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 touc
h 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.