Romance: The Billionaires Collection (Watched By A Billionaire, Stranded With A Billionaire, Caught By A Billionaire, Billionaire Stepbrother) (16 page)

When Flint joins me, he comes straight forward and gives
me a kiss as I turn a fish on the fire.

“
I'm sorry, Lib, for how I've been today. I know it's
not what you need.”

“
It's OK,” I tell him. “We all have our down
days.”

“
I know, but I shouldn't put any of it on you.”

“
Yes you should,” I correct him. “That's exactly
what you should do. That's how we've got through this so far. We
share our feelings, we vent to each other. If we don't, we'll go
mad.”

“
OK.”

He hugs and kisses me again, and we begin eating the
delicious fish I caught earlier. He thanks me for it, tells me it's
the best fish we've had since we arrived here, and slowly he begins
to open up to me again.

“
Everyday, on my birthday, I'd spend time with my
family,” he starts, the fire reflecting in his eyes. “That was
always the case with us. Birthday time was family time, always. Last
year, when my dad died, that made me head of the family. I'm meant to
be there to look after my mother, my sister...and now...”

His eyes begin to shine, tears threatening to fall.

“
Now they've lost me too. Now it's just them, and me
and my dad are gone.”

I move toward him and wrap my arms around him.

“
I just...I'm supposed to take care of them, Lib. And
I can't do that while I'm stuck here.”

“
I understand.”

His words make me turn inward, make me look at my own
family, my own life. But I can't find the same notes, because I don't
have any family anymore. I was an only child, and my parents died
when I was young.

For me, Flint has become the only family I've got. And
I'd do anything to make him feel better.

“
So, maybe we should try to get back to them?” I ask
tentatively, bringing up the subject we haven't covered in a while.

He shakes his head, disheartened by the emotion inside
him.

“
We'd never make it. It would be suicide.”

“
You don't know that...”

“
I do. We don't have any rope to build a raft anyway.”

“
We have vines, they might work.”

“
Maybe to hold the thing together, but not in any sort
of rough weather. There are sharks out there, Lib, currents we don't
know about. Storms come all the time, you know that. I won't take
that risk with your life. You mean too much to me.”

“
And you me.”

It's the same every time, the same conversation, the
same outcome. Flint, as much as he'd like to get home, to try to
brave the sea, is a practical man. The odds, he knows, are far too
low to take the gamble.

And now we're too linked together. We care about each
other too much to risk death. Not death for ourselves, but death for
the person we've grown to care so deeply for.

And for me, I'd rather stay here with the man I've
fallen in love with, the two of us in this lonely island paradise.

Forever.

Chapter Three

Several more weeks pass, and I begin to go to Flint's
tree each day with him to mark it. For several days after his
birthday, Flint seems a little withdrawn, and I begin to think that
he's probably trying to figure out another way of getting off this
rock.

He spends a lot of time in the jungle, gathering vines,
testing their durability, trying to find some suitable logs to lash
together.

He begins experimenting with the metal sheet from the
plane that brought us here. I suppose his thinking is that if the
thing could carry us here, why not elsewhere.

So, despite telling me it couldn't be done, he begins to
explore the options anyway. Perhaps just to keep busy, perhaps
something more. But either way, gradually his spirits lift and he
returns to his old self, his focus turning to more positive things.

I'm grateful that one of them is me.

He seems more playful again, as if a load has been
lifted from his mind, and we begin to turn to each other again for
pleasure.

We make love often, having sex under the stars, in the
sea, anywhere and everywhere our whims take us. We walk around the
island sometimes, holding hands, naked as the day we were born, like
two people who have never known the outside world. Like Adam and Eve
before they learned of their shame.

Our beach becomes a nudist beach, and the sight of my
body, dripping from an early swim in the ocean each morning, is
enough to send him off.

He catches me, sometimes, in the sea before I come out.
His hands run all over me, we kiss passionately, and he quickly
slides two digits inside me beneath the surf. I groan and shriek and
make as much noise as I please, with only the fish and the birds to
disturb.

Each time he comes, however, he pulls out of me, our
only rudimentary method of contraception. We know the dangers that I
could get pregnant, and the impact that would have on our little
lives, but our lust often grows to a point where we can't help
ourselves.

Thankfully, as the weeks go by, I see no signs of
impregnation, and we continue to fuck night after night, day after
day, without any true heed of the possible repercussions.

Flint continues to experiment, and I begin to pick up
the household duties, such as they are. I hunt and cook and maintain
the fire, while he explores and tries to figure out any new method of
building us an escape vehicle.

Unfortunately, suitable logs and lashings seem to be
sparse, and he begins to concede that building the sort of raft he
thinks could get us somewhere is impossible.

“
Perhaps we could float around for a while, but we'd
be at the mercy of the sea,” he tells me over another fish and
coconut dinner. “If we were to do this, I'd have to make sure we
give us our best shot. I'm not going to risk your life unless I'm
sure we might get somewhere.”

His caring for me is so touching, and I show him that
night be pleasuring in a way he's never been pleasured. I lick and
suck and stroke until he explodes all over me, tying his hands up
with some vines, making sure that he has no control at all.

The next day, he enlists my help in testing out the
raft. Over the previous few days, he'd managed to lash on a few logs
around the edges of the metal sheet from the plane, the window pane
in the center providing a way of looking at the ocean beneath us.

