seven
S IX DAYS LATER, I WAKE up knowing even before I open my eyes that Edmund is spooning me from behind.
At some point during the night, he rolled over and scooted up close to me, draping an arm around my middle to hold my body close to his. There’s no question that he’s the one who initiated the cuddling. It’s happened a couple of other times in the past week we’ve been sleeping in this makeshift shelter on the island. Each time, I’ve been in exactly the position I fell asleep in—on my own towel and pillow—while Edmund has definitely not been.
I like it. I can’t help it. That in his sleep, he instinctively seeks my body. Logically, I know it’s probably more the heat and comfort he’s seeking, but still... It feels special. Personal. Like his sleeping self wants me .
This morning his warm, firm body is making me hot. He’s breathing slow and heavy against my hair. And he’s hard. An erection is poking against my butt.
I love the feel of that too, even though it’s probably nothing more than a natural physical response while he sleeps.
When he sighs hoarsely—almost a groan—and gives a slow, gentle thrust against my ass, a clench of sharp desire leaves me breathless and shaky.
He’s sound asleep and doesn’t know what he’s doing, so my lying here letting him do it is entirely inappropriate. Plus I’m hotly aroused now, and I can’t do what I want—which is turn over and wrap my arms around him to kiss him senseless.
So instead, I pull away from him, sit up, and then carefully climb over his still-sleeping form until I’m standing outside the shelter.
I breathe in the warm, humid morning air—much more pleasant than the heat of the day—and will my body and mind to calm down.
When I’m no longer at risk of crawling back inside to have my way with him, I splash water on my face from our tub, which is now full of rainwater. I go to the bathroom behind my normal tree and then walk down the beach and into the water in just my panties and tank top.
The water is always pleasantly cool in the morning. I wade out until the bottom abruptly drops off. Then I swim.
We’ve had so much downtime in the days on this island that I’ve started swimming just to exercise and use up energy, hoping to fool my body into thinking I’ve actually done something with the morning. I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing, and I don’t like it nearly as much as I would have assumed.
This island doesn’t feel like a vacation. It feels like a prison with beautiful scenery.
People aren’t made to lie around purposelessly, and it’s not good for me in particular. My mind starts to spin out of control in upsetting and unhealthy ways.
I swim for longer than normal since it’s helping to distract me from my arousal earlier, and I end up farther out than I’m comfortable with. The waves are mild and easy right now, so there’s not any danger from them. And I’ve been a competent swimmer since I was a child. But still... It’s unnerving to be so far out from the shore.
There are a lot of fish out here. The water is still really clear, so I can see them. I don’t mind fish, but the idea of something else—something bigger or scarier—lurking out here is enough to drive me back toward the beach. I swim until the water is too shallow and then wade back up to the shore.
Edmund is up, standing in the surf, looking out at me and wearing nothing but his boxers. They’re already getting worn—like my clothes. I hate to imagine what we’re going to do when our clothes are too old and thin to keep wearing.
Are we going to have to try to weave grass skirts? Or go around naked like this really is the Garden of Eden?
I walk up, dripping, to where he stands. “Hey.”
“Hey.” He’s peering at my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just had extra energy this morning.” I glance out at the ocean when his eyes shift to the horizon. “No sign of anything out there but a bunch of fish.”
“Yeah.” He sounds quiet. Slightly subdued. Every day he’s been energized and expectant—certain that we’ll be rescued soon. But it hasn’t happened yet.
One day he’s going to have to accept that it may not ever happen.
Trying to shift to a more practical topic, I say, “We should think about some way to catch the fish that are out there. We could really use more protein, and we’re not having much luck with crabs or shellfish.”
“Yeah. I know. We can brainstorm on that.”
He sounds slightly distracted, and when I glance over to check his face, I swear I catch him leering at my body. It’s clearly visible since the minimal amount of fabric covering me is completely soaked.
I experience a little jolt of excitement, but Edmund looks away quickly, back toward the horizon. He certainly doesn’t appear to be a man overcome with lust.
“I’m gonna take a swim,” he mumbles.
“Okay. I’ll work on the coconuts for today.”
I watch him as he splashes out far enough to start swimming. He’s an even better swimmer than me. His arms slice through the water with each stroke, and his feet kick powerfully, surging his body forward.
I’ve always found Edmund attractive—far too attractive for my comfort. And I’ve always felt close to him and wanted to be closer.
But I’ve never really thought about his body as powerful before. Strong and capable and masculine and powerful .
I sigh and turn away. Those kinds of thoughts are going to do me no good at all.
