Paradise Island (24 page)

He leant close to her ear so that he was sure she would feel the heat from his cheek. “Estelle. I am here for you. I will fight with you.” He pressed his lips on her cheek, keeping them there until his lips cooled with her stone cold skin.

• • •

The tingle was on her cheek now. She placed her hand over it. She recognized what it was. That feeling. She had felt it before, when she had been frozen on deck, he fingers so numb that she could no longer feel them and had to be prized from the wheel. It was when she was below deck and Sara, her healer, had come to her to thaw her out with a bath of lukewarm water. It was the same tingling when the blood started to pump into her extremities.

It was the feeling of life.

She looked up and around, hoping to see a flicker of something but nothing permeated the cloying blackness. As impenetrable as it seemed, it couldn't contain the glimmer of optimism that let her cheek stay thawed. “You can't keep me here,” she yelled. “You cannot win. Do you hear me? You will lose!”

She kept her hand on her cheek, letting the laughter well up from within. The warmth traveled from her cheek to her mouth. She felt her lips curve into a smile and she let it stay there.

• • •

There was a definite smile on her mouth. Her face had lost the tension that etched the harsh lines. They had relaxed into softer, feminine lines. Her mouth tipped at the edges. She looked serine, as though she had found some inner peace that was drawing her from this enchantment.

He ran the pad of his finger on her mouth and drew in a sharp breath. It was definitely warm. ‘Estelle. Can you hear me?” he whispered.

He cupped her face with his hands, tracing her cheeks, brushing her hair from her face. Touched his lips on hers. Wanting her to breathe the life from him to her. Willing her to feel, to respond. He moved his lips, wanting to stimulate a response, needing beyond anything that she may feel him here with her.

Her lips thawed. She put her fingertips to her mouth. There was a pressure there that was beyond her fingers, a sensation that exceeded force. It was a stirring of something more powerful than this black void, it took her far beyond thought.

There was only one that could initiate such a response in her. And she knew without a doubt that it was Gregory that was there, by her side wherever that was, helping her however he could.

She was not alone.

“There is more than you know about in this life,” Estelle shouted to the dark. “More than you'll ever be capable of understanding. You can't keep me here, because light will always overpower the dark.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. Let the feeling from her lips wash through her, let it stir within, let it soar. The dark, heavy weight shifted, set offside like an iceberg lifted in a swelling ocean.

She pushed her mind further, seeking that link that bound both Gregory and herself. She remembered how it was to be in his arms, how it felt when he kissed her, touched her. He gave without taking, without selfishness. It was mutual, without egotism, or conceited. She wanted the same for him. All that she could give, she would.

She sought the warmth, the closeness that had been so lacking in her life. She hadn't even known it until Gregory had shown her. He had never wanted to change her, never had told her how to act, or what to say, but seemed to be as challenged, and as delighted in her as she was in him.

Together, they could be true to themselves.

Together they could be as one.

She knew that with all certainty.

There was pressure on her lips, as though she were being kissed. She felt her mouth touched in that rare way that would sent her soaring, pushing her higher, searching for that illusive ecstasy that only one had given her.

Gregory.

She knew there was a way out from this bitter bleakness. If she could think, could feel, could remember what it was like being with him then she was not trapped. Excitement flushed her veins. She concentrated harder, rode the feeling on her mouth and let it swamp through her mind and fill every pore in her body. She held a picture of him in her mind, how he looked at her when he told her he loved her. The drilling intensity in his eyes.

There was a heat on her hair that flowed into her skin, as though she stood in a circle of sunshine. She opened her eyes, and gasped. There was a pinprick of light that shone like a beacon through the dark. She blinked. And it was still there.

“Gregory!” she called. “Can you hear me?”

• • •

A sigh fell from her lips. There was the whisper of his name on a soft breath. She said it only once, but she had said it nonetheless. He touched his forehead to hers. Held there, unable to move for not wanting to miss another sign.

