Before He Was Gone: Starstruck Book 2 (13 page)

I push into her harder, working her with my fingers at the same time till she gasps and starts trembling even harder in my arms. I feel her orgasm shuddering through me and she cries out, clutching at my hand.

‘I don’t want to hide anything from you,’ I say truthfully, pulling her up onto my lap, letting her move on me, stroking my hands across her back, her gritty flesh, her face and her salty, wet hair

The thunder’s still rolling outside, splitting the sky in two and every now and then her face and curves light up like her eyes. She pumps on me faster and faster till I feel my own orgasm rocket through me, suddenly, so hard she reaches out to steady herself, scraping her hands against the rocks on either side of us.

‘Woah,’ she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice as I wrap my arms around her. All I can do is breathe hot breath into her sticky skin.

She pulls away after a moment, lies on her side up against me, pulling my arm tight around her from behind. My fingers trace circles on her stomach. Maybe an hour goes by as we listen to the rain. And breathe together. And drift in and out of sleep. I tell myself not to regret what we just did. I tell myself not to regret a second.

‘You could’ve been voted out, instead of Journey,’ Alyssa says after a while, like she’s been wanting to say it for ages.

‘The guys told me,’ I say into the back of her neck. ‘Why didn’t
you
tell me?’

She sighs. ‘There wasn’t time. I tried to shift the votes. I think it worked.’

I squeeze my arms around her. I’m so damn tired. ‘Journey was out of here whatever, but Jaxx has the immunity charm,’ I say. ‘He’s promised to give me it if it looks like I’m in trouble.’

Alyssa freezes. ‘What?’ She sits up suddenly, moving my arm and turning to me. ‘Jaxx has the immunity charm and you didn’t tell me?’

Damn
. I was half asleep. I didn’t mean to say that.

‘I can’t believe this!’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say now, sitting up, reaching for her. ‘He made me promise it would just be us.’

‘I can’t believe I tried to save you,’ she says, swiping at my hand.

‘Well… I never asked you to,’

‘Oh awesome. You’re an asshole.’

‘I wanted to tell you. This is a game, Alyssa, we both know that!’

‘And you’re a player,’ she hisses in the dark.

Shit.
‘No I’m not.’ I find her face, bring her forehead to mine, hold her here. ‘I’m not.’

She sighs. ‘I want to know we can trust each other, Joshua. No secrets.’

‘OK, no more secrets,’ I say, pressing my lips to hers, but my heart is booming against hers now as I pull her into me, because game show secrets are one thing - I’ll share them all with her if she wants. But there’s the other kind, too. The kind that will break her heart.

Two weeks later

‘What are you thinking, Double G?’

Shan’s sitting behind me in the shelter, braiding my hair, listening to the raindrops falling off the trees and onto the roof. It’s been raining on and off for two weeks now, sometimes for hours at a time. No one gets why, ‘cause it’s not even rainy season. Ed Bernstein even apologized once, like they were controlling the weather. Shan suspects that they are.

‘I’m thinking how I hope Karin gets to follow her dreams,’ I tell him, drawing my stubbly bare legs up and circling them with my arms.

‘Well that’s super nice of you, Oprah Winfrey. We’ll go visit her on Coney Island when she’s making three bucks a day selling hotdogs ‘cause all the homeless people keep squishing her sand furniture. I’ll buy extra onions, you know, I’ll support her however I can.’

‘You’re mean,’ I say, but I can’t help smiling. Karin was voted out last night, a week after Mia, who herself just crumbled into tears one night, sick of being eaten by mosquitoes and missing her kids. She lost us a team challenge, which would’ve won us some raincoats, and I think it kind of toppled her over the edge. Karin was pretty happy before she went, to see a clip from her parents, saying how proud they are of all she’s achieved. I think that probably meant more to her in the end than winning. She proved something to them, at least.

‘God, a Coney Island hotdog would be so good right now,’ I say to Shan. ‘With pickles and mustard…’

‘Don’t think about it,’ he says. ‘Repeat the mantra.’

‘I’m skinnier than I’ve ever been and I’m grateful,’ I say, along with him.

‘Good,’ he snaps, scraping up my hair for another braid. ‘So, what’s Tarzan like in the bedroom?’

‘Shan!’

