The water was warm and clear and slid over Cisco's skin like he was in the bathtub. He popped up to the surface with a gasp, wiped the water off his face, and lay back to float, staring up at the blue sky, fringed with palm trees.
At least this part of being stranded on a desert island lived up to the fantasy.
Sure, it sounded like a good deal. Living on the beach in a tropical paradise? Sweet.
What it was, though, was a lot of fear and discomfort and arguments and struggling to find food and water, and maintain their shelter. Plus the occasional almost-panic-attack, just to keep things interesting.
It had been ten days, by his estimation, since they'd paddled ashore in a rubber raft, clutching the things they'd managed to rescue from the tiny prop plane whose pilot had suffered an instantaneously fatal heart attack in the air. Him and the other passenger on Star Labs' tiny company plane - Caitlin Snow.
She'd been a beautiful stranger when they boarded the plane in Honolulu, a serious, carefully dressed woman who silently shook her head to his offer of gum. When he'd tried to start a conversation with the very smallest of small talk - "Guam, awesome, am I right? So what project are you working on for Star?" - she'd said, "Bioengineering," and opened her book.
He'd thought, This is going to be a looooong flight.
Well, shit. If that wasn't the understatement of the year.
Cisco knew he was lucky to have her. They were lucky to have each other. Between their two different fields of expertise, they were doing all right at the survival business so far.
And she was opening up, softening, even smiling at him every once in awhile. He'd found out all sorts of things about her. That she couldn't sleep except on her side, curled up in a ball. That she could geek out almost as hard as he could over her particular things. (She'd practically bounced when she'd managed to refine oil from coconut meat.) That her second toes were longer than her big toes, and she thought that was ugly and freaky. And when they were sitting by the fire at night, she could argue all sorts of scientific knowledge with him, no matter how silly the debate got.
She still felt like a stranger, some days.
He realized he was tensing up again and shook his head hard, sending water drops flying in every direction. He'd found this warm little freshwater pool (with waterfall, even!), ten minutes' walk inland from their shelter cave and he'd promptly decided to take full advantage. He needed to unwind so he wouldn't lose his ever-lovin' mind by the time they got rescued.
They had enough food for a couple of days, thanks to a turtle he'd killed and all those coconuts. Plenty of water. Shelter was all taken care of. For the first time in about ten days, things were actually pretty much okay.
He hoisted himself up on a large, flat rock by the side of the pool and stretched out naked. The sun-warmed stone soaked heat into his skin, and he felt the tension trickling away.
He thought, Is the signal fire still going? He sat up to squint at the sky until he spotted the smudge of thick smoke trailing upwards, hopefully to catch the eye of some pilot or navigator that could come rescue them.
God. He was ridiculous. They were fine. He had to relax.
"Okay," he said aloud. "You are not allowed to think about anything serious for at least twenty minutes."
He'd swum and paddled and floated around, and now he was lying in the sun. He should be a puddle of non-tension. He should be oozing relaxation.
Well, there was one more thing that would take the edge off.
His hand drifted downward.
That was the other thing. There was precious little privacy. They slept two feet apart at night and spent most of the day within shouting distance. It wasn't like Cisco jerked off constantly or anything, but going without an orgasm for this length of time might be what was driving him ever so slightly crazy. He could feel the tension brewing between his shoulder blades like a summer storm.
He ran his fingers up the length of his dick, and without meaning to, he let out a soft groan. Damn, that felt good.
He rested his head back against the stone and closed his eyes, trying to conjure up some safe, anonymous fantasy to jerk off to. But no matter what he did, Caitlin kept slipping back into his thoughts.
Okay. Okay. Fine. He'd been looking at her long pale legs and the shadows between her breasts and her honey-colored eyes for ten days now. He'd had hot fantasies about friends or co-workers before without it meaning anything. Fantasy was just fantasy.
Anyway, it wasn't like he was going to go back and tell her that he'd choked the chicken to thoughts of her. That would be creepy.
Thinking of the way she bit her lip when she was thinking hard, Cisco stroked himself from root to tip, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive head. Pretending it was her hand.
Pretending that she was stretched out alongside him, her skin soft against his. Her hair was loose, not in its usual braid, and it fell soft and clean over her shoulders, curling against the swell of her breasts, the ends flicking his chest as she smiled down at him.
Did she like it when a guy kissed her neck?
Yes, he decided. His fantasy. So, yes.
She hummed and he could feel it against his lips. He laughed, and she laughed, and squirmed closer, resting the warm weight of her breast against his arm. She wasn't wearing a bra beneath the button-down shirt, and her nipples pressed against the cloth.
He was fully hard now as he worked his hand up and down his shaft.
In his imagination, he slipped a hand into the vee of her shirt and tugged, so a button popped out of its hole and revealed the soft inner curves of her breasts. He brushed a knuckle over her skin. Her lashes fluttered down, and her teeth sank into her soft lip.
He panted for air, little grunts slipping out. Precum leaked from the tip of his dick, warm as it dribbled over his knuckles.
He tugged at the shirt again, and it fell open. He trailed kisses from her neck down her collarbone, licking a path down the slope of her breast. Her fingers curled in his hair when he swirled his tongue around her nipple, and a little cry escaped her throat.
He strained, hips jerking his cock into his hand, grasping for the satisfaction just out of reach.
He thought of the silky softness of her stomach as he ran his hand down it, between her naked legs. She shifted them to allow him access. His fingertips slipped into her wet heat -
His toes curled and he let out a strangled yelp as blinding pleasure roared through his body.
He collapsed back against the rock, panting, one arm flung over his eyes to block out the sun. He lay for several moments, catching his breath as the sun dried his cum to stickiness on his chest and stomach.
God. Clearly he had needed that.
When he could sit up without shaking, he slid off the rock and into the water. He cleaned himself quickly, ducking under the surface and swimming a few strokes just to make sure.
He stood up in the water, scraping his hair out of his eyes, and let out a gusty sigh. Okay. That was going to have to happen more often. Maybe not fantasizing about Caitlin. That could lead to trouble. But just getting off in general.
He pulled his clothes back on, squeezing the water out of his hair, and started back toward the beach, following the tracks of his own footprints in the sand. He turned the corner around a palm tree and stopped. There was a patch of sand that had been smooth before, he would swear it. Now it was shuffled up, disturbed as if something had stood there, shifting slightly, for a good amount of time.
And a little distance away, a single footprint.
He put his own foot next to it to measure, unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. But no, it was too small, too narrow, and the second toe was a little longer than the big toe.
He stood in the shade of the tree, heart thudding, and wondered how much she'd seen.
He also hoped - prayed - that if she had seen everything, that he hadn't moaned her name.
FINIS