Page 19 of The Jewel of the Isle

NINETEEN

EMILY

Biff doesn’t camp with strangers. I don’t blame him—the Bloodsport podcast is still fresh in my mind, not to mention what happened with Killian—and after Ryder and I set up our tent, he bids us goodnight and says he’ll be back at dawn.

“Don’t get yourselves killed overnight,” he instructs, and there’s a moment when Ryder jokingly asks for a bedtime story where I think Biff might murder him personally. But then he hikes off to his own campsite, wherever that may be, and it’s just Ryder and me in our tent. It’s drizzling rain outside, and the eerie cries of a loon and occasional howl of a wolf in the distance give me goose bumps.

“You okay?” Ryder asks as I slip into the sleeping bag.

“Yeah. The loons just creep me out.”

“Here,” he says, lying down next to me and pulling me close. He smells like firewood, and I wonder what he smells like in his regular life, and if I’ll ever get the chance to find out.

“Question,” he says, running a hand over my hair. “If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?”

“Hm.” I pause to think. “You’re gonna think my answer’s boring.”

“I don’t find anything about you boring, Edwards.”

“I’d be home,” I say, smiling against his chest. “Where there’s a shower and clean clothes and a proper bed.”

He presses a kiss to my forehead at proper bed , and I really wish we had one right now.

“And what would you be doing?” he asks. “At home?”

“Honestly? Baking cupcakes, probably. The Funfetti kind. And reorganizing my home library in my PJs.”

“I like the sound of PJs,” he says, brushing my arm with his fingertips.

I laugh. “You won’t when you realize the PJs are a ratty T-shirt and loose sweatpants.”

“Loose sweatpants are my favorite. They’re easily removed.”

I smile into his skin. “What about you? Where would you be, if not this absolute paradise? What would you be doing?”

“Uh, probably ordering a burger and fries at my favorite diner,” he says. “I’d even ask you to join me.”

“You would?” I ask playfully, wishing the layer of cotton T-shirt between my face and his chest would disappear.

“Yep. I think we could have a lot of fun sharing a meal that wasn’t freeze-dried or dangerously poisonous.”

“What about after the diner?” I ask.

Ryder rolls away and onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head as he ponders the question. “Well, that would be up to you.”

“Maybe you could take me to your favorite dive bar,” I suggest.

He smiles. “A dive bar? Sticky floors, dim lighting, neon beer signs everywhere you look? Doesn’t seem like an Emily Edwards type of establishment.”

“No, but it seems like a Ryder Fleet type,” I say. “And considering you were grazed by a bullet helping me escape Malcolm, I think I owe you a divey night out.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “I hope you know I’d kick your ass at darts.”

I don’t argue with that, because we both saw my aim when I attempted to throw my binoculars at Killian.

“And after darts?” I ask. “What then?”

“Then we’d drink whiskey, and I’d secretly wish death upon every guy who even thought about hitting on you.”

I blush at the thought of Ryder getting jealous and turn toward him, propping myself up on my elbow. “What would we do after the dive bar?”

“I’d see you home, of course.”

“What if I didn’t want to go home?” I ask. “What if I wanted to come back to your place?”

He rolls onto his side to face me. “Then I’d take you back to my place. I’d take you anywhere you wanted.”

“And what would we do?” I ask, practically melting at the thought of being alone with Ryder someplace safe and warm and quiet, someplace where we could do anything we wanted without being bothered by life-threatening dangers.

“Honestly? I’d probably try to sneak you past my neighbor Lulu’s door, because she’s nosy as hell. And then I’d scramble to hide my very embarrassing Funko Pop! collection.”

“Is that your usual MO?” I ask, laughing.

His smile disappears. “I don’t have an MO, Emily. Especially not for someone like you. I’d just try to follow my instincts.”

“And what do you think your instincts would tell you to do?”

It’s an invitation as much as it is a question, and Ryder’s gaze meets mine in the dark.

“Touch you,” he says, his voice rough.

The gruffness of his tone makes my knees weak, and I’m grateful that we’re already horizontal.

“Touch me how?” I ask softly.

Ryder studies me for a moment, his hand brushing a stray curl from my face.

“I’d take you into my arms and pull you tight against me,” he says. “The way we were after we rolled down the hill. I’d feel your heartbeat against my chest. I’d run my hands over your hair, your wild, beautiful hair, and I’d pull your face toward mine, and—”

“Show me,” I whisper, my body desperate for his touch. “Show me.”

He doesn’t need to be told a third time, and Ryder, his arm already wrapped around me, grunts as pulls me on top of him. It’s delicious, the sensation of his body beneath mine, and I breathe in sharply as he tucks a hand behind the back of my head and brings my face toward his.

“Kiss me,” he says, and I do, eagerly, desperately, grinding against him as our tongues meet and part and meet again.

“I would kiss your neck,” he says, pressing his lips to my neck and the hollow of my throat, “and your breasts, and I would kiss my way down your belly and stop at your thighs, and then I would spread your legs apart—”

“Show me,” I whisper, and he rolls me over onto my back so that he’s on top, his strong arms on either side of me. He reaches underneath my shirt and lifts it up to plant soft kisses from my hip bone to my rib cage, and then he tugs my shirt over my head and tosses it aside.

“I would marvel at you,” he says, lowering his mouth to my stomach again as his hands find their way to my breasts. “I would marvel at how fucking gorgeous you are, even more gorgeous than I could have imagined.” He slides his tongue over my nipple, his hips responding as I rub against him, wanting.

