Chapter Twelve
Eleanor
"You're awake."
Hunter had been sleeping for nearly two days and seeing his eyes open when I stepped into the cave filled me with an incredible sense of relief. I dropped the fruit I was carrying into the basket I had woven from dried leaves and rushed to Hunter’s side, crouching down beside him and looking into his face.
Hunter gave me a weak smile from his pallet.
"I think I am," he said. He tried to sit up and groaned, lowering himself back down. "I'm not sure that I want to be, though."
I laughed and reached over reflexively to take his hand. I had meant the gesture as a sign of celebration and support, but something passed between us when our palms touched, and he lifted his eyes to look at me. My heart started trembling in my chest and I felt like I couldn't get control over the words trying to come from my mouth. It wasn’t until that moment that I had thought about the cold distance that had been between us since I had turned away from his kiss in the jungle. I realized then that we hadn’t spoken and had barely shared the same space since then, but now that chill had thawed and I felt something simmering between us. I wished that I could understand what had happened when we were there together, everything so seemingly perfect except for the harsh memories that were coursing through my mind. I had wanted him. My body craved his touch and my mouth watered at the thought of tasting his kiss again. Yet I had pulled away when he moved in.
What had that left him thinking and feeling?
I knew that it had to be that moment that had caused him to withdraw so much and what was causing me to question what I was feeling now.
"You’ve been cramped up in here for a while," I finally managed to say. "Maybe you'd like to get down to the water, wash up a bit and change your clothes."
Hunter nodded.
"That sounds amazing.” He looked around the cave. "Where's Gavin? I’m feeling a little shaky and I’m not sure that I can get down to the water myself."
I looked around as well even though I knew that the other man wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen him that morning.
"I don't know. Maybe he went back to work on the shelter. He was fairly certain that the storm was going to hit yesterday, but it didn’t, so I think that he’s getting more anxious the longer that he has to anticipate it."
Hunter let out a sigh and nodded.
“Alright,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to try to make it.”
He started to climb to his feet and I reached forward to grab his arm.
“I can help you,” I offered.
Hunter looked at me and I felt the spark again. I had taken his glasses off when he fell asleep so now I was gazing directly into the indescribably sexy green pools without the glare of the lenses blocking my view. We stared at each other for several long seconds, the heat between us evident even though neither of us said anything. I took hold of his hand with one of mine and gripped his elbow with the other. I could feel his muscles trembling as he started walking and I knew that is muscles were feeling the strain from the time that they had been unused. After a few steps, however, he seemed to find his strength again and was walking with greater stability. I didn’t let him go, not wanting to trust too much in his tired body and cause him to fall and hurt himself again. With Gavin missing, I was fairly certain that I wasn’t going to be able to haul Hunter back into the cave and figure out how to nurse him back to health for a second time. We made our way carefully toward the pool and as soon as we approached it I felt my face heat up, the memories of the time that I had spent in that water thinking about Hunter still fresh in my mind.
“Um,” I said, looking around when we got to the edge of the water. “I’ll turn around so you can get undressed. Just get in the water and let me know.”
I turned around even though that was the absolute last thing that I wanted to do in that moment and waited while I heard the soft thud of his pants hitting the ground and then the light splash of him step down into the water. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would look like for that spectacular body to dip beneath the surface, but I didn’t turn around until I heard him call for me.
I didn’t bother to take off the gym shorts and shirt that I was wearing. It was hot enough that they would dry when I got out, and even if they didn’t, I had done what passed as laundry on the island and would be able to change into yet another set of gym shorts and shirt that I had snagged from Gavin’s supplies. I didn’t love that I was wearing his clothes, but I would rather deal with that than live in the same dress that I had arrived in or try my hand at weaving leaves into an Eve wardrobe. I walked down into the water with him carrying one of the coconut halves that I had emptied out and put by the side of the pool. I filled it with water and used it to rinse Hunter’s back. I wanted to resist touching him, but I couldn’t. I poured another shell of water over him and reached out to gently run my hand across his skin. His muscles were firm and perfectly formed beneath my palm and I heard him let out a sigh when I touched him.
