And despite everything, despite the situation, despite knowing I should haul her back to the cabin right now, I’m frozen, looking down at her face, flushed with exertion and emotion. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and her lips are parted in a gasp for air.
Those are the same lips that kissed me a year ago.
The memory slams into me with physical force. Her climbing into my lap in the truck—so sweet and innocent and wanting. The way she tasted like strawberry lip gloss and beer. How every part of me had screamed to drag her closer, to claim her mouth properly, to give her what she was asking for even though she didn’t understand what that meant.
I’d stopped myself then. Pushed her away because it was the right thing to do. She deserved better than a man like me.
Little good that did us, huh?
“Get off me,” she whispers, her voice shaking. “Please.”
I should. I need to. Yet I don’t move.
Her eyes meet mine in the fading light, and something shifts. The fear is still there, but underneath it is something else. Recognition. Memory. She’s thinking about that night too—I can see it in the way her breath catches, in the way her pupils dilate slightly.
“Calder,” she breathes, and my name on her lips in that dizzy tone stirs a fire low in my belly.
“You should have stayed on the bed,” I tell her, my voice coming out rougher than intended. “I told you there would be consequences if you ran.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” she shoots back, some of the fire returning to her eyes despite the tears. “You just said it would end badly. That someone would get hurt.”
“Yeah. You. Thatyouwould get hurt.” I shift my weight slightly, and feel her body respond—a minute flinch, a catch in her breathing. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to hurt you? Would that make it easier for you to hate me? If I hurt you.”
“Is there a difference? Isn’t that what you’re already doing? Hurting me?” The words come out choked. “You kidnapped me and chained me to a bed. You’re keeping me prisoner. How is that not hurting me?”
She’s right. She’s absolutely right.
I could acknowledge that, but given the circumstances, it feels impossible to do so.
“If hurting you keeps you alive, then so be it,” I say instead. “I guess that’s what I’m doing. Even if you don’t understand it.”
“I don’t want to be alive if I have to live like this.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “If it means being your captive. Not if it means?—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t have to either. I already know what she’s thinking, what she was going to say. I can see it on her face—the fear of what I might do to her. What she thinks I want from her.
If she only knew how fucked up I really am. How far gone I am for her.
I want it all. All of her. Everything.
My obsession with her festered like cancer after that night in the truck. It was like the kiss we shared unlocked some dark, hidden need inside me. But wanting and taking are different things, and I’ve spent a year trying to kill this desire. Trying to convince myself she was just a kid with a crush, nothing special, nothing that should matter.
If it’s not obvious, I failed.
“I’ve already told you that I won’t hurt you,” I tell her, the words coming out harshly. “Not like you’re thinking.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
Good question. And one I unfortunately don’t have an answer to.
Her pulse flutters in her throat. I can feel it where our bodies press together. She’s terrified. Of me. Of this. Of what comes next.
It’s terrible, but her fear is intoxicating.
I don’t blame her, not even a little. She’s smart to be scared.
“I thought giving you the chance to move your arms around would make you happier, but you mistook my kindness. Now I’m contemplating dragging you back to the cabin,” I tell her, my voice low. “And chaining you back to the bed to make sure you never get the chance to run again.”
“Then do it.” She glares up at me, defiant even through her tears. “Do it if that’s what you’re going to do. But stop, stop doing this. Stop confusing me. Stop making me think maybe you’re not?—”
