Chapter 18
Ican feel him watching me when I finally wake up in earnest. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I remember inhaling two immaculate grilled cheeses that could make angels weep with their perfection. But I’m pretty sure halfway through the second one, I fell back asleep on Jed’s chest.
“Please tell me I don’t snore,” I mutter, not bothering to open my eyes. He chuckles, knuckles stroking my cheek as he pushes a lock of hair back behind my ear.
“I can’t tell you that,” Jed purrs in my ear. “But it’s cute how enthusiastic a sleeper you are, Saylor.”
I groan and bury my face against his chest, glad for the warmth. “That’s embarrassing.” But that’s not the only problem, or even the worst one.
In the light of day, everything feels so much different from last night. My fears eat at me, and the terror that I’ve felt around him for days is back to prickle at my fingertips. After all, dreaming of his slaughter-shed had brought that particular fact right back to the forefront of my mind.
And suddenly I don’t know how I’d forgotten it.
“You’re thinking very hard.” He sounds…nervous. Terse, short, and like he’s unsure of where we stand with these thoughts running around my skull. But then again, that makes two of us. I’m also not sure where we stand in the light of day that’s impossible to hide behind.
“I know,” I agree, finally opening my eyes. “I wish I wasn’t.”
He sighs and shifts against me. “Yeah, I wish you weren’t either.”
But I am. And it’s impossible to stop now.
My eyes crack open and I sit up, hair falling around my shoulders as I stare down at Jed, who looks amazing in the morning light.
But then again, he looks amazing in any light, or in the shadows at night.
He just looks…gorgeous. His blue eyes are wide and calculating as he watches me, though he doesn’t say anything.
Not even when I reach down to stroke my fingers along his jaw, relishing the feel of his skin.
“I know,” he murmurs at last, turning to kiss my palm. “I get it, Saylor.”
“Get what?” I whisper, reveling in the stillness of the cabin that’s nothing like my apartment. Sure, the trepidation and fear make my heart beat against my ribs like a trapped bird. I remember all the things he’s done, and what he told me last night.
Jed is a cannibal.
Or, well, according to him, was a cannibal. But how can I be sure, when he so very clearly still has a taste for…
Me.
“Things are different in the morning.” He gives a slow, languid shrug. “I can see the way you look at me now versus last night. But at least I know something for sure.” He continues leaning into my hand with eyes full of trust and no lines of tension in his body.
I know it too, when I look down at him like this.
He trusts me. Jed doesn’t need to say it. He doesn’t need to utter any of the words that make up that sentence, and I’m pretty sure he knows it too, since he just watches me with that steady, blue gaze. He knows I can see it in him.
Just as he can see the opposite in me. Fuck.
“While you were asleep, I got your things ready for you.” I can feel the heaviness of his words. I can feel the reluctance in them, even as they leave his mouth. My heart sinks, but a part of me is relieved. Isn’t this what I’ve wanted all along? To be set free to go the hell home?
“I did your laundry, and everything is on the dresser over there.” I follow the flick of his eyes and see a pile of familiar clothes…along with a familiar set of keys. “You’re not my hostage, Saylor. It kind of feels like you never were, but I have to remind myself you might not see it—”
I kiss him. Hard. With my lips slanted against his and my eyes closed, it’s easy to fall back into the feelings from last night.
Almost.
He kisses me back with the same enthusiasm, and doesn’t chase me as I lean away from him, tucking my hair behind my ear.
But he watches me. The entire time I take to get dressed and shove my things in my pockets, Jed watches me without taking his eyes off of me once. It should feel threatening. I should move faster because of it, I know. And yet, that’s not the case at all.
I love the weight of his gaze on me.
However, he knows me better than I know myself, and apparently has for longer than I’ve been awake.
My jumbled thoughts tell me I need to leave.
I need space from him, even if it’s not permanent.
But I need the space, at least for now. I need to go home and remember how to be Saylor, and figure out how to stop my thoughts from running around in dangerous, chainsaw-shaped configurations in my head.
When my hands close on my camera, however, I pause.
The thought I’ve had this whole time comes back to me and I turn the camera in my hands.
“Can I…take a picture of you?” I ask, and immediately see the look of surprise and uncertainty flicker across his face.
“Not like that. You can say no. I don’t want to go to the police or anything. It’s not that, it’s just—”
“Yes,” Jed interrupts, the word warm and sure. “Yes, Saylor.”
My lips pull into a smile even without me willing them to. I pull my camera to my face, and watch him through the viewfinder as he lays back onto the bed and just looks at me.
It’s exactly what I want. I take a picture of him, then another when his eyes slant away, toward the ceiling. It makes my heart twist, because he really is just as perfect as I knew he would be.
Everything about him is perfect, after all. Except for the chainsaw-wielding maniac part. That’s the thing that still hurts. That still terrifies me when the lights are on and the sun is up. At night I can ignore it. Yesterday, after everything, I could pretend that I didn’t care about it.
But today, this Saylor, the one that lives in the real world, can’t help but care. I can’t brush it off. At least not so easily.
My fingers itch to reach out and touch him again.
Especially when he looks back at me with that sweet, affectionate look on his face.
“I’ll never push you,” he reminds me, voice soft but without the roughness of last night.
“Even if you never want to see me again.” But at that I can see the flicker of uncertainty in his face.
And I swear, for maybe a microsecond, he’s afraid that’s what’s going to happen.
I want to reach out and comfort him. Part of me begs to assure him that’s not the case.
That I just need some time away from all of this to come down and remember what normal eating is while I try to revive my plants.
I just need time, I want to wail. But I can’t promise that time won’t be forever.
It all depends on how I feel when I break this magnetic connection between us and go back to my real life for a little while. And that right there is the worst part of it.
Still, before I can stop myself, I jump to my feet, knowing I need to either break away now or fall back into bed with him. It’s hard when one of those options is a lot more alluring than the other, but I manage to walk away from him without touching him again. Without saying something I’ll regret.
Though I wonder if walking away is going to be my biggest regret of all.
My Jeep is outside, in the spot where his had been parked before.
And no part of me can really be surprised by it, or the bottle of water sitting in the console.
Jed is the most considerate man on Earth, I’ve decided, and I’m even less shocked to see the full tank of gas that I’m sure I didn’t have when I’d been at the preserve.
And here I am, walking away from all of this. From him, and the best relationship I’ll probably ever have. “Fuck,” I mutter, my heart twisting and protesting in my chest while I pull my car around to the real driveway instead of the two roads that lead me further into the woods.
“Fuck!” I nearly yell it the second time, as I wait for the gate to open to take me back to the main road.
With my GPS on and working to lead me home, I can see that we were never that far away from Akron.
Hell, I’ll be back home within an hour or so.
It feels…wrong somehow. Like I shouldn’t be this close to reality.
It feels like I should be hours and hours away from home, not just fifty-four minutes.
“Bye, Jed,” I tell my steering wheel as the gate opens wide enough for me to get through it.
“I just don’t know if I can do this.” Because someone like me, who cares for her plants and eats Lunchables, might not be able to accept someone whose skills lie in carving up bodies and lying to the police.