Uncharted(57)
Still panting, my mouth twists into a pout.
“Why won’t you touch me?” I whisper, wondering if he’s changed his mind about us in the few hours since we fell asleep. Maybe he doesn’t want me anymore. The tortured look of restraint on his face removes those doubts almost as soon as they enter my head.
“There’s no need to rush this.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I want to take my time with you. I want you to feel safe. Secure. Especially now that I know…”
My brows lift. “What?”
“That you’ve never done this before,” he says carefully.
“My virginity didn’t seem to slow you down last night,” I mutter, cursing myself for ever telling him about my sexual inexperience. “I don’t see why it changes anything. I want you. You want me. Unless… you’ve changed your mind.”
“Violet. Believe me when I tell you that I want you. Badly.” There’s stark desire in his voice. “But I also want to do this right. I want your fist time to be special.”
“Deflowering seems like a perfectly special birthday gift, if you ask me,” I grumble.
He laughs, a flash of straight white teeth amidst his thick stubble. It’s been a while since he shaved. “Be that as it may, we’re going to wait. Not forever. But… until I know it’s right.” With that, he leans in and kisses me again, a lingering brush of his lips that leaves me breathless and aching all over again. “Come on,” he murmurs. “We didn’t eat dinner last night and I’m starving.”
“Let me guess — crab for breakfast. Again.”
His eyebrows waggle playfully. “If we’re really feeling crazy, I was thinking we’d try to catch a fish with the traps I made.”
“A fish!” I throw my hand over my heart with an exaggerated gasp. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”
“I know. Pulling out all the stops for you.”
“Think we can make a birthday cake out of clams?”
“Oh sure. Topped with seaweed icing. A true delicacy.”
Rolling my eyes, I allow him to pull me to my feet. I put on a show of reluctance, but the truth is, there’s nothing but happiness inside my chest as we walk hand in hand toward the tidal pools. It may not be the eighteenth birthday I’d imagined, but it’s the best one I’ve ever had.
The man by my side… he’s a gift beyond my wildest dreams.
The next few months mark the happiest I’ve ever been — not just on the island. Ever.
It’s odd to admit that, even odder to feel it… but there’s no denying the overwhelming sense of joy that consumes me from the instant my eyes spring open each morning to the moment they close as I snuggle against Beck’s chest each night.
When we landed here, I was so certain that my life, for all intents and purposes, was over. As it turns out, it hadn’t even begun. Not until I met him.
We’re rarely apart, doing everything together as a team whether it’s improving our camp, scouring the island for untapped food sources, exploring the small network of caves we discovered on the western side of the island, or thinking up new ways to entertain ourselves as summer passes by in a haze of unbearably hot days.
I become a master at coconut collecting, going so far as to teach Beck proper cheerleader posture so he can lift me without pulling a muscle. If Ian were here to witness that lesson, he’d have laughed until tears streamed down his face.
Beck successfully catches small fish in the shallows with his traps, which offers some much-desired variation to our diet. He’s quite proud of himself for his invention… until the day I fashion hooks made from soda-can tabs onto string from the suture kit. Armed with a proper lure, I can’t help crowing with victory when I reel in a massive mahi-mahi on my first fishing attempt. It’s almost too pretty to eat, its brilliant green and aqua scales flashing in the sun as we wrangle it from the water. When I mention I might set it free to Beck, he looks at me like I’m crazy before cracking it over the head with a rock.
That night, as I fill my stomach with deliciously flaky filets, I somehow find it in my heart forgive him between moans of contentment. My guilt is no match for a well-sated appetite.
Our log cabin grows larger every day, the lashed-palm walls ascending toward the sky until they tower overhead. By the fall, we’ll be able to start the slow process of thatching a proper roof from woven fronds.
My dress, tattered and bloodstained beyond repair, has been officially retired. I use the salvageable parts to fashion a new outfit — a bralette and breathable shorts — before burning the rest in the fire. My stomach, leaner than ever from our limited diet, turns deep tan. My hair, once a rich mahogany brown, bleaches with blonde streaks from our many hours in the sunshine.
As the height of summer fades, the days pass in a blur of laughter and love. We’re content — more than content. We’re happy, stealing kisses in the shallows, body surfing in the warm waves, walking the beach at sunset collecting shells and whispering secrets. We tell each other stories and slowly fill in all the blank spaces we skipped over, at the beginning.
He’s in stitches laughing at some of the things Mom and I have gotten up to over the years: the day she turned the living room floor into an indoor ball pit, the time she scolded the head of my high school PTA for daring to imply cheerleading wasn’t a credible sport, the morning she forgot to put the oars in the dinghy and we got stranded in the middle of the lake until nightfall.