Chapter 18
18
M aeve
I’ve been waiting for him to finally fall asleep for so long my eyes almost fell out of their sockets—that’s how hard I’ve been trying to make them look anywhere but at him.
I knew he’s a large man since he’s so tall and that jacket of his is big, but man oh man, I didn’t expect him to be so freaking ripped and lie next to me nearly naked. In a very touchable distance. And he’s like a sculpture ripped. Insanely ripped. How did I not suspect any of this when I saw him in the coffee shop all those times? It may be dark, but I haven’t forgotten his coiled body or how it felt under my touch as I applied mud to it earlier. And now he’s practically naked right next to me.
My initial thought of him being an office rat due to the pale color of his skin that has never seen the light of day still stands. I swear his skin is almost transparent.
But it sure as hell has seen the luminescent light of a gym. Looks like many hours at that. Besides those mega pronounced delta and wing muscles or whatever they’re called, he has these little muscles connecting those big ones. Those muscles have their own muscles, and I could see them all.
When he grabbed that tree and lifted himself up, I swallowed. Hard. When he was up there and took his undershirt off and I got an eyeful of his arms and pecs, I nearly whistled. Because this man has a very impressive physique. Lifting himself up that palm like a giant monkey was not what I envisioned when I called him. To be honest, I had zero expectations that he actually would climb the tree. What I wanted was for him to help me get papayas down by maybe throwing coconuts at it or something. I didn’t expect him to actually get up there. But he surprised me. He does that a lot actually.
I wanted so badly to be the first one to find food and bring it to him as a thank you for not letting me starve the first night, but he managed to find bananas first. Good thing I at least was able to help him with the sunburn. To my utter surprise, I find that I don’t want him to suffer. Yes, my initial hatred toward him was justified. Somewhat. But we’re not there anymore. Plus, he has his own reasons to dislike me. And yes, I labeled him ‘an asshole’—deservingly so—but we’re thrown together into this situation, and he’s proven to have a different side to his assholishness.
To think of it, it all makes sense. The more assholey the assholes are, the better they look, and this one seems to be a descendant of a Greek god. Like maybe Ares or someone equally powerful with a dark cloud of anger and pheromones over his head. Because I don’t know what’s happening, but I can’t stop staring at his back. Maybe it’s the heat talking or near-death experience—who knows. Anyhow, I can’t wait to get all the control over my body back .
His insanely sweet gesture of covering my legs with his last shirt took away the final bit of resentment and anger I had for him. It was so unexpected and thoughtful, my eyes turned itchy. I wanted to thank him but couldn’t in fear I’d start bawling. So I just stayed silent.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here, but the rain has slowed down and the darkness isn’t quite so thick anymore. Sighing, I try to get rid of his pretty image from my head. Only to move my eyes lower and land them—a ccidentally, of course —on his butt. I swallow when I see his thighs. Muscular thighs. His suit pants must have been custom tailored to comfortably contain those thick columns.
And where did he get something like that? I eye all the big things again. I mean, he’s clearly an office rat and must spend a lot of his time in a chair. I wonder how much he can squat. Can he squat with me in his arms? That’d be awesome.
I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into those muscular thighs.
Startled, I sit up straighter. What the hell am I even thinking? It’s probably hunger talking, nothing else, but his thighs do look delicious.
Feeling guilty for being caught even when no one saw me, I quickly lie down and stretch my body as far as possible from the man. Which is not far considering we’re sharing a handmade bungalow, and one of the ‘sharing’ people is very large.
I end up tossing and turning without any hope of sleep. So I turn to his back and start watching his muscles expand with every breath. With every inhale, it grows bigger, sucking all the air out of my own lungs. With every exhale, he breathes it back in.
It’s weird. It’s calming.
I don’t notice when I fall asleep.
I wake up dry and warm. And very hungry. Snuggling my face into the dry warmth, I moan with pleasure. It feels so good.
