Surviving Raine 01 (26 page)

I considered how life on the raft might have been different had Alejandro been there and decided I could put up with my own cooking.  For starters, there hadn’t been enough water for two.  We’d all be dead by now if he had been there.  I had more selfish reasons as well and realized I was not at all sorry to have been put in this particular situation with Raine alone.

“What do you think happened to them?” Raine asked softly.

“No way to know,” I responded.  “It’s best to assume they got on the lifeboats and were picked up.  All of the boats had been launched,”
or were lost,
I thought but didn’t say, “by the time I got topside.  There wasn’t anyone else on the ship but me by then.  At least, I couldn’t find anyone else.”

“What are we going to do now?” she asked.  “I mean, do you have any idea where we are?”

“I have a guess,” I said.  “There’s a decent sized island chain north of Venezuela.  I think we’re somewhere along there, just given currents and how long we’ve been in the open water.”

“Are any of them populated?”

“Lots of them,” I confirmed.  “This island looks pretty small, but once we get a little more settled in, I can explore a bit.  There might be a settlement or at least some evidence that people come here sometimes.”

“What if you find someone?”

“I’ll hope that they speak Spanish,” I said.  “I don’t know any of the island dialects.”

“What if you don’t find anyone?”

“We’ll be okay here,” I assured her.  “There’s probably a decent variety of things to eat, and as long as we find a reliable water source we won’t have any problems at all.  If there isn’t any fresh water, there are still enough options between rain, the coconuts, and the still.  It won’t be great, but it’s enough to live on.”

“Do you know what kinds of plants are edible?” she asked.

“Yes, I know a lot of them.  There are some ways to figure out if something is edible, too, but testing stuff isn’t always safe.  As long as I can find plants I recognize, I wouldn’t bother with it.”

“So we could look for those tomorrow?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, “shelter and water first, then food.”

“Why?”

“Survival 101,” I responded.  “You can live three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food.  It’s not exact, obviously, but it tells you where to put your priorities.  We have some shelter, but it isn’t going to last long if there’s a storm.  It’s good enough that we’ll look for a water source tomorrow and then work on building a stronger shelter.  After that, we’ll find better food sources.”

“Lindsay always told me she couldn’t live without a shopping mall within five miles of her,” Raine said.  “It’s kind of funny how little you really need to live.  I wish I had a toothbrush, though.”

“We can make those,” I said.  I jumped up and went to a shrub with woody stems.  I pulled off a relatively green one and stripped the leaves down so there was nothing but stem.  I cut a piece of it off about six inches long and stuck one end in my mouth and started chewing on it.  I handed a second one to Raine.  After a minute, I pulled it out and showed her the frayed ends.  “It works pretty well, actually.”

Raine did the same and was pretty delighted with how well it worked.

“Can you get one of these in mint flavor?” she laughed.

“I doubt it,” I said, “but you really don’t need the toothpaste as much as toothpaste manufacturers want you to believe.  It’s the bristles that really do all the work.”

I drank a little more of the water we had collected on the raft and handed the container over to Raine.  She drank as well and then looked up at me.  She had a strange expression on her face, which I didn’t understand at all.

“We should probably see if it worked,” she said and then quickly moved over to me and caught my lips with hers.

I didn’t give a shit if the makeshift toothbrushes worked or not because Raine’s lips were on me, and that’s all I found particularly noteworthy.  I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her closer, reaching into her mouth with my tongue.  I had become so accustomed to her scent and taste, they were almost as ingrained in my senses as my own.  With her teeth cleaned, she still tasted like my Raine.

My Raine.
  Where the fuck did that come from?

Raine maneuvered herself onto my lap, placed her hands on either side of my face, and kissed me deeply.  She backed off after a minute, her fingers trailing over the now smooth skin on my face.  She scowled.

“You don’t like it?” I asked.

“I do,” she said, “but it does make you look very different.  I was just wondering how you managed to get it so smooth.”

I pulled out my knife and flipped it open.

“It’s really, really sharp,” I said.

“Makes me wish I had one, too,” Raine said.