I stepped slightly closer to him and whispered for him to tilt his head back. When he did, I poured water over his hair and reached up to tousle it with my fingers. Hunter moaned slightly and I bit down on my lower lip to control the surge of desire that rushed through me. I continued this way, helping him bathe away the dirt, sweat, and tightness of lying in the cave for two days.
“Does the bite still hurt?” I asked.
Hunter shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not really. A little achy, maybe, but nothing like it was.”
“That’s good,” I said.
I was nearly against him now, my wet clothes the only thing that was keeping me from being able to feel the warmth of his skin on my breasts. I ran my hands over his shoulders and along his arms, savoring the smoothness and the feeling of the muscles just beneath. This man was young. Too young. But I couldn’t resist him. I ran my hands around to the front of his body and over the top of his chest so that they just grazed his collarbones.
“Turn around,” I whispered in his ear.
He complied with my request and turned. The water was low enough that it hovered just beneath the delectable deep V of muscles over his hips. When he shifted, the water moved, revealing the hint of coarse, curly hair at the bottom of the V. I flattened my hands on his chest and let out a long breath, comparing the rhythm of our hearts as I felt his against my palm and mine against my ribcage. I was so invested in Hunter that I didn’t even notice that the sky had darkened and the pressure of the air around us had gotten more intense until it felt like the jungle itself was closing in around us. In an instant, though, the sky opened up and a deluge of hot, steaming rain cam streaming down on us.
I let out a cry of surprise and jumped back from Hunter.
“Get back to the cave!” he commanded and I did as he said, fighting against the resistance of the water to get back to the bank.
The ground was already slick as I ran back toward the cave and I nearly lost my footing. As I started to stumble, I felt Hunter grab onto my arm and lift me so that I didn’t fall. Above us, a bolt of lightning sliced through the sky and the jungle rumbled with a massive crash of thunder. It reminded me of the night that we had escaped from the cruise ship, but this storm seemed to have come on faster and far more vicious than even the storm on the water. I was thankful when I got beyond the mouth of the cave and into the dryness beyond. I went as far inside the cave as I could see with the light from outside.
Hunter ran in after me and I noticed that he had gotten back into his pants.
I guess running through the jungle naked wasn’t nearly as appealing as National Geographic would make it seem. Even Tarzan made himself a fancy loin cloth.
“Oh, no, what animal was that?”
“What?”
I looked up at Hunter, not realizing that I had spoken out loud. I shook my head.
“Oh, um, I was just thinking about Tarzan.”
“You were thinking about Tarzan?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“He was human.”
“What?”
“You asked what kind of animal he was.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not him. I was thinking about his loin cloth. It was obviously made out of fur. So, which of his little animal friends and family did he kill off to turn into his wardrobe?”
Hunter stared back at me and blinked a few times as if he was trying to process what I was saying in the context of something that actually mattered.
“I ---” he started, but then stopped.
“Never mind,” I said, trying to brush some of the water off of my skin.
“Have you ever wondered why people run out of the water when it starts raining?” he asked. “It seems kind of silly. Like ‘oh no, we need to stop swimming, we’re going to get wet!’”
I laughed.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily the rain,” I said. A bolt of lightning lit up the cave and I pointed at the entrance. “It’s that.”
I was walking toward the pile of supplies that I had built just inside the cave when a clap of thunder crashed overhead, so loud it felt like the Earth was going to split. I gasped and jumped toward Hunter. He reached out and caught me, drawing me close to him so that I was pressed to his chest. I lifted my eyes to look at him and found him staring back at me, his eyes darker. Suddenly I didn’t care about the storm around us anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around me and his chest against mine. Without thinking, I rose up onto my toes and touched my mouth to his. He tasted warm and delicious and I parted my lips slightly to seek more of it.
Hunter’s hands pressed to the small of my back and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. I looped my arms around his neck and pulled myself up closer to him, not wanting any space between our bodies. As we kissed, I started to walk backwards, drawing him with me. I was easing myself down to my knees, trying to bring him down so that we could lie on the pallet that he had rested on as he recovered from the bite, when I felt him ease me away from him again. My stomach sank. This couldn’t be happening again. We had already gone through this and then back around in circles. With the storm raging outside, I didn’t have anywhere to hide and I certainly didn’t have any champagne to drown my embarrassment in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound anywhere near as shrill as I thought that I might.