Someone clears their throat and rasps, “We need food.”
I jump up and to the side, nearly breaking the wall of the freshly built bungalow. The man rises up and sits on his butt, turning away from me.
“Yeah!” I cry out when I didn’t need to and run outside.
Only when I’m outside do I remember that I’m still wearing his blazer, duck undies, and a mismatched bra without padding. In horror, I turn toward him. Only to find him turning away from me.
Do I really look so bad? Tough shit, he’d better get used to it because I’m not jumping back into my ripped shorts and T-shirt. We’re on the island, and he can pretend I’m wearing a bikini. I’m not sure why I’m so embarrassed being seen in my undergarments.
I drop his blazer and straighten my back with pride.
“We need to look for food,” I remind him about his own words.
“Yeah,” he rasps. “Give me a second.”
“What are you doing there?” I start walking toward him.
“Nothing.” He quickly grabs his pants and pulls them over his lap. “I just need to get dressed.”
I raise my brow. “There’s no dress code here, you know. You can pretend your boxers are swimming shorts. I won’t tell anyone.” I smirk.
“I know.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Just for mosquitoes and stuff.”
I snort. “All mosquitoes are fried. They’ll come out at night, so you should be good till then.”
“Yeah, sure.” He disregards me, turns completely away, and starts pulling his pants on. I didn’t know he’s such a prude, but to each their own. I walk to the ocean and splash some water over my face and even gargle some. There is no better disinfectant and mouthwash than natural, salty water. Works for wounds too which I feel right away. All of them. On the soles of my feet and little cuts all over my legs and arms. And my poor bruised knees.
Welcome back to nature, Maeve.
“You ready?” He walks up to me.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
He quickly washes his face too, and we head toward the trees. At the waterfall, we drink. A lot. And once again I regret not having a bottle with me because we don’t know how long we’ll be roaming around, and we might get thirsty. Halves of coconuts don’t hold much, but it’s the best we’ve got.
On cue, my stomach lets out a loud growl of a wounded animal, and I regret eating the last banana yesterday evening and thinking that I should have saved it for energy in the morning.
“With so many chickens, we should be able to find some eggs,” he suggests, and my belly growls even louder. He looks at me with an amused face. “Let’s go.”
I follow him deeper into the woods. “How are you not hungry?”
“I am.”
“Then why doesn’t your body let out these god-awful sounds like mine?”
“Discipline. Ever heard of that?” he asks mockingly.
I let out a growl. Like an actual growl of anger. Which makes him snicker. Which makes me even angrier, and him snicker even more.
Suddenly he presses his finger to his lips. “Sh-sh,” he hisses, pointing toward a pile of medium-sized rocks not far from us. “There.”
I follow his hand and find a few chickens walking by. Two of them are lying under one of the rock formations, making funny sounds.
“We wait.”
“For what?”
“They’re sitting on the eggs. Or maybe laying them. Eventually, they’ll get up. Maybe,” he adds with a lopsided smile, looking boyish.
I glance at him with wonder. “How do you know?”
“I just do.”
After giving him a curious look, I stare back at the chickens. And stare. And stare. Turns out, laying eggs takes time, so I find a palm and sit, leaning my back on it while the giant keeps watching the chickens.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He turns his face to me, looking confused, so I press my hand to my chest, and his eyes follow it.
“We’ve slept together.” I start counting on my fingers. “And you’ve already bought me dinner. I burned your building.”
His head turns toward me with whiplash at the last words, I’m sure. I choose to ignore his glare and continue.
“I’ve sat on your face.” Another finger.
He starts coughing.
“I’ve touched your, you know, equipment.” I wave my hand in the area of his groin, and he takes a quick step back. “And I don’t know your name. Just that Jerome called you King. It’s weird. We should be on a first-name basis by now.” I shrug. “I’m Maeve. What about you?”