A gut wrenching groan that went from the pit of his stomach, exploded from his mouth. “Estelle. You can hear me. I know you can. Come back to me. See me, hear me, feel me. I'm here always for you,” he said.

• • •

She heard the desperate whispering. It fell like a soft cloak around her shoulders.
Hear me. Feel me
. She knew it was Gregory who spoke those words. She opened her arms, spread them wide, turned a circle beneath the light. Willed herself go to there. To go to him.

The light spread, the warmth continued to thaw her frozen limbs. “I heard you. Keep talking to me,” she cried.

• • •

She whispered. He couldn't hear exactly what she said, but she responded more fully now. It was as though she were waking from the deepest of sleeps. “I am here, waiting for you. Find me, Estelle. Look and find. Hear me. You have to. There is no other way.”

He cupped her face, kissed her more soundly, kissed her with everything he had, clasped her face in the palms of his hands, molded his lips to hers and poured everything he had into that kiss, every fiber, every ounce of himself.

He realized what he was doing. He was fighting. This time it was something worth fighting for. Not just for duty, or for honor, or for the Navy. It was for both Estelle
and
himself. This time, he could not loose.

Would not loose.

He broke from their kiss. “I am here, Estelle, find me. Please, find your way back to me,” he said.

• • •

She'd been kissed. She felt it on her mouth. Felt the heat, felt his mouth joining hers, savored the sweet taste of him. The bite of hot tears stung the inside of her eyelids. “Gregory!” she cried.

The light became multi-colored, as though she were staring at dappled sunlight through the moving leaves of a tree. There was movement, a head above hers peering down at her with eyes so dark and bright at the same time they reminded her of the dazzling show of stars in a midnight sky. “It is you!” she said.

Her eyes felt so very heavy, as though they were weighted. She struggled to keep them open, concentrating on Gregory's face. Her vision cleared enough to see the concern etched onto the planes of his features.

• • •

Her eyes locked on his with such a concentrated intensity that there was no other way to describe it than knowing she was coming back. Gone was the blankness in her eyes. She was there, watching him, dragging herself back from wherever it was.

He kept her gaze, bonding her eyes with his, trying to draw her further up towards him. “That's my girl. Keep coming up. Keep coming to me. You can beat it,” he whispered.

• • •

She felt the weight of her arm. It was a normal feeling, like she was joining back with her body, gaining some control over it. She tensed her arms, felt her muscles pull and tighten, lifted them and felt the hard chords of his arms knot beneath her grip. But she felt them. Felt him in her grasp.

Her hands lifted to cup just above his elbows. Her touch was light, but it was there. Her skin was warm, not as warm as it should be, but not a frozen cadaver. Her fingers gripped his shirt, gaining strength with every passing second.

Then her curved mouth contorted and drew back into a nondescript line. The brightness of her eyes became stricken and dulled. The embrace of her fingers loosened and sank to the ground. He clasped either side of her head, panic a bitter tasting lump in his mouth. Something was wrong, she was sinking back, he was losing her all over again, the worst kind of torture. “Estelle, what's wrong. What's happening? Don't go back! You mustn't go back!” he cried. He picked up her hand, drew it to his lips. “You … you can't. You just can't.”

But she sank further. He could do nothing but sit and helplessly watch the light bleed from her eyes as she sank back to the depths of a living death.

The light dimmed. The cold and the dark blurred around her, threatening to take her back into the lost abyss she had woken to. She couldn't see Gregory's face above hers; the lights were now shadowed and dim. The cold bit into her fingers, viciously attacking any warmth that was there.

The heaviness fell from her limbs as though she were devoid of hands, and arms and a body. Her body. She lifted her hand to see if she had truly lost the ability to move her own limbs, but she couldn't tell if she had moved or not. There was no sensation of touch to judge it by.

She was retreating, barreling back to be lost in the obscene dark. Something was taking her back. She felt it, a dankness that invaded her mind, drawing all the good and sucking it from her as though it was a food. An insidious shiver stole through her. She couldn't let herself fall prey to this malicious power. It would be so simple to let the despair wash her away.