“Nothing,” Hunter said. “It’s not that anything’s wrong, it’s just that…”
He hesitated and I tilted my head to look into his face better.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“What Gavin said.”
I shook my head.
“Don’t let him bother you,” I said. “There’s no point in giving him any more puff than he already has. He doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.”
“That’s just the thing,” he said. “He wasn’t too far off.”
I felt my mouth fall open, the surprise at his words palpable. My arms slipped from around his neck and he took a step back.
“Exactly,” he said, starting to walk around me toward the back of the cave.
“No,” I said, grabbing his wrist and gently pulling him back toward me so that he didn’t walk away. “Not ‘exactly’. Talk to me.”
Hunter turned back to look at me and I could see the strain in his expression. This was obviously something that bothered him.
“What is it that you want to hear? That I’m completely inexperienced with women and he humiliated me?”
“Is that why you stopped me after the wedding?” I asked.
My voice sounded weaker and more vulnerable than I would have wanted it to, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to understand what had happened between us, even if that meant putting myself in a position that I shouldn’t be in, that I didn’t want to be in.
Hunter looked at me quizzically, as if he couldn’t understand why I would even ask that.
“What else would it be?” he asked.
“The fact that I’m so much older than you,” I admitted.
Hunter scoffed and stepped up closer to me.
“I don’t care how old you are,” he said. “You’re gorgeous. I noticed that the first moment I saw you.”
“Then what?”
“You are so beautiful and so confident. I’m intimidated.”
“There’s no reason to be intimidated.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I doubt you’ve ever had trouble attracting people.”
“Hunter, you are beyond sexy. I haven’t been able to control myself since I saw you at the wedding.”
“You’re the only one.”
“So, you’ve never…”
I hesitated, not really knowing how to word the question in such a way that I would get the information that I wanted without embarrassing him any further.
Because this is just one of those casual questions that everybody asks all the time.
“Once,” Hunter admitted without me even having to complete my thought. “And my confidence about whether that one time even happened is a little bit shady.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was in college. The one time that I decided to go to a party. I had heard about how much fun they were and that that was all I needed to get settled in and start having a good time in college rather than spending all of my time studying.”
“And?”
“Well, I quickly learned why people like me don’t generally go to those parties.”
“People like you?” I asked.
“Nerds,” he said without hesitation.
The word wasn’t an insult or even an evaluation of him. It was just how he perceived himself within the context of the rest of the world.
“You’re not a nerd,” I said, trying to comfort and reassure him even though he didn’t seem entirely bothered by the idea that he wasn’t one of the cool kids.
Hunter looked at me with an expression that said that he wasn’t buying it.
“Is that some of your guidance counselor bullshit coming through?” he asked.
Guidance counselor? Oh, yeah. Third grade teacher and guidance counselor. Damn. I needed to get it together.
“It’s just that I don’t think you should be talking about yourself like that.”
“I was a math and science double major, involved heavily in the chess and astronomy clubs, and the most hotly sought-after Dungeon Master on campus. Among the 12 of us who openly knew what that meant.”
“Dungeon Master?” I asked somewhat hesitantly.
Somehow, I don’t think that this story is going to segue into him wearing leather and strapping people to walls.
“Dungeons and Dragons.”
Sigh.
“Today’s episode was brought to us by squares,” I said.
Hunter gave a short laugh.
“Tell me about it. So, I agreed to go to this party with my lab partner.”
“Was your lab partner a blond girl who wore way too much white and pink, and seemed to think that visiting the dining hall was a formal occasion that warranted the wearing of pearls around her neck and diamonds in her ears?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
Bitches never change.
“Was this party a sorority party?”
“Yeah.”
Yep.
“Were you some kind of entry into a contest?”
Hunter gave a deep sigh.
“Yeah.”
Great to know that there are some traditions that just won’t fucking die.
“What happened?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I know that they gave me something to drink. A lot of somethings to drink. I loosened my tie. I might have ended up on a table dancing.”
I had a sudden flash of his dancing from the wedding.
“What kind of dancing?”
“Viennese waltz.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, and to his credit, Hunter did, too.
“Sexy.”
“Apparently so because the next thing I knew I was waking up the next morning naked except for my glasses and one sock with the girlfriend of one of the fraternity members in bed with me.”
