by Alice Ward
I stroked his thick beard as I gazed up at him. “Yeah, I am kind of a take no shit kind of person. It’s run through my head more than a few times that you shouldn’t like me at all. I’ve been hard to get along with, and I was that way on purpose.”
“I know.” Our lips met in a long kiss that had our tongues playing together. When he pulled his mouth away from mine, he was smiling. “You were trying to make me not like you. It didn’t work.”
“It seems you saw right through me.” I pulled him to me, kissing him and growing aroused again.
Eli was easy to love. I’d fought hard not to let it happen, but it did anyway. And now we were in love. The head over heels kind of love. The kind where you had faith you could make it through anything as long as you were together.
I was in deep. There was no longer any chance of escaping what I felt for him. I loved the man. And each day would only have us falling a little deeper into the vast abyss. But there was still fear niggling at me that everything would be great until we left our island paradise and went back to the cold reality of New York and all the women who wanted the man I loved.
Desire was taking me over, and I wanted to feel Eli’s skin on mine. My shirt was still on, and so were my panties. His shirt was still on too. I pulled at the hem of his t-shirt and got it off him while he undressed me, running his hand over my stomach.
I watched him as he looked at my flat stomach. Then his eyes ran up my body before they landed on mine. “I want you to have my baby.”
“It’s not like I could do a thing to stop that from happening.”
He threaded his fingers through mine as he moved his body to cover mine. “I know that. I just wanted you to know that I want one with you. I want as many babies as you’ll give me. I’ve never wanted kids or marriage, and with you, I want both.”
He pressed his erection into me, and I pulled my knees up so he could go in deeper. “I want that with you too. I want to have your children.”
The way he moved felt a bit more intense than usual. As if he was deliberately pushing his cock into me as deep as he could. “I want to see a little version of us running around. I don’t want you to worry about a thing. I’ll help you every step of the way.”
“Having a baby on a deserted island isn’t ideal. We should think about trying harder to be rescued.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave.” Then he kissed me as if cementing that into my head.
Eli wanted to stay right where we were. On an island that was all our own. No one would interfere with us, ever. His notion was romantic, but it was also unrealistic. Someone would find us, one day.
I knew my father was searching for me. The day wouldn’t be too far away that he’d come, with a bunch of his Navy SEAL buddies, to find me. I was sure of that. I wasn’t sure of how Eli would take leaving what we called our island though. He seemed set on staying here and raising a family.
As happy as he made me, I couldn’t live in the lie he must’ve been living in. The lie that told him we could stay forever. We would be found and then what would happen to us?
Eli’s body took mine to another level. Our bodies undulated with slow, rhythmic waves that felt like heaven. We looked into each other’s eyes as we thought about making a child together.
Although I didn’t feel pregnant, there was a chance that I was, and we weren’t making a baby at all; we might’ve already done so. But making love this way, wanting to come together to make another human, our own little human, was special. More special than anything we’d ever done.
Birds flew overhead, making soft sounds that combined with the songs of crickets, and butterflies fluttered around us as we made love in a way we never had. It was as if our souls were bonding.
Stronger than any piece of paper, we were making a commitment to each other. One that could never be broken by lawyers and a judge one day when we didn’t want to try any longer. With no one to intervene, interrupt, or otherwise butt into what we were building between us, we were becoming one.
I’d never felt more whole. With Eli as the other half of me, I found strength the likes of I’d never felt before. I had no idea it was possible to take from someone but give them just as much as they’d given you. But that day, in the meadow of our island, we did just that.
It was our official ceremony. Our wedding, of sorts. We were in it for the long haul. Our witnesses were the birds and insects that watched us copulate that day, in the bright sunshine. We used our bodies to convey complete devotion to becoming mates for life.
No wedding could’ve ever been more beautiful than ours. I didn’t need a church wedding to tell me Eli and I were bound together. It was a thing I felt in my heart and soul.
Our bodies moved as one as our breathing began to grow hard and sweat covered us as we worked to make a miracle happen. Our eyes locked as he erupted and my body exploded, squeezing him, milking his body, taking it to the place it needed to be.
“I love you, Eli Reed.”
He swallowed hard, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as his eyes clouded. “I love you, Kendra Reed. You will forever live in my heart.”
We lay perfectly still as he hugged me on that sunshiny afternoon when he and I became one.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Eli
Another thirty days had been marked off on our tree as I watched Kendra go to lie down in the shelter. She’d been tired a lot lately, and I told her to rest whenever she felt like it. I was pretty sure she was pregnant. Mother nature hadn’t paid her a visit, and she was absolutely glowing.
She was funny about it, though. It was as if she didn’t want to get her hopes up. My hopes were up, but I didn’t talk too much about it. I figured once her belly began to expand, she’d begin to get excited.
“You okay?”
“Just feeling tired and a little nauseous.” She ducked into the tented part of the shelter, and I did a little dance of joy since she couldn’t see me.
