I tried to gather some saliva up in my mouth to wet my lips again. I paired that up with another breath in hopes of telling her to stop crying for me. I only actually managed to get one word out, though.
“Stop,” I murmured in a throaty, croaky voice. I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to convey that I was completely unworthy of her tears. Obviously what I said and what I meant didn’t come out right at all, and she immediately pulled her hand away from my face and moved a half foot away from me entirely. My hand dropped out of her lap and onto the floor of the raft.
No, I thought. Don’t stop that…
Shit.
Not only had I managed to convey the wrong message, now she thought I didn’t want her to touch me when that was actually feeling pretty good. I wanted her to keep touching me the way she had been, but I couldn’t get any kind of words out to tell her. As a flash of memory reminded me I had been repeatedly throwing up for hours, I realized the main reason for this was some pretty severe dehydration. I needed water.
I tried to push myself up with my hands and immediately fell back to the floor. My head swam, and my fingers were starting to shake a little. I tried again.
“Daniel – please, just stay down. There’s nowhere to go.”
I let myself drop back down and closed my eyes for a moment. I tried licking my lips again, but there wasn’t enough moisture to make any difference. My breathing was still ragged and ineffective, and my stomach felt like it was on fire. I forced a couple of slow deep breaths into my body and opened my eyes to her.
“Water,” I croaked.
She nodded and quickly brought me a cup. She had to hold my head up so I could drink it, but I was too fucking thirsty to care about how humiliating it was for her to have to do that. I managed to get a couple of mouthfuls down my throat before she lowered my head back down. She sat next to me but still kept a little distance between us. I looked up at her and wanted to tell her to keep touching my face like she had been, but even with the moisture from the drink of water, I couldn’t do it. I tried to get the words out, but they just wouldn’t come. With a lot of effort, I managed to reach out with the hand she had been holding so it was a little closer to her. I found the energy to turn it palm up and then looked back into her eyes.
Raine looked from me to my hand and back again. She slowly reached out and took my hand in hers, watching for my reaction. I looked from our hands back up to her face and tried to give her a wary smile, but it hurt to move even that much. I closed my eyes and sighed as she pulled my hand back into her lap, and her soft fingers began caressing the back of my hand.
*
It was dark when I opened my eyes, and I felt a little well of panic form before I pushed it down and reminded myself where I was. As my eyes adjusted to the nearly pitch black inside the raft, I could make out Raine’s form lying next to me, just a foot and a half away. I could still feel our hands clasped together.
Her fingers were all intertwined with mine, and I tried to remember the last time I held a girl’s hand without actually having my cock shoved up in her at the same time. Hand holding took time, and most of the chicks I had been with recently charged by the hour. The last time I had participated in this particular act probably went back to Jillian, but I quickly put thoughts of her out of my mind before I became downright violent.
I watched as best I could in the darkness as my thumb ran over her palm so I could feel how soft her skin was. Her fingers twitched just a bit, so I stopped. I didn’t want to wake her up, and touching her was giving me ideas about other places I could be touching her. Any additional touching was going to lead to an activity that wasn’t the best idea under the circumstances. Conserving whatever meager energy I had left was pretty important at this point. I pulled my hand out from under hers and immediately noticed a strange sense of loss when I wasn’t touching her anymore. I shook my head and pushed myself up to a sitting position.
My head was still throbbing, but not as bad as it had been. It was probably due to dehydration as much as any residual delirium tremens effects, so I reached over and got myself a cup of water. I took the first mouthful, and then I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth where it felt like raw meat. I must have bit down on the inside of my cheek at some point because it really hurt. My thumb rubbed the skin just under my bottom lip and came away with dried blood.
Fucking lovely.
I grabbed the towel that Raine had apparently put under my head and stuck it out the opening long enough to get the corner wet. I rubbed my face, neck, and hands with it and then washed it out again.