“That’s some seriously 80’s teen movie stuff,” I said before it occurred to me that those movies came out when he was a toddler.
“Well, I probably don’t have to tell you that things didn’t go terribly well for me after that.”
“And you haven’t dated anyone since?”
“I don’t think that that really counts as dating,” he pointed out.
“Probably not.”
“I’ve dated a couple of women,” he said. “But it never went beyond a few friendly dinners. Maybe a show. I have a hard time attracting women and those who I do aren’t exactly brimming with romance and sexuality. Either that or I just don’t inspire it in them.”
“You keep saying that you have a hard time attracting women. I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. They just seem to kind of look through me. Either I’m the perfect friend material, or I’m wallpaper. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.”
“There’s middle ground for me,” I told him. “You are much more than friend material.” I took a step toward him. “And you are definitely not wallpaper.” I closed the space between us and ran my hands down his arms, giving a little moan of appreciation at the feeling of his muscles. “Though I wouldn’t object to having you around to look at.” I got on my toes to draw myself up to whisper in his ear again. “Let me show you what that girl at the party couldn’t.” I brushed my mouth across his neck. “We don’t have to rush. We have plenty of time.”
Without waiting for a response, I rested my mouth to his, rediscovering the kiss from when we were standing in the pool. He accepted it immediately, his mouth opening beneath mine and his tongue slipping past my lips to massage against mine. As our bodies responded to one another, drawing closer until we were pressed together, my wet clothing cooling some of the heat that we were creating, I again started lowering us to the ground. He came with me this time, allowing me to ease him to the floor of the cave and stretch him back against the blankets. Outside the rain was pelting the jungle, filling the cave with the music of the individual droplets hitting the leaves, rocks, ground, and water. It buffered us from the rest of the world, enhancing the space of privacy and luxurious pleasure that we were creating together.
I wanted to introduce him to everything that he had been missing for so many years. I wanted to indulge his body and show him all that it was capable of receiving, and of giving. For so long sex had been an obligation, something that I did because it was another thing that was expected of me as a wife. This wasn’t about obligation or what either of us required from the other. Instead, this was about listening to our bodies and giving them exactly what they wanted, discovering pleasures within each other and within ourselves that were as wild and natural as the beautiful, if frightening, island around us.
With Hunter stretched across the pallet, I stood and looked down at him. I ensured that he was watching me as I undressed carefully, gradually revealing myself to him. I didn’t know how far the night would take us, but I wanted nothing between us and nothing to stop us from whatever exploration we desired. There were no limitations tonight. There was nothing that was going to stop us.
When I was finally completely naked, I knelt down and reached for the button on the front of Hunter’s pants. I released it and eased his zipper down slowly, wanting to continue to build the delicious tension that had been burning between us. Finally, they were open and I grasped the sides to start pulling them down. Hunter lifted his hips to make it easier for me to remove them completely and drop them to the side. There was nothing left concealing him now and I was able to let my eyes travel along his body, taking him in in all of his exquisitely crafted beauty. I forced my gaze to move slowly, scanning every inch of him, rather than rushing to what I had been waiting so long to see. When I had paid the proper respects to the curves of his shoulders, the deep cut of his chest, the plane of his belly, and the tantalizing trail of dark hair from his navel, it was finally time to see the erection that had been straining toward me through his pants as we kissed.
It was even more incredible than I had envisioned when I was in the water. Long, perfectly straight, and deeply veined, it was so hard and thick that it looked as though my fingers wouldn’t touch when I wrapped my hand around it. I was very willing to try. I leaned forward and touched a soft kiss to his lips, then brought my mouth to the side of his neck. I could feel him trembling slightly as I kissed my way down his neck and onto his collarbone. I brushed my lips along each bone and then pressed them into the soft dip between them. The rhythm of his pulse was there, telling me that I was coaxing him forward, bringing his arousal higher with every touch of my lips.
