6
The Island hears you calling
Terrence Jackson Corbin IV had an easy life. He returned to the mainland and forgot all he learned on the island. Barking orders, he started from scratch, with a big pile of support from his father. Terror Corbin, Terrence Jackson Corbin III, knew how to get things done. Despite his original decree that his son needed to learn a lesson—never get caught—the plan seemed to work. His son did learn and came back a different man in many ways. More determined. More ruthless. More focused. Terror gladly supported his son’s new venture.
However, his father failed to see that Tack, as he’d taken the new name permanently, was more than different. He was changed at heart. He learned the value of asking. A woman gave him permission. And he earned love in return. Love requited—received in payment for healing and forgiveness. Unfortunately, Tack no longer asked. He’d returned to himself, although he knew right from wrong. He took once again, but with better cause. He wanted to help others, although he could no longer remember what changed him to act in such a manner.
But that night, as he lay in bed, he recalled the memory of her. Had he imagined her? he pondered. Had she been a dream? He refused to believe she was imaginary. When he closed his eyes, he felt her next to him, her cheek pressed to his arm, her back warm against his front. He could taste her lips, remembering how she nipped and sucked at his, her tongue lingering with his. He could feel the heat of her wrapped over him.
As it had on so many nights, his palm increased the friction, rubbing the rock-solid length at the base of his abs. A dribble of sticky moisture seeped from its head and he used it to lubricate himself. In his mind, it was her that he slid through. Her body rocked over his, drawing him into her. He felt the familiar tingle spread up his thighs and across his lower back. His hips bucked as he worked over himself, imagining she was ready to be filled by him. Her sighs whispered in his ear.
I love you, she said, and he released, falling back on the bed in anguish and relief.
Where are you? he called out as the memory of her drifted into the darkness of the bedroom around him. He was no longer in a heated tent. The waves did not roar feet outside his dwelling. She would not wake next to him.
You make me wild, he whispered. A new kind of wild, where he worried and he panicked and he sensed her loss.
+ +
Juliet Montmore had nothing, but then again, she had everything. She returned to the mainland to a betrayal so deep, so piercing, it seemed worse than any circumstance, minus one. She took her notes and her heart and she disappeared, scampering off the grid and into the mountains. Here she met her first friend, and together they developed a plan to do good for others. Juliet was pleased, but she wasn’t satisfied.
She’d never understood the concept of pieces missing from a person. She’d been alone so much of her life, she decided the only piece necessary was one—herself. Curved and edged, she used the cutouts of her life, the negative experiences, to protect herself, until one night they hadn’t. Then she met him. She discovered his sharp corners and jagged edges fit with hers, or so she thought.
In her head, she knew the truth. It had been an experiment. In her heart, she felt doubt.
But when she closed her eyes, she sensed the solid wooden roof over her head. The breeze rustling the leaves, and the warm breath of him against her neck. She felt the thumping of her heart and the heat of his hand over it. She’d moved his hand, holding power over him, to please her. Pretending his fingers dragged through the valley of her breasts, cupping one and peaking the nipple of the other, she moaned in her bed. She’d flip to her back and let her knees fall open, recalling the first time he truly entered her. Slick and fast, he slipped in to the hilt, and she’d never felt more complete. Two parts of a puzzle joined as one.
Her fingers played his role, stroking and spreading, and she heard his voice in her head.
Let me in, he’d asked, and she had. Body, mind and heart, he filled her until he was gone.
I love you, she whispered in the dark night as she coated her fingers and called out his name.
She remembered watching him as she walked away, memorizing the color of his eyes, the cut of his chin, and the curl of his smile. How she longed for his lips, but he faded in the darkness, swallowed up by thick foliage in her mind and leaving her to wander, incomplete, missing him.