Horsman, Jennifer

by Crimson Rapture

  "What's tickled ye?" Elsie asked, unable to see anything funny in the situation.

  "She is a shrew!" Christina cried. The idea made her fall back over with laughter. "Why, I bet she ends up in love, just like Katherine."

  Hanna and Elsie exchanged shocked glances.

  "That's not very funny."

  "No, it 'tisn't," Hanna agreed, confused. "After that 'orrible night, I don't see anything funny a'tall."

  "No, no, you're right," Christina quickly agreed, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to humble her laughter. Oddly, she could not seem to focus on the horror of that night at all. It seemed a distant vision, elusive and yet...

  "What's wrong with ye?" Hanna suddenly asked, looking at Christina's wide, vacant eyes, her flushed face.

  "I don't know... I feel so... so warm," she decided. Her blood seemed to be warming in stages and she had the strangest sensation of actually feeling her blood flow through her veins. She felt excited and agitated and ever so happy all at once.

  Hanna reached a hand to Christina's forehead. "Well, you're cool to the touch. Don't know w'at it could be."

  "Island fever," Elsie explained in a heavy sigh. "We're all gettin' stir crazy here, trapped on this rock. If we don't get rescued soon..."

  And the conversation shifted easily to this popular subject.

  But Christina's thoughts had already traveled miles away. She was acutely conscious of all things: the warmth of the sun on her face and the warmth of the sand on her feet, the sweet taste of coconut milk in her mouth, the delicious fragrances of flowers and earth and sea, the soothing rush of the river water. And she was thinking that life suddenly seemed pleasant, so pleasant indeed.

  She shifted uncomfortably, abruptly remembering the morning. How effortlessly he had conjured her passion and how effortlessly she had succumbed! She remembered his warmth, his caress, his lips...

  Her heart started beating faster, her blood flowing furiously, and a blush spread across her cheeks.

  She best not think of that now...

  She couldn't seem to stop though. For a long while and despite her best effort, she found herself lost to memories of his lovemaking. She was so lost to memories, such vivid memories that she suddenly sat up and crossed her arms over her bosom, glancing at her friends. They were oblivious to her oh-so-obvious train of thought. She glanced out over the lagoon to where Jacob and Justin sat fishing in the lifeboat. Justin...

  She didn't care anymore.

  She stood up in a rush and skipped to the shoreline, waving and calling out to him. She suddenly just wanted to see him. She had an irresistible craving just to look at him.

  The thought of seeing him made her so excited that she never wondered at the sense of it.

  Justin finally looked up and caught sight of Christina waving on the shoreline. He stared for a moment, surprised by her summons considering the week-long animosity and then the trick he played on her this morning. Something must be amiss.

  Justin dove in and quickly swam the mile or so. He reached the shore and came quickly to Christina's side.

  "What is it? Is something wrong?" he asked, breathing deeply and glancing behind her and around for something amiss.

  "Nooo," she said too slowly, staring not at his face but at his body. His skin was so smooth and bronzed, small beads of moisture sliding off his muscles. His muscles! She felt suddenly fascinated by his muscles, muscles everywhere. He was so strong...

  "What is it?" he asked again.

  "Your muscles..."

  "My what?"

  "Your muscles..." She raised her arm to run a single finger from his shoulder down his arm.

  Justin watch the finger in confusion. "My muscles?" he repeated, following her gaze over his body. He looked behind her again, thinking, "You want me to lift something for you?"

  "Nooo," she said, again too slowly. She looked up to his lips. She reached a hand to her own lips, vividly recalling the taste of his kiss and suddenly all she wanted was for him to, "Kiss me!"

  "Kiss you?" He stared for a long moment in disbelief. "Oh no, Christina." He shook his head, laughing. "If you think for one minute I would let you get away with the trick I played on you this morning—"

  "Oh no! No trick..." She stopped, finding it difficult to talk because it was impossible to think. She giggled at herself. "I only want you to kiss me." She reached a hand to his chest, and ran a single finger teasingly there. "If you kiss me, then I'll—" and she reached up on to her tiptoes to whisper something he simply could not believe came from her mouth.

