Lost

She was watching him, her faceted eyes locked on his, and every movement of his body echoed there. And she was flexing, rising to him, seeking every pulse of his hips.

God he loved this. Loved her.

She keened and clawed at his back and it moved him, made his heart seem to swell and his chest seem to tighten, her little whimper of need, her desperate little seeking movements. The way her cunt gripped and milked his cock as she came, groaning, almost growling. And when he came, she held him, held him in her gaze, and after, cradled him against her, stroking his damp hair.

But when he raised himself to look at her, she seemed scared, vulnerable again.

"Are you sorry?" he asked.

"No."

"You look sad."

She asked, "Are you sorry?"

None of the cold, heavy regret he'd felt since the cave. Just the warm, needful feeling was left. Not the physical need. The other.

"No."

When she smiled he kissed her forehead, hot and damp. Still buried inside her, he kissed her lips, tasted her mouth again. Then gave her one tiny kiss at the edge of her lip, where she'd bitten.

"You split your lip."

"It hurt more than I thought. The virginity part."

He put his mouth by her ear, breathed in the scent of her hair and whispered, "I love you, Cat."

Tears shimmered over her eyes. "I love you too, Derrek."

"I love this. Feeling you against me. Holding me inside of you."

"Me too."

In the humid twilight, their skin slicked with sweat, they stroked and nuzzled without talking. Then they rinsed off in the lagoon and walked home.

It was a quiet dinner. Usually their dad had something to say about what he'd found or reasoned through during the course of the day, or chased various trains of thought in search for an answer to some piece of the larger puzzle. But that night he was silent and sullen. And Cat was too wrapped up in the thousand thoughts and wave after wave of unnameable feelings, so she felt she'd gotten tangled in twining nets of kelp and couldn't surface.

Every time she glanced at Derrek, she caught him gazing at her—not a direct look, but from the corner of his eye, or from under his dark lashes as he pretended to spear his food on his fork—and each time he blinked away from her gaze. Not one smile. Tomorrow he'd push her away again. Maybe even slap her again. No matter what she'd made up about the tea. Cat could hardly force a bite down.

When their dad went and got the pitcher of tea and offered to pour, Derrek jumped up, tore the pitcher from his hands and dumped the contents in the sand.

"Would you mind explaining what that was about, Derrek?" their dad said in his distinctly parental voice. A different voice than the one he used with them when they were working together.

"Cat's not a goddamned chemist, you know. She shouldn't be concocting herbal remedies on a whim. A lot of the plants here are poisonous."

Hot tears stung Cat's eyes, but she kept them back. Now he'd tell her the effect had worn off. That he was back in control. He'd tell her 'no'.

Now that he'd emerged from his haze of scatter plots and regression analyses, their dad was scrutinizing them both with a wary eye. When his focus locked on Cat's lap she followed his gaze down and saw the symmetric purple-red bruises mottling the flesh of her inner thighs, she tugged the hem of her skirt lower.

"Aren't you hungry, Kitten?" he asked her, his voice cracked, hollow.

"Guess not."

"How about we go for a walk, honey?"

She resisted the urge to glance at Derrek, and gave her dad a smile. "Love to."

Cat didn't look back, but she could feel Derrek's stare prickling the back of her neck as they tramped off. They walked on and on, her dad dragging the pace to a slow stroll, contrary to his habit of going at a brisk stride. His need to speak settled on Cat, weighing her down, but he was silent.

"Daddy? Something's bothering you," she finally said.

She could face an honest question, an accusation. Anything but this anguished silence. During the twenty or thirty minutes they'd been walking she'd rehearsed their dialog a dozen times. He'd ask her what was going on between her and Derrek, and she'd say nothing special until he broke down and asked the real question. Then she'd tell him the truth. It would be perverse to lie, then go on doing it. And they would, unless Derrek stopped her.

Her father stayed silent until they cleared the jungle and emerged on the beach, facing the ocean ablaze with the fucias and oranges of the setting sun. When they came within sight of a low shelf of limestone at the base of a small cliff, her dad sat, and she perched beside him.

When he turned from the sunset and looked at her, her chest cramped up. He looked so hurt. So scared.

"Honey. I have to ask you something." His voice was cracked and hollow. "It hurts me, asking it. But I couldn't live with myself if I ignored the things I've been noticing, and you..."

"Daddy. It's alright. Whatever you need to ask, I'll tell you."

He combed her hair back with his fingers, and looked hard into her eyes.

