Sure,” I said over the rim of my coffee cup. Black coffee, nothing added to it. I tried to forget the way it tasted with half the mug full of Kahlua as I thought about Raine’s friends coming to dinner. They were coming from Hollywood for the evening to celebrate Lindsay’s success at work, and grilling meant less talking to Nick Sinclair, Lindsay’s boyfriend.
“Steak, then?”
“Sure,” I said again. I tried not to show how much it pissed me off that our Friday, usually the only night of the week Raine didn’t spend on homework, was going to be invaded by those two.
“Can you get to the store today?” Raine asked. “I have a study group after class, and they’ll be here around six.”
“Will you make a list?” I looked up at her expectantly and found myself completely distracted by the way her hair moved as she turned her head to look at me. She’d blown it dry this morning, and it was perfectly smooth. I wanted to run my hands through it. I wanted to wrap it around my wrist and hold her down on the bed while I rammed…
“Of course.”
I blinked a couple of times as I tried to remember what we’d been talking about.
Oh yeah—grocery lists.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
There was no way I was going to go shopping without knowing exactly what she wanted—been there, done that. Never again. As it was, there would be something major missing, and I’d have to go back out again, but at least it wouldn’t be my fault. Not that I minded going back—a crowded market was somehow better than intimate company in the small condo.
Raine kissed my cheek.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile.
“You know, if we were still on the island, I’d already have everything we needed all gathered up,” I said. “I’d grill for you every night if you wanted. You could make that chowder out of mussels and crabs that went so well with those little sweet potatoes.”
Thinking out loud was rarely a good move for me, but my mouth just continued on its merry little way.
“We could maybe plan a vacation there sometime,” I suggested. “You know—just you and me for a couple weeks. Maybe even for your spring break. It would be good to be away from here before all the crazies get to town. Then in the summer, we could go a little longer, a month, even-”
“Bastian.” Her tone stopped my words, and the look on her face nearly stopped my heart. “You can’t be serious.”
I felt a little cold but opened my mouth anyway.
“Why the fuck not?”
“You’re talking about going back…back to that same island where we were stranded?”
“Well…yeah.”
“That’s hardly a…a vacation!” she said, her voice rising.
“It’s not like we’d be stuck there,” I argued. “We could fly into St. Maarten and rent a boat. I can sail a small one without help, and I could even teach you how to do it. It wouldn’t take long to get there, and we could-”
“No!” Raine snapped. She glared at me for a moment as her chest rose and fell with her breath. “Bastian, I was terrified when we were there! I was attacked by a bunch of human traffickers, and I never knew when some hurricane was going to come through and throw us into the ocean! I hated it! I hate that place!”
I tensed.
“All of it?” I asked quietly. It was a low blow, and I knew it, but I didn’t fucking care.
Raine sighed and moved over to where I sat at the island table that separated the kitchen from the living area. Her eyes still held some anger, but she brought her hands up to cup my face and then run into my hair. She sighed again and shook her head as I reached up and gripped the sides of her shirt to hold her closer.
“Of course not,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade finding you for anything, but we don’t have to be there anymore, and just being this close to the ocean is hard enough for me.”
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” I insisted. I tightened my fingers around her T-shirt. “I’d keep you safe, just like I did before.”
“Safe from hurricanes?” she asked incredulously. “I know you wouldn’t ever let anything happen to me, but some things you just can’t control. At least here, there’s advance warning and evacuation plans. There are police to deal with the crime.”
I rolled my eyes. Yeah, sure—there were police and shit around here, which made me totally superfluous. She didn’t need me here, which was where a lot of my issues seemed to originate.
“What am I supposed to do around here?” I mumbled. “Just be the fucking errand boy? Got some light bulbs that need changing?”
Raine stilled her fingers on my scalp for a moment then resumed.
“I heard some tourist was attacked on the beach the other day,” she said. “Some guy just punched him for no reason. There’s plenty around here for you to protect me from.”
I couldn’t help it; a laugh burst out of me.
“I’m the most dangerous person around here,” I said as I looked up into her soft, brown eyes. The anger was gone from them, but the hard determination was still there. Apparently, she forgot who was living with her. “Who is going to protect you from me?”
I shoved myself away from her and out of the kitchen. My cigarettes were on the nightstand in the bedroom, so I grabbed them and opened the balcony door. I heard Raine come up behind me as I leaned on the rail and flicked ash towards the amoeba-shaped pool below.
“Are you going to tell me what’s in your head right now?” she asked softly.
I thought about it a minute.
“You don’t need me here,” I said.
“I do need you,” she insisted.
“No,” I replied, “you don’t.”
“Sebastian…” Her voice held warning.
“I know,” I said as I raised my hands in surrender, “you love me—I know that. I don’t get it, but I know it. You want me—I get that too—but you don’t need me. Not like you did there.”
“I might not need you to find me fresh water or fish, but I still need you.”
I really didn’t want to fight with her over the fucking semantics. It was obvious we weren’t going to come to terms on this one. For a moment, I stayed silent and gathered my thoughts. I didn’t want her to leave for school with an argument behind her, so I decided to just drop it. I took one last pull on my smoke, tossed the butt in th
e bucket, and turned to face her.
“Agree to disagree?” I suggested.
Raine sighed and pursed her lips. I gave her a lopsided grin and held out my arms. She came to me, and I wrapped myself around her, holding her as tightly as I could. She raised her hands to grip the backs of my shoulders and placed her cheek against my chest. Tucking my face into her neck, I reveled in the smell of her hair and the softness of her skin as they calmed me.
“You mean everything to me,” she said. “I don’t like to see you hurting—you know that—but I can’t go back there. I don’t ever want to go back there.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the burning behind them.
“I know,” I whispered into her hair.
Lindsay was Raine’s best friend from Ohio. She relocated to the Miami area when Raine and I were missing in order to be closer to where the search was, and Nick was the helicopter pilot who eventually located us and removed us from the island. For that reason alone, I hated him, but I tried not to show it.
Lindsay came from money, which showed in her demeanor more than Raine ever wanted to admit. Her mother was a judge or something on the state supreme court, and her father was an executive at some corporation. Lindsay didn’t flaunt it exactly, but the chick bought fucking everything that caught her eye and then usually tried to get Raine to buy the same thing so they could match.
I didn’t get that shit.
“You have to see these shoes I found online!” Lindsay blathered as she dropped an insanely sized designer handbag next to the door and pulled Raine over to the couch. I wondered if there was a pair of Chihuahuas in the bag—they definitely could have fit. Both women leaned over the laptop on the coffee table and pulled up some bargain shoe site. The two of them giggled and pointed at the screen while Nick rolled his eyes.
“Women, huh?” he said with a friendly smile. He placed a large, brown paper sack on the kitchen island and reached out his hand to shake. “How are ya, Sebastian?”