Chapter 5
Julie
The bathroom door clicks shut behind me, and for the first time in what feels like forever, nobody is looking at me.
Nobody is touching me.
Nobody wants anything.
I just stand there for a second with my hand still on the knob and breathe.
The bathroom is small. Old tile. Narrow sink. A shower that looks like it has been here longer than I have. But right now it feels like the safest room in the world.
Safe.
The word still feels borrowed. Fragile. Like if I hold it too tightly, it will break apart in my hands.
I look at myself in the mirror.
My hair is a mess. My freckles stand out too sharp against skin gone pale. My eyes look too big in my face, too tired, too haunted. Like the girl in the mirror has not fully caught up to everything that happened to her yet.
Maybe she never will.
I strip off my clothes and step into the shower.
The hot water hits my skin, and I almost come apart on the spot.
I brace both hands against the tile and bow my head, letting it pour over me. My shoulders. My back. My stomach. My legs. The heat works into me slow and steady, loosening something that has been knotted tight since I woke up in that red room.
I scrub at my skin too hard at first.
Then I stop.
I make myself stop.
I wash my hair with the plain soap from the little shelf and let the water carry everything away. The motel. The bike ride. The fear stuck in the corners of me. The awful sticky feeling of being dressed up for strangers and sold like I was never a person at all.
By the time I turn the water off, my breathing is steadier.
I dry off with one of the towels from the closet and stare at the dresser for a second before I open it.
Spare clothes, he said.
He was right.
The first pair of pants I pull out is huge on me. I step into them anyway, tug them up, then laugh once under my breath when they slide right back down.
The second pair is worse.
I catch them before they hit the floor and just stand there in the bathroom, half annoyed, half exhausted, holding a pair of giant men’s sweats like they personally offended me.
“Great,” I mutter.
The shirts are easier.
I reach for one without thinking too hard and unfold it slowly.
My stomach turns.
It is his.
Or it was.
I know it before I even drag it over my head.
Maybe because I can picture it on him too easily, stretched over all that broad muscle and hard heat.
Maybe because it smells faintly like soap and clean skin and him under that.
Leather. Coffee. Cold air. Something dark and male that makes my pulse kick before I can stop it.
I should put it back.
I do not.
The shirt falls almost halfway down my thighs.
I stare at myself in the mirror.
Bare legs. Damp hair. Big black shirt hanging off one shoulder just enough to make me look softer than I want to. More exposed, somehow, even though I am covered.
It is stupid how intimate it feels.
Like I am wearing something I should not be.
Like I am stepping over a line I do not know how to come back from.
I smooth my hands down the front of it once.
Then again.
My mouth twists.
It is just a shirt.
Just fabric.
Just something to wear because the pants do not fit and I am tired and there is nobody here to impress anyway.
Tank would not look at me like that.
That thought comes quick. Automatic. Defensive.
He is careful with me. He looks at me like I am something hurt he does not want to scare, not something he wants. Men like him do not look twice at women like me unless they want something ugly.
And Tank is not ugly.
That is half the problem.
I should be relieved by that thought.
Instead, something low and disappointing moves through me before I can stop it.
I hate that I notice.
I open the bathroom door and step out.
The cabin is warmer now. The fire must have caught while I was in the shower because I smell wood smoke and coffee and that clean pine scent that slips in every time the wind moves outside.
He is back inside.
He stands near the window with one hand braced on the wall beside him, broad shoulders taking up too much space. He turns at the sound of the door.
His eyes land on me.
And stay there.
Everything in me goes still.
It is not the quick, careful look from before. Not the one that checks for bruises or fear and then moves away before it can mean anything.
This one is different.
His gaze drags down from my face to the shirt.
To my bare legs.
Then back up.
Slow.
Heavy.
The room changes around it.
All the safe little lies I built in the bathroom go up in smoke.
Oh.
Oh, he does.
Heat rushes through me so fast it almost makes me dizzy.
His jaw shifts once.
Something dark moves across his face. Gone fast. Not fast enough.
I stop in the middle of the room, suddenly aware of every inch of skin the shirt leaves bare.
The silence stretches.
His voice, when it comes, is lower than before.
“Pants didn’t work?”
I shake my head because I do not trust my voice.
His gaze drops once more, brief this time, like he is forcing it not to linger.
“Good,” he says.
The word lands in me like a match to dry paper.
My breath catches.
His eyes lift back to mine, and there is no mistaking it now. No pretending I imagined that look. Want sits there plain as day, leashed tight but real enough to make my knees feel weak.
I wet my lips.
Bad idea.
His eyes flick down to my mouth.
Worse idea.
The room feels too small all at once. Too warm. Too quiet. The fire cracks low in the stove. Wind brushes the cabin outside. My heart knocks hard enough to make me feel a little unreal.
I should say something.
I do not know what.
So I go with the truth.
“I thought you wouldn’t.”
His brows pull together slightly. “Wouldn’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
There.
Out in the room now.
No taking it back.
He goes very still.
Then he takes one step toward me.
“Like what?”
I hate that he makes me say it.