"Honey." He stopped. Caught his breath. "Cat. Derrek hasn't..." He pulled in a deep breath and pushed it out. "Did Derrek rape you?"

Rape? Where had that come from? Images flickered by; her bruised thighs. The split in her lip. The cut on Derrek's cheek. And Derrek's surly behavior at dinner. And before that.

"Daddy, no. God no. Daddy, Derrek's never hurt me. He'd never..."

"I'm sorry. God, I'm ashamed I asked. Just, he's been so odd lately. Toward you. And tonight you come home with those bruises. I just had to be sure you were alright."

"It's okay, Dad. I know you're just trying to take care of us. Derrek, too."

She put her arms around him and hugged him tight. His hands holding her close, stroking her hair felt good. Made her feel safe and loved.

"I won't tell him what you asked, Dad. Don't worry."

"I don't think he's like that," her dad said, his voice wavery. "I don't. I just had to be sure, for your sake."

"I know, Dad."

***

The moment Cat woke, a nauseating panic swallowed her. The fires. She'd completely forgotten them the night before. What had happened with Derrek had filled up her head and pushed everything else out. Their dad was already gone, up and out taking temperature readings like he did first thing every morning before the sun was really up. Trying to keep quiet and not wake Derrek she dressed and left for the bluff.

Two of the fires were out. She ignited a bit of kindling in the third, and got everything going again. The thought of the regret, the heartbreak if they'd heard a plane, seen a boat while the fire was out made her chest go tight.

In the early, slanting light she scrambled down from the bluff, descended into the jungle's cacophony of twittering birds and singing lemurs. Something big rustled the foliage ahead and she stopped, heart pounding even though there were no large predators on the island. Nothing bigger than the fossa, and they were nocturnal, anyway.

The leaves and shoots hissed and shuddered just in front of her, and Derrek emerged, striped in bands of light and shadow. Flushed and panting as if he'd run the whole way, he stood there, not speaking, just staring with his big aqua eyes.

"Derrek? What's wrong?"

"Where's Dad?"

"I don't know. Somewhere, taking his readings."

What are you doing?"

She confessed her sin. "I forgot the fires last night."

Instead of chastising her, blaming her in advance for ruining their chance of getting back to the mainland, destroying their lives, single-handedly undermining their one hope of saving the world, Derrek's wild eyes calmed, and his mouth spread in an amused smile. Then the smile faded.

Now he'd say it. Never again. She'd never feel him inside her again. Never have his kiss, never feel the hot weight of him on her, never watch his face transformed by the ecstasy of their union. He'd tell her he wouldn't drink the tea, that he was free of her spell. That he hated himself. That he hated her.

"Cat?" his voice was soft. His aqua eyes darkened. "You look so sad."

She just looked at him and waited. Waited for him to tell her to leave him alone. Instead he brushed her hair back with his fingertips, gave her face a gentle caress, leaned in and touched a soft kiss to her temple. Warmth rushed from the little spot his lips had touched and flooded down her whole body.

"That's better," he said, smiling, when he looked at her again.

"I was scared you'd be...you threw out the tea, and—"

He brushed his lips against hers in a gentle, lingering kiss. Then locked her in his gaze and smiled.

"It was never the tea, Cat. It was always you. Us."

Soft, gentle, he kissed her lips, too tender, too careful to satisfy the violent hunger his mouth, his touch woke in her. She sought his tongue, nursed at his lips, devoured his kiss. They stripped each other bare, tasted every inch of flesh, licked the salt from each others' skin. His piquant scent was oxygen to her now, brought her to life. She breathed him in, tasted his hot mouth, brought his thick, hard cock against her sex and inch by inch, took him in. Swallowed the whole rigid length of him.

It was a pain-laced pleasure, the sense of him opening, stretching, filling her. His hardness buried deep in her softness. She writhed over him, whimpered and shuddered as he teased and tugged her nipples, sending a current of pleasure through her core, into her sex.

So good, this link, this hot sticky pulsing connection with him, Derrek. A lifetime of love, her first love, part of her nest, this man inside her, watching her milk her pleasure from his cock. After, they clung together, a sweat-slick knot of limbs wound around the center where his cock was still buried inside her.

"You're so beautiful," she breathed, nurturing the little ache in her chest, loving those eyes the color of their lagoon, his light irises ringed with an inky dark indigo, and fringed with thick, black lashes. His pretty, full lips. Even the whorl of his ear was endearing. Moving. So delicate, the sun turning it translucent.

