“That’s a girl,” he murmured, placing his lips against my forehead.
My body calmed. My heart rate returned to normal. What he did for me nothing in that first aid kit could do.
“I’m going to go as fast as I can,” he promised.
I wondered what he was talking about.
And then the needled jabbed into my skin. I yelped and he bore his weight down on me even further, pinning me to the chair and keeping me still.
I hoped I never had to feel this kind of pain again. I felt every jab, every pull of the needle. It hurt so bad I sort of went numb. It was as if my body refused to feel that amount of pain.
And then he pulled his hands away.
I collapsed against the back of the chair like I’d just completed a marathon.
“Hey,” he murmured softly, taking my face in his hands. “You still with me?”
I nodded.
He kissed me.
The first brush of his lips was balm to my pain-laden soul. It was a soft, lingering kiss that stole my senses and made everything, including the pain, disappear. He titled his head just slightly, his lips dragging over mine. Mine parted and our mouths met again. His tongue teased the entrance of my mouth, tracing the outline of my lips, and then he planted his lips fully upon mine once more.
It was the best pain medicine I would ever know.
A small whimper left my mouth and traveled into his. He swallowed it like he was trying to capture some of my pain and take it away, like he was willing to shoulder some of my hurt so I would know relief.
It wasn’t really about romance. It wasn’t about passion.
It was more.
When he pulled back, he dropped a soft kiss to the tip of my nose. “Bella,” he whispered, the word sounding poetic as he spoke it in his native language.
It was probably the only word I knew in Spanish. It meant “beautiful.”
“I’m going to cover this now,” he said gently, reaching down beside us, cleaning off his hands and then rummaging around for more supplies out of the kit. “The worst of the pain is over.”
His kiss lingered on my lips. The taste of him clung to the inside of my mouth while he finished cleaning the area around my new stitches and then applied some sort of covering.
“There,” he said, climbing off my lap. I instantly missed his weight. “That’s the best I could do considering all this hair.” He reached out and fingered a thick lock of my wavy, long blond hair.
“Thank you.” I looked up. Noticing the blood and gash on his cheek once more. “Your turn.”
I motioned for him to take my seat and I crouched, searching around for some supplies of my own to clean his injury. I lined them up on his lap, kneeled between his knees, and leaned into him to clean off the area.
The muscle in his jaw ticked as I cleaned off the worst of the area. It wasn’t still bleeding so I figured a butterfly bandage would do just fine. I tried not to be distracted by the way his hand found the side of my hip and held on to me while I worked.
Who was I kidding?
It was distracting as hell.
I guess my libido didn’t get damaged in the crash.
After I applied the antiseptic and bandage, I pulled back. “I think you’ll live,” I declared.
“That’s good. I’m not ready to die yet.”
I swallowed. Was there a veiled meaning behind his words? I could have sworn desire laced his eyes. I told myself I was just seeing things because of my discomfort.
A sound from outside caught my attention. I stood up abruptly. “Where are we?” I murmured, nervous about what lay beyond the wreckage.
“Don’t know. Probably one of the many islands around here.”
“We should find a hospital. Or the police.”
He gave me a long glance out of the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything. Even still, that one glance made me uneasy.
“Come on,” he said, packing up the first aid kit and tucking it beneath his arm with one of the water bottles. I grabbed up mine and he took my hand, leading us to the back of the plane.
“Stay here,” he said and then hopped down over the jagged metal and loose wiring into the jungle-like environment. He glanced out into the foliage and then back at me.
I could see his internal debate about whether or not to leave me or drag me along with him. Too bad it wasn’t his decision.
“Stay together.” I reminded him of his earlier words.
He nodded and palmed my waist, lifting me down as if I weighed nothing at all. When he sat me on my feet, he reached up and brushed away the hair that was sticking to my forehead in what I assumed was dried blood.
It appeared the plane crashed onto the shore and skidded into a densely wooded area. I figured we couldn’t have hit the ocean because nothing inside the plane was wet, and surely some of the salty seawater would have made it inside with the busted windows and half the plane missing. What was left of the plane rested among palm trees and plants with leaves as big as my head. Behind it, the earth bore the skid marks of its hasty crash and it was those marks we followed, kind of like Hansel and Gretel followed the breadcrumbs.
It didn’t take long to see where they led. It wasn’t to a cottage made of candy. It was to a pristine stretch of beach.
The sand was white, the water a crystal-clear blue. In the distance, the sun was sinking low in the sky, painting the horizon shades of pink and orange, setting a blazing trail of crimson along the top of the water.
It was absolutely stunning.
Except for one thing.
There wasn’t a single soul in sight. There were no boats. No people. No hotels, no streets, no noise. It was as if this place had been previously untouched by any kind of civilization.
I glanced at Nash and the solemn set to his jaw. I finally understood the look he’d given me on the plane when I talked about a hospital and the police.
There would be no hospital. Or police. There would be no help at all.
It appeared that Nash and I had crashed on an uninhabited island.
We were utterly alone.
4
We walked for a long time, thinking we would run into some kind of civilization, not yet willing to give up hope. But every step we took only got us closer to the realization that there was no one here but us.
We were on an island. A tropical oasis of nothing but sand, water, and lush tropical growth. The sand was white and the water was crystal clear. The beach stretched on for as far as I could see and the sand gave way to a jungle of sorts. We didn’t really explore too deeply into the foliage. I was afraid of getting lost. And we were both exhausted.
We might have been out for some time, but it hadn’t been a restful sleep. It had been our bodies’ way of healing, of keeping us both alive.