RAFAEL
The next morning I spend a long time watching Ava wake up. I imagine her on the island, in my bed. My room faces the east because I like to see the sunrise. I’m usually the first one up. It occurs to me that the other men that join me for a run along the beach are almost all single, which makes sense because if you have an Ava in bed with you, why in the hell would you be running at dawn when you could be spreading her legs and feasting on her juicy *?
I run my tongue across my lower lip. I haven’t tasted her. Am afraid to, really. I’m the rabid dog at the end of a weak leash wearing a frayed collar. Tasting her will snap the last threads of my control.
Deliberately, one by one, I force my fingers to relax from their clenched position and reach over to wake Ava.
“Rise and shine.” I shake the bladder of water. It’ll be another couple of hours before we can drink it since that’s how long it takes for the purification tablets to do their job, but it holds three liters of water, which will keep us plenty hydrated.
“It’s too early, Rose,” she mumbles.
It’s pathetic that I’m happy that it’s her friend’s name she mutters in her sleep, not some asshole boyfriend’s. I rub some nonexistent sleep out of my eye and shake her again.
“Rise and shine. Time to find civilization.”
She stretches and the motion thrusts her breasts in the air, and the blanket slips down around her thighs. There’s a tantalizing stretch of skin exposed between the waistband of her yoga pants and the bottom of her ragged shirt, which pulls up when her arms go over her head. My mouth waters at the sight. I take a swig of the water hoping the stale taste will wake me out of my lust-induced fugue, but then she shifts again and her shirt rides up even farther until the round curve of her breast is almost revealed. Not even the tightness and pain in my back when I move breaks my concentration as I try to will the fabric to go even higher.
I can’t pull myself together until she sits up and rubs her eyes like a toddler. That forces me to shake myself awake.
She blinks and glances around. “What time is it?”
“Seven or so.” The sun has been up for a couple of hours. I start packing our supplies into the nylon knapsack.
“Hey. Don’t we need that?” she protests as I stamp out the fire. “Aren’t we looking for more stuff from the plane today?”
“No.” I don’t look up from the ashes I’m creating. I can’t spend another night in a cave with Ava and not take her. We’re too isolated and the need in my body is overriding every other thought. “We need to get out of the jungle.”
“Oh, because of your injuries?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Because of those.”
I’ve had worse than a knife in my back and a gouge in my eye but then again, I haven’t had to take care of a model at the same time. I shoulder the knapsack, ignoring the pain in my back. I lift the knife so I can take a look at my eye in the blade’s reflection.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Ava says and stomps over to me. She knocks my hand away and lifts up the bandage. At the first touch of her hand on my temple, I freeze and all my good intentions fade, too. “Your eye looks good. No oozing puss or grossness. Should I smell it or something? I saw someone do that in a television show.”
“Maybe check it again?” I ask not because I doubt her word but because I want her to stand there all day and look over every part of my body. I can actually see a little out of my bad eye, which means the swelling is starting to go down. I’ll be fine. And the scar on my back is nothing. I have a scar on my chest from a wound I received nine years ago—the first time I was sent to do wet work. Guy knifed me before I could terminate him. She should check that out. Hell, I have scars all over my body including—I jerk away.
“Did I hurt you?” She sounds unhappy or worried.
“No.” And then to soften the harshness of my response, I add gruffly, “Thanks for looking out for me.”
“Well, you are my ticket home.” She gives me a wan smile.
“Right. Let’s get moving.”
I heft the foot-long blade in my hand, the one Afonso tried to gore me with, and lead the way out of the cave. It would do me good to remember that her touches and concern all have to do with getting out of the jungle. Of course she’s going to be nice to me. I’m the only one around who can save her pretty ass.
“Stay close and walk in my footsteps.”
“Sure.” She answers just as abruptly.
We make our way to the bank of the river where we mud up. The mosquito repellent that was in the Boy Scout bag must have fallen out along with other things. Once done, we start walking downstream.
There are no paths in this part of the jungle, not even overgrown ones, and that means there’s no village nearby. We walk silently for a long time. I can feel her eyes burning through my back. She has questions she is dying to ask.