Page 20

Fair Winds

Dante

“ T he theme...” Haley laughs. “I sound like a stew. ‘Theme.’ I’ll just call the provisioner and have them send over... what? A case of champagne? Something environmentally-friendly, don’t you think?” She has her notebook out, her pen on the paper.

“I don’t know; I hear these guests really like to party, Sassy. You think a case will be enough?”

“You’re right. I’ll make it two.” She puts her hand to her face like a cellphone. “Oh no, they’re not picking up.”

“Guess we’ll have to punt. You’re good at your job—you’ll figure something out. So yeah, the theme. What ya got, Sassy?”

“Island Festival Day. Part Thanksgiving, part thanking the island for what it gives us. What if we set up garlands around camp and then after dinner we go down to the waterfall?—”

“Now you’re talking, Sassy.” I grin because I know she’s not talking about sex. Although why not, I’m not sure. We should always talk about sex. I push a tendril of her hair away from her cheek.

“Dante! And launch a small float into the water.”

I cock my head to the side. “A small float? Like a Viking burial? I think Calvin might object to being set on fire. But I’m not going to yuck his yum. We can ask him.”

She playfully slaps my arm. “No, something small.” She grabs a coconut. “Like this, we can put a candle in it. Or better, lard—we don’t have many candles—and set it on fire. After we all say something we respect or like about the island or each other.”

“I like it. I’ll use only things from the island for the food.” That’s not going to be hard. Sure, there are still some cans left from the Rock Candy, and spices, but I’ve been using them sparingly. And making sure they are the star of the meal.

Honestly, we’re damn lucky with the amount of food that’s around. And knowing about the pomelo farm and the extent of the food on the other side? It’s a blessing. Even if we can’t keep taking the tender over, we can hike over.

I’ve been distracting Haley for the last three hours.

We’ve made a crateload of decorations for tomorrow.

Garlands of elephant leaves. I have no idea what they’re called.

They look like an elephant’s ear. I wish we had some flowers.

I know there are some orchids growing down by the waterfall, but I don’t want to pick them.

“Oh, Sassy.” I take her hand in mine and interlace our fingers. Fuck, I love holding her hand. It fits mine so perfectly. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” She turns back to the pile of leaves we’ve gathered. I should have thought of this before.

“You’ll see.”

“Don’t look,” Zane shouts from behind the tree.

“Just passing through. We’re not looking,” I holler back. I hold my hand loosely over Sassy’s eyes, but a few steps later, my hand slips down over her mouth and she licks the inside of my palm.

“Sassy. Are you being a naughty girl?” My cock thickens as her blue eyes flick to mine.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to show you what I found the other day. But now I’m going to show you even more.

” My heart thumps against my chest. She’s going to love this.

Have I been keeping it a secret? Yes, sure.

A little bit. But it’s not a magical waterfall or a farm of fruit.

Still, I know that she’s going to love it.

And when I found it, things weren’t blooming fully, but that was a few days ago, so they should be now.

I step off the path through the thick ferns.

“Where are we going?” Sassy repeats.

“Calvin’s not the only one who does a little exploring. This way. It’s not far up ahead.” I’ve got her hand locked into mine. The ferns are thick, but there’s no thorny underbrush, so that’s a plus.

It’s farther than I remember. But then it opens up to a large clump of Birds of Paradise. The broad-leafed plants surprise even me. They’ve grown taller since I was here. A good portion of them reach my shoulders. Vivid flowers perch atop the stalk-like stems, tall and thin like banana leaves.

“Oh, Dante! There’s so many. It’s breathtaking.” She shimmies around the clump. “They’ve been growing here for a long time for there to be so many.” Her mouth hangs open.

“Come here. There’s a little rise and a group of rocks we can stand up on and see all of them.”

“You’ve been holding out on us.”

“Not really. They weren’t blooming until recently. I wanted you to get the full effect.” I lift her up onto a three-foot rock.

“It’s stunning.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re not looking at the flowers.”

“I’m looking at the loveliest of flowers.”

“Oh, that’s . . .”

“I can be cheesy, Sassy. I’m the chef.” I bite my lip and take a step into her, wrapping my arms around her waist. With a quick tug, I have her swim shorts down and off one leg, the rest ringing her left leg.

Her pussy’s at my chin, and I don’t waste any time digging into dessert.

I stroke down the center of her with a finger as my tongue flicks around her clit.

She’s salty and tangy, a delicacy that I want to feast on for the rest of my life.

Have I thought about that before? The rest of my fucking life. The rest of my life.

I heard some of what Zane and Haley were talking about on the beach. I’m going to have to do the same.

I pull back and glance up at her. Her head is bent, her eyes closed.

“Dante?”

I go back to my meal. She’s so responsive she’s dripping already. I pull her hips tighter to my face with my free hand and lean into the lava rock. Its sharp prongs grind into my knees just as Sassy grinds onto my face.

Her hands are in my hair, and she’s holding on to the thin branch of a tree meekly growing out of a crack in the rocks. The leaves rattle in her grasp. “Oh, Dante. Don’t stop. It’s too good.”

I’d love to flip her over and pound into her from behind, but my girl needs a little break.

An orgasm to stave off her sex hangover.

A little hair of the dog. If I thought I could take her softly, I’d do it.

But she drives me crazy, and there’s no way she can take it.

I’m not going to break her. No, I will never hurt her.

It’s a promise I’ve made only to the women I’m related to.

Her fingers twist and pull my hair. And fuck if the twinge of pain doesn’t make me harder. I curve my fingers and hit that spot inside of her at the same time I suck on her clit. She cracks around me.

