Page 49 of Sick(ness)

“I’m fine,” she lied, her voice brittle.

He rose, crossing the space between them in two quiet steps.

“You don’t have to be,” he said. “Not with me.”

He reached out, hesitated for half a breath, then brushed a stray curl from her cheek, his calloused thumb grazing her jaw. The gesture was gentle, almost reverent, and it sent a shiver through her that wasn’t fear.

Sawyer’s next words were so soft, she almost missed them. “Come here.”

For a moment, her body disobeyed, locked in place by habit and uncertainty. But the need for warmth, for contact, overwhelmed protocol. She let herself move to him, let him gather her into his arms, folding her neatly into his lap as if she’d always belonged there. The embrace was strong, unyielding, yet somehow careful not to hurt her. She pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder, breathing in the bracing blend of wood smoke and Sawyer, and everything inside her became calm, if only for a moment.

He cupped her face between his hands, tilting her chin up.

“I promise I’ll protect you,” he said.

“No matter what.”

There was no bravado in his words, only a tired certainty that made her want to believe him. She nodded. He bent forward, his mouth finding hers with the kind of hesitance that made it more real. The kiss was slow, fiercely tender. When he broke away, she was dizzy—not from fear, but from the first taste of hope she’d experienced since the last day in her classroom.

He kissed her again, and then she was lost.

Sawyer’s hands, so steady in the field but so uncertain here, slid up her rib cage with increasing surety. The warmth of his palms through her shirt made Addy’s breath catch; his big, rough fingers mapped the terrain of her body as if memorizing the lines for the last time. She shivered when he stopped at her breasts, cupping them with a gentler touch than she would have thought possible, his thumbs brushing over the cotton in slow, careful arcs that summoned every nerve in her chest to attention. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her, and she sensed herself flush, half from embarrassment and half from want.

She reached for the buttons of his flannel, fingers clumsy with adrenaline and hunger, fumbling over the first few before tearing the rest open with impatience. The fabric parted to reveal the familiar scars and muscle of his torso, dusted with dark hair and the warmth of his skin already radiating to meet hers. She pressed her palms to his chest, grounding herself in the solidity of him, the contradiction of how he could be both fortress and haven in the same instant.

Sawyer moved his mouth from her lips to her throat, kissing the fine line of her jaw, then lower, teeth grazing the tendon in her neck. She tipped her head back, helpless to do anything but let him. His hands found the hem of her shirt and paused there, waiting for her to say no, to flinch, to spook. When all she did was nod and tug at the fabric herself, he lifted it over her head in one swift motion, making her gasp at how exposed she suddenly felt. He breathed her in, the scent of sweat and firewood and fear barely masked by the detergent from months ago, and she saw him close his eyes as if to savor the proof that she was real.

They moved to the floor almost as one. The rug was thin and scratchy, but it didn’t matter, not with the heat pouring from the wood stove, not with the way his hands mapped her skin as if drawing a boundary around this safe, secret moment. She trembled under him, every contact a flare of sensation: his lips on her nipple, the scrape of his stubble against her belly, the roughness of his knuckles as he pushed her jeans down her thighs. She helped him, their hands tangled in a frantic parody of grace, neither of them willing to break the spell by speaking.

He kissed her again, slower this time, and she tasted the smoke and salt of his mouth and wanted to keep it forever. When he finally pressed against her, the urgency and the fear and the desperate, animal need crashed through her in a wave so intense she nearly burst into tears. She clung to him, arms around his neck, the two of them fused together in a way that felt less like sex and more like a prayer.

He was careful, holding her face, looking into her eyes even when her own gaze went distant with pleasure. She hadn’t realized until now how much she needed that—someone to see her, wholly, past the bruises and the terror and the exhaustion. To hold her and not let go, even as the world fell apart around them.

Sawyer stayed with her through every shudder, every gasp, never looking away as he whispered her name as if it were the only word that mattered. When it was over, she curled into him, letting the aftershocks ripple quietly through her. They stayed like that, on the rug in the dark cabin, with only the embers and the sound of their breathing to mark the time.

After a long silence, Addy found her voice. “I haven’t… not in a very long time.”

Sawyer stroked her hair; his voice rough but tender. “Me either.”

They stayed on the floor for a while, holding each other, letting the guilt and fear bleed away into something warmer. By the time the fire burned low, Addy had almost convinced herself that dawn would come, and the world would somehow be different.

Eleven

A Man

Unfortunately, she was wrong.

The next morning, a gray light crept through the shutters, cold and thin. Addy was standing at the washbasin, her mind still foggy with half-formed dreams, when a flicker of movement outside caught her eye.

At first, she thought it was nothing, merely branches shifting in the wind. But then she saw it.

A man.

He was standing halfway between the treeline and the clearing, partially hidden by a cluster of pines. His coat was dark, face shadowed, but she perceived enough: the outline of his body, the tilt of his head. He wasn’t wandering like the sick. He was watching.

Her hands froze in the water, the rag slipping from her grasp and falling back into the basin with a dull splash. Her breath came shallow as she leaned closer to the glass, squinting against the morning glare.

He didn’t move at first. Merely stood there, still and silent, his gaze locked on the cabin. And almost casually, he stepped backward. One step. Slipping further into the shadows.