I awoke in strange surroundings and hearing a soft snore to the side of me. I looked over to see Erica on her side with her hands wrapped around the pillow underneath her head. How did I end up…? Then it all came racing back: the nightmare of my unit and the village being attacked, the argument Erica and I had, and our kissing. You fucked up, soldier!
I wasn’t supposed to care for Erica. Hell, I’d made a point to keep her pissed at me since meeting her at my sister’s wedding. I didn’t want or need anyone, not until I got my mind and my life back under control. I knew the Marines called me a hero for taking out so many of the rebel forces, but I considered myself a failure. So many of my peers died along with the villagers, and so many of my team was captured and tortured. What I couldn’t understand was how I managed to escape and survive. Nothing seemed to help calm my system or my mind, nothing until Erica. I was still in awe wondering how I’d managed to sleep for six hours straight, when the past two years I’d only managed one to two hours at a time. Derrick had mentioned how he’d never felt calm and comfortable in his own skin until his wife, Jesse, had come into his life. Could Erica be that same sense of calm for me?
I didn’t want to think about it, not now at least. Maybe we could push away from one another, nip it in the bud before any feelings got involved. I moved slowly so I wouldn’t cause the bed to shift much. I knew we were both exhausted from the previous day, so I decided against checking out the rest of the island until tomorrow and stick closer to the house instead.
After changing into a different pair of fatigues and forgoing my shirt, I headed downstairs with the three-ring binder about the house in hand to see if there were any added security measures around here, since there seemed to be so many existing around the exterior of the island.
Erica’s concern yesterday about power failures kept running through my mind. I knew the island had backup gasoline generators if needed, but there was only a two-day supply of fuel on the island. The waterwheel provided a constant energy source, but would it be enough, especially if we had a stronger storm? Not that we would, usually tropical storms and hurricanes only happened in this part of the world during the latter part of summer, or did they?
I let the thoughts run through my mind as I began gathering breakfast stuff. There was plenty of fresh fruit in the refrigerator, and I was happy to see a multitude of fruit trees on the island so we could replenish our supply without having to go to the mainland, which was a larger island ten miles to the west of us. I didn’t relish having to go out in public and pretend to be a married couple on their honeymoon, not unless we absolutely had to. The idea was to stay hidden and wait things out while members of Titan tried to figure out if things extended beyond Victor Yoknovich or if he was acting alone. We knew he had money or a source to it, since he’d used hired guns and greased the palms of a few of the government’s finest men to look the other way. He had the connections, so it made sense. But what was he ultimately up to?
I finished cooking the scrambled eggs and put them on the table. Thankfully, whoever stocked the fridge put about five dozen eggs inside. I didn’t relish the idea of having to use the powdered ones. Just the thought of them made me cringe, having eaten enough of them while in service to last a lifetime.
Going back into the kitchen for the bacon and toast, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, so I turned but wished I hadn’t. Erica was fresh from the shower. Her hair was still damp, and she was wearing a very formfitting black one-piece bathing suit that amplified her cleavage. There were straps draped over each shoulder, resembling a pattern I’d seen in my Shibari picture book. I instantly closed my eyes and stifled the groan of appreciation that wanted to drift up from deep inside me.
Trying to center myself, I took a few deep breaths in before offering up, “Good morning. Looks like you slept better. Are you hungry?” I wouldn’t acknowledge how she looked, how I could easily imagine her tied up with the ropes I’d found deep in my duffle. Why did they have to be in there? I guess Rick and Derrick wanted me to continue with my therapy by practicing the knots. Did those guys have any clue as to the temptation the ropes would cause or to the enticement Erica created around me?
Erica tilted her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders. I could tell the events in her life were still weighing on her. I’m sure the tension between us last night brought on a whole new wave on confusion, or at least it did for me.
I watched as she took a seat and placed some juice and coffee in front of her. She picked the juice up and took a sip before reaching out and grabbing a piece of toast and putting it on her plate. “I hope you plan on eating more than just that.”
She shook her head, and her eyes welled up with unshed tears. I started to reach my hand out to her to offer some kind of support but pulled it back. I didn’t want to encourage our interactions any more than I had to.
Erica saw me pull back from her, and then squinted her eyes at me. She was definitely mad. “I’m not hungry,” she huffed as she pushed back from the table.
