“So you’re not a killer?” I sniffed, struggling to understand it all with my dehydrated, fuzzy brain.
He relaxed, his hand wiping across my cheek. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I didn’t harm the bartender, anyway.” He shook his head, and said with a grin, “You’re such a pain in my ass.” He gave me another sip of water, and said, “Ah, Penny, you have no idea the amount of trouble you’ve caused me today.” He smiled at me despite his scolding words. “One more sip of water, then we’ll try a little bit of Gatorade.” He held the bottle to my lips tenderly.
“How many days have I been in this tent?” I wiped my lips as I looked around.
“All afternoon.”
I was confused; surely I’d been floating in and out of consciousness for days. “That’s all?” He chuckled again and nodded.
My head was pounding, my throat felt like I’d swallowed cotton. “I need a doctor,” I begged.
He sat down on the sleeping bag next to me and pulled me into his arms. “I am a doctor, sweetheart.”
When I awoke again, it was darker yet. The silver glow of moonlight illuminated the tent as I glanced around. Rex was next to me, my head on his chest. I sat up and debated whether I should run, but quickly abandoned the idea of escape. If Rex wanted to harm me, he wouldn’t have spent all day nursing me back to health. He scared me, but I was beginning to understand him. He was far more bark than bite.
His eyelids popped open when he sensed my movement. I’d reached over to drink from a plastic bottle—the flat, sweet liquid tasting like heaven. “Little sips,” he warned as he sat up. I nodded, setting the bottle back down. “I feel so much better. Can I go back?” He shook his head and looked at me with pity. “Penny, it’s not safe for you to go back to Vegas. Right now, I can’t even get you out of Colombia.”
Colombia—we were in Colombia. That’s not an island!
“Okay…” I believed him. “But can I go back to the house? It’s not that far, right?”
“You wandered for miles, and I have a group of five men out there expecting to be led into the deep jungle to learn survival skills. They pay me a lot of money to teach them this shit. Looks like I have a new student.” He poked me in the ribs. “I’ve already had to make up a story about who you are and why you are here—plus we’ve lost almost a whole day’s trek while you recovered. I’ll do my best to go easy on you, sweetheart, but welcome to hell.”
After several more sips of Gatorade, Rex convinced me to sleep a few more hours until sunrise. As we lay back down together on the small sleeping bag, he offered, “If it gets too hard out there for you I’ll call Nate to come get you when I get a signal. Try your best, though, Penny. I don’t want Nate out here if I can avoid it—this group isn’t the best crowd for him to be around—he’s still vulnerable. The rest of the staff can’t be trusted with you out here alone.” Vulnerable? To what?
“Vulnerable,” I repeated with a yawn. Suddenly, it all clicked. The physical intimacy between these two very alpha males, the level of trust Nate had in Rex, the protectiveness shown by Rex of Nate. Nate must have some illness! “Oh, you’re his doctor,” I said out loud.
Rex rolled over to face me in the pre-dawn blackness. “I swear, Princess, most of the time I have no idea what the actual fuck you’re talking about. Whose doctor?”
“Nate’s—I thought you might be lovers, but now I get it.”
“Lovers—that’s quite a ridiculous word. No, sweetheart, I’m not his doctor. Our relationship is far from a professional one, and none of your goddamn business. If you must know, I was once a field combat medic, but my practice quickly morphed into something much more…classified. Now go the fuck to sleep, or I will feed you to the snakes.” The now-familiar threat of being tossed to reptiles, which had terrified me for days, I now realized was simply his twisted sense of humor. I refused to admit to him that my phobia of slithering creatures, especially snakes, was certifiable.
I wanted to ask more about Rex’s past, and his relationship with Nate, but either he was fast asleep, or pretending to be in order to ignore me. Still processing the last few hours with this enigmatic man, I nudged up next to him, inhaling the manly scent I was beginning to like—like a lot.
