CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dinner was another lazy mess of a meal. Dex threw some of the bacon he had made earlier into some penne pasta and called it a day. That was fine with me. I should have been absolutely starving from the day’s events, not to mention the constant battering from the weather but by the time the dish was in front of me, I could barely bring myself to eat it.
He also made some coffee to keep ourselves us warm; of course, we mixed the coffee with Jack Daniels and creamer. Sounds disgusting but it took the edge off while sharpening my mind at the same time.
We sat in relative silence, one more uncomfortable than usual. Dex flipped through the books about the island, though I could see from his ADD eyes that he wasn’t really absorbing anything in. His mind was elsewhere.
So was mine. It was Mary I kept thinking about. And why not? Whether Dex saw me talking to myself or not, the fact was Mary had been there. I had felt her. I could hear her voice in my head. The details of her skin. The cracks in her one lens.
If Mary and John had a child together, why did John tie her up in the woods? Sure, I could understand the scandal. But so would Mary. Why would John do something like that to the mother of his child? Then again, Mary had called him her “friend.” Not her boyfriend or husband or partner. There was so much more to this that I needed to know.
Especially if John and this San person were here on the island. If John could switch markers around, couldn’t he harm me or Dex? If he was as solid as Mary and really meant to keep us here, what could we do to stop him? He could be watching us right now, hidden in the shadows of the trees, away from the light of our lantern. >
A shiver violently rocked my body at the thought.
“What’s wrong?” Dex asked quietly. He had put the book down and was looking at me intently.
“Can’t seem to get warm,” I mumbled, pulling my jacket in tighter around me. I had changed two times already and it just seemed to be a revolving closet of dampness.
“No. What’s really wrong?” he asked, his tone serious. “You look scared to death.”
Did I? I shrugged, trying to play it off. “That’s nothing new.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I turned it around.
He leaned forward across the table and clasped his hands, fire burned somewhere behind his pupils. “What do you want to know?”
I pursed my lips and thought about it. What did I want to know? How did I explain a feeling?
“I want to know what you’re thinking about me. I feel like you’re making all these assumptions about me in your head. It’s like you’re afraid to talk me about them.”
“I feel the same way.”
I gave him a look. “Come on.”
He leaned back and took a straight shot of Jack Daniels out of the bottle. “Maybe we should play truth or dare again.”
“Maybe you just give me the truth. You saw me talking to myself on the beach and now you think I’m nuts, is that it?”
“That’s part of it. Also the fact that you rushed into the ocean this morning to save a little girl who wasn’t there.”
“Fine then. I’m nuts. That should be the least of your concerns.”
He squinted at me, thinking. “I care about you. I care about you an awful lot.”
His voice was gentle and sincere. His words made my heart thump, made a rush of pins and needles appear at my finger tips.
He reached out and grabbed my hand. I watched him, wide eyed.
“And because I care about you, I care about you. I don’t… like I said earlier, I’m worried about what this island is doing to you.”
“It’s not about me. It’s about you too. There are people here, sabotaging us, right?”
“Flipping markers, slashing the Zodiac?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t believe that. You know something that I don’t and it’s driving me crazy.” He squeezed my hand hard, till I felt the blood run out.
“Ow,” I squeaked and tried to take my hand away from his. He held on and leaned even further forward, his head blocking the light of the lantern.
“What are you hiding from me?” he whispered, his dark eyes roaming all over my face in crazed search for answers. “Who were you talking to? What did you see?”
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to let him know about Mary and what she said but I was too afraid. I couldn’t let him in. I felt like it was my secret and one he wouldn’t understand even if he let himself believe it. I don’t know why I was seeing these things and he wasn’t, but without him seeing Mary and Madeleine himself, I just couldn’t trust what he was going to do with the information.
“Please, just tell me what you’re thinking, Perry. What is going on in that head of yours?” He reached over and tenderly caressed my head with his other hand. It felt nice. But it wasn’t nice enough. Funny how things had changed. It was only a month or two ago that I had met Dex for the first time and had asked him the exact same things about himself.
My eyes felt dead. I gave him the corresponding look.
“I’m cold. I think I’m turning in.” I yanked my hand out from his and started to get up.
He actually looked hurt. Hurt and frightened. It only last lasted a second but it was enough for me to see. A twinge of guilt flashed on my conscience but I brushed it aside. He was a big boy. Time for him to wonder about some things for a change.
“Perry,” he called after me as I rounded the table. “We are leaving first thing in the morning.”
Good luck with that, I thought, and got in the tent.
I didn’t bother brushing my teeth or taking off my makeup. I just wanted to go straight into the bed and put the day behind me. I quickly changed into my pajamas, which were, thankfully, still quite dry, and attempted to get in my sleeping bag.
It was wet. Soaked through with dampness.
