15. I Can Read Him in Every Scenario
15
I CAN READ HIM IN EVERY SCENARIO
KRUZ
I’m still tangled in the fog of sleep when the door creaks open, the sound soft but insistent, just enough to prod at the edges of my awareness. The hinges groan like they’re protesting the intrusion, and I shift under the blanket, eyes fluttering open in the dim light.
Ezra steps inside, quiet but tense, and even half-dreaming, I can feel the weight he’s dragging in behind him. The air changes, colder, damp, as if the remnants of the storm outside has slipped in alongside him.
He doesn’t speak. Just stands there for a moment, water dripping from his soaked jacket and pooling onto the worn floorboards. His jaw is tight, his movements careful, controlled in that way people get when they’re barely holding it together.
Unease curls through me, slow and prickling, growing heavier with each beat of silence between us.
“What’s going on?” I demand as he shrugs out of his jacket. It’s soaked, and his hair is plastered to his forehead, his jaw tight. He looks far too fucking sexy like this and I mentally berate myself for having thoughts like that at a time like this.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” His voice is clipped, but there’s a tremor in it—a crack that betrays his calm facade.
“Wrong answer.” I plant myself in his path, my chin tilting up as I glare at him. “And don’t you dare try to brush me off again.”
Ezra exhales, his hands gripping the back of a chair as if he needs to hold himself steady. His knuckles are white, his fingers digging into the worn wood. “There’s a boat on the beach. It’s wrecked, Kruz. It’s not safe, and I am dealing with it. That’s all you need to know.”
I step closer, my heart hammering. “You’re lying to me. You think I didn’t see the look on your face when you came in? You’re worried.” The air between us feels heavy, charged.
It’s not lost on me, the fact that I know him so intimately, that I can read him in every scenario.
I can tell the difference between his frustration and his worry, the subtle way his shoulders tighten when he’s carrying something heavier than he wants to admit.
I recognize the hard set of his jaw, not just as a sign of anger but as his way of steeling himself against what’s coming.
Even his silences speak volumes—a pause too long, the way his gaze flickers when he doesn’t want me to see his doubts.
It’s a closeness I didn’t ask for, but one I can’t ignore, a bond that leaves me vulnerable even when I don’t want to be. Knowing him this well is both a strength and a curse, because for all I understand him, I know just as clearly when he’s hiding something.
He straightens, his expression darkening. “Of course I’m worried. But me telling you what’s out there isn’t going to help anything.”
“What’s out there, Ezra?” I press, my voice sharp now, matching the pounding of my pulse. “Spit it out already before I lose my mind.”
“Two people,” he finally says, his voice flat. “Dead. A ton of drugs.”
The words hit me like a slap, and my knees go weak.
The air seems to leave the room, and I sink onto the edge of the couch, my arms wrapping tightly around myself. “Dead? Drugs?” I echo, my voice laced with disbelief and growing panic. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What if someone comes looking for them? What the fuck happened?”
Ezra moves toward me in two quick steps, his hand brushing my arm before I jerk away. “We’re not in danger. I’ll handle it.”
“You keep saying that like it means anything to me,” I snap, my panic boiling over into anger. “You brought me here. You dragged me to this island in the middle of nowhere because you said it was safe. But now there are dead people and drugs, and you think I’m just supposed to trust you?”
“Yes,” he says. “I said I’d take care of you, and I will.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “Take care of me? You kidnapped me,” I shriek.
The tension in the room thickens, and for a moment, neither of us speaks. Ezra’s jaw tightens, his eyes locking with mine. “You think I won’t take care of you?”
“You think I’m just supposed to forget how I got here?” I shoot back, my voice shaking. “You didn’t exactly give me a choice. You can’t just throw me into the middle of your problems and expect me to sit here like some damsel while you play hero.”
His expression softens just slightly, and his voice lowers. “I know you hate me for bringing you here. I know you don’t trust me. But, Kruz, if I didn’t do what I did, you wouldn’t be alive to argue with me right now.”
I swallow hard, his words sinking in, but the knot of fear and frustration in my chest won’t loosen. “I didn’t ask for this,” I murmur, my voice barely audible over the sound of the wind rattling the windows. “And I sure as hell didn’t ask to be stranded on Dead People Island with you.”
“No,” he says softly, his gaze steady and unyielding. “You didn’t. But I did it anyway. And I’d do it again if it meant keeping you safe.”
I don’t know whether to scream at him or cry.
Instead, I sit down heavily on the edge of the couch, my arms wrapped tightly around myself. Everything presses down on me, and I feel like I’m drowning under the pressure.
“I’m dealing with the boat,” he says after a moment. “You’re safe here, Kruz. I promise you that.”
“Oh, great. Another promise,” I mutter under my breath. “Because the last one worked out so well.” My eyes narrow as I watch him, my suspicion far from eased. “Just so we’re clear, if I die out here, I’m haunting you.”
His lips twitch, almost like he wants to smile, but the tension in his face remains. “Noted.”
But his promises mean little to me right now. My mind is already spinning with questions and doubts.
What happens when the people who owned those drugs come looking for them?
What happens when they find us?
The thought makes me tense, and I pull a blanket around my shoulders, wishing I could believe him.
Wishing I could trust him the way I used to think I could, which makes me even madder and I can’t stop myself from saying, “Fuck you, Ezra. Fuck . You . And this stupid cold fucking island, and all of your dumbass plans, and everything you’ve ever made me feel for you?—”
I don’t get to finish what I was planning to say.
He’s in my space before I can formulate the next word, gripping my jawline in his big hand. “This infuriating fucking mouth .”