With our combined strength, we drag the raft to the edge
of the sea, slide it into the calm waters, and climb on top. It's
stable, if not completely balanced, and we float about for a while
using some paddles he's fashioned from layers of palm leaves.

The experiment, in my mind at least, goes OK, but he's
not convinced at all.

“
That would never do. As soon as any wave hit us we'd
be turned over and be fish food for the sharks.”

Over the next few days, he seems to spend even more time
thinking, obsessing over the raft and how to improve it. He continues
to lash more wood to it, and we try again, but once more it fails to
impress him.

Gradually, his entire world begins to revolve around it.
What was once a flight of fancy, a means of keeping busy, has now
merged into a fully fledged obsession.

And all the while, I keep up with my day to day chores,
acting the wife to his crazy inventor, his rugged beard and long dark
hair now giving him the appearance of a caveman.

But I still support him, knowing that if he wasn't doing
this, he'd end up losing himself again. But all the while, I secretly
hope that the raft continues to flounder. That he's unable to satisfy
his strict criteria.

Because, really, I'm scared to leave this island. I'm
scared to go floating about on the open ocean, not knowing if or when
we'd be found. Scared of falling asleep and into the water, drowning
as Flint sleeps next to me. Or getting attacked by sharks or torn
apart by the sort of raging storm we've seen several times before.

In my mind, I have all I need right here. Food, water,
shelter, and a man I love. Over the many months, I've grown
accustomed to my little shack, my routine. Perhaps even getting
pregnant wouldn't be such a bad thing. We could start a family here,
away from it all, away from everything...

As the thought crosses my mind, and I give it even the
slightest bit of consideration, I realize that perhaps I'm the one
losing it. I could never have a child here, away from medical
attention. I could die, and so could the baby, with nothing but fish
and coconut here to live on.

The thought is ludicrous, and the fact that it even
entered my head shows me that my own mind has been twisted by our
solitude here. Clearly, Flint has already had his eureka moment on
his birthday, a day when he realized that if we didn't at least try
to do something, we'd both fade into nothingness here. And no one
would ever know.

The next day, I wake with a renewed desire to help
Flint, to tell him we need to get out of here. That, even if it
means, dying, we have to try.

He smiles, and kisses me, as if it's what he's been
waiting to hear me say all along, and I begin to help him in his
task. And with the two of us working together in unison, we begin to
make some ground.

Slowly, surely, as the weeks go by, we create a more
stable raft, one that might just withstand the weather and get us off
this rock that's become our prison for good.

And that's when disaster happens.

Just when we're making progress. Just when it looks like
we might have some hope, it's all dashed in front of our eyes.

In the jungle, climbing a tree to gather some fresh
vines to use as rope, Flint slips, and falls, and comes crumpling to
the ground.

I hear the thud, and the scream, from out on the beach,
and run like my life depended on it. Because maybe it will.

And when I enter the tangled jungle I find Flint there,
eyes wide with pain, mouth gaping with anguish, roars of agony
echoing around the island.

Through his right leg, a bone protrudes, and blood
gushes. I rush in, and remove my shirt, and tie it around his leg as
a tourniquet.

But I know, in that very moment, that Flint will never
leave this island. And if he doesn't, then neither will I.

Chapter Four

I dab a cold rag at Flint's head, his fever rising as
his body fights against the pain. His leg has stopped bleeding, but
there's nothing I can do about the bone, jutting out of his flesh,
snapped in two inside in lower leg.

“
I'll get the raft in the water,” I say. “We need
to try...”

He's shaking his head, grimacing through the agony.

“
There's no point, Lib. We have no stocks of food, no
water. We haven't prepared anything for more than a day or two at
sea. It would be suicide.”

“
Well, we have to try! What else can we do?!”

He takes a breath, his face contorting once more as a
wave of pain rushes through him. Then a strange calm comes over him,
his features relaxing, his head seeming to clear.

“
I'm going to die here, Lib. Nothing can change that
now...”

“
No, you're not...”

He takes my hand and squeezes it hard.

“
I'm not going anywhere. My leg will get infected,
I'll die of blood poisoning or something. But you can try. Promise
me, if I die, you'll try to get off this rock.”

“
You're not going to die!” I shout, almost angry at
his resignation. “We can go, right now, and take our chances. I'd
rather die with you than watch you die here and be alone.”

He reaches to my face and holds his palm to my cheek.

“
Be realistic, Lib. The raft isn't even finished yet.
And there are no stocks. It will take at least another week to
prepare, and even then, the odds are short.”

Now it's me who takes his hand, who grips it tight and
stares deep into his eyes.

“
I'm not going to leave you here, and you're not
giving up. I'll work day and night to get things ready if I have to,
but we're trying our luck out there, OK.”

The firmness of my voice, the intensity in my face, is
enough to shut him up. He nods, and lies back, and that grimace
returns to his face.

I won't let him die here, and I won't be left
alone...

It's already starting to get late when I begin creating
a splint for his lower leg, lashing together two suitable pieces of
wood and fixing them in place. He howls when I tighten the knots, and
I see the jagged bone move in his flesh, the pain growing too intense
to the point where he almost passes out.

That night, he tosses and turns with a high fever, and I
spend the entire night awake, wetting a piece of rag and placing it
on his forehead. His body begins to burn, the fever quickly taking
hold, and a fear grows in me that without any antibiotics and in this
intense heat, his wound will quickly develop into something more than
a broken leg.