Eighteen

 

Liv

 

There was a bad thunderstorm that night. Wind and water flooded through the barred window, landing far enough to spray me. I scooted further down the mattress, taking the blanket with me. My hair, clothes, and half the bed were drenched. I heard shouting in the distance. There was commotion, but I wasn’t about to get anywhere near the window to see.

Shivering, I tightened the blanket around myself and closed my eyes. I wondered how tomorrow morning was going to go. The day of my wedding. Wading through mud and probably more rainfall. Was this torn button-up going to be my wedding dress? Was this wet bed going to be where he took me? Would it be against my will? Or was I just going to lay there and take it?

The door opened just then. Rain and wind pelted through the room. I wiped at my eyes, trying to recognize the large figure. I knew straight away it was Reaper.

“Out,” he ordered.

I hesitated, unsure of what he meant. Out of what? The bed? Or the room?

“Why?” I asked, warily.

He widened the door in response and waited. He wouldn’t want to wait long at this rate. I slid off the bed straight away, tightening the blanket around me as I went to him on shaky legs. When I got to him, he roughly pulled the wet blanket off me and let it fall to the ground. Then he threw a camo jacket that smelled of him over my head and steered me out.

I was in total darkness. He guided me down some steps and then we embarked on a walk through sloppy mud with his hand pressed lightly against my back. It was a struggle. My feet descended into mud, making it difficult to move forward. At one point, the wind slammed into the back of me so hard, it sent me tumbling forward into the mud. I landed on my knees and hands. The jacket slipped off my head, and within seconds I was saturated in rain.

Blinking rapidly, I glanced up at Reaper, who was staring down at me with lips red as blood. They curled a little, like he found me amusing. I felt my own lips flinch, because this was fucking disastrous and he knew it. Then he bent over and picked me up like I weighed nothing. He threw me over his shoulder, knocking the wind right out of me. I tried to look up, but all I could see were the vague shapes of huts around us. There wasn’t a soul out. Everyone had gone inside.

Reaper climbed a few steps and kicked a door open. Within seconds, we were out of the rain and inside a dark room. He set me down too quickly, and I would have fallen if he hadn’t kept his hand on my arm to steady me. Then he turned around and shut the door. I heard the faint sound of a lock turning.

I stood there, dripping everywhere, a standing puddle, watching him turn around to look at me. His chest was moving rapidly, drops of water fell down his face and over the corded veins in his neck. I’d been carried, yet my chest was heaving also. We stared at each other for a few moments, my eyes following every path the rain drops over his face took, and his eyes feasting over every inch of my bare body. He walked toward me, and my heart jumped in response. I took a hesitant step back, unsure of what he was about to do. Until he walked around me, barely brushing against me, a shadow of a smile on his face. He found my distress amusing, and I just wanted to disappear into the floor.

He lit two kerosene lamps hanging from the roof in two corners, adding a dim yellow glow in the room. I quickly looked around. It was smaller than my room, and there was no window. His bed was bigger than mine by more than double, but that was understandable. I couldn’t picture his giant body on my tiny mattress.

I was beginning to think the room was solely for sleep, a clinical area he kept business out, but then my eyes landed on the ground beside his bed and I went stiff. There were guns and some knives there; it was a reminder of who he was and where I was.

“Why am I here?” I asked, but my voice was weak and filled with worry.

Blowing out a match, he closed the lid of the second lamp and turned to me. “I had to call off my men around your room.” I didn’t have to ask why. The raging storm was answer enough. It would have been too dangerous for anyone to be standing out there.

 “You could have sent Shane to my room,” I muttered, watching him warily as he advanced a few steps toward me. He was closing in on me, and it made me hyperaware of it, but I stayed rooted in place. I wasn’t going to be made to feel like an idiot again.

His face was relaxed, his lips curved upwards again. He was definitely amused. “With that window? You would have been swimmin’ by morning.”

“Fine,” I clenched out. “Then you could have taken me to Shane.”

“And have you sleeping with four of my men? What fun they would have with you.”

“Then you could have –”

“No,” he cut in, voice firm. “You’re here because you’re my property now. I take care of you. No one else.”

I swallowed, feeling heat in my face. I should have retorted with rage, to tell him I wasn’t his property – not yet, anyway. I could have, but I didn’t. I felt a flutter in my chest instead. I’d never belonged to anyone ever, and I certainly had never been told I’d be taken care of. It knocked me off guard. My brain went quiet, and I grasped some sort of smart ass response, but nothing came to me. My inner feminist lay mute, astonished herself at the foreign satisfaction of being owned.

Seeming satisfied with my silence, he turned back around and slid his shirt off. When he dropped it to the ground, it was so heavy with water, it made a thud. I stared at his back, at the tattooed insignia of his gang. It needed to be touched up in some areas, with more light scars scattered across his skin. The man’s body had quite the story to tell. My gaze ventured down his spine and to his soaked pants, plastered to his impressive ass. I was going all mental. It was probably the rain, lack of sleep, and whatever other excuse possible to excuse my delirium, but I felt a little euphoric. Attraction didn’t have to make sense, but it would have been nice to be more in control of it.