‘Oh come on, I’m bored!’

‘I’d tell you if we had one,’ I say and he whacks my arm and tugs at my hair. ‘Ow! It was just a stupid fling, it’s over, you know that.’

‘So you say, slutty-pants,’

‘I’m serious,’ I laugh.

Shan tuts and goes back to his braiding. I do feel guilty because I don’t want to keep anything from Shan. I’ve almost told him about the immunity charm too, numerous times, but I haven’t. So far no one’s wanted to vote me out, as far as I know. There’s been no more talk of voting Joshua out either, mainly because since the rains came, no one else has had the balls to try and spear for fish or climb for coconuts. But I know things can change in a heartbeat.

Since that night in the cave, Joshua and I have made a conscious effort not to let the others see that we’re involved. I feel like I’m playing a game within a game. I’m pretty sure they
all
know something’s up, but in daylight hours in a world of cameras, we’re not giving anyone any added reasons to turn against us, or turn us into some trashy commercial break teaser for
Deserted
. We never touch or conspire; we spend hours apart. We never go anywhere alone. Instead we wait for the night, when everyone else is sleeping. The nights are ours.

‘You say it’s over, but you never talk about Sebastian Moreno,’ Shan says now.

‘Nothing here has anything to do with Sebastian,’ I reply. ‘And anyway,
that
life isn’t real while we’re here.’

‘Pfft, you tell yourself that, D.G. Just ‘cause you close your eyes doesn’t mean nobody can see you. You’re on the cover of
The National Enquirer
with your boobies all censored, you know it.’

I cringe. ‘No I’m not!’

‘You’ll make a fortune on celebrity endorsements,’ he carries on, ignoring me. ‘Bikini modeling, book deals, couch store openings… oooh, 
oooh
!’ he pulls on my hair excitedly, ‘you should come on the cruise with me! They’d love you - especially Marty. He’d like…
adopt
you. He has half a tattoo on his face; the other half got infected, long story, but he’s super nice…’

Shan rambles on about his ‘besticle’ Marty, but my thoughts drift over the past two weeks, waking up at the crack of dawn to run down to the waterfall. When it’s not raining, there’s a space behind the falls on ground level; a turquoise pool with a loud, moving wall of water that drowns out our conversation, and all of what we call ‘our tribal sounds.’ I feel my face flush, just thinking about it. No cameras can reach us there.

‘I love it when you scream for me, Jane,’ Joshua said one morning, gripping my hips from behind as I flattened my hands to the wall, bringing him into me in the water. Just the words coming from his mouth made me tremble in his hands and scream even louder, pressing my face to the rocks, feeling his power consume me. It’s addictive, that feeling. It’s like nothing else!

There’s something about Joshua that’s part of this island, like he belongs here, somehow. When we have sex in the water, on top of leaves, on the sand, sometimes I don’t even feel like myself. It’s weird but I feel like I’m part of
him
and the universe and nature… like we’ve
both
turned into animals. I can’t even imagine us on a bed, with pillows and a comforter. I can barely imagine us wearing proper clothes. It’s so weird but I’ve never felt so close to anyone so quickly. But then, I’ve also never met anyone like him.

‘I love the native look,’ by the way,’ he said to me the other day, as we lay across the rocks by the water and he traced my hip bones and pelvis with his fingers. ‘You know, there are hippy communes you could move to after this, if you want to keep that up.’

‘I actually wouldn’t mind,’ I said. ‘You’ve been to these places, too?’

‘One, in New Mexico. I spent three months up just north of Taos, helping this cool lady dig up hippy trash from a collapsed pit house. It was all stuff from the sixties and seventies, you know, lamps and bongs… shoes. You’d find all kinds of stuff for your eBay auctions up there.’

I stared at him in amazement as he fixed me with those eyes. They’re so impossibly beautiful, but it’s not just that and it never has been. It’s the way the world seems so impossibly beautiful when I look at it with him. I’ve lost count of the jobs Joshua’s had. He never stays in one place for long. ‘I lived in a teepee while we worked,’ he continued, ‘on a commune site in Arroyo Hondo. Most of the woman didn’t wear clothes.’

‘I want to go there,’ I told him, curling my legs around him and pulling him down on top of me. ‘I want to live in a teepee and be naked. I want to see all the places you have.’

