by Jill Myles
Olivia gave me a traumatized look. “That is a petticoat. You have to wear something over it.”
I frowned at her. “It’s too hot to wear something over it, though I wouldn’t mind something under it.” I gestured at the clothing, noticing the sad lack of undergarments. “No bras or underwear or even a clean swimsuit?”
She shook her head, mystified at me, and I sighed. Well, at least most of the men were gone and I could go around loosey-goosey until my bikini was clean and dried. “I’ll go change, then.”
I used Salvador’s room as a dressing-room and when I emerged, dressed in my new clothing, I felt like a different person. My grimy swimsuit was huddled into a ball in my hand, and the new clothes felt wonderfully clean against my skin, even if I felt every bit as scandalous as the looks that Olivia was giving me. My breasts swayed under the thin fabric of the blouse, and I hoped nobody could see through my dang skirt. “Is this better?”
“I suppose,” Olivia said dubiously.
I glanced over at Harold and watched him as he took another slow bite of soup, staring into the fire. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. It felt odd to not be on the run for the first time in days, and I moved to sit back down on the stool I’d claimed as my own. Olivia washed the helmets as they were emptied, and placed them back on the stone nook on the wall. There were three of them, I noticed, and one rudely carved wooden bowl. I drank a cup of water (made out of a half-coconut) as I watched her sit down by the fire and used a carved wooden needle to sew shut a hole in a ragged looking garment that I would have normally thrown away. I noticed her own equally ragged clothing, and felt a bit humbled as I sat there in my new, clean clothing while she wore rags.
And then I thought of Salvador’s loincloth and blushed. He didn’t even bother with the clothing.
The comfortable silence went on for some time. Olivia mended, Harold ate quietly, his hands shaking with every lift of the spoon, and I sat and watched the fire and drowsed, thinking about my journey here. I thought about the wreckage, the half-eaten pilot on the beach. I even thought about the footsteps in the sand and wondered why that image still bothered me.
When the sun was high in the sky, Olivia got up to roll the palm-covering back over the cave, setting everything into cool shade and shielding us from the heat of the day. Harold wasn’t much of a talker; he headed back to his small cave and slept the afternoon away, and Olivia continued her mending. I noticed she was piecing the rags together to make a crude blanket of sorts.
I was surprised when a sound came from the lip of the cave, and I stood up in anticipation. Salvador climbed up the rope ladder, tossing a few small animal carcasses down on the ledge.
“Welcome back,” Olivia cried out, rushing over to him. “Is Eustace with you?” She looked eagerly over the edge of the ledge and I watched her mobile face fall a little when she did not see him.
“He will be back eventually, Olivia. Do not worry for him.” Salvador reached over and tousled the girl’s head, and I watched the adoring look she gave him.
She had a crush on the man, that was obvious. Not that I blamed her. Hell, I had a bit of a crush on him myself, and it wasn’t at all girlish. It was a dirty, nasty, flustered sort of crush that involved lots of daydreamed sex.
He glanced around the cave, looking for someone in particular, and when his gaze slid to me, he stopped, and I watched as his eyes roamed over my newly-covered form possessively. My nipples hardened at the look on his face, and I crossed my arms over my chest, hoping he wouldn’t notice them poking through the thin fabric. “Hello Salvador,” I said, forcing my voice to be cool and nonchalant.
He strode over to me and I bristled, wondering if he was going to toss me over his shoulder again and drag me to his room. I hated how my body flushed with desire at the thought, too. I took a step backward as he approached, then paused, mindful of the fire and my flowing skirt. To my surprise, he reached out and gently touched my face, the edge of my cheek where it still stung at the slightest touch and felt puffy. “How are you feeling?”
Just those simple, softly accented words were enough to make my knees liquefy. I pulled away from his hand, noticing that his own eye was puffed up and swollen from where Eustace had gotten him good. “I’m fine. Your eye...”
He shrugged. “It is well enough.” His hand slid from my face to my bare arm.
