Chapter Two #2
And then he slipped outside. She rushed to the door, intending to slam it shut and lock him out while she still had the chance. This was her perfect opportunity, this was—
He was gone.
Her head poked out of the doorway. She looked to the left, to the right, but he wasn’t there. He’d vanished in a blink. No way. Impossible.
Shut the door. Go inside. Lock him out—
“A lock won’t keep me out.” His voice boomed in the night. Boomed—and he had to be a good hundred yards away from her. She inched forward onto her porch, squinting to try and make him out in the distance. He was a shadowy figure and—
Then the shadowy figure seemed to fly toward her. He moved so fast. She opened her mouth to scream, and he was just there. Right in front of her. Touching her. Holding her.
“Told you,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “I’m fast.”
And he let her go. He backed away. An old tree had fallen near her house. The tree’s trunk had to be at least five feet round. He grabbed the tree and lifted it up, as if it weighed nothing.
Oh, God.
She ran back into the cabin. Slammed the door. Locked the door. Triple locked it. Her right foot hit the phone she’d dropped moments before, and she yanked it up. Her fingers flew over the screen as she started to call Blane—
The door burst open.
She yelped and whirled to face the man standing there. He’d knocked in her door—and he still held up one hand, as if he’d just used one hand to break into her cabin.
Shelly rushed across the room, she grabbed for the fireplace poker, but he was too fast. He got to the fireplace first. His hands closed around hers before she could get a weapon. The phone went flying again as he pulled her close.
“Don’t hurt me,” she cried even as she tried to figure out how to hurt him.
But his eyes widened in absolute shock. “Never,” he swore, and his hold—it was careful. Gentle. His fingers were around her wrists, but his thumbs were stroking her skin. “I came to keep you safe, not to hurt you.”
He had saved her life—twice. Shelly’s head tilted as she fought her fear and studied him. “You really don’t know who you are?”
He shook his head. “In the lab, they just gave me a number. Never used a name. And like I said, the only thing about my past that I remember—”
“Is me,” she finished softly. Her words were calm and quiet, but her heart was racing like crazy in her chest. What he said didn’t make a bit of sense to her. Everything seemed impossible but…
But…
She had seen him die. He’d been dead at the crash scene on the mountain road. And she’d seen his super speed. His incredible strength. “Is there anything else you can do? Any other super powers that I need to know about?” Because, yes, it sounded like she was boarding the crazy train.
His gaze cut away from her.
Oh, crap. “There is something else.”
He kept stroking her inner wrists. Her pulse was going mad beneath his touch. Understandable since he scared her. A guy with his powers, how could he not scare her? But there was also a strange awareness between them. A sort of primitive pulse that was drawing her to him.
Desire. Lust.
The guy was drop-dead sexy. She’d never been the type to fall for a tall, dark stranger, especially not one who came with all of his extra features.
Only she wasn’t pulling away from him. She was standing there, enjoying his touch despite the madness that he’d brought her way.
Maybe she was the crazy one. Shelly cleared her throat. “What aren’t you telling me?” Her head tilted back more as she stared up at him. “Can you fly? Because if you can fly—”
“I can’t fly.” His gaze came back to hers, and it actually seemed to—to heat. A sensual awareness filled his stare. “But I am tuned to you.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that means. Seriously, no idea.”
“It means that I can feel you. How the hell do you think I found you in these mountains? It’s like—hell, it’s so hard to explain, but it’s like an invisible thread connects me to you.
When I broke out of that lab, I could feel it.
I could feel it when I was still in the lab, too.
It’s a pull that leads me straight to you.
” He hesitated, and she knew there was more.
Only she wasn’t so certain she wanted to know the rest. Maybe she’d had enough revelations for one night.
An invisible pull? Was the guy saying he could basically, what? Find her, anywhere she went? That was—
“When your thoughts are strong enough and I…think when we’re physically close, I can hear them.” Another confession from him.
Her jaw dropped.
“So, yeah, I can find you anywhere. I can—”
“I-I didn’t say that part out loud.” She yanked her hands back from him.
