Savage (4 page)

“
N
ext time
you get bitten by a shark, don’t go back into the ocean after it. Okay?” I lifted an eyebrow as I continued to wash his bite with fresh water. He hadn’t so much as flinched or grimaced once as I tended to his wound after I’d finally managed to get him out of the water.

“And next time a reef shark comes swimming around wanting the fish you just speared, give it to the shark.” There was an edge of humor in his voice. It seemed funny I could already pick up on that since I’d only learned he could talk a whole hour ago. “And, by the way, you shouldn’t have even been out spear fishing by yourself.”

I smiled at him as I soaked a piece of torn fabric from my lab coat back into the bowl of water. “Listen, I know we’ve been a bit preoccupied tending to shark bites and roasting said shark on a spit”—I eyed the crackling fire and the giant fish skewered above it, sizzling as it cooked—“but I don’t want to forget to bring up this thing about you talking. In words and everything.”

As if reminded of it, he turned the shark over the fire.

In the end, it had only been a four-foot reef shark—hardly a man-eater—but it had tried to take a chunk of his calf flesh. When Tarzan had appeared out of the water a few minutes later, dragging a shark with his spear driven through its head, my jaw had almost hit the sand. Who just dove into the ocean with a shark that had already taken a chunk out of him, then wrestled it to the death and dragged it out like it was no big deal?

“It was hearing your scream, I think,” he said, staring into the fire. “Everything just came crashing back when I heard you scream. Bits and pieces have been coming back ever since you arrived, but it was all still kind of foggy, just out of reach.”

It was so strange to hear him speak. So odd to hear the inflection in his voice and the tenor in his tone. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed conversation until right now, having it here on this beach while I tended to a shark bite.

What a day.

“What happened? Did you just stop talking one day? Or did you wake up one morning like that?”

He lifted his broad shoulders. “At first, I talked to everything. The hermit crabs, the birds, even the trees. I talked because it was the last part of my old self I felt I still had. After a while though, having nothing ever talk back, I eventually just stopped speaking at all. The words were still in my head, but that’s where they stayed.” He sat up to inspect what I was doing, giving me a look as I continued to wash his leg.

“You don’t want it getting infected,” I said, answering his silent accusation.

“It’s not going to get infected.”

I nodded, dipping the cloth back into the water then wringing it out. “I know. That’s exactly what I’m making sure of.”

He exhaled through his nose but let me keep working. At first, me touching him had seemed to make him uncomfortable, but he’d eventually settled into it. For as little of a problem as he had with touching me, it was odd how difficult it was for him to let me touch him.

“Then one day I was climbing one of those papaya trees and I got sloppy, lost my footing, and fell. I haven’t spoken since.”

“Concussion?” I guessed.

“Well if the fall to the ground didn’t do it, the papaya I’d been cutting that crashed into my temple did it.” Turning his head, he slid some of his hair away to reveal a white scar stretched across his temple.

“How long ago was that?” I traced the scar with my thumb, which made him clamp his jaw, almost like I was hurting him. I pulled my hand away—he was clearly uncomfortable with me touching him in new places, and I didn’t want to overwhelm him.

“I don’t know for sure, but probably close to two years ago.” He exhaled slowly when I got back to working on his calf.

My eyes cut to his. “You haven’t spoken in two years?” When he shook his head, I sat back, reeling. “How long have you been on this island?”

He stared into the fire again, a contemplative look on his face. “My best estimation is between five to six years.” His forehead creased deeper. “Maybe longer.”

My stomach dropped when I realized how long he’d been alone. My time on the island had been a blink of an eye in comparison, but I’d had a companion to help me survive and to pass the long days with. He’d had no one. He’d had to figure out everything on his own, without so much as a living soul to exchange a word with.

My heart ached for him.

“How did you do it?” I whispered.

He tossed another stick on the fire. God, he’d even had to figure out how to make a fire on his own, without those nifty modern devices known as newspaper, a match, and lighter fluid.

“Lucky for me, I made it to Eagle Scout by the time I was fourteen.” He peered over at me, smiling.

