Surviving Raine Read online

  “Because it sliced me open and I didn’t die. Seems lucky to me.”

  She looked at me for a minute, and then her eyes flashed to my arm and back again.

  “Is that the big scar on your back?”

  I flinched.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s from that knife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “I cut myself shaving,” I sneered, then sighed. I really was just seriously tense. I wasn’t this much of a sarcastic dick under normal circumstances. Well, not quite this bad, anyway. “Somebody fucking cut me, what do you think?”

  “Did you need stitches?”

  I had to laugh at that one. I mean, it’s a seventeen inch scar – two inches across my right triceps, then the other fifteen continuing on across my back.

  “A hundred and twelve inside, just to hold the muscle together,” I said. “They stapled the skin – one hundred and forty-seven of those mothers.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “No, I’m quite the masochist, so I fucking loved it. Are you for real?”

  “I meant the staples. Did it hurt when they took them out?”

  “Of course it fucking hurt.” I shook my head in disbelief. “There were staples in my skin. A section of it got infected, too, so it was a lot of fun having them removed.”

  “What happened to the person who did it?”

  “Well, let’s see,” I started, using my most impressive sarcastic tone, “considering he cut me, and I ended up walking out with his knife, what the fuck do you think happened to him?”

  “Did he go to jail?”

  “He went to the fucking morgue.”

  “Are you just saying that to scare me?”

  “No,” I said, “I’m saying it to shut you up.”

  It worked for a little while at least. Her silence wasn’t helping though because I was still melting in the heat, agitated, annoyed, and wanting a drink about as bad as I wanted to jack off – and it was only the first day. I pretended to be absorbed in some of the survival instructions that were sealed in one of the pouches. Most of what it said was all common sense shit. If you didn’t already know at least as much as what they had written, you’d never get as far as finding the fucking instructions.

  Then she started in with the questions again.

  “Were you always a sailor?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I just bought The Oblation a couple years ago.”

  “What does that name mean?”

  “Oblation?” I clarified. She nodded. “It’s an offering, like, to God or something. Like communion. John Paul named it. He claimed we were offering ourselves to the sea or some such bullshit.”

  “What did you do before you started sailing?”

  Here was a topic best avoided.

  “Not much.”

  “You must have done something.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Well, you had to have done something to be able to buy your boat, right?”

  “It’s a ship. Or it was. Boats are small, and size fucking matters.”

  She gasped, looked down at her hands in her lap, and twisted her fingers around themselves nervously. Like my cock had fucking ears, it decided it needed to prove my point about size. I had to shift sideways to not be so noticeable. How the fuck was I going to survive with this annoying, smoking hot bitch that I simultaneously wanted to fuck and kill?

  I really, really needed to relax.

  “You had to have money for your ship then,” she finally said, all soft as the teeth marks in her full bottom lip began to fade. “Did you inherit it?”

  “No, I didn’t fucking inherit anything,” I said, stifling a laugh. “You have to have a family to inherit something from them.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

  She looked so repentant that I decided to at least give her a little something. It would be better than her starting to ask questions about my fucking family.

  “I was a fighter,” I said, not looking at her.

  “As in boxing?”

  “Something like that.”

  “My dad watched boxing all the time,” she mused. “Would he have seen you on television or anything?”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I said. I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t miss the past tense reference to her dad, and I wasn’t going to ask about him.

  “What happened to them?”

  “What happened to who?”

  “Your family.”

  Fucking hell if she didn’t end up going there anyway. I could feel all the muscles in my body tighten up. I didn’t talk about my past, not with fucking anybody. I didn’t even talk about that shit with John Paul, and he was there for a good part of it. My hands tightened into fists, and I closed my eyes for a second before I looked back at her.

  “You ask a lot of questions that aren’t any of your fucking business.”

  Instead of cowering like she had every other time I snapped at her, I saw her eyes go dark as she glared daggers at me and stuck her hands on her hips.

  “Did I commit some sort of major offense?” she snapped back at me.

  “I told you before,” I snapped back. “I’m fucking tense.”

  “Well, is there something I can do to help with that?” she asked, “or are you just going to yell at me all the time?”

  That was it. I couldn’t hold my temper back any longer.

  “Yeah, there is something you can do,” I said coldly, turning my glare at her. “Come here and blow me. That would probably ease a bit of my tension – especially if you swallow.”

  Yeah, I know. I couldn’t believe I said it either.

  The look in her eyes gave me the idea that – regardless of our size differences – I was in a shitload of trouble.

  I guess I really didn’t need relaxation after all.

  Chapter 3 - Salt

  I watched her eyes as they first widened and then narrowed. Her jaw tightened as she clenched her teeth together. Without taking her eyes from me, she moved herself onto her knees and slowly made her way over to me. If I was a total idiot who knew absolutely nothing about women, I might have been stupid enough to think she was going to take me up on my…um…offer. I wasn’t an idiot, and I knew exactly when someone was about to hit me.

