Surviving Raine 01 (3 page)

She jumped when the light went on, and her breathing caught in her throat as she let out a soft sob.  Her fingers dug into my flesh again but not quite as hard as before.  I didn’t think she was actually breaking the skin or anything.  She glanced quickly around the raft, pressed her cheek into my chest, and closed her eyes.

She went still kind of suddenly, and I listened to make sure she hadn’t stopped breathing again.  I noticed her breathing was now really steady and figured she must have passed out or maybe just fallen back asleep.  I didn’t want to wake her up and listen to her start screaming again, and I really, really wanted to lie back down.  I shuffled our positions around a bit until I managed to lie down on my back with her still sprawled over my chest, holding tightly to my shoulders even in sleep.

It wasn’t comfortable, not in the least.  I was still completely exhausted and figured I’d drop right back off anyway, but I was wrong.  Between her lying on top of me and the crashing waves and wind from outside the canopy, I couldn’t fall back asleep at all.  I sighed heavily and looked down at the young woman lying on top of me, bathed in the light of the flashlight.

She was in her early twenties, maybe, with long hair, bits of which were plastered all over her face, shoulders, and back.  She was slim and wore a blue one-piece bathing suit with a pair of shorts on over it and no shoes on her feet.  If she had been in flip flops or sandals like a lot of the ship’s passengers wore, she probably lost them to the storm.

She had really nice skin – all smooth and lightly tanned all over, not like a lot of chicks who were tan with blotches and shit when she didn’t get her suntan lotion put on in the right place.  I kind of wanted to run my hands over it and see if it was as soft as it looked, but I figured that probably had its own special scale of inappropriateness.  It reminded me of warm caramel, and I had the idiotic notion that she might taste like caramel, too.

I settled for checking out the rest of her visually instead.  She was pretty small – I didn’t think she could have been much over five foot two and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds or so.  Next to my six-two, ten-years-of-body-building frame, she looked like a child.  I could probably lift her over my head with one hand.  Of course, she had been lying on top of me for a while now, and she was starting to feel a little heavier.

Her leg shifted, and holy fuck if she didn’t rub her thigh up against my groin.  We were in a life raft, for the love of God, in the middle of the fucking Caribbean, and I was getting a hard on from a half-drowned stranger lying on top of me.

Well, at least we know I’m still a guy.

She was kind of hot, from what I could tell anyway.  She was also breathing and female, which is all I usually required.  I tried to remember what her boob felt like when I grabbed it in the water, but I had been a little too preoccupied with trying to stay alive to commit it to memory.

Damn, I was fucked up.

Besides, she was just another one of the high society bitches that chartered ships for their little personal pleasure cruises because they were far too good for the “normal” cruise ships that went all over the place carrying “normal” people.  She wasn’t my type, and I definitely wasn’t hers.  My type was more likely to cost me a little cash, but at least I knew where I stood, and I didn’t have to call them later or buy them any fucking flowers.  Who knew what her type might be?  One thing I knew, I didn’t have the blue blood that was always the top requirement on the list.  Maybe if I took a shower and shaved, she’d probably look me over and maybe consider giving me a tumble.  In the end I wouldn’t be good enough to wash her Chihuahua.

I must have fallen asleep eventually because the next thing I knew there was natural light coming through the translucent sides of the raft, and it was really getting hot.  This was partially because the sun was cooking us in there, but also because I had a sweaty girl lying on me.

I slid out from under her, cringing when our stuck-together skin peeled apart audibly.  I set her down relatively gently and scooted myself over to the raft canopy opening.  I pulled back the seal and opened up the front piece, nearly blinding myself as the sunlight flooded in.

I took a deep breath and shook my head, trying to get the sleep out of my system.  My head was pounding, but without my usual spiked morning coffee and half pack of cigarettes, I didn’t think it was going to improve anytime soon.  My arms and shoulders were sore and my back was stiff.  It was also really fucking hot in what was basically a small greenhouse on the ocean with the equatorial sun beating down on it.  All and all, I felt like shit.

