Castaways (3 page)

* * * * *

While it was still light, and once Sirena was wearing Den’s blue t-shirt, she did her best to help around the makeshift camp, trying to ignore the pounding in her head. The men wouldn’t allow her to help scavenge what supplies and wood washed ashore, which was probably for the best.

Her head still ached and she kept feeling like she was going to throw up, but as long as she kept busy she could ignore the bumps and bruises on her body. It felt weird being called Sirena, but even weirder not being able to remember anything about herself.

She putzed around outside the tent and searched one of the suitcases the men had rescued. The suitcase was filled with men’s clothing, all too small for the giants she was stranded with, but perfect for her. She changed into a pair of shorts inside the tent, but had to ditch her panties.

There hadn’t been any women’s underwear in the suitcase and she wasn’t into wearing men’s briefs. At least not for now.

It was driving her crazy that she couldn’t remember anything about her life. It hovered somewhere, just out of reach. If only she could grab onto it and come back to her senses.

The entire time the men worked to gather what they could, Sirena couldn’t help her gaze from returning again and again to Den and Mike. Her fantasies were wild, and so vivid. In her prior life had she enjoyed having two men at once? She certainly could imagine it now.

Where had they all been going? When she looked at the ocean fear bit into her chest. She was afraid of open water, that much she knew in her gut. So what had she been doing on a boat?

Night fell quickly on the small island they were stranded on, and Sirena’s stomach pitched at the thought of what might roam this island. From what the men told her, there could be snakes, land crabs, bats and rodents.

A shiver traced her spine. She wasn’t crazy about meeting any of those creatures at night. Maybe in the daylight, but screw having a snake slide up your body in the middle of the night or a bat flapping around your hair. She shivered again. And she
hated
rodents, of any kind. How she knew this she had no clue, but she was pretty clear on that one.

Sirena got to know Den and Mike a little better as they fixed a meal of prepackaged food they had scavenged from the wreckage. Fortunately the yacht had apparently been well-stocked with emergency supplies. They didn’t have a can opener, but Den had found a good-sized butcher knife and had opened the cans of green beans and tuna with it. Occasionally one or the other of the men would casually brush against her, or touch her lightly to get her attention. Each time she felt a current zing through her body, and her senses were constantly on high alert. Yet she found herself more and more comfortable with both men. As if she’d known them before the shipwreck.

Den and Mike had an easy camaraderie and it was obvious they were close friends. They seemed to have some kind of bond that even transcended friendship. The men talked a lot while they sat around the campfire and ate, and Sirena simply listened. They’d been fortunate a good portion of the food was canned, and that there was plenty of bottled water.

The snap and pop of the fire was comforting, as were the smell of burning wood and the heat of the flames. Apparently her two rescuers were quite the outdoorsmen and had started the fire with a little dry kindling and a couple of flintlike rocks.

Her headache had dulled to a mere throb, and her bruises and scratches and the bump on her elbow were nothing to complain about. The food had actually settled her stomach and she was feeling a little more back to normal. Well, as normal as one could be after surviving a shipwreck, and not remembering a stitch about who she was or her life. She shifted on the palm trunk she was seated on beside the fire.

“Did you get a bump on your head?” Mike asked in his charming English accent as if reading her thoughts. “Is that why you’ve lost your memory?”

Sirena frowned, but Den said, “Believe it or not, that’s just the stuff of soap operas. You can’t get amnesia from a simple head injury, and definitely not from a concussion. From what I know from a neuropsychologist friend of mine, a person with amnesia has suffered some kind of trauma in their life, something recent and very, very painful.” Her frown deepened as his gaze turned on her. “Can you remember anything, sweetheart?” She shook her head. “How could I forget everything just because I don’t want to remember? That doesn’t make sense.”

Den shrugged. “It’ll come back to you. When you’re ready.” Sirena suddenly didn’t want to talk about herself. All this thinking about who she was and wasn’t, was making her headache worse. “Think we’ll be rescued soon?” Mike ran his hand over his bald head that gleamed in the firelight. “A search and rescue has no doubt been launched already.”

“And we’re pretty sure this is near a shipping lane,” Den said. “A freighter’s bound to come by any time, and no doubt a pleasure cruiser could be as well. Boats travel all the time to the island we were headed to.”

Sirena scrunched up her nose. “We were headed to an island?”

“The Playground,” Den said, and his mouth curved into a sexy grin. “If you’ve never been there, you were in for one hell of a treat.”

Her mind turned from pleasure to more serious matters. “What about the other people on the yacht?” Sirena’s stomach pitched at the thought of all those people who may not have made it somewhere safe.