‘You’ve seen just as many, haven’t you,
M-lister?
’ he grinned, as I ran my fingers along his stubble.

‘I told you, I’ve seen the insides of hotel suites and buffets and famous people being spoilt. I’ve been spoilt,’ I told him. ‘You know I haven’t lived like you have.’

‘You’re twenty-three, Alyssa. You have time.’

He got that look on his face again then – the one he gets when he’s about to close off; then he licked and kissed his way downwards and took me into his mouth till I literally had to beg him to make love to me for the third time that morning. I don’t know where he goes, my fellow emotional drifter, but every time I ask in private he just kisses all my questions away and there’s nothing else I can do except live in the now.

‘The rain’s stopped,’ Punk pipes up from outside the shelter suddenly, making Shan and I jump as his pasty white feet appear at the entrance. Shan drops my hair, claps his hands together.

‘I’m going swimming, come and play!’ He gets to his knees, looks at me as I tie my bandana back around my head. The front of my head feels tight with the braids.

‘It’s my turn to do laundry,’ I tell him.

‘OK, fine, good, my G-A-Ys are a hazard. Don’t forget those, Cinderella. PUNK!’ he yells, clambering outside, ‘Punk, you’re coming swimming. You smell.’

‘I washed in the waterfall,’ I hear Punk protesting as he’s marched away by Shan.

I watch them as they head for the ocean. The sun’s making everything that’s wet all sparkly and I can see Joshua out on the raft already, some way off with the spear. He spends a lot of time out there alone. They took the rafts away the night we arrived, but we won one back in a challenge, along with a candlelit feast on it, which we had to allocate to two people. We chose Punk and Shan, which I’m sure will make for great TV – the two of them hovering in the water for two hours with champagne and absolutely nothing in common. The thought makes me smile. Punk’s a total sweetheart but I can tell Shan terrifies him.

I gather up the laundry. Most of it is in one corner in a pile; Jaxx’s Abercrombie shirt, Stephanie’s daisy dukes, Punk’s sweater, Joshua’s white shirt, which is now kind of brown – not that scrubbing it with leaves and coconut husks ever makes much difference. The thought hits me that I never did laundry for Sebastian, not once. I wonder what he’s doing, who he’s doing it with.

I wonder what Noah and Chloe are doing.

Sometimes I wonder whether anyone from my old life will ever get this - my ever-growing plans to travel, my hot and sweaty jungle sex with a man who has no concept of drum kits and tour buses and gourmet Vegas buffets. Joshua doesn’t know a thing about celebrities, yet he can name every star in the sky. Part of me still wants to call Chloe and start dissecting all this the way we should - as best friends who tell each other everything.

But another part of me, a part that’s growing stronger every day, wants to stay away as long as possible. This is my journey – just me, myself and I. And I’ve never seen the world the way I’m looking at it now.

I had a little too much to dream last night

And I can’t seem to focus on what’s real in my life

When I wake I reach for you and you’re not there…

Stephanie’s song is running through my head, even as I lie on this raft, looking up at the sky. It’s a clear blue for the first time in days, but I’ve speared just one snapper in two hours. Visibility down there is pretty bad after the storms.

The ocean is like my head right now actually - a swirling mess - but Stephanie’s song is weirdly calming. We almost had to scrape Jaxx’s jaw back up from the floor when he heard her sing for the first time. The chick should definitely go to Nashville… not that I want her to win the million dollars in order to do it.

My head hurts again. It’s happening more than I can say. I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had to end these past few days because I’ve had no way to finish them. I had to come out here to avoid Alyssa, too, because with every day that goes by now, the more I want to tell her the truth. It almost comes out of me, every time she gives me that look that says she knows there’s something I’m still not telling her.

I told the producers, way before we even got here that I wouldn’t say a word to anyone; that I wasn’t here for any kind of sympathy vote, and I’m not. I don’t want my shit aired to the nation. I told Evan I could win this… that I could get the money. I told myself I wouldn’t get distracted. But every word from her mouth, every laugh, every damn movement for lack of any
other
distraction lingers in my mind until it’s all there is. I got distracted, big time. And now I can’t stop what we’ve started.