He swallows like he’s nervous to share his name after he shared the literal shirt off his back and returns his eyes to me. “Ezra. ”
“Wow. Such a cool name. I don’t think I know anyone with that name.”
He doesn’t reciprocate the compliment and goes back to watching the chickens. It’s not like I expected him to. But it’s not everyday you walk around meeting Maeves, you know?
“I knew your name,” he says in a quiet voice. It almost feels like he shouldn’t be saying it. “Well, at least a part of it. Mae. I just didn’t know it was a real one.” He swallows. “Considering your prison break, I figured it was bogus,” he adds with a slight note of humor in his tone.
“Mae?” I ask, confused, ignoring the prison part. I thought we were past that point.
“Yeah, that’s what they called you in New York?”
“How do you know?” I feel my brows drawing together. “I thought the hospital didn’t give you the name.” I recall telling them the first name that came to my mind—Mae. I didn’t even think about pretending to be someone else. When the nurse asked me about my last name, I threw out “Doe” like they use for unnamed people; that’s what I told Jerome when he hired me on under the table at the coffee shop, and he didn’t ask questions.
“I just did.” He turns away, showing that the conversation is over. I watch the back of his head, hoping he’d turn back and explain how he actually remembers anything about me. Other than the fact I might have accidentally caused a fire in his building. I mean, I didn’t even know his first name, and I might have had a couple of weird dreams— accidentally —starring him. And some of them were pretty violent with me stabbing forks in different places.
If he knew my name—a part of it—all this time, maybe he really said it on the plane, and I didn’t imagine it. The turbulence situation suddenly takes on a new level of intimacy, making me feel shy .
“What do you do for a living, Ezra?” I ask, trying to divert attention from the sudden weirdness between us. “I mean other than bounty-hunting my ass to press charges.”
The man owns a whole building in a very expensive district in New York. He’s probably doing something interesting with his life.
He turns to me. His expression changed. “We don’t need to know anything about each other. We wait for rescue to arrive and then we go our separate ways. I’m not interested in you, and you’re not interested in me. I don’t want to know anything.” His heavy stare drills holes in my eyes. They’re like hot lasers trying to put this information into my brain. “And trust me, you don’t want to know anything about me either.”
What in the ever-loving hell has happened between a few minutes ago and just now?
Trying to save face, I dramatically roll my eyes. “I wasn’t propositioning you. Just wanted to have small talk. We’re stuck here, anyway.”
“Small talk is a waste of time,” he says, turning around, and I flip off his back. My initial assessment of the man being a dick was not wrong. Unfortunately. Fate could be nicer and stick me with a cool person here. But no, I’ve got him, the king of all dickheads, who’s dead set on giving me whiplash with his mood swings.
I eyeball him with furrowed brows, trying to figure out what kind of sand flea bit his ass at night and drank away the blood of the decent guy who covered my legs with his shirt.
He was harsh, but I suppose he wouldn’t change overnight. Maybe it was a fluke before, and today the pumpkin has replaced the fancy carriage after all. Spending a night in his shelter was just a part of surviving. He was an asshole when I met him; he’s the very same one as I’m learning more about him. Even though he fed me and invited me to his dry bungalow. I appreciate it though. No matter how much he reverts to that person from the coffee shop, I will always be grateful for all the good things he’s already done for me. So I let this one slide.
Still, I keep my mouth shut, not wanting to be told off again like an unwanted insect.
A few moments later, commotion in the chicken community makes me stand up with excitement. I stretch my neck like a giraffe, trying to see what’s happening, and find a rooster jumping on one of the chickens.
“Oh, someone’s getting luck—” The rooster jumps off three seconds later, before I can even finish the sentence. “Shit, that was fast. I’m sorry, lady. I feel for you,” I mumble quietly. But Ezra hears it because a weak smile tugs on his lips.
“Had a bad experience?” Was it a joke he just cracked?
“What happened to ‘not asking questions’?” I counter with a smug smile, making air quotes.