Olivia stood behind us, and cleared her throat, and when I looked over, she clutched the brace of rabbit-looking creatures in her arms like they were the only thing saving her from flinging herself bodily over the cliff. “I’ll start on dinner while we wait for Eustace to return.” She hurried to the far end of the cave and I could hear her rummaging in the small trunk that they kept the wooden utensils in.
“Eustace is coming back?” I glanced over at the bronzed Spaniard.
Salvador gave me a meaningful look. “Eventually. She is merely hoping that he will return soon. I do not think he will return for weeks, if that.”
“Will he be all right?”
Salvador grunted. “He will survive.”
I felt guilty that he was gone, and it was my fault. Poor Olivia. “Maybe I should help her with dinner,” I said, feeling uncomfortable to be standing so close to him. I glanced over to where Olivia stood, and watched as she used the knife to behead the kills. I heard the soft crunch of bones and winced, swallowing the revulsion.
He chuckled at the expression on my face. “I take it that you do not work in the kitchens, where you are from?”
I wrinkled my nose with distaste. “Not hardly. I’m a realtor.”
He slid an easy hand around my waist. “Shall we help her with dinner in another way? Perhaps to go and retrieve some fruits?”
The funny, slightly stilted English had a way of endearing him to me, and I found myself smiling up at him. “Sure, we can go get some fruits.”
Salvador called out something to Olivia in Spanish, and I watched as her face fell slightly, but she nodded. We headed to the rope ladder, and Salvador went down first. “To guard for you,” he explained. It was fine with me, and I watched his easy motions as he went down the ladder first, and then I followed.
My muscles protested in weariness as I went down the ladder, reminding me that I was not nearly in as good a shape as even slight Olivia. Still, I managed my way down – slowly – and we headed into the jungle. There was a dirt path near the cave, and Salvador led the way, and I followed close behind him. He was nearly silent as he moved through the underbrush; I, unfortunately, was noisy and stepped on just about everything in creation.
When I landed on a hard twig, it jabbed my foot. I cursed at the pain that shot through me, and Salvador turned in my direction. “Your feet? They are still tender?”
The way his lips caressed the word ‘tender’ made me blush in the late evening sky. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just not used to running around without shoes on. It’ll take me a bit to toughen up.” At his speculative look, I decided to change the topic before he wanted to get up close and personal with my feet and check for himself. “Are we close?”
“Here is fine,” he said, gesturing to the bushes. “Let me show you.”
I crept forward, and with his body leaning all too close to mine, he showed me how to brush aside the odd leaves of the short, squat plant and look for the small green fruit nestled at the base of each stem. I leaned over and plucked the one in reach. “How many do we need?” I glanced over at him.
His lips were perilously close to my ear, and judging by the fascinated look on his face, he hadn’t been paying much attention to the fruit. “How many do you think you will eat, encantadora?”
I felt flushed and hot at the intense look on his face. “Will you think me a pig if I say twenty?”
He chuckled. “If you eat twenty, I will indeed be surprised.”
“Prepare to be astonished, then,” I said dryly. “I’ve been so hungry lately I could eat my own shirt.”
His hands slid around my waist, feeling the so
ft, ticklish skin and sending abrupt shivers through my body. “The material is thin, belleza, and would not make much of a meal.” I felt his hands snake around me, pulling me closer to his hot, hard body. His fingertips brushed the undersides of my breasts, so close to my nipples that they hardened instantly, and the familiar ache started between my thighs. His breath lingered, hot and seductive on my throat. “And then what would you wear?”
I groaned, leaning back against his body and letting the sensations sweep over me. “Don’t touch me,” I said, feeling like a sham even as the words slipped out of my mouth, because I pressed up against his hard body and lifted my arm to twine my fingers in his hair.
“How can I see your beautiful body and not want to touch it?” His hands slid lower, grasping my hips through the thin material and sliding them against the hardness that strained against his loincloth. “How can you dance before me and not allow me to touch you?”