There have been several moments over the past days where it felt like a thrilling heat was shuddering in the air between us, but each time, Edmund has turned away from it. Broken it. If he wanted me in any real way, nothing would come between us as we’re isolated here on this island. Nothing that could keep us apart in the real world—his lifestyle, his wealth, my position as his assistant, our vastly different personalities and priorities in life—would matter.
He’s a virile man who’s had a lot of sex in his life, so his body is likely primed for it, but it’s not me he wants.
And it doesn’t matter that part of me has always wanted him.
Blowing out all these thoughts with my breath, I return to the hut and dry off enough to pull on my shorts. I don’t lather up with sunscreen because I’ve almost used up the first bottle already. I have five more bottles from the tub, but applying it two or three times a day will burn through them too quickly.
I don’t know how long we’ll be on this island, so yesterday I decided to only start using it around noon since the morning sun isn’t as strong and I can usually manage to stay in the shade.
I do put on my other top since the thin fabric covers my chest and shoulders and most of my arms. After sliding on my shoes, I head into the forest to collect enough coconuts for the day. When I bring them back to the shelter, Edmund is still swimming, so I head farther in to where the best fruit trees are growing to collect some bananas and that green fruit we’ve been eating.
I return with my arms loaded up with fruit. Edmund is back, drying off with his towel, but he drops it and comes to help me with my haul.
We break open a coconut and split it with a couple of bananas for breakfast.
“So what should we do today?” I ask him when we’re finished eating.
“I’m going to finish that third SOS. What about you?”
“I might make another pair of those sandals.”
For the past couple of days, Edmund has been forming two new SOSs on the beach on different sides of the island in the hopes of increasing the chance that someone will see them. I’ve been making a kind of patio in front of our shelter with all the flat rocks I can find so we have a better surface to work and sit on. Ever since the incident with that spider, sitting directly on the sand has freaked me out.
Then yesterday I had a flash of brilliance and started weaving some of the long grasses into a mat. The mat is much stronger and more flexible than the big leaves, and it allowed me to secure vines to it in a way that’s more permanent so Edmund can tie them on as sandals.
They worked amazingly well. So well that I figure I might make some for myself so I don’t have to wear my boat shoes everywhere.
“Okay. That sounds good. I’ll be a few hours over on the other side of the island. You’ll be all right here?”
“Yeah.” I smile at him. “I’m going to stay here where I know there’s good shade, but I’ll be fine.”
He looks at me for a little too long, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Then he ties on his sandals and pulls on his T-shirt from where it’s hanging on a long vine we’ve strung from a tree to the shelter so we can dry out our towels and clothes.
Then he starts striding down the beach.
***
I T TAKES MOST OF THE morning for me to make another pair of sandals—these sized to fit my own feet. But I have equal success with this pair and I tie them on, feeling very pleased with myself.
The sun is high in the sky. It’s got to be noon if not later. Edmund still isn’t back. I’m hungry and ready for lunch, but I don’t like to eat without him. So I wait.
Surely it won’t take much longer for him to finish that last SOS.
To kill time, I go over to inspect a pile of wood planks beside our hut. Three days ago, we found another piece of wreckage from the yacht washed up on the beach a good distance away. It was a small piece of the hull, and it didn’t include anything useful except the wood itself. We worked on breaking it apart into boards, assuming we might be able to use them for something eventually.
I’m leaning over the pile, picking out the tallest lengths, when Edmund’s voice behind me startles me.
“What are you doing?”
I straighten up with a jerk. “Oh. Nothing. Just killing time.”
He’s frowning at me just slightly. He’s gotten even tanner than he was a week ago, and he’s grown the start of a full beard. “Did you want to do something with that wood?”
“Well, I was thinking. We could maybe use some of these planks for support posts around the patio. Then I could try to weave a much bigger mat like our sandals and use it as a kind of awning.”
“Why bother?” He doesn’t look bad-tempered or annoyed. Mostly just curious and confused.
I shrug. “I don’t know. It would just give us more shade and protection.”
“Oh.” He blinks. “Okay.”
I sigh, letting the topic drop for now.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that while most of my efforts this week have been focused on helping us survive and stay safe here, Edmund’s have been geared toward waiting for rescue.
Occasionally I want to shake him. Make him come to his senses. There was never much chance that anyone would find us, but the little chance we had was in the first few days.
Caleb would have known that something was wrong within twelve hours of the wreck since I’d been checking in with him twice a day to let him know where we were and that we were safe. When he couldn’t reach us, he would have immediately organized a search.
But our GPS beacon is no doubt at the bottom of the ocean.
That’s where Caleb—and thus everyone who knows and loves us—is going to assume we are too.
They’re not coming to rescue us now. If we’re saved, it will be purely by accident when someone happens to be cruising or flying near this island.
