Withering Hope (21 page)

"You're not wearing your ring."

"No… I don't feel the need to wear it anymore."

He raises his eyes to mine. Slowly—as if he doesn't dare to believe what I said.

"Do you mean that?" he asks in a low voice.

I nod, not quite able to say the words out loud. But there's no sense denying this. There are many things you can hide in the rainforest. But not lies. Or love.

I lean in and kiss him.

H
is lips part in surprise, but then his mouth settles over mine in a soft kiss. Before long, the heat that only he can stir to life starts building inside me. I deepen the kiss with urgency, both my hands darting at the crook of his neck.

"Slow down, Aimee," he says, gasping for breath, "why are you in so much of a rush?"

I bite my lip, ashamed. "I thought you liked it this way."

"I love it." He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. "But I don't want to rush this today. Last night, I didn't have enough self-restraint to give myself to you and make love to you the way you deserve."

I frown in confusion. "And which way is that?"

"Completely."

My breath stumbles as I climb in his lap, hitching my legs around his waist. Tristan unbuttons my shirt with exquisite slowness, placing a kiss on my skin after he pops each button open. I revel in the feeling; the brush of his lips on my skin sending hot and cold shivers down my spine, prompting a painful ache deep down in my body.

"I meant to ask you, what's this?" He points to the scratch on my shoulder. The one I got by running into the spine bush outside the fence at the entrance. The scratch is just as black as it was when I got it.

"Yesterday I scratched myself with some of those spines I planted near the entrance. The black doesn't wash off. Will it be permanent?"

"I doubt it." He resumes taking off my shirt. My job is easier, since he has no shirt on. I take in the rippled muscles of his stomach, the strong, hard-as-steel shoulders, and after I yank down his pants, I delight in his muscled legs. He lays me on my back, stripping me and then covering my body in kisses.

"I want to memorize every single part of your body," he says in a breathy voice as he feasts on my inner thighs and then the valley between my breasts. Each kiss fuels the passion brewing between my thighs, pushing me further down the slope of consuming need.

When I can't tolerate the ache anymore, I pull him to me, kissing him, and rocking my hips against his. He plunges inside me, filling me, ripping whimper after whimper out of me. His mouth dusts my arms, calling my name in deep, guttural sounds that unhinge me. He increases the pace of his moves, thrusting so deep my thighs wobble. Eagerness swirls up inside me as wave after wave of pleasure engulf me, my body surging forward when my release shatters me.

We lie in each other's arms for a long time afterward. I trace my fingers along the expanse of his chest while he plays with my hair.

"You didn't sleep well last night," Tristan says.

"I had bad dreams. But you didn't have any."

"No. They tend to stay away when I'm with you. I was searching for peace in my nightmares. But when I'm with you, I don't have to search for anything. I already have everything. I feel whole.” I catch my breath as he continues. “I need you in a way I never thought I could need anything. It's like air. You don't notice how much you need it until you don't have it. I love you, Aimee. For being selfless and giving me your strength. For giving me the things I never knew I needed. If there's something I learned in war, it's that no one is unimportant. Every person means the world to someone. That makes us vulnerable, but it also makes life a gift. I had no one who could give me that gift. Now I do."

When you find the person who sees you clearer than you see yourself, you know you've found true love. "I love you too," I whisper.

"Can I tell you something very selfish?" he asks.

"Can't wait to hear it."

"A small part of me wishes we could stay here forever."

"How can you say that?" I snap my head up, raising my eyebrows.

He takes a deep breath, cupping my cheek with his hand, his thumb caressing my lips. "Because I've found something here I’ve never had before. Hope. You gave it to me. And I have you here. You’re more than I’ve ever had, and more than I'll ever wish for." He stops, as if what he planned to say next is too painful to express. But I don't pull my eyes away from him. "If we go back, things will be like they were before… and I can't bear losing you."

"Nothing will be the same as before," I say, sitting up, affronted. "You think I’ll go back to Chris? Marry him? Of course I won't." His eyes search me, doubt reflected in them. "You're not the only one who found hope here, Tristan." He pulls me into a long, heartfelt kiss and doesn't let go until my stomach growls, reminding both of us that my meltdown and our lovemaking kept us away from food.

"We'd better go search for some fruit," I say, pushing him away. "Unless you can shoot something with your hurt arms."

"I might."

