15. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Cassidy
We spend the morning moving everything over from the small cabin to the big one. The clothes he bought me, the gear, even some food from the fridge. He lets me pack it all while he makes a few trips without me, confident I won’t risk another escape so soon after last night’s attempt.
He’s right, but not for the reason he thinks. I’m biding my time, waiting for another opening that will end with me pinned under him on the forest floor, too exhausted to keep my eyes open. As fucked as the last 24 hours have been… I want him more now than ever.
This cabin is a prison disguised as paradise, and I can’t decide if the comfort makes it better or worse. After writing in my journal and getting out all the dark thoughts that I can’t say out loud, I final reason that prison or not, kidnapping or not… I’ve come full circle to the idea of living out here like a mountain princess. Confronting my own darkness has released something in me.
An acceptance that all of us are capable of brutal, inhumane things. And it’s up to us to decide if we can live with those things. I can. I can live with Noah’s darkness so long as I can also tame it.
By the time we’re settled in, rain has started up again. It falls steadily against the roof like a reminder that there’s no way out of this without getting soaked to the bone.
I sit on the bed and stare out at the gray sky until I feel Noah’s presence beside me. He doesn’t say anything, just wraps an arm around my shoulders and holds me like he knows exactly how much I need it.
“Did you mean what you said?” My voice comes out quieter than I want it to.
He turns his head slightly, looking down at me with furrowed brows. “When?”
“About having a baby.”
His lips curve into a slow smile that makes my heart stutter against its better judgment. “Yes.”
“You’re insane,” I whisper for what feels like the hundredth time.
“Never said I wasn’t.”
He starts pulling his shirt off, then his pants before taking off his boxers and standing. “I’m going to shower.”
Seeing him like this… my eyes roam his body, despite myself. He is quite literally almost the perfect man… if he wasn’t so…
Obsessive.
But obsessive isn’t really the right word.
Possessive. All-consuming.
Deadly .
I think that’s the part that makes him a solid 9/10 on the perfection scale and not a full 10. I could do without the murder part, but if that’s what it takes to have the rest, I suppose I could swallow my feelings. Maybe I can change him. I can put boundaries in place.
My mind is spinning in circles, trying to slow down as he stretches, his cock inches from my face before he turns and heads to the walk-in bathroom. My core clenches, even as my body’s responses try to fight with the conflicting feelings still sitting in my mind.
Fuck if he doesn’t do it for me. I groan, knowing I’m going to regret this decision, but making it anyway.
Standing, I quickly strip and follow him into the bathroom, watching as the water from the showerhead hits his body and drips onto the tiles beneath his feet. The shower doors are clear, and I can see every muscle, every dip, every hard plane of skin.
He turns and smirks, watching me, watching him. “You gonna just stand there, or are you going to get in?”
I bite my lip, a small thrill racing through me at the way he looks like he’s ready to devour me whole. “I’ll get in,” I say, opening the door and stepping into the shower. The water is hot, scalding my skin in an attempt to thaw the cold that’s seeped so deeply into me.
His hands are on me immediately, pulling me against him with a need that feels dangerous. “I was wondering how long you’d hold out,” he murmurs into my neck, his breath warm against the steam.
“Not very,” I admit, losing myself in the way his touch burns away everything but him.
He tilts my chin up and kisses me—slow and thorough and claiming every inch of me. His fingers tangle in my hair while the other hand moves down, tracing wet paths over my body until I’m gasping under his assault.
The water beats against us, drowning out everything except our ragged breaths and the insistent thud of my heart. His hands are everywhere at once, each touch unraveling more of the resolve I pretend to have left.
“Tell me you won’t leave,” he says against my lips, and there’s nothing playful about it this time.
A tremor runs through me as I cling to him, trying to remember that he just murdered an innocent woman the night before. But it appears all coherent thoughts have fled my mind as his fingers tickle my inner thighs. “You know I can’t promise that. But I am trying my best to understand you. And understand me. I’m learning things about me… they’re big, scary things. Things I’d always suppressed. But I am trying, Noah. I’m doing my best to come to terms with all of this. It’s been a long wait for you, but for me this has moved at a breakneck pace. Please… at least just try to understand that.”