I eye him defiantly and decide to push every single one of his buttons I can from this point forward. If we’re nearing the end, I might as well go down in a blaze of glory.
I jerk my face from his grip. Before he can move his hand away, I snap my head back and latch my teeth onto his knuckle, biting down hard enough to leave a mark.
He doesn’t try to pull away. He just stares at me like I’m an insolent child. When I finally let go, he asks, “Did that make you feel better?”
“No.”
“I know exactly what you need.” He crosses his arms, smug as fuck.
“To watch you choke?”
He crouches down in front of me, peeling the blanket off my shoulders. He rifles with something in the floor, and when his hand comes into view again he’s holding a pear whelk I found while I was shelling yesterday.
He runs the bulbous end of it over my lips. “I was thinking more along the lines of me watching you choke.”
Basement flooded. Great.
“Open,” he demands.
And fuck me up the literal ass—I listen.
The seashell stretches my jaw nearly to its limit. If I crack a tooth, this motherfucker is paying for my dental bill.
I have to look ridiculous as I’m staring up at him from beneath my eyelashes, but the look in his eye tells me he doesn’t think so.
The look he gives me is feral .
“On your knees and face the couch.”
Drool pools at the corners of my mouth and I feel a little too embarrassed by it sitting here with him staring right at my face like this, so I do what he says.
The second my knees hit the hardwood floor, he fists my hair, twisting my head to the side and forcing my body forward onto the couch.
He jerks my pants down over my hips, baring my ass to him.
I think I know where this is going, until he does something totally unexpected.
He straightens and kicks my knees apart, then grips an ass cheek in each hand drops to his knees behind me, burying his face between my legs.
He sucks one lip into his mouth. This angle is something new to me, and the sensation of it has me moaning around the seashell in my fucking mouth.
What the hell am I letting this man do to me?
I tense at the thought, and he must sense that I’m thinking too hard about it.
He pulls away and brings his hand down on my ass, smacking so hard that I know there’s a welt in the shape of his massive hand on my skin in its wake.
He kneads the offending area with one hand and brings his other one to my mouth, where he smears my own drool over my lips. “Promise to be nice to me?” he asks.
I nod my agreement, and he slides the shell from my mouth.
My jaw is achy and relieved all at once.
“Tell me you’re sorry.” He runs two fingers through my wetness, pausing at my entrance.
“I’m sor-ry.” The end of my apology comes out as a gasp when he shoves his fingers inside me.
He curls them in just the right way, and I feel like I might explode out of my skin on the spot.
“Tell me you trust me.” He pauses his movement.
“I trust you.” I am pretty sure I’ll tell him whatever he wants to hear at this point.
Unfortunately for my dumb ass, I think I might actually mean it.
He pulls his fingers out and my hips follow his hand, begging him not to go. I tilt my head and watch as he unzips his pants and fists his thick cock before notching it at my entrance.
“Thank me for taking care of you, morte mea.” He slips just the head inside.
“Thank you,” I pant. I attempt to move my ass backwards to try and take more of him, but his other hand on my lower back keeps me in place.
“Thank you what ?”
The words fuck you are on the tip of my tongue, but I decide I’ll tell him again later. “For taking care of me.”
He shoves into me, and gives me no time at all to adjust to his size.
He slides one hand into my hair and the other flattens over my stomach. I wonder if he can feel how full I am of him as he fucks me relentlessly into the couch.
“No one,” he pants. “Will ever take care of you like I do.”
His movements become erratic, like he’s losing a grip on the small amount of control he had left.
“No one will ever lo—” his pelvis goes flush with my ass, his words cutting off as he fills me to the brim.
I nearly come from the thought of how undone he becomes for me, but something I only had a fleeting thought of before this moment enters my mind and panic swells inside me.
“Ezra.”
His big body covers mine as he slumps over me, his cock still buried deep inside me.
“ Ezra .”
The panic in my voice finally breaks through the daze he’s in. “Mmm?”
Kind of.
“I haven’t taken my birth control since the day before I was kidnapped.”
He stiffens, the realization sinking in for both of us.
How could I be so fucking stupid ?
I guess with everything else that’s happened, it was the least of my concerns.
In addition to that, it’s not like I thought we were really going on a fuck-filled vacation.
And yet, here we are.
He relaxes as quickly as he stilled, adjusting us both so he can brush my hair from my face and kiss along my jawline. I almost forget what I was saying until he says, “What if I told you I’m not interested in stopping until I know it worked? Would you have a problem with that or would you still beg me for more?”
“Ezra, you have lost your god damn mind. We are literally?—”
He cuts me off with a kiss at the corner of my mouth. “What if I said, I want you barefoot, pregnant, and moaning my name every day for the rest of our lives?” Funny how I haven’t even bothered to try and move out from beneath him.
“I would say that is incredibly misogynistic.”
He grinds into me and I find that his cock is already growing hard again.
Jesus literal Christ, he’s actually turned on by this.
The real issue? I think I am too.
We couldn’t be in a worse scenario than the one we’re in for something like this to happen.
I hate him.
I hate myself.
I hate us both.
And it’s probably too fucking late to do anything about it now. It’s not like there’s a Walgreens on the island.
When he starts to move inside me again, I release every ounce of tension in my body and just fucking go with it.
I’m already full of him in every way. It’s not going to make a difference now.
We spend the rest of the afternoon fucking on every surface of the house like we’ve both taken some kind of baby making fueled aphrodisiac, and all I can do is hope like hell I can really trust him to take care of me.