The men glanced at one another before looking back at Sirena. “We can hope they reached one of the small islands in this area,” Mike said in his deep English accent. “There are several scattered about.”

“But likely some of them didn’t survive,” Sirena said softly.

Den met her gaze. “Probably. But we can hope for the best.”
Hope
. Sirena rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger before dropping her hand away.

Why did the word strike her so? Why did she feel like she’d had no hope in her life before?

She felt a strong hand grip hers and she looked up to meet Den’s gaze, finding him suddenly close to her. “We’ll be rescued. Tomorrow when there’s enough light to see by, we’ll gather up wood to build a bonfire big enough to bring an entire fleet once we spot a ship. It’ll be all right.” Den laced his fingers through hers and kept a hold of her hand the rest of the night. She was glad for the comfort of his grip. It made her feel somewhat grounded, safe, and gave her a closeness he must have instinctively known she needed.

They talked well into the evening, even though she had little to contribute. It constantly nagged at her how she had no memories of her past. What had happened that made her forget everything?

Maybe her life had been so bad it was better not to remember. The thought unsettled her, yet made sense at the same time. Despite the fact that she was shipwrecked and had amnesia, perhaps she could enjoy this time alone with these two men. That idea didn’t seem so bad at all.

Yet how could she think that way? They were stranded, for goodness sake.

What if she had a husband—children? She looked at her left hand. No ring, no pale line, no indentation. She placed her hand to her belly. No stretch marks that she’d noticed while changing, and her hips were narrow, her breasts still firm and perky. That was something that came easily to her, the realization that a woman’s body would show
some
kind of sign of having had children. Maybe not all or any of the above, but
something.
She must have had a friend who had been through childbirth, or even a relative. Yes. She could feel that knocking at the back of her skull. Someone she knew had children. Someone she was close to.

A wave of loneliness swept through her. What had she left behind her? Where had she been going?

Considering she truly remembered nothing of her previous life, Sirena didn’t have much to contribute to the rest of the conversation, but she learned a lot about the men. Den owned a construction company in Florida and Mike was the CEO of a software organization headquartered in his home city of London. Apparently Mike traveled a lot and the two men got together whenever Mike was in town and had frequented this island they called The Playground.

“What is this playground place?” she asked.

They looked at one another, then back to Sirena. “An exclusive resort on one of the islands, love,” Mike said with a smile that made her wonder exactly what kind of resort they’d been headed to.

“I wish I knew where I had been going.” She rested one elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand. But then it passed through her mind again—if things were so bad that she’d forgotten everything about herself, did she really
want
to remember?

“Everyone on board the yacht was headed to The Playground,” Mike said, breaking into her thoughts. “That was the boat’s sole destination.”

Sirena blinked at the fire. What a name for an island—it sounded…intriguing.

As she listened to the men, she enjoyed how they bantered back and forth, and their longtime friendship that somehow went beyond simple male bonding. Mike’s English accent totally turned her on, not to mention his incredible body, and Den—well there was just something about him that made her want to know more about him, something beyond simple curiosity.

And the way the men each studied her every now and then,
ohmigod.
It was enough to make her shiver and her body ache in ways that had nothing to do with the accident. When they called it a night, Sirena’s heart beat faster as they crawled into the small shelter. Why did she have images of these men both taking her? Would they take her one at a time, or both at once?

How the thought excited her. Her nipples turned into hard, aching nubs and moisture formed between her thighs.

The campfire was close enough that it offered some glow so that they could see in the shelter when they were lying down. They kept the flap open so that the men could keep an eye on the fire. A piece of oilskin made up the floor of the shelter, but the sand was hard beneath it. She had a feeling that sleeping wasn’t going to be too comfortable. What cloth and clothing they had around was still damp, and the humidity wasn’t helping.

“We don’t have anything to use as a pillow,” Den murmured as he lay facing her. “But you can use my arm.”

It seemed natural to snuggle into Den’s hold. Her cheek pressed against his chest and her head tucked under his chin. He smelled so good. That scent of man and ocean. And his cock—it was so hard against her belly. She trembled at the feelings his embrace brought to her body and to her mind.

On the other side of her, Mike moved closer and molded her ass to his hips. She almost groaned out loud at the feel of his erection and his muscled chest against her back. The two men had her trapped in their arms, like they owned her. It seemed natural to be sleeping between them. What would it be like to be with them both at once?

Yeah, she was nuts all right.

She sensed the moment that each man fell asleep. It was a long time before her mind settled and she was able to slip into darkness.

Sirena woke to the brush of lips over hers and coarseness of a man’s stubble along her jaw.

