Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
L ily always fucking surprised me. I tried to be sweet and gentle with her, but she never failed to say exactly the right thing to ruin my plans.
“Minx. You know you did.” I handed her a water bottle and tried not to think about her mouth on my cock as she swallowed a large gulp.
“Is it weird that I never know how thirsty I am until I drink something? Same with food. Like, I forget that my body has needs.”
“Probably, but who wants to be normal?” I spread out the blanket I brought in a shady spot of soft grasses.
Lily leaned back on her elbows, her chest covered in that barely there scrap of lace she called a swimsuit.
If I glanced it, it looked like lace over her otherwise naked breasts.
Breasts that were currently thrust to the sky as if in offering to the gods of old.
Too bad. They couldn’t have her. She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet.
I prayed to whichever gods listened she would accept more from me, that she would want a relationship. I didn’t even let myself think of forever, but hell if there was anyone else for that job.
“Good point,” she interrupted my musings. “Normal is boring.”
I knew she lied. She wanted normal more than anyone I knew. I couldn’t give her that, but hopefully happiness would be enough.
“Come here.” I held my hand out to her and helped her stand from the rock, holding tight as I led her to the small picnic I set up.
“You brought all this?” She sounded surprised. “I just brought a granola bar.”
“Did you think I would invite you to an uninhabited island and let you starve? What kind of man do you think I am?”
“Wait, you’re a man?”
I grabbed her around the waist and tickled her until she squealed. I held her as close to me as I could while I did.
“Do I need to show you again just how much of a man I am?”
She laughed and tried to wriggle away.
“Maybe. I’m not sure I remember.”
We tumbled into the blanket, and I’d given up tickling her when she turned to face me. She fit so damn perfectly. We grew up together, but it felt more like we’d grown to fit each other, like my body knew exactly what size I needed to be to hold her.
She leaned in and kissed my nose.
“What did you bring to eat?”
“I thought you might like chicken nuggets, though I’m not sure they survived the trip and are safe to eat. I also have grapes, cheese, wine, and an assortment of meats. Oh, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just in case.”
I sat up and grabbed the food I brought, setting it down on the blanket between us before pouring the champagne. When she reached for the grapes, I batted her hand away and picked one up to feed it to her. Her rosy lips wrapped around my fingers and sucked gently as she took the grapes.
My refractory time shortened with that move, especially not with the way her tongue traced her lips, chasing the salty taste of my skin.
“So how did you find this place, anyway?” She picked up a piece of cheese and bit into it, her tongue darting out once again to capture a crumb from the corner of her lips.
“What?” My brain melted at the sight of her tongue.
“I said will you pretty please fuck me already?”
I laughed.
“Yes, but that’s not what you said.” I kissed her, sharing the taste of the champagne that danced on my tongue. I pulled back, less than eager to let her go, but I knew Lily, if I didn’t keep her on track, she wouldn’t eat enough of the lunch I laid out for her.
“Fine.” She sighed like it was a burden not to have my cock in her this instant. I enjoyed teasing her. I always had. Even when we were little kids digging in the mud for worms. Nothing’s changed, except that now I know why I always wanted to tease her so much. I craved her laughter and happiness.
Watching Lily eat the food I brought filled me with pride and settled a restless feeling that always lived just under the surface.
I provided for her. Never mind that doing so was the easiest thing in the world for me.
Feeding her woke a primal part of me, and doing so with nothing but the sky, sand, and waves for company soothed the beast in a way nothing else could.
“I asked how you found this place,” she said after she ate more cheese.
“On a training mission during my time at Parris Island. I flew over it enough times, always tempted to land. When I got out, I came back here on my own. Just me and the waves. I’ve looked into who might own it, thinking I should buy it from them, but I never could find out.”
“Even in your super-secret billionaire part of the internet?”
I laughed.
“No. Not in the super-secret annual billionaire meetings, either.”
She put on a very serious face, so serious it became comical. “Hmm, well, I guess it’s yours then. Didn’t you learn that in your fancy schools? If you claim it, it’s yours. If someone has claimed it, you just have to be the bigger and richer guy and it’s yours.”
“Ah, yes. That lesson. You’re right. What should we name it?”
I loved this game she played. She hit the mark sometimes, but I never let her know which ones. I knew I learned lessons, both from my billionaire businessman grandpa and the fancy schools I went to, that she wouldn’t have learned.
“It needs to be something special to us.”
“I like where your head’s at.” I raised the champagne and took another swig.
“Great. So, we’re calling it ‘Lily Gives Amazing Blow Jobs Island.’”
I promptly spit the champagne out. Lily giggled and took her own drink.
“No. That information is for me alone. If men knew how good you were, I’d have to kill them all.”
“Aw, now you’re just flirting with me. Ok, how about Thank God for Books Bay?”
“That’s somehow worse.”
“Well, I don’t see you coming up with anything better.” She poked my chest and then patted where she had poked, leaving her hand resting on it like she couldn’t get enough of touching me. I understood the feeling.
“Ok, ok. I propose we dub this Isle Hera.”
“After the Greek goddess of love and marriage?” I knew she would get the reference and the hope in her eyes buoyed me up. I brushed her cheek and cupped her face.
“Yes, and lilies.”
“Did you choose it just because of the lilies?” I couldn’t read her expression—hope, fear, worry. All of them competed for space.
“No.”
Her breath caught, everything but hope melting away from her eyes.