  He stared at her in stark disbelief, confusion, and no small amount of amusement. There was something wrong here. She would never say that. Until now he would have bet his life she didn't even know the word for it. He was all for the suggestion and to say the least after this long week, he would more than happily comply but there was something wrong with her. Even if she wanted to make up, even if she suddenly found herself desiring him as much as he did her, she would not have said that.

  He continued to stare down at her, waiting for some explanation.

  Christina giggled at his obvious stupefaction. "What's wrong?" She reached her arms around his neck and lifted back on her tiptoes so that her hips pressed against him and the tips of her breasts touched his chest. She felt his quick response and giggled again. "You do want to kiss me, don't you?"

  This was too much. Too unbelievably much. Something was definitely wrong. "Yes," he said, "but after I find out what's wrong with you." And he lifted her into his arms, calling for Cajun even as he moved to their cave.

  Justin had just set her to her feet inside the cool darkness of their cave when Cajun appeared at the opening. He bent his huge weight and stepped inside, straightening to stand in wait.

  Justin was staring down at her, trying to hold her at some small distance long enough to get to the bottom of it. But he could not seem to turn from the seductive mischievousness in those eyes. "There is something wrong with her," he explained. "Christina, say something to Cajun."

  "I don't want to talk to Cajun." She could think only of his kiss, how much she wanted to feel his hands on her again. Though abruptly it occurred to her how rude that was! "Oh, Cajun," she giggled, not understanding the sudden feeling of dizzying excitement, how she couldn't get her mind off... "I don't mean to hurt your feelings and, and I always love talking with you but, but—" She looked back to Justin with a smile, "right now I just want—"

  "I know what you want," Justin quickly interrupted. He stared at the sultry desire in those wide gray eyes, a smile that all too easily revealed her thoughts and he suddenly laughed, trying to keep control just long enough to know what happened. "What I want to know is how come?"

  It required but a few moments for Cajun to know what must have happened. "Christina," he said with a smile already lifting to his dark eyes, "did you taste any of those mushrooms I pointed out to you?"

  Christina was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything but Justin. She stared intently, confused and frustrated by this long wait for his arms, all these questions, Justin's own curious mixture of confusion and amusement. Every inch of her skin seemed waiting to feel his touch, his kiss—

  "Christina, sweetheart, can you answer Cajun's question?"

  "What question?"

  Justin chuckled and shook his head. "Mushrooms, sweetheart, did you have any?"

  She nodded absentmindedly as she reached for him. And Cajun suddenly started laughing. Justin quickly stopped her hands and momentarily contented her by holding her against him, but keeping her anxious hands firmly behind her back. "What were they, Cajun?"

  "The answer should be becoming obvious. The only true aphrodisiac I know of."

  Justin shot a shocked glance at him, then looked back at Christina with a widening smile of disbelief. He too suddenly laughed. "I don't believe it. My God, I was born under a lucky star."

  "Ask her how many she ate."

  "How many mushrooms did you swallow, sweethear
t?"

  Christina decided she was going to die if he didn't stop talking and start kissing her. "Justin, please, I don't understand why we have to talk of food and stars and things when I just want—"

  Justin buried her head in his chest and through his laughter managed to ask his last question. "Just tell me how long it will last."

  "Longer than you, my friend," Cajun bellowed with laughter as he left, "longer than you..."

  Thinking that would be a most interesting challenge, Justin listened to his friend's laughter all the way down the ladder. Then he finally turned his complete attention to her. "Now tell me just exactly what you want."

  And Christina's laughter, her freed hands, made this perfectly clear.

  * * * * *

  The first thing she felt upon waking was hunger. A ferocious hunger such as she never before experienced. Then as she moved, her body registered exhaustion, utter, complete physical exhaustion. She stretched and turned in discomfort only to discover a soreness as if, as if she had spent the entire night making love...

  The memory crashed into consciousness at the exact moment she heard his chuckle.

  "Ah, my sleeping beauty has finally awakened. I was beginning to get worried but then," he chuckled again, "you did earn your sleep."

