Chapter 25 Amelia
AMELIA
My body aches as Gabe leads me back to the cabin. The physical evidence of what happened between us clings to my skin—dirt, sweat, his release still warm inside my ass. I should feel violated. I should be plotting escape.
Instead, my mind spins in chaotic patterns.
Inside the cabin, Gabe runs a bath and helps me into the steaming water. His touch is gentle now, almost tender as he washes forest debris from my hair. This contradiction—the ruthless predator who just claimed me versus this attentive man bathing me—makes my heart stutter with confusion.
“Why am I not screaming?” I whisper, more to myself than to him. “Why did I call out to you in the forest?”
He doesn’t answer, stroking a washcloth down my back.
The truth unfolds in my mind like one of my canvases. I recognize pieces of myself in Gabe—the obsessive attention to detail, the ability to see patterns others miss, the darkness lurking beneath his fabricated facade.
I think of the men he’s killed, preserved like grotesque art installations. Men who hurt others. Men like the gallery owner who cornered me years ago, his hand sliding up my skirt at my first showing.
“What does it say about me,” I ask, voice barely audible over the water, “that knowing what you’ve done doesn’t make me want to run?”
My moral compass spins, unable to find true north. Is it trauma bonding that makes me feel connected to my kidnapper, or something that existed before he brought me here?
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I admit, tears mingling with bathwater. “I don’t know if I’m broken or if I’ve always been this way.”
Gabe sits on the edge of the tub, his fingers moving through my hair, working out tangles. The gentleness feels almost more intimate than what happened in the forest.
“As I told you, I was ten when I met Adrian,” he says, his voice soft but steady. “School playground. Three older kids had him pinned against the fence. He wasn’t crying—just staring back at them with this completely empty expression.”
His hands pause in my hair.
“I stabbed one of them with a pencil. Right in the thigh.” A small smile touches his lips. “Adrian and I ran. We’ve been inseparable since.”
I sink deeper into the water, letting it muffle the sounds of the world. But I can still hear him clearly.
“We recognized something in each other immediately. Both... different. My father was a drunk who used his fists to communicate. Adrian’s mother—” He stops. “That’s his story to tell. But we understood each other’s wounds.”
Gabe reaches for a cup and pours warm water over my hair to rinse it.
I watch Gabe’s face darken as he continues, his hands still moving through my wet hair.
“My father wasn’t just a drunk. He was…cruel about it.” His voice drops lower. “Every day, he’d start drinking at exactly five-thirty. Not five twenty-nine, not five thirty-one. By seven, he’d be looking for reasons to get angry.”
Gabe’s fingers tighten in my hair, then consciously relax.
“The first time he broke my arm, I was eight. I spilled milk at dinner. He twisted until he heard the snap, then made me clean up the mess one-handed.” He speaks with clinical detachment, but his eyes have gone somewhere distant. “My mother watched from the doorway. She never intervened—not once.”
The water around me has cooled, but I don’t move, afraid to break whatever has opened between us.
“My mother took it too. Black eyes she covered with makeup. Bruised ribs that she’d wrap herself. I’d hear her crying at night, promising herself she’d leave.” His jaw tightens. “For years, I thought we’d escape together.”
He reaches for a towel and unfolds it.
“She left on my tenth birthday. I woke up, and she was just... gone. No note. Nothing.” His voice remains steady, but something flickers behind his eyes—that dangerous emptiness I’ve glimpsed before. “She left me with him. Alone.”
I can almost see the small boy waking to an emptier house, realizing the only buffer between him and his father’s rage had disappeared.
“That night was the worst beating. He said it was my fault she left.” Gabe’s hand moves unconsciously to his ribs. “Three broken ribs, dislocated shoulder. I remember lying on the kitchen floor, unable to move, thinking I’ll never be powerless again.”
The vulnerability in his voice makes my chest ache. Without thinking, I reach up and touch his face, water dripping from my fingers onto his shirt.
My hand cups his cheek, my thumb catching a single tear he probably doesn’t even realize has escaped. The vulnerability in his expression makes my heart contract painfully. This man, who drugged me, who chased me through the woods, who has killed—suddenly I see the broken boy beneath the monster.
“Come here,” I whisper, tugging him gently toward me.
Gabe hesitates, then slides into the bathtub with his suit pants still on. Water sloshes over the rim as he pulls me against his chest. I rest my head in the hollow of his throat, feeling his pulse hammer beneath my cheek.
We stay like that, neither speaking, as the bathwater cools around us. His arms tighten when I shiver.
“We should get out,” I murmur against his skin.
He nods but doesn’t move, like he’s afraid breaking contact will shatter whatever fragile understanding has formed between us. Finally, he stands, water streaming from his sodden clothes. He helps me up and wraps me in a towel, his movements careful, almost reverent.
In the bedroom, he peels off his wet pants while I dry myself. The silence between us has transformed into something different—not the charged hostility from before, not the frantic passion in the forest, but a raw honesty.
I find one of his T-shirts and pull it over my head. When I turn, he’s watching me with an expression I’ve never seen before—uncertainty mixed with something like wonder.
“I understand why you need control,” I say quietly. “I understand why pain makes sense to you.”
Gabe sits heavily on the edge of the bed, naked and suddenly looking exhausted. I move to stand between his knees, my fingers tentatively threading through his damp hair. He leans forward, pressing his forehead against my stomach.
“The darkness within me has been there all along,” I whisper. “I just couldn’t understand it until now.”
His arms wrap around my waist, holding me like I’m something precious rather than possessed. I feel his shoulders shake once, twice, and I hold him tighter, cradling his head against me.
Gabe lifts his head from my stomach, eyes finding mine. The predator is gone—or perhaps just at rest—and in its place is something I’ve never seen in him before. Vulnerability. Need. Something dangerously close to reverence.
He rises slowly, cupping my face in his hands.
When his lips meet mine, the kiss is different from anything we’ve shared before.
Not the bruising possession from the forest or the demanding hunger from his office.
This is achingly tender, devastatingly sweet.
My knees weaken as his tongue slides gently against mine, exploring rather than claiming.
I melt against him, my hands trailing up his chest to his shoulders. His skin is warm beneath my fingertips, heartbeat strong and steady. He tastes like pine and earth and something uniquely him that I’ve become addicted to.
“Let me make love to you,” he whispers against my lips.
The request—so unlike his usual commands—makes my heart stutter. I nod, unable to find words as he guides me backward until my legs hit the mattress. I lie down, watching as he moves above me, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, pushing the oversized T-shirt up my body. “My perfect girl.”
I open for him like a flower turning toward sunlight, thighs parting in invitation. When he enters me, it’s with a slow, deliberate thrust that makes me gasp. He fills me completely, perfectly, his forehead pressed against mine as he begins to move.
“That’s it,” he growls, his mouth at my ear. “Take all of me. Christ, you feel so fucking good, so tight around my cock.”
But his hands are gentle as they stroke my hair, my face, my breasts. His rhythm steadies, deep and thorough, but without the punishing force from before. I wrap my legs around his waist, drawing him deeper, losing myself in the pleasure building between us.
“Look at me,” he commands softly. When I meet his gaze, something primal passes between us. “There you are. Stay with me.”