"I always kind of wished I looked more like Dad. Not such a pretty boy, you know?"

"Dad's a hottie. For a science nerd, I mean."

"Hey!"

"What do you think? I'd describe him as a cross between George Clooney and Gregory Peck."

"Hello. Not making it better!" Derrek teased, but there was a little genuine hurt lacing his voice.

"Come on, Derrek. You know how..." her green eyes rolled up toward the sky and she let out a long, sensuous sigh, "unbearably lovely you are. Every one of my girlfriends—the straight ones, at least—had you at the top of their list of fantasy lovers. The only reason you didn't get more, back home, is because you're so effing aloof. You never had time for anything by your mollusks and groupers. Well, that, and you were well on your way to being an incorrigible serial monogamist."

He laughed, his slightly crooked eye teeth adding to the allure of his smile. "As opposed to what? A poon hound?"

"Poon? Did Doctor Golding just say 'poon'?"

"You know what I mean. What do you think? I should have been nailing everything that walked?"

"Everything in moderation."

"You weren't doing so well on the moderation, Miss Ironpants."

"Give me a break! I was fifteen when we Gilliganed. What were you? Twenty when you popped your cherry?"

"Nineteen," he confessed sheepishly.

"I was more interested in sex a la D.H. Lawrence and the anatomical illustrations in Gray's Anatomy than real live boys, back then. But I count myself lucky to have such a fine specimen of manhood nearby, now that I'm ready for the real thing."

"You're so good, Cat." His eyes went pink and shimmery. "This, with you, its so good. I didn't even realize, but I'd forgotten what it felt like."

"Sex?"

He laughed, and a tear leaked from the corner of his eye and wandered down his cheek.

"No. What it's like to be happy."

***

Sex—at least in the abstract—and her body, being naked, had never embarrassed her. But Derrek had a way of making her feel bare and vulnerable.

Lying on their sides facing each other, the way he looked at her, his gaze fixed on her nipple, watching how it crinkled and swelled when he blew on it after he'd glossed it with his tongue, she'd never felt so exposed. And it made her cunt seep and throb.

"Open your legs," he breathed.

She hinged her top leg, raised her knee to the sky. Holding her gaze, now, Derrek brushed his fingers over her curls, then teased one fingertip between her lips, along her slick slit. Letting him look into her eyes as he touched, she moaned when his finger parted her folds and, slick with her arousal, rubbed over her clit. Fingering her pussy, massaging her whole mons, then rubbing one or two fingers along the length of her seeping slit, fretting her clit on every stroke he dipped down and brushed his warm wet tongue over her stiff nipple and she whimpered, flexing for his hand. Two fingers entered her, pumped into her, and her whole body seemed to seize and clamp down on that touch, unlike anything she'd felt. With three pulsing sucks he let her nipple go, bared it, wet and hard, to the air, so he could watch her face.

Working his fingers inside her, fucking her, he watched her as she flexed to grind her clit against the heel of his hand. Desperate, seeking, scared to lose that big pleasure building in her, an almost painful pressure, she whined and humped his flexing hand, his fingers plunging into her, and almost scared, the feeling was so much, taking her over, taking away control, she begged, "Derrek! Derrek!," and he pumped his fingers faster and the pleasure ruptured and rippled through her, all around his fingers and out, through her belly and thighs, and slowly, slowly died down in quiet echoes that went on and on. He watched her through it all.

"I want you to teach me everything," she said, after. "Everything lovers do."

He laughed. "I'm afraid you're giving me way too much credit. I was only with two women, before you. And our repertoires were pretty vanilla."

"Well, I think we're well out of vanilla territory, here."

"Yeah."

It was good to see him smile at that. Not blush and look away.

"Well," she said, "I still want to try everything. Experience everything."

He was still smiling at her, and his aqua eyes got teary, not sad teary, but the way they looked when he was sentimental about something. "I love that about you. How you're that way with everything. Curious. Wanting to try different things."

***

A pair of nested S's, he moved inside her, his Cat, the power of her lithe body coming through in every motion, her abs flexing under his hand, her back muscles going taut then lax, taut then lax all along his torso, her legs twining against his, flexing for leverage as she sought to pull him deeper into her slick heat. But they were going slow. Languorous. He'd gone into her just minutes after they'd drained each other. Their aching need sated, this was for want, for comfort, her head cradled in the bend of his arm, his mouth roaming over the little curves of her ear, the angle of her jaw, her soft, smooth cheek, the arch of her eyebrow, the impossibly delicate eyelid, her lashes tickling his lips.