“You have something you want to shave?”  I cracked a smile, unable to help myself and my wandering imagination.

“I’d love to shave my legs,” she said, a blush suddenly covering her face, “and my…um…armpits.”

She giggled, which made me laugh, too.

“Why the fuck are
armpits
funny?”

“They aren’t,” Raine said.  “I’m pretty glad I’m in your shirt now instead of a bathing suit.”

“I really don’t give a shit,” I told her honestly.

“Well, I do.  I guess it’s ingrained in me.  The perils of popular female hygiene culture.”

“Let me do it,” I said suddenly.  My cock jumped to attention at the thought, though I couldn’t have explained why if someone had asked me.  The idea of shaving her was just…hot.  Sliding my knife blade over her skin…yeah, I definitely wanted to do that.

“Do what?” Raine asked with her eyes narrowed.

“I’ll shave you,” I clarified.  She started shaking her head immediately.

“No way!  You give me the knife, and I’ll do it myself!”

“Have you ever shaved with a knife like this?” I argued.  “There is no way you wouldn’t end up slicing yourself open, and in case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t a fucking first aid station around.  I can do it without cutting you.”

“You are serious, aren’t you?” she asked, her eyes big and round and glaring up at me.

“Very much so.”  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.  I looked at her legs, really just noticing that there was a decent amount of hair on them.  I didn’t care, so I hadn’t paid attention before.  “Let me do it.”

“You really want to?” she asked again, trying to comprehend my implausible suggestion.

“Raine, I really, really want to.”

“You are sick!”  She laughed again and slapped me on the shoulder.

“Let me.”  I was starting to sound like I was begging, and I didn’t give a shit.  It would be worth it, so I’d beg if that’s what it took.  My voice dropped low as I moved closer to her.  “I want to.  Please?”

Raine looked back into my eyes and obviously decided I was completely serious.  I glanced away for a minute because I realized she was going to say no, and I didn’t really want to watch her refuse me.

“Okay,” she suddenly blurted out, “if you really think you can – without cutting me, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t cut you.  I swear you won’t get cut.”

“All right, but this is against my better judgment.”

I smiled and motioned for her to come closer.  I reached out and took her heel in my hand, pulling her foot into my lap.  I felt my tongue dart out and slide over my lips as I looked down at her gorgeous leg.  Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about her wanting to shave even when my beard was starting to itch and annoy me in the heat.  I’d been with women all over the world, and plenty of them didn’t shave, so it didn’t really bother me.  The thought of shaving it off of Raine, though, was certainly an intriguing idea.

I slid my finger down the skin of her calf, brushing the stubbly hair on her leg all in the same direction.  I heard Raine catch her breath, and I gave her a half smile before I did the same on the other side of her calf.  The skin of her legs was ashy and dry from exposure to salt, and bits of it flecked off under my fingers.  I found myself wanting to lick them to see if the smooth, caramel color would come back with the moisture.

“We need water,” I said.  “Hand me the container on the left.”

“You’re going to use fresh?”

“No – that one’s salt water,” I replied.  “I brought it up here in case we needed to douse the fire.  I don’t need that much, and you’re not going back out in the sun.”

She handed it to me, and I poured some of the water over my hand before I ran my palm up her leg.  I could have poured it directly on her, but where was the fun in that?  The color came back with the flow of water, smoothing out the dry skin even if it would only last a short time.  After drenching her skin to make it wet and the hair easier to remove, I slowly guided the knife to her ankle and placed it against her skin with the sharpest side angled up.

“Don’t move,” I murmured.  “Moving would be bad.”

“I won’t,” she whispered back, her words all breathy and running their way down to my cock.  I shifted her foot a little to one side, so my cock wouldn’t end up smacking into her as I ran first my hand, then my blade up her skin.  After the second swipe it left her skin smooth and soft behind the knife’s trail.

I didn’t know how long it took; I only knew I loved every minute of it.  When I was done with the second leg, I was really quite appreciative of how smooth her skin was without the hair and how much I wanted to run my hands over it, which I did.

“Do you think your hands will help with any additional hair removal?” Raine teased.

