Surviving Raine (Surviving Raine 1)

“I don’t know,” she said, her shoulders moving up and down. “I mean, it was nice after a while, but…”

“Nice? Just nice? Yeah, baby. I’ll tell you one thing for sure; you didn’t have an orgasm if it was just nice.”

“Whatever.”

“Seriously, Raine?” I shifted my position so I was looking at her straight on. “You’ve never had one, have you?”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed again. No wonder she seemed so uptight about the whole thing. She had no idea what she was missing.

“Stop laughing at me!”

“Really, babe,” I said, trying to stifle my snickers but not being overly successful. It was just too incredible. “I’m not laughing at you; really I’m not. I just can’t believe a girl as fucking gorgeous as you hasn’t had a team of guys begging to bring you to orgasm.”

I could see her cheeks darken with her blush as she looked down at the floor away from me. She must have had offers – she said she had gone to college for a while, right? There was no way a chick this hot walking around campus wouldn’t be invited to every frat party in town. If she went to just one single party, there was no way some guy didn’t try to get up in there.

An image of Theresa flashed through my head for a second, and it suddenly occurred to me that something like that could have happened to Raine, too. I mean, it wasn’t a crime reserved for the underprivileged or anything. Date-rape in college was a fucking epidemic.

My hands clenched into fists. If someone had done that to Raine, I’d paddle this fucking raft to wherever the hell she went to school and kill the motherfucker.

“Raine…” I had to clear my throat to keep going. “Did someone ever…hurt you? Like that?”

“What?” Raine looked up to me. The look in her eyes was so confused; I knew immediately I must have been wrong and relaxed a little.

“Thank God,” I mumbled.

“Oh!” Raine’s eyes got wide and she shook her head violently. “No, nothing like that. I just never really dated after Andy.”

So, either she turned down the offer to go to the parties, or she pushed the guys away. Why would she do that? Mourning for her father? Ticked at the ex-boyfriend who couldn’t get her off? Or did she just not think she would ever enjoy it?

That idea just pissed me off. Of course, my mouth tended to go on about its merry way without consulting my brain and often took my body along with it, so the next thing I knew, I was propositioning her.

“I could do it, you know,” I heard myself say. My voice had dropped down low, but I knew she still heard me. I could hear her breathing increase over the soft lapping of waves against the edge of the raft. I leaned over only a little, bringing my mouth closer to her ear. “I could make you come without even touching you.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath, and then she froze, motionless and not breathing at all. I exhaled slowly, blowing warm air over the skin of her neck. Her arms broke out in gooseflesh.

“I really didn’t want to have this discussion in the first place,” she said, turning away from me with a shiver. She ran her hands up and down her arms. “And now it is definitely over.”

She ended the conversation, but that didn’t stop my mind from thinking about it some more – quite a lot more, actually.

* * * * *

She had only been awake for a half hour or so, but I could have sworn Raine was trying to go for one of those world records where people sat still the longest. I didn’t know what her problem was, and I was annoyed with myself for agreeing to talk about her father the previous night. I was equally annoyed with myself for offering to get her off. She wasn’t the kind of girl I was used to, and I honestly didn’t know how to interact with her without making an ass of myself, so I was trying not to talk at all. If I said anything at this point, it would end up being bitchy.

I collected what morning dew there was from the canopy and added it to the water container, sealing it tight. There wasn’t more th

an half a cup left. There wasn’t enough water to last half the day, and there hadn’t been any other schools of fish close to us lately. The only thing I had seen was a small shark, and cartilage fishes were useless for water.

Raine shifted again, and this time I caught the grimace on her face.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in pain or something,” I stated. “What hurts?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her eyes looking away from me quickly as unease crept into her face.

“Bullshit.” I looked her over for a moment and watched her squirm in her bathing suit. Then it hit me what was wrong with her. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re chafing in that suit, aren’t you? And those shorts are that stretchy crap that doesn’t breathe.”