Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Ace holds me while I shatter, his hands not letting up, coaxing every last ounce of pleasure until I am empty and exhausted in his arms. “Fuck,” he hisses against my mouth. “You’re so fuckin’ hot.”
I come down slow, breathing hard. Ace kisses my temple, my eyelid, my jaw. “You good?” he asks, voice low.
I nod. “Never been better, but what about you?”
His cock is still angry between us.
He grins, “Right now, the only thing I needed to feel was you coming apart in my hand.” He slides his fingers free, then brings them to his mouth, like a fucking animal, and sucks them clean, eyes burning on mine. “That’s the taste I want falling asleep tonight.”
It is so much, so intense and sexy, that I have to look away or I’ll throw caution to the wind. I just hold onto him, feeling every rapid beat of his heart through his chest.
“How long do you think it’ll take before we fix that boat?” I murmur at last, because if I don’t change the subject, I might crawl out of my own skin.
“However long it takes,” Ace says, rubbing his nose against my cheek. “We’ve got time. Just gotta stay alive long enough to get out of here.”
I nod. I know how I want to pass the time.
Right here with him.
My nerve endings are all on fire when we break apart. I swim to the side and haul myself up onto a sun-warmed rock at the edge of the pool. Ace climbs out beside me and starts filling some water containers. Kellen arrives only minutes later, an arm full of items from the boat. He throws them down next to me, winks and then dives into the water.
I reach for the pile of pans and utensils. They are filthy, but it is so much more than we have already and we can do so much with them. Water suddenly becomes easier to boil, in this big iron kettle. We have only had one small steel bottle that we have been boiling it in, and it takes hours and slowly, the bottle is breaking down. This has saved so much.
“We should hunt for some animals,” I say to Ace when he joins me. “Maybe we can find other things to eat.”
“Yeah, I was thinkin’ that today. There are knives here that we can use, that we never had before. It will make everything easier.”
My chest expands.
For the first time, the hope feels real.
When we’re done, we go back to camp and cook a fish on the pan over the fire. As the stars come out, we sit together on the sand, our backs against the warm rock, and I let myself lean into him, just a little. I let myself wonder what it would be like to be with a man like Ace, and how good it would feel to experience being this safe with someone. I let myself think we might actually get out of here, together.
It is not the end, I realize.
Not yet.
13
“OH MY GOSH, LOOK AT this,” I say, hauling a bag from the boat out onto the deck.
The guys managed to use some rope they found inside the boat to tie to a tree and haul it back into the correct position. Then, we left it for two days for the smell to leave. Even now, it lingers, a stark reminder of what happened here. We moved it as far away from the site we found it as possible, but the boat is big and we’re not able to pull it far.
Still, at least now we can look through it.
“What is it?” Aggie asks, scooping up wet, moldy blankets that she very much plans to wash and use.
“It’s like a safety bag, what do you call those?”
I hold up a large waterproof bag that is full and sealed. A lot of boat owners have them, in case they become shipwrecked. It has essentials they can take onto their life raft if they end up going down. I don’t know what’s inside this one, but it reads clearly what it is. The red bag is heavy, and I’m excited to see what’s inside.
“Like a shipwreck bag?” Aggie raises her brows.
Tatiana, who is going through a cupboard that has sprung open and sent contents everywhere, looks up. “Oh, that could have some good stuff in it.”
She’s right, it could.
I sit on the moldy, wet floor of the boat and open it.
What I find is definitely going to help us moving forward and I can’t help the little whoop of joy that leaves my throat as I look through. The bag contains so many essentials that we don't have, or forgot to pack when we were putting our ‘shipwreck’ items in the lifeboats. My hands shake with excitement as I pull out item after item. Aggie and Tatiana have joined me, their excitement too great.