Page 95 of When The Mountains Held Us

When a full ten minutes have passed, and no new cars have joined my solitary one in the lot, I shake out my arms and open the door. The cool air caresses my flushed skin, and I breathe in deeply, willing some of that mountain air magic to calm my racing heart. The night is quiet around me, only the sound of my shoes crunching across the gravel with each quickening footstep greeting me as I haul ass towards my car. The parking lot is unusually dark tonight.

I guess that flickering bulb finally went out, and I laugh sardonically to myself at the timing of it.

Just my fucking luck.

My car is only a few steps away, and I glance down to reach into my purse for my keys, cursing myself for not taking them out before I left the safety of the bar. I dig around in my bag, and unease settles into my bones when I don’t feel the familiar cloth keychain.

“Shit,” I mutter, stopping in front of my car to open my bag and peer into its dark depths, but I can’t see with the streetlight out. Something jingles in front of me, and my head snaps up, dread washing all of the color out of my face as a shadow peels itself away from my driver’s side door.

“Looking for these?” He shakes the keys again, the clanging of the metal an exact replica of the pounding of my heart in my chest.

But the dread is nothing compared to the bone-chilling terror that consumes me when I hear the distinct click of a gun cocking, its barrel pointed right at my head.

“Get in the fucking car.”

Forty-Six

Levi

My fingers run down the bare skin of her thighs, and they open for me easily in invitation. She squirms beneath my touch, desperate for my hands to move lower, to stroke her where she needs me most, but I bring them back up again, loving the way she whimpers when I tease her. Each slow drag of my hands leaves her breathless, needy, wanting.

“Levi, please,” she begs, and the sound is music to my ears.

It feeds the primal beast that roars in my chest and thrashes against its restraints for just one taste of her. I oblige, unable to wait any longer, and dip my tongue into her heat, groaning as her taste explodes across my palate. She writhes as I lap at her, desperate to feel her come undone on my tongue. My hands move up to her breasts and circle her nipples, feeling them tighten beneath my touch as I continue to feed from her.

“You taste so—” my hand comes down in a sharp slap against her breast, and she gasps and bucks her clit into my mouth “—fucking good.”

Her body draws tight beneath my touch, but I don’t slow or speed my movements. No. I keep a steady pace across her clit, flicking her in hard, expert licks just the way she likes it. Her movements become jerky, her legs shaking around my head. I bring her right to the brink of ecstasy, before closing my lips over her clit and sucking it hard into my mouth, while I pinch both nipples between my fingers. She shatters on a cry, her pussy gushing all over my face as she rides out each and every wave of her orgasm.

Only once her body has gone limp beneath me and her moans subside, do I look up with a devilish smile on my face that quickly turns to confusion and then panic. The heat of her beneath me is absent, my fingers, instead, clutching at empty bedsheets where her pliant body just was.

She’s gone.

I wake with a jolt, my heart pounding and my sweat-soaked shirt sticking to my chest. I blink a few times, dazed, not recognizing where I am as I try to calm my racing pulse.

It only takes a few moments until I can breathe easier, though I’m still shaken by the dream-turned-nightmare. A low whine catches my attention, and I look up to see I’m lying on the couch in my living room. I groan as I push myself to a sitting position and place my head in my hands, elbows resting on my knees. The whine comes again, this time closer, and I finally place it when the cool wet nudge of Bandit’s nose on my forearm pulls my attention. I scrub a hand down my face, still trying to clear the dream from my mind, and reach out to pat Bandit’s head, but he dodges my touch.

I frown. That’s not like him. He lets out a bark, and suddenly, I’m on high alert. Bandit almost never barks, so the sudden change in behavior has the hairs prickling on the back of my neck.

Fuck. What time is it? It takes me a minute to locate my phone from where it fell between the couch cushions, but when I do, apprehension settles in my stomach like an anchor.

It’s nearly three-thirty in the morning. I must have fallen asleep when I got home earlier. I remember lying down, planning to rest my eyes for a little while before meeting Oakley at the bar for her shift.

Fuck!

“Oakley!” I call out into the quiet of the house, but there’s no reply. Worry gnaws at me, but I tamp it down, unwilling to panic until I know for sure if there’s something to worry about. My brain has a penchant for turning minor worries into full-blown disasters, but, nine times out of ten, all it does is cause me unnecessary concern.

Still, something isn’t right. I can feel it. I jump up from the couch and stalk into the kitchen.

“Oakley!” Again, no answer.

Before I know it, I’m taking the stairs two at a time, praying that she’s just fast asleep in our bed. I sprint through the open door of the bedroom, and when she’s not there, I grip my hair in both hands and storm out. It takes seconds to search the rest of the house, and when I come up empty, I finally let the panic in.

Going back to the living room, I grab my phone, pulling up her contact and punching the call button. It rings.

And rings.

And rings.