12. Christian
CHRISTIAN
S he’s silent while I carry her back to the cottage, her face pressed to my chest despite her blatant hatred towards me.
Not that I give a fuck.
She can hate me all she wants.
All that matters is that she’s here, safe, and there’s nowhere on this little island where she can run that I won’t find her.
Being shot by the single most important person in your life has a way of helping you see the world through eyes of newfound clarity.
Instead of waiting for the world to be a better place, I should have locked her away and thrown away the key. I should have been there.
I won’t make the same mistake twice.
The lighthouse and cottage loom up ahead of us through the trees. I step through the heavy thicket of underbrush, making my way across the clearing toward the glow of the front porch light.
Inside, I carry her straight into the bathroom. Her clothes are tattered and dirty, and her hair is matted from sleeping for nearly twenty-four hours straight.
She doesn’t fight me when I sit her on the counter, crossing to the large copper clawfoot tub in the corner.
The cottage isn’t much, but it has everything we need to survive. Heat, four walls, and modern plumbing. There’s hardly any cell phone reception out here, and the only way to access the island is the service road, which, consequently, I would see before anyone ever made it across.
Not to mention the thick gate blocking out the outside world.
We’re well and truly alone, and I can’t say my cock doesn’t harden at the knowledge that I get her all to myself for now.
I cut the water on, washing out the tub from years of dust and not being used. I should have had the cottage ready, but there was no guarantee I would find her when I did.
“What are you doing?”
“ You are going to take a bath, and then you’re going to eat like a normal fucking human being.”
She glares at me, her cheeks red from the wind whipping at the cliff and the tears still on her face. I have half a mind to spank her ass for daring to go near it but concede to give her this one strike simply because she didn’t know.
I stop up the tub and throw some soap under the water because we don’t have bubbles on this island before returning to her.
“Take off your shirt.”
“Excuse me?”
I fix her with a bored stare.
“Clothes off. Leave them in the sink. They’re caked in mud.”
She makes no move to remove anything and, instead, swallows over the lump in her throat.
“Mila, I need to check your ankle and the cut on your hip where you fell. That means either you remove your clothes, or I will.”
“I’m fine,” she argues, gripping the counter on either side of her.
I cock my head, stepping up in front of her. She quickly glances at the door before her tongue darts out to lick her lips, and she looks back at me. Like a rabbit caught in a trap while a wolf approaches, she searches for an escape, but as I told her on the cliff, there isn’t one.
I reach for the hem of her shirt, and she jerks away from me.
“I can do it,” she growls, pushing me away.
“Then do it.”
Her cheeks flame, burning hot, while the water warms the small bathroom. It’s not the cleanest because I haven’t had time to clean it yet, but it’s better than the mud coating the entire left side of her body.
When I brought her here, I only had time to change the sheets and split some firewood before she woke. I didn’t want her waking up to an empty cottage alone and confused. Tomorrow, I’ll fix the hole in the roof and the loose floorboard by the front door before she manages to hurt herself on something else.
“Can I have some space?” she asks, and I step back, leaning against the wall, and wait. She meets my gaze with a narrowed one. “Are you going to watch?”
I shrug. “I’m not going to look away if that’s what you’re asking.”
Shaking her head, I watch the embarrassment course through her. She looks anywhere in the room but at me, hastily ripping the shirt over her head and dropping it to the floor.
It feels like a punch to the gut, seeing the pink scars marring the smooth skin of her stomach. The once clear skin, now littered with the carvings of a madman, wreaking havoc on her mind.
I grit my teeth to the point I fear they might break. My hands fists, lead shooting through my chest with the rage that slips over me like a mask.
I want to gut him. String him up by his useless cock until his weight rips it off of him.
Most of all, though, I don’t want her to see my anger.
Brushing it off, I step forward and help her slip her leggings off until they land in a puddle on the floor.
I move to grab her ankle, and she tugs back out of my grasp, so I fix her with a look and reach for it again. It’s swollen with a slight sprain, but she’ll recover quickly.
I move onto the cut on her hip, where a dark purple bruise is forming. There was blood, but it’s clotted over, and I doubt it’ll bleed again. Reaching behind her, I open the medicine cabinet on the wall, finding a spider the size of my head instead of peroxide and a bandage, so I quickly shut it before Mila can see.