“Touch me,” I tell him, unable to wait any longer for his touch where I need it the most. “Touch me, and let me touch you.”

He tugs my pants down and uses his palm to massage the space between my legs, and then he kisses the soft flesh of my inner thighs and returns his mouth to mine.

“I want to touch you,” I whisper, and he slides his boxers off and lies down next to me, his lips meeting mine again.

His hands slide down beneath the band of my underwear, and his fingers find the soft place where I crave him the most.

“Emily,” he says at the breathy moan I make as he touches me, and I wrap my hand around his hard shaft and grip him tightly, reveling in the rock-hard evidence of his desire for me. I grind against his hand, showing him that I want him on top of me. That I want to take him inside my body, just as I’ve taken him inside my heart.

“Let me see you,” he murmurs. “Let me look at you. Please.”

The please is a desperate half whisper, and the urgency of it just about undoes me. I have never been wanted like this. I have never wanted like this, never desired someone so badly that every part of me burns with a fever that only his touch can cure.

I push myself into a sitting position, and Ryder watches, his jaw tight, as I unhook my bra and let it fall away.

“Now you,” I say, my voice barely a whisper, and he doesn’t tear his gaze away from me as he takes his shirt off.

And I always knew he was beautiful—knew it from the moment I saw him sprinting down the dock toward the ferry, knew it when I saw him shirtless and glistening in the pond—but here he is beautiful , not just because of his broad chest and solid arms and strong hands but because of the way he’s looking at me right now. Because of the way he leans over me and presses a kiss to my ear, then my mouth, and then lower, burying his head into my chest and letting out a groan of unbridled want when his thumb brushes my nipple.

I reach for him, reach to curl my fingers around the place where I so badly want to touch him, but he stops me.

“I want to say something,” he says. “Before words fail me.”

I’d respond, but my words have failed me already, and so I just watch him as he swallows hard, one hand cupping my cheek.

“If I die on this island,” Ryder whispers, his thumb stroking my ear, “it’ll have been worth it for this fucking moment. To see you like this. To have you like this.”

His eyes are blazing but his expression is soft. Vulnerable. “It will all have been worth it.”

And then I can’t wait anymore, and so I lean forward to kiss him, to savor him, to let go of all the worry and fear and revel in each other instead. He grips my hips, pulling me into his lap, and I know that the moan that escapes his lips will play in my dreams for the rest of my days.

“I want you inside me,” I whisper, gasping as he lowers me to the ground and presses his tongue between my legs. “Do you have any condoms?”

He grunts a no, and I hate myself for packing glow-in-the-dark toilet paper but not condoms.

“We can just do this,” Ryder says, his words warm against the delicious ache between my thighs. “I can just do this. I want you, Emily, and I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

He licks me again, fervently, expertly, and even though it kills me to do it, I reach down to grab his hand and pull him up next to me.

“Then we do it like this,” I tell him, guiding his hand toward my clit and then reaching out to grasp his length. “Together.”

“I was really just getting started down there,” he protests, but his words give way to a low groan when I begin to stroke him.

His mouth finds mine as we touch each other, our breaths warm and ragged and verging on the edge of collapse.

“Let me see you,” he whispers into my skin. “Let me see you unravel.”

And his words, like his hands, are magic. Because he increases the speed and pressure of his touch, grunting as I run my hand along him, and just when I think I can’t take it anymore, that I would sacrifice life and limb and throw all caution to the wind just to feel like this for one moment longer, the sensation welling up inside me erupts. His touch unearths me, destroys me, and puts me back together again, and I can only rock against his palm, biting my lip so as not to scream.

“Fuck,” he whispers, grinding into my hand. “Fuck. Watching you like that, hearing you like that…”

But now, I want only to watch him like that. To hear him like that. And so I press my mouth to his, increasing the pace and pressure of my touch until he rocks against me, letting out an unbridled cry of pleasure when he comes. He kisses me ardently, desperately, and I want to live in this moment forever.

I want him, forever.

He holds me as our breathing slows and our pulses normalize, pressing kisses to the top of my head.

“That was everything I ever imagined it would be,” he says, dazed. “And it was everything I never could have known to imagine.”

I smile and run my hand through his hair. “Imagine what we’ll be able to do when we have condoms.”

“I already have,” he whispers into my skin. “Trust me, one day soon, we’ll be off this island, and we’ll be able to do anything we want together. Including you giving me a tutorial on how to organize your home library.”

I laugh. “I’m already naked, Ryder. You don’t have to sweet-talk me.”

We hold each other for a moment, my body and heart buzzing, and it’s not long before my eyelids start to grow heavy.

“It’s weird, isn’t it,” I mutter, fatigue setting in. “That we found each other this way.”

“What do you mean?” His breath is warm against my skin, and I wish I could make this moment last longer—could bottle up how safe and secure I feel right now and uncap it the next time I feel frightened.

“I mean, out in the real world, we never would have crossed paths,” I tell him. “And if we had, we wouldn’t have given each other more than a passing glance.”

Ryder runs a hand over my hair and presses a kiss to my temple. “You’re a very smart woman, Emily, but you’re dead wrong about that one.”

I want to ask him how I’m wrong, but sleep makes my head fuzzy, and I close my eyes and let it take me away.

“I would have given you more than a passing glance,” he says, his words carrying me into slumber. “You would have stopped me in my tracks.”