“Dante.”

Damn, I love my name on the air. A bird takes off, flapping its wings into the sky that’s verging on twilight. I pull my finger out of her. I’m holding her up. Her skin shines in the low rays.

“How are you doing up there, Sassy?”

She breathes out. “That was amazing. It really is beautiful here.”

“It is.” I smile up at her and help her right her pants. “You want to get cutting and take some of them back to camp?”

“Oh, no.” She holds her hands out, and I try to help her down. “No, you come up.”

I do, and I grab the back of her neck, pulling her into a long kiss. Until I have to stop or risk going back on my promise and fucking her until she’s nothing but a stain on this lava rock.

“Look, Dante.” She points out the massive clump of flowers. “Look how perfect it is, the Birds of Paradise with the ferns growing and then the trees hitting the blue sky. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“They’ll grow back, Sassy. You’re not going to clear cut them.”

“I know. But they belong here.” She pauses. “I’ll take just one and we can use it for the float on the water.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

It takes us the next twenty minutes to find the perfect flower before we head back to camp. She glances back at me. “Thank you. That was a really nice surprise.”

“Any time, Sassy.”

When we reach the camp, I’m surprised that Easton and Calvin aren’t back. But I’ve got a quick meal to toss together; they’ll be back in time to eat. Haley finds a place to keep her flower safe up on the living room platform.

I get lost in cooking, but next thing I know, Haley’s pacing underneath the treehouse. “Where are they?” Her voice cracks with tension.

Easton and Calvin haven’t come back. Then again, I’m still waiting for the two of them to either fuck or kill each other. And I’m a little disappointed that one or the other hasn’t happened yet. Maybe neither will. Whatever.

I hand her a bowl of coconut fish curry. “Sam, Zane! Dinner’s on,” I project past the treehouse.

They come stumbling around the corner with weird smiles on their faces.

Haley drops onto a stool. “This is delicious, thank you.” She holds her spoon up in a toast. “But where are they?”

“Knowing Calvin, he’s got enough bamboo to build three chicken tractors.” Zane takes his bowl and inclines his head to me.

I sit down next to Haley. “They’ll be back soon. He said they were getting?—”

“If you’d quit trying to spear me with your bamboo, we’d have been here an hour ago.” Calvin’s deep voice echoes through camp.

I glance up at Zane, who’s already finished his meal and is holding a chick on his lap. He’s laughing. But when they round the corner caked in dried mud, we all stop laughing.

“What happened?” Haley’s on them, her hands in Rockwell’s muddy hair and then on the side of Calvin’s cracked cheek.

“You know when you were a kid and you worried about quicksand?” Rockwell scrunches his face, and dried mud falls to the ground.

“Yeah, I mean, nightmares for years.” Haley runs her hands over his arm.

Rockwell puts down a good dozen bamboo poles. Green has twice as many.

“Well, think quicksand but mud.”

“Oh no.” Haley smooths dried and cracked mud from Rockwell’s neck. “It’s like you had a mud bath at a really bad spa.”

“A horrific spa.” Rockwell kisses the tip of Haley’s nose, leaving specks of dirt on her face.

“Why would anyone want to dip themselves in mud?” Green growls.

“It’s good for the skin. Opens the pores and all,” I say. “I went to a mud bath house in Indonesia that...” Haley’s blue eyes are wide. She doesn’t need to hear this story. But damn, it was a good time.

Rockwell’s not letting Haley move. His cracked-mud fingers hold her wrist, but his glare lingers on Calvin. “It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but Green dropped the machete. And he wasn’t willing to call it a loss.”

“Fuck, without the machete we’d be... yeah,” Sam says. “I’m glad you’re both okay.” He picks up the bamboo Easton dropped and moves it over out of the way.

“I’m taking a swim.” Easton peels off his shirt. “Come with me, Firefly?” He tugs at her hand. She looks back to Calvin, and his bamboo clatters next to Easton’s.

“I’m fine,” Calvin says. Haley nods and walks with Easton down the zigzag trail to the water. We all watch them go. Haley’s black swim shorts and her not-so-white shirt vanish behind the pond fronds.

I point to the decent-sized pile. “Let me guess, you cut the bamboo after you fell in the mud?” Because it’s just like Green to complete a job even when you’re in pain. Fucker needs a smack to the side of his head.

“We were there. And it was the whole reason why we went. We can’t cut all the bamboo around here for the chicken tractor.

He wanted to stop at the waterfall to get cleaned off, but on the way out I saw boar tracks.

We need to do something about them.” He peels his shirt off and drops it with a thud on the log stool next to him.

It’s something I would throw away if we were back in the States. But we’re not.

“We can do it after the holidays.” Odd—we only decided upon them this morning, but they’re ingrained in me already. And I want this to be big for Haley. No, I want this to be big for all of us.

When the ship was taken, it was like a balloon popped. For most of us. Everyone but damn Green. It was like he expected this to happen all along. But then seeing what he saw in the huts... I suppose his sense of doom is logical.

Fuck that, I’m going to live. And as much as I was hyped up for Thanks-o-weenie, I’m even more excited for Island Festival Day tomorrow.

Haley’s back. And the three of us stop and stare. “I want to get some towels.”

Zane tosses her one. Lucky for us, Rocky only bought the best for the boat, because they’re getting a beating.

“Thanks.” She turns to go back to the beach.

“Wait, Haley, you want me to start putting up your garland?” I ask.

“Yeah, that would be great.” She waves over her shoulder on the way the way to the trail.

Calvin takes off with long steps, his large frame rattling the palm fronds as he pushes out into the evening sun, following Haley.