Blackout

Chapter 13

Imaia Island

Max

Present

“Let's get loud, let's get loud, turn the music up, let's do it…” I was singing while hanging the laundry in the backyard of the dorms. The large yard connected with the main road and extended for miles of green grass and wildflowers. People had built poles with long ropes to hang the washing and as far as I could see there were only white sheets drying under the afternoon sun and some women smoking by the backdoor of the dorms. Rosie and Nathan had gone to the dining room to get some sandwiches for our night shift while I’d been in charge of hanging our laundry. They had been surprised when I offered myself to do it. 

“What?” I’d shrugged, taking our basket and heading to the backyard, “where I come from hanging the laundry is quite common.”

“Do you come from a third world country?” asked Nathan and Rosie smirked at his side.

“Do you come from another planet?” They bumped fists and threw me apologizing  kisses on their way out. I knew they had been joking, but I wasn’t joking. I’d really helped my grandma to hang our laundry every single Sunday from the time I was a toddler to a couple of years ago when I made enough money to buy her the best drier I could find in the stores. We never had enough money to buy a drier while I was growing up, but that never seemed like a bad thing to me. My grandmother had made sure my clothes were always clean and neat. I’d even liked the smell of the sun in clean linen.

She had always said “podemos ser pobres, pero nunca sucias”, which meant something along the lines of we can be poor, but we are always clean. Hanging the clothes still made me smile, and sing old latin songs from where I was growing up and I would hear Jennifer Lopez’s songs blasting from the stereo of our neighbor Paco. I even swayed a little and moved my hips, turning around to the basket. Then I crouched down, opening my legs around the basket and searching around the wet clothes for Rosie’s white sheet. 

A long shadow fell over me, making me lift my hand and keep it like a visor over my eyes. Callan stopped before me, all six feet and a half of raw man, tanned and covered in sweat after a long day of work. He had green cargo pants, a dirty wife-beater shirt and wide boots that looked wet and unlaced. I got up slowly, swallowing nervously when his green-gray eyes covered my body hungrily. We hadn’t spoken after what happened at the equipment room. I’d wanted to talk to him a number of times but Callan had been impossible to find around the camp, always busy and working every single day in the dam his unit was developing. Now that he was standing in front of me I had no idea what to say. The weirdest thing was, we didn’t need to say anything. I had one look at his eyes and moved closer, screaming at myself that I needed to move back and let the man go, but I just couldn’t help it.

The moment I moved to him Callan took a step closer. I was suddenly surrounded by his powerful presence, the heat of his large body, the smell of man and sweat and everything I wanted to rub my nose on. I studied his handsome face, the angle of his straight nose, the high cheekbones that every girl would envy and those deep-set eyes that made him look as if he was always calculating his next move carefully. I liked this man. I really did. He was the kind of man that could make a woman like me happy. I could see it in his eyes. There was respect in the way he looked at me, deep respect, and admiration. And above everything else there was naked lust. It was impossible not to see he wanted to f**k me. Even I knew it, and I was as virgin as they came.

I took another step closer, seeking the warmth of his muscular body. We were under the afternoon sun and it was hot, but I still wanted the heat that his body was emanating, like my own, personal sun. The basket groaned under the pressure of my foot and frowning I looked in time to see I’d stepped on it. I cursed, taking a step back and getting my act straight. I cleared my throat, looking at Callan over my shoulder while unwrapping the white sheet.

“Here, help me to hang it,” I said, offering the corners of the sheet to Callan. He didn’t say anything but helped me around until I was done flattening the sheet over the rope and then used one of the clothespins I’d clipped to my shirt to clasp the sheet. I turned over the basket, already checking for more clothes to hang.

“That’s a nice trick,” commented Callan, pointing at the wooden clothespins hanging from my blouse. I laughed a bit, moving around and hanging one of my scrubs tops. I bent over the basket, blushing a little when I felt him check my ass. I cleared my throat again, staring at Callan over my shoulder. His eyes, which looked greener under the sun, moved lazily from my ass back to my face, owning it, letting me know he liked to watch me, “and that’s a nice ass.”

I blushed, but my mouth didn’t skip a beat like my heart, “you did say once that I was too gorgeous for my own good. This isn’t my own good, isn’t it?”

“Making you feel good and being good are two things I can’t do at once woman,” he said hoarsely, moving closer until he was eclipsing the sun at his back. His large hand moved swiftly, in a practiced caress that burned my cheek on it’s path to the front of my neck. He held me like this, by the neck and not by the chin, like those stupid men in movies always did. I guess that made Callan a real man, and those men in movies were only actors selling a stereotype. I felt my lower lip quiver a little under the possessive stare of his eyes. He traced my throat with a thumb, making me feel the vibration of his deep voice through the contact, “I could make you feel good if you let me. We have six months on this island to spend it together, firecracker. This type of coincidence never happens and will never happen again. You know you want this. f**k waiting until marriage. I will make it worth it.”

“It’s only six months Callan,” I whispered and his lips drew back in an angry snarl. This was the man and not the soldier, the rawness of his want was almost palpable and I couldn’t help to like it. This was Callan. This was a man. This was real. What he felt for me was real, and passionate and so hot that I couldn’t remember why I was even denying him.

“That’s enough time.”

“That’s no time,” I rebuked and this time he arched an eyebrow at me.

