Crimson Rapture (14 page)

He
pursued his pleasure relentlessly, skillfully pushing her passion to a breaking
point, savoring the swell of this sweet measure of desire, amazed by the
complete surrender of her small body to his demands.

He
finally came over her, brushing light kisses on her forehead. She was too lost
to be afraid anymore until he entered her with a long, hard thrust. Instantly
he stopped, startled by the tightness of her, the almost imperceptible burst,
and shocked by the sheer intensity of this, their first joining.

She
felt only a hot searing pain, and without a conscious thought, she had bit his
shoulder hard to stop her scream. Tears sprang in her eyes and, unable to stop
herself, she tried desperately to twist from him but he lifted and thrust himself
slowly into her, forcing her open to him.

"I
won't hurt you anymore, sweetheart," he whispered like a soft wind.
"Give yourself to me. Let me have you."

She
closed her eyes and he filled her, forcing the pain through her and away,
pulling completely from her before slipping back, filling her with a hot
searing warmth. With each slow movement her heart pounded, her breath and pulse
raced and, terrified by the intensity of it, she clung to him, desperately
trying to keep him to her.

Understanding
her fear and alarm, he gently forced her arms back and held her still.
"No, sweetheart," he said softly, "don't fight me. Not now. Let
it happen." The words coaxed her to almost relax and he then continued his
slow, steady thrusts. She felt that ache grow again, swelling to an
unimaginable height. Waves of desire washed through her and she felt a surge of
want; she wanted his lips, his weight, the full force of his ardor, and she
cried for him, her soft cries begging for what he was afraid to give her. But
when her slender hips began moving to meet him, his passion unexpectedly
pressed toward explosion. He thrust harder, hungrily, answering her impassioned
cries and suddenly her ache burst into violent ripples, flooding her mind,
body, and soul with ecstasy. Seeing, feeling the intensity of what seized her
was all it took for his passion to explode and with a force he had never known
before.

She
was vaguely aware of him sliding off her, of his hands reaching under her arms,
pulling her back to him. He held her tight and she lay perfectly still,
surrounded in the warm afterglow of their lovemaking. She gradually became
aware of the swift steady beat of his heart, the rhythm of his breathing and
the tender and soothing stroking of his hand through her damp hair.

She
felt joined to him in a way she had never thought possible, and the warmth of
his closeness consumed her; it was both physical and emotional, intense and
complete. But with it came a sadness, swelling and swelling from deep inside
her. He had forced her to love him and it was over. The beginning was her end,
for she knew even then that her love would bring no peace.

Lost
to his own emotions, Justin felt her slender figure shake softly with silent
tears—a virgin's tears— and his arms tightened around her. He could only wonder
at the passion hidden in her innocence, a passion meeting his own. His lips
brushed against her forehead and he could not stop touching her, even after she
finally lay still in his arms, asleep.

Once
would never be enough with her and sometime in the midst of the dark night, a
dream intruded on her sleep. He was touching her again, kissing her again,
slowly igniting a warm fire in her. She woke on the very real shores of her
dream.

"I
want you again" was all he said, all he had to say to start the fires of
her love. He had claimed her. She was owned and possessed and that—not her
love—was, and she thought would always be, against her will.

It
was yet another hot tropical day. A hot sun filtered through patches of
billowing cotton clouds and, like a large quilt, the overcast sky trapped the
heat over the island. A light breeze felt like bursts of warm breath and
Christina, sitting in pleasant shade on the edge of the forest with Cajun, kept
interrupting his teaching to wipe the small beads of perspiration from her
brow, then cast an anxious look out to sea.

Seeming
to know everything, Cajun was teaching her the fine art of basket-weaving.
After he had demonstrated the pattern a few times, she watched long nimble
fingers expertly weave long strips of near-dried leaves. He might have been an
old woman who had spent her life weaving baskets to sell in a village
marketplace. She quickly caught on.

They
worked in companionable silence for some time and soon Christina found her own
fingers flying through the work as though operating of their own volition. She
stopped only to swat the bothersome mosquitoes. After two weeks on the island,
they had discovered the roughly ten-square-mile sprout of green that was their
home was in fact deserted and the only beings that thrived on the island were
insects. All kinds of insects lived here and in troublesome numbers, some of
which were too horrible to have appeared in her worst nightmare. Some were even
as large as small rodents.

Despite
this, Christina's first impression of the island remained. It was like the
Garden of Eden—an exotic paradise—and the sea and land supplied a never-ending
abundance of food. Life had fallen into a strangely comfortable pattern here
too. Elsie, Hanna, and Christina spent most of the day gathering and preparing
food and tending to those not yet well—Marianna and Diego Santiago. The men
left each morning in the lifeboat for a day's work to retrieve supplies from
the sunken ship and returned in the afternoon to fish and hunt the two or three
species of birds that they had found edible.

It
seemed there was a natural rhythm to their life. It was as though the situation
unleashed some long-ago-forgotten instincts and way of being. Cajun once
commented that human beings were meant to live as they did and she thought this
must be true, for she sometimes felt that she had been separated from
Hollingsborne, England, and civilization for many years, instead of the mere
handful of months.

Which
was not to say the small group of survivors lived in perfect harmony; they
didn't. The situation also seemed to unleash a certain savagery among the men.
Arguments and even fights were not uncommon. Needless to say, Justin's men were
not the type of gentlemen a young lady such as herself would likely meet in a
drawing room in England. Justin himself was no exception, though Cajun said
Justin's strength and harshness in relation to his men was necessary to keep
order and "to protect what can not be shared." While she chose not to
think of this, she had some idea of what he meant. It was the reason she was
never but never left alone. If Cajun or Jacob were not at her side, then Justin
was there.

