Page 107 of Juniper Unraveling

The cool water is enough for now, and my body is so lethargic with hunger and thirst, I don’t even care what he does to me. My eyes flutter shut, but open at the first touch of sweetness dancing across my tongue. The flesh of the fig presses against my lips, and I hold it there, sucking the juices that taste like sugary bliss. An ache throbs in my back and itches. Holy hell does it itch. I turn over into the dirt, trying to relieve it, and as if he can read my mind, he scratches it for me.

In spite of my irritation, the relief is incredible and a soft grunt escapes me when he nails the spot.

“Tarantula hawk.” He smooths his hand over the ache, and it’s heaven. Sheer heaven. “Found it trapped in your shirt.”

“The pain. It was so intense.”

“Gave you some peyote for it. You’ve been hallucinating for the last few hours.”

Hallucinating? I don’t bother to tell him those hallucinations included him watching me just like he did the other woman. Hell, maybe he was.

“You’ve been stung before?”

He nods. “Many times.”

“Sure one of you assholes didn’t put it on me, as one of your sick tortures?”

“If I was going to torture you, I’d come up with something more creative than a tarantula hawk.”

“Like tying me up and offering myself to you? I’ll take the sting any day over that, thanks.”

There’s a smile in his eyes as he shifts his jaw, as though he’s trying not to laugh.

Still keeping my head propped, he watches me eat the fruit, seemingly riveted by it, and again, I couldn’t care less what thoughts are brewing inside his mind. Starvation has a way of commandeering one’s priorities, and mine is replenishing my body.

He lifts the charm of my choker, the one I purchased from Jessie, with a small bird dangling from the leather. “What’s your name, little bird?” he asks for the third time in a matter of hours, and when I shake my head, his lips press to a hard line, tugging at the ruined skin of his scar.

Just when I think he’s going to steal the fruit away, prompting me to clutch it tighter, he releases my neck and pushes to a stand. His abrupt movements tell me he’s pissed, but he doesn’t say another word as he crosses the room.

He slides his leather vest off his shoulders, and in the dim light, I can see his muscles, where the shadows leap to the dips and hard lines in his chest and abs. After fumbling with his zipper a moment, elbows bent at either side of him, he pushes his jeans to the floor and kicks them away. Eyes on me, he straightens to a stand, cupping his manhood. His body is chiseled and perfectly proportionate, his thighs as powerful-looking as his broad chest.

On the floor, a few feet away from me, is a bed of blankets, on which he lies down. Not the big comfy bed, but a pile of blankets no bigger than the mat below me.

For the next twenty minutes, or so, I watch his back expand and shrink, expand and shrink, just like the skull on the wall. Slower. Slower, until I’m certain he’s fallen asleep. Below his scarred back is a muscled ass, complete with the indentations on the outer cheeks, and I have to order myself to look away from their distracting effect.

I crane my neck back toward the chains, and careful not to rattle them, I tighten my muscles and pull. As if I could yank the pole right out of the ground.

Trembling muscles and a cramp in my palm tell me I can’t.

With a huff, I forfeit the effort and stare at the cave’s ceiling.

It takes a while for me to fall back asleep. I hate the sounds in the cave. The cold and stagnant air. The hollow echo of voices from the main cavern. The suffocation and desperation of being trapped. Again.

Just as exhaustion tugs at my eyelids, a moan snaps me awake.

Dreaming?

I blink to make sure I’m awake, and a grunt reaches my ears. Sharp breaths fill the silence, as if Rhys is having a nightmare, and his body jerks with every exhale. The animalistic sound that thunders from his chest is a cry of pain, and I lift my head from the mat. Hopefully, this isn’t one of his blackout moments that’ll end with my skull propped on a pole beside his bed.

He flails an arm through the air, an action that sends him sitting upright, and he scans the room, looking back and forth as if confused.

His eyes zero in on me, chest rising and falling with deep, rapid breaths.

He turns to face me, lying back on his pile of blankets, and stares at me in the flickering light. Taking deep, easy breaths, he watches me with such intense focus, I can feel the hairs poking up from my skin. Though it’s not easy to discern, I can just make out the shape of his manhood, lying erect in front of his muscled thighs.

Lying back down on the mat, I screw my eyes shut, doing my best to shield them from the one place they seem drawn to. Frustrated, I roll over so my back is to him, ears piqued for any movement that might suggest he’d try to rape me in the night.

Instead, his quiet breaths tell me he’s fallen back to sleep.