Page 89 of Drowning in Darkness

After changing into a clean pair of boxers, I stalk around my darkened bedroom, not needing to turn on the light because I know the layout of this lodge blind. Each piece of furniture, the positioning, which floorboards creak, the angle the kitchen island juts out. I can find each of the six firearms hidden in various places in the blanket of the night and not make a sound.

So when I slide into bed, I know what to expect, which is why I freeze when an arm curls over my chest and a smooth, bare leg hitches over my stomach and that damn berry scent of hers rushes up my nose.

“You’re in the wrong bed, sweetheart.”

“Am I, though?”

Fuck my life. Fuck this mess. And fuck Christopher Burnside because I’m not sure I have the power to continue to resist this woman. This one woman who is buried beneath my skin and makes my blood heat. I’ll need a damn medal for making it through without laying a finger on her.

“Stephanie?”

A light snore answers me. She sleepwalked straight into my bed, and now I have a night of restlessness ahead of me as she squirms to get closer and hugs me to her like I’m her favorite body pillow.

I try counting sheep. Listing the things that need repairing in the lodge. Make a mental grocery list. Anything to ignore her soft skin pressed against my own.

“I wish you would want me like I want you.”

When did the snores cease? How long have I been trying to get to sleep using useless techniques?

I do the one thing I can’t in the cold light of day. I tell her the truth.

“I want you in all the ways you could imagine. Your heart, your soul, your body.” My fingers curl around her thigh. “I want you in all the ways I shouldn’t. I want you, and that should scare you because I’ve never wanted anyone before.”

“Neither have I.”

The words linger in the darkness for hours as her breathing deepens once more.

Stephanie is stunning inside and out. I find it unbelievable that she didn’t experience love or desire during her youth, before the horror of her college years.

I know her adult years have been secluded. I see the same signs as the girls I save from the cult. The confusion of the world beyond that they either haven’t seen or long forgotten. Jonathan had the uncanny ability to break a mind in weeks. Not my sister, though. She didn’t know of the world beyond the impenetrable walls she’d been born behind, and yet he couldn’t take away her spirit. She dreamed of something more, of a life bigger and more fulfilling without understanding everything that was on offer.

I see that same spirit in Stephanie. The light that is like a moth to a flame for a man entrenched in darkness.

I’ve spent my entire life believing the most dangerous thing about me was what I was capable of doing to other people. I was wrong.

The most dangerous thing is how much I want the woman sleeping beside me, and I am on the verge of saying fuck it and forgetting all the reasons I shouldn’t touch her.

THIRTY

STEPHANIE

Wear the hat and claim you’re his sister.

Rolling onto my back, I stretch my arms in the air and groan. Those painkillers are powerful, and they knock me out for hours. But I feel rested this morning, ready to fuck up James’s plans of evading his attraction to me.

“Morning,” the man in question rumbles.

Wait...

My eyes snap open, and I stare at the ceiling for a beat, trying to place where I am. I turn my head, finding a half-naked James sitting in bed next to me with his phone in hand and my hair fanned out across his lap.

“Why am I in your room?” I croak.

“Excellent question, Stephanie. Why are you in here?”

Oh, no. Not again. I need to get a grip on this sleepwalking. But it happens in times of high stress, and no amount of sparkly nail polish can take away from the fact I’m being hunted by a demon who wants to make my life an endless nightmare for no other reason than he decided he wanted to break me.

“I’m sorry. We should get a lock for my bedroom door.”