I set down our glasses and pulled her closer to me. She wanted me to make love to her. I had been doing that from the first time, but this time I wanted her to know exactly how I felt.
“Lily, this thing between us. It’s—” Thunder rumbled overhead, interrupting my words and sending a chill down my spine. This was not the place to be caught in a thunderstorm.
We both looked at the once blue sky. Dark and angry clouds moved fast over the ocean, lightning striking fast and close between us and the mainland.
Shit .
“Oh, I love storms. ”
Double shit. Lily didn’t understand the danger we were in right now. The helicopter would be a giant lightning rod in this storm, and it also happened to be our only shelter and way off this island. We weren’t due back for hours. No one would know to look for us.
“We need to get to the helicopter.”
The wind picked up, blowing the storm closer. If we hurried, we might make it back inside before the storm made land.
“Oh. Time to go?” She stood and poured out the rest of her champagne while I shoved everything back into the packs and pulled on my shorts and shoes.
“No. We won’t be able to fly in this, but we shouldn’t be outside in the thunderstorm. There’s no real cover and we are basically lightning rods.”
Just as I said it, four quick strikes hit the water just offshore.
“Oh, shit.” Lily’s eyes widened. In the city, thunderstorms weren’t a big deal. The buildings were safe spaces, and lightning rods were placed to draw strikes away from homes and businesses. We didn’t have any of that protection here.
“Will we be safe in the helicopter? Won’t it draw lightning, too?” She had to shout over the roar of the wind and pounding waves.
“The metal frame will diffuse the strikes, and its insulation will keep the inside safe.”
Marine mode kicked in and I infused my voice with authority. Lily didn’t need to know how worried I was right now. She didn’t need to know how fast my heart beat at just the thought of her being in danger.
I slung our bags over my shoulders and led us back to the only shelter this place had .
“Duke!” Lily called out, further behind me than she should have been.
She’d fallen to her hands and knees. Roots caught her foot in their tangled web, and she couldn’t escape without my help.
The lightning strikes picked up in frequency and were close enough that the sound and the light had synced up. Panic made us both clumsy.
I dropped all the bags and ran to her. I pulled her free easily enough, but her ankle had already swollen. Blood trickled from a cut on her head, the newly falling rain causing it to smear across her pale skin.
“I’ve got you.” I bent and picked her up, running to the helicopter, reaching it just as the first bolt of lightning hit a tree on the island, hitting with a deafening crack. Smoke billowed from the tree, fire burning despite the rain.
Lily buried her face in my neck as I set her feet on the ground and wrenched open the door, shoving her inside right as another strike hit, this time at the edge of the clearing. The light cast harsh shadows on her face, highlighting the lines of fear carved into it.
I dove in behind her, shutting the door against a gust of wind and another strike, this one lighting the clearing and leaving a smoking patch of grass not far from us.
Shit, that was close. I double checked the latches on the doors and then crawled to the back seat, joining Lily as she jumped and cringed from each strike.
“Let me look at that leg.” I pulled a basic first aid kit from under the seat, hoping it had something to wrap around her ankle. Lily moved back, lifted her injured foot, and placed it gently in my lap.
She flinched when I asked her to try moving her foot, and then again when I lifted it for a good look. I couldn’t tell if it was broken or sprained. Either way, stabilizing it was all I could do.
“It’s most likely a sprain.” No need to worry Lily if it wasn’t. “I’ll wrap it and put the ice pack on it.”
Lightning flashed outside and Lily stayed quiet, her face pale while I worked.
“Are we going to be ok?”
“Look at me, Lily.” I pinned the end of the wrap and cupped her cheek, turning her head away from the storm raging outside. “I’ll get you home safely.”
I lifted the side of my mouth, trying to smile for her, but it felt awkward and strained.
“Besides, I’m too valuable to lose. People will track me to the ends of the earth just to pitch me on their latest business venture, hoping I’ll invest.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb.
“Naturally.” Her shoulders dropped in what I hoped was relief, but she slurred her words, and I didn’t know if it was from the head injury, exhaustion, stress, or too much champagne on an empty stomach. “Can’t let the billionaires come to harm.”
“Exactly,” I said as I pulled out the alcohol wipes and butterfly bandages for her forehead.
I hoped it was enough. I evaluated her pupils and bandaged her wound, but kept talking to distract her.
“Hell, at least three board members are probably looking for me now just to complain about each other.”
I taped gauze over the cut on her forehead in case the butterfly bandages didn’t stop the bleeding, and then pulled her into my arms.
She shivered against me. The blankets were in one of the bags I’d abandoned, and I didn’t even have a shirt to give her. I rubbed her arms and went through the emergency supplies we had in here .
“Did you bring a change of clothing?”
“N-no. Just my swimsuit cover.” Her shivers intensified, and I worried it wasn’t just from the drop in temperature.
I tore through the first aid kit looking for an emergency blanket, my hands shaking despite my years of training.
Tucked into the bottom of the kit was a small silver rectangle.
I shook the blanket out and wrapped it around both of us, using my body heat to warm Lily up.
I ran my hands along her back until her shivering slowed and stopped.
“Duke,” she whispered. She had rested her head against my shoulder and wrapped her arms tight around me under the blanket. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
I barely held back a groan. I shouldn’t have had to take care of her. This entire trip had been a terrible idea this time of year, with its unpredictable weather and frequent thunderstorms.
“I always will.” I buried my head in her now dirty hair and breathed in the salty warmth of her. We were safe. We just had to make it through the storm.