  She crossed the four feet between us on her knees and stopped when she was directly in front of me. Then she hauled back and slapped me across the face. It actually stung a little.

  “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,” she snarled. “I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how much you know about survival, you do not talk to me like that. I haven’t done anything but try to help you, and you have done nothing but act like a complete and total jerk.”

  Without another word, she snatched the survival guide out of my hands and turned her back on me. Because I certainly could be a complete and total jerk, the next words jumped right out of my mouth before I had the chance to think better of it and stop them.

  “You don’t really think that hurt, do you?”

  She turned her head to the side and looked over her shoulder. I watched her glance over towards the opening to the raft right before she moved over towards it. She looked around for a moment and then grabbed the little water cup I had handed her earlier. She stuck her hand out of the opening, held the cup off the side, and then brought a cup of seawater back inside. I narrowed my eyes as she turned back to me, moved just a little closer, and threw the water at my face.

  “Fuck!”

  I closed my eyes fast enough for them not to be hit, but the salt water wormed its way over and into the recently stitched cut on my forehead and fucking burned. She tossed the cup at me, hitting me in the chest with it before it dropped into my lap.

  “Satisfied now?” she asked. “Or do you want me to come up with something more creative?”

  I glared at her and tried to both wipe the salt out of my wound and not touch it at the same time. I wasn’t particul
arly successful, so I glared at her again since I was good at that. She ignored me as she violently turned the pages of the little survival guide.

  There was definitely a part of me that wanted to crawl right over to the other side of the raft and strangle her. I wouldn’t do something like that, of course, and it wasn’t just because she was a chick – I didn’t give a shit about that. I’d hit women before and certainly done worse, but they were women who could compete with me physically and were expecting to be hit. I couldn’t go being violent on someone so…small. Then there was the part about me completely and totally deserving what she had done. I couldn’t really fault her for that.

  So I sat and seethed until I couldn’t seethe any more. I was fucking hungry and fucking thirsty and fucking bored. I couldn’t eat or drink because chances were I wouldn’t be able to keep it down come morning, and I couldn’t find any entertainment because the only person available to talk to had commandeered the only piece of material with writing on it that I could have read.

  Fuck it all.

  Just in case it wasn’t bad enough, I practically had to hold my hands flat on the bottom of the raft to keep them from shaking. It hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since I had my last drink, so it was probably only psychosomatic at this point.

  Lovely.

  “This fucking sucks,” I finally said out loud.

  “What does?” she snapped back.

  I looked back up at her and glared again. I tossed both my arms up in the air, wildly gesturing at the world.

  “All of this shit.”

  “And you need to take that out on me?”

  “You’re the only one here to take it out on, so yes.”

  “You need another cup of water?” Raine tilted her head to one side before she cocked an eyebrow at me.

  I was fairly certain she’d do it, too. I managed to capture the words “Shut the fuck up, bitch” before they left my mouth and distracted myself by grabbing the binoculars to check the horizon again.

  Still nothing but fucking water.

  I took a deep breath to keep any potential panic from rising up. It wasn’t like I had lost hope or anything since it hadn’t really been that long. We weren’t low on supplies – yet – and we weren’t in bad shape physically – yet – but I knew how quickly that could change. The longer we were on this raft, the worse it was going to be.

  For once, it wasn’t just me I needed to look after. There was the annoying, questioning, tiny little piece of seriously feminine, soft, brown-eyed, doesn’t-take-my-shit, fucking beautiful young woman who didn’t stand a chance on her own that I needed to protect.

  I still didn’t know if I wanted to kill her or fuck her, but I knew which way I was starting to lean. Something about being attacked by the tiny little thing was a serious fucking turn on.

  “Look, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” she suddenly said.

  I almost startled at her voice. I really didn’t think she would be talking to me pleasantly any time soon. I didn’t look at her. Every time I looked at those eyes, I wanted to go find a tube of lotion and a titty mag. Actually, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need the mag.

  “Maybe we can start over?”

  “Starting over rarely works out the way you think it will,” I growled. Then I told myself to stop it because every time I got agitated or lost my temper, I lost that much energy for no benefit. I also didn’t want another cup full of salt water thrown at me.

  Every tournament is different. Melee out in the open, with opponents everywhere, your anger is going to give you the advantage. Not every match is like that. Sometimes you have to use your head. That’s where you have the advantage, and that’s where you are going to win.

  I took a long, slow breath and tried to center myself.

  “Okay,” I said as softly as I could and still have her hear me over the waves. “We’ll start over.”

  “Good!” she said and actually smiled a little. “I’m Raine, and I’m really glad you didn’t let me drown.”

  I considered making a stupid crack about her name being a kind of weather but held back for once. I took another deep breath. Might as well get it all out on the table.