“Wake, sweetheart,” Den murmured, and Sirena smiled. His thigh was draped over her hip, his erection pressed against her belly. Mike was still glued to her backside, and his cock seemed impossibly larger against her ass than it had been last night. She liked this feeling of being caught between two men. It was as if she was at their mercy.

Crazy, crazy thoughts.

Are they crazy, though? Maybe I was wild. Maybe I took who I wanted, when I wanted them.

The thought made her shiver. Somehow she didn’t believe it, yet she wanted it to be true. She wanted to rub herself against Den, entice Mike—

But Den simply pushed himself to a sitting position and rubbed his rumpled black hair with his hand. “Morning,” he murmured in a rough, gravely voice.

Sirena shivered and she felt her nipples tighten. Yup, she was crazy. Definitely nuts, and way, way past interested in seeing where these feelings might take her.

Mike rolled away from her back and got to his feet. When she glanced up he was looking down at her and his package was still hard and obvious. He offered her a quick wink and a grin as he extended his hand. “Ready for breakfast, love?”

She nodded and let him help her up. She was a little unsteady, suddenly lightheaded from the movement. Den steadied her by gripping her elbow.

“Are you all right?” Concern filled his vivid blue eyes.

“Just need a moment.” She let the men help her. When her head settled she gave a deep breath.

“I’m okay now. I just need a moment’s privacy.” She pulled away from them and walked out of the tent.

Outside the morning sun spilled over the water, glistening across its surface. The water was incredibly blue and the sand startling white along the shore and beneath the blue water. She slipped into the small jungle of palms and other greenery behind the tent and relieved herself before returning to their campsite.

It was still cool, and Sirena’s nipples stayed tighter than tight as gooseflesh pebbled her skin. For a moment she watched the men as they moved to the campfire and began to build it up again, which they’d obviously taken care to keep up with during the night while she was sleeping. They were each wearing jeans with no shirts and no shoes. They looked good enough to eat. Den’s black hair curled at his nape, hair that she wanted to slide her fingers through, and Mike—she’d never found bald men so sexy before in her life. That thought came easily to her, too.

The air smelled salty and fresh and the palm trees rippled in an early breeze that lifted Sirena’s long auburn hair from her shoulders. The movement of the trees caught her attention and she took a moment to study her surroundings, her temporary—hopefully temporary—home. They were in a cove, sheltered by palm trees, sea-worn boulders and sand, sand, sand. Beyond the shoreline palm trees grew thick with what looked like red hibiscus blooms and tropical bushes.

To her surprise and delight she saw that there were coconut trees within the palms. Hopefully this island had banana trees, too. Were there banana trees in the Bahamas?

The men had built a decent shelter just within the protection of the palms. It was made of oilskin and thick planks of wood. Ironically enough, the name
Storm Maiden
was painted in royal blue along one of the long pieces of the boat holding up the shelter.

To the side of the small shelter were ice chests, suitcases and other items that had washed up on the shore from the wrecked yacht. They hadn’t had a chance to look through all the suitcases and chests just yet to see what treasures might be found.

More debris littered the shoreline, including pieces of wood that must have belonged to the yacht. A blue and white flag that lay crumpled upon the sand looked familiar to her—she could almost see it ripping from the mast of a boat, but then the image vanished.

She frowned. What was she doing on a boat, and why couldn’t she remember anything about herself?
Do I really want to remember?

The men immediately set to gathering wood for the rescue bonfire. They also worked on making a huge HELP sign out of palms, branches and pieces of the boat to catch the attention of any plane flying overhead.

Sirena’s stomach growled and she found she was too hungry to wait much longer to eat. It was making her lightheaded.

“I’ll get breakfast.” Sirena moved toward the other ice chests and trunks that she knew were filled with food. They would have to use whatever was still fresh—if there was anything—before it spoiled.

The first chest was obviously an expensive one with an airtight lid. It was filled with glass bottles of water and cans of cola, and even a couple of bottles of champagne. Water was more important than the cola, but any kind of liquid was better than none. And the champagne—maybe they’d have something to celebrate.

The next chest held a loaf of soggy bread, which she set aside with a sigh. Could bread be salvaged? Beneath the bread were packages of polish sausages, hotdogs, bologna, and hamburger. To the side of the meat were plastic bottles of mayo, ketchup, and Dijon mustard.

Apparently someone had been planning a picnic. Oooh, and there was also a sealed tin of English

“biscuits.” She loved the English version of cookies. Hopefully the seal had held.

“What’d you find?” Den said from behind her and a shiver shot up her spine.

Sirena brought her gaze to his and that same feeling of need rose up within her. But this time it wasn’t just sexual, it was as if she needed him on another deeper level.

Yeah, she was nuts.