Chapter 15
15
E zra
I felt horror spiking in my blood when I heard her shriek through my deep sleep and the white noise of the ocean and rain. I thought she was getting eaten alive by a giant animal and rushed outside to help. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to stay here alone, because quite honestly, I prefer solitude to her chatter. But the idea of her being hurt made me hurt. Maybe it’s some sort of newfound responsibility because I saved her life—God knows I’ve never been a knight in shining armor.
Weird thoughts.
Finding her losing a battle with a coconut because she was trying to pee deep in the jungle was funny. Why would she go so far? It’s only her, me, and the rain. The sound of it beating on the leaves is so loud, I can barely hear myself think. Who knew that the lack of the city could be just as loud as the big city itself ?
I crawl back into my shelter and check the walls. As I expected, it’s holding against the elements just fine. We used to build small play structures and treehouses at our grandma’s farm, and using mud to glue things together was highly useful. I recall my recent wish about returning back to those times, thinking that I should be more careful about what I wish for since life might grant it. Do I feel as free as I expected to?
My brother would be proud of me if he saw me today. He’s always said that I’m no fun. Well, I’m plenty fun now. I’m living in the wild, by myself, and I’m not even checking my phone.
Granted it’s lost somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, but I actually can survive without one, despite what he might think.
The rain intensifies, but my conscience is clear. I offered Mae a shelter, and she refused. It’s on her now.
The morning brings the sun, and the jungle will dry out in an hour. I climb out of my shelter and stretch my body. The first day was a good workout building this shelter, but I can’t let my body, or my mind go stiff. Otherwise, I’ll go insane. I need to find something to do today.
Once I’m out, I glance at my neighbor’s place. It seems to be empty. I look around and don’t find her anywhere. I open a coconut and drink it, then go to take a swim in the water. It’s warm and very calm. Different sorts of fish are everywhere, curious about who’s in the water with them. I freeze, mesmerized by the variety of colors around me.
When was the last time I just stood and watched the world around me? This place is fucking beautiful.
I swim back and forth along the shore, not venturing into the deeper water because I don’t fancy one of my precious balls being eaten off by a hungry shark.
When I’m done, I go to the beach and check my neighbor’ s shelter. Still empty. Where is she? It’s not like there are a lot of places to go around here, and if she was on a water run to the waterfall, she should be back by now.
Something pinches in the middle of my chest, like a little, annoying needle. Worry. It’s fucking worry. How pathetic and desperate am I becoming here?
I grab empty coconut halves and head toward the waterfall. If I don’t find her there, I’ll start scouting the island. It’s truly very small, and I’m sure I’ll find her eventually. I just hope a random wild coconut hasn’t fallen on her head, killing her before I can. Those suckers are heavy, and with the right speed, they can do some serious damage.
Feeling my steps picking up speed, I almost run into the opening of the waterfall.
She’s there. Her pink hair is floating in the water as she floats on her back with no bra. Or anything really. She’s splayed like a sea star, gazing into the sky. Her pointy nipples are staring there too, peeking from the water every time she moves.
I feel out of place. Like I’ve just walked in on someone doing something inappropriate. And naturally, I want to do inappropriate things too. Right away. So does my dick suddenly straining my pants.
I mentally shake my head, trying to figure out what sort of hold this woman has over my body. It’s been acting odd when she’s around. Every single time.
Not wanting to be caught staring, I turn around. Quickly. But apparently not quickly enough because she yelps and sinks into the water.
“What are you doing here?” she shrieks from the top of her lungs.
“I came to get some water.” I go with a half truth. No need for her to think I actually might care about her.
She rolls her eyes as she starts moving toward the shore, keeping her body under the water. Which doesn’t help much because I’m getting quite an eyeful. Of course, she notices this.
“Turn around!” she cries out, sinking deeper into the water.
“Sorry!” I yell back and whip around, feeling embarrassment creeping up my neck. It’s not like I’ve never seen a naked woman’s body before, but seeing hers makes it somehow different. I’ve had this body lying on top of me in a moment of crisis. Those hands clutching to my chest. That face pressed into my shirt because she was looking for comfort only I was able to give her.
After some splashing, I hear her moving around and the rustling of clothes.
“You can turn around now.”
I slowly come to face her only to find her sending angry glares my way. Her arms are crossed over her midriff, right under her chest. The wet material of her green shirt clings to her body, prolonging my torture. You’d think my dick would get the memo and calm the fuck down, but no. The fucker stands straight and proud. It’s hard to hide it in these damn dress pants. And I wonder for the tenth time why I decided that it was a good idea to travel in a suit.
She shifts her pose awkwardly, then shakes her leg and winces. I look down to find her knees scraped from the fall last night.
“You’re bleeding,” I note the obvious.
