Текст книги "Fable of Happiness Book One"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MY STOLEN CLOTHES CLUNG to me as I skidded into the small clearing where my trusty Jeep waited. Its Sahara sand paint glittered with raindrops even in the darkness.

How many hours had it taken me to get here?

Four? Six? Ten?

I’d jogged the whole way, ignoring the stabbing debris against my socked feet. Pushing away the stitches in my side. I’d caught myself when I’d slipped in the mud and forced my tired muscles to keep going, just a little longer.

I’d reached the campsite where I’d slept that first night a few hours ago. I’d navigated the best I could until I’d found the faded ribbons that’d led me to this disaster, and then ran as fast as I possibly could.

I hadn’t looked back.

I hadn’t stopped to rest.

I’d used every second to put as much distance between myself and that ivy-covered palace as possible.

And now, I was almost free.

I’d found my Jeep. My ticket home.

My knees buckled.

My body demanded rest.

My fear was no longer enough to keep me standing.

Don’t you dare. Keep going. You’re not safe yet.

Tripping forward, I gulped down air and tried to calm my tattered heartbeat. Running for that amount of time was different than climbing. My strength was great, but my cardio needed work.

My temples ached with dehydration, tempting me to go to the back of the Jeep and raid my supplies for water instead of the front to escape.

Drink once you’re far away from here.

Balling my hands, I trudged through the wet undergrowth. My soaking socks squelched in a tiny stream that’d appeared from the massive dumping of rain as I crossed the small clearing to my Jeep.

Another flash of lightning lit up the dark sky.

A cymbal crash followed shortly after, making me jump and look behind me.

Was he following me?

Had he woken before the storm?

Am I free?

You won’t be safe until you get out of this damn national park.

Hurry.

My fingers slipped on the clips holding down the Jeep’s hood. Circling the front grill, I popped the other clips and hoisted up the heavy metal. Bending forward, I reattached the battery cables, ensuring the engine looked untampered with and ready to race.

Shivering now I was no longer hot from running, I quickly resecured the clips before dashing to the tree where I’d buried my keys.

Where is it?

Rain continued to pummel me, getting heavier by the second. Each droplet was a grenade, bruising my arms and exploding with wetness upon my head.

Come on...where is it?

I squinted in the darkness, seeking the first ribbon tied in the undergrowth.

I can’t see it.

I skirted around the clearing, waiting for lightning flashes to peer into dark bushes.

It took too long. Far too long. I began to second-guess myself. I began to doubt the past few days hadn’t been a terrible dream brought on by sleep deprivation and food poisoning.

Surely, it couldn’t be real.

Surely, there wasn’t a man living alone out here...untamed and—

A-ha!

A bedraggled, soaking ribbon hung limply in the rain, pointing toward the ground and the small stone I’d nicked with my knife.

Pouncing on it, I dug with my bare hands, scooping away the dirt until my fingers closed triumphantly around metal teeth and a copper keyring of a climbing shoe, courtesy of my brother when I’d first hit online success.

Breathing hard, I pushed off from my knees.

I turned to rush to my Jeep.

Something huge and hard tackled me from the darkness.

Air was knocked out of my lungs; pain detonated from the impact as we fell together, splashing onto the rain-drenched ground.

In a sheet of white lightning, I froze as my captor pinned me to the mud and tried to once again wrap his hands around my throat.

His preferred method of murder.

His only focus to destroy me.

Our eyes clashed in the night. His long hair hung, dripping wet as he fought to keep me down. Instinct fought back. My hands tried to push him away. My hips surged up to knock him off. My skin once again sparked with unwanted electricity.

“You don’t get to leave me. Not you too.” He swatted away my hands, reaching for my throat.

I glanced at my Jeep, just waiting to carry me home.

I curled my fingers around my keys that were my ticket to safety.

And...I snapped.

I lost it.

He doesn’t get to hurt me anymore!

With a bolt of power, I knocked one of his knees out from under him, sending him tipping sideways. I rolled with him, pinning him beneath me, reversing our position.

I didn’t hesitate.

With my hands clutching deadly keys between my knuckles, I struck his face, his throat, his chest. “I curse you!”

Fresh blood bloomed where the metal bit into his skin, mixing red-black in the night with waterfalls of rain drowning us.

I added to his scars. His many, many scars. I would slice his damn throat if I could.

He grunted as I wounded him.

He raised his hands to protect his face as I slashed like a mad woman, no thought to my strikes just that I had to keep hurting him to hold him at bay.

“Stop!” he growled.

