If I shifted, if I so much as blinked, he would know I was awake. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want to explain why I hadn’t shoved him off, or why the idea of being alone in the coldwas suddenly worse than being trapped in this tangle of bruised limbs and borrowed heat.
The animal in me stirred. I hated it, but also wanted it. To be held, to be wanted, to let the ache inside me find its answer in the press of his body. I wanted him to suffocate the memory of our kidnapper and the wire and the cage, to kill it with the violence of his presence.
I did not want him to wake up and see me like this: exposed, caught in the act of needing.
I jerked forward, dislodging his arm, and rolled a few feet away so violently I almost retched.
The movement startled him awake. He sat up, instantly alert, his face wrenched into an animal grimace.
He looked at me, hair wild, eyes black with hunger or fear, and for a long moment we just stared at each other.
Neither of us said a word, but the silence was louder than a gunshot.
His stare, wild and bare, made my skin crawl with something that wasn’t disgust. Not quite. I wanted to spit, to scream invective at him, but my jaw wouldn’t unhinge.
In the freeze-frame of dawn, I couldn’t tell if I was more afraid of being touched or of never being held again.
Caiden broke the trance first. He scrabbled to his feet, brushing the dirt off with quick, savage motions, refusing to look at me.
I crossed my arms over my stomach, feeling the imprint of his palm like a brand. My body was a contradiction of needs.
Bone-deep shame, vibrating want.
“We have to move,” he said.
He turned away, hauling the pack over one shoulder. I trailed after, slow at first, anger and embarrassment sticking to me and made every step echo with the memory of his hand pressed flat to my skin.
I wanted to scrape him off, to pretend it had never happened. I wanted to scream at him for being what he was. But I also wanted to grab his hand and put it back.
The sun was already high, burning the dew from the grass, and my wound had crusted into an ache. We followed a dirt ridge,picking our way through scrub and shale, the world already shimmering with heat.
My lips were cracked. I licked them, tasting salt and iron, the aftershock of fear like a fever under my sweat.
I refused to look at Caiden, but I kept close enough to hear his footsteps, to note the way his breathing shifted when the path narrowed and our arms brushed.
We stopped at a trickle of water, the stream barely wider than a piss trail.
I knelt and drank, then splashed the freezing water onto my face. It shocked me clear for a moment, blurring the edges of the memory.
I watched Caiden lean over the bank, cupping his hands. His arms were strong and bruised and beautiful in a way I hated myself for noticing. There was a rawness to him now, as if the wild had stripped away the shell of menace and left only the animal, hungry and hounded.
He caught me watching. For a second he blinked, and for a moment there was nothing in his face but pure, blank need.
My chest clenched.
I let the water chill my wrists, my temples, the wound on my shoulder. The cold seeped in and numbed the world for a minute, and I let myself believe that the fever had broken, that I could walk on without memory.
But then I stood, and he was waiting for me, gaze pinned to my face as if he’d never seen me before.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked, and for a second I thought he meant the shoulder, but his eyes darted to my stomach, then away.
“Not really,” I lied. My voice was steadier than I expected.
He nodded, like he knew it was a lie and didn’t blame me for it. We followed the creek until the banks widened into a low, stony basin.
There was a scattering of driftwood, bleached and splintered, and I settled onto one of the logs while Caiden picked his way along the waterline. He crouched, poking at the mud, then stood and stretched, the movement pulling his shirt taut over the ladder of his ribs.
I watched him, not bothering to hideit.
