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The kind that will make my muscles twitch and push me to my absolute breaking point, until I’m shaking and can’t even move tomorrow.
It’s the only way I’m going to deal with having that woman in my space. Until I can figure out a way to get rid of her, this is how it’ll have to be.
Stay as far away from Callista Fox as possible and work myself to death every day.
An excellent plan.
One I must make work.
I exit the rear of the house and slam the door behind me, then make my way toward the tree line and into the same woods I chased her through only last night.
What the hell was she thinking?
Coming up here in those shoes…
That dress…
Running into the depths of the forest, where everything around wants to kill…
My hand tightens on my weapon.
The irony of it is not lost on me—that I, of all people, am the one who saved her from what could have ended very, very badly last night. If she had managed to slip away, gotten lost in the thick trees in the dark, God knows what would’ve found her instead of me.
An unusual chill slides down my spine, but I push the strange feeling away like I do the branches blocking my advance.
It would be easier to take the worn path from the house that leads to the clearing, but I want the pain today.
I crave it.
The scrape of rough bark against my exposed skin. The tug of barbs and of thorns. The nicks my bare chest, back, and arms will bear when all is said and done.
Reminders of why I do this, why I must—my curse.
Death by a thousand cuts is better than the alternative: death by that woman up in the bedroom.
What the fuck am I going to do with her?
She stays.
Those two words echo in my head, and I release a frustrated growl as I push through the last of the trees and step out into the glade.
Almost instantly, the tightness in my chest releases slightly.
Towering pines. Chirping birds. Bright-yellow wild buttercups scattered across the crisp, green blanket Mother Nature has laid out for me. A picture-perfect spot that lures unsuspecting prey with its beauty.
A light breeze blows through the grass as I cross the flat space to the woodshed and my workshop. But my eyes naturally drift back toward the house, peeking up above the towering trees that have been here longer than humans have lived on this mountain.
Has it really been thirty years that I’ve been up here, locked away in this prison?
That seems impossible.
An entire lifetime alone.
You know it has been.
You know it down to the day.
The hour.