“Let me go!”

“Never.” His eyes blazed. “You’re mine to do whatever I want with.”

“How wrong you are!” I swiped harder, faster, driving his head into the mud.

“For the love of fucking God.” His hips shot upward, unbalancing me. “You little fool, you can’t win!” He tipped me.

It was my turn to roll sideways, moaning in pain as his heavy weight sandwiched me into the wet dirt.

Mud painted both of us.

Our hair was caked in it. Our eyelashes and cheeks, our throats and our souls. Every inch filthy and ruined.

Once again, our eyes locked in the raining gloom.

And once again, the world shifted.

A cosmic shift.

A transcendent punch that said he was more than just a bastard. He could be more to me than any other male, and how absolutely tragic that somewhere in his broken soul, some part of him spoke to some part of me, whispering that we could be perfect for each other.

That this blistering, bulldozing connection wasn’t fate but fucking lunacy.

“Get off me!” I turned mad. I fought like a feral wolf.

And his blood ran quicker from my keys.

His blood showed he was human. His anger revealed he was not. He was both monster and man, and suddenly, I wasn’t cold anymore.

I was hot and heavy and so full of rage, so pissed off at life and luck that I screamed. I screamed to expel the unfairness, the grotesqueness, the rightness even while we dueled to the death.

“Die!” I screamed the single word. The word he’d whispered to me as his fingers had suffocated my body when we’d first met. Back then, in his house of horrors, he’d won. Out here, in the rain of shame, I would.

“Fuck’s sake!” He arched away, ducking away from my keys, doing his best to subdue me. “Just stop!”

We rolled again. We fought faster, crueler.

“I’ll never stop because I won’t let you hurt me!”

“Your very presence crucifies me!”

“Too fucking bad!”

We both lost any rules and guidelines of how a man and woman were supposed to treat each other. He grunted as my knee landed in his ribs. I moaned as his hand pulled my hair. We groaned as we rolled and tumbled, kicked and bruised.

We panted and gasped, one winning, the other losing, the roles reversing with each breath.

Until finally, he played dirty.

He slapped me, making my head ring. Then, in a wave of power, he rolled me until I slammed onto my back. His legs clamped over my legs, bringing his hips hard against me. His arms shoved mine away, giving him a heartbeat’s chance to grab my throat.

The second his fingers wrapped around my neck, I lost something inside me.

Sanity?

Humanity?

The very core of who I was.

He wanted to take my life?

Well, I would take his pain with me.

My hands shot downward while his squeezed tight around me.

My fingers dived between us, unzipping his soaking trousers and slipping into the damp heat of him.

I wrapped both hands around his cock and balls. My right around his hard shaft, my left around the soft vulnerability of his testicles.

And I motherfucking squeezed.

I squeezed as hard as he squeezed my throat.

He buckled over me.

He strangled a cry.

His fingers loosened around my neck.

And then, as if all of this had been some twisted, tangled foreplay, raw, savage desire blackened his face.

There was no pause.

No thinking.

His mouth slammed against mine.

His tongue speared past my lips, bringing rain and pain, mud and darkness.

His fingers switched from strangling me to clutching me as if I was his savior and seducer all in one.

My mind blanked.

My fingers continued to torture him, but his kisses were a different kind of torment. He kissed me as if he was the one suffocating. He bit my lip and swept his tongue deep into me—tasting me, feeding me his need—as though kissing me was the only thing he lived for.

I choked on his lust.

I twisted his cock and fisted his balls.

I delivered agony to him.

And all he did in retaliation was kiss me.

He raked his fingers through my mud-soaked hair and opened his mouth so wide, he poured everything into me. Every inch of his tragedy. Every second of his trials.

He gave me all of him.

He tilted his head and stroked my unwilling tongue with his, but it wasn’t until a warm droplet kissed my cheek instead of cold rain that whatever mania infected him infected me.

A tear.

A single tear from a murderer.

A man who I held by the balls. A man who I squeezed so damn hard he’d probably never have children. And instead of striking me. Instead of strangling me like he’d tried to do so often, he surrendered.

He gave me his pain.

He gave me his power.

He kissed me.

He clawed open my chest and crawled deep inside.

He broke me until we were shattered pieces together.

I couldn’t do it.

I can’t do this!

He groaned as I squeezed his cock and balls until my hands shook and my forearms threatened to pop with pressure. Then he kissed me deeper, harder, fiercer than anyone. He kissed me as if he wanted me to end him. As if he was grateful to endure agony by my hand.