Okay, I’d had enough. I grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her back into her seat. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but what happened last night,” I motioned between the two of us, “was a mistake. Granted, it was a nice one, but still, we shouldn’t allow that to happen again, and let me tell you something else: I’m the one in charge here, not you. So until you’ve finished eating what I’m about to put on your plate, you will not get up from this table, even if I have to tie your body to the seat and force feed you myself.”
The words were out of my mouth before I even realized it. Why did I say tie her up? I looked up to see her eyes wide with shock while a small smile dared to play across her lips. Was she turned on by the idea that I cared or the fact that I said I’d tie her up? Who knew, but I wasn’t letting her waste away on my time.
She pulled her chair back up to the table while I grabbed her plate and piled on an appropriate amount of food. “Here, now eat, please.”
I wolfed down my breakfast, because I would need my strength for what I had planned for today, which was to make some traps for anyone who managed to skirt the security system and make it onto the island undetected. How this could happen I didn’t know, but if the island was without power, the system didn’t work. It never hurt to be overly prepared.
Clearing my throat, I got Erica’s attention. “I’d like to lay down some ground rules.”
She nodded, as her mouth full of food, and raised her hand for me to continue.
“I’ve decided we’ll scope out the rest of the island tomorrow. We’ve had a rough twenty-four hours, and I think we could use a little break. I did take your questions about the island’s power to heart and feel we should have a few booby traps set up in case the power fails. Once they’re done, I’ll show you where they’re at so you’ll know to avoid those areas.” I waited for her to respond, but she didn’t.
“When I’m outside of the house, you can either join me or stay here. If you choose to stay in the house, I don’t want you leaving unless it’s with me. If you want to help me with things outside, you’re welcome to do so or you can sit and watch, but you must be within a fifty-foot range of where I’m at so I have a visual of you at all times and can get to you if need be. Are you with me so far?” I asked to see if she was paying attention rather than just daydreaming.
She let her fork drop to her plate, causing it to clank loudly. “I hear and obey, your hind ass.”
The laugh burst out of me. Okay, so we were back to how we treated each other in the airport hanger outside of Tampa. I could easily deal with that. “Watch it, princess,” I reprimanded. “As for us, I think its best that we don’t communicate unless absolutely necessary, and we need to respect one another’s space. We’ll take turns or help one another out with fixing the meals, but other than that…” I let the thought trail off, because, if I was being honest, I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t like the idea of keeping away from her, but I didn’t think she was ready to go anywhere with this, and I knew I sure as hell wasn’t ready. Will there ever be a time that’s perfect? Go for it, dude; follow your heart instead of your mind for once. Don’t you deserve happiness too?
My mind needed to stay out of it. Erica’s voice broke through my train of thinking. “Why are you still wearing your dog tags, and what do the names and numbers mean on your bracelet?”
She couldn’t have asked a more perfect question to make the warmth I was feeling for her turn cold. “Remember the rules of the twenty-questions game last night?” I watched as she nodded. “That’s one of my pass questions, at least for now.”
I didn’t like knowing that Erica was a mental health counselor for vets. It made me self-conscious of everything I said around her now—one of the reasons I’d invoked my pass to skip out on answering. I’m pretty sure she could guess that the dog tags made me feel grounded, like I was still part of a team. What she didn’t know was that the names, dates, and longitude and latitude were the men who’d fallen in my unit, the day it happened, and the location where I’d led them to their death. It was a reminder to me that I couldn’t be trusted to care for another person’s life on a full-time basis. This part-time deal of being a bodyguard and providing security to companies was okay, because it never lasted longer than a week or two here and there. The guys I’d lost in my unit had been there from the get-go. We’d been doing operative missions for more than five years in the service. To me, they were my brothers; one’s I’d never be able to look in the face and talk with again.
Getting up from the table, I looked over to Erica and nodded toward her plate. “You’re not to move until that plate is clean. Since I fixed breakfast, you can clean up. If you’d like to fix lunch for us later, I’ll be happy to do the cleaning.
“I’m headed outside. Feel free to join me or stay here; the choice is yours. But if you’re going to go outside, the sunscreen’s on the coffee table in the living room.” I didn’t wait for her to respond. Instead, I reached for the backpack containing the things I’d put together to make some traps and headed outside. I needed to be away from Erica and distance myself from the feelings she was trying to invoke deep within my system.
A week had passed by, and we had slowly fallen into a routine that seemed to work. We’d managed to check out the rest of the island, had become familiar with the escape routes and where some of the man-made traps lie, and had run different scenarios so we wouldn’t have to think, because the actions were second nature. Call me overprotective, but I’d wanted things to go smoothly in a pinch.