The last fucking thing I need right now is a spider meltdown.
Ignoring my dick pulsing in my jeans, I bend down between her legs to look in the cabinet below. Mila tries to pull back out of the way, her cheeks crimson, while I do my best not to stare at the thin piece of fabric shielding her from me.
If this is going to work, I need her salivating for me. Fucking aching with as much desire for me as I have for her. Until then, I have a feeling me and my fucking hand are going to become very well acquainted.
I find a first aid kit under the sink and grab it, avoiding what appears to be a dead mouse from the eighteenth century and straighten. I open up the kit and grab the peroxide. Mila winces when I pour it over the gash on her thigh, her hand instantly gripping mine.
We both pause, looking down at where her nails are digging into my skin. My cock strains against my jeans, begging me to step between her legs.
“It stings,” she breathes, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. In another life, I’d pull it free with my own and slip my tongue along hers to take her mind off what I’m doing to the cut along her leg.
“Stop hurting yourself,” I murmur, cleaning the cut of any mud or debris she could have gotten in it when she fell.
“Are you . . . going to hurt me?” she asks, so quiet, I can barely hear her.
The pad of my thumb strokes over the smooth, bare flesh of her thigh, my other coming up to trace the rough edges of one of the words etched into her stomach.
“I’ve traveled three thousand miles to find you,” I murmur, leaning in until my lips brush over her ear. She shivers, her body both straining away from me, but her nails dig deeper into my flesh to hold me there, hovering between her legs. “I’m going to fucking hurt you . . . but I’ll make you beg for it.”
I rip myself away from her before I can do something stupid. Like drop to my knees and show her exactly what I’ve been thinking about the last six months.
“Come here.”
“I can do it.”
She hops down from the sink, only to nearly collapse when her sprained ankle hits the floor.
Instinctively, I snatch her around the waist and turn her back to me. I grit my teeth when I see the heavy scar that spans the length of her spine.
My fucking girl . . .
“Let me, Mila,” I murmur when she tries to prevent me from unhooking her bra. I keep my eyes down because I know she doesn’t want to be seen by me right now and drop the bra to the pile on the floor before hooking my fingers in the material of her gray thong and dragging it down her legs.
There will be plenty of time to touch her later. When she wants it. For now, I’m content just having her in my space, even if she is being a little fucking headache.
When I’m done, I lift her into the tub, drop to my haunches beside her, and lather a washcloth with soap.
She shivers while I wash her, and neither of us mentions the tears that silently slip down her cheeks while I do.
And for the first time in nearly a year, things don’t feel so fucking bleak.
“This place is disgusting,” Mila grumbles, emerging from the bathroom as I’m setting out two bowls on the table.
I pause at the sight of her, the blood roaring in my veins when I see her in my sweats and baggy T-shirt. Wet hair cascading down her back in golden ringlets. Her cheeks are rosy from the warm water, and her soft gray eyes shining in the dim lighting overhead.
Fucking divine.
“As opposed to the five-star resorts you were hiding out in?”
“I was not hiding out.”
“So, this whole fake identity, starving yourself act was for fun?”
She glares at me. I glare right the fuck back.
I take a seat, motioning for her to sit across from me. “Sit.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“No, but you are a b—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Christian Cross,” she growls, and I stifle a chuckle at her defensiveness.
“Brat.”
Her stomach growls between us, and her cheeks blush a dark pink. I cock a brow at her, waiting for her to make up some other excuse as to why she can’t just eat the food she clearly needs.
“I’m only sitting because I’m tired. Not because you told me to.”
“Noted,” I murmur, watching her sink into the chair across from me.
Honestly, it probably tastes like shit. I’m a shit cook. It’s just beef stew, but it’s the best I could do on short notice. Plus, I knew this place would be chilly after being abandoned for so long.
“Where are we?” Mila asks, swirling her spoon around her bowl. I feel like I’m babysitting a fully grown toddler.
“America.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Somewhere in Washington. Shipwreck Island. The nearest town is ten miles away. Not that it matters.”
She rolls her eyes, taking a bite of soup.
Fucking finally.
“That’s comforting,” she grumbles.
“Should be. You stirred up quite the mess back home.”
“Home,” she snorts. “What’s home?”
