Page 46 of When The Mountains Held Us

Another small step has his chest mere millimeters from my back, and I sigh, my shoulders slumping slightly at the near contact. He’s not touching me, but God, do I wish he was. There’s an electricity I swear I can hear humming in the space between us, building with each shuddering breath I take and sparking with each inhale that only increases our contact.

The heat of him burns through his T-shirt and mine, and I’ve never felt such disdain for flimsy bits of fabric as I do right now. The realization shakes me to my core and has my body trembling in anticipation of his next move.

Silently, he brings his bowl around to rest it in the sink, his corded forearm wrapping so effortlessly around my frame. It encapsulates me, and I dare not breathe for fear of ruining whatever this moment is between us. He brushes against my arm, the contact sending shivers spider-walking up and down my spine and goosebumps rising on the back of my neck.

Needing to busy my shaking hands with something, I pick up the bowl and start washing, losing myself not in the task itself but in the steady rise and fall of his chest against me. I want to lean back into him, feel even more of him pressed against me like I did under the waterfall. I don’t know at what particular moment this spark of desire began, but there is no stopping it now. If his kind words, chivalrous nature, and heated glances my first couple days in town didn’t do me in, our moment at the waterfall earlier today certainly did.

I don’t even realize the bowl is clean until Levi reaches around me again, turning off the water and taking the bowl from my hands, laying it in the drying rack to the right of the sink. Before I know it, the warm bubble we’ve been locked in for the last few minutes pops, and the warmth of his body dissipates as he steps away from me. I hastily grab a dish towel and dry my hands before wiping down the counter.

When I finish, I turn to find the kitchen empty. I didn't even hear him leave.

Yup. It’s definitely time to take my ass to bed.

Flickering lights and the low hum of voices seep from the other room, where I assume Levi is watching TV. I take a deep breath to steel my nerves and exit the kitchen, walking into the living room and past the couch to the stairs. As I round the top of the stairs, the low rumble of his voice floats up from beneath me.

“Goodnight, Oakley.”

Twenty-Five

Levi

My ears strain until I hear the soft click of her bedroom door, and I let out the breath I was holding. I run a hand through my hair as I relax further into the gray sectional couch, fixing my eyes on the TV and trying my damndest to concentrate on the stupid movie playing out on the screen and not on the beauty that scampered up my stairs like a startled animal.

Had I come on too strong?

I should have kept my distance, should have waited for her permission to approach. But something primal awoke in me, something completely animalistic that stirred in my chest at seeing her standing in my kitchen, washing our dishes, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I let out a frustrated breath before immediately berating myself for the thought.

She is not yours.

But could she be?

There’s something about the ease in which she’s carried herself since the moment we stepped through the front door. I expected her to be shy, scared even, to be in a strange place with a man she barely knows, but she just… fits.

Like she was always meant to be here with me and was merely returning home.

My mind flits to the sight of her in those sweats. The way her long hair hung down her back, still wet from her shower and dampening the back of her baggy shirt. Fuck, the sound of the shower turning on nearly sent me to my knees right here in front of the stove as I pictured her naked body stepping under the spray and letting it wash away the remnants of today. My cock thickens in my pants at the reminder of it, my mind all too pleased to go there. Again.

Ignoring my aching cock, I allow my mind to drift back to the look in her eyes when she realized someone had been in her motel room. But the memory of that haunted look isn’t what catches my attention this time.

It’s the fact that the room had looked—for the most part—normal, except for the open safe, rid of its contents. At a quick glance, nothing else seemed amiss. No belongings strewn across the floor, no overturned or broken furniture. As if whoever had done it knew what they were looking for and didn’t care to search anything else.

If it had been a random person, wouldn’t they have searched through all her things and taken anything else they deemed valuable?

Then there’s the fact that the safe wasn’t broken into. The lock wasn’t broken. The door wasn’t pried open with any sort of tool that I could tell. It’s almost as if the person who did this knew the combination to the lock.

The realization has me sitting up straight. How could they have known the combination to the lock, unless they know her? Those safes are generic, the combination meant to be set by the individual using them. What are the chances a random person off the street happened to guess the correct combination? That and the fact that the crime rate in North Creek is as close to zero as it can get. We’re all neighbors here; we look out for each other.

What if he followed her here?

My blood runs cold at the thought, and I tamp down the protective anger that surges forth, my vision already on the edge of blackout.

Flashes of broken glass and drops of blood on the living room carpet, punctuated only by my labored breathing and the sound of my mother’s shrieks of terror, fill my mind. The memory threatens to plunge me right back into the dark place. Hell, I’m teetering on the edge of it now, a battle waging itself in my mind as I struggle to breathe. My vision pulses, eyes going fuzzy, and my ears start to ring as the memory comes flooding back.

“Don’t lie to me, woman! I saw the way he looked at you. You liked it!”

Another explosion of glass, and a pained whimper from the other room, as I hold my hand over Eva’s mouth to keep her quiet from where we hide in the closet. The sharp reverberation of a smack and another choked sob.

“I’ll give you something to cry about, whore.” My father’s voice drips with cruelty and malice. Then, the tearing of clothes before the agonizing scream of pain, muffled by a groan of sick pleasure as my father takes what isn’t his to take.