I traced the shell of her ear with my tongue. “Let me give you pleasure. Please.... Please allow me do this one thing for you, after you’ve done so much for me.”

She tensed, her thighs tightening against my hand. But her inner muscles turned to liquid, heating for me, accepting what I gave.

“Oh...” Her face scrunched up. “Oh...my God.”

“That’s it.” I worked faster, thrusting and dying in desperation to replace my fingers with my cock. Only a few pieces of sun-bleached material stopped me from taking her.

She would let me.

I think.

But I didn’t want to push her too far, too fast. I wanted her to know this wasn’t just about sex for me. This was about trusting me to keep her safe. This was about standing against survival side by side. This was about becoming a team—more than a team—soul-mates.

“Yes.” Her sharp teeth clamped on my collarbone. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

“I’ll never stop.” I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to run my hands along every contour of her body.

I needed air.

I needed to come.

I needed to get away from her before I damaged our relationship by forcing her to give more than she wanted.

But how could I let her go when her arms trembled, clutching me. When her breath gasped, fighting the pleasure I granted. And how could I possibly stop touching her when the dam broke and she came.

Her tiny cry echoed with the depth of how far she unravelled. Her spine jerked as her hands scratched me to stay upright. Wave after wave flowed over my fingers.

I held her long after they stopped.

Once she’d come, she didn’t try to move away. She didn’t wriggle for me to remove my hand.

We merely stood there, glued together, breathing hard, hearts beating harder, and recognised what we couldn’t say.

This was a punishment.

For both of us.

For her because she let me take something that she hadn’t been willing to give. And for me because now, I wanted her every second of every damn day and I didn’t know if she’d let me.

I sucked in a shaky breath, cursing my raw emotions.

I wanted to stay hugging her until the world stopped spinning, the pain stopped throbbing, and rescue came to find us.

But that would never happen.

Slowly, I removed my fingers and wiped the silky moisture from her pleasure on my thigh.

She didn’t make eye contact.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped away from me. She paused as if wanting to say something but then shook her head.

She broke into a jog and vanished into the forest.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

...............................................

E S T E L L E

......

Life takes more than you can give. But only because it knows you better than you know yourself.

Life takes more than you can give. But only because it pushes you to be more than what you are.

But he...

He took something from me and I can never take it back.

He took something from me and gave me something so much more valuable in return.

Taken from the notepad of E.E.

...

FIVE WEEKS

LIFE WAS HARD and dolorous and confusing and messed up in a thousand different ways. I was a smile living in a frown, hiding my somersaulting emotions through polite veneers.

Every day, I kept avoiding what’d happened between us in the woods. And every day, it grew more awkward.

But we kept going.

Kept enduring.

Kept believing that one day soon a boat would pass by or a plane would fly over. Anything to get us off this island and away from the maddening lust and hardship.

We’d returned to the crash site hoping to gather whatever fuel we could from the broken gas tanks for the largest signal fire we could muster. However, they’d bled dry over the past weeks, soaking into the soil. There was a chance the foliage around the chopper could catch fire, but even if it did, it was buried in the forest and would have to burn for a while to be visible. Plus, we needed the helicopter. It still held supplies that could be of use...depending on the length of time we remained.

As the days stretched on, we embraced our certain tasks. Galloway flat-out refused to discuss my need to find more food. Only one of my scratch tests had swelled with an allergic reaction, meaning the bush marked XI was safe to eat. Whenever I tried to bring it up, he shot me down like an arrogant asshole.

I knew he was only looking out for me. I knew he wanted me and tried to protect me and possibly dreamed about making love to me (like my constant dreams about him). But there was a potential food source. We were starving. And I didn’t know how much longer I could agree to keep the peace by not eating it.

A few days ago, we’d found a black and white banded sea snake that’d washed up on the beach. Conner had come across it while collecting clams. He’d poked it with a stick, giving me a damn heart attack.

Galloway had studied it, deemed it fresh (how would he know?) and gutted and skinned it. He tossed the head back into the sea and the body became our dinner. I’d sniffed the meat to make sure it wasn’t rotten, and Galloway decided it was much more appealing to eat a dead sea-creature than a sampled and half-verified plant.

Men.

I couldn’t understand his logic.

At all.

Not that it mattered, because the flesh of the snake (stabbed on a stick and roasted over an open fire) had been a delicious delicacy (even for a vegetarian).

Conner and Pippa had sounded like a rabid carnivores. Moaning with each mouthful, sucking their fingers, so grateful to have a decent meal for the first time in weeks.