I climbed back aboard and tried to shake most of the water off of myself before getting off the edge of the ladder and back into the raft proper. Fish were flopping everywhere, so I wasted no time grabbing my knife and getting to work.
“We’re not eating any of it,” I reminded Raine. “This is just for the water, which is more important.”
She nodded, took a deep breath, and let me tip the torn open spine of the first fish into her mouth. I took the second one, and then gave her the third. They weren’t as big as the Black Jack, but there were plenty of them. We went back and forth like that until they were all gone. It took a little coercion, but I got her to suck the fluid out of the eyes as well.
“I think that saved us a good day’s worth of water,” I said as I tossed the last of the fish bits off the raft.
“How much water is left?” she asked.
“It was just enough for today,” I admitted. “Now we can lengthen that out another day.”
“You are incredible,” Raine said. She fixed her shining eyes at me, and I couldn’t help but feel it. I gave her a crooked smile back and tilted my head to the side.
“It’s true,” I told her. “I am. You should try me out sometime.”
She tilted her head up, and her eyes focused on my mouth. It seemed like I could hear her heartbeat in her chest as she raised herself up just enough to touch my lips with hers.
I tried to hold myself still because what I really wanted to do was shove my tongue down her throat, pin her down on the bottom of the raft, and tear the swimming suit right off of her. I wanted to feel her bare skin in my hands. And fuck, I really wanted to get my dick between her legs.
Instead, I remained almost motionless and let her mouth touch mine slowly, remembering how soft her mouth felt on mine the first time, and noting subtle changes in the moisture of her lips from then to now.
Raine pulled away, and I opened my eyes to look at her.
“Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to,” she answered, her eyes looking away from me.
“You know when you do that, I just want to fuck you as quickly as possible.”
“Did you ever think of moving a little slower?” Raine suggested. “Not all relationships have to have sex right away.”
“I don't do relationships,” I told her. “I try to keep things a little easier. No flowers, no commitments. Just fucking.”
Raine’s face darkened and she looked away from me again. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or just embarrassed, but I wasn’t going to let her think I could be anything other than what I was. That nasty, evil part of me who could snap a guy’s neck and fuck his girlfriend afterwards told me to fucking lie to her and get her naked, but I couldn’t do that. Not to her.
“That’s not quite what I’m used to,” she said after a few minutes of silence.
“Well, I learned my lesson,” I told her. Before she could open her mouth, I shut her down. “And no, I do not want to talk about it.”
“Do you want to start back up where you left off last night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to talk,” I said. Her eyes looked downcast, and she seemed so disappointed, I got pissed at myself. “Why don’t you tell me something about you instead?”
“Okay,” Raine said, scrunching up her face a little. “What do you want to know?”
I thought about it for a minute and wondered what I did want to know about the woman next to me.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty,” she responded. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine,” I said, “but I’m asking the questions here.”
Raine smiled and waved her hand, indicating for me to continue.
“What are you going to study in college?”
“I don’t know yet,” Raine said with a blush. “There are a lot of things I might like to do, but I haven’t been able to pick one.”
“How did you end up on The Oblation?”
“I told you – my friend convinced me.”
“She convinced you to go on a cruise,” I clarified. “What made you pick my ship?”
“I thought it was pretty,” Raine said with a shrug. “I’m not one for big crowds, so I wanted the private charter. I loved the look of your kind of boat…”
“Ship,” I growled.
“Ship,” Raine corrected. “I thought it looked like an old pirate ship or something. It looked…exciting.”
“Have you had enough excitement yet?” I asked.
“Quite enough, thank you!” Raine smiled.
“How did you get the money?”
She looked back down at her fingers and slid her teeth over her bottom lip again.
“I got a settlement when my dad died,” she said.
“Yeah, you said that. Why did you get the settlement?”
“He died in the line of duty,” Raine said softly, “but he was sent somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. The private investigator had some information that one of his superiors sent him there on purpose, knowing he would be in over his head. They ended up giving me the money to avoid the civil suit, but it really came down to him being sent into a situation where he shouldn’t have been. He wasn’t supposed to be there, so he shouldn’t have died.”