His teeth clamp onto my bottom lip. I cry out in pain.
He releases the broken flesh with a feral growl. “This mouth will get you hurt.”
“Fuck off!” I taste blood from my lip and spit in his face.
His expression changes, still furious but somehow softer. His tongue darts out and licks my spittle from his lips. “That was brave.” His forehead presses against mine, and his breathing is heavy as if he ran here.
“What are you doing? Get off me!”
He gives me a quick shake. “I need you to see me,” he says in a low growl.
My heart races, my head feels dizzy, and I can’t catch up to my lungs’ need for more oxygen. “You’re deranged!”
“You make me crazy.” He rolls his forehead against mine then pulls back while still keeping a firm grip on my jacket. “We’re going back to the cabin.” His firm gaze dares me to challenge him.
“I’m going west.”
He tilts his head, and I watch his expression slowly melt from anger to indifference. “You’ll die.”
I’m already shaking my head. “West is my way out of here. Don’t lie to me!”
“In two miles, you’ll hit a rock face. If you head south, you’ll hike for five more miles to get around it. North, eight.” His grip on my coat loosens. “To get out quickly, you hike east, up two-thousand feet of elevation, then west. That’s the quickest route.”
I swipe at his arms, and this time, he lets them fall to his sides. “Why didn’t you just tell me that earlier?”
He snags the rifle from the ground, and when he straightens, he looks at my swollen lower lip. “You never asked.” He pulls a flashlight from his back pocket, and with a click, he illuminates the ground and walks away, knowing I’ll follow.
My legs feel shaky from our tense exchange, and my traitorous body feels a little hot from the feel of his rough beard on my skin and his teeth on my lip. I’ve never been the kind of girl who enjoys rough sex, but something about Grizzly, the way he looks at me as if he could easily destroy me in the most beautiful way, his raw masculinity and possessive stare… Every part of me that is woman responds with a weeping yes, please.
I need you to see me.
I see him. And I like what I see.
He forces himself to live out here in exile because he believes he’s dangerous. Maybe he’s even done something horrible and he’s hiding. Or he’s done something he feels horrible about and refuses to allow himself the comforts of a real home or to take pleasure from a woman who is offering it to him.
The realization should scare me, but instead, I feel curious to know more.
Not that it’s any of my business. In a few days, we’ll get out of here and go our separate ways. All of my questions will remain a mystery, and eventually I’ll forget about the man who saved my life… twice.
“How’d you find me?”
His boots make little sound in the snow for a man his size. Even my steps are louder. “I tracked you.”
“Tracked me how?”
“Your footprints led me right to you,” he says, his voice heavy with disapproval.
Was he hoping he wouldn’t be able to find me? Wishing me out of his life, too?
“I hiked for miles—”
“Two.”
“I was following the sun.”
“You hiked in a circle.”
I stop in my—or rather, his—tracks. “I did not!”
He stops, too, but doesn’t turn around. “You did.” He shines his light through the trees, supposedly showing the direction I came, making an arc.
He’s right. I would’ve died out here on my own.
I follow him the rest of the way to the cabin. The time is cut in half, only proving that I had walked in a circle. Demoralized, tired, and confused, I stomp inside and hear the jail cell door lock behind me.
I strip off my jacket and toss it to the floor, where I’ll be sleeping for who knows how many more nights. I sense him still standing by the door, unmoving. When I look at him, I find him studying me unapologetically. His eyes trace the outline of my body.
“Sorry. I needed the clothes.” I move to take off his flannel and sweatpants that I had put over my pants.
“Keep them. You’ll need them for when we go.”
“And when will that be, exactly?”
He looks off and stares at nothing as if he’s doing a math problem in his head. “I’ll take tomorrow to prep, hunt. We’ll leave the following day.”
“I’ll need your word on that.”
His eyes narrow. “You have my word.”
“Fine.” With a heavy sigh, I lower myself to the floor, not even caring that the woodstove is hardly warm.
“Take my bed.” He shrugs out of his coat and returns the rifle to its proper spot on the wall. “I’ll sleep down here.”
“No, thanks.” The last thing I need is to be surrounded in his earthy, delicious scent while my body is still buzzing from his mouth on mine.
“It’s warmer up there. More comfortable.” He steps out of his boots, and I realize I’m still wearing mine. “You’ll need a couple good nights’ rest for the hike out.”
I don’t answer him.
“Get up there, or I’ll put you there myself.”
“Stop ordering me around!” I push up to my feet, unlace and kick my boots at him, then strip out of the flannel, sweatpants, and my jeans, leaving me in only my long underwear.
I try to ignore how his eyes never waver from me. Try not to notice how they darken and settle on my breasts as if he’s reliving the night before. Everything between my hips tingles and clenches, and before I set myself up for another rejection, I climb the ladder to the bed platform.
Thirteen
Alexander
Hours after she went up the ladder to go to bed, I lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling, waiting for her to fall asleep. I can hear the whisper of bedding as she tosses and turns, every murmured curse word and huff of restless frustration.
She’s not alone. My own body feels as though it’s been hooked up to a live wire. My blood is too hot and skin too tight, and an anxious energy stirs inside me. I snapped on her tonight, hurt her just like I feared I would. Finding her alone and sleeping against a tree without a fire and completely off guard snapped the last of my control. I bit her like an animal. To think, the only thing she should truly fear isn’t the beasts in the forest, but me. She was right to call me deranged. I’m glad she finally sees that I’m not a white knight.
My thoughts come to an abrupt halt when I hear more rustling from the bed platform, followed by the creak of the ladder rungs. I can tell she’s trying to be quiet as she creeps slowly down. She shouldn’t put forth the effort. From brain to groin—and every cell in between—has been obsessing on thoughts of her.
When her socked feet hit the wood floor, I keep my eyes closed, feeling the air shift around me as she moves through the cabin. Is she grabbing my rifle? Will she attempt to make a run for the door?
I wasn’t lying when I told her she should sleep in my bed to get a better night’s sleep, but I left out the detail of my keeping watch to ensure she doesn’t disappear on me again.