5. Piper
FIVE
PIPER
He wanted me to pick wherever I wanted him?
It was a loaded question.
Over me.
Under me.
Everywhere.
I couldn’t stop the visions from slamming me one by one, and I grabbed the plush covers from the bed and pulled them up high so I could press them to my face like it might blot them out.
Keep my foolish brain from marching straight into the ambush that was this man.
His stupidly gorgeous face and his wickedly dangerous body.
My mind raced through the thoughtful things he’d done all while silently delivering a thousand threats, because I was envisioning things that I hadn’t imagined in years.
What it would be like to be peeled apart by a man like him.
Taken.
Used and pleased.
Consumed and sated.
Heat licked across the surface of my skin, and I tossed the covers off like I’d been burned.
Breaths heaving, I stared up at the vaulted, wood-beam ceiling, trying to blink away the fantasy.
But each time my lids closed, I was hit by a black and white projector flash of what he might look like standing under the shower.
That lean, fierce body covered in all that ink.
My throat grew thick, and my heart beat at a rapid pace.
One-Star. One-Star. One-Star.
I silently chanted it like it might hold the chance of knocking some sense into me.
But was it wrong?
Aching for it?
Human connection?
I hadn’t been touched in so long, and that vacancy was beginning to feel like a canyon carved out in the middle of me.
As if I’d been fragmented.
Cut from the life that I’d dreamed of and hollowed out by the one that I’d been given.
The stirring on the far side of the room caught my attention.
The only light dissecting the lapping darkness of the room was the bare bit of moon that peeked out from the clouds that had begun to abate and streamed through the window.
Just enough to illuminate the shape of the portable crib that had been set up against the wall. One that had also come when the baby gate had been delivered.
Another thing that had been so thoughtful.
I didn’t know if Theo Mallin was a windstorm or a buoy.
But he couldn’t be anything.
My thoughts spun and spun.
The car.
Our situation.
In an instant, panic surged.
Depriving me of oxygen.
I sat up on the side of the bed, gasping for that breath and trying to see through the disorder.
A gust of wind clattered at the window, and the branches of a tree scraped against the pane, sending shadows crawling over the walls of the small room.
And the fear consumed. Winding and winding around me like a rope.
Compressing until I felt as if my ribs would crack.
I dropped to my knees on the floor, frantic as I crawled to where I had the duffel stuffed under the bed. Short gasps wheezed from my lungs as I pulled it out.
Fumbling, I worked to enter the combo on the lock, and when it gave, I ripped open the zipper and yanked out the three sweaters I always kept neatly folded on top.
Horror.
Guilt.
Grief.
Each one stabbed through me as I stared down at the contents hidden underneath.
My hand shook as I dug through the stacks of bound cash, and my fingers brushed over the bag of jewelry that might as well have been inscribed with my shame.
How easily I’d been blinded.
Attracted to the type of man that I never should have been attracted to.
My stupidity that had caused the greatest grief.
The tattoo on the inner part of my forearm throbbed.
In sorrow we must stand.
Sometimes it felt almost impossible to do it.
To push forward.
To keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Running and running.
I dug deeper into the bag and pulled out the large sketch pad that I kept at the bottom.
I rested back on my heels as sadness washed over me.
A wistfulness that was both comforting and cruel.
I flipped through the rough, textured pages, eyes caressing over the drawings. The dreams that I’d had, the sketches of models and clothing.
Until those faces had shifted from my imaginings to my reality, taking new shape in my grief.
Through the wisping of shadows, I traced my fingertips over their faces. The love and guilt was nearly suffocating as I stared at the drawings of my family.
I turned the page, and my stomach twisted.
My eyes bleared over as I saw the viciousness I’d sketched screaming back. The shape of the two faces that would forever haunt me that I’d scratched with crude strokes.
“Go. Try to save your life. Just like I’m going to try to save mine.”
Anguish wailed from within me.
It was my fault.
Mine.
And there was absolutely no way to take it back.
I could only run.
The weight of it pressed down.
A thousand tons of pain.
I inhaled against it, struggling to draw in air.
To shake myself out of it.
To remember my purpose.
As soon as I figured out the car situation, we’d pack up and we’d be on our way, and everything would be just fine.
We’d go back to normal.
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or weep at the thought.
Normal.
Because there was nothing normal about this.