He frowned at her. “You don’t have to pull away. I like touching you, too. I feel the desire, too. I wanted you before I even knew if you were real or just a figment of my desperation, and I—”
I feel the desire, too. No, no, he knew that she felt that weird attraction to him? Now her cheeks were burning hot, and not because of the flames in the fireplace. “You don’t just jump into someone’s head. You don’t do that. It is not appropriate.”
His frown deepened as his brows pulled low. “I was just trying to understand you. I knew you were afraid, and I wanted to see if you could feel anything other than fear for—”
She jabbed her index finger into his chest. His bare chest. His sexy chest. Focus.
“Do not get into my head again, do you understand me? Because I am trying hard not to have an absolute freak-out on you. You’re some kind of superman who has just landed on my doorstep, and on top of all the other terrible shit in my life, I don’t know if I can handle this right now. ” I don’t know if I can handle you.
He blinked. “I told you, I’m here to help you. I think you’re in danger. After what happened tonight, I know you are—”
“Blane—Sheriff Blane Gallows said some hunter accidentally fired at us, and Blane told me that my brakes had gone out because of a leak. Wear and tear. No one was gunning for me. No one was—”
His hand curled around hers. But he didn’t move her hand away from his body.
Instead, he flattened her palm against his chest, and she could feel the thunder of his heartbeat.
“That wasn’t a hunter firing at you. The shot came from far away, from a guy who knew how to use a scope and aim perfectly in the dark.
Probably a trained sniper. He’d picked that spot deliberately because he expected you to go off the mountain there.
He knew your brakes couldn’t handle the turn.
He was there, waiting, to finish off the job, just in case you managed to get out of your car before it went over the edge. ”
She licked lips that had gone far too dry.
He gave a low growl. A sound that was weirdly sexy. All hard and primal.
Her breasts tightened. What is wrong with me? She cleared her throat. “You can’t know that.”
He just stared at her. “I could hear the shot coming. I was able to figure out the guy’s location. A sniper spot. After he hit me, I heard him flee. If I hadn’t been dying, I would have given chase.”
Dying. “Y-you knew you’d come back.” Come back from the dead. Was she seriously saying this stuff?
He gave a little shrug. “I figured the odds were good.”
“What if you hadn’t?” Her voice was husky. “What if you’d died right there and that had just been the end?”
“Then you’d still be alive.”
She snatched her hand back. “Don’t.” Her whole body had gone tense. “Do not ever do something like that again, got me? Because I don’t want someone dying for me.”
He blinked. Seemed confused. Fair enough—that made two of them.
She needed to put some distance between her and her mystery man. “You should leave.”
He glanced toward her door. Her broken door. “It’s not safe for you to be alone out here. You’re being targeted.” He rolled back his shoulders. “I’ll fix your door.” He hesitated. “I can…I can stay outside, if you’ll let me. The cold doesn’t do anything to me, and—”
“You’re not staying outside.” A terrible thought struck her. But if everything else he’d said was true…oh, jeez. “You don’t have any place to go, do you?”
He gave a curt shake of his head. A negative shake.
Was she really supposed to kick out the man who’d saved her? Turn him out into the cold, winter night? Shelly bit her lower lip. Dammit. “This cabin is plenty big enough for us both.” No, she hadn’t just said that.
Had she?
His eyes widened. “You’d let me stay with you?”
Her breath heaved out. “The place has three floors, okay? Plenty of room. I’m on the top floor.
You can take this one. Use the bathroom.
Shower off the blood. And get a good night’s sleep.
We can figure out everything else in the morning.
” She paused. “Don’t go down to the lower floor, okay?
It’s, um, locked up.” Partially true—her studio was down there, and she wasn’t up to going in that particular room yet.
He wasn’t even blinking. Maybe she’d made a huge mistake. Maybe he was some kind of serial killer and this was a terrible—
“I’m not a serial killer,” he gritted out.
Her hands flew up. “Stay out of my head!” Everything he said is true.
She’d need more than a few hours of sleep to wrap her mind around all of that.
“That’s the number one rule between us, okay?
Don’t jump in my head. You saved my life, so I owe you.
” Seriously owed him. “You can stay here and I’ll… I’ll try to help you.”