I hate more that I want to.
“Like you want me.”
The words come out quiet. Barely there. But they are there.
Something in his face hardens. Something like restraint pulled too tight over something rougher underneath.
He closes the distance between us with two more steps.
Now I have to tilt my head back to look at him. He is close enough that I feel his heat before he touches me. Close enough that the scent of him wraps around me. Soap. Coffee. Leather. The male warmth of the shirt hanging off my body.
His shirt.
On me.
The thought lands low.
His hand comes up.
My whole body goes alert.
But all he does is catch a damp strand of my hair and slide it over my shoulder. His knuckles brush the side of my neck on the way down.
A shiver runs through me so hard it feels like a betrayal.
His eyes catch it.
“Julie.”
My name in his voice does things to me I do not know how to defend against.
I swallow.
“You do.”
Not really a question anymore.
His gaze holds mine.
“Yeah,” he says, voice low. “I do.”
The answer cracks something open in me.
I do not think.
If I think, I will ruin it.
I push up on my toes and kiss him.
For one split second, he goes completely still.
Then one hand lands at my waist and the other braces against the wall beside my head, and the kiss turns hot so fast it steals the air right out of me.
He makes a rough sound low in his throat that goes straight through my body. His mouth opens over mine, and I feel the exact second his control slips enough to let me taste what is under it.
Want.
Heat.
Restraint hanging by threads.
I kiss him harder.
I do not know where the boldness comes from. Maybe fear burned out every careful thing in me and left this behind. Maybe I just needed one thing in my life to be chosen clean.
His hand tightens at my waist.
Then he moves.
One smooth shift, and my back hits the wall.
The breath leaves me in a soft gasp.
He is there instantly. Big body, hard heat, one hand at my hip, the other still planted beside my head. The wall is solid at my back. He is solid in front of me. Everything about him feels too much and not enough at the same time.
My fingers fist in the front of his cut, dragging him closer, feeling the thick leather bunch in my hands.
He kisses me again.
Slower.
Deeper.
Meaner in the best way.
Like he has wanted this longer than he should have and is losing the fight anyway.
I make a sound I do not recognize.
His mouth leaves mine and drags along my jaw.
“Christ,” he mutters against my skin.
My head tips back before I can stop it.
He catches that too. Every tiny thing. The shaky breath. The way my thighs press together. The way my hands stop clutching and start feeling. The rough leather of his cut. The hard muscle underneath. His chest. His shoulders. The broad line of his back.
He is so much man under my hands it barely feels real.
One of his hands slides from my hip down to my thigh.
He stops there.
Just holds.
Like he is asking.
I nod before I even know what I am agreeing to.
His eyes close for one second, sharp and pained, like that tiny bit of permission cost him.
Then his hand moves higher.
Not where I expect. Not between my legs.
Just up. Slow. Over the bare skin under the hem of his shirt, his palm rough and hot against the back of my thigh until his fingers curl there and hold.
My whole body arches before I can stop it.
He swears under his breath.
The sound sends heat rushing straight through me.
I drag one hand down from the leather to the hem of his cut, then underneath, slipping past it and under his shirt.
Hot skin.
He goes still again.
He wants this. Maybe too much.
I feel it in the way his breathing changes. In the way the hand on my thigh flexes once hard enough to make me gasp. In the way he kisses me again like he is trying to burn the taste of me into memory.
I do not know how long we stay like that.
Long enough for the room to disappear.
Long enough for my skin to feel too tight.
Long enough that when his hand finally leaves my thigh and both his hands settle at my waist again, I almost make a sound at the loss.
His forehead drops to mine.
His breathing is rough.
So is mine.
For one second, neither of us says anything.
Then he steps back.
Just enough to break the line of us.
I blink at him, dazed and flushed and very aware of how bare my legs still are under his shirt.
His eyes drag over me once more, hot enough to make my knees weak all over again.
Then his jaw locks.
“Not like this.”
The words hit me like cold water.
I stare at him.
He sees it and swears softly.
“Not because you’re scared. Not because you’ve had two days from hell and I’m the first bastard who got you somewhere warm.”
I open my mouth.
He shakes his head once.
“Not like this, angel.”
Angel.
It should make the refusal sting worse.
It does not.
Because his voice is rough with wanting. Because I can still taste him. Because he looks half wrecked by stepping back at all.
He wants me.
He just wants me right.
That realization hits somewhere so deep it leaves me shaky.
I swallow hard. “Okay.”
His eyes close for half a beat, something like relief and frustration crossing his face at the same time.
Then he reaches up and brushes his thumb across my lower lip.
Small touch.
Too intimate.
Then he steps away fully.
“I’m going outside for a minute,” he says.
I nod because I cannot seem to do anything else.
He holds my eyes one second longer, like he is making sure I am steady enough to stay standing.
Then he turns and heads for the door.
The cabin feels colder the second it shuts behind him.
I stay where I am, back to the wall, wearing his shirt and breathing hard and tasting him on my mouth.
My fingers come up to touch my lips.
He looked at me like that.
And worse, maybe better, he kissed me like it mattered.