After sending me an evil stare, he heads toward the stones. A rooster spreads his wings and makes a move to attack Ezra but doesn’t actually go with it. He just jumps around, flapping his wings and making loud clucking noises. Ezra pushes a hand under the still-sitting chicken and pulls an egg. And then another.
“Whoa! Where did you learn how to do that?” I ask, creeping closer since the rooster is now eyeing me.
“What happened to not asking questions?” he repeats my phrase, barely able to contain his smug laughter.
“Touché,” I admit, feeling like we might have broken the ice a little bit.
He checks two more spots and brings more eggs. Total of four. They are not big but way better than nothing .
“We don’t have fire, obviously. So it might not be to your taste.”
“Stop profiling people around here,” I say, shooting a glare his way, dropping the fact that I’ve been doing the same to him since the moment we met. “Eat them,” I say as I stare at the eggs in his hands.
“Maeve?” His voice cracks with a note of humor.
“Mhm?” I keep staring.
With a loud sigh, he stretches his arm toward me. “Take some.”
“Okay.” I carefully pick one egg from his open palms, noticing how large they are that they can fit all the eggs at once. “Thank you.”
“Take more,” he offers gently.
I shake my head. “Nah. I’m good. You build stuff and find everything and all that. You need energy. I’m good, really.” Reinforcing my statement with a smile, I grab a small stone from the ground and carefully tap on the top of the egg, trying not to crack the whole thing and lose its precious elixir. When the top is soft, I carefully peel it away, revealing a tiny hole, and bring it to my lips. Once it reaches my tongue, I moan and finish everything in two, maybe three seconds flat. And I don’t even like eggs. But I guess hunger can make you change perspectives.
“Take more.” He pushes the eggs toward me, ordering this time.
I shake my head.
“Take it.” His tone is firm. “I don’t want to carry you around when you pass out from muscle atrophy. You look like you’re two breaths away from it.”
How is he saying such a shitty thing with such a good intention?
“I’m good,” I reply stubbornly, even though my stomach lets out an embarrassing cry. Ezra pushes another egg into my hands, curling my fingers over it. So I’m pretty much forced to eat it too and suddenly feel much better. A cup of coffee would top the cake and make for the perfect morning in paradise. But we have only water, so we go back to the waterfall.
Once we’re there, Ezra goes for a dip. He spends a few minutes in the water before walking to the waterfall and standing under it like a shower.
I lean back on my elbows and enjoy the show. I mean, what else is there to do, right?
Once he’s done with a thorough cleaning of himself, he comes out of the water and plants his butt next to me.
“We gotta talk, Maeve,” he says, sounding grim.
“What about?”
He sighs. “About what we’re going to do.”
I push my elbows off the ground and sit straighter next to him. “Do you really think rescue isn’t coming?”
He chews on his lips before replying. “I don’t know. When the wave hit, the guy didn’t have a chance to report Mayday. It was in a matter of seconds, honestly. And out of nowhere. So I don’t know if they even know where to look. We’ve been here for what? Two days? And no one’s here yet. We need to look for options while the rescue’s looking for us. It might take them some time.”
I roll my lips in. “They should have some GPS equipment on those boats, right?”
“Maybe,” he agrees skeptically. “But have you actually seen the boat? It’s from two centuries ago.” Then he adds with a smirk, “Maybe even older than your phone. Though I doubt it.”
I punch his shoulder with my fist as if we’re two longtime friends. “Don’t insult my technology.”
“I haven’t seen any,” he says, squinting, and I punch him again. He suddenly turns serious. “We need to figure out what we will do until they find us.”
“Do you think they will?” I ask, because finally the reality is setting in.
“Eventually.” He nods. “It’s the twenty-first century, and people don’t just disappear in shipwrecks. Besides that, I’m sure your family will find you missing soon. Parents? Husband?”
Did that sound a bit like a question?
“Parents, yes. Probably. I don’t have a husband though.” I decide to put all my cards on the table.
