Chapter 2 Tristan #2
I grab a bottle of water from the crate near the bed.
I unscrew the cap and hold it to her lips.
She drinks greedily, water escaping the corner of her mouth and trickling down her chin.
I catch the droplet with my thumb, pressing the calloused, grease-stained pad against the plush center of her bottom lip.
She doesn't pull away. Instead, her tongue darts out, wet and warm, licking the water from my skin with a slow, deliberate stroke. The tip of her tongue grazes the roughness of my thumb, and I feel the jolt of it straight in my cock, making it throb painfully against the zipper of my jeans. It’s a taste of what’s coming—the slick heat of her mouth wrapping around me, the way she’ll choke on my length when I claim her throat.
We stare at each other, the air thick with the scent of her arousal and the metallic tang of my need. The rescue is over. The hunt is finished.
Now, I’m just a man with a female in his nest.
Rescue stopped being the objective the second I picked her up.
"Thank you," she whispers, breaking the spell. "For… for coming for me."
"I heard you. You were screaming."
"I wasn't screaming," she says softly. "My radio broke. I was just… hoping."
"I heard you," I repeat. Not with my ears. I felt her. I felt the disturbance in the woods, the sudden absence of rightness in the world until I found her.
She studies me, her gaze tracing the ink creeping up my sleeves from under my t-shirt. "You're one of the Gunnars," she whispers, a new kind of tremor in her voice. "I’ve seen your club in town. People… they stay out of your way."
"Smart people do," I rumble, moving closer until my shadow pins her to the mattress.
"Tristan," she says, her voice breathless as she uses my name. It sounds different here, in the quiet of my loft, than it did in the mud of the ravine. It sounds like a plea.
She looks at the leather vest again, her eyes landing on the 'Road Captain' patch stitched over the heart. "What is that?" she asks, nodding toward the cut. "The patch. What does a Road Captain do?"
"It means the path is mine," I say, my voice dropping an octave as I lean over her.
"I decide where the club goes. I decide the terrain.
I decide who gets lost and who gets found on this mountain.
" I pause, my gaze dropping to her mouth.
"And right now, it means I decide exactly what happens to you. "
She shivers. Not from cold. I see the gooseflesh rising on her neck. She senses it—the cage door clicking shut. But she doesn't look afraid. She looks… captivated.
"My leg," she says, changing the subject, voice wavering. "How long?"
"Six weeks. Maybe eight. You did a good job on it."
"Six weeks?" Panic flares in her eyes. "I can't… I have research. The presentation at Town Hall. My grant is up for review in a month. I can't be stuck in a cast for six weeks."
"You're stuck," I say, ruthless. "You aren't walking anywhere."
"I have crutches at my apartment. I can—"
"You aren't going to your apartment." I lean in close, placing my hands on the mattress on either side of her head, caging her. "You’re staying here."
"Here? In the clubhouse?" Her eyes dart around the room. "Tristan, I can't stay here. People will talk. My job…"
"Let them talk." I lean closer, until my nose almost touches hers. I see the flecks of gold in her green eyes. "You almost died today. If I hadn't been patrolling the ridge, you’d be freezing to death right now. You’re my responsibility."
"I'm not a stray dog you picked up," she snaps. A flash of spirit cuts through the pain and drugs.
"No," I agree. "You're not a dog. You're a biologist. You study things. You watch nature take its course." I pause, letting the weight of my presence settle on her. "This is nature taking its course, Alexandria. The mountain took you. I took you back."
She stares at me, mouth slightly open, her respiration coming in shallow, jagged gasps. She should be arguing. She should be demanding a phone. She isn't. She’s looking at my mouth.
"Sleep," I order, pushing off the bed. "I'll be right here."
I walk over to the heavy leather armchair in the corner, dragging it across the floor until it sits directly beside the bed. The scraping sound is loud. Final. I sit down, sprawling my legs out, crossing my arms over my chest.
She watches me for a long time. The morphine pulls her under again, eyelids heavy.
"You're not going to leave?" she mumbles.
"No."
"What if… what if I need something?"
"I'm right here."
She closes her eyes. Her breathing evens out, deepening into the rhythm of sleep.
I don't sleep. I watch her.
I watch the rise and fall of her chest under my hoodie. I watch the way her hair fans out on the pillow. I memorize the shape of her face, the curve of her jaw, the pulse in her neck.
My body is wired, adrenaline and lust humming through my veins like high-voltage current. I should call Logan. I should tell the President I have a civilian in the loft. I should tell him she’s injured and I’m keeping her.
He’ll be pissed. Bringing an outsider into the inner sanctum is against protocol, especially with the heat we’ve had from the rescue team lately. Marcus will sniff around if she disappears.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. No signal. The storm has knocked out the tower on the ridge.
Good.
I toss the phone onto the side table. It skitters across the wood and lands face down.
I look back at her. She twitches in her sleep, a small sound escaping her throat. Without thinking, I reach out and cover her hand with mine. Her fingers are cold; mine are burning hot. She sighs and stills, her hand instinctively curling around my thumb.
The contact jolts me. Anchors me.
I lean back in the chair, eyes never leaving her face.
I have spent my whole life navigating the wilderness. I know every trail, every cave, every cliff in the Grizzly Peak District. I know how to survive where others die. I thought I was content with the silence, with the solitude of the road and the brotherhood of the patch.
Wrong.
I hadn't been living. Just waiting.
I look at the splinted leg, the result of violence and gravity. I hate that she is hurt. I want to hunt down the rock that tripped her and smash it to dust. But a dark, twisted part of me is grateful for the break.
It means she can't run.
It means she needs me.
It means I have six weeks. Six weeks to heal her. Six weeks to make her see me not just as a rescuer, but as the only man she will ever need. Six weeks to make sure that when the cast comes off, she doesn't walk away.
I stroke my thumb over her knuckles. Her skin is so soft it feels like silk.
"You're safe," I whisper into the darkness, a vow made to the shadows and the storm. "I've got you."
Downstairs, the heavy steel door of the garage rattles as the wind picks up. The world outside is chaotic, dangerous. Up here, in the dim light of the loft, everything has narrowed down to a single point of focus.
Her.
I am the Road Captain. And I have reached my destination.
She shifts again, the blanket slipping slightly to reveal the creamy skin of her shoulder. My gaze lingers there, hungry and possessive. I imagine biting that skin, marking it, leaving a bruise matching the shape of my mouth to cover the bruises from her fall.
I shift in the chair, jeans uncomfortably tight. I’ll deal with that later. Right now, my only job is to watch. To guard. To ensure nothing—not the storm, not the mountain, not her own fear—takes her from me.
I am a patient man. I can wait for the bone to knit. I can wait for the fear to fade.
But I am not letting her go.
The storm rages on, isolating us from the rest of Pine Valley. No one knows she's here. No one is coming.
Just the way I want it.
"Mine," I whisper again, testing the weight of the word.
It fits.