For an instant, hope flashed on his face. It was almost painful to see.
“I don’t know you.” She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know how you know me. How you remember me, but after everything that’s happened, I will help you. I’ll help you try and figure out who you are.”
“Thank you.”
She gave him a weak smile.
His face tensed. His eyes glittered even more.
“Um, is everything all right?” Shelly asked him as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I want you.”
Her heart thudded into her chest.
“You…want me, too.” Now he was the one clearing his throat, but it didn’t seem to help because when he talked again, his voice was still more like a growl than anything else. “I picked up that thought before you told me to stay out of your head.”
Her cheeks burned again as she blushed. “I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men I’ve just met.
” And I don’t even know your name! She’d have to start calling him something soon.
Shelly pointed down the hallway. “After you fix the door…” And really, he’d broken it so it only seemed fair that he fix it, right?
Not like she was asking for too much. “Use the bedroom and the bathroom on the right.” She hurried toward the stairs.
Shelly knew she needed to get away from her stranger.
Maybe put a few locked doors between them.
Then again, he didn’t seem to have any trouble knocking down locked doors.
“We can talk in the morning,” Shelly added, throwing those words over her shoulder.
Her hand slid up the wooden banister. She didn’t look back, not until she reached the upper floor.
She paused then, leaning a bit over the wooden balcony.
And she found his gaze right on her. For a moment, she absolutely could not look away.
There was just something about him. So intense, so powerful…
I don’t know him. We’ve never met. Because there was no way she could ever forget a man like him.
No way.
***
He hadn’t forgotten her.
Shelly moved away from the wooden balcony. Her soft steps padded over the carpet, and then he heard the faint sound of her door shutting—and the click of the lock sliding into place.
He still didn’t move.
She’s real. I touched her. I spoke to her.
The doctors at the lab had tried to tell him that he’d just imagined her.
They’d been so certain that he couldn’t remember the woman with the long, dark hair and the deep, dark eyes.
They’d been so certain he was wrong. They’d pumped him with drugs—hell, sometimes, he’d been sure they were trying to make him forget her.
But he hadn’t forgotten her. She was the only thing he remembered. The only thing that mattered. And every instinct he had screamed that she was in trouble.
Shelly.
His Shelly.
He found some tools in the garage just beyond the cabin. He fixed her door, discovered that the task was surprisingly easy. Maybe he’d been some kind of handyman in his former life.
He put the tools away and as he walked toward the room Shelly had indicated, he saw her phone on the floor. Frowning, he picked it up, and when he did, the screen glowed, showing him a picture of a blond man. A man who had his arm wrapped around Shelly.
Anger churned inside of him. Who in the hell is that asshole? His fingers swiped over the screen and her contact list came up. The guy…he was Blane Gallows.
Sheriff Blane Gallows. Shelly had said that.
She’d been…attempting to call Blane? When she’d been so afraid? He looked upstairs. No sound came from her room. Her call hadn’t gone through. He didn’t have to worry about the sheriff storming to the cabin.
But did he have to worry about the sheriff having some kind of claim on Shelly? Carefully, he put the phone down on a nearby table. With the tension pounding through his body, he was worried he might crush it. He had to always watch himself. He was so strong that he could break things too easily.
I’ll have to be extra careful with Shelly.
Because he would never, fucking ever, want to break her.
He headed for the bathroom. As he entered the room, he stripped. When he climbed into the shower a few moments later, the hot water poured down on him. He closed his eyes, putting his face under the spray, and in his mind, he saw…her. Only Shelly wasn’t in the cabin any longer.
She was walking on a beach. Her hair blew in the breeze behind her. Shelly wore a small, blue bikini, one that showed off her perfect curves. She stopped walking and stared off into the distance. Her feet curled into the sand and then a wave came up and tickled her toes.
She laughed. The sound pierced right through him. She laughed and then she turned…
I swear, she turned to look at me.
The image disappeared from his mind. The waves were gone, and all he knew was the pounding rush of the shower’s water. Frustration surged within him. He wanted the fucking surf back. He wanted the damn beach. He wanted Shelly in her bikini.
He wanted his life.