“Your mother and siblings, for one,” I point out, and she frowns down at her bowl. “Did you ever stop to consider them before you pulled your little disappearing act?”
“I did what I had to do,” she says, pretty gray eyes meeting mine over the table. “Just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean it would have changed things.”
“Try me.”
“I’d rather not.”
“You can play the victim all you want, Mila. Either way, you’ll still be stuck on this island with me until I get what I want.”
“And what is it you want?”
“Revenge.”
She rolls her eyes, chuckling humorlessly at her stew.
“Of course. Revenge against who?”
I smirk, cocking my head to the side. “I’d rather not say.”
She shakes her head, closing her eyes as if she can will herself off this island. Unfortunately, for her, there’s about half a mile of rough current stretched between us and land. She’s not getting away from me that easily.
“So, you brought me out here to some deserted island with a cottage that leaks, no supplies, and no way out?”
“Oh, there’s a way out. Just not for you.”
“Of course, there’s not. Anything else I need to be aware of? Any bodies stashed away where I might happen upon them?”
“None that have seen the light of day in the last hundred years,” I retort. “Though, you’re welcome to make friends all you want with whatever ghosts linger around here.”
She smiles sweetly, her tone dipped in venom.
“I might just do that. The company’s a little lacking.”
I let her little dig go and move on to the next order of business.
“Tomorrow, we will have visitors. Try anything, and their deaths are on you.”
“How romantic of you,” she muses, finishing her bowl and pushing it back from her. “How about we murder some puppies while we’re at it?”
“Puppies are in short supply around here unless, of course, you’ve got them stashed away in that Mary Poppins bag of yours.”
“Fresh out,” she chimes, crossing her arms over her chest. “There are plenty of pigs around, though.”
“Says the woman who just rolled around in the mud outside.”
“I wouldn’t have fallen in the mud if someone hadn’t kidnapped me and dragged me to a deserted island for their little revenge plot.”
Oh, sweetheart . . . you have no idea that things I have in store for you .
“I wouldn’t have to kidnap you if you hadn’t shot me and left me for dead on a rooftop so you could run off.”
She looks like she wants to stab me, but there are no knives on her side of the table. I can’t lie and say it’s not intentional.
“Why not just kill me and get it over with?”
“As it turns out, I have other plans for you.”
She rolls her eyes, chuckling humorlessly.
“Right, silly me . . . far be it from me to believe you actually cared.”
She can think whatever she wants. In the morning, she’ll still be waking up under my roof in my bed, whether she likes it or not.
“Good, now that that’s out of the way, who were you running from? Besides the obvious.”
“I wasn’t running from you ,” she grits, crossing her arms over her chest and throwing herself back in the chair. I don’t miss the wince she makes. “And it’s not like it matters anymore, right? I’m on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’ll find out, Mila. And when I do, you better hope they’re already dead.”
She’s scowling at me, but I don’t miss how her eyes flick down to my lips quickly as if she thinks she can hide it. The way her chest heaves with each heavy breath.
The way her tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip . . .
Fucking hell.
I force myself to step back and carry our dishes to the sink. I’ll wash them tomorrow. I’m tired. Mila’s tired. Fuck, how long has it been since I’ve gotten more than a couple hours of sleep in the front seat of a car?
“I’ll take the couch. You can have the bed.”
She doesn’t respond.
It’s probably best that way.
“I’ll help you upstairs.”
“I can do it,” she grumbles, rising from her chair on unsteady legs. I concede to let her limp her way upstairs. If she wants to be stubborn, she can be stubborn in all the extra time it takes to walk the short distance by herself. Maybe then she’ll think twice about it.
I watch her go, my mind running rampant with all the questions I have yet to find answers to. The moment she’s gone, I pull out my cell, but there’s no service. I’ll get a cell booster soon, but for now, I shove it back in my pocket, my mind working overtime.
I have her now, but it’s only a matter of time before someone comes looking. Shipwreck Island may be one of the most reclusive locations in the States, but that doesn’t mean it will stay this way.
Especially not with the hit out on her pretty little head.
Unfortunately, I can’t change it tonight, so I make my way towards the bathroom, grabbing the trashcan as I go, and focus on the things I can change.
Guess I’ll start with the gargantuan fucking spider in the medicine cabinet.