“Ugh,” I cried out. I had spread it out hoping it would have dried but I guess being put in the sleeping bag earlier when I was soaking wet was too much for it.
Dex poked his head in the tent, bringing the lantern inside with him.
“What’s wrong?”
“The sleeping bag is soaked.” I felt deflated. Now what? Was I going to sleep on the picnic table?
“Get in my sleeping bag,” he said, coming in and zipping the tent shut behind him.
“Where are you going to sleep then?”
“In my sleeping bag?” he asked, putting the lantern down and taking off his jacket. “It’s big enough for two.”
Amazingly, the idea of sharing a sleeping bag with Dex sounded like a terrible idea. There was a weird distance between us that I wanted to keep. I didn’t want to be up close and personal with him. I didn’t want to cave in.
He started to take off his pants. I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked away.
“Oh geez, kiddo. When did you become such a prude?” he joked. I looked back at him. He was already in his pajama pants and slipping a shirt over his head. “We’ll be warmer this way anyway. I think it’s going to get really cold tonight and you’ve had a rough day.”
I nodded absently and made my way into his sleeping bag. Once I was all settled in, he crawled over, grinning.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, already feeling the shivers from the cold. He was right about that at least.
“You’re funny,” he said coming in beside me. The sleeping bag was barely big enough for two. We definitely couldn’t both lie on our backs beside each other. So he climbed on top of me, propped up on his elbows on either side of my shoulders.
I thought I was going to die from awkwardness. He was literally on top of me, holding the sides of my face in his hands, grinning at me with that stretched joker smile of his, only inches away from my face. He smelled like minty gum and smoke.
“Relax,” he whispered. “You’re as stiff as a board.”
No, I thought, you’re as stiff as a board. Which was true, I could feel that against my legs. I almost laughed at the thought. It was enough for a smile to creep on my lips.
“There you go,” he said lazily. He brought his face closer to mine. “Getting warmer?”
“Don’t you think this is a little inappropriate?” I asked, my words coming out like poured concrete.
He raised his brow, lowered his voice, “Would you rather be in a wet sleeping bag? Because you can trade inappropriateness for that.”
“You are such a tease,” I whispered, wishing he would stop looking at me like he was, all languidly, like a sun–soaked lizard or a playful cat.
“Takes one to know one,” he shot back.
“That’s mature.”
His smile started to fade. I don’t think it was over what I said. His expression became more serious. He brushed the hair off of my forehead with his hand, slowly bringing it across, grazing my skin. I wondered if he could feel my heart against his. It was pounding away like a marching band.
I had to stay strong. I didn’t know what his game was, but I couldn’t let myself give into it.
“Good night, Dex,” I said, sounding more throatily than I had hoped.
He kept staring at me in that strange way. Determined yet seductive. Confused and concerned. Then he said, “Good night, Perry” and rolled off of me. We both had to sleep in a spooning position. But with my back to him and his arm draped over my waist, his breath tickling the nape of my neck, this was fine with me.
* * *
I first woke up to my body being shook from behind and then by this horrible wailing sound that was filling the dark tent like a psychotic banshee.
“What? What’s going on?” I cried out, trying to get my bearings in the dark, hazy corners of consciousness.
Dex was the one shaking me, trying to get me to wake up. I rolled on my back and looked up at him in fear. The white of his eyes glowed brighter as I adjusted to my night vision.
The wail wasn’t coming from inside the tent but from somewhere outside. It was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It was definitely from a person, a person not in pain but in maddening personal anguish.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, panicking.
“I don’t know. It just started. I think it’s the nut,” he said, his voice low and creaky.
“The nut?”
“There was a nutty leper on the island. He went crazy. Apparently he would roam the forest screaming and laughing and crying.”
“Jesus,” I swore under my breath. This is just what we needed.
“We have to get this on film,” he said as he unzipped the sleeping bag in a hurry and climbed out, fumbling across the tent for the Super 8.
“What? No!” I cried out, making a grab for him but missing. “You can’t go out there.”
“Yes, I can, I have to.” He grabbed his shoes and was about to put them on.
“No!” I yelled, my voice scaring me. It scared Dex too because he put the shoes down and gave me an unbelieving look. “You can’t go out there; there are things out there that want to hurt you!”
“What things, what are you talking about!?”
“Please Dex, just trust me.”
He shook his head. “No way, I’m not missing this. You stay here.”
He started to unzip the tent, the wailing continuing outside, echoing through the forest like a deranged siren. My insides were iced with fear. The corners of my vision started to go black. If he left me alone, I felt like I would die. If he left, he would die. I was sure of it.
I reached out with my hand lurching further forward, coming out of the bag, latching on to his arm with all of my strength. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. The feelings that were coming up in me were overwhelming, overpowering. My heart was slowing, dropping in my chest, my lungs were tensing, the air was leaving me, replaced with terror.
