60. Sage
Sage
Iwoke up to the blinding sunlight of the twelfth floor.
For the first few seconds, my mind was completely blank, floating in a thick, heavy fog of a hazy dream.
But as the heavy weight of sleep began to recede, a deep, primal alarm started screaming in the back of my skull.
Something was wrong. Something was very very wrong.
I was no longer curled on my side with the plush hotel robe twisted around my legs, the way I had fallen asleep.
I was lying perfectly flat on my back in the dead centre of the massive king sized bed. My legs were perfectly straight. The white duvet was pulled up to my waist, oddly free of wrinkles.
And my hands… my hands were folded flawlessly over my stomach, right over my sternum, like a corpse laid out for a viewing.
It was a shot of me, captured from directly above, sleeping soundly in the very hotel bed I had just awoken from. Cast across the white sheets, cutting right over my sleeping form, was the ominous, unmistakable shadow of whoever had been holding the camera.
“No,” I whispered into the empty room.
In a complete panic, I threw the Polaroid off me as if it were coated in acid. I scrambled backwards, my spine hitting the headboard with a thud. My chest heaved, dragging in frantic, shallow gasps of air as my wide eyes tore across the room as I started to panic.
The room service tray was gone. My discarded clothes were folded into a neat square on the armchair.
I brought a shaking hand up to my face, my fingers tangling in my hair. It wasn’t messy. It had been brushed. Someone had sat on this bed in the middle of the night, while I was helpless and unconscious and groomed me.
A hysterical sob ripped out of my throat. The fortress I had built for myself meant nothing to who ever was doing this.
I moved on blind adrenaline. I tore the hotel robe off, scrubbing at my skin where I felt the lingering weight of cold hands. I threw on the first clothes I could find, grabbed my tote bag, and practically ripped the door open.
I didn’t stop running until I hit the elevator.
The minute I stepped out onto the bustling downtown street, the claustrophobia returned, mutating into an overwhelming hyper awareness. Every pedestrian was a threat. Every idling vehicle was the black SUV.
I merged into the crowd, I needed people, lights, security.
I walked fast, my head on a swivel the whole time, probably looking like some fruit cake that needs to be admitted into the closest psych ward.
The heavy, alarming sensation of a gaze burning into the back of my neck returned, stronger than ever before. It felt predatory. Calculating.
I took a right turn down a busy commercial avenue, weaving through shoppers as I glanced over my shoulder.
Not far behind me, a man in dark clothes was walking. He was tall, moving with an unnatural, fluid grace through the clumsy crowd. I couldn’t make out his face, but I knew, with undeniable, terrifying certainty, that he was looking at me.
I pushed my screaming, fatigued muscles, breaking into a frantic jog. I burst onto the quad, a sea of students, backpacks, and chatter. It should have felt safe.
It felt like an open hunting ground.
I sprinted, ignoring the strange looks from passing students, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I glanced back again. The man was gone, but the presence had magnified, turning the air thick and heavy around me.
He was close. He was right here.
I whipped my head back around, blind with terror, running full tilt towards the library steps.
THUD
I slammed into a body.
It wasn’t soft. It didn’t yield. It was like running into a wall of solid granite.
The impact knocked the breath out of my lungs. I stumbled backwards, my legs buckling, ready to hit the concrete and give up.
But two massive, incredibly strong hands shot out, wrapping around my upper arms, holding me upright with effortless ease.
I gasped, a strangled sob ripping out of my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself.
“Hey. Sage. Look at me.”
The voice was low. Rough. Gravelly. It vibrated with a raw, terrifying edge of violence, but underneath it, there was a fierce undercurrent of tenderness that I recognised in an instant.
My eyes shot open, gasping for air.
The sunlight was blazing down on the quad, illuminating the massive, broad-shouldered man looming over me.
He was wearing black combat boots, cargo pants, a tactical vest, and a tight black t-shirt that revealed arms covered in thick, corded muscle and raised scars that looked like they had been made by an explosion of glass.
His hair was short, dark, and military-cut. His jawline was rugged, set in a lethal, tight line.
