As I lookinto Arrow’s eyes, my breath stutters, my mind a riot of emotion. Deep within me, his cock has only just begun to soften, and the echoes of my orgasm are a delicious reminder of what we’ve just shared. I thread my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and sigh.
Should I be upset?I don’t even know what to think. This man snuck into my room and touched me while I slept. If it’d been anyone else, I’d have a major case of the icks right now. But there’s something about Arrow. I trace my fingers over the contours of his face. There’s this odd connection between us and has been since that first night when I woke up in a drugged stupor to find him watching me.
I hadn’t been lying earlier when I told him he makes me feel safe. And in this place, that’s a huge point in his favor.
“What are you thinking, siren?” His voice is thick, and I can tell he’s worried about my silence.
I shake my head because there’s plenty that’s confusing to me, but I doubt he’ll want to hear about some of what’s got me mixed up. I was just intimate with Malakai not long ago, after all. Cross and I had a moment at the tree. And my heart is still twisted up for Hayze after hearing his father lay into him. So, I settle for telling him a half truth. “Mostly—I don’t know how to handle what I’m feeling.”
His brows furrow, but he nods. “Okay.” He nuzzles my neck with his face and inhales deeply. “I could see how you’d feel like your place here is—” He pauses for a second, pressing his lips to my pulse point. “Unstable?”
I bite down hard on my lip. Even though that isn’t exactly what I’d been thinking about, it’s the absolute truth, so I allow him to believe that’s all it was. It’s easier than the added layer of confusion that includes the uncertainty of my feelings for some of the other men. “Nothing about the life you live is—” Raw emotion surges up my throat, making it difficult to finish.
His lips skim over my jawbone. “I’m here,” he whispers, his voice carrying an aching quality that makes my heart clench. And I think he understands what I’m trying to express.
My chest shudders as my lungs force pent-up air out so that I can stop choking on it. I scrape my teeth over my lip as I look into his eyes. “My life has taken apretty crazy turn.” A sad, disbelieving chuckle spills from me.
Lifting his head, he stares into my eyes, lips pinching in thought as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry.”
I have no idea what to do with the genuineness of his apology, so I change the subject. “You shouldn’t stay with me. Aren’t you worried?”
“I have the only key with me,” he mumbles in response before pulling me closer. “No one will come down here without it. They’ll just assume you’re locked in and someone forgot to put it back on the hook.”
“Oh.” I exhale softly, allowing my body to relax into his hold. “You’re sure?”
He hesitates, but then nods. “I’ll go soon. I promise.”
We’re quiet for a long time when the deep rumble of Arrow’s voice gently stirs me, and I seek out the glint of his eyes in the dark. His brows have tugged together. “Will you tell me what you were doing in the woods the night we found you?”I was running from the man who controls all of you.“I want to know, siren.”
Frowning, uncertainty crashes through me. The memory of what Finneas tried to do is still fresh. It’s safer to be vague about what happened out there. “I got lost. That’s all.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“I—” I wet my lips as his observant eyes continueto watch every twitch of muscle in my face. “Does it even matter? I’m stuck here. Not ever going back. That’s the plan, right?” There’s a sharp bite to my tone that makes me cringe.
Arrow flinches like I slapped him and pushes to his knees. Suddenly, I find it necessary to squeeze my eyes shut against the pain I’ve just inflicted. Because truly, he lookswounded.The exhale that billows from his parted lips is rough. “I want to know you. I want to understand what happened out there.”
And I’m scared if I tell you everything, I’ll regret it.I sit up and scoot backward, leaning against the wall behind me. When he searches my eyes, my breath catches in my throat. “I was running away from someone.”
“Someone… in the woods?” He pauses, realization dawning on him clear as day. After a moment, he roughly states the truth without a hint of a question to the conclusion he’s come to. “Ourwoods.Ourmountainside.”
Tears spring to my eyes as the awful memory of that cold morning wash over me, and my body begins to tremble. I wrap my arms around my legs.
“Delilah,” Arrow murmurs my name so softly I can’t bear to look at him. I press my lips together and close my eyes, turning my head away. And in the next second, he lifts me into his lap and tugs me to his chest as I sob.
“I’m scared to say his name out loud.”
He rubs my back and holds me close while Ishudder through the worst of this breakdown, and then, he quietly whispers. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
He knows.My skin prickles with unease because Arrow has figured out my secret.I was the one who injured Finneas.Fingers clutching at him, I ease back and stare up into his pale eyes. I nod. “I was walking along a road a good distance from the highway.”
His lips pinch together, brow furrowing. I’d wager he’s never been that far from the compound. He waits mostly patiently, and the muscles of his sharp jaw contract, like his teeth are grinding. “Finish,” he finally whispers. At my continued hesitation, he cups my cheek. “Tell me.”
“I can’t.” I close my eyes against the tenderness he’s showing me as a cyclone of fractured memories come at me all at once. The terror that’d lanced through me as I understood what the man who’d tried to pick me up at the roadside was after. Then, I was running. Being tackled. Held down. “He was going to hurt me.”
“Say his name. I already know. I’ve already guessed.”
My lip trembles, and I blink back a fresh round of waterworks. “Finneas.” I let his name drop from my lips like a bomb, the admission no less explosive. And even though Arrow seems unfazed, I still wait for his reaction. Quietly, I continue. “He attacked me. And I?—”