Her eyes follow my gaze. “Yeah, there’s not much I can do. I’ll try to keep it clean and try not to fall again,” she replies with a subtle shrug of one shoulder.
She’s right, there’s nothing we can do about that here. But she surprises me once again with her attitude toward it. The women I’ve been around would make a big fuss about it.
With a sigh, I say, “C’mere. ”
“What?”
“Sit here.” I point at a spot on a big stone. “I’ll check your knee.”
“W-why?” She blinks.
“Because we don’t want it to get infected. Sit.”
Still blinking quite dramatically, she takes a seat and stares at me, waiting for what I’ll do next. It’s a very good question because I don’t know what I’ll be doing next myself—I’ve never tended to anyone’s wounds. Or my own to be fair.
Swallowing a sudden lump of shyness in my throat, I kneel in front of her. A small sound escapes her lips. Something like a surprised sigh.
I carefully grab her leg by her shin and place it on my thigh. I have no idea why I’m doing that because I can see the scrape just fine from here. When her small foot lands on me, so close to my cock, I remember why it was not such a good idea.
Trying to focus on the task I’m actually supposed to be doing, I look at the wound. It’s a nasty scrape, a long and deep one.
“I think the water cleaned it pretty well,” I croak. “But we don’t want any dirt to get inside. Wait a second.”
I pull the hem of my undershirt and rip a line off the bottom.
“What are you doing?”
“We need a bandage,” I explain, refusing to look at her face.
“I’ll be fine,” she protests weakly. It must really hurt.
I carefully wrap it around her knee. It takes me two tries to make it not fall apart, and when I finally lift my eyes to her face, I find her teeth sunken into her bottom lip. Her eyes are focused on my hands which are currently still placed on her leg. When she catches up to me finishing my task, her eyes dart to mine.
“Thanks!” she squeaks.
“Yeah.”
I jump to my feet and walk a few feet away, trying to erase the awkwardness I’ve created. While she’s looking everywhere but at me, all I can do is look at her.
When I’m done staring, I remember that I haven’t apologized yet. I don’t do it often, but it feels needed now.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop on you.” This comes out gruffer than I mean for it to be.
“I know,” she sighs. “I just didn’t expect you. I guess I’m enjoying this situation a little too much.”
“Taking it like a vacation?” It feels like I’m not the only one not eager to return to the land of the living.
She shrugs and adds with a small smile, “I haven’t had a vacation outside of New York for a long time. And here is free housing and free food.”
“Food? What food?” I ask, barely able to contain my smile.
“We’ll find something.”
We. She said we.
“We should check the island from both sides. The first day, we were wrecked and might not have noticed something. And now, we know what we will be looking for.”
“What?”
“Food.” Her smile turns predatory. “Any food. Papaya and bananas should be around here for sure.” She points toward the side of the island we haven’t explored yet. I went there on the first morning, but I was more concerned with finding out if the island connects to big land rather than looking for a banana.
“Sounds good.”
She lifts her arms in the air and does a long, thorough stretch, moaning at the end. Her clothes cling to her wet body. My poor dick gives up and jumps again, and I pray she doesn’t look down at my pants.
“Your shoulder better?” I ask in a husky voice, not able to control it. My body acting like a traitor when Mae is around is starting to get to me.
She rotates it lightly. “Yeah. A lot. Maybe the water helped. It was a bit chilly in the morning.” She keeps rotating it, making her tits jiggle. And that doesn’t help my situation.
“Did it bruise?”
She grabs the hem of the T-shirt neckline and pulls it down, baring her shoulder—her very purple-looking shoulder.
“Hey,” I exhale, rushing to her. “Are you okay?”
Her silence makes me bring my eyes to her face. She’s watching me carefully with her big, blue eyes.
“I’m fine,” she replies in a soft voice. “It’s just a bruise. It hurts, but it’s not broken. It’s all that matters. Plus, there’s nothing we can do now. So, complaining won’t change much.” She shrugs the other shoulder, disregarding the subject. I know people who wouldn’t get up from bed if they had something like that.
I let myself look at her. Like really look long enough to notice how soulful her eyes truly are. How much more mature than she seemed at first. How interesting she truly appears to be.
“We should split up,” I offer quickly, hoping that by the time we reconnect, her shirt will dry out, and my cock will have some relief. And my mind will remember why we didn’t like her in the first place.
“Good idea.” She closes her eyes and takes a full breath in. “Damn, this feels good.”
I lift a brow. “You seemed desperate yesterday.”
She looks at me with a smile. “And I’ll be desperate again when the rain hits, but now, I’m good. Just have to take everything you can from every day, you know? Let’s go. When it starts raining, the jungle will be slippery.”
“Were you a Girl Scout or something?”
“Or something.” It’s all she offers with a mysterious smile and takes off toward one side of the island.
I head to the other one.
