Even as the world is sharper to me, more colorful, brighter, it’s the opposite for her. I can tell by the hazy look in her brown eyes. By the dreamy half-smile on her face. She’s blissed-out. Well-fucked. Masculine pride swells in my chest.
“You okay?” I murmur, pulling away from her reluctantly.
My dick doesn’t want to leave her tight, wet clasp. It’s ready for another round. To fuck her again and again until we die in agonized bliss.
But it’s her first time. She might be sore.
“Better than okay,” she mumbles, her eyes still soft and unfocused. Like she can’t really see me, even one foot away from her. Like she can see through me, inside me. And for some reason, that doesn’t terrify me like it should.
Her body is the very definition of welcome. A warm place to land. I want to lie beside her for a long time. A lot longer than we actually have. I’m well versed in denial, so I push out of bed and cross to the small sink. The hot water here is shit. I never cared about that. I could take a cold shower, could stand the sting of freezing spray, but I hate the thought of causing her discomfort. I find a clean washcloth and dampen it, twisting it in my hand as if I can transfer some of my body heat into it.
She hasn’t moved even an inch from where I left her.
“Little bird,” I say softly.
There’s a small sound that might be acquiescence or denial. She doesn’t want to move, so I move her myself. I pull her legs apart and use the washcloth to clean her. A gasp, the first time the cloth touches her private place. And then a soft whimper. Fuck. How bad did I hurt her? I hate myself a little for that, for taking her thin little hymen, even knowing I’d do it again if I could.
The washcloth comes away pink, stained with her blood. Lord knows I’ve seen worse injuries, especially ones that happened through sex, but none of them hit me as hard as this. It would take a thousand fucking rivets to suck the darkness out of me. I made her bleed.
She shakes her head, as if trying to rouse herself, to focus. “Stone. You okay?”
“Course,” I say, but it feels like a lie. The ground beneath me trembles. Breaks apart. I’m standing at the epicenter of an earthquake. One with pale skin and pink nipples.
It fools her, my lie. She settles back into the bed like it’s made of fucking velvet. That’s what she deserves. Silk and lace. Everything soft and beautiful. Instead she has me.
So I force myself to clean her, thorough and careful. Even though it’s hard to see her skin turned pink from my mouth, a set of fingerprints on her hips. I’m a fucking barbarian.
And then I’m done. Nowhere else to clean. Nothing else to do but stand there, looking down at a goddess who somehow landed at my feet.
She reaches toward me, her slender arm both fragile and strong. “Come here.”
My body responds before I can think it through.
I’m hers.
I curve my body around hers, protecting her from whatever real or imagined threats might be out there. “I never thought it could be like that,” I say.
Maybe it makes me a coward, that I know she won’t remember this. She’s too lust dazed, already half in the dream world. She won’t remember my confession.
The terrible truth that I didn’t know sex could feel good.
For this one second, she sees how broken I am. A ribbon of worry darkens her hazy eyes, but then it’s gone. “Hold me.”
It’s too much of a relief when I take her in my arms, when I pull her close. “You’re safe here,” I tell her, even though she probably isn’t worried. She probably doesn’t remember that her friend Liam called the police, and that they’ll be desperately looking for her. There’s probably a national manhunt happening right now. “You’re safe.”
“Good,” she mumbles, nestling deeper into my chest. “I don’t want to think about that.”
“About what?” I ask gently, expecting her to say Liam. To say her friends, her whole life.
“About the Innkeeper,” she says, with a big yawn, her eyes closed.
Then she falls asleep, leaving me cold and wide awake. The Innkeeper. Who the fuck is the Innkeeper? I have no clue, but it sounds an awful lot like the name Keeper.
Does she know something about Keeper? Does she know who he is? She’s in that world. She’s in a position to hear things, too.
She would tell me if she knew, wouldn’t she?
I want to shake her awake, to demand answers. But I also want her to continue sleeping, to pretend that I’m as peaceful as I felt one minute ago.
Before I doubted the woman I love.
Chapter 21
Brooke
I wake up feeling strange, as if I’m totally comfortable here, in this place I barely recognize. As if I’ve become someone else in the span of two hours. My cells rearranging themselves into someone who belongs in this cabin, naked and warm. A dim light streams in from the next room, keeping the darkness at bay.
There’s an ache between my thighs, a musk in the air. A thousand reminders of Stone, as if I could ever forget. But not the man himself. I remember his arms wrapped around me, and then…what? It’s all a haze in my mind.
My muscles protest as I stretch across the coarse blanket. I don’t need to look around the small rooms to know I’m alone. The stillness in the air tells me that, but I check anyway, wrapping the blanket around me. I look into the small galley kitchen and the tiny bathroom. Empty.
I open the door. The light from the windows illuminates the white pickup truck, still where Stone left it.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Had I thought he would leave me here? No. He wouldn’t do that. I may not remember exactly what happened after we had sex, but I remember the deep sense of peace I felt. Like I was finally safe after so many years of uncertainty. I think I was finally able to let go of my family’s expectations.
Some sixth sense sends me around the side of the cabin, where a thin, moonlit trail separates the structure from thick brush. Twigs catch at the blanket, as if they want to pull me in. Or maybe they only want to pull the blanket. I tuck it tighter around myself.
When I reach the back, I’m struck mute for a moment.
No wonder he comes here. The cabin may be remote and modest, but God, this view. He can see the whole city from here. It stretches out in the shadow of the mountain, both large and somehow made small.
His large silhouette breaks the spread of lights. He doesn’t turn or startle, even when I step on a twig with a crack. Because he knows I’m here. He probably sensed me getting up. He’s in tune with nature in a way I never realized someone who lives in the city could be. It makes me wonder about the safe house he lives in with the other guys. Is there something elemental about it?
“Good morning,” I say softly, coming to stand a foot behind him. It’s two in the morning. Not really morning, I guess.
“Morning,” he says, his voice almost menacing.
It sends a lovely shiver down my spine. “I missed you beside me. Couldn’t you sleep?”
“Hardly ever,” he says, which strikes me as both true and terribly sad.
In the wordless moments that follow, I can hear crickets behind us and the hum of the city in front of us. We’re in between them. There must be thousands of people awake right now. Some coming from work after a late shift at a restaurant. Others waking up early to work in a bakery. The city doesn’t sleep; it’s like Stone that way.