  “I’m Daniel,” I said. “I’m an alcoholic and a chain smoker, and I don’t have any alcohol and only have two smokes. I’m going to try to stop myself from being a total dick, but it isn’t always going to work because I’m already starting to get the shakes, and there’s still probably a decent amount of alcohol in my system. This time tomorrow I’ll be a whole lot worse off.”

  Raine sat still, just looking at me.

  “You’re my responsibility,” I continued. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a storm or a shark or a reef or anything else; it’s always the captain’s responsibility to keep the passengers alive. I obviously did a shitty job with the rest since you’re the only one I got left. I don’t like being responsible for anybody but me, and it pisses me off.”

  I sat back and waited for her to confirm the whole situation was my fault.

  “If you know you are an alcoholic, why don’t you try to stop?”

  Why she decided to start with that little tidbit was beyond me.

  “Knowing doesn’t give me a reason to stop,” I shrugged.

  “Why do you drink so much?”

  I could feel myself starting to tense up. I had to make her stop asking about this kind of shit.

  “I don’t talk about my past,” I stated. “Asking me about it isn’t going to get you too far, and it will definitely piss me off. If we’re starting over, just let it fucking rest, okay? It will make not being a dick a hell of a lot easier for me.”

  She looked over to me, and I waited for her to ask another fucking question.

  “I understand,” she said.

  I must have given her a look of shock.

  “I’m not blind, you know,” Raine said. She gestured towards me. “You have obviously had it rough.”

  “What, the scars?” I chuckled a little. “Those don’t mean anything. Like I said – I was a fighter. Badges of honor and all that shit.”

  “Can I ask you about the fighting?”

  “No,” I said. At least she was asking if she could ask.

  “All right, I won’t,” she said.

  I relaxed just a little, since she seemed to get it, and it looked like she wasn’t going to pry any more. We sat in silence for a while as I looked out over the horizon and she paged, a little less violently, through the survival guide.

  “You didn’t issue the anti-seasickness medication yet,” Raine said out of the blue. “I’m assuming you’ve already appointed yourself as the person in charge.”

  Going step by step through the survival guide. Fucking fantastic.

  “You want it?”

  “I’m not seasick.”

  “I meant do you want the position?”

  “Being in charge?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No – you can have it.”

  “Well, fuck,” I said, glancing over at her out of the corner of my eye. “I thought I was going to get out of it for a minute.”

  Raine giggled.

  She fucking giggled, and the sound went straight to my cock.

  Damn, if she wasn’t going to be the death of me. I was pretty confident I could survive in a life raft for quite some time, but survive Raine without my cock jumping straight out of my shorts like a divining rod? Not so sure.

  “We probably should both take it,” I said. “The sea’s usually pretty calm after rain, but it could pick up tonight. Being in a raft is a lot more likely to make you sick than a ship.”

  “Because it’s smaller?”

  “Yeah, you feel the movement more.” I shrugged. “Seasickness has never bothered me, but it could in this piece of shit.”

  I pulled out two of the tablets, and we washed them down with a small mouthful of water.

  “Don’t forget to lick your lips,” I said.

  Oh man, I should not have told
her to do that. Watching her run her tongue out over her full lips was just…fuck hot. I definitely wanted to run my tongue over those lips, and because I am a complete and total masochistic moron, I gave her something to eat, just so I could watch her wash it down with another mouthful of water. I had to actually turn away from her for a few minutes, pretending to screw around with the fastenings where the ladder was attached. Then I found myself wondering what her nipples would taste like. Images of little Hershey’s Kisses melted over her breasts started to taunt me.

  Okay, I really, really needed to stop thinking like this. If nothing else, I already seriously pissed her off with the “blow me” comment. I didn’t think the chances of me getting my lips anywhere near any part of her body were very good.

  We’re starting over, I reminded myself.

  Yeah, I doubted that was going to include her forgetting that particular verbiage anytime soon. I was just going to have to find some other way to occupy my mind.

  So, I started wondering what DTs were going to feel like. Why? Because, as previously stated, I was a complete and total masochistic moron. Shakes – yep, definitely going to be looking forward to that. Hot and cold flashes, heart rate fluctuations, sweating, lack of muscle control – lots of fun stuff to look forward to experiencing. Oh yeah – and the vomiting, which is the one thing that might just kill me under these circumstances.

  It occurred to me that I had better teach Raine some of the more practical bits of survival knowledge she just might need if I didn’t make it.

  “Come here.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to know how to work the water collector.”

  She crawled over to the opening, and I gave her a brief overview of the gutter system, the collection tube, and bag. I showed her how to pinch it off and replace it with a new bag without losing any water and finished off the lesson with her having a good drink and me watching her lick her lips.

  “I am really hot.”

  I managed not to comment.

  “I feel like I could drink it all, but I guess that’s probably not a good idea.”

  “Yeah, that’s a really bad idea.”

  “How much water are you supposed to drink?” Raine asked.