  Christina sat up. Her hair fell in a mass of wild tangles to hide her nakedness but then nakedness was not on her mind. Justin leaned casually forward with a mug in his hand, standing with one leg bent and resting on the trunk. His unconcealed amusement confirmed her worst fears.

  "So, how do you feel?"

  "I... I—" Her eyes shot up to him as a hand reached to her bruised lips. She stared in marked disbelief as memories of unabashed, uninhibited, wild lovemaking floated one by one into consciousness. She didn't do that... no, she couldn't have done that and he—

  She suddenly blushed profusely.

  "Speechless I see," and he laughed at her. "Well, what can one say about such a performance as yours, except that it was extraordinary, just extraordinary," he repeated with feeling.

  A blush burned on her cheeks and she covered her face in shame.

  "Don't look so distressed, sweetheart." He was enjoying this immensely. "I quite enjoyed myself. My only question is when can I expect an encore?"

  "Ohhh," she said as if in pain, his amusement intolerable. "Never... never..." she vowed, burying herself in the moss.

  He only laughed. "Never say never. I don't like to threaten you, sweetheart, but those mushrooms do solve any problem I might have with celibacy."

  She turned slowly around. "You wouldn't?"

  Justin moved to her and leaned over, lifting her face to his. "Let's just not tempt me, hum?" There was unexpected seriousness in his tone but this was quickly replaced with amusement and, still chuckling, he left her alone with what felt like undying humiliation.

  She collapsed back to the moss. Emotions, emotions, emotions swelled, then raged through her. She felt dangerously close to tears and so tired of it. Tired of battling him, tired of always losing, tired of being torn between her love and yes... hate.

  She was being ripped apart.

  She didn't know how she could face him now. In truth he was starting to threaten her. And perhaps that frightened her more than anything, for that could destroy her love like nothing else, leaving her with only... hate. And she didn't want that, no matter what, she didn't want that.

  Somehow she faced him, though throughout the morning she could not meet his amused gaze. It wasn't until she talked to Cajun—his stoic disinterested manner easing her embarrassment—that she learned she had slept for a day and a night after the day and night of lovemaking, missing a whole twenty-four hours, which explained her hunger. Ravenous, she spent a good portion of the morning satisfying her hunger.

  By late afternoon Justin and Jacob disappeared to attend Diego. Diego's condition, or at least his pain, had worsened, Cajun quietly explained, as he watched Christina's gaze follow Justin down the beach. Concerned eyes turned to him and she stood up, thinking she might help too. "No." Cajun stopped her. "It is difficult for a man to bear pain in a woman's company. And Justin needs to be alone with him now."

  She wondered if Cajun's words meant Diego's time had come but she knew not to ask, for like everyone else, Cajun shrouded Diego's illness in mystery. He always eluded her inquiries. The thought of Diego's interminable suffering finally ending in death caused a wave of sadness in her heart, humbling her own troubles in its wake.

  She was not helpless and somehow she would survive this. For the while she could do nothing about this conflict of her heart, just as Diego could do nil about his pain. But the world was not stagnant but rather forever changing. Sooner or later it would end. The situation would alter itself, an opportunity would present itself, and then, then she would know what to do.

  Jacob returned after nightfall and without Justin. He went directly to the campfire and reported to Cajun. "Diego's finally asleep now but still his frame is wracked with convulsions." He pushed long fingers through white hair and sighed, looking inexpressibly sad. "Justin will stay with him through the night."

  Relief swept through Christina.

  "That is," Jacob added in a strange tone of solemnity, "if the night lasts to the day."

  Cajun's gaze shot to Jacob with a fixed stare.

  "You're right, Cajun, you're always right. Justin is at his rope's end; he knows he must act. Aye," he said to himself, falling into the sand exhaustedly, feeling as though he had borne the pain he had only witnessed and knowing it was so much worse for Justin. "Diego is Justin's curse—the only man to show him that he can't always have what he wants."