“I’m just making sure I didn’t miss any,” I insisted while I ran my hands up the back of her thighs for the third time.

“I think you were very thorough,” Raine said.  She pulled her leg back a little and out of my reach.

“Spoilsport,” I grumbled, and Raine laughed.  “How about the rest?”

“The rest of what?”

“Armpits?”  I waggled my eyebrows at her.

“You are crazy.”  Raine shook her head.  “I can’t believe I let you do my legs.”

“I want to do the rest, too,” I said again.

“That wouldn’t be so easy,” she said.  “The sleeves are…in the way.”

“I guess we’d have to move them, wouldn’t we?”

“Move the sleeves?”

“Take the fucking shirt off,” I said, moving a little closer and grabbing her waist.  Raine laughed and tried to roll away from me, but I pulled her back and placed my lips against her neck and shoulder.  “Take it off…I promise not to gawk.”

“You are a terrible liar!” Raine screeched as I tickled her.  “Just admit, for once, that you want to see my boobs!”

I captured her mouth with mine again, kissing her and stroking my tongue over her lips.  When I pulled back, I ran my nose over the line of her jaw until I reached her ear.  I don’t know if it was shaving her, seeing her partially naked earlier in the day, or wanting her just because I was always a horny motherfucker.  Whatever it was, I didn’t feel like trying to hide it any longer.

“I want to see your boobs,” I whispered to her.  “I want to touch them and taste them, and I don’t want to stop there.  I want to make you come again.”

“It’s about time you said so.”  Raine’s soft voice reverberated in my head.  Her fingers were in my hair, and she pulled my lips to hers.  As she kissed me, I realized she hadn’t said no, and I wondered how good an idea it might be to push my luck.  My cock was very, very interested in pushing my luck.

My fingers coiled around the hem of the shirt and slowly started pulling it up.  I went as slow as humanly possible, giving her every chance to stop me, but she didn’t.  She let me keep going until I suddenly had to break away to pull it up over her head.

They were completely symmetrical and round and soft and absolutely, stunningly, incredibly beautiful.  Slightly lighter than her more-often-exposed skin, her breasts reminded me of cream.  The darker nipples just screamed at me to suck on them, but all I could do was stare at them and lick my lips.

“I don’t think you even know where armpits are,” Raine snickered.  “You seem a little…focused.”

“Fucking gorgeous,” I muttered, half to myself, half to her.  Raine turned her head to the side, a slight smile spreading over her lips.  She moved to cross her arms over her breasts, but there was no way I was going to stand for that, not now.

Maybe never again.

“I can’t shave you like that,” I told her, shaking my head.  I pulled gently at her wrists and moved her arms up over her head, grasping both wrists in one hand while supporting her back with the other.  I lay her down on the fronds near the fire with her arms up over her head.  God, she was beautiful.  My eyes never left her breasts, and it took all the self control I had not to bury my face between them.

“You have to stop looking at them if you are still going to…um…shave me.”

“Unfortunately, you are probably right.  It may take some time for me to inspect my work when I’m done, though.”

Raine giggled, which brought me out of my tit-induced trance.  I washed the knife off and doused her armpits in water.  She gasped at the cold liquid, and then giggled, claiming I was tickling her.  I didn’t really mind since the more she moved, the more her breasts moved along with her.  She must have caught on to this fact and eventually calmed down so I could get to work.

It didn’t take very long, and soon I had put my knife away and was just running the backs of my fingers over her now smooth skin, letting my fingers trail a little lower each time I traced over her.  On the last pass, my hand moved all the way down her side and found the skin covering her hipbone just above the fabric of my boxer shorts on her body.  I caressed it lightly with my fingertips before moving my hand both up and around the front.  I moved slowly, giving her every chance to stop me if she wanted to, but she didn’t.  She did grab onto my hair and raise her head to bring our lips together.  My hand kept traveling around though, moving upwards and searching out skin I hadn’t touched before.  When my hand reached the underside of her breast, I felt her fingers grip my hair a little tighter, but she didn’t pull away and she didn’t stop kissing me.