“What the hell are you doing?” I shriek, batting at his hands as he reaches over me to strap me into the seat belt.
“Securing you,” he says with zero emotion on his face, his eyes laser-focused on his task as he checks and rechecks the seat belt twice before he lifts his chin and looks at me.
“I don’t need to be secured. I can get into a car and clip a seat belt myself,” I protest, my voice a little breathy and shrill.
“I don’t doubt your ability, but from now on, I’ll be doing it for you,” he says, his tone strict and impassive.
Instead of making me angry, something inside of me tightens and pulses. I was still in a state of fugue when he’d urged me up the steps and onto the airplane at the airport in Rapid City. He’d directed me into a seat, then bent down and fastened the seat harness around me. At the time, I’d assumed he’d done it because I wasn’t with it enough to do it myself, but if his blunt assertion that he’ll be ensuring I’m properly secured from now on is any indication, his decision to fasten me into the airplane wasn’t just him being helpful.
A part of me feels like I should say or do something, but I have no idea what. He’s still beside me, most of his body still inside the car, his hands resting carefully on the seat belt at my waist and across my chest. He’s not touching me per se, but his hands are close enough to me that my body reacts, and goose bumps pebble across my skin.
After maybe thirty seconds of silence, which feels like ten minutes, he checks my seat belt again, then nods at me, hishardened gaze softening a little in unspoken…praise? Seconds before he steps back and closes the door.
When he climbs into the driver’s seat of his badass SUV, I watch as he moves systematically. After sitting, he closes the door, engages the door locks, then places his cell in the slot that seems to have been made exactly for it. Pressing the start button, he taps at the screen mounted in the middle of where the instrument cluster would be on an older car, and starts moving through the menus too quickly for me to see what he’s doing. After selecting something on the screen, the engine burbles to life, and he checks and then rechecks his mirrors carefully beforefinallydriving forward out of the lot and away from the airfield.
Even though I’ve been to Rockhead Point more than once now, I’m not familiar with the surrounding area, so when we pull onto the road, I have absolutely no idea where we are.
“Where are we?” I ask after we’ve been driving through twisting dirt roads for ten minutes.
“Twenty point six miles from Rockhead Point,” he answers robotically.
I wait for him to say more, then realize that’s all he’s going to say, and I don’t know how to respond. “Oh,” I finally say lamely.
Ten more minutes pass in stilted silence, and when our surroundings start to look familiar, I’m relieved. Knight makes me feel odd, like I want to shake him and demand he react as strongly as he makes me want to react, but also like I want to crawl onto his lap, burst into tears, and let him take care of me. Neither option is exactly normal, especially not with a man I barely know.
I shouldn’t allow myself to get swept up in Knight. I probably need to get as far away from him as possible, because I only just woke up to Abel’s manipulations, and I can’t let myself fall prey to another man so soon.
Memories of all the subtle put-downs and barbs I didn’t notice at the time start to run through my head.
“Don’t you own anything that’s not black?”
“You’re cute, but maybe all that eyeliner is a bit much.”
“My four-year-old niece wears her hair in bunches like that.”
“I love your look, but maybe you should try to be a little more normal.”
“I know you love all the goth stuff, but I thought it’d be fun for you to try this.”
God, I’m an idiot. Over and over, I let him change me, inch by inch, until I was unrecognizable. I stupidly thought Abel said all those things to help me. I believed him when he said he loved who I am and the way I look, but then I let him manipulate me into becoming what he wanted, not who I actually am.
Exhaling, I try to push all thoughts of Abel and my own stupidity out of my mind. Forcing myself back to the present, I look up just as we turn onto the mountain road that leads up toward the huge hodgepodge log home Betty and her family live in.
With all of my attention on the beautiful vista, I jolt, surprised, when Knight’s big hand curls over the top of mine, entwining our fingers together in my lap. But instead of making me uncomfortable, his constant, reassuring pressure settles me.
Why is this stranger capable of calming me? And how did he know I was anxious anyway?
Knight guides the car off the road and onto a rough dirt track. Sitting up in my seat, I look out of the window at the unfamiliar expanse of barren fields on either side of us.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Home,” Knight says simply as we round a corner and a house comes into view.
“Whose home?” I gasp.
“Ours.”
FIVE
