Page 26 of Hunted (Desert Island Duet #2)

Chapter sixteen

Reece

I stare at the shattered remains of the window, my chest rising and falling as I try to catch my breath. My fists clench tightly at my side, sore and bleeding from throwing punches as I hold the phone to my ear with my other hand.

“Thanks, Arnold,” I say into the phone.

“Am I to assume we’re moving up the timeline?” he wisely asks.

I nod as I reply, “Yeah, we’re leaving. Now.”

“I’ll handle the arrangements. And I’ll bring you a new vehicle, yours may have been compromised.”

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and sigh. Fuck. He’s right. “Thanks, Arnold.”

We hang up and the crunching of glass underfoot draws my attention to West coming back inside from where he was making sure there was nobody else out there.

He shakes his head, then looks around the rest of the space. “Where are the others?”

“They’re protecting Darla. Let’s go get them.” I start to walk towards the hall as I grumble, “It’s time we go. ”

I peek into each bedroom and seeing no sign of them, my pulse starts to quicken. Did they get to them somehow? Were there more that snuck in a different way?

“The coast is clear!” I yell. Holding my breath, I stand in the middle of the hall, listening for any sign of movement and praying I hear a response.

Luckily, I only have to wait a few seconds before I hear King yell, “We’re in here!”

We quickly go into the last bedroom, as King comes out from behind a curtain he must have been hiding behind.

“Where’s Darla and Bower?” I ask, my eyes scanning the room.

King walks up to the closet and pulls the door open, West and I practically pushing him aside to look in.

Bower is sitting on the ground, and a look of relief crosses his face when he sees us, his clenched fists relaxing.

He seems uninjured, and I try to peer around him to where Darla is obviously hiding. “Is she okay?” West and I ask in unison.

She pokes her head out from around Bower’s side, and her eyes go wide at the sight of us.

She scans my body, then gasps, jumping to her feet as she runs to me and grabs my hand, looking at my blood-covered knuckles.

I probably should have cleaned that up before coming in here.

But my need to see her was too strong to wait.

“Oh my God! Are you okay? What happened?!” she asks in alarm. Her head turns to West, and she grabs his right hand, inspecting it, but unlike me, he did more damage with his feet.

“We’re okay, darling. Did you get hurt at all?” I hold her arms as I inspect her body. She shakes her head, and I turn her around, seeing not so much as a scratch.

“You’re not okay, Reece. You’re bleeding. Come on, I can fix this. ”

She tries to drag me by my arm from the room, but I stand firm. “Wait. We need to talk first. All of us.” I scan the others as Bower exits the closet, my eyes scanning him and King for any signs of injury. But luckily, I seem to be the most hurt out of all of us.

“Those were mercenaries. They obviously know where we are. We need to go. Arnold is bringing us a new vehicle; we leave within the hour.”

“I’ll pack,” King says with a nod.

“Me too,” Bower offers.

“West, you’re on guard duty. I’ll help once Darla patches me up.” I give her a little wink, and she huffs in annoyance.

“Come on, then.” This time I let her drag me out and into the bathroom where she runs the water and grabs a cloth and starts cleaning me up with gentle strokes.

I watch her silently the whole time. Her nose scrunches in concentration and the level of seriousness she has at simply cleaning my knuckles is adorable.

It reminds me of a similar moment between us, many years ago.

“You know… This isn’t the first time you’ve cleaned blood off me.”

She huffs out a laugh, her eyes flicking to me in a moment of recognition before she looks back at my hand.

“I seem to remember you whining a lot more last time.”

“Well, I’ve grown up a lot since then.”

Her eyes dart to my feet before slowly trailing up my body. When her eyes meet mine, she swallows heavily before looking back at my hand. “I can see that,” she says so quietly I almost don’t hear her.

I watch her work on my hand as the tension thickens around us. Her tongue pokes out as she concentrates harder. It’s killing me not to pull her close and kiss the crap out of her right now .

Trying to figure out this whole friends first thing is killing me.

I want her to be so much more than that.

I wish we weren’t in the middle of such a messy situation right now.

If we were back home, I’d ask her out properly, show her that I wanted more.

Sometimes I think she wants more, too. But other times, I’m not sure if it isn’t just our shared past connecting us and she doesn’t feel any more for me than familiarity and friendship.

When my hand is clean, she checks the cupboard underneath but comes up empty-handed.

“There’s nothing there. I want to wrap it, though.

Give me a second, wait here,” she orders as she quickly exits the bathroom.

I take a look at myself in the mirror and see a few specks of blood on my face, and clothes.

I quickly clean myself and as I’m drying my face, she comes back in with a clean shirt for me in one hand and…

“Is that a sock?” I ask, motioning to her other hand.

She shrugs, throwing my shirt over her shoulder as she reaches out and grabs my injured hand. “It’s the best I could come up with right now.”

She wraps it around my knuckles, and I have to admit, it’s a pretty good bandage substitute. I turn my hand over and flex my fingers. “Not bad.”

“I thought you’d want to change your shirt. I noticed some blood on it.” She holds up the other shirt and my heart warms at her thoughtfulness.

Instead of taking it, I pull off my stained shirt and toss it on the counter. A smirk pulls at my lips as her eyes roam my bare chest. Her cheeks start to grow pink, and I can’t help but whisper, “See something you like, darling? ”

Her wide eyes dart up to mine in embarrassment, her cheeks growing redder by the second. “No! I wasn’t—I mean—yes, I do… but I wasn’t—I didn’t—”

I chuckle as I put on the clean shirt and start to button it up. “I like when you look at me like that,” I tell her honestly.