“I don’t know if I’d call anything about this lucky.” I got back to cleaning his leg, but more as a distraction now. I’d have to bandage it eventually, but I was stalling as I tried to figure out what to bandage it with.

“Why not?” He paused a minute to let me reply. “Right here, right now, I’m surrounded by beauty, answer to no man, and get to experience the thrill of every day possibly being my last.”

My eyebrow cocked in his direction. “Right now you’re surrounded by a roasting shark that bit your leg, which I’m trying to keep from getting infected. What’s so beautiful about this?”

When his eyes turned to me, the flames from the fire were reflected in them. He held my stare for a moment then another. “You’re here.”

My heart stalled from his words, but it surged back to life from the look on his face. I’d spent my whole life hoping to find someone who’d look at me the way he was now—like I was the answer to all of the questions, the solution to all of the confusion, the end to all beginnings.

In his eyes, I saw my whole world.

“What’s your name?”

A smirk tugged at his beard. “My given name or the one you’ve so poetically bestowed upon me?”

Pulling my fingers from the cup of water, I flicked a few drops at his chest. “My, for someone who hasn’t said much for two years, you’re not seeming to having any issues picking it right back up.”

He chuckled, and it might have been the most perfect sound I’d ever heard. “Like riding a bike.”

“So? Given name? In case I want to holler it at you when you’re rushing back into the ocean after a killer shark?”

His eyes lifted at my exaggeration, and they landed on my lab coat, on the area right above the pocket. “I’ll give you two guesses.”

My forehead creased. At one point I’d wondered if this wild man had been a doctor in his other life, but that thought had long ago been abandoned. “No way.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Way.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling. Even after years separated from civilization, he could still remember random cliché phrases. “
Doctor
Grant Bridger?”

He held out his arms. “In the flesh and blood and scruff.” He gave his beard a tug.

“You were a doctor?”

“I
am
a doctor.”

My head shook as I worked to align that with what I already knew of him. “You’re a doctor? Really?”

“Now your skepticism is starting to hurt my feelings,” he teased, grabbing my wrist when I went to bring the wet cloth back to his leg. “And as a doctor, I’m letting you know that my leg will be just fine now. Thank you for your assistance.”

Twisting my wrist in his hand, I wound my fingers around his wrist and gave it a tug. I tried to ignore the heat I could feel igniting within me from his touch. I tried to ignore the way it spread through my body, settling into the pit of my stomach. “And as a nurse, I’m letting you know your leg will be just fine once I get it bandaged up. So, thank you,
Doctor,
for your input, but since you haven’t been practicing anywhere for five to six years, I’m going to run lead on this one.”

Despite his beard, I didn’t miss him fighting with a smile. Letting go of my wrists, he lifted his hands in a surrender type of way and leaned back into the sand on his elbows. “Be my guest,
Nurse
.” The way he said it made my spine tingle. “But what do you think you’re going to use to bandage my leg up with?”

He glanced at me with a victorious look, like he’d had the last say, but he didn’t know I was already two steps ahead of him. Taking the hem of the lab coat, I started tearing a ribbon of it off, lifting onto my knees as I continued to rip it around behind me.

“What are you doing?” He swallowed as he watched me finish ripping the strip off.

“Taking care of you.” I started to wind the material down his calf, making sure to wrap it tight enough it stayed in place without being too tight and cutting off circulation. Once I’d wound the first strip around, I started tearing off the next strip.

“That’s the only piece of clothing on this island,” he said, almost like a warning.

My shoulders lifted. “This last piece of clothing is about to become bandages then.” As I finished ripping off the second strip from the bottom of the coat, I realized that in one more strip, there’d really be no sense in keeping the thing on anymore. As it was, it was just barely hanging low enough to cover my pussy. One more strip would change that. “You’ll just have to teach me how to make one of those fashionable loin cloth things.” I swallowed when I realized I had more to cover than a man. “Or three,” I added. “I’ve been wanting to work on my tan anyway.”

I couldn’t make eye contact with him as I wrapped the second strip into place, but he seemed to have no problem looking at me. Touching him like this, taking care of him, having a conversation, sharing a laugh—I’d already felt deeply attracted to him, and this new element of our relationship was making it that much more intense.