He kissed me as if he’d never known kindness. As if pain was the only thing to set him free.

I couldn’t stand it.

Stop!

He gathered me closer, kissing me with violence and anarchy, war and famine.

I lost.

I kissed him back.

And.

That.

Was.

It.

The gun, the detonation, the very end of our existence.

We clawed at each other. We tried to crawl inside one another.

Our fight switched from one age-old grievance to another. From fighting to fucking.

Rolling onto his back, he dragged me with him, splaying me over his stomach as his hands dropped from my hair, his nails raked along my back, and his fingers jerked the sweater over my head.

The rain soaked everything, making the material slap lifeless beside us. He fought with my T-shirt next, yanking it up and throwing it into the slick mud.

The moment my breasts were bare, he cupped them both. His fingers rolled my nipples, pinching me, electrifying the sick craziness in my blood.

My hands switched from trying to wring his cock from his body to jerking him with pleasure. I stroked him viciously.

His breath caught, and his hips pulsed into my palm. “Christ—”

He smashed his mouth to mine. Our kiss tasting of rain and earth, blood and sweat.

Another layer of propriety fell away.

My nails dug into his cock. His back bowed as his mouth opened wider over mine. His tongue was slick and savage. His assault brutish as he kissed me so damn hard. We rolled again, fighting for dominance, our vehemence toward one another adding a ferocity to whatever this was.

This wasn’t about forgiveness or apologies. This wasn’t about the pent-up connection or spine-snapping desire.

This was about fire.

Fire that burned in both of us.

Fire that had incinerated us from the inside out and wouldn’t stop until we were both cinders on the forest floor.

“I need you.” His voice resembled every shade of black in the night. “Fuck, I need you.”

Not a question.

A command.

A matching demand within me.

I didn’t think.

I clawed at his pants, shoving them down, allowing his blazing erection to pop free. It was swollen and red from my punishment. Crescent moon indents from my nails showed how much pain I’d given him.

He fell on me again, biting my throat, my jaw, my mouth. As his tongue hunted for mine, he rolled until I was pinned beneath him, his hands tearing at the fly of my borrowed, ruined slacks, ripping them off me as if they’d been doused in the very flames consuming us.

We were too far gone.

Far from human.

I’d never been so drunk.

So reckless.

Our mouths continued to slip and slide in a heady, monstrous kiss. Our tongues clashed in a dance downright cruel and perverse.

His dirt-covered hands painted my bare chest and hips as he angled me beneath him. Controlling me, manipulating me, spreading my legs with his knees.

I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

All I could do was feel.

And fuck, he felt better than anything.

He was wild and vile all wrapped up in the totality of twisted tenderness.

And when he took me.

When his cock found my pussy, and he mounted me with all the violence and pain inside him, I screamed for the second time.

My legs snapped around his hips.

My back bowed as he sheathed himself within me.

I quaked as his body buried itself deep, deep, deep, linking us together.

For a heartbeat, we stilled.

My core pulsed around his hard invasion, and his cock pulsed with triumph at conquering me. We shared a stare. A glance that cracked open my ribs and let my treasonous heart free.

Beneath the evil lust in his eyes something else begged me to see. Something caged within him, trapped behind bars, chained up in metal, secrets and memories slowly poisoning him.

I gasped.

I saw.

And then, he moved.

He withdrew then thrust forward. Hard and sharp. Deep and possessing.

I cried out.

I scratched his back and grabbed his bare ass.

I dug my nails into his skin, pulling him deeper, deeper, deeper.

He snapped.

He thrust and thrust, grunting with each impalement, his face highlighted by lightning as thunder crashed around us.

Mud was my bed, and rain was my sheets as I lost whatever innocence I had left to a monster in the woods.

I spurred him on.

I begged for more.

I dug my heels into the back of his thighs and shoved my hips up to meet his, crushing our bodies together, rubbing my clit on the base of his cock so sparks and pinwheels of gunpowder ignited.

“Oh, God.” I moaned.

My body tightened. Quickened. Pressurized.

His mouth found my ear, biting my lobe all while his haggard breathing revealed how lost he was in me.

Gem no longer existed.

Just this creature he’d created. A creature who only existed for this manic kind of pleasure.

His fists landed by my ears, squelching into the mud as he rode me harder, deeper, brutal and unkind.

And that was my trigger.

The release of an orgasm that convulsed and cracked me. That didn’t just clench my core but annihilated it. It poured gasoline in my womb and blazed with shooting stars down my pussy.

I came around his cock.

I came for a man who I didn’t even know his name.