The waves were a lot calmer than they had been the previous night, thankfully.  I glanced back over at the girl, who was still out of it, and then whipped open my fly and pissed over the side.  I managed to tuck myself back in just as she rolled a little and groaned. Not that I really cared, but she probably didn’t want to wake up to me waving my cock around.  She only murmured something unintelligible and stilled, not yet awake.

I looked over the horizon and saw…water.

I maneuvered part way out of the small opening in the canopy and looked all the way around us.

More water.

Shit.

With no sign of any other lifeboats, I had to fight down the nervousness I was starting to feel in the pit of my stomach.  The life raft was equipped with three days worth of food and water for four people.  I could collect more water as long as it rained, and I could certainly make the food last for more than six days – probably as many as ten or twelve – but after that it was going to get nasty.  I looked over at the sleeping form behind me.  With her size, she was going to dehydrate fast.  She was probably on the verge anyway, considering the amount of seawater she swallowed.  I’d last a lot longer than she would.  My stomach lurched a little again.  It occurred to me I hadn’t felt that particular pang since the last time I was in a tournament.

I crouched with my head out of the opening and secured the flap to the top of the raft.  In the back of the raft, near the sleeping passenger, was another, smaller opening.  I released that one, too, so we could get a crosswind going through the inside of the raft.  It wasn’t going to make much of a difference with the heat, but it was marginally better than nothing.

I really wanted a drink.

I settled for a small amount of water instead.

The girl rolled again, and I could hear the sound of her skin clinging to the bottom of the inflated raft.  I thought about how she was probably used to silk sheets and that kind of shit and almost laughed out loud.  I shifted back towards the opening because she looked like she might wake up, and I didn’t want her freaking out on me again.  I sat back down and watched as she opened her eyes and looked right at me.

She had really nice eyes.  I mean, just fucking fantastic – all dark brown and deep and really wide open, like if you looked into them you could fall in or get lost or something – and she was staring right at me.  My own reaction to her gaze actually surprised me more than her eyes themselves.

She sat up and pushed herself against the backside of the raft, as far away from me as she could get.  Not that it was all that far – the raft was only a ten-footer, so you’re never very far from anything on it.  Her eyes stayed on me for a moment, and then she took in the rest of her surroundings.

When she looked away, I wanted to go over to her and turn her back so she was looking at me again.  I didn’t do it or anything; it was just weird that I wanted to.

She started to say something, but her voice was all scratchy when she tried to talk.  She raised her hand up to her throat and coughed a couple of times before she tried again.

“What happened?”

“My ship sank,” I said, completely unnecessarily.

“How did I get here?” she asked.  “The last thing I remember is trying to get up on the deck, but when I did, there was a big wave.  I fell in the water.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.  “I pulled you out.”

“I don’t remember that,” she said.

“You were half-drowned and unconscious,” I told her.

“Where’s everyone else?”

I shrugged.

“Are they…?” Her eyes got all wide again.

“I don’t have any idea,” I told her.  “I’m going to see if I can spot any of the other lifeboats.”

“Did everyone else get in one?”

“I just told you, I have no fucking idea!” I snapped.  I hadn’t really meant to, but I felt like absolute shit. I really needed a drink, and I really didn’t want to be talking about this.  I tried to calm my voice down a bit.  “Now stop with the twenty questions.”

She pulled back and just stared at me again with her mouth hanging open.  Fucking high society bitch.  She had probably never heard a real f-bomb before.  She had better get used to it.

I pulled the canopy back a bit more and got hit with a decent sized trickle of rainwater overflowing from the gutter system.

“Damnit!”

I yanked off my waterlogged shirt and tossed it off to the side.  I would need to remember to hang it up, or it would never be dry.  It was bad enough my shirt was wet, but wasting the water was going to come back and haunt me later.  Landon would have fucking killed me for wasting water under these conditions.  I wondered if I could somehow get it out of the shirt.

I heard a gasp behind me and immediately regretted not just keeping the soggy shirt on.

