“I told you so. Maybe you should listen to me more often,” I said tiredly, savoring the calm waves between us that momentarily overshadowed our usual bickering and resentment.
“If I did that, we probably wouldn’t have made it through some situations,” he retorted, but there was no bitterness in his voice; it sounded light and feathery.
I realized he was right. He had guided us through many harrowing situations, keeping me going when I felt like giving up.
“Yeah, good point.”
But as soon as I spoke, my mind spiraled back to the cage, the image of that sadist with a knife to my neck, demanding Caiden to back down.
Yet, Caiden had charged at him instead.
“Why did you attack that psycho when he had the knife to my neck? You knew he could have killed me.” Instead of letting the thought fade, I allowed it to engulf me, a fire igniting within.
He glanced at me, a dark expression overtaking his features. “It was the only chance we had.”
“But I could have died! He could have sliced my neck in an instant.”
I remembered how close the knife was on the skin, how easy it would have been for it to slice into my flesh fatally.
Caiden looked away, shrugging. “It was a chance I had to take. I had a feeling you’d be alright. It was kill or be killed.”
A sudden storm of anger erupted within me, and I quickly waded out of the water, yanking a piece of cloth from the pack to dry myself.
Sensing my fury, Caiden followed me out of the water, his tall figure looming over me.
“You’re mad. Why? Why do you have to ruin any good moment we have?”
With an exasperated grunt, I threw my hands in the air, glaring at him. “Why am I mad? Maybe because you risked my life all to save yourself!”
Caiden’s nostrils flared as he moved closer, his feet pounding against the terrain. “Are you fucking kidding me? I wasn’t saving myself! I was saving you. Saving us! He was going to kill us if I didn’t do something. You could at least be grateful that I saved your life, again.”
The tension returned, crackling in the air like a fire on the verge of igniting, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. It wrapped around us with ferocity, a chilling blast that cut through my skin and made my teeth chatter.
“No, you risked my life! You could have waited until he didn’t have a knife against me!”
“You are so goddamn impossible.” Caiden shook his head, staring me down with equal anger.
He was so close now that our breaths collided, and I felt myself falling into the swirling depths of his brown eyes.
But what left me breathless was watching his gaze flick down to my lips, then lower to my chest, where my damp t-shirt clung to my body, outlining the shape of my breasts, my nipples poking through the fabric.
My cheeks flushed crimson as an intense heatsurged through me, a wave of fire that sent shivers through my blood and tingles down to my thighs.
His gaze lingered there, a trace of something unreadable flashing in his eyes before he abruptly looked away, his Adam's apple bobbing.
The anger seemed to dissipate, replaced by a strange, almost awkward silence.
He ran a hand through his wet hair, the gesture revealing the strain beneath his controlled exterior. The tension remained, but it had shifted, morphing into something heavier, more intimate.
He cleared his throat, the sound low and rough. “Look,” he began, his voice softer now, “I… I didn’t mean to scare you. I wouldn’t have let you die. That’s a promise.”
His jaw set tight as he peered at me, analyzing my every movement. I nodded, the rise of anger ebbing as I dissolved into his softness.
“I know. I shouldn’t have blown up like that. I don’t know what came over me. Too much has happened in the past few days.”
“Yeah. It’s fine. I get it.” He looked away, his eyes tracing the rippling waves.
We put our shoes back on and drank some of the water, stumbling through fragments of tension intermingled with something intimate and profound.