I came harder and more spectacularly than I’d ever come before.

His back tensed. His hips switched from fucking to rutting.

He chased my release. He howled as he buckled over me, crashing his mouth to mine, choking me with his tongue, feeding every inch he had into my body.

His spurts within me went on and on.

He well and truly claimed me in that storm, ensuring I had no other master, lover, or friend.

I was his.

Entirely and irrevocably.

For that night only.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY

HOW DID ONE EXPLAIN insanity?

Was it doing something again and again, expecting different results?

Was it believing in something completely false and refusing to see the truth?

Was it surviving hell and thinking you deserved happiness at the end of it?

Or maybe...it was this.

This madness smeared in mud. This woman who’d not only concussed me but also made me forget. Forget that sex had always meant shame and poison, molestation and abuse. There were places on my body I could no longer touch nor look at because the memories were always there, just lying in wait to drown me. Scars did their best to whisper what I’d done and been subjected to.

Yet...

Her.

She’d given me something no one else ever had.

She’d given me peace in her violence. Connection in her fight. She’d met my rage with her own, not just letting me fuck her but fucking me right back. Forcing me to take her harder. To snatch up every morsel she offered. To let myself feel for the first time in my sorry excuse of a life.

Feel wanted. Feel desired. Feel powerful when I’d been so successfully stripped of everything since I was a kid.

Wedged on my elbows, looking down at blond hair now caked with mud and a pretty face now streaked with rain and midnight, I struggled to stay with her.

To not let my past sweep me away from the most perfect, most wonderful moment I’d ever had.

She didn’t move, even though most of my weight pinned her into the dirt. Her pussy continued to ripple around my cock, echoes of her pleasure.

Pleasure.

She’d found pleasure...with me.

She’d hurt me like they had. She’d left wounds on my body like them. But she’d given me so fucking much in return. She’d shared herself with me. We’d burned together. We still burned together—our skin pressed tight, our heartbeats quick, our bodies twitching with the aftermath.

And I didn’t know how to deal with that.

Closing my eyes, I shook my pounding head. My temples felt as if pokers stabbed inside me, drilling into my skull. My forehead had swollen, a throbbing bump thanks to her whack with the shovel.

She cleared her throat, wrenching my eyes open again.

Only this time, it wasn’t the girl who’d trespassed in my valley. Not the woman brave enough to fight me—truly fight me. To meet me in the madness and battle for her life or mine.

It wasn’t Gemma.

But Quell.

The girl who might’ve grown up to look like Gemma with her blond hair and hazel, flickering eyes. A girl who’d wiped away my tears after I’d been raped. A girl who I’d rocked as she’d sobbed in my arms. A girl who’d been utterly destroyed, like all of us.

And fuck, the guilt.

The motherfucking guilt...it crushed me, ravaged me.

I was supposed to keep her safe.

Instead, I’d fucked her in the dirt all because she’d dared stand up to me.

No!

Withdrawing from her wet heat with a wince, I swooped to my feet and almost tripped over my sodden pants still clinging to my ankles.

My heart rate exploded.

Trapped.

You’re trapped.

A snarl crawled up my throat as I bent and tore my feet out of the slacks and threw them as hard as I could. They slapped against a tree, tangling in the branches in the rain. Needing to move, to assure myself I was free, I paced.

I stalked the clearing and dug hands into my hair. I massaged a head that was full of rocks and cotton. Sharp edges and foggy corners, memories and realities, heavens and hells.

Nyx’s blood oath came and went. Wes’s suffering. Jareth’s conditioning. Elise’s initiation. Zanik, Maliki, Sarez, and Neo. Every Fable kid entered my mind and reminded me why I was alone. Why people were dangerous. Why this woman, who’d successfully made me hope, was the most dangerous of them all.

Turning on her, I glowered as she stood gracefully from the mud. Streaks on her thighs and waist, dark blond curls between her legs as she kicked away her own soaking pants.

We stood there, naked and filthy, breathing hard with what we’d done and my mind switched again. What was I thinking? This woman wasn’t sweet little Quell. This woman was too brash, too brave, too damn beautiful.

Too beautiful to be innocent.

With her hair darkened by water and her eyes shaded by night, she reminded me of another. A guest who’d taken great joy in breaking me before riding me. Who’d tied me up so I couldn’t move, gagged me so I couldn’t beg, and sucked me until I had no choice but to give her what she wanted.

Mrs. Dita had been devious in her debasement of me. She’d shared her bed and her meals. She’d touched me kindly until it pleased her to touch me cruelly.