And his eyes… they were blacked out. His pupils were blown, wide and void of light, staring down at me with an intensity that should have terrified me, but instead, it stopped my heart for an entirely different reason.
It was Julian.
He looked feral. He looked lethal. He looked like he had just cut his way through hell to get to me.
“Julian,” I choked out, my voice breaking as the adrenaline finally crashed, leaving me weak and shaking.
I collapsed forwards, my hands gripping the front of his vest, hiding my face against the hard muscle of his chest, unaware that the man I was running from wasn’t far away, watching the reunion with a dark, satisfied smile.
My hands were shaking so uncontrollably, I could barely keep my grip on the thick, ballistic nylon of his vest.
I just stood there, frozen in the middle of the busy quad, staring up into a face I had only seen through pixelated video calls for the last month. My chest heaved, pulling in short hyperventilating gasps of air.
Julian’s massive hands slid from my upper arms to cup the sides of my face. His palms were rough, calloused, but incredibly warm. As I stared into his eyes, that terrifying, pitch-black void slowly receded, bleeding out to reveal the deep, grounding honey irises I knew so well.
The feral, lethal tension bleeding off him softened, though the rigid set of his jaw told me it took every ounce of his willpower to do it.
“Julian?” I gasped again, my brain short-circuiting. “How… how are you here?”
“I got to leave early,” he murmured, his thumbs gently sweeping across my cheekbones, wiping away a tear I hadn’t even realised had fallen. His voice was thick, gravelly and focused on me. “I wanted to surprise you.”
A massive, overwhelming wave of relief hit me so hard my knees actually buckled.
Julian caught me effortlessly, wrapping his thick arms around my waist and pulling me flush against his hard body. I buried my face directly into the centre of his chest, inhaling the scent of him I missed so much.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I sobbed quietly into his t-shirt, my fingers curling desperately into the fabric, feeling like if I let go, he’d disappear. The events of the hotel room, the photo—it all crashed down on me at once. “Julian, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m so scared.”
“You’re not losing your mind,. It’s okay,” he reassuringly whispered into my hair. “You are safe now. I promise.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes dropped to my lips, and the air between us suddenly grew impossibly thick, incinerating the lingering chill of the stalker.
Julian didn’t ask. He slid his hand to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair, and brought his mouth down on mine.
It wasn’t a gentle reunion kiss. It was desperate, bruising, and heavy with weeks of pent-up starvation.
I opened my mouth for him instantly, a soft moan vibrating in my throat as his tongue swept inside, claiming me with a dark, possessive heat that sent a jolt of pure, liquid fire straight down to my stomach.
The sexual tension between us was palpable, a live wire sizzling and sparking in the middle of the crowded quad.
I clung to his neck, rising up on my toes, kissing him back with every bit of energy I had left in my body.
When he finally broke the kiss, we were both breathing heavily. He rested his forehead against mine, his chest rising and falling rapidly against my own.
He reached down, lacing his large fingers seamlessly through mine in an iron grip.
“I still can’t believe you’re actually standing here,” I breathed, looking up at him, my lips flushed and swollen.
“I’m here,” he stated, as he glanced briefly over the top of my head, his eyes scanning the crowd with a military precision, before locking back onto me.
He was hiding something, a dark, sinister undercurrent vibrating beneath his calm facade, but he smoothed it over with a small, forced smile.
“I’m going to take you to lunch. You’re going to eat something, and we can talk about everything that’s been happening. But after that, the plan changes.”
I blinked, still trying to process his sudden appearance. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t care if you think you’re just being paranoid Sage,” he said softly, but with unyielding finality.
He squeezed my hand. “You are coming to stay with me. After we eat, we’re going straight to your apartment.
You’ll pack whatever you need for the rest of the semester, and I am driving us to my house. ”
“Julian, your estate is hours away, my classes—”
“I will drive you back to the city every single day if I have to,” he interrupted, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “But you are not sleeping in that apartment, and you are not staying in another hotel. You are staying with me.”
Looking at the protective determination etched into his rugged features, all my protests instantly died on my tongue. The thought of his heavily secured, gated fortress suddenly sounded like heaven.
“Okay,” I whispered, the remaining tension finally draining out of my shoulders.