  Christina diverted his gaze to hide her alarm. So Jacob thought Justin would soon act against Diego! Is that why Cajun thought Justin needed to be alone with "his curse"? And does reaching his "rope's end" actually mean Justin would end such a helpless, doomed life as his men thought he should?

  No, she almost said out loud. Justin would not kill a weak or defenseless man. A man who, no matter what crime he had committed against Justin, had once been his friend. He was not capable of coldblooded murder, if even for revenge.

  She told herself this vehemently over and over again.

  But doubts crept into her thoughts.

  She excused herself early, pleading exhaustion, and sought the privacy of their cave. Once in the hallowed darkness of the cavern, she lay on the bed of moss to stare up into the star-filled night, just thinking. Time crept slowly past. She knew not how long she lay there tossing and turning, lost to an unending stream of unpleasant thoughts, but it was long enough to hear everyone retire.

  Sleep continued to prove elusive. Anxious musings kept her tossing and turning. The soothing lure of rushing water could quiet neither mind nor body, no matter how hard she concentrated. Hours flew past midnight and finally, when she realized she had watched the progression of a bright crescent moon rise to the equinox, she got up.

  A long walk on the beach would serve as a sleeping potion.

  She stepped quietly outside and down the steps to the pond, then alongside the riverbed heading to the ocean. The campfire had died to hot red embers but the bright crescent moon cast long shadows. The sand felt cool on her bare feet but the air was so quiet and still; that perfect temperature, neither warm nor cool. Small waves gently lapped onto shore. She breathed deeply at the water's edge and felt her thoughts slow. All tension was absorbed by a near mystical calmness of the quiet night.

  And quite suddenly it shattered as she heard it, that cry, Diego's cry sounding from the far distance. She stared in helpless horror at the natural jetty separating their beach from the beach that housed Diego's small hut. Another cry sounded like a desperate plea. She heard Justin reply and though the words were inaudible, his tone was not.

  He was angry.

  Alarmed and knowing she should not, she found herself moving trancelike to the jetty. The voices grew ever louder. Diego was begging for mercy! Hearing this, having no idea
what she would do, only knowing to stop it, she scurried out in the water to escape the jetty rocks. She made her way around the rocks and then stopped dead in her tracks.

  Outlined in the light of the crescent moon, Justin's tall frame towered over Diego, who had collapsed to his hands and knees in the darkness of Justin's shadow. The poor man's arms could barely support his position and he was crying, not with pain, but for mercy.

  "My God, don't do this to me! I beg you, Justin... I beg—" He collapsed to the sand, his frail body racked with either pain or tears, she didn't know. Justin remained unmoved, his gaze focused on the dark stretch of beach ahead as though unable to bear witness to this—the sorry reduction of his friend, and Christina watched transfixed, wanting desperately to run from it but held immobile by the need to know what he would do.

  It seemed the battle between the two polarities in Justin; between the man she loved and the man who frightened her to the depth of her soul. Diego was begging for mercy; begging for his life. Justin played as a god; capable of vengeance and a quick death or mercy and forgiveness. She would know what he would do.

  Diego struggled and each pained gasp for life pierced her heart. He finally lifted himself enough to grab on to Justin's legs. "You were my brother," he deplored. "I loved you, I—"

  Justin seized him by the arms, lifting him to his feet to embrace him with all the fierceness of his being. Tears swam quickly to her eyes, and she clutched herself tightly.

  How could she have doubted him? How...

  Shame washed over her for having ever questioned him, and just as she was about to turn away, Justin's arm lifted back and, with Diego still held in an embrace, he thrust his dagger forward.

  Christina's scream never left her throat. Cajun stepped behind her at the exact moment and clamped his hand hard over her mouth. She hardly noticed, her terrified eyes held to Justin as Diego's body fell lifelessly at his feet.

  With the bloody dagger in hand, Justin turned to see who Cajun held in his arms. His gaze bore into her. She had an unmistakable impression he dared her to pass judgment. But abruptly the moment passed as Justin turned, merging into the darkness that was the forest. It might not have happened; she suddenly could not say for certain that he had even seen her.