"I love you, Cat." He loved telling her as they kissed, as they fucked. The sound of her name and "love" in his mouth, voicing his heart.

Her "I love you," echoed back to him, soft in her throat, over and over, a chant from a trance.

With a fingertip he circled her nipples, first one, then the other, then traced a line down her body until he found her delicate little knot of flesh nestled between her swollen lips, and rubbed it gently until he felt her body clench around him, spasming. He watched her full lips part, watched her eyes squint tight, two little vertical furrows darken between her eyebrows as she came, and a euphoria swept through him. Perfect, warm joy.

Then something pulled his gaze away and up and his eyes met his father's.

Father. Standing on the rise above them. He'd seen. Seen everything.

Their dad turned his back and walked away, up the rise, toward their hut.

"What?" Her voice.

Her voice. She surrounded him. He pulled out. Too late. Too late. He'd fucked her. He'd fucked Cat. He'd licked his seed from her flower. He'd fucked her and He'd seen.

Her voice. "Dad. Oh god."

Meat on a spit is what he thought when she rotated to face him staying in exactly the same place. Brushing against him as she turned.

"Derrek. It's okay. It was never going to stay a secret forever. It couldn't."

Dad had seen him fucking his sister.

"It'll be okay. Not today, but soon. It'll be okay, Derrek."

Her fingers were in his hair and her green eyes and her brown nipples were so close. Too close.

"Please stop touching me."

"Alright."

Her hands were off him. He couldn't feel her hot thighs or her warm breath, now. And if he closed his eyes, her smooth gleaming skin was gone, too.

"What do you think he's thinking?"

"I'm a monster."

"No. Derrek, he's not thinking that."

A long silence.

"I wonder if he's glad."

"Glad?" Derrek groaned.

"Really. He wants to believe we'll get out of here someday, just like we all do. But however hard he keeps trying to work and live, like next week or next month we'll be in Mozambique, and on to London, Dad's a pragmatist, not a moralist. We're rational beings. And we're animals with drives. Dad will understand. We need each other."

"I was supposed to take care of you." Derrek's words half-dissolved in his throat.

"You do. Derrek, you do."

He wanted her touch to burn, like a condemning brand, but it felt so good. Soothing. He felt like a child, small and scared as she put her arms around him, shielding him from judging eyes. Her fingers in his hair, her caress up and down the length of his back, the soft heat of her body made him feel loved. Safe.

"Derrek. We can't hide from Dad forever."

The sun had gone down.

"I can't, Cat."

"Imagine what he's going through, Derrek. If he sees us, sees that we're okay, that we're happy, it's going to make him feel better."

"Cat, I can't. I can't look at him. Face him."

"Alright. I'm going home."

She stood up and put on her clothes, then knelt and put her arms around him, pulled him to her, kissed his wet cheek, and held him as she whispered, her voice hissing at his ear.

Never. He'd die. He'd kill. Kill all of them.

Tight, she held him to her warmth, absorbed his trembling. Whispered.

God, she was so full of love. Her love, tearing at him. Ripping him open, spilling him in the sand.

She tried to get inside him with her green eyes, tried to dam his tears with her kisses. But when she walked away, he lied still in the sand while the rain came and the sun sank, calming himself with the image of a thousand crabs scuttling up the beach to devour him.

***

Cat half expected to find her dad immersed in his notes and scatter plots, hiding from more visceral truths, but when she got to camp he was sitting stiffly upright at the big work table, gazing into the jungle beyond the clearing. His eyes locked on her the moment she emerged from the dense foliage.

"Hi Daddy."

"Hi Kitten."

No anger in his voice. Just sadness.

"Daddy, we..."

"You looked happy. Both of you."

"Yes."

"Then I'm glad." His voice broke apart. "Is that awful of me?"

"No, Daddy."

He sat as rigid and straight as before, but the whites of his eyes had gone red and tears spilled down his face.

"Daddy, I'm happy. And Derrek will be happy, too, when he sees you don't hate him, when he lets go of his guilt."

"You're not ashamed."

"No."

"That's right. That's good. You shouldn't be. You've always been good, Cat, at reasoning to your own conclusions. But Derrek, he's like most of us. He needs approval. Society's approval. His father's approval."