That was the woman standing before me.

A viper who could never be trusted.

Not bothering to hide her body, Gemma dropped our heated stare and glanced at the ground. She moved away from me, back to the spot where I’d stalked and tackled her. Rain continued to splash on our skin as she ducked in the mud and grabbed a handful of gunk.

The second I saw the flash of metal in her hand, I charged forward and snatched them.

So this was her weapon. The slicing agony she’d rained upon my face.

“Hey!” She reached for my fist, her touch sending electricity through my blood even now. Even after what we’d done and the fact that I was sick to my stomach for enjoying something that only came with prostitution and persecution.

“Think you’re going somewhere?” I held up the keys to the rain, washing away as much mud as possible.

“Those are mine.” She planted both hands on her hips, bold in her nudity and scrambling my mind even more. Arching her chin at the beige 4WD, she added, “I’m done here. After what we just did, surely that will convince you that I mean you no harm.”

I chuckled blackly. “No harm?” Wiping my bleeding forehead and the numerous cuts she’d given me in our fight, I grinned thinly. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“You know what I mean. I need to go home. I need to see my mother and brother. I won’t tell anyone that you live out here. Your secrets are safe with me.”

I went still. “And what secrets are those exactly?”

She paused. Her hands slipped from her hips and crossed against her belly, subconsciously sheltering herself from me.

She didn’t answer.

Clutching her keys, I cocked my head. “Well? You think you know me now? Please...do tell. Tell me what my secrets are.”

Inhaling, her chest rose with indecision. Her eyes flickered from me to her car then back again. Clinging to courage, she tipped up her chin and said quietly, “I know you’ve been abused. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand you have some deep-seated issues. You’ve been hurt...far too many times. Your scars are external and internal. The fact that you won’t tell me your name says you have epic trust issues. The clue that you live in the middle of nowhere with technology decades outdated and no modern conveniences hints you would rather die alone than try to live with others.”

She sighed heavily. “And I get that. I do. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But...” Taking a step toward me, she gave me a soft smile. A terrifying smile. A smile that arrowed its way through my ribs and pierced my rotten heart. “I’m not your enemy. What we just did—” She shrugged helplessly, looking exactly how I felt. “I’ve never experienced that before. Ever.”

“We were fighting. It was a messy overflow from one violent act to another.”

“Perhaps.” She nodded, brushing away wet hair. “But perhaps it’s more than that and we both don’t want to admit it. I know I don’t. The more minutes that pass, the more I’m struggling with it.” She swallowed and dropped her stare, her honesty harsh in her throat. “How can I ever justify sleeping with a man who hunted me with the single intention to kill me? How stupid could I be to let you come inside me with no protection, no discussion of birth control or disease—”

I coughed. I couldn’t help it.

The cough turned into a cold snicker which morphed into a snarl. “You have nothing to worry about from me. It’s been eleven years since I’ve been with someone and I can’t get you pregnant.”

She froze. Her forehead furrowed. “Eleven years?” Her eyes widened as her thoughts ran riot. “Wait...does that mean it’s been eleven years since you’ve seen anyone or just been with someone?” Not giving me time to reply, she rushed, “And how do you know you can’t get me pregnant?”

Normally, I would ignore her question. If we were back at Fables and she was safely imprisoned in my basement, I would toss her some food and lock the door between us. I would flee before her question had the chance to rip holes in my mind and allow memories to skulk into the light.

But...we were alone.

In a raindrop-drenched forest and, for once, I wanted to share the dreadfulness inside me. I wanted her to know, just a tiny fraction, of the fucking hell that I’d survived. “I know because they neutered me. Those balls you were squeezing as if they’d save your life? They’re utterly pointless. All Fable boys are sterilized. It’s the very first thing they do when we arrive.”

If stillness could ice over and solidify into stone in one breath, she did it. Her body went frigid, her eyes wild. “What did you say?”

I shrugged and raised the keys. “Backyard vasectomy. My first official memory of this place.” Pressing the unlock symbol on the remote, the clunk of the doors opening was faint in the fading storm.

I’d shared a piece of me.

It was time she shared a piece of her.

I stalked toward the vehicle.

“Oh no. No way.” She planted herself in my way. “We need to talk about what you just told me. I-I can’t comprehend...you can’t just say something like that and then not elaborate.”

“No, we don’t need to talk. And yes, I can.” I shoved her to the side. “I’m far more interested in seeing what’s inside there.” Reaching the back of the vehicle, I swung the tailgate wide and shoved up the half window.

