I’m too tired...
Tearing my eyes off Kas as he vanished into the large concrete box, ducking down to fiddle with whatever machinery made electricity from water, I chose a different story. I would not run today, but I would not help him either.
He’d hurt me.
And frankly, right now, I had nothing to give him.
Today, you’re on your own, Kassen Sands.
I was justified to rest...just a little while.
Exhaling heavily, wincing at the pain in my throat, I lay down on my back. I flinched for the numerous time at not having underwear on. My exercise bra seemed superfluous without panties protecting me. Since that first day Kas snapped the chain on me, I’d had to cut off my panties and couldn’t figure out how to get a new pair on that didn’t involve undoing the padlock.
I shouldn’t have taken off my skirt.
But it’d been clinging to my legs, making it hard to swim. I’d thought we’d stay submerged, complete the chore he’d chosen, and I’d put the material back on as we waded back to shore. I hadn’t expected him to strangle me and carry me out unconscious.
Does it matter?
He’d seen me.
He’d made it abundantly clear I wasn’t allowed to say no to him.
What difference did it make if I was nude or covered? He’d take me regardless.
My tiredness shoved away embarrassment and vulnerability.
In fact, it regressed me to animalistic roots, and I swooped up, yanked off my soaked bra, and tossed it away, leaving me sublimely bare to the hot sun.
I didn’t care anymore.
I just wanted to rest.
As I lay back, the long grass cradled me, forming around my body as if creating a natural hammock. The ground was warm and the sun beamed down, painting my nakedness with yellowy rays and shadowy crosses from the tree branch ceiling.
A splash came from the river, but I ignored it.
I gave myself this moment.
A single moment where I turned everything off.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d relaxed. Truly, completely relaxed.
It’d been too long. Way, way too long.
I didn’t know why I was suddenly able to switch off in his company after a week of living in constant awareness. A week where my skin prickled whenever he was close, and my instincts were hyper-sensitive to his every sound.
Perhaps it was his hands yet again around my throat, or maybe it was the fact he’d let me go and hadn’t checked to see if he needed to kill me to make me stay. Or maybe it was just because I’d reached my limit of being afraid, and this was now my new normal.
Either way, I only got to enjoy the sun’s golden rays for a few minutes before sleep crept over me, inching with its foggy fingers and pulling a velvet curtain over my mind. It soothed. It comforted. It erased the bruises around my neck, the bruises around my heart, sucking me deep, deep down into healing darkness.
* * * * *
I dreamed of softness and sensuality.
Two things that’d been missing in my life for far longer than when I’d first found this valley. I dreamed of my lovely lavender house. I strolled through my living room and ran my fingers over the back of my tan suede couch. I smiled at the TV as some cheesy rom-com played and inhaled with the utmost gratitude the scents of a vanilla cake baking in the oven.
Domesticated perfection.
I’d returned to my home that sheltered and protected me.
But it wasn’t lonely like before.
On the mantel, photo frames of a life shared with another replaced emptiness. In the fridge, beer rested beside my choice of white wine. In the bathroom, two toothbrushes existed instead of one.
I hugged myself in joy.
There was another person inside my perfect little home—a man who cherished and desired me. A man who came up behind me, spun me around in his arms, and settled his mouth over mine before I could see who my dream lover was.
I melted into his touch.
I gave him everything because he’d done the same for me.
He loved me to the tips of his toes.
And I loved him to the highest cliff I could climb.
The kiss started exquisitely sweet. A barely-there caress, a nip, a smile, a brush of promises. I moaned as he teased me, his hands worshiping as he gripped my waist and pulled me against his muscular body.
We both shivered as his obvious arousal dug into my stomach.
I laughed into his mouth.
He groaned into mine.
We didn’t need to speak to know just how much we needed each other and just how effortless it was between us. He knew what I was thinking before I did. I knew what he wanted before he could tell me. Everything between our hearts and minds was linked on a level that couldn’t be labeled.
Marriage couldn’t explain this. Friendship couldn’t describe this.
The only explanation could be fate.
My hands slinked into his hair, tugging a little as desire pooled in my belly. The soft kiss was now a tease. I wanted more.
He opened wider and took me harder, his lips firm and possessive. The first lash of his tongue hunting mine made my knees buckle. He wedged me against the couch and his hard body.
His hands roamed as he kissed me deeper. He palmed my breasts and pinched my nipples. He dragged his fingers down and down, dousing me in flames. With one hand he kneaded my hip while the other rocked against my clit.
I cried out, my moan swallowed by his deepening kiss.
He was everywhere. In my mouth, my mind, my heart. I couldn’t get a clear thought. I didn’t want a clear thought. All I wanted was him. Inside me. Taking me. Granting the release rapidly coiling in my core.
“Please...” I murmured into his mouth. “I need you.”
He reared back, his eyes burning with endless passion. His lips were kiss-swollen, and his scruff bristled like a caveman...but something was wrong.
Those eyes.
Neither black nor blue, undecipherable from green or hazel.
There were too many shadows in them. Too many horrors. Too much pain.
It broke my heart.
I cried for the splintered soul within.
And then, he kissed me viciously.
Slamming into me, he poured every shred of himself into me, feeding me every splintered piece, begging me to mend him, to stitch every tear and glue every fragment so one day he might have eyes that looked back with vibrant color instead of dead with despair.
But as he kissed me harder, as his touch turned desperate and the connection between us flared with fire, I began to fight.
It was too much.
Too hard.
I wasn’t enough.
I would never be enough to fix this man.
He would drown.
And I would drown with him.
Water babbled.
Air vanished.
No!
He didn’t stop.
Didn’t let me go.
He just kissed me harder, deeper, killing me with his unhappiness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE GENERATOR TURNED OUT to be an easier fix than I’d thought. Which was a good thing, seeing as I hadn’t brought any tools with me. I should’ve. I would’ve if I had half a working brain and not this mush of concussion. How was I supposed to fix anything without the necessary tools?
Idiot.
At least nature had taken pity on me and the issue turned out just to be debris. The turbine was buried beneath a pile of muck. I’d been right that the storm, when Gemma climbed up the cliff and tried to drive herself away, was the reason for the unworking machine. Mulched grass, twigs, and rotting bracken had wedged around the blades, tangling into a nest that wouldn’t allow water to spin the turbine.