Taking a walk while she napped, I picked her some flowers and whistled happily as I did. The idea of having a baby took my thoughts more often than not. A little boy would be what I thought of one minute, the next I was daydreaming about a little girl. I’d be over the moon with either or both.
Twins were on my mind a lot. One boy, one girl, or a couple of each. My inner mind was busy with thoughts about babies, and I wanted to talk to Kendra about all my ideas too. For the time being, she wasn’t into it.
I had no idea if she’d be a happy pregnant woman or an easily irritated one. I was leaning toward the latter, given her personality and tendency to get crabby. There was no worry in my head at all, though.
Kendra could be bitchy one minute and sweet the next. She always came out of her ill moods. When she did, she liked to make up for putting me through them. It was well worth it, truth be told.
After gathering a fistful of wildflowers, I went back to our home to see how she was doing. When I got close, I heard her retching and found her just inside the line of trees behind the shelter.
Tossing the flowers to the ground, I ran to help her. She had one hand on a tree as she was doubled over and the sounds she made were terrible. “Baby, you okay?”
Her voice was weak. “No. Can you bring me a wet cloth?”
Running back to our shelter, I found one of the cloths she’d made from one of my t-shirts and went to dunk it in the pond. When I started back, I found her stumbling back to bed.
Throwing up was one of the bad parts of being pregnant. It made me feel helpless, and if I could’ve taken that part of it for her, I gladly would’ve. I sat on the ground next to her and ran the cloth over her red face. “You feel any better?”
“No.” She closed her eyes, and I ran my hand through her hair. When I did that, I realized she was warm. Too warm.
Without drawing her attention to the fact she had a fever, I laid the cool cloth over her forehead. I lifted her up and laid her head on my lap as I stroked her arm, trying to comfort her as I thought about what I could
do to reduce the fever.
As I listened to her make tiny snores, I also thought about what could’ve made her sick in the first place. There had been one rainy night a couple of nights back, and she had commented on how her head ached the following day. I told her it was probably something that had bloomed with the rain and she most likely had a sinus infection.
It was then that she began to go downhill. Little by little, she grew more tired more quickly. She also ate less — a thing I wasn’t happy about — and I wasn’t successful in getting her to eat more.
I sat with her that entire day and into the night. The fever went up as night fell and she didn’t sleep well. She tossed and turned, and three times, she had to go outside to throw up.
Not one minute of sleep did I get that night as I watched over her. I knew I had to do something if she wasn’t better by the next morning. I couldn’t let anything happen to her. But I had no clue how I could fix it.
After filling several of the plastic bottles with water from the pond, I poured water over the cloth and ran it all over her hot body. “Kendra, wake up, baby. You need to drink some water, and I have some fish for you.”
“No,” she managed to mumble. She turned her head away from me and fell right back to sleep.
I wasn’t about to take no for an answer and got a clean cloth and wet it, squeezing out the water on her lips as I held her head up. She didn’t even wake up, and that scared the shit out of me. “Kendra! Kendra, wake up!”
Even though I had shouted, she didn’t respond to me at all. Panic took hold, and I placed her on her side, propping things up behind her to keep her that way. I put a sheet over her and left to do the only thing that kept going through my mind.
I had to get the radio!
Not wanting to leave her alone, I back away from our shelter, reluctant to even take my eyes from her. I had no choice. She’d slipped into unconsciousness. It didn’t take a doctor to know that was bad.
Running as fast as I could, I arrived at the beach and ran straight into the water. It had been weeks since I’d been there, but I knew the plane had been straight out.
I got as deep as my knees when I saw something out of the ordinary. It had me stopping and shielding my eyes from the morning sun with my hand. “No, fucking way!”
A single fin was gliding around in a circular motion between me and where I needed to go. Before I had a chance to think about what I should do, two more fins popped up, moving in the same fashion.
There must’ve been a school of fish the sharks were working and most likely feeding on. I was frozen, not sure what to do. I turned around, looking behind me as if I’d find Kendra standing there, waving at me, telling me to come back, she was all right.
But that wasn’t happening, and I turned back to find the sharks were still there, and the circle they were moving in was too large for me not to have to swim through to get to the plane.
There had been a few storms since we swam out to it that one time. It might not even be in the same place. I might not find it at all.
And what would happen to Kendra if I was killed by sharks, or just hurt so badly I couldn’t be of any help to her?
I had no idea what the hell to do. But I knew one thing was for sure, I wasn’t accomplishing shit by just standing here. I remembered telling Kendra about the sharks in that area not being known to attack humans.
I’d read that somewhere and hoped it was true as I resumed wading into the water. It also came to mind that if one was attacked by a shark, they should fight back, hit them in the eyes or gills. I could do that.
I stopped again as I thought some more. There were three sharks, and they hadn’t gotten into the feeding frenzy yet. They were herding the fish into a tight ball, so they could swim through them and get mouthfuls of food.
Shark week on that nature channel was a godsend for this situation. I knew if they got into that state, they’d be blind, as outer eyelids that were thick and opaque would shield their eyes. That’s when most people were attacked.