I whimpered against him, arching my neck when his lips pressed against my skin. His hands slid up to cup my breasts, loose and straining in the thin shirt, and I felt him groan against me. “Belleza, Diana,” he whispered. “Tell me you want this too.”
His fingertips brushed against my nipples and shockwaves floated through my body, rippling outward and making my toes curl. The fruit dropped to the forest floor and I panted as he pressed his body against mine, erection straining against my buttocks. The man felt like a dream.
Abruptly, the image of us in the waterfall filtered through my mind, and I remembered how quick he’d been to leave me then. Back when he’d been pretending not to speak English, rather than whispering sultry Spanish platitudes in my ear.
It was like a splash of cold water in my face. I jerked away from him, pushing his hands off me. “Stop it!”
He groaned again, and when I turned to face him, he had a grim smile on his face. “You try my patience, Diana.”
“Yeah, well, you try mine too, buddy. I’m not your slave-girl, and you can’t take me out into the woods for a quick tumble in the bushes.” I bent down to pick up the fallen fruit and brushed it off with my fingers. “I don’t know where you’re from, but where I come from, we do things differently,” I said, bluffing. I desperately wanted to fling myself back into his arms, wrap my legs around that lean, tanned waist, and beg him to toss me down in the dirt and make my head spin, but I wouldn’t do it. Wounded pride was a wonderful bolster to my courage.
To my surprise, he seemed to take this to heart. “How is it that your people claim a woman, then?”
I snorted, straightening my blouse. “We don’t ‘claim’ anyone. It’s a mutual sort of choosing.”
He shook his head. “It is different here. I came from civilization once, but you learn to adapt. Here on the island, if you want something, you take it.” Salvador moved forward to embrace me again.
I sidestepped him, barely managing to avoid his arms. “But you forget, I’ve only been here a few days,” I said, making my voice as sweet as possible. “I’m not yet used to being on this island. I’m only familiar with what I know.”
“Then how would a man claim a woman, if he wished to have her as his mate?” There was an edge of polite annoyance in his voice and it made me smile, realizing he was humoring me.
I thought for a moment as I reached into the bushes and plucked another one of the small green fruits. “Well, I suppose that a man would move slow, first of all. He wouldn’t put his hands all over her...breasts...every time he was alone with her.”
He chuckled low, a liquid sound that went straight to my loins. “But you have such lovely breasts, belleza.”
Great, now I was thinking about him putting his hands all over my breasts. My already-weak resolve trembled as desire pulsed through my body. Knees wobbly, I forced myself to concentrate on the fruit. Fruit, fruit, fruit. Pick the fruit, I told myself. Don’t think about the studly Spaniard behind me. “Girls like to take things slow,” I said, struggling for a way to prolong the conversation. “They like to be told they’re pretty, and have long conversations with a boy—”
“But I am a man,” he said, and I wanted to laugh and fling myself at him all at the same time.
“-man. I meant man,” I amended, babbling. “They like to be brought nice things, and go on special trips just the two of them, and they like to get to know each other before they, you know...” Lord, I was getting flustered.
“Before they make love for hours?” He asked helpfully, his sultry voice working my already-frayed nerves. “Before the man mounts the woman and gives her the greatest pleasure of her life?” I felt his hand on my waist again, but he only leaned past me and reached for one of the fruits that my arms weren’t long enough to get. “Before he makes her skin moist with sweat, and makes her cry out his name in ecstasy?” He held the small green fruit up near my lips.
I snatched it from his hand, piling it into the fold of my skirt, where I was putting the others. “Boy,” I muttered, “You sure do know some good phrases in English for a darn Spanish guy.”
He chuckled. “In my country, when we wanted something, we conquered it. But, if you wish to be courted, Diana, you shall be courted.”
“It’s not that I want to be courted,” I protested, feeling a bit silly and flustered all at once. I actually wanted him to go back to talking about making my skin moist, in that low, rumbling accent of his.
“Hush,” he said, placing a finger over my lips. “It shall be as you want it, belleza.” And with that, he gave me a chaste kiss on the lips and began to head down the path once more. “Come. We have enough fruit.”