“Boyfriend maybe.” Then he rushes to add, “He’ll report you missing, you know.”
I chuckle, rather sadly. “Yep, I don’t have one of those either.”
“Good.”
“Good?” I ask with a quirked brow.
“I mean,” he clears his throat, “good that your parents will report you. That’s what I meant.”
Sure, that’s what he meant. “What about your wife? Do you think she already reported you missing?”
He snorts. “I don’t have a wife yet. And with my luck, I won’t.”
Well, that sounded awfully vague. What’s up with his luck? He could be feeding fish on the bottom of the ocean. Or he could have ended up stuck here with someone way less pleasant because let’s face it, I’m a catch.
Then I eye him again. Fi-i-ine , he’s a catch too. He’s built us— himself —a house. Found water. Whisked me away from the depths of the ocean.
I suddenly sit up straight, pressing my palms into the ground.
“Holy fucking shit!”
“What happened?” He grabs my shoulder .
I slowly turn my face toward his.
“Are you okay?” His eyes roam over my face. When I don’t respond and just keep staring at him, he says, looking worried, “Maeve?”
Without wasting another precious minute of valuable time, the weight of the situation settles over me, and I launch myself at him. I straddle him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and hug him with all my might. My thighs squeeze him for dear life.
His body is awfully stiff underneath me. His arms are two cold, overcooked noodles by his sides.
I don’t care. I’m trying to express all my gratitude through my body because I think it will show it better than my words would. So I push all the warmth I have in me to him.
“Thank you,” I whisper into the crook of his neck. “Thank you so much.”
“For what?” He sounds genuinely confused. Clearly, my warmth isn’t working.
“For saving me. And for feeding me.” I sniffle. “And for not letting me die of cold at night.” I think I’m smudging my snot all over his shoulder.
His arms tentatively come around my back. Carefully, he puts a little power into his hug.
“It’s okay,” he whispers back gruffly.
I sniffle. Hiccup. And then start crying. Out of nowhere, I start crying. My body’s quaking with each sob, and his arms wrap around me tighter.
“It’s okay, Maeve,” he says in a soothing voice, which only makes me even more upset. It’s like a dam has been broken, and now this waterfall just can’t stop.
While his hand draws soothing circles over my back, his other is firmly placed on my lower back, keeping me attached to him. It feels safe. It feels good. He feels good. Big and strong and capable.
I don’t know how long he’s been holding me like that, but when my cries finally subside, I weakly push away from him. I don’t want to detach from him, but he’s right, we need food to help our situation.
I climb off him and go back to my previous spot.
“Thank you, Ezra. Really.” I wipe my nose with my slightly burned forearm. “I came off as a very ungrateful person at first. I know that.” He opens his mouth to say something, but I raise my finger, silencing him. “But I think I was just in shock. I’m usually okay, you know. But for some reason, it took me a minute to catch up. I’m sorry and thank you.”
“Don’t apologize.” His voice sounds very rough even though I know he doesn’t mean for it to be that way. Ezra happens to be a decent guy. Deep inside.
I shake my head. “I have to. I’m just so used to living on my own that it’s hard to accept any help.”
“Because it always comes with a price?” he asks carefully, and my head whips to him.
“Yes.” I watch his face more carefully, thinking there might be some hidden, dark secrets under his Adonis appearance.
“I understand.”
“You do,” I confirm, believing him too easily because I know he really does.
“Maeve?”
“Hm?”
“My help comes free. Okay?”
I swallow a dry lump before replying. “Okay.”
The corner of his lips quirks up in a half smile, making a stiff man suddenly look like a playful guy. “I wouldn’t mind you giving me a helping hand carrying coconuts to our house.”
“Not for free?” I ask dramatically.
“Of course not.” He smiles.
“Phew,” I exhale. “Got me scared there for a second. I thought for a moment you were being nice . Don’t go all soft on me now, Tarzan.”