I close my eyes, breathe deep to stop the pounding in my head. Maybe it’s selfish of me but I want to know it all. I want to engrave it on my skull, never to be erased; the feel of her curves, the taste of her lips, the passion raging through me like a tsunami. I want her; her wit, her humor, her body, her laughter. Even her anger. I clench my fists to my sides. I am such a selfish asshole.

I think I must have wished on the wrong damn star

Cos whatever I do now, I can’t get to where you are

But I’m holding onto everything we shared…

Whatever song it is that Stephanie’s chosen to guide us all in our dance moves is haunting me. Shan’s been making us dance every afternoon. I keep forgetting the moves, but we’ve been choreographing the routine beneath the trees for days on end and at least it’s passed the time. They’re barely giving us anything to do aside from the challenges and we know it’s an added attempt to drive us crazy and make us snap.

‘Now, the linguistically-biased way of looking at this, people, is that we are developing a common language,’ Shan told us yesterday as we stood spread out on the sand. ‘Remember, choreography resides in a dancer’s body and your muscle memory should by now have started to kick in to help you remember the moves. No messing up today. Jaxx, keep your eyes to the front, not on Stephanie’s ass, thank you very much.’

Jaxx stumbled forward into Stephanie’s ass anyway and almost knocked out the camera guy, who was zooming in on that exact same thing.

‘What was I
saying?!
’ Shan yelled at him.

‘Alright, dude, this isn’t fucking Broadway,’ Jaxx hit back, but Shan just folded his arms.

‘If you have a complaint, talk to your agent. Otherwise you’ll give this rehearsal one hundred percent.' He turned to me. 'Joshua, why can you never remember your steps? It’s right, left, left, forward. Watch Alyssa, she’s got it. Looking good, Double G.’

Alyssa turned around and stuck her tongue out at me and I watched her ass for the next ten minutes anyway. Turns out, as well as being a writer for some snarky New York magazine, Shan is also a choreographer for some off-off-off Broadway dance club. I think he thinks he’s better at it than he is – his temper’s a little out of control. I quit halfway through again. I couldn’t keep the damn steps in my head. I went to the well and Alyssa found me there, filling up the water containers.

‘Couldn’t hack the dance nazi, huh?’ she said, taking the bucket from my hands and attaching it to the ropes.

‘He’s a little too serious about pirouettes for my liking,’ I told her.

‘I think you’d look cute in a tutu,’ she grinned and I rolled my eyes.

I shot to the top of a palm tree to get some more coconuts and looked at her pulling the bucket up from the top. I had a vision suddenly of her pulling a backpack onto her shoulders, standing in an airport terminal, motioning at me to hurry up ‘cause we were about to miss a flight. I have no idea where it came from, but there we were, back in the outside world, going someplace together.

I shook it out of my head, let Stephanie’s damn song fly back in. I get carried away when I look at Alyssa sometimes. Every thought’s a possibility when she fixes me with those big brown eyes. And then I remember I’m living a fucking lie.

‘So, are you really a terrible dancer, or is it just stage routines you despise?’ she said when I was back on the ground. She put the bucket down and held out her hands to me. The magnetism of her, plus her semi naked body in that bikini had me reaching for them, pulling her towards me and dancing right there on the sand, slowly, with no music - just the breeze in the palm trees and the beat of my stupid heart.

Shan’s voice in the ocean brings me back to the present. I sit up on the raft. He’s racing into the shallows at the other end of the beach, naked, yelling for Punk, who’s hovering at the shoreline as usual.

‘Get in here, stinky boy! You know you want to!’ he shrieks, before diving under the waves. The camera guy is already on his trail in the kayak. Shan’s the most interesting character on this show and he probably always has been. I’m not too concerned he’s going to win. I mean, he might. It could go in any direction from here and everyone’s a strong contender for one reason or another. I’m just concerned I could lose everything; no matter what I do.

I lie down flat on my back again, watch a bird soar over me, eyeing up my fish. My head’s still banging like a drum. I thought I could win this thing - play, plot, lie, forget her - whatever I had to do. But I guess it's true what they say; the most dangerous lies a man can tell are the ones he tells himself.

I had a little too much to dream last night

And I can’t seem to focus on what’s real in my life

When I wake I reach for you and you’re not there…