“Morning, sunshine!” He was shaking me and yanking at the sleeping bag. “Get your lazy ass up, we’re moving out.” One of my eyes opened. Rex was hovering over me, agitated and threatening. “Now!” he hissed. His semi-sweet bedside manner from the night before had dissipated with the rising of the burning sun. “Yes, sir,” I grumbled, sliding from the comfort of the covers.
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny bar of something. “Breakfast,” he said as he opened the crinkly wrapper. I reached out for it—I wasn’t into granola bars, but I was starving. “We’re sharing it, sweetheart. This is all the food we have until we catch lunch.” He broke off a third of the bar and tossed it toward me. “You don’t share so fairly,” I mumbled as I chewed at the bland, dry cereal bar. “You’re a third my size, you get a third—fair is fair. We could wrestle for it if you’d rather?” He winked at me as he devoured his share in two bites.
“Follow my lead out there—if word gets out that Penelope Sedgewick is here, we’re all in trouble.” I nodded, rolling up the sleeping bag. “Where can I pee?” I asked sheepishly. My head still throbbed, but at least I finally had enough to drink that I needed to release it.
“I’ll take you, but can you wait two secs while I pack up?”
In minutes, the tent and all of his belongings were packed into a heavy backpack. I was tossed a flimsy day-sack before he led me toward the group of campers. The anxious men hovered around us in a circle—staring. None of them spoke until Rex gestured to one of the younger ones. “Joe, can you start the guys walking—head due north. We’ll catch up.” He turned to me and pointed toward some tall vegetation near camp, “That way, sis.”
“Sis?” I asked when the others were out of earshot. “I told them you were my step-sister, Joanie. After I found you yesterday, I quickly made up a story that my mom was staying with me and kicked you out into the jungle. I couldn’t think of any other reason I’d have an unprepared woman out here.” After walking several feet into the dense foliage, he pointed to a flattened area. “Sorry, no running water for you, Princess.”
I was used to luxury, and had never camped out before, but I’d been known to party hard and squatting to pee outside wasn’t new to me. Rex stood in front of me with his hands on his hips waiting. “I can’t go with you watching!” I complained. He sighed in exasperation before turning his back to me. “You’re high maintenance, lady. I’ve seen your lovely waxed snatch twice already, who the fuck cares if I see you piss?” I managed to lower the too-tight borrowed jeans enough down my thighs to squat and pee, Rex fidgeting the whole time impatiently.
“I need to wipe, do you have…?”
He sighed again before exhaling, “Grab a leaf, and do try to avoid one with something that bites on it.”
I reached for a nearby frond of some lush palm—it did work fairly well as impromptu toilet paper.
“I’m not high maintenance. It’s not easy to just let loose with someone watching.” I zipped the jeans and stood. Rex turned to face me, and in one quick motion pulled open the button-fly of his canvas cargo pants. “It’s a bodily function, sweetheart, it’s nothing special,” he barked. My eyes were glued to his crotch as he flopped out the most massive penis I’d ever seen in my life—in person, anyway. Even flaccid and wrapped in his gargantuan paw, it was still larger than life. With no regard for my gaping stare, he produced a loud, heavy stream of urine onto the verdant jungle floor. “See?” I couldn’t answer—I was speechless at not only the size of his dick, but at the metal running across it—I wasn’t exactly innocent, but I’d never seen a pierced penis in person. He gave his gigantic member a quick shake and shoved it back into the canvas pants. I didn’t see any sign of undergarments—just King Rex and his enormous pierced cock—commando. “You’re lucky we have plenty of drinkable water—if we didn’t, that would have been your morning coffee, Princess,” he added, pointing to the pool of urine near his feet.
“Where do we wash our hands?” I asked, palms in the air.
Ignoring me, he turned quickly and walked toward the clearing in large strides as I struggled to keep up with him. “Hurry so we can catch up. Those douche nozzles won’t last long without supervision.”
“I’m supposed to be your sister? Joanie?”
“Uh, yeah—step-sister, important distinction in case we get caught fucking.”
“I’m never going to have sex with you!” Despite my protest, the idea of touching him caused my heart to skip a beat.