Taking my time, I kissed my way over to one of his shoulders and then down his arm, following the curve of each of his muscles until I reached his hand. I lifted his arm and turned his hand over so that it rested in my palm. I kissed his palm and then slipped each finger into my mouth in turn, sucking my way down them and then drawing my tongue up the inside of his arm until I reached his shoulder again. I continued this exploration over the other arm and down his body, lavishing his nipples, the taut muscles of his chest, the ripples of his stomach, and the muscular V at his hips with the attention that I had been wanting to give him since the first moment that I saw him. I wanted to go further, but I forced myself to stop. There was still more that I wanted him to feel. Knowing that he was so inexperienced made me feel as though I had been given not a tremendous obligation, but a privilege. I got to be the one who awakened him to the delicious capabilities of his body and to welcome the blissful attention that I would teach him to give.
Swinging one leg over his hips, I positioned myself so that I looked down into Hunter’s eyes. He gazed up at me, his eyes slumbering slightly. I knew that I was bringing him to an edge and I wanted to urge him further. I flattened my hands on his chest and ran them up to his shoulders and then down both arms so that my body gradually lowered down toward his. My hands reaching his and intertwining our fingers, I allowed my breasts to brush his chest. The sensation traveled through my sensitive, hardened nipples and I lowered myself just enough that my breasts crushed lightly against his chest. My angle allowed me to feel his surging erection against my thigh and I nestled back against it so that it nudged my wet, waiting petals.
Holding my hips in place, I brought my mouth back to his. Hunter kissed me with both tenderness and passion. His hands ran along my back softly, then slid up to my shoulders and squeezed as though reassuring himself that I was truly there. After a few moments of just enjoying the feeling and taste of his mouth on mine, I pulled away from the kiss and eased myself down Hunter’s body so that I knelt between his thighs. Resting a hand on the inside of both legs, I pressed them apart so that I could gain greater access. Finally indulging the fantasy that I had been harboring, I wrapped my hand around the base of his erection and finally felt the warmth of his skin against my palm. I could feel the blood continuing to flow into his shaft, making it even harder. My other hand cupped his balls, gently massaging them. They hung away from his body with the intensity of his arousal and I manipulated them carefully while stroking my other hand along his shaft.
Slick fluid had gathered at the tip of his cock and I swirled my palm over it to allow my hand to move more easily along his skin. My hand ran along his erection in long strokes, twisting slightly when I reached the head to stimulate the tight bundles of nerves under the head. I looked at Hunter’s face and saw that his eyes were closed, his expression one of concentration and pleasure. He was racing toward climax, drawing closer to the oblivion that I wanted to give to him, when a screaming wind from outside broke the peaceful, transcendent bliss between us.
I snapped my eyes to the entrance to the cave just in time to see a large tree sail past, the roots torn up from the ground. The effect was violent enough that I could feel the sting of water against my face and Hunter sat up sharply. He reached out and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me back with him deeper into the cave as he dragged the pallet along behind us. We huddled together against the far wall of the chamber, bracing ourselves against the most intense moments of the storm. When it finally ended, the adrenaline slid from my body and I felt exhaustion take over. Hunter seemed to feel the same, and though I longed for more of the exploration, I allowed him to draw me down onto the blankets with him and curl around me. His hand trailed lazily along the center of my stomach and brushed along the bottom swells of my breasts.
I hadn’t even realized that I had fallen asleep in Hunter’s arms until I felt him shift behind me. I opened my eyes slowly and saw the glow of morning sunlight outside of the cavern. Despite its beauty, I didn’t want to get up. I rolled over and nuzzled closer to Hunter again. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Better than I have in a long time.”
“Me, too,” he said. He sighed and I saw him look toward the entrance to the cave. “Do you think that Gavin made it into the cabin of the boat before the storm hit?” he asked. “He might be an ass, but I wouldn’t want to think that he was out there in all of that by himself.”
Those words brought me back to harsh reality. The fantasy of the night before had kept me from thinking about the storm when I first woke, but now I felt worry sink heavily into my belly, making me feel sick. I could remember weathering storms when younger and camped with my father, but none had been as intense as that one. Even so, some of them caused truly horrific damage.
I got up and scrambled into the clothing I was wearing the night before. It was still damp and I shivered as the cold fabric touched my skin. Hunter stepped into a pair of pants that had been in the pile of blankets and clothes we were using for his bed. We stepped out of the cave and I immediately noticed the ground was strewn with pieces of branches, leaves, and other remnants of the island that the storm had thrown around. I took a deep breath and looked back at Hunter. He was staring around like I had, shaking his head.
