Page 27
“No.” My throat tightens. “You were in here with me before...in the darkness. I felt you then you choked me.”
His hand finds mine, and he removes my fingers from his face. “That wasn’t me in the bunker with you, Layla. Only when I brought you back from the lake. I haven’t touched or hurt you once.”
My body stiffens. He was there with me…My fingers raked his flesh in the dark. I heard him breathing.
“You’re a liar.”
He moves my damp hair off my cheek. “Why would I lie to you? I have no reason to ever lie to you.” He leans up and whispers in my ear. “Your brain is broken, wildling. Nothing is as it seems.”
My lips part, and my eyesight blurs again. I disappear inside myself as I relive the moment while alone in the dark. The weight of reality settles in, chilling me to the bone. I was alone in the room, and the figure in the dark was a hallucination. A panic attack caused me to get lightheaded. That’s the only logical explanation—I fainted, smashing my head into the sink.
He wasn’t here. It wasn’t him.
He shifts slightly and asks, “It’s scary, isn’t it? What we can do to ourselves when the pain becomes too much to handle.” A moment of silence passes between us, and I drift into a heavy daze. His voice brings me back from the brink. “Get up, we need to cool you off to fight off your fever.” I don’t resist as he pulls me to my feet, nor when he helps me to the ladder, pushes me up, and carries me through the dark woods, past the white ribbon, toward the lake.
I lay my head against his muscled chest. My eyes draw to the rough skin on his face. I reach out and run my finger over a large scar that dips behind his ear. “Don’t do that, baby,” he warns. “I don’t enjoy being touched.” I withdraw my hand but continue staring at him. He doesn’t seem to mind me looking at him.
“You’re so confusing,” I mumble. He goes from hating me to taking care of me in one breath, and he’s almost sweet about it. It’s as if he’s unsure of his true feelings for me.
As we approach the shore, he places me down carefully and starts to inspect my body. While he does, I can’t stop looking at his eyes. So familiar…like I’ve seen them before. A shiver runs down my spine as I realize where I know him from.
He rubs his thumb over my brow line, then to the wound on my forehead. “Don’t try to figure me out, Layla. Your mind will fracture again if you dig too deep.” As if my body isn’t fractured enough.
He reaches down, cupping my thigh, and I lean back as he undresses me. The lake’s dark shore laps nearby, and the gentle touch of his hands lulls me, my head resting on the cool earth. My breath catches at how good it feels when he touches me. He pulls my shorts and underwear off, leaving me completely naked.
I lean up on my elbows as he undresses himself. He turns away from me and pulls off his shirt. His back is just as muscled as I thought it would be, long and lean. As if giving me a show, he reaches down, his biceps ripple as he kicks his boots off, then strips down to nothing. My breath and heart are momentarily stolen until my head throbs, reminding me of my predicament, and my stomach turns to acid.
Heat rises in my face as he turns around and shows his front. My lips part slightly at the sight of his body. The scar I saw earlier was just the beginning of it. It extends over his shoulder and up his neck and down his back. Vicious and ragged.
He’s utterly broken, and possibly the sexiest man I’ve ever seen. But I didn’t give him those scars, so why does he seem to hate me?
The moon reflects on the water as he gathers me into his arms and submerges into the lake, the cool water instantly soothing my hot skin. The night is still, the water like glass, as I circle my arms around his neck and then curl my legs around him, choking on water. He pulls me close, his hands on my lower back.
I dig my nails into his back as my heart beats out of my chest. “If you drown me right now, I will haunt you for the rest of your life,” I warn.
He chuckles, his lips kissing the nape of my neck. “Don’t worry, little wildling. I prefer hunting my prey. Drowning people isn’t my MO. Try to relax, you’re too rigid.”
For reasons I can’t explain, I open my legs, and his cock centers itself between my thighs. We stay like this, and eventually, I rest my head on his chest. His cock twitches, and despite not wanting to be turned on, everything about our position is incredibly erotic.
He stirs, as I start to memorize every hard muscle of his body, disturbing my peaceful bliss. My teeth begin to chatter.
“You’re getting cold,” he says, rubbing his hand down my back. “It’s time to go back.”
He swims with me in his arms the entire time, keeping my head above the water. Once we hit the shore, he places me on the ground. It’s a warm night…The air dries me off quickly. Without speaking, he gets me dressed, taking his time. I continue to gawk at his muscles as he dresses himself. It doesn’t seem like he wants to talk, so I don’t press him.
Our eyes finally meet, and right now, they aren’t as jaded as they usually are when he stares at me. His jaw tenses, like he doesn’t quite know what the hell to do with me. “What now?” I ask him.
He shakes his hair out and flexes his shoulders. “I’m going to take you home.”
I dig my palms into the earth beside me. “No. I’m not going back to that bunker.”
He leans in and grabs my chin, gentle but firm enough to make a point. “I never said you were going back to the bunker. I said I’m taking you home. I’m not leaving you alone again, Layla. You’re too fucking fragile.”
I cross my arms around myself. “So, you can continue punishing me? Like I haven’t punished myself every single day since it happened.”
Even I can sense bullshit. Once I believed I got away with it, I tucked it away. Days went by, then months. No one knew, no one asked questions. I never thought in my wildest dreams this would happen. That I would catch the attention of this man who seems hell-bent on revenge.
He grabs my hips and adjusts himself closer, then wraps his arms around me, pulling me up into his arms again. “I’m not even fucking close to being done punishing you for what you did to her.”