He rewards my honesty by lifting me easily, pinning me between the hard wall and his body. His mouth crashes down on mine again with an intensity that sends sparks skittering across my skin.
The room spins as he thrusts into me with bruising force; it’s desperate and raw and without pretense—an offering of everything he is, and everything he demands from me.
I moan into his mouth, the sound muffled by the way he swallows it greedily. My legs wrap around his waist as he takes me over that jagged edge again and again, each thrust pushing me further into a world where nothing exists but us.
His grip on my hair tightens just enough to remind me who’s in control, even though I know it’s only a matter of time before that balance shifts again. Before I find another moment to run and make him hunt me down.
But right now, it’s all heat and friction and the terrifying thrill of surrender.
“Fuck,” he groans into my neck as we both shatter, his body pinning mine against the shower wall with a final, shuddering drive.
We stay there for a long moment, our breaths mingling with steam until they return to something other than ragged gasps. Then he pulls back slightly to look at me, his eyes dark and filled with a wild mix of triumph and unrelenting devotion.
“You’re mine, Cassidy,” he says, this time like a gentle plea instead of a demand.
My heart is too tangled up in all things Noah, to do anything but nod in response. He lowers me onto unsteady legs, keeping close so I don’t collapse entirely.
The water streams over us as I try to find my balance—in more ways than one. His hand brushes my cheek, tender in its possession.
“I’ll never give up on you. However long it takes for you to understand that we are meant to be together.”
And I know he’s telling the truth.
He bends, grabbing my favorite shampoo and squirts it onto his hand, bringing it to my hair and working it into my scalp. He massages my head before washing my hair, the feeling sending tingles down my body.
He cares for me. That much I know to be true. But how can I hold two truths in my mind, both so opposing in their nature, and reconcile them into this man I’ll be spending my life with?
The water begins to run cold as we finish up, and he turns it off, grabbing a towel from the rack and wrapping me in it before toweling himself down.
We dress in silence, but it’s comfortable now. Almost natural. His presence is less suffocating in this big space, and I feel how I did before...
Safe.
“You want to watch the storm?” He asks jerking his head towards the falls.
I nod, “Yeah. That’d be nice.”
We sit on the floor in front of the large window, watching as the rain comes down in sheets over the trees. The falls are raging almost as hard as my thoughts.
“You’re a fucking lunatic,” I say quietly, but there’s no real venom behind it.
“Would you love me any other way?” He pulls me closer, and I let him.
“I don’t know if I can love you at all.”
He kisses my hair, seemingly unfazed by my honesty. “You do love me, Cassidy. If you didn’t you wouldn’t crave my touch the way you do. You’d have gone running for the hills the minute you saw Dana, but you didn’t. Well, you did. But you came back. You could have tried to go, to leave me, to kill me or go to the cops. But you didn’t. Even now, I can see you wrestling with the fact that the nature of who I am scares you, but not because I’m a bad man. Rather because it’s showing you that you’re really not that different to me. You want the darkness because it means you’ll always be safe with me. I’ll always do what’s necessary to protect you. To keep you safe.”
He pauses, making sure I’m listening before continuing. “You won’t leave me, Cassidy, because if you leave, you’re walking out on the one man in the world who doesn’t care about consequences so long as you’re safe.”
I sigh, leaning into him as the storm builds outside and inside of me. We sit there for hours until the rain finally stops, and night falls over the cabin. The sky clears just enough for a few stars to peek through.
“The rain stopped,” I say softly, more to myself than to him as I crane my neck to see the stars.
“I know a place where we can see them better,” he murmurs into my hair.
I tilt my head back to look at him, a question in my eyes.
“Do you trust me not to run from you?” I ask.
“Do you trust me not to hunt you down if you do, tie you up, and make you suck my cock until I come down your throat?” He grins like he knows exactly how much I hate that I do trust him, even after everything.
My thighs clench. “Maybe I want you to.”
Maybe I should try to run. To test him. See what he will do to me. I want him to wreck me, destroy me, make me scream his name. A dam breaks inside me as I realize with certainty that I want his primal, feral side. I want him to take away my control, to own me, to live under my skin, forcing me to take his cock until I can’t anymore.
What the fuck is wrong with me?