Her throat bobs as she stares at me. “Y-you do?”

I nod slowly as I tuck in my shirt. I decide to push a little further, to put myself out there a little more. “Uh-huh. It tells me you see me as more than a friend.”

She frowns as she argues, “I can appreciate the hotness of my friend without it meaning more.”

I step closer to her and lean down, my face is inches from hers as I whisper, “Is that what you were doing? Admiring my hotness?”

She nods, her eyes moving down to my shirt covered chest as if reminding herself of what I’ve covered up.

Using the crook of my finger, I lift her chin, so her eyes face me again. “Are you sure that’s all it was? You weren’t wondering what it’d be like to touch me? For me to touch you?”

She shakes her head, but her eyes betray her as they fill with need. I try to hold back my smile, but it’s difficult.

She wants me.

I can see it in the way her eyes heat and her breath catches at my words and my touch. When her eyes drop down to my lips, I swipe my tongue along my lower one before asking, “So you aren’t wondering what it’d be like to kiss me right now? Wondering how it would be after all these years?”

“I…” she trails off, seemingly unable to an swer.

I lean forward but tilt my head to the side, her breath hitches in response to my proximity as I whisper into her ear, “Because I wonder that constantly. I wonder how soft your lips will feel, how you’d respond to me.

I haven’t kissed a single person since you walked out of my life, because if I couldn’t have you, I didn’t want anyone. ”

I stand up straight and watch her eyes widen in understanding, but before she can say anything, I speak again. “Alright, let’s go help the others.”

My fingers dig into the armrest as the plane starts to ascend. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and pray to God that we make it through this.

Something touches my arm, and my eyes shoot open. Darla’s hand is trying to push under mine and when I look up at her face, she smiles softly.

Her fingers try to wiggle under my arm, but I’m holding on so tightly, she can’t seem to do… whatever it is she’s trying to do.

“Will you hold my hand? I’m scared.” I frown down at her in confusion. She looks worried and concerned, but I don’t see any fear on her face.

Wait— Is she doing this for me?

I pry my fingers off the hand rest, and she slips her hand under mine. I grip it as tight as I can without hurting her. She tucks her elbow into my side and leans her head on my arm, her other hand coming up to grip my bicep.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and I just grunt in response. We both know this is for me, not her.

The plane starts to even out and I’m able to release a small breath. We aren’t out of the woods yet. We wouldn’t be until we were back on the ground, but at least it didn't feel as harsh anymore.

There’s a table in front of us and Bower and King sit on the other side of it, facing us. A large couch sits lengthwise on the other side of the aisle, and there are two more passenger seats behind me.

Behind Bower and King is the cockpit, where West is seated.

“How is he not freaking out? He’s crashed two planes.”

“ He didn’t crash them,” Darla reminds me. “And you said Arnold had every security measure possible taken to make sure there were no devices on this one, right?”

I nod my head, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Someone was out to get us. Not someone … Frank. My dad said he’s gone into hiding and his men had lost sight of him. That didn’t bode well with me.

I’m hoping what we find in Kenya isn’t as bad as we think it is. But he wouldn’t be trying to kill us if there wasn’t something really bad he was covering up, would he? Probably something that would send him to prison for a long time.

“You weren’t scared of flying when we were younger,” Darla says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Hmm?” I take a second to let her question register, then I shake my head. “No, it didn’t bother me before.”

“What happened? ”

I look at her, my eyes trailing over her curious face as I realize she’s serious. She doesn’t know.

Because you haven’t told her.

“You,” I whisper, and her eyebrows pinch in confusion.

“Me?”

“Darla… you were my best friend, my girlfriend, and you went missing in a plane crash. I was told you had died. After that, I couldn’t even look at a plane for years without having a meltdown.

Boarding the plane to come and find the guys…

” My eyes flick to the other two, to find them listening in fascination.

“It was incredibly hard. I had Arnold give me a strong sedative so I could actually survive the flight.”

“And now?” she asks, her head tilting as she searches my face for something. “You didn't take a sedative this time, did you?”

I shake my head. “I have you to take care of now, I need to be on full alert. Plus… having you here…” I squeeze her hand. “It helps.”

She gives me a warm smile, and it eases a little more of the tension in me. She turns to look out the window and I close my eyes, leaning my head back and taking deep breaths as I try to make myself relax.

West is an excellent pilot… when his plane wasn’t being sabotaged. That thought doesn’t help my nerves, but I know there’s no other way to get to Kenya. And after that… It would be a long flight back to San Francisco. Sedatives might be necessary for that flight after all.

This flight is about four hours… I could survive that… I had to.

“Hey, Reece?” I open my eyes and turn my head to Darla in question.

“Did I ever tell you about Bob?”

“Bob?” I ask, trying to place the name as I shake my head slowly.

“Yeah, he was my nemesis on the island. He shit on my head once, and we’ve been enemies ever since. ”

My jaw drops open, but no sound comes out. Who the hell was Bob?

Bower chuckles as he clarifies, “Bob’s a seagull.”

That eases my worry that there was yet another man on that island with her. As she tells me story after story of her interactions with him, Kevin the palm tree, and her other island acquaintances, my body starts to relax, and before I know it, our wheels are touching the ground in Kenya.