Almost like he was reading my mind, his fingers gripped the hem of his pants and he slid them off too. What the fuck? Like I’d been slapped, I looked away, shocked as he too threw those down. Thud!

“What are you doing?” I gritted out, heart thumping wildly because this fucking giant was now naked and only feet from me.

“Getting ready for bed,” he replied, amused. “You should too.”

He rounded the bed, totally confident in his skin, not in the slightest bit fazed I could see every single bit of him. And they were big bits. I had to swallow again and look away. Was this my curse for not wanting to be isolated? I had to be careful what I wished for.

He climbed into his bed and rested on his back. He watched me squirming there – the puddle that I was – with this light expression. “I don’t have a towel,” he then said.

“I’ll air dry,” I replied.

“Gonna be standing there a while, rebel.”

My brows shot up. “Rebel?”

“You got a thing for disobeying.”

“Wouldn’t you in my place?”

“I didn’t expect it.”

I glimpsed him again, still unabashedly nude, amused and sculpted. “I didn’t expect to be here with you.”

“Makes two of us.” He shut his eyes, and I took that as his way of dismissing me. But then he smirked and said, “Get into bed and get some sleep. The sheets will dry you off.”

I looked over his bed. It was big, yeah, but not with him in it.

“I’m covered in mud,” I said hastily, seeking an excuse to keep my distance.

“Most of it washed off when I carried you,” he responded. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m still dirty.”

“You were dirty for days before I dumped you in water. I think you’ll live.”

Okay, he had exhausted every single excuse, but I still didn’t budge. I was completely out of my fucking element.

“Relax,” he added, cracking one eye open. “I’m not gonna bite.”

I frowned. “How do I know that?”

“We ain’t married yet.”

“I didn’t think that was going to stop you.”

“A deal is a deal. Your father was…adamant about that part.”

So, my father was saving me from being taken, probably against my will, because he made it part of the deal. I felt a mixture of relief and anger. Regardless, it was going to happen, and for some reason, the delay was adding unwelcome anticipation. I would rather have it ripped off me, like a band aid, than continue holding my breath until I said my vows.

Minutes stretched on as I debated my next move. My only other option was the floor, and that looked cold and hard. I was so tired, I felt like I was going to collapse. I couldn’t afford another bad night’s sleep.

With a defeated sigh, I advanced to the bed, keeping my eyes averted from him. He was completely still. I thought maybe he was asleep already, but when I took a seat on the edge of the bed and glanced back at him, his eyes were open… and on me. He was silently watching my every move. I felt like I was in bed with a lion that was waiting for me to look away before he made his attack. His attention to me made me warm everywhere. Goosebumps ran over my arms. My heart was still thudding in my ears.

How could it be so quiet yet so loud at the same time?

“You won’t touch me?” I whispered, vulnerable as ever.

“Not unless you want me to,” he whispered back, his voice a mixture of seriousness and…need. He followed a trail of water flowing down the side of my face. I noticed the way his jaw ticked.

I didn’t think I could trust him. The man was naked, two feet from me, staring at me like I was a meal he wanted to devour. His eyes burned over every inch of me. Even his torso had gone tight. How long had it been since he’d taken a woman? Because he looked like he was fighting control.

Finally, he took a deep breath and blinked away, staring up at the ceiling with this dead look on his face. Taking this opportunity, I grabbed the blanket and settled it over me. Then I slid out of the torn button-up top and let it thud on the floor next to the bed. There was no way I could sleep with that thing on. I rested on my side, my back to him, and made sure every inch of me was covered. It still didn’t feel like it was enough.

For a while, my eyes were open, staring at the wall across the room. I heard his light breaths, felt his light movements in the bed as he adjusted himself. It took everything in me not to turn around and look at him. He kept his distance, honouring his words. I relaxed into the mattress, smelling his scent all around me.

For some insane reason, this quiet tension felt worse than before.

“Thanks for pulling me out of that room,” I murmured, barely loud enough for him to hear. Showing my beastly future-husband gratitude had not been on my agenda. But it had been miserable in that room, shivering under those blankets. Here, I was warming up quickly, and I wasn’t alone.

Not so tired anymore, either.

When he didn’t respond for a few moments, I figured he was asleep. But then he said, “Beats marrying a corpse.”

“A corpse?”

“You would have died of hypothermia.”

“Then I would have spared us both, and we’re not that lucky.”

“Is that right?” he mused, his voice light.

“Isn’t it?” I challenged.

“If I didn’t want you, feisty, I wouldn’t have you.” I went still, not expecting that response. I wanted to ask him what he meant, but then he added, “Get some sleep. We got a big day tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. The wedding. To him. There was no escaping it. We were going to be in this exact position, probably in this exact bed, and he was going to touch me.

I took a hesitant breath, a mixture of fear and…arousal. Fear because he was scary and big, and he could have his way with me no matter how hard I fought. Arousal because he was scary and big, and I didn’t think I would fight back if he had his way with me.

I tightened my thighs together. Tonight, I had the choice. I had the power. He had given me both after days of needlessly waiting for my permission. Others in our circle would not have been so kind. Others, like Tony, would have used me up and tossed me aside.

Why was Reaper different?

Fighting the urge to turn around to look at him, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.