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“I don’t understand. How can you…? After everything…?”
“Believe me, it’s a puzzle to me as well. But it’s what I needed, what I wanted, and you gave it to me.” She smiles. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I think I may be able to sleep tonight. With you next to me. I never thought it would be possible.”
“I’ll go to the other room.”
“Why would you say that? After I just said I may sleep tonight with you here?”
I say nothing then. She’s right.
But the truth is? I don’t want to sleep with her tonight.
Because quite frankly, she got what she wanted. She’s done.
But I am not. And being here? With her right next to me?
It might be more than I can take. I’ll leave her alone. I’m not that guy. But damn, I’m already getting hard again.
14
ASPEN
What is it about this man?
Sometimes, I remember things from my past. Like the first time Brandon and I slept together, spent the night in each other’s arms.
I wasn’t overly experienced, and I didn’t have an orgasm. But I enjoyed myself. It wasn’t until later that I had an orgasm with him, and after that, sex without an orgasm was always a disappointment for me.
Tonight? Tonight was not a disappointment at all. It’s been a long time since this body felt an orgasm, and if it never has another, I’m not sure I care.
I’m not looking for that physical pleasure. I’m looking for comfort. For safety. For someone to protect me.
And this man—Buck—he did all of that and more.
So much more.
His body is as scarred as my own.
Those tattoos… Those halos…
There were times on the island—times when a woman wouldn’t come back. Ruby. Turquoise. Both were there when I arrived. Then one day? They didn’t return.
Ruby disappeared first. Diamond, of course, wouldn’t tell us what happened. Did she even know? She was our house mother, an older woman who, though it was clear she had once been beautiful, had turned into a shadow of her former self.
I don’t know her story, why she was there. In her way, she cared. Even loved us, I think.
There was always a look of sadness in her eyes. Especially when one of us was hurt—I mean truly physically hurt.
The other kind of hurt? That never went away. Ruby was one of the most beautiful women on the island, with dark—nearly black—hair and brown eyes. She was called Ruby because of her naturally red lips. She had the kind of lips I would’ve been envious of had I been back in the real world. On the island? Not so much. Her lips got her attention I didn’t want.
Too much attention, because one day she never came back.
I asked Diamond if Ruby had escaped. Diamond didn’t reply, but her eyes looked sunken, sad, clouded. Far away.
Her eyes told the truth. Ruby hadn’t escaped the island. No one could escape the island.
Ruby died. I don’t know how. The men weren’t allowed to kill us, but a lot of them came close. I was laid up more than once from injuries, taken off the hunt until I healed.
In a way, I rejoiced in physical injury. It gave me a respite from the horror of the daily life.
Turquoise was also beautiful. All the women on the island were. That’s why we were taken in the first place.
I grew to hate my beauty. I grew to hate my athletic body, even though it was my strength and endurance that helped me.
When you’re an athlete—anywhere from the high school level on—you’re taught to push yourself to the limits, to the point where you’re ready to crash and burn, and then force yourself to find just a little bit more. Go deep inside yourself and grit your teeth and power through.
It was that attitude that helped me survive life on that island.
And it’s that attitude that will keep me going now.
I think about Ruby and Turquoise when I envision Buck’s tattoo—the friends he lost.
Ruby and Turquoise weren’t really my friends. None of us were friends on that island. We were just trying to survive, and we talked from time to time, but most of us were quiet in the dorm. Moonstone, Onyx, and I sometimes watched TV together in the great room. The set played only old black-and-white sitcoms—I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best.
In fact, I was with Onyx and Moonstone when we were rescued—when Rock and Reid Wolfe came to the island, and Diamond…
What happened to Diamond?
No one seems to know. I’ve asked around.
Maybe Buck knows.
He’s lying next to me, his eyes closed, but he’s not asleep. I can tell. He’s trying to sleep, but something’s bothering him.
Does he have nightmares too? Does he have nightmares about those angels on his back? About what he went through? About the times those scars were branded onto his body?