“Sometimes that's all we have. You are a doctor, you know better than anyone else that time waits for no one. You and me, right here on this island, breathing each other and living in each other. That’s all I can offer. It’s not much, but it’s all I have,” our eyes moved in synchrony, his begging me to accept his proposal and mine begging for him to kiss me. I was so close to accepting his proposal and damned be the consequences, but in the end it was his eyes the ones that made me stop. It was there, in the way he seemed to track every single one of my movements as if he couldn’t have enough, as if I was everything he had ever wanted in a woman. I had to be blind not to see it. 

It would be a crime if we didn’t get to know each other better.

I took one step back and he moved with me.

I smirked and he gave me a wolfish grin.

“You are not dropping this issue,” I observed and Callan tilted his head to the side, still following me while I moved another step back.

“I can’t,” he retorted and playfully I looked down, at the long rod of his erection, marking his pants. I smiled, looking back at him and making him stop when I placed my hands over his muscular chest. I peered at him under my eyelashes, loving the way his eyes darkened and his body tensed with want.

“Put it down, soldier,” I joked and this time he gave me a smile, one that was all white teeth and raw desire. He was on me fast, taking me easily and guiding my arms around his neck. His hands moved slowly, caressing my thighs and holding my ass hard with his large hands. Callan lifted me up slowly, never breaking eye contact, until I crossed my ankles at his back and pressed my breasts to his chest. I’d never been held like this. I’d never held a man like that, but I couldn’t care about anything right then. The white sheets surrounding us were floating in the wind and the air smelt like the sun, clean linen and grass. I crossed my arms around his neck, staring into his eyes while he stared at me. We were safely cocooned from the rest of the world, standing in the middle of rows of white sheets. I blinked once and slowly moved my head, breathing in his scent and the heat of the sun on his face.

I kissed him first, savoring this man, parting my lips over his mouth and dragging my tongue all over the inner curve of his upper lip. I tasted him, really tasted his flavor of coffee and salt, which made me want to sigh in pleasure. He tasted amazing and so damn masculine, not like damn synthetic toothpaste or the tic tacs my last boyfriend used before kissing me. No, Callan was raw masculinity. He controlled  the kiss, holding my ass with a hand and dragging a warm hand from my waist to my lower back, caressing my bare skin and holding me still for him to deepen the kiss. His lips opened and closed around my mouth, drawing my lower lip between his teeth and nibbling softly on it before resting his forehead against mine and parting our lips apart. I could taste the air he breathed and he scented my hairline, caressing his nose around my temples.

“Give me an answer, woman,” he rasped, his voice hoarse and tight.

“We need more time Callan,” I answered gently, running my fingers across the short hairs at the back of his neck. His eyelids lowered to a half mast at my touch. It was impossible to explain, but I could feel in my own skin how much it pleased him that I touched him. I smiled, marveling at all the little things that I liked about him. Callan shook his head slowly at me, his lips stealing a pick from my mouth.

“I’m already calculating how and where I could steal you another kiss,” he said against my mouth, making me smile wider. He peered between my lips and my eyes, looking like a model out of a magazine by the way he was squinting under the sun, “At least let me touch again.”

“No,” I swallowed, “that’s too dangerous.”

“Another kiss then,” he bartered, “anywhere you want it.”

That made me laugh and at the sound of my laughter his eyes flickered with hunger. He enjoyed watching me laugh, another reason why he was way too good to be true. I kissed his jaw, tasting the salt of his skin on my lips and then staring up at him, “I will want more if you give me more.”

“Glad you are getting the idea,” he said with a nod.

“I will propose something different,” I looked down to the grass and then back at him, “It’s better if we talk away from each other.”

“I hear you perfectly fine from here,” said Callan gravelly, as if we were talking about a very serious matter. It was something about how the corners of his eyes crinkled even if he was being serious that made me smile like a silly woman. 

“You can put me down, Callan. I will not run away.”

“I can’t put anything down when you are around, woman,” he said that seriously, staring at me as if he really meant it and that made me laugh more than anything else. Was this man real? I shook my head at him.

“Let’s know each other,” I proposed and Callan frowned, his brows knitted in tension. I caressed the back of his neck, feeling the soft prickle of his short hairs and loving how his frown disappeared and his eyelids lowered at my touch. I could get used to doing that, “We have six months stuck on this island. Let me get to know you, slowly, and you can get to know me. Maybe I’m not that likable once you learn that I practice medicine by stitching grapes and that I wear ugly glasses when I read.”

His eyebrows lowered right away, “you wear glasses?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged and Callan sighed, raising his eyebrows and clicking his tongue.

“You know you can’t possibly get any hotter, right?”

“Callan, I’m being serious,” he nodded.

“Me too.”

“Callan,” I stared at him pointedly until he glared at me.

“What do you propose?”

I smiled slowly. He wasn’t denying my idea right away, which was a good sign. Men like Callan, which were used to getting what they wanted, exactly how they wanted it weren’t grand on patience. But for me he was trying. He was listening and that made me feel happy and hopeful because at the end of the day Callan wanted me enough to try.

“Come to our Shots and Questions night,” I invited him, blushing a little because I felt the strange sensation that I was asking him out. Which wasn’t the case, but I was still vulnerable and open. He could always say no and for whatever reason I felt saddened at the idea. Callan narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

“What the f**k is that?”

I snorted.

“Come tonight and find out.”