Anger welled within. But it was a good anger. The best kind. The one that had driven her most of her life. The type that didn't let her lie in a miserable heap of wallowing self-pity.

It was the give-a-damn type. The kind that had you striving for everything you were worth, for everything you held dear. And she had found that one person bigger than herself that was worth giving it everything she had. Gregory was fighting for her and she would damn well fight back.

“You will not take me!” she screamed.

She stared at the pinprick of light and willed herself towards it. She imagined herself surrounded by light, by Gregory, by love. Let herself acknowledge that greatest of joy that she had only so recently found, protecting it like the very precious thing that it was. Nothing was going to stand in the way of something that was so supreme.

She let herself feel it so that it soaked all the way through her, shone into each and every pore in her body. She felt the dark hover, back away and stumble backwards, terrified by the power of the light. She felt herself tumble and jerk backwards, felt the ground beneath her back, the prickle of twigs scratching her skin and she cracked her eyes open.

“Gregory,” she whispered and drew him into her arms.

She soaked in the look of surprise and then total relief that washed his features. He groaned and tucked his cheek against hers, drew his arms beneath her and locked her tight against him.

“I didn't come back just so that you could knock the breath back out of me,” she said.

He pulled back, eyes roaming her face just so that he could make sure she was actually in his arms. “How … ?” his voice cracked.

She laughed. The absolute joy that welled was too much for her not to. “You led me. You helped me find the light. Without you, I would be stumbling around in the dark for who knows how long.” She shivered, thinking about the others who this entity still had control over. Some of those men had been lost there for years.

“This was my fault. If I had only woken you before I … ” Gregory said.

She took his face between her hands and shook her head. “It was the fault of no one but that evil god that does this to people. It was not you. Those words I said to you. They were not me. I was in the grip of the terrible rage that kept on sucking me in and taking me down with it. If anyone was to blame for being caught by this thing, it was me for being so distrustful.”

She looked into his eyes, locked their gazes, sank into them. “If there is anyone who should be seeking exoneration, it should be me. Gregory, can you ever forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he whispered. His voice was heavy, sandpapery. Heated.

With a groan he pressed his lips to hers, massaged her lips with his. She closed her eyes and let the sensation wrap around her, tasting him, invited him into her mouth, reveling in this intimacy.

She wound her arms around his neck, splayed her fingers though his hair, let the silky strands fall between her fingers. She was fully alive and now she knew what it was to drink in every second of it. Her senses were heightened beyond what she before had taken for granted. The weight of his body pressing on hers, his muscles that unwound and bunched with his movements beneath her fingers, the rough stubble on his cheeks as he pressed against her skin, the softness of his lips on hers, his unadulterated taste. The way her body melted with her own rising passion. Her bones were warm honey, her blood soaked with molten desire, seeking a need that could only peak between the two of them.

Her passion ignited like a gunpowder spark and she welcomed it. Sought it. Needed it.

Fed from it.

His response was immediate. His kiss grew harder, more needy. Purposeful. His tongue delved into her mouth, sweeping, dancing, stroking. She responded completely. She gave herself freely, letting all else disintegrate from her mind until she was all response, inflamed.

Awakened.

His hand skimmed to her front and her shirt was opened, baring her breasts that were so sensitized that she felt the very air touch them. His hand found them, fondled the heavy flesh, delightedly weighted with her building passion. Her nipples hardened, pulled into tight nubs. His palm skimmed over them and she shuddered. He massaged it with the pad of his thumb, pressing, swirling, teasing.

He released her mouth and found her breast. She arched her back as his warm wetness suckled. He used his tongue as he had had fingers, only his mouth could suck, his teeth could nip. His hand trailed over her stomach and undid her breeches. She helped him undo the ties and draw them from her legs until she lay beneath him dressed only in her open shirt.