Hanna
and Elsie returned carrying the evening's supply of fruits and melons in a
blanket and Christina was just about to laugh at the rather ribald song they
sang when she caught sight of the lifeboat coming in. She jumped to her feet
and chewed her lip nervously as she watched the slow progress.

Frightened,
she clasped her hands together, not knowing what else to do. It was so unfair!
Jacob would never force Hanna, nor Eric, Elsie. She had tried pleading with
Justin but he had just laughed and promised she would learn to enjoy it, that
she would eventually find pleasure in it like him! Pleasure!

"Oh,
Cajun, what can I do?"

Cajun
both knew and understood her fear. "Submit." He smiled. "You
cannot fight him."

Submit...
"No," she vowed in a whisper. "I won't... I can't." She
looked into the darkness that was the forest and suddenly preferred meeting
those awful spiders to Justin. "Tell him I'm hiding in the forest and that
I'll not come out until he promises to leave me be!"

Before
Cajun could advise against such a measure, Christina turned and disappeared
down the narrow jungle path. After their two weeks on the island, the path
running alongside the stream was considerably wider and Christina reached the
waterfall pool quickly. But this was the last place she wanted to be. She ran
through a small clearing to take up an even narrower path on the opposite side.
The men used the path for hunting. It paralleled the ocean for a bit, then
gradually led through the denser jungle of the interior.

She
could not run. She had to walk to clear the vines and growth from her way. The
jungle sounds were no louder than the pounding of her heart. Excitement pushed
a faster pace. Flushed and breathless, she began looking for a place to hide.

A
fat-leafed tree, with an accessibly wide trunk that slanted slightly for an
easy climb, stood off to the side. She suddenly smiled at the thought of how
many unexpected survival skills she was accumulating: gathering wild fruits,
catching seafood, preparing and cooking it over an open fire, making coconut
oil and juices, baskets and the like, and now climbing trees.

She
wondered again what her father would think.

With
the easy agility of a monkey, she scrambled up the trunk and climbed past the
first branch to the second. It was more hidden from the ground. She assumed a
nearly comfortable position on the branch and leaned against the trunk to wait.

Thus
comfortably—and safely, she thought— seated and listening to the exotic bird
calls of the jungle, she continued her train of thought. It was odd, and
certainly unexpected, how quickly she had become accustomed to the island's way
of life. Civilization invited unfavorable comparisons to this new life on the
island too.

Would
any drink ever taste as sweet as coconut milk? Would she ever be able to wear
corsets, layers of underclothes, those long, awkward dresses, and boots again?
All of which struck her as absurdly unnecessary now. Would she ever be able to
even hide from the warmth of the sun beneath a bonnet again? Would any bed—any
bed in all of England—feel as wonderful as lying on sweet-smelling moss beneath
a star-filled night, wrapped in the warmth of his arms?

She
better not think of that now...

Once
the thought surfaced, however, she could not stop it. She smiled to herself,
wondering what she had thought of love before Justin. What all proper young
English ladies knew: little to nothing. She had thought she'd be married, that
her husband would be gentle and considerate concerning those things she knew
nothing about. She had known he would kiss her but she never harbored so much
as an idea of what came after a kiss; her ignorance had been that great. And
even though she had read all the great romantic poets, she never knew love was
so... so passionate...

Justin
and his men saw the shore boat on shore and the prizes from this their last day
of retrieving safely up on the beach to dry. They had met with considerable
luck. Jacob, Samuel, and himself had finally managed to secure the ropes around
Christina's trunk, a stunt that had required dozens of forty-foot free dives to
complete. Then, on the last dive, he caught a small glimmer of gold at the bottom
of the wreckage...

After
shouting a last order to his men, Justin made his way to Cajun, followed always
by his dog. He passed the two wood tents that housed Marianna and Diego and
stopped to look inside. The woman had remained in the same state of shock since
the storm; she remained perfectly still, staring blankly into space, unable to
respond to anything or anyone. Sometimes she sat up and rocked and it seemed if
they let her, she would remain in that position indefinitely.

With
remarkable persistence, Christina cared for Marianna day in and day out. She
refused to believe Cajun, who thought Marianna's spirit had abandoned her body.
She kept her clean and fed, she talked to her, and, twice daily, solicited his
help in making her walk. Christina was, he had learned, the eternal optimist.

Justin
glanced in on Diego and, as each day, he stared in pained horror at the
transformation of his much-loved friend. His mind quickly helped his heart and
substituted memory for the reality. Where Diego's emaciated form lay frail and
weak from fighting that hellish pain, where his face was pale and bruised from
Cajun's merciful blows, Justin saw Diego as he once had been, strong and quick
and able, that devilishly handsome face, those dark shining eyes filled with laughter
and pleasure whether fighting or wenching, it didn't matter.

Justin
refused to believe fate was so capricious as to take Diego like this. Diego and
his laughter would return. And he would wait for this. No matter what the cost.

Christina
was not the only eternal optimist...

Justin
found Cajun sitting cross-legged in the cool shade and, after a quick glance
around, he saw that Christina was nowhere in sight.

"Where's
Christina?"

With
an amused grin, Cajun related Christina's message.

Now
Justin was torn between irritation and amusement. Irritation that he would have
to find her, amusement that she would try to defy him. It wouldn't have
happened just two weeks ago. She was changing and it was his single pleasure to
witness the shy young girl becoming the woman he loved.

Cajun,
watching the emotions on his friend's face, stopped his work to explain.
"She is hiding in a tree about half a mile down the hunting path off the
pond."