I’d checked in with Rick, on the specified dates and times he’d set, to let him know how we had been doing. He had given me updates on the case, which, apparently, was now at a standstill. They’d managed to ferret out some of the bad seeds in the FBI, thanks to Sophia hacking into the offshore accounts that had recent monetary deposits—all wired from one of Victor Yoknovich’s alias accounts. However, there had been no leads on Victor himself. He’d fallen off the face of the earth, and no one knew where he was. His main accounts had been drained, and Sophia and her team had been trying to track the electronic sources to where he could be hiding, but had hit some dead ends.
Erica’s dad was resorting to calling in favors to his and Sophia’s former co-workers, who were now high-ranking officials within the U.S. Government. Rick also let it be known that Ivan had made a few calls to some former Russian connections to see if he could get any details, but so far, there was nothing to report. Erica and I were to continue as we were until further notice.
The news didn’t sit well with either of us. I could tell she was feeling pent up, as we kept mostly to the inside of the house or close to the perimeter of it. A couple times, I caught her trying to wander down toward the beach to explore. We were out in the middle of nowhere, but it would only take one plane or passing boat to see her and know the island was inhabited. I wasn’t willing to take that chance with her, or myself for that matter. I usually waited until pre-dawn or nightfall to go out with the nightscope to do some fishing.
Other times, I heard Erica crying in the middle of the night. When I went to check on her, she pretended to be asleep, but I knew she was feeling the loss of her friend and missing her family. We recently received word that her two surviving friends, Casey and Hannah, finally came around, but they’d both need a lot of physical and psychological therapy to get over their “accidents.” They had asked where Erica was, worried she’d met the same fate they all had, but the guys working with Titan assured them she was fine.
They must’ve all been closer than we first assumed, because both Casey and Hannah were worried about Erica’s mental status. They asked to get word to her that they didn’t blame her for any of the things that had happened to them. They both agreed that with or without the video Victor would’ve probably still come after them, because he wanted no witnesses. They just all happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I passed that message on to Erica. As tears rolled down her face, she shook her head, walked to her room, and closed the door. I could tell it weighed heavily on her, but I didn’t know if the tears were happiness because her friends were alive or if they were for the guilt that was eating her up inside. That guilt called to me on a deep level, since I was dealing with it myself. What was it called again, survivor’s remorse or survivor’s guilt? Something like that. I didn’t know. In any event, it made me want to hold her and protect her from the world, but to do that, I’d have to let down my own barriers and reveal my story. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to go there, not yet.
The only rule that didn’t seem to stick was our sleeping arrangements. I had wanted to keep our spaces separate, but somehow she would end up slipping into my bed at night while I slept, or vice versa. It appeared we both still had issues getting past our dreams. My soul only seemed to calm when I knew Erica was a few inches away. I guess the same applied to her, because her nightmares and restless tossing and turning seemed to diminish greatly as long as she knew I was right beside her.
Did Erica have any clue the number of cold showers I’d taken since we’d been here or that I had to disappear and get myself off multiple times a day in order to be around her? I knew she’d vanished into the house quite a bit, only to be more relaxed when she returned. Could it be that she was doing the same?
I think she was a bit more sexual than what I’d first figured. Her sister had been into the BDSM scene with her husband, Rafe Prescott, especially since his parents were partial owners to the sex club downtown, but Erica didn’t strike me as the type to be into that sort of thing, or was she? I had a feeling we’d have to play twenty questions again soon.
When we had downtime or when the afternoon storms hit, I retreated to my room, taking out the hemp rope I used in Shibari. I needed to do something with my hands that also kept my mind occupied, so I practiced tying various knots used in some of the designs.
Erica caught me playing with the rope a couple of times. I was thankful I’d had the book open on the floor and had been able to kick it under the bed without her realizing what I’d been doing. I wasn’t sure if she’d be offended and shocked by the pictures or if, like me, she’d see the beautiful art the ropes created. I usually passed it off as practicing my knot skills to set new traps around the island, which was a partial truth. I wouldn’t dare tell her that I wanted to practice the knots by bending her and binding her body for my viewing pleasure. Just the thought of her held naked in the ropes gave me an instant hard-on.
This assignment needed to come to an end soon. I didn’t know how much longer I could resist her charms and keep my wall up. There were already cracks forming, feelings I didn’t want to examine…god I needed another freezing-cold shower.