“Son of a bitch,” I mutter under my breath. Did Will bring her backpack back?
I shimmy back down the trunk, frowning at the smashed egg on the ground, and with a sigh pick up the two that she caught. She’s already over by her backpack, unzipping it and inspecting the contents.
“He must’ve come last night,” she says. “Oh, God, do you think he was here when we—”
“I don’t give a fuck if he was. Let him. I want it super fucking abundantly clear that you’re mine.”
She looks at me curiously for a moment, and nibbles her lower lip, before walking over to me. When she reaches me, she gets up on her tiptoes and puts her hands on my shoulders, lifts her face to mine, and kisses me. The kiss starts out tender and sweet, but soon she presses her body up to mine when I deepen the kiss.
She pulls away and whispers in my ear. “You’re right, Cy. I want him to know that, too.”TenHarperI pull away from him with reluctance. Knowing that there’s another man on this island who’s watching us creeps me out. I’m not afraid, though. I can defend myself I have to. I can defend us. And there’s not a doubt in my mind that Cy will. Sometimes when I’m near him, I feel like he’s part beast, and it isn’t just that he’s bearded and wild. It’s who he is. How he holds himself. Hell, the way he walks and talks.
Something about waking up on this island, having slept in the same clothes I wore the day before, disheveled and starving, makes the reality of my situation a lot more real. I don’t let myself think about it, because if I do, I’ll cry.
I can’t spend the rest of my life on this island. I won’t.
The ship came here once. It will come back again.
I turn away from him and see the cracked egg on the ground.
“Oh, shit. Man. I totally flaked out, didn’t I?”
He shrugs, and bends to pick up the two remaining eggs. “There are two of us, and we have two eggs. We’re good.” I’m glad he doesn’t scold me for not paying attention. I wouldn’t blame him if he did. That was my fault.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I shouldn’t have let myself be distracted.”
“Harper, enough.”
I hate when I drop the ball. I hate when I don’t do what people are depending on me to do.
We don’t say much else as he builds up the fire again. “How are you going to cook those eggs?” But he has a plan, involving some sort of flat rock and frying them, and it’s messy, but in the end, we have cooked eggs. They’re larger than chicken eggs, so it’s almost like having two each.
“What kind of birds did these come from?”
“I’m not sure, but they’re edible, like chicken or turkey.”
“Not exactly the cruise buffet, but not bad,” I tell him. “But I’d give damn near anything for a cup of coffee.”
“Anything?” he asks teasingly, raising a brow at me.
“Anything,” I repeat. Does he actually have coffee? “Yes, I will absolutely whore myself for a cup.”
That makes him give me a low, rumble of a growl. “Wish I had some,” he says. “I would take you up on that.”
He smiles, and as he looks at me, his gaze grows dark. I bite my lip and shift a little beside the fire. I’ve never been around a man who looks like him, and it’s doing something to me. I feel a little shy when I lick my lip, feeling where he bit me. My body has been marked by him, but it only excites me.
“So,” I say casually, looking away so we don’t tear each other’s clothes off right here and go at it again. What is it with this place? “Can you tell me about yourself? Where did you live? What did you do?”
He stands and stretches, and I swallow hard looking at his tats and muscles. Fuck, he’s beautiful, ruggedly handsome, and uncivilized. Raw alpha male, unencumbered by anything to hold him back. It’s a damn good thing we’ve managed to establish some form of trust here. He’s not the type I’d want to be on the wrong side of.
“I fought,” he says simply. “Gotta be honest, I didn’t remember much about who I was or how I got here until recently. It’s coming back in bits and pieces.”
I frown. “Like you hit your head and got confused or something?”
His jaw tightens and he’s quiet and sober for a moment before he nods. “Or something. I know I grew up on the streets, inner city New York. I don’t remember parents or siblings. When I was old enough, I made my money in the ring as a teen, then enlisted the day I was old enough to. Never looked back.” He gathers a few twigs to clean up the area by the fire and tosses them on the pile. “You?”