I couldn’t let him go.
“Don’t leave me!” I whimpered pathetically.
He stopped and fell a bit into my grasp. I pulled him even closer to me.
“I need you,” I said, heartbeats in my words.
He lowered the camera. His eyes softened into dark puddles. The air inside the tent was changing, becoming charged like the atmosphere before a lightning storm. In the dizzying array of emotions and feelings that were swirling around in my stomach and coursing up and down the hairs on my body, I realized we were about to pass the point of no return. Something was going to happen.
“You need me?” he asked huskily, hesitating, lips twitching.
I tightened my grip and swallowed the fear in my throat. I nodded, slowly, deliberately, not taking my eyes off of his. “I need you.”
A wash of concentrated passion came across his face and settled in the darkness between his eyes and brows. I’d seen the look before but never like this, never in this feverish vibrancy that seemed to sizzle out of him.
I pulled him closer, close enough to feel the heat and electricity of his chest and neck. I kept my grip tight and started to shake lightly, my body convulsing with hot, nervous spasms, my breath heavy and labored.
“I need you,” I said again with utmost poignancy, making them the most important words I had ever said.
I thought I saw a smile at the edge of Dex’s lips.
And then they were on mine, kissing me. Dex lunged forward and grabbed my face with his hands, holding it in a tight squeeze, his wet, warm lips frantically pursuing my mouth, tongue dancing with mine in a vibrant frenzy.
I was caught off guard but didn’t waste any time in getting caught up. I pawed back at him as we both fell backward onto the sleeping bag. The days of wanting him, needing him, were over and he was in my hands. He was the soft skin I felt beneath his shirt as I gripped him around his waist and pulled him forward. He was the hot tongue on my neck, licking and sucking beneath my jawbone. He was the tingly rush I felt between my legs, the heat on my limbs, the intoxicating lust that swam around in my head and made all fears dull. I only felt pleasure. Even the wails of the night were unheard.
I pulled his shirt off over his head and threw it somewhere across the tent. I raked my nails over his chest and tattoo and brought his mouth up to meet mine. Our kisses weren’t neat or sweet, they were messy and dripping and with a deluge of pent–up lust and buried emotions. His hands found the slice of bare skin between my pajama top and bottom and my nerves leaped with the contact of his fingers. With one hand he pulled down at my pants. A quick calculation of what underwear I was wearing flashed through my mind but I was distracted by his other hand, which was disappearing under my shirt.
He alternated between being gentle and rough on my breasts. It sent shivers through my body and caused my leaden head to fall back on the sleeping bag. It had been awhile since I was with a man; it was almost like I was experiencing this all for the first time. I decided to help him out by pulling my shirt off myself.
There was that slightly awkward pause when I discarded my top beside me and he had leaned back. There was no denying it or hiding it. I was pretty much naked beneath him and he was taking his sweet time taking it all in. Part of me wanted to squirm with insecurity and embarrassment, part of me wanted to enjoy it. All I could do was blush furiously.
He, on the other hand, wasn’t blushing. He looked like a madman possessed by desire and sheer want. Watching him was a turn on. His eyes were heavy, his breath raspy, his lips in a relaxed leer. And he was looking at me. At all of me. >
He came back down and started ravishing my neck, from the earlobe all the way to my collarbones, tickling, biting and blowing hits of hot steam from his lips. I moaned despite myself, feeling the hairs at the back my neck rise along with my chest that was coming up to meet his wet mouth.
While he made work of me, my hands flew down to his pants and tugged them down with my hands and then slid the rest off with my feet. If I was going to be in my underwear, he was too. I couldn’t see what he was wearing in the darkness or between the flashes of skin, but it felt like a soft pair of boxer briefs, and from the feel I got at the front, it would have been a very complimentary sight indeed. I groped him firmly with my hand, which brought out a moan from both of us. I wanted him, every inch.
He had other plans. He scooted back, leaving my upper body exposed to the cold air that felt like a gentle caress against my sweaty skin, and brought his head down to my legs, spreading them wider with his hands. With one hand he teased the soft underside of my knee with his finger, and then bent his head down and did the same with a flicker of his tongue. It was enough to make my eyes roll back in my head. He took his tongue and let it wash up the inside of my thighs until it skirted the sides of my underwear. He teased the area for awhile until he decided he had enough and pushed it aside.
And then he got right into it, his tongue going at me, soft and hard, fast and slow. He moaned and panted, the vibrations causing my back to arch and my hands to grip the hair on the top of his head. I joined in, losing all self–consciousness, losing all sense of reality. I was vaguely aware that my sighs and cries were competing with the wails outside of the tent but neither one of us cared. It was just us in the tent, it was all we needed, all that mattered.
