Savage by Kat Austen

there like a cold fish. And I’ve been alone far longer than the years I’ve been on this island.”
    My eyebrows came together. “What do you mean?” I knew he was a doctor, but not much else about him. This was probably a good time to fill in the blanks before we got back to fulfilling each other’s desires.
    He swallowed, his eyes going somewhere else. “My parents died when I was young, and I spent most of my formative years being raised by an old uncle who didn’t know the first thing about affection, nor did he have the desire to learn it. I think that was what encouraged me to work so hard in school that I could graduate early—so I could be out on my own.”
    As his story unfolded, I lifted up onto my elbow so I could look at him.
    “I finished my undergrad at twenty, med school two years later, and I was an official MD by the time I turned twenty-five. I worked in a pediatrics’ hospital in the oncology department in Boston for five years, before the cases I dealt with took their toll and I decided I needed to try something else. I was tired of being alone and watching children suffer then die, only able to help ease their suffering or temporarily prolong their lives. I was tired of having no one to come home to and find comfort in at the end of a long day. So I left the States and signed up to help an international organization that helps children in impoverished countries.” His eyes drifted from the sky to mine for a moment, his hand pressing deeper into my waist. “I hoped that in some way, out here, away from everything I’d known, that I’d find the meaning and purpose I’d spent most of my life searching for. I hoped I’d find someone to share life with, instead of spending the rest of mine alone.” He paused to take a breath. As he exhaled, he drew me closer. “I was looking for you.”
    I smiled, raising a brow. “You were looking for me?”
    He nodded once. “I might not have known your name or what you looked like or where or when I’d meet you, but yes, I was looking for you .”
    Something in my chest felt like it was melting. My heart or my lungs or my soul . . . or everything in between.
    “And you know my name now?” I asked once I could form words again.
    He grinned. “You, Jane. Me, Tarzan.”
    The playfulness on his face and in his words made me laugh. “You do know my name.”
    “I couldn’t talk. My hearing was just fine though.”
    I shifted farther up his body so my face was hovering above his. I had so many questions, but one had been on the forefront of my mind since that night I’d felt two strong arms pull me out of the ocean. “How did you know I was out there and needed help?”
    Grant was quiet as his gaze flickered out to the ocean. It was so calm and peaceful this morning—a stark contract to how it had been the night it brought me to this island. His forehead creased deeper with each moment that passed, almost like he was reliving the scene. “I saw your boat earlier that afternoon when I’d been up a tree gathering fruit.”
    “You mean to tell me that the first time you laid eyes on me, you were hacking papaya out of a tall tree?” I teased.
    He shot me a disparaging look. “If you must know, it was a breadfruit tree and your boat looked like a little speck on the horizon, so I had no idea who or what was on it. But it was the first sign of life I’d seen while on this island, so I jumped out of the tree and started piling up as many leaves and branches as I could to start a fire.”
    My breath stopped when I realized it was his trail of black smoke I’d been trying to get to when the storm started. I’d had no idea. I thought the storm had tossed me around a good few knots before sinking the boat.
    “That was your fire?” I breathed.
    Grant blinked. “You saw it?”
    “Yes, I saw it. I’d been trying to make it toward it when the storm got out of control.” Now I was looking out at the ocean with him. I was so sure it had been trying to