Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
By the time I reach the bedroom, I’m shaking. But I don’t know if it’s from cold or panic or stress…or the kiss.
All I know is I feel out of control.
I close the door behind me and lean back against it. My reflection in the small mirror across the room looks unfamiliar. My clothes are drenched from the rain; my hair is plastered to my cheeks. My eyes are too bright. My lips are swollen.
I look undone.
I try to drag the soaked sweater over my head, but my fingers won’t cooperate. The fabric tangles at my elbows, and my hands are trembling so hard I can’t control them.
If he’s telling the truth…
If Kylie’s telling the truth…
Then everything I’ve been raised to believe…
My throat tightens, and I blink hard against the tears streaming from my eyes.
I yank at the sweater again, more frustrated than before, but it sticks to my skin, and my hands are worthless at doing even the simplest of tasks.
I don’t hear him come in, but I feel the shift in the room. I feel the air change into something warmer, steadier, something that instantly makes my body want to turn around and run to him.
But I force my feet to stay frozen to the floor. Though, I do turn around. I do look at him.
Kane doesn’t speak right away. He just takes in the sight of me standing there, soaked and shaking and half out of my clothes.
“Don’t,” I say, though I’m not sure what I’m asking.
He steps closer anyway, slow enough that I could put distance between us if I wanted to. “You’re freezing,” he says quietly.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
His hands come up to the hem of the sweater still twisted around my arms. He pauses, giving me the space to pull back.
I don’t.
He carefully lifts the fabric over my head, his gaze fixed somewhere above my shoulder instead of on me. The motion is efficient, almost clinical. There’s no lingering touch of his fingers. No hungry look in his eyes.
Just a softness on his face. Just a tenderness in his touch.
The T-shirt I had on beneath the sweater is also drenched, and it sticks to my skin.
He reaches for it too, and this time, I hesitate for half a second before lifting my arms myself.
He peels the damp cotton away from my skin, eyes turned deliberately toward the wall. I feel the heat of him close to me, but he doesn’t look at my exposed skin. He doesn’t look at my bare stomach or breasts.
He grabs a towel from the bathroom and drapes it over my shoulders, and then he gently runs it down my arms to dry the rain from my skin. The gesture is unhurried, and his hands move across me with reverence.
My breathing slows without my meaning it to. Even my heartbeat calms down to a steady rhythm.
He kneels slightly to pull the soaked sweatpants from my legs, working carefully around my ankles. He never once lets his hands wander. Still never lets his eyes stray.
But it all feels more intimate than if he had.
He stands and reaches for one of his clean shirts. “Arms,” he murmurs.
I lift them automatically.
He slides the shirt over my head and down my body, tugging it into place. His knuckles brush my collarbone for the briefest second before he steps back.
And without asking, he bends and scoops me up into his arms.
I don’t protest. My body feels heavy suddenly, like the fight drained out of it all at once, and I melt into him. He carries me to the bed and lowers me onto the mattress. And I curl instinctively onto my side, facing the wall.
There’s a small pause behind me.
Then the mattress dips.
His chest settles against my back, and he slides his arm around my waist. It’s not tight or restraining; it’s tender. It’s solid. And his warm palm rests against my stomach.
“I’ve got you, Blair,” he whispers.
Thunder rattles against the window, and the rain pelts the roof.
And Kane just holds me.
He doesn’t press closer than necessary. He doesn’t let his hands roam over my body. He just…holds me, in a way no one has ever held me before.
And the worst, most confusing part is how quickly my body responds.
My hands stop shaking. Tears stop streaming from my eyes. And the tightness in my chest loosens inch by inch.
I’ve been in houses with marble floors and ten-foot ceilings and security systems that could lock down an entire wing in seconds, but I have never felt as safe as I do right now, inside a wooden cabin wearing borrowed clothes.
I don’t understand it.
I don’t understand him.
But with Kane behind me and his arms cuddling my body to his chest, one truth slips past all the noise in my head before I fall asleep.
Whatever this is between us isn’t stemming from weakness or manipulation or panic. It’s something deeper. It’s something I can’t deny, no matter how hard I try.