She was right, when it’s wet, the ground will become slippery. And with all the roots popping out from everywhere, it’s a recipe for a broken ankle. She’s already proven to be a danger to herself by walking at night like a newborn kitten and scraping her legs and arms.
With my long legs, I try to cover as much ground as I can, so she doesn’t have to. I really don’t dream about carrying her around when she slips and falls. Even though she’d probably insist on crawling on her own. She seems to have some sort of disaster following her close on her heels. Starting with my building and the fire. Then the boat where she landed face-first on the floor with her ass in the air. I mean, that must have hurt like hell. I wasn’t interested in comforting her because she was standing in my way to my final destination to get the damn deal done so we can have our company back. Plus, when I recognized her as her , the wave of rage I felt was a bit too much even for me.
Shaking my head to myself, I say a silent prayer to the universe that in my absence, the board won’t take any actions. The news about my disappearance must have hit them by now, and my brother would have temporarily taken charge. He’s good at playing Game of Thrones and can hold off the voting as long as possible, even though he doesn’t like it. His passion lies in projecting the unique buildings we plant everywhere. He’s the creative of our company.
I wish I could influence things back in New York from here—not having anyone around and still moving the company sounds like a dream come true. But reality is different—I’m here, and everything else is there. There’s nothing I can do about it.
For a moment, I remember her words and decide that I’ll just go with the flow, taking it day by day. If we don’t have food, we don’t survive. If we don’t survive, there won’t be any deals happening. Ever. And if I’m completely honest with myself, I don’t think I could live my usual life if something happened to the woman I’m stuck here with.
Somehow, due to the constant jokes of fate, we got together here. Again. I saved her life. I literally breathed it into her. And I feel like I owe her something. How fucked up is that?
As I walk around, it’s getting a little darker, and I look up at the sky. The clouds have reached us rather fast. So far, I’ve been able to find two banana palms, and I got a few bunches off one of them, remembering the place where I found them. It’s not far—nothing here is far—so we can easily walk here when we run out of this supply.
“Hey, big dude!”
My head whips around, looking for the source of the voice.
“Big dude!”
Is she talking to me? Big dude? I think I can get on board with that.
“Giant man!”
A small body rushes toward me through the trees. Her cheeks are red, her pink, tangled hair flying behind her. She smashes into me full force, her hands landing on my chest in a weak attempt to stop herself. I drop my bananas and catch her instead.
“What happened?” I push her away and quickly rake my eyes over her body, looking for injuries. “Who’s chasing you?” Acting on instinct, I push her behind me and narrow my eyes at the jungle, looking for a wild animal chasing her .
“I found papayas!” She sounds excited like she’s found a boat to take us out of here.
“What?” I spin toward her.
“I found papayas! We’re saved!” Her voice is so happy, I can’t even find energy to be mad.
My eyes narrow at her. “And that’s why you ran here like crazy?”
“Well, yes. It’s going to be raining soon, and you need to climb the palm to get them,” she announces, looking sheepish.
“ I need to climb it?”
“Yeah.” She winces. “I tried and couldn’t. I just keep sliding down.” She glances down at herself, spreading her legs like a little frog. “I even scratched my thighs. Look.”
My eyes dip to her thighs, and they’re really red and raw. From friction.
Fuck.
I quickly avert my eyes and point at the bananas on the ground. “I found bananas. It should be enough to keep us going until we can get to the papayas.”
“Oh,” she exhales, looking at the bananas with furrowed brows. “I wanted to return you the favor by finding food for the coconuts you offered before.”
“We’re not in a competition,” I say softly, and she looks at me with sad eyes.
“I just wanted to bring something to the table too, you know?” Then she adds with a sniffle, “After everything I’ve taken.”
“I know,” I sigh. Because this is something I really do. I’ve been trying to prove to our father how useful I am all my life. But it’s never been enough. “You’re bringing?—”
She looks at me with expectation.
“Bringing—” I’m struggling to find something, and her eyes narrow .
“Bringing what?” she asks.
“Entertainment,” I reply, rolling my lips inward, trying not to laugh at her angry expression.
She leans down and grabs one banana bunch and heads back the way she came. “Let’s go. I’ve got plenty more of that,” she’s clearly referring to the entertainment, “where it came from.”
“I sure hope you don’t,” I mumble under my breath, earning a snarky glare.
Taking a deep breath and trying not to laugh is a very difficult task when a tiny cloud of fury is walking in front of me with her head held high, her small free hand curled into a fist, and her steps jumpy. Every time there’s an obstacle in the way, she jumps over a root like a little bunny, her hair flying behind her. She’s hilarious. I’m sure, in her eyes, she looks vicious with that little fist and the bananas wielded in the air like a weapon. In reality, she looks like a pink Easter bunny.
And I find myself smiling watching her. Odd.