“Wow, your arms are…um…” the girl stammered at me.  “And your back…”

I felt my whole body go rigid and my hands clench into fists.

“What?” I snarled, glaring back at her over my shoulder.  If the prissy bitch had a problem with my body, she could fucking keep it to herself or go overboard.

“You just…um…look really strong.”

“Oh.”  I didn’t know how to respond to that.  I thought she was talking about the scars.  Sailing takes strength, but I was built up long before I started sailing.  John Paul made sure I still worked out a lot to keep me in shape and make up for the poison I drank.  Our professional lives might not require it anymore, but John Paul’s favorite saying was still
“Strong people live longer.”

I lifted the canopy up the rest of the way and squinted out over the sea.  I wondered if a pair of Ray Bans was included in the survival kits.  I shaded my eyes with my hand and scanned the horizon again.

Nothing.

I turned around quickly, making the raft rock a little.  The girl scurried to the other side as I approached the sealed pouches near her.  I continued on like she wasn’t even there.  I found what I wanted – a pair of binoculars and one of three flares.  They would show up better at night, that was for sure, but chances were the other lifeboats would be closer now than twelve hours later.  They had outboard motors, where the raft only had a pair of oars which were almost totally fucking useless.

I moved out towards the opening again and launched the first one.  It was incredibly bright, even in the daylight, and I watched it rocket up three hundred meters before it started back down, glowing all the way.  It went out right before it hit the water.

I used the binoculars to see if I could see any sign of…well, of anything.

Nothing.

There weren’t even any cumulus clouds on the horizon, which would give me at least some sort of direction to head since clouds would normally form over land.  The wind was sending the current south-southwest, which was not ideal.  From where we were last on
The Oblation
, the closest land was southeast.

“Fuck.”

“What is it?”

I felt all my muscles tense.  This chick and all her stupid ass questions were going to drive me insane.

“Well, let’s see,” I snarled, “I just realized I left my best pair of shoes in the closet back at home, and I really needed them for the mixer tonight.  What the fuck do you think it is?  Maybe a whole shitload of ocean and maybe a whole shitload of no land?  You think that might be it?”

“Why are you yelling at me?” she screamed and sobbed all at the same time.

The girl just pulled up her legs and practically curled up into a ball.  I hadn’t really meant to jump down her throat, but I had a problem with my temper.  Once it got started, it was a while before it managed to run its course.

“I’m a little fucking tense, all right?” I shouted at her.  “My home just fucking sank, it’s about a hundred and ten degrees in here, and I’m fucking annoyed and wondering why I ever bothered pulling you out of the fucking water!  Okay?”

She raised her hand and ran it under one eye.

I made her cry.

Shit.

I really didn’t mean to do that.  I had to get myself under control.  All the anger and tension was wasted energy, and wasted energy was wasted water and nutrients.  I closed my eyes and tried to take some slow, calming breaths, but it just didn’t help.  If slow, calming breaths were of any use, I would have quit smoking.

“Holy fucking shit,” I grumbled as a thought hit me that probably saved her life and mine.  I reached over and pulled open one of the pouches on my belt.  Inside was a small plastic baggie with three cigarettes in it – the emergency stash.  “Thank God.”

I pulled one of them out and then carefully sealed the other two back up in the plastic.  The lighter in my belt pouch was too wet and wouldn’t work, but there were waterproof matches in the survival gear.  I lit the smoke and leaned back against the inside wall of the raft, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply.  I took five long, deep drags before I opened my eyes again.  She was staring at me with those big, beautiful eyes again, and it was making my cock twitch.

Great – just what I needed.

She looked away from me and was rocking back and forth, all fidgety.  Watching her rock back and forth brought images to my head of ways
I
could make her rock back and forth.

Smoking under survival circumstances was undoubtedly a bad idea, but I had to be able to get myself together enough to calm down and think straight, so it was better than doing nothing at this point.

I took another long drag and blew the smoke out over the water.  I tried to savor it, knowing I only had two of the damn things left.  I could cope without the smokes if I had a bottle of something, but not having either was going to seriously suck.