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He has to do some repair work on the barn. I clean up breakfast, and he goes upstairs for a bit. It’s a minute later, and he comes back down to kiss me before going out. When I head back to the bathroom in the hall, I find a little bag of toiletries: a bottle of women’s shampoo, a bar of flowery soap, a metal razor, a pack of tampons, a nail file. It’s not much, but I know he’ll get me more when the snow melts.
I take a luxurious bath. I finally have time to kill and nothing to do.
No dishes to wash. No floors to scrub.
It’s heaven.
Instead, I take my time scrubbing my skin until it’s soft. I shave and file my nails until they’re smooth and oval. I haven’t felt this kempt before in my life.
Maybe when he goes into town, he can get me a little bit of makeup.
I dry off and stand before the mirror in the bedroom. My body is thin. There are oven burns on my forearms. That’s not the worst part, though.
The worst part is how hollow my eyes are.
I wrap my arms around my body. It’s fragile, but inside, I think I could be strong again. If he keeps me safe like this for a few months, I can bounce back.
I know I can.
Thomas beat me down, but he didn’t break me.
I still want to live.
In the bathroom, I find some lotion. I take my time rubbing it into my skin. Then, I pull on his flannel again and go downstairs to find a distraction.
I rummage in his pantry and freezer. I find canned chicken and vegetables, enough to make soup. While it simmers, I start rolling out pie crust. The butter is frozen solid, but I manage to warm it enough to use. By the time he comes in, smelling like ice and horses, there’s a canned cherry pie on the counter.
He stops short, his jacket in his hand.
“You don’t have to cook, darling,” he says.
I nod once. “I know.”
He kisses me. We don’t talk during dinner, but I swear he doesn’t take his eyes off me the entire time. The soup is thin because I couldn’t find everything we needed, but it’s warm and the broth is good. Afterwards, he sends me upstairs and tells me he’ll clean the kitchen.
In the bedroom, I have to take a moment. The air in the house is thick with tension. When I sat across from him, it crackled like a summer storm.
It’s only going to get worse when he comes up to sleep in the chair.
I brush my teeth then crawl into bed in just his flannel. I don’t have anything else to wear. After a while, he comes up and goes into the bathroom. I curl up on my side and pretend to close my eyes, but I watch the strip of light under the door.
My heart beats—thump, thump, thump.
The gas fireplace is on low. Through the window, stars hang low in the velvet sky. I swear, there’s a little bit of old, dark magic at Sovereign Mountain. Sometimes, at night, it feels like something out of a storybook.
The bathroom light turns off. The door opens.
Fuck, he looks good.
Oblivious, he goes to the chair and sits, stretching his legs out and leaning back. My eyes trail over the line of hair, the V of his lower abs, down to the band of his sweatpants.
Between my thighs, I ache, empty and sensitive and wet. I shift my hips, squeezing my legs. Pleasure ripples.
I think I might need him.
I push the covers back and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. He turns his head, but it’s too dark to make out his expression.
“Darling?” he says.