The reality makes me sick with dread and grief. I can barely think about what my parents and younger sister must be feeling right now. It’s too much to let fill my mind. It’s too deep and hard and painful. So my thinking mind has accepted that this is now my reality, and all the rest of the feelings have been forced back into a dark corner.
I’m not sure how else I can survive this.
Edmund has not been doing the same thing. No part of him wants to accept that this is real.
We eat lunch, and then since it’s very hot now and we’re both sweating, we take another dip in the ocean. This time we don’t do a lot of swimming. We stay close enough to the shore to keep our feet on the bottom and bob around in the waves, talking about possibilities for catching fish.
One protein bar a day is simply not enough protein to give us the energy we need.
When something brushes against my ankle, I squeal and jump toward Edmund instinctively, jerking my foot up.
He laughs and lifts me up in the water to move me away from whatever touched me.
“You shouldn’t laugh at me,” I tell him, although I appreciate his immediate reaction to help me. “I was traumatized by that spider.”
“I know you were,” he murmurs, peering down at the water. “But I think the culprit in this case is nothing more than a piece of seaweed.”
“There might be jellyfish. Or slithery water creatures.” I’ve blinked the water out of my eyes, and I’m gazing up at him from only a few inches away.
His hands are still on my upper arms. He slides them higher, over my shoulders until they’re gently curved around my neck. His face changes as he looks down at me.
My wet hair must be plastered to the sides of my face and my head. My cheeks are probably bright red from the sun and effort. And I have no doubt that a lot more freckles have popped out on my skin from all the sun I’ve been getting this week. But at the moment I feel beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
And more than that. Desirable. Treasured.
That’s what I’m seeing on his face and in his eyes.
“Edmund?” I say, soft and raspy. My hands have moved of their own accord to touch his chest.
He makes a low, guttural sound and moves his body closer. His head is tilted down toward mine.
He’s going to kiss me. I know it. Everything inside me is reaching for it.
Reaching for him .
Then his gaze flickers away from me. His face changes, and his eyes narrow as he stares at something out toward the horizon.
I turn my head to look, curious despite the heavy drop of disappointment.
I gasp when I see what he sees. “Is that a boat?”
“That’s what it looks like.” He sounds excited. Urgent.
His reaction fuels mine, and my heart hammers as we hurry back to the beach and then yell and flail our arms around in the hopes that the boat might see us.
It’s a sailboat. That much is clear. But anything else about the size or type is a mystery while it’s so far away.
“It’s coming this way,” Edmund says after a minute. “I knew they would find us.”
It would take a miracle. Nothing short of a miracle. But who’s to say miracles can never happen?
We scream and wave frantically as the boat gets closer. Eventually it’s close enough to see more.
It’s a small boat. Way too small to be this far out in the ocean. Anyone who could come to rescue us wouldn’t come in a one-man recreational sailboat.
“It’s sailing weird,” I say, squinting against the reflection of the sun on the water so I can see better.
Edmund must be seeing what I’m seeing now. He’s stopped calling out, and his presence has palpably slumped. “It’s riding too low. It must have taken on water. That’s not our rescue.”
We watch in silence until it’s close enough to see more details. “Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “It looks like it’s totally beat up.”
Edmund isn’t talking. When I glance at his face, I see why.
He’s holding on to a blank, stoic expression, but I know him too well to be fooled by that.
He’s completely crushed.
So am I, but it’s not the same.
I never fully believed rescue was coming.
Edmund starts to turn around to trudge back to our shelter, but I stop him by grabbing his arm. “Wait. We should still try to pull that boat in if we can. Even if it’s taken on water, there might be some things we can use in it.”
“Oh yeah. Of course. Let’s see if we can get it.”
It’s not an easy process. The waves have pushed the boat in toward our beach, but it gets to a point where it doesn’t come any farther. It just rocks back and forth partway out. We both swim out to it, but even though it’s sunk lower than it should be, it’s not easy for us to climb onto it.
We both try unsuccessfully for several minutes until Edmund manages to jump high enough to grab a loose line hanging over the side. He uses it to haul himself up onto the small deck.
He unties the mooring line and tosses it out toward me. I grab it and wait until he’s dived back in the water so he can grab the line with me.
Together, we haul the boat in toward the shore.
It’s not too hard to begin with, but eventually we have to fight the retreating tide and then pull it over sand as the water gets shallower.
It takes every bit of strength and energy I possess, and I can see Edmund feels the same. When we’ve finally got the boat lodged far enough up on the beach for it to be safe from being pulled back into the ocean, we both collapse onto the sand, gasping and wheezing.
