Filed To Story: The Saltwater Curse Book PDF Free
—looks at me. “Eat first. I want to show you something.”
I do as he says, mind whirling with possibilities. Maybe he hauled a water tank from the mainland, or a box of
Kacang
Disco. Or he could’ve stolen the solar panels I previously mentioned wanting—he does stuff like that very often. He might not talk or look like he’s interested, but he listens to every word I say.
I once asked if it were easy to catch crab or squid, if he’s ever tried human meat like chicken. The next day, he came back from hunting with both. A week later, I saw a chicken roaming around the island.
Now I am the mother of eight chickens, craned to me by boat in the dead of night, and much to Ordus’ confusion, I can’t bring myself to do more than cook their eggs.
Ordus says nothing when he shows up midway through my meal. I’m camped out in the chair he made, staring out the window. It’s too windy to sit outside only in my swimsuit and rash shirt.
Once I finish, I follow him silently through the tunnel into the main cavern, the stray tentacle wrapped around my waist in case I trip—a common occurrence. Ordus and I have begun planting the glowing algae along the channel walls so I’m no longer going in blind. The light is still faint, but it’s miles better than it used to be.
He leads me to the pool, where he holds his hand out for me to take, the one with the green scrunchie on it. If I didn’t know better, it looks like a seaweed bracelet.
Pensive excitement soars through my veins. He acknowledges me so little that in the dead of night, when it’s time to creep into our bed of moss, a needy bud comes to bloom at the knowledge I’ll be in his arms. That when he touches me, it won’t hurt. When he trails a finger down my arm, the goosebumps aren’t out of trepidation, but the ecstasy of being recognized as a being beyond skin and bone.
Ordus thinks I don’t know he stares at me before he falls asleep, that he presses his nose close to my hair and takes four deep breaths as his eyes drift shut.
But I do.
Every night, I let myself fall for the delusion that fate and magic don’t have anything to do with his interest in me. That whatever this is between us is more than physical. I…I want him to open up to me.
“Where are we going?” I hesitate, glancing between him and his outstretched hand.
“We will stay on the island.” His face is impassive; it always is nowadays. I hate it.
It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, not the way Tommy’s blank face did. This just kind of—hurts?
I brush my fingers over his calluses, watching as his hand dwarfs my own. His skin pulses different colors with his shudder. Tugging, I inch toward him, gnawing on the inside of my cheek while he reaches for me, curling his arm around my waist to hold me to him. I wrap my legs around him and try not to think about how his abs contract against my core.
Ordus’ fingers weave into my matted, postsurf hair to tuck my head against the crook of his neck, and I let him. I melt into him, breathe him in, soak up every inch of his warmth to fill the empty space in my heart where my loneliness grows.
His thumb snakes beneath the sliver of skin between my rash shirt and the top of my bikini bottoms. It stays there, a threat and a temptation all in one.
The silky strands of his raven hair twine and thread between my fingers as I cradle the base of his skull. A strained purr rumbles to life in his chest. The buzzing in my veins heats at the way his muscles ripple beneath my touch. Feminine satisfaction sends a bolt of desire right to my core that I can have such a profound impact on him from such a mundane motion.
Sometimes, at night, when I dare let myself dream of something good, I replay all the times I’ve watched him stare at his scrunchie. I want to do it again. I want to braid his hair so he’s moving through space with my touch evident on him—as a reminder to the both of us that my touch doesn’t need to hurt either.
Maybe I also want to do it because it gives me a possessive thrill. Or maybe it’s the self-satisfaction of knowing Ordus might feel less alone when he looks at it.
His next breath comes out ragged. A forbidden touch in a dark cave. We don’t speak. We don’t dare move, like we’re both afraid of scaring the other off.
My eyes flutter closed when his thumb glides along the few inches of skin. Back and forth, a pendulum that keeps me on edge, waiting to see if it’ll ever stop.
I fist his hair against my wishes. My hand has a mind of its own. I don’t want him to know how badly I need the connection. I don’t want to need the connection. I wish I weren’t so hungry for it that I could let the desire fizzle into nothing. I wish I could go back to trying to stay alive. But still, my hand stays in his hair. His thumb continues to caress my skin until it feels like I’m raw.
Ordus breaks the spell first by snatching his hand away like he’s caught fire, and then he jerkily lowers us into the water. The warmth around me shatters, and I try to keep myself contained so he doesn’t see my disappointment.
The air bubble forms around my head not two seconds after I’m fully submerged beneath the cool water. I tighten my legs around him and flatten my torso against his to absorb his warmth. A shudder rolls through his body, and it just…confuses me.
Whenever I start to convince myself he’s disgusted by me or wants to get rid of me, his body reacts so viscerally. Like the way his cock hardens when I walk around in my bikini. Or how his abs clench when I rest my hand on his stomach at night. His breaths come out ragged when I stand close to him.
It’s just physical. I hate it.
I squeeze my eyes shut, letting him hold my weight. He only likes me like that, not for me. It’s probably that stupid mate thing. He wouldn’t tolerate me if it weren’t for it.
But on the other side of things… Deep down, maybe he does want more, but the walls he’s built around himself won’t let him have that, whether out of self-preservation or self-loathing. The things I’ve said wouldn’t have helped matters. I can’t get anywhere if he doesn’t talk to me.
Do I really want to get anywhere, though? Aren’t I leaving soon?
A blue glow stirs me up, and I open my eyes just as the bubble pops. I sputter against the crash of saltwater.
“Give me warning next time,” I sputter as I cough and rub my stinging eyes. Ordus eases horizontally onto his padded tentacles.
He grunts.
I glare at him. Fucking hell. Enough of the grunt?—
Oh, shit. Molten heat shoots straight to my core, and I suck in a sharp breath. He can grunt some more if he’s like this: towering over me, arms on either side of my head, caging me beneath him. Under the glowing light of the algae, water sluices down his bulging biceps and each dip of his abs before traveling down the sharp V that spreads out into thick tentacles.
My vision goes blurry as the muscles in my core contract, and my nipples push painfully against the fabric of my top. His harsh breaths fan my aching skin, nostrils flaring with every deep inhale. In the span of a heartbeat, ocean-blue eyes blow out into a stormy black void of hunger.
My nails dig into his shoulders of their own accord. What is happening?
One of the tentacles cushioning my back from the harsh, rocky surface of the cave floor shifts. A thick appendage slides around my upper thigh, suckers puckering against my skin. It grazes the throbbing flesh between my legs and sends stars shooting straight behind my eyes.
This shouldn’t be happening.
It’s wrong. He kidnapped me. He doesn’t even like me. He prefers the idea of me.
But one more second won’t hurt. Just one. A single second doesn’t change anything. I can afford one. A moment to be looked at like nothing in this world exists except me, as if the seas could drain and the skies could fall, and he won’t feel the burn as long as I’m there.
It’s a suffocating addiction. I could choke on it and still come back day after day for another hit to feel like I’m more than a pile of skin and broken bones.
A strangled moan splinters out of me when pure, hard muscle grinds against my sensitive core.
“Cindi,” he purrs.
I clamp down on the inside of my cheek.
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