“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 s
kin 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.