Just before I was about to be pushed over the edge, he slowed and then came up, his sweaty, heaving chest sticking against mine, the weight of his body sending a feeling of deliciousness over me. He brought his hands down and brought a few fingers inside, while holding back my hair with the other hand, tugging on it roughly. He kissed me, both of us breathing hard and trying to express more than we could before.
He looked at me with so much intensity it was unnerving. He pulled at my hair again and stroked me with his other hand, determined to see me give in to him. His eyes were as rapturously intrusive as his fingers were.
I wanted to give in. I wanted to let go. I was so close. What I wanted even more was to have him inside of me, filling me. I wanted him to feel like I was feeling. I reached down for him clumsily, but he pressed himself harder against my leg, as if he was playing hard to get.
He went back at my neck, obviously knowing a sweet spot when he saw one. Within seconds I was a blurry mess of his soft, slick hands, nibbling teeth and something like starlight. I closed my eyes, unable to stop it from happening.
My world was blown wide open. There was heat and sweat and cries and whimpers and spasms and shivers and thirst and a fuzziness that obliterated everything around me. I was floating far away, above our bodies, above the tent, above the island. I was above the clouds, above the earth, above the moon. I was safe. I was whole. I was a million things I had never felt before.
And when I came to, I was back in the tent, with Dex’s steaming body half on top of me, his fingers trailing up my stomach and resting there. I rolled my head over towards his and tried to focus my eyes, tried to push through the drunkenness I felt. He was watching me intently with a quizzical, almost frightened expression on his face. I wanted nothing more than to pull him closer into him, to kiss him, to hold him. But he was keeping his distance.
Now that he had gotten me off, I felt reality returning to me in small batches. What the hell just happened? What did it mean?
I stared at him, trying to catch my breath, unable to come up with words. I reached up for his face and stroked his sideburn with my finger. I was this close to thanking him, as stupid as that would sound.
He closed his eyes at my touch. I wanted nothing more than to get him off right there. I tried to lead his face to mine but he pulled back and slowly shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t.”
“You can’t what?” I whispered.
His eyes flew open. They shined with something I hoped wasn’t remorse.
“I don’t want to hurt you. And I will,” he admitted.
“Maybe I want to be hurt,” I teased quietly.
“No. Not like this. I…care about you too much to do that to you. This whole thing with Jenn. I can’t. I shouldn’t have done this.”
Oh great. He really was remorseful. I thought this was the best thing that ever happened to me and he completely regretted it.
He saw my face fall and quickly put his hand on my cheek, bringing his face in closer.
“This has nothing to do with you,” he said, his eyes like lasers, imploring sincerity. “I take that back. I don’t regret this. It’s strange to be needed for once. I just wish things were different.”
“You can make them different,” I said, putting my hand behind his neck and pulling him into me until I was kissing him. He returned it slowly, sweetly. His kisses were made of diluted fire, his tongue so soft and warm against mine.
“I still need you,” I murmured. He rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes, his breathing irregular. Then his lips found mine again. It made my heart ache, made my soul ache. I loved him far too much. I needed him to know.
But he pulled back again and ran his finger along my mouth. I could see the frustration in his forehead, which hid the struggle he must have felt below.
“If things were different,” he said slowly. “If I was a different person.”
“If you were a different person, I wouldn’t be…I wouldn’t want you,” I said, trying to get him to see.
“You shouldn’t want me,” he sighed. “And I shouldn’t be pawing at you like this. Not when we are partners. Not when I have Jenn. And not now when I have a child.”
He was f*cking right. Damn Jenn. Damn this unborn child and their stupid loveless relationship. The thought tore me up inside, erasing the moments of ecstasy I had been feeling only minutes before. I wanted to cry. My emotions were too high to handle. I should have just let him run off into the woods.
“Hey,” he whispered roughly, stroking my hair off of my face. “We’re OK. You know I’d do anything for you. You mean…so much to me.”
“But it’s not enough,” I choked out, avoiding his eyes in case the tears decided to come.
“Kiddo… Perry. We’re going to be OK. You still have me in every other way. You…you really have me more than she does. I’m here and I’m going to be here for you. We’re going to get through this. And tomorrow we’re going to leave this crazy place. For good.”
He had so much sincerity in his eyes that I had no choice but to believe him, or at least relent. I nodded, though I didn’t know what any of it meant. He smiled sweetly and kissed me on the forehead, keeping his warm lips there for a beat or two.
Then he got up, quickly put on his pants and tossed my pajamas at me. I gave him a shy smile and covered up my indecency.
He climbed back into the sleeping bag and patted the spot beside him. “Come here, please.”
I did as he said with my back to him. He held me tightly against him, our head sharing the pillow, his lips at my ear. “Things will be better tomorrow. You’ll see.”
I nodded.
“Good night, kiddo,” he said. He kissed the back of my head. It was only then I noticed the mad wailing had stopped and the only thing I could hear was my heart thumping slowly. It hurt just a little bit.