He’d charged like some eternal hero into the ocean to protect me and emerged from it like some Greek god with a shark on the end of his spear. He’d saved my life in too many ways to count, and he’d saved me in other ways too. As savage and wild as he seemed, there was so much more beneath all of that. There was a man beneath that wild layer. A good, educated, decent man beneath the surface layer of savagery.

Everything about him drew me in. I wondered if in any fraction of a way, I did the same for him.

“Don’t,” he rasped when my fingers moved back to the frayed hem of the coat.

“Why not?” I asked, the first rip piercing the quiet night.

“Because I can’t promise you I’ll be able to control what happens next.” His throat bobbed, his eyes narrowing as he watched me rip another piece of material free.

I was sitting down enough on my legs that nothing was exposed yet, but I couldn’t stay this way forever. Eventually I’d have to shift or get up or move, so after winding the third ribbon of fabric down to his ankle, my hands moved to the top button of the coat.

“I don’t want you to control what happens next,” I said, slipping the first button free. “I don’t want you to control yourself around me any longer. I don’t want the educated, civilized man I know now you are.” My fingers weren’t trembling any longer as I undid the second button. “I want the savage, uncivilized man who saved me from the ocean and grunted
mine
into my ear.”

His face suddenly went from tortured to something else. Almost as if something had just hit him. “That wasn’t the right word.”

My head tipped. “You didn’t mean mine?”

His hand reached for mine, stilling it as my fingers moved to the next button. “No. I didn’t mean it as in you belong to me. But as in
I
belong to
you.”

My mind wandered back to all of the times I’d heard him utter that lone word.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
All this time, I thought he’d meant one thing when, in fact, he’d meant the total opposite.

“
Yours
? Is that what you meant?”

His other hand rose, covering his chest as he leaned in closer. “Yours.” Letting go of my hand, he lifted his hand to slide my hair behind my ear. “Yours,” he repeated in a whisper, moving closer until I could feel his breath against my cheek.

My heart was hammering as I tilted my head so my mouth was outside of his ear, my hand undoing the last few buttons of the coat.

“Yours,” I breathed, settling my hand on his chest.

His muscles quivered below my hand, but he didn’t back away. His chest moved faster as my fingers curled into him, but he didn’t move my hand away. I gave him a moment to adjust to my touch before lowering my next hand into place. This touch made him jerk, a slow breath hissing from his teeth.

“Make love to me,” I whispered, slowly wrapping one finger at a time around his erection straining through his loincloth. It was the first time he’d let me touch him like this, and feeling his arousal in my palm spurred my own into uncharted territory until I was consumed by my need.

His head fell back when I stroked him. “Right now, after everything”—he spoke as though each word were a chore to utter, his forehead creasing deeper with every slide of my hand—“I couldn’t make love to you the way a woman like you deserves.”

Instead of disappointing me, the prospect of the alternative made my need grow. “Why not?”

His arms fell back, his hands curling into the sand like he was trying to get a good grip as my touch became stronger. “I’ve been alone for years . . .” He thrust his hips when I circled his head with my pinkie. “I’ve been fantasizing about you for weeks . . . I couldn’t make love to you the way you mean.”

I needed to feel him, flesh to flesh—I needed to feel his steel sliding against the soft flesh of my palm. Working the ties of his loincloth free as quickly as I could, I let it fall to the sand, exposing his body for my viewing and touching pleasure.

“Then what would you do to me?” My teeth sank into my lip as my eyes dropped to his manhood. Everything about him was large and male. Every part of him made me feel sick with want. “What have you been fantasizing about?”

Unable to stare without touching any longer, I moved my hand back to his straining cock, drawing a moan from both of us.

“I’ve lived as a savage for years. I’ve lived an existence more animal than human. That’s the way I want to take you.” His eyes clamped closed as I stroked him. “I want to throw you onto all fours, shove between your legs, and fuck you until you can’t walk. I want to come inside you until I can’t come anymore and every last seed in my body is swimming in yours. I want to mate with you. I want to breed you. I want to mount you and make you scream my name while I take your body again, and again”—something dark flashed in his eyes when they opened, his cock throbbing in my hand—“and again.”