Page 18 of Noah's Reckoning
This time with the intent of hiking.
“Okay, what can I do?”
I smiled sarcastically. “I don’t know. What can you do?”
I could see her mind spinning. “I can boil water,” she said clearly disgusted with herself.
“Then you do that. I’m going to scout the island. Get a sense of the perimeter and set some traps. We’ll split the first can of soup today. By tomorrow hopefully we have a few catches.”
“In this weather? It seems unlikely.”
“Everyone’s got to eat, Olivia.”
I was about to go when she pulled on my arm. Her teeth were clenched as if she was nervous. “Is it safe? I mean, what if a tree blows over and kills you?”
“I’ll try to avoid the falling trees.”
She stomped her foot. “Noah, I’m serious.”
“Look, I’ll be careful. But we have no choice.”
A sigh, then she nodded. I thought of the feel of her breast in my hand and tried to fight off the wave of desire. Me outside the cabin was a way healthier choice than me with her inside the cabin. At least for my sanity.
“Do you think Cal is worried about us?”
“He won’t like that we’re out of touch. But I’m pretty sure he believes we’re still on the rig.”
“We should have stayed.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. At the time I didn’t think we would have a problem getting to shore, but I knew better than to even take the risk. “We should have. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “No, you were right yesterday. It was our decision.”
I’m pretty sure Cal wasn’t going to see it that way. Especially when I told him my driving reason for trying to make it to the mainland was to avoid the temptation of having Olivia all to myself for a couple nights.
So much for that plan. At least on the rig we could have had separate beds.
I pulled a few logs off the wood pile and crouched to see if I could get a few of the embers to stir. I took a smaller piece and watched as it slowly caught fire.
“When that piece is giving off a pretty big flame, you can throw the larger piece in there as well. That should hold you. An hour, two at the max, depending on how cold it is, and I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here. Boiling water,” she said, trying to sound overly cheerful.
It was strange but right before I left, I had this crazy urge to kiss her. Not as some foreplay to making love, but as this natural thing a man might do when leaving his woman behind to go hunt.
Which, of course, was crazy. Olivia was probably the last woman on earth I could call mine.
5
Olivia
I glanced at the door, then back to my fingers where they rested against my stomach. My bare stomach because I had lifted my sweater out of the way. I had also undone my jeans and lowered the zipper.
Because I was a horrible, horrible, filthy person. Here we were in this crisis situation and all I could think about was getting myself off. I had been so wet this morning waking up to feel Noah grinding against me and that feeling of neediness hadn’t really gone away.
Was it wrong that he was out hunting for our food, which sort of only made me hotter, while I was here thinking about coming? He’d been gone about an hour. Now I was running a risk because of my indecision. If he did come back, he might catch me in the act.
That would be hysterical.