We don’t even bother trying to look inside the boat until we’ve recovered, cooled down, and drunk a lot of water. Then we finally climb onto the deck so we can check out what’s in it.
There’s no dead body. That’s the first thing we discover. Whoever was sailing this boat must have been washed overboard, leaving it adrift at sea. The radio and the rest of the electronics on board are all completely waterlogged and unusable. And belowdecks we find an assortment of soaking-wet clothes, blankets, towels, and toiletries. There’s a thin mattress on the bunk that we can definitely use after it dries out. And there’s a tiny galley with some canned food that hasn’t been ruined. And a couple of plates and drinking glasses. One small pot and one small pan.
And one good utility knife, which is an absolute godsend.
It takes most of the afternoon to drag everything out, wring out the water, and stretch it out so it can dry in the sun.
We’re exhausted by the time the sun starts to set. We eat a can of baked beans along with our fruit. It tastes way too salty but feels substantial.
We go to bed early. I can barely keep my eyes open, but I’m deeply worried about Edmund. He’s been quiet all afternoon and evening. Something about his presence feels heavy. Not like him at all.
We lie down on our respective towels, and I turn on my side to face him. He turns toward me too, meeting my eyes in what’s left of the light from the setting sun.
“I’m really sorry, Edmund,” I whisper.
I don’t have to explain what I’m sorry for. He knows as much as I do. He’s hurting—all the hope for rescue he’d been holding on to disappearing like the unstoppable retreat of the tide.
I can’t resist the urge any longer, so I reach out to wrap my arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug.
He makes a throaty sound and holds on to me just as tightly.
We lie like that for a long time, clinging to the needy embrace like it’s all we have left.
Then finally we fall asleep together.
***
W HEN I WAKE UP THE next morning, something is different. It takes me a minute to figure out what it is.
Edmund isn’t asleep beside me.
He never wakes up before I do. And he was so hurt last night. Wounded.
Worried, I jump up and crawl out of the shelter, gasping in surprise when the first thing I see is Edmund pounding one of our wood planks into the ground next to our improvised patio.
“What are you doing?” I ask, poised on my hands and knees and staring up at him.
“I pulled the sails off that boat. We can use one of them as that awning you were talking about. To cover the patio.”
I manage to straighten up so that I’m on my knees. I stare up at him, searching his face with an unexpected urgency.
He meets my eyes, and I understand.
I understand.
He’s lost his hope for a timely rescue, so he’s ready to invest in making our living conditions better.
And he’s starting by building us a covered patio.
***
A LL MORNING WE WORK on the patio—extending the rock surface I started and erecting the awning using the wood planks and some of the rope from the sailboat.
When we finish, we reorganize our sleeping shelter with the sheets and blankets we found in the boat. They’re fully dry now, but the mattress is still a little damp. We’ll have to wait another day until we can sleep on it.
After lunch, we take a leisurely swim, and as we’re walking back up the beach afterward, I step on a seashell that’s sharp enough to startle and hurt me. I gasp and raise one foot automatically, reaching to hold on to Edmund’s arm for support so I don’t lose my balance.
He turns me toward him, holding me by the upper arms in the same way he’s done before. He stares down at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I smile and shake my head. “Stepped on a damn seashell.”
“Is it bleeding?”
We both inspect my raised foot. It’s a very shallow cut and just a little bit of blood.
“It’ll be fine,” I say.
Without responding and without any warning, he adjusts his position so he can swing me up into his arms.
I’m not a small woman. I’m average height and hardly a waif. And while Edmund has always been in excellent shape, I never would have imagined him being able to pick me up.
But he does. He’s grinning at my startled exclamations as he carries me all the way to our shelter.
He is slightly out of breath when he gets there, and I’m giggling helplessly. But the amusement is masking the stronger emotion—an intense fluttering of excitement that simply won’t be stomped out.
He sets me down next to our patio. I immediately raise my injured foot.
His hands are still on my waist. He moves them up to my shoulders. Then higher. Until he’s holding my neck loosely the way he did out in the ocean yesterday.
His expression has changed again, and there’s no mistaking it this time. It’s warm and soft. And hungry.
So incredibly hungry.
“Autumn,” he murmurs thickly.
I raise my hands to hold on to his shoulders. “Yes.”
It’s not entirely clear whether the one word is a question or an eager expression of assent.
This has happened before. These hot moments. And each time Edmund has pulled away.
But something has changed now. He’s no longer waiting for rescue.
We are here—together—cut off from our old lives and everything we used to be. And we might stay this way indefinitely.
He says yes in the same way I did, and then he lowers his face as I’m stretching mine up toward him.
Then he’s kissing me.
And I’m kissing him back.