As we both dress I say, "I still want us to be found. Even if it means facing Chris and telling him everything."

"How do you imagine he’ll take it?" he asks in a clipped tone.

"He’ll forgive us." Chris has always been that kind of person. Which makes hurting him so much crueller. "I am not sure if I was truly in love with him," I whisper, voicing the doubts that have plagued me since I first acknowledged Tristan’s effect on me. "I cared about him a lot. I still do. But… what I feel for you is so intense, so different… I've never felt that way about him." I never had with him the kind of connection I have with Tristan, one that runs so deep, it seems to run through my veins. Chris didn’t understand me in that profound way Tristan does, even when I thoroughly explained things to him, like how I feel about my parents. Tristan understands with just a few words, and sometimes, with no words at all.

Tristan's expression brightens and I realize this is something that has weighed on him a lot.

"That was a common theme among the employees at the Moore’s mansion," he says as we exit the plane.

"What was?"

"That the two of you seemed more like best friends; you lacked a spark."

I groan. "How would you know what the employees at the mansion said? You work for Chris, not his parents."

He raises an eyebrow. "I drove you to the mansion on a number of occasions, and waited for you there until you were ready to go. That gave Maggie and the rest of the staff plenty of time to fill me in on… things."

"People talked about us?"

"Yeah… Maggie said she always thought of you as siblings, didn't expect the two of you to be a couple."

"I wish Maggie had told me that." Many people told me that, but Maggie is someone I listen to, having raised Chris and me. I wonder if she ever told Chris. I wonder if he had second thoughts about us when his friends told him what my friends told me: that we seem to love each other like a brother and sister. And most of all I wonder if, in the months I've been gone, he may have found someone else.

I pray that he did.

"Plenty of birds flying around." I point to the sky as Tristan flexes the string of the bow, indicating that he can shoot. Shy sunrays garland the trees, making the green appear so vivid it ricochets from the shiny texture. Tatters of light hang on the lower branches, guiding our steps as we venture outside. "Won't have to wait long for our meal. Use your perfect aim on one of those unsuspecting birds, and then while I cook it, you can get rid of the jaguar body."

Tristan grins, looking up at the multitude of birds. "Guess we're lucky today."

B
ut the last of our luck evaporates less than two weeks later. Weeks in which we fall blissfully into each other's arms every night. I love him with a scintillating intensity that grows every day. I never knew love could be like this. But I suppose this only happens when you connect at a level so deep and powerful it casts everything before it into meaninglessness. A connection built with spoken and unspoken words alike.

During these weeks, we fight the jungle during daylight. It seems more determined than ever to defeat us. Fresh holes appear in the fence every day, and our water baskets and wood supply are trashed each night—all signs the female jaguar has more than the one cub we killed. Judging by the paw prints, she has three others. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. The water has receded to a level where we can almost walk through it, and Tristan has started making serious plans about our trip into the wild in search of civilization. We stop our daily poem exchange. Survival requires our full attention. Every free minute we brainstorm about potential dangers on the trip back, and what we can do to prepare for them. We're practicing building basic shelters. We've been lucky with the plane, but when we leave, we'll have to build every night a shelter strong enough to keep us safe from beasts. We also try to collect as much animal fat as we can. Torches will be indispensable out there. At the same time, we double our efforts to secure the fence, and even set poison food traps for the jaguars, but they are too smart to touch them. We just need to fend them off for another few weeks, then we'll be ready to go.

However, our downfall doesn't come, as we feared, from the jaguars.

"You haven't eaten anything," I exclaim after I finish devouring my bird leg and two roots. I was starving today, and my portion hasn't done much to satisfy my hunger. I lean back, propping my elbows on the rough bark of the trunk that serves as our eating place. My muscles are sore from building shelter after shelter today. We've set a new record, building the simplest shelter in about ten minutes. It's an emergency shelter in case it rains unexpectedly. Tristan hasn't touched his food at all. He's staring at it as if the mere sight makes him sick.

"No, I'm not hungry."

"But we haven't eaten all day. You need your strength."

"I don't feel like eating. I guess I'm just exhausted. You can have my portion, you're still hungry."

He pushes his leaf plate in my direction. I catch his hand, and squeeze it. It feels cold and weak, and that scares me. "Go to sleep. I'll be next to you in a minute. You'll get better tomorrow." I watch him drag himself up the airstairs and inside the plane. I'm not hungry anymore.