“Why are you doing this to me?” Travis asks, standing below me with his arms crossed in front of him. “I have things to do. I had to leave what I was doing because I got a security alert about you snooping around my house.”
I can see the annoyance in his eyes, and I feel bad for a moment. “I just wanted to surprise you. After how you surprised me last night, I thought it was the least I could do.”
He shakes his head and lets out a reluctant sigh, dropping his arms to his sides. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about that. That’s not what I was there for.”
“Oh yeah? Then what were you there for?”
“I was there to strangle you,” Travis replies without a moment of hesitation.
“Kinky.” I laugh it off before realizing what I just said out loud. I don’t want him to think I think strangulation is sexy.Do I?“I meant k-kettle chips!” I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
Smooth move, Sage.
He gives me a confused look, and I recover with a nervous giggle.
“I’m a very busy man, and I can’t have you constantly interrupting me. I need you to stop showing up like this and leave me alone.”
“You didn’t really seem to want to be alone last night.” I laugh as I wiggle on the fence, looking at the ground in front of him. “I could use a hand getting down, by the way.”
He huffs once again and looks over his shoulder at a shed with a tall metal ladder lying on the ground next to it. “Fine, I’ll get you the ladder if you promise to stop showing up out of nowhere and interrupting my life.”
I squint at him to try to see how serious he is. He might appear like he means what he’s saying, but the way he fucked me last night told me something else entirely. He doesn’t want to be left alone.
“Fine, I promise,” I say, knowing I have no intention of keeping my word.
Travis turns around, and I watch him as he walks away, admiring how good he looks in jeans. He grabs the ladder without any struggle, which is impressive because that means he’s strong. He presses it against the wall, and I grab the top of it to steady myself before swinging my leg over to the other side.
I feel my center of gravity being pulled as I swing my leg over and lose control. I fall off the fence and cry out.
Instead of collapsing to the ground, two strong arms wrap around me. My breath catches in my throat as I open my eyes to see Travis holding me in his arms, having caught me before I landed on the ground.
It feels like one of those romantic moments in every superhero movie where the hero catches the damsel in distress. What comes after those moments? A passionate kiss.
Logically, I grab Travis’s face and pull it toward mine, letting my lips swish against his. He holds me close to him for a moment, kissing me back as I hold on to him for dear life. My fingers cling to his shirt collar as if I could pull him into me.
Remnants of the pleasure I felt last night warm my core, and I want nothing more than for him to take me to his bed and make love to me. By the way he’s kissing me back, I think he wants the same thing.
His mouth envelops mine as if he can’t get enough, and it only stirs the desire growing in my chest. If I have it my way, every day for the rest of my life will be just like this.
But then Travis pulls away. I’m still in his arms, and he looks down, realizing that, and sets me on the ground. I move toward him again, hoping to kiss him once more, but he backs away.
“This isn’t on the schedule for today,” Travis says, shaking his head at me. His eye twitches as he takes a deep breath and wipes any trace of me from his lips.
He turns around to walk back into his house, and I instinctively follow. Now it’s my chance to cook the dinner I wanted and woo him properly. But instead of sitting down on the couch and taking a chance to get to know me better, he leads me directly to the front door.
“Every time you show up here, you keep getting hurt,” Travis says as I linger in the doorway, trying to think of any excuse to stay behind. “You should be careful. Next time you come around, you might get seriously injured—or worse.”
He nudges me over the threshold and closes the door, promptly locking it afterward. His words linger in my mind, and I wonder what he means. Travis is mysterious, and it’s clear to me he has nearly impenetrable walls up around him. If he thinks he’s going to hurt me, he’s wrong. I’m going to make sure I break down those walls and make a nest in his heart.
It’s only a matter of time before Travis Blacksburg is mine and I am his.
Chapter Nine
Travis
And just like that, all my planning has been for nothing. I spent two whole weeks of my goddamn life planning for Kevin’s kill, and now it’s all over.
I watched with a stone in my chest as Kevin’s brother from Massachusetts came into town to search for him. Most people would have looked at that as a heartwarming reunion, but I was ready to break every window in my house from the fury I felt.