Who was even thinking about fruit anymore?
*** *** ***
Dinner that evening was a quiet one. Olivia was in no mood to talk, Harold was naturally quiet, and I was jittery from the interlude in the woods. Eustace was still gone. Salvador was the only one that seemed to be completely at ease in his own skin, and he was quiet by nature. We ate in silence.
After dinner, I offered to help Olivia clean the dishes, but she would have none of it, and so we all sat around and stared at each other uncomfortably, me most uncomfortably of all.
Salvador seemed amused by this. “Diana, would you like to go and look at the stars with me?”
“The stars?” I frowned at him. That seemed like an obvious ploy to me.
“Yes,” he said, and left it at that.
I glanced over at Olivia, but she remained by the water-buckets, tight lipped and unhappy as she rinsed the dishes. I felt guilty. “I bet Olivia would like to go with us.”
I don’t know who shot me the dirtier look then – Salvador or Olivia.
“I’m rather tired,” Olivia said. “After I clean the supper dishes, I’ll just head to bed, I believe.” She offered us a small smile. “It’s been a long day.”
Boy, had it ever been a long day. It still felt early too. “All right then, I guess I’ll go look at the stars with you.” I moved to Salvador’s side.
He chuckled. “You make it sound as if it is a terrible chore to be stuck with my company.”
I shrugged, not wanting to point out that it seemed to be an obvious ploy to get me to Make-Out Point. “So where are we going star-gazing?”
He gestured at the ledge. “Right here, of course.”
We walked away from the fire and out to the far-edge of the ledge, the exact same spot that the ladder dangled from in the daytime. It was pulled up now, in a neat pile at the edge of the rock. Salvador sat on the edge himself, letting his legs dangle over the side, and I did the same, using him as an anchor in case I slipped and fell. His arm slid easily around my waist, and I let it stay there.
“Won’t Eustace need the rope to get back up?” I pointed out.
Salvador shook his head. “Eustace will not be coming back tonight.”
“He won’t?” I felt another twinge of guilt. Poor Olivia. I’d scared her brother off.
He shook his head. “It is not safe to travel about at night. The big cats like the night-time.”
“Big cats?” I didn’t like the sound of that, and liked it even less when he made a gesture with his fingers, demonstrating super-long canine teeth. “Saber-tooth tigers?”
He shrugged. “Whatever your people call them.” He pointed up at the stars. “We came out here to watch the stars, not speak of cats.”
I glanced up at the sky and sucked in a breath at the splendor above me. The stars out here in the wild were breathtaking, the entire night sky glittering with lights and covered in endless constellations.
“Wow,” I said, poetic words failing me. “That’s amazing.”
He seemed amused by my assessment. “In the village where my parents come from, we would sit outside and look at the stars every time we could. My mother used to tell me that if one wanted something badly enough, one could wish upon a star and if God decided, he would grant that wish.”
I felt like such a cynic sitting next to the man, because I snorted. “You’ve been watching too many Disney movies.” I shifted in my seat, staring down at the jungle below, thinking of the wild dinosaurs that roamed the island. “I think God’s forgotten all about this land.”
“You’re wrong,” he said with quiet conviction next to me.
“How are you so certain, then?”
He turned his handsome, lean profile up to the stars. “Nights ago, I looked at the stars and prayed to God to end my loneliness. I asked for him to give me a sign.”
“And did he?”
Salvador smiled slowly, a flash of white teeth cutting across his tanned face. “I saw a sign, yes. You may not believe me, but no sooner had I wished it than I saw a bright red streak in the sky. It lifted from the trees and burst like an explosion in the sky. From there.” He pointed at the trees to the south. “The south beaches, where I found you.”
He’d seen the flare gun I’d fired. I remembered my odd fever dreams of the beautiful man, and then Salvador had showed up later. Back then I’d thought it was all a dream. “So you found me, and then you left me for the cavemen to grab?” That seemed like an odd plan.