As I thought about that fact, I also looked at the ring they were making and how it was getting smaller and smaller. They were preoccupied with their work. If I swam to one side, I’d most likely be ignored by them.
A chance would have to be taken. It was for Kendra. I could do anything for her.
Keeping my eyes on the fins that continued to break the surface, I went into the ocean until I could no longer touch bottom. Swimming as quietly as I possibly could, I tried not to disrupt the surface. Keeping my arms and legs moving under the water, I was making headway.
As I got parallel with the sharks, I realized once they began their feast, blood would be in the water, drawing more sharks in. It had me speeding up a bit so I could get the hell away from where the bloodbath was about to begin.
It occurred to me that things weren’t falling into place the way they had been. We’d caught a lot of breaks. Nature hadn’t thrown any stumbling blocks in our path up until now.
Of course, now we had a couple of doozies, but for the most part, things had been calm. I guess we were due to face some problems. I chalked it up to our crazy world and how shit wouldn’t always go right.
As I tried to lose myself in internal reverie, something moved past my leg. Something rough!
I pulled my legs up as I used my hands to move me away from whatever that was. Most likely a shark, my mind shouted at me as panic tried to rise.
Off to my right, a fin came up, but it was going toward the other sharks, giving me a sense of security. Sure, it had touched my leg but it didn’t bite me, and it was moving on. I was safe.
Then a sound had me looking to the right. I saw two more fins had broken the surface and were heading right at me. Fear froze my body in place. I barely moved my feet and hands to keep me afloat.
They split and came one on either side of me. So damn close, I saw their eyes, eyes that were looking at me. My heart was pounding so hard, I was afraid they’d want to take a bite out of it. But they didn’t, they kept going, and then I heard the sound of the feeding frenzy begin.
That was when I hauled ass. I could splash all I wanted, the sharks were in the zone. I also needed to get the fuck away from where they were having their breakfast. I swam and swam until I couldn’t hear the noise anymore.
Turning to look at the shore to gauge where the plane would hopefully be, I saw I needed to go over a bit. There were still shark fins moving through the water, but soon they’d be done eating and hopefully, they’d be full enough not to bother with me.
I dove under the water, searching for any sign of the plane. Three dives and nothing was coming into view. As I went up to catch a breath, hope was quickly waning. A seabird flew overhead and squawked at me as if it was telling me that I had no business out there.
Swimming back to shore, I thought what I was doing was useless. I should be with Kendra, rather than dicking around in the water, trying in vain to find a plane with a broken radio in it.
Something small touched my foot, and I put my face in the water to see what it was. A little fish was swimming around my feet and below that fish the plane glinted up at me. I nearly choked as I laughed. Pulling my head back up, I took in the deepest breath I could take and dove down.
I made it to the door of the plane then felt the need to breathe. Going back up as fast as I could, I made it just in time to gulp in air instead of water.
My eyes were burning like hell from the salty water, and my lungs had begun to burn too. I’d made it all the way down before and into the back of the plane. But the water was deeper this morning. High tide was in, and that meant more water was covering it. One more bump Nature had thrown into our lives. It seemed Nature was pissed at us.
Taking in several deep breaths, I expanded my lungs with each one. Nature wasn’t going to win today. At the very least, I would get that radio. Then I’d need the technology gods to intervene and help me with that problem. I was no engineer, after all.
I made another dive
and somehow managed to make it all the way to the radio. I’d put a stick I found on the way to the beach in my pocket. I pulled it out and used it to pry the radio out. I couldn’t do it. I needed more air. Back up I had to go.
It took me a while to regain control of my breath and make another dive. But I had a pleasant surprise when I got back into the cockpit — the radio had fallen to the floor. I snatched it up and went back to the surface with my prize in hand.
Swimming back to shore, I noticed the sharks were nowhere to be seen, and the sky was a brilliant blue with no clouds in sight. If I could manage to get the radio to work, clear skies would help me get a signal.
When my feet touched bottom, I walked the rest of the way to the beach and got going, even though I was nearly exhausted. My mind was on one thing: get back to Kendra.
My pace wasn’t as fast as when I’d made my way to the beach, but I got back and went to find Kendra, still exactly as I’d left her. Pouring more cool water onto the cloth, I got water into her mouth before I started working on the radio. “I’m going to get us off this island, baby. Just you wait and see. You’ll be better before you know it. That’s a promise.”
The entire day went by with me trying everything I could think of to make the thing work. Not a damn thing was working. Night fell, and so did my hope.
Kendra began to toss and turn as the fever spiked. All I could do was hold her and pray. I’d never felt more helpless.
When I had her settled, and she was sleeping more peacefully, I got up and went back to the radio. I couldn’t give up and messed around with the wiring before pressing the button on the handset. “Hello? Anybody?”
No sound came back, and I dropped my head into my hands, ready to give up and cry my eyes out. That’s when it happened. A miracle.
“Hello?”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Kendra
Light hurt my eyes. My head. Every cell in my body. The smell of antiseptic assaulted me when I inhaled.
“Where am I?” My voice was scratchy, and it hurt to speak.