“Where could he be?” he asked. “I would have thought that he would come back to the cave as soon as the weather cleared up if he hadn’t been able to make it when the raining started, even if it was just to gloat that he had been right about the storm.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope that he’s alright.”
I still didn’t trust Gavin, but just like Hunter had said, that didn’t mean that I wanted something horrible to have happened to him. I was going through enough. The last thing that I needed was a storm-battered body to deal with when I couldn’t get off of this stupid island.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Hunter said. “Remember, he’s trained in wilderness survival.”
There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory of Gavin’s bravado about his training and how it would help them to get through this time on the island. As funny as it seemed, however, it did make me wonder what kind of experience this man had that had allowed him to spring into action the way that he had. I wanted to think that it all came from some kind of exclusive military training that had taught him to paint himself camouflage, roll around in the woods, and survive off of tree bark and moth wings, but in the back of my mind I knew that that wasn’t the case. There was something about Gavin that put me on edge and made me wary of him. He had helped us from the beginning, but there had always been an underlying sense of obligation, as though there was another reason that he was there with us, and now that he was missing I was starting to question everything about him.
We started down the makeshift path toward the waterfall and pool. Some of the clothing that had been at the front of the cave was now strewn across the ground and Hunter leaned down to scoop it up.
"Just bring them with us," I told him. "I can hang them up to dry at the shelter."
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I felt my face drop and saw the expression on Hunter's face change. He scrambled away from the edge of the water where he had paused to rinse his feet and we started running through the jungle toward the beach. I wasn't paying as close attention to where I was stepping as I usually did and the brush bit painfully into the bottoms of my feet, but I didn't stop. We needed to get to the shelter and find out how much damage the storm had caused, and if all of the work that we had put into the structure had been destroyed. The moment that I got to the beach I felt like everything inside of me emptied and I was completely deflated.
The once pristine sand was now scattered with the branches, fronds, and ropes that had once been the shelter we had poured ourselves into building. Pieces of tattered fabric and broken pieces of the ship moved in the lazy waves that slid up the sand and then back, gradually pulling the destroyed remnants of their supplies back into the sea. I stepped out onto the beach and felt emotion catch in my chest. Fighting tears, I rushed toward the site where the shelter had been. It hunkered at the edge of the jungle in a heap of broken bamboo and torn leaves. I could see the crates of supplies that we had positioned inside tipped over, the contents that hadn't been tossed onto the beach spilled on what had been the floor.
From the moment that I noticed the storm coming, I had been trying to deny it. I had been trying to keep memories forced down as far within me as I could possibly get them, not wanting to face them. I had struggled through the sound of the rain and the angry rumble of the thunder. Now, though, I couldn’t keep them away any longer. Brutal memories, moments that I had never wanted to see or think of again, sliced through my mind and forced themselves onto the backs of my eyelids as I squeezed my eyes closed so hard that I saw spots of light bursting in the darkness.
"Fuck!" I screamed, picking up one of the fronds that had been a part of the roof and throwing it as far as I could into the jungle. "Motherfucking storm!" I kicked at another piece of the rubble and spun around so that I could scream at a different portion of the beach. “Son of a bitching cocksucking, assblasting piece of shit! Motherless whore! Fuck-stick shitheaded bat-brained dick splinter! Donkey-fucking three fingered cunt kicking blueballed limp dicked fuck monkey!”
It felt amazing and I wanted to scream more, but I felt like I had used up all of my profanity creativity and couldn’t think of any other words to use.
"Eleanor," Hunter's voice said from behind me.
"No!" I shouted, whipping around to face him. "Don't you dare tell me to calm down. Are you seeing the same thing that I’m seeing?" I demanded.
I gestured frantically around us at the beach.
"Yes," Hunter said, taking a cautious step toward me and holding up a hand as if to calm me.
Either that, or to act as a defensive tool in the event that I chose to fling part of the shelter at him.
"Then you can see that everything we went through was for shit. It meant absolutely nothing."
"It didn't mean nothing, Eleanor," Hunter said, approaching me. "We knew that that storm was going to come. We had to have shelter. We couldn't just sit around. We had to do something to help us handle being here, or even just to occupy our time."
