Chapter Ten #2
I resisted squeezing his hand back. My body was tense, caught between fire and fear, though a flicker of warmth continued to move through me, reminding me I was still painfully human in many ways.
He leaned in, brushing a lock of hair from my face. His touch wasn’t demanding. It was simply...there. Steady. Anchoring.
Our breaths mingled, slow and shallow, a fragile truce in the darkness.
There was no rush. No questions. Just this moment, where no one owned me, and nothing was broken.
Not yet.
He brushed his hand down the side of my face, his rough, calloused skin making me shiver. Not with distaste, but with a stark need that was yet to be fulfilled.
His smile flashed in the darkness, a flicker my heightened vision managed to catch. But it faded when his hand drifted over my shoulder and began moving down my back, making me stiffen and push lower into the mattress, hiding the shape of my wings.
He drew back. “You’re an innocent,” he murmured huskily. “I understand.”
He moved his hand to my front instead, the back of his knuckles trailing over the fabric of my borrowed shirt, tracing the line of my collarbone, the curve of one breast.
I inhaled sharply at the electric response, wanting more, so much more.
If I couldn’t have Adam, then perhaps Reuben might fulfill the deep yearning within.
He trailed his fingers farther down to my belly, the pad of his thumb slowly circling my navel, leaving me trembling. Then he stilled, his hand hovering low, heat radiating through the thin fabric. His voice was soft, careful. “If you don’t want me to touch you, to ease your ache, tell me now.”
I jerked when his fingertips touched the bared skin of my thigh, a wave of warmth coursing through me, quiet but consuming.
My breath hitched. I hated that I wanted this...wanted him so badly.
Is Reuben who you really want?
Then I remembered the ache Adam left behind. Not from what he did, but from what he didn’t. The longing. The restraint. The way he’d hovered so close, like a fire I was too scared to step into. A fire that had threatened to become an inferno if I’d stayed just one more day.
Now Reuben’s warmth seeped beneath my skin, and I didn’t know what I wanted more—to pull away, or to let him keep going.
He took my silence as acceptance, the back of his fingers then gently pushing up between my naked thighs, opening me like a petal to the sun, then caressing the bud within until I was gasping and mewling at the currents of sensation that built and built.
His gentle touch as quickly roughened, matching the stark, raw need pulsing within, a desire that couldn’t possibly—
“Reuben!” I shrieked as pleasure exploded through me like a wave whitewashing a stationary shore, prickling currents of sensation piercing me right to the core.
He didn’t relent, he rubbed more fiercely, his touch concentrated on the bundle of nerves that had become the center of my existence. Another orgasm lit through me, making me inhale sharply while my senses fed on the pleasure coursing along every sensitized nerve.
Only when his touch softened, and he finally released me, did my panting breaths even out, my world then mellowing into some semblance of normal.
He leaned over, kissing my lips gently before he drew back. “You shouldn’t have any trouble sleeping now.”
Wait...what?
He was leaving? Going now?
His presence lingered a second longer before he moved away, the brief brush of his arousal against me sending a jolt through my body moments before he descended the ladder. I blinked, processing the moment.
He’d taken care of my needs, had given without asking for anything in return. I hadn’t expected that. Something about that quiet selflessness made me pause. I closed my eyes, then drifted.
I couldn’t help but reconsider everything I thought I knew about him.
When I next woke, morning light filtered through the cracked blinds, casting long shadows across the bedcovers. The remnants of sleep still clouded my mind. Last night had been...unexpected. It wasn’t just the heat of the moment, but the quiet aftermath, too.
Reuben’s touch, his attention, had eased something in me, dissolving a little of the tension, a little of the distrust. I hadn’t realized how tightly wound I’d been, until now, when I could breathe more freely.
Stretching, I reveled in the faint ache between my limbs, a reminder of how deeply I’d been affected by Reuben’s touch, and how wonderfully I’d then slept. The intimacy had somehow anchored me, relieving me of the exhaustion I’d carried from the fight and the chaos of the last few days.
I heard him move below, the quiet scrape of a chair, the hum of coffee brewing. I blinked, pushing off the covers. Reuben’s presence was still a little foreign to me, despite the fact I slept in his home.
I laid awake, taking in the quiet for a moment longer. Then the ladder creaked and Reuben’s blond head appeared. His face was still swollen and grazed, his stare that swept over me, almost too carefully, missing nothing.
His voice was low, steady, but I didn’t miss the tension behind his words. “I’ve been thinking,” his eyes flicked to the window, then back to me, as if measuring each word, “this place, it’s not safe anymore. I think we’re under surveillance. It’s time to go.”
I paused, my stomach tightening at the sudden shift in tone. For a moment, the gnawing edge of unease returned, the one and same that had haunted me from the moment I’d ran from Adam.
Then I remembered last night. The calm that had settled between us when he’d given me the release I’d needed. That he’d held back his own needs made me want to believe him, to trust that maybe he was trying to help.
But we’d only known each other for two days.
I lifted a hand to touch my upswept hair, a reflexive, nervous gesture. “How do you know we’re being watched?”
He met my gaze with that steady look that always seemed to see too much. “I’m street smart, a survivor. I know the signs. Someone cased the alley outside two nights in a row. A car parked down the block that shouldn’t be there. And then...”
A low whup-whup-whup cut through the quiet, a helicopter, circling overhead. Too low to ignore.
My gaze snapped to the ceiling, pulse spiking. Not again.
Reuben’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “That.”
There was a flicker in his voice this time, urgency, definitely, but layered with resignation. Like he’d guessed this was coming.
I wanted to believe in him. To trust the strangely quiet way he made the world feel less sharp when he was near. My body, still warm from sleep and the lingering comfort of last night, didn’t want to question him. But the part of me trained to survive, the part Adam hadn’t broken, stayed wary.
I ran my fingers through the loosened strands of my hair and exhaled slowly. “Where would we go?”
His face softened, just a little. “Somewhere safe. Off the grid. No cameras, no one watching. I’ve got a place we can disappear to for a while. You can rest there. Heal from whatever trauma you’re running from.”
It sounded so easy. Too easy. But the way I’d slept, the way he hadn’t asked for anything more than I gave—those things counted for something. Still, I couldn’t quite let my guard down.
The helicopter circled again, lower this time. A warning. Or a search pattern.
I stood, tension coiling back through me. “Fine,” I said. “But we leave now. And I decide how long we stay. If I want to walk away, I walk. Got it?”
He gave a small nod, his expression unreadable. “Deal.”
And for a moment, I let myself believe him. Let myself want to believe that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t trying to control me, maybe he really was trying to keep me safe.