She rushed to my side, protective and possessive. “Don’t. Don’t touch anything.”

“What? Think I’m going to destroy everything?” I smiled icily. “I’ve already touched you.” I dropped my stare from her mouth to her breasts to her pussy. “And you’re still in one piece.”

“No, I’m not,” she whispered under her breath before elbowing me aside. “You’re getting everything wet. Close the door.” Reaching for the raised window, her breasts rose and I couldn’t stop myself.

Snatching her close, I bent and sucked on her nipple.

Cool and fresh like rain, earthy and gritty like dirt.

She bowed in my arms then shoved me away. “Stop We need to talk not—”

“I have nothing to say to you.” I let her go. I wasn’t lying that I was more interested in her possessions at this point than her body. I’d already had her body.

And she was right.

Neither of us was in one piece after what we’d done.

And I fucking hated it.

I needed something else to focus on before I lost my ever-loving mind.

My eyes scanned her bags and supplies, settling on water containers, blankets, cables, and rope.

Rope.

Instantly, self-preservation kicked back in. My head still swam. My skull still throbbed. My heart felt strange from being inside her and my mind was confused with the bizarre bond that’d sprung between us.

It all tried to soften me, cajole me, lie to me that whatever this was...it could be a new way of life. I could have this. Whatever this was. A companion. A confidant. Friend.

But it wasn’t real.

What was real was everything knotted inside my head. The scars full of evidence. The house full of screams.

I would never forget.

Never be free to forget—no matter how much I lied to myself.

Which meant I couldn’t let down my guard, or trust, or hope, or allow her to trick me any worse than she already had.

Tossing the keys to the side, I grabbed a length of rope.

Soft teal cord speckled with highlighter pink threads. It glittered as I jerked enough from the coil before spinning around and grabbing my trespasser.

For a second, she scowled. She didn’t see my threat, nor believe I was capable of returning to our prior dynamic before we’d broken each other. She treated me as if we were normal—as if our cursed beginning had somehow morphed into an average relationship.

That would never happen.

It can’t.

She wasn’t welcome here, yet she wasn’t permitted to leave.

She was mine to fuck, kill, or betray.

She’s still my enemy.

Her shock gave me enough time to grab her wrists, bind them together, and wrap the rope tight around her.

Her mouth fell open as she jerked back, doing her best to fight me off. “Seriously? You seriously just tied me up after what we just did?”

“Perhaps it’s because of what we just did.”

I’m hurting.

Give me time to figure this shit out.

“Argh! You don’t give up, do you?”

I kept my voice flat and cold. “Not while you’re still breathing, no.”

She sucked in a worried breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I rolled out my shoulders. “It means, if you keep pushing me, I’ll keep pushing back.”

“If you let me go, then there’s nothing to push against. We had sex. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Fuck, yes.

It’s screwed me up and blown me apart and I’m barely fucking functioning.

Gritting my teeth, I checked the tightness of her knots, forcing myself to hiss, “No. It meant nothing.”

Tearing her wrists away from my grasp, she snarled, “You’re unhinged.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“I don’t particularly care what you think of me.”

“Well, you should. If you got out of your head for just two seconds and let yourself feel, then you wouldn’t be able to do this.”

I laughed blackly. “Emotions are the reason I am the way I am.”

“Emotions you’ve suppressed and not dealt with.”

Our eyes met, fight to fight, anger to anger. “I don’t need psychiatric help from a girl who climbs rocks for a living.”

“Well, you need help from someone.”

“And that someone definitely isn’t you.”

She huffed. “You’ll regret this. If you kill me after what we just did, what we just felt, then you’re not just full of demons, you are one.”

“Who said anything about trying to kill you?” I cocked my head, my breath harsh.

She narrowed her gaze, searching for a trap. Raising her bound wrists, she sneered, “Why tie me up then?”

“To stop you trying to escape.” I pointed at the Jeep and rolled my eyes, wincing against my headache. “That is what you were trying to do, was it not?”

She dug her toes into the mud, rage planting her in place. “I need to go home. I have people who will be worried about me.”

“Not my problem.” Grabbing her wrists again, I tied another knot, just to be safe. I ensured the restraints were tight enough not to wriggle out of but not too tight to cut off circulation.

“I hate you,” she spat as I relinquished her hands.

“That makes two of us.” Turning, I grabbed her keys again and opened the pen knife dangling from the chain. Using the knife, I sliced off the rest of the rope, leaving a small leash to drag her by.

Glancing up, I made the mistake of looking at her face.