It was meant to be a comforting statement, but something about Hunter's words pushed me into even deeper fury.
"To occupy our time?" I shouted. "Is this fun for you? Is this some sort of warped tropical vacation?" I kicked at the bamboo and palm fronds spread across the ground. "Well, let me tell you something. This is not a fucking vacation. There is no five-star hotel hiding on the other side of the rocks and we don't get to dress for dinner in the banquet hall. In fact, we barely get to fucking dress at all."
I gestured toward Hunter who was wearing nothing but his pants, and then at myself and the wet castoffs I wore. His jaw set as he stared at me. This was ruining everything that we had experienced together and I was disgusted with myself for causing that, but I couldn’t stop the anger that was coursing through me. It was all too much. The night before I had been able to convince myself that everything was alright, but now it was like I was being punished, pushed back down to the ground where I should have always stayed.
"This isn't our fault. We didn’t choose for this to happen.”
"Yes, it is," she said. "It is my fault and I hate myself for it."
"Why do you think that it's your fault?" Hunter asked. "You couldn't control the storm that made us crash here anymore than you could control the storm that happened last night."
"But if it wasn't for me we wouldn't have been in that boat trying to get away from the ship so the storm wouldn't have mattered." I started to stomp away from the shelter and then whipped back around to face him again. "No. You know what? This isn't my fault. Everything that I do nowadays might turn to absolute shit because somewhere along the line I apparently lost all of my ability to function, but this isn't on me. This," she gestured wildly around herself, "this is Virgil's fault. This is all fucking Virgil's fault. If he hadn't been such a raging sleazeball this wouldn't have happened."
I was fairly sure I could have come up with something better to call him if I had taken the time to really think about it, but at that moment that seemed like the most appropriate term. It didn’t have the flair of my previous tirade, but it would do.
"He's not here," Hunter said. "He can't hurt you anymore."
"Yes, he can!" I replied. "Can't you see that? He's always here. He's always around. As soon as he found out that I knew about everything that he had done, I signed my death warrant." I felt at once like I was being dramatic and like I was telling the truth for the first time in as long as I could remember. "He cheated people out of millions of dollars. He ran drugs. I wouldn't be surprised if there was blood on his hands. Do you really think that he isn't capable of making sure that I don’t go unpunished for humiliating him with our divorce and then holding the evidence that I have over his head? He sent men after me. The cruise ship wasn’t the first time that it happened. They’ve found me in the grocery store. They’ve found me while I was jogging. They accosted me while I was fucking trying on shoes for the wedding. I had to hobble over to a group of salespeople wearing two different heights of heels just so that I wasn’t sitting alone with them.”
“Have they ever said anything to you?” Hunter asked.
I nodded, feeling as though I had gotten myself onto a slippery slope. I had already revealed more than I ever intended to and now I could just feel him scrutinizing me and everything that I had ever told him, but I was already on my way now. I couldn’t go back and pretend that I hadn’t opened my mouth and let all of this fall out.
“They say that Virgil just wants to talk to me, but when was the last time you needed to send multiple very large, very scary men after a woman just because you wanted to have a conversation with her?" I shook my head and clawed my hands back through my hair to get it out of my face. They caught on tangles that pulled at my scalp and frustrated me even further. As soon as I got off this damn island I was spending three days in the shower and using ten bottles of shampoo. "I guarantee you that he wouldn't mind if I had just tipped off of that ship and never came back up. He only wants to see me so that he can have the fun of getting rid of me himself. He just wants me to disappear so that I won't be any trouble for him anymore. He'll do whatever it takes and send whoever it takes to make sure that it happens."
“Well,” Hunter said, his eyes looking slightly lighter, “maybe that’s what happened.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling confused.
“Those guys who were chasing us on the cruise ship saw us jump off into the water. Gavin’s boat was too far away for them to actually get a good look at us climbing on. To them, we did just tip off of the boat and disappear.”
I stepped back and let out a long sigh.
I never thought that I was going to reach a point in my life when I should feel relieved that I was stranded on an uninhabited, storm-battered island because the alternative was worse. That’s a somber realization.
"Come on," Hunter said, reaching for my hand. "Let’s take a break from the shelter for a bit. Come talk to me.”