Chapter Thirteen

Rayne

Lorn’s eyes are filled with concern as he searches my gaze. Cuddled in the circle of his arms, I’m safe, but my heart still races.

I am so goddamned tired of being afraid.

Lorn deserves answers. My thoughts flutter back to our big fight yesterday, and in the warmth of this moment, that all feels so irrelevant. I should tell him the truth. I know I should.

I just…can’t. Not yet, anyway. I need to calm down. I need to clear my head.

“Are you tired at all?” he asks.

The thought of sleeping again sends a shudder down my spine, and I shake my head with a little more enthusiasm than necessary.

“No. I’m too wound up.”

Lorn has jumped out of bed in the middle of the night and run through snow and ice to make sure I was OK. I feel like such a burden, even though he’s not the one making me feel this way.

“You can go to sleep though. Please don’t stay awake because of me. You must be exhausted.”

Lorn shrugs, his powerful shoulder rising and falling beneath me. “A brisk run through the woods and an adrenaline rush have me feeling quite perked up. Coffee?”

My heart sings at the fact that he’s willing to stay up with me, and I can’t help but be grateful for a distraction. Without Lorn here, all I have are my thoughts and the cold, dark world outside.

No thanks.

“That would be wonderful. You do excel at making coffee, if nothing else.”

“Hey, now. I think I have many more culinary talents you are unaware of. I can also make Pop Tarts.”

I laugh, and a big chunk of stress falls from my chest. I breathe a little easier as Lorn sets me aside on the couch and moves to go make us coffee. An emptiness opens up in the vacated spot, and I wonder if he’d protest were I to ask to sit on his lap again when he returns.

Being close to Lorn makes everything feel OK. Which is kind of funny, since mere hours ago I determined never to lay eyes on him again.

I need to figure out what I want. I can’t even figure out how to live my life now that my father’s murderer is free. Will this be my life from now on? Nightmares and running and fear?

“You look stressed. I hear it helps to talk about it.”

Lorn’s voice is gentle. He won’t push me, but he really, really wants to. He wants to crack open my shell and see what I’m hiding beneath.

I’m sure now that I can tell him. The fear in his eyes when I woke from my nightmare, like he was scared for my welfare… well. Lorn is no enemy of mine. Maybe if we work it into the conversation in an organic way…

My dream flashes in my mind again, and as I take the proffered cup from Lorn, I decide to distract myself first. My worries won’t be gone any time soon. We have time to talk of other things.

“Why don’t you tell me a little more about you? What was your childhood like?”

Lorn lifts an eyebrow at me, and I can tell that’s not what he wanted to hear. He wants me to give my fair share of information, but if he has some patience, it will come.

He has to be patient. Why can’t I communicate that to him? What the hell is wrong with me?

He sits on the floor, back against the sofa, and I join him there. The fire is warm before us, and there’s a sense of congeniality between us as we sit side by side, enjoying our hot brew.

“My childhood sucked,” Lorn says. His voice is monotone, like he has detached emotion from the experience and has no intention of feeling one way or the other about it again.

I wish I could do that.

“I find that hard to believe, given your status.”

“You should know better than anyone that money doesn’t equal happiness. I may have grown up rich, but my father was a monster. To this day, I can’t seem to stop myself from hating him.”

“Why?”

Lorn gazes down into the steaming brown coffee. He releases a breath, and steam shoots over the rim of his cup. “My mother died when I was young. Even now, I’ll never understand why she was with him. She was everything he wasn’t. She was kind and generous and loving. She is the only reason I even know what love is. My father never gave that emotion. He simply disapproved of everything I did, no matter how talented or intelligent I was.”

“That sounds awful. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. That’s life. When my dad died, I couldn’t bring myself to attend the funeral. I felt nothing, and that scared me. One would think when a parent dies, you get to feel one emotion—whether it’s happy or sad, it’s something. But I felt hollow.”

My heart aches for him, and I slide my hand over his as I stare ahead, lost in thought. “I can understand that, on some level. I never knew my mother. She left us when I was a baby, when she thought my dad wouldn’t amount to anything. His career took off that next year, but we never heard from her again. Maybe she was ashamed to come back, that we would think she only did it for the money, or maybe she didn’t want a child. I’ll never know. My dad was all I had.”

Lorn squeezes my hand, and we sit in heavy silence for a while.

“My dad was killed right in front of me. That’s what the dreams are about, a lot of the time. The murder.”

Lorn absorbs that fun little piece of information. He doesn’t release my hand, and I’m grateful. My stomach sours at the thought of my dad, and I set my coffee next to the couch so there’s no risk of spilling it. Lorn follows suit and sets his cup down as well.

“I know,” he says. “It was in all the papers. I didn’t remember it until you told me who you are, and of course, when I looked up your paperwork, you used a different last name. I’m sorry, Rayne. That’s a horrible experience for anyone, much less a child.”

“Yeah, well. As you said, that’s life, right? We find a way to get through the horrible things that happen to us and try and come out stronger on the other side.”

“I think you’re quite strong.”

I scoff. “Oh, come on now. You don’t need to lie to make me feel better.”

“Really, I’m not lying. I’ve never met a woman as capable as you.”

I throw a skeptical glance up at him and smirk. “Really? I believe you told me I had the least common sense of anyone you knew, or something along those lines. If you thought so much of me, you would have let me find my own way to my cabin that first day.”

“Fair enough. OK, so I think you’re capable in many, many ways, and have some growth to experience when it comes to surviving out in nature. We’re all trying to grow here, Rayne. I’m sure I have my own faults that I can work on.”

“Would you like me to list them?” I ask, my voice sickly sweet.

Lorn laughs. It’s a deep, rumbling sound, and when he glances back down at me, his gaze is warm and tender.

I could get used to a man looking at me like that.

“Maybe not tonight,” he breathes. He brushes strands of loose blond hair behind my ear, and his gaze dips to my lips.

His fingertips slide down to my shoulder, which is bare except for the thin strap of my nightgown. I’m glad he carried me over in that blanket, because I’m not wearing anything underneath this thin, silky piece of fabric, and that would have been a frigid commute.

Now all sense of cold evaporates, replaced by the heat in Lorn’s eyes as he glides the blanket off my shoulders and reveals the sea-green fabric of my slinky nightdress.

He dips his head and plants a delicate kiss on my shoulder. “Highly inappropriate nightwear for the cold mountains,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t seem too upset about my outfit choice.

He grips the corners of the blanket and pulls them apart, revealing my dress entirely. It’s slid way up my thighs, to the point where my nether regions peek out at him. The hunger in his eyes is enough to get my juices flowing, and my own eyelids grow heavy with lust.

“Simply beautiful,” he breathes, and he slides his hand along my shoulder. His fingers stroke the silk fabric of my dress, and my nipples harden through the thin fabric. Seeing this, Lorn grins and lowers his head again to kiss my neck.

I tilt my head back and allow my mind to think of nothing but this moment, this sensation. Lorn makes me feel things I never thought possible, and my pussy tingles at the promise of what is to come.

Besides me, I mean.

His lips and beard tickle my neck, and his hand slides down from my shoulder to my breast. He rubs my nipple through the fabric, the sensation delectable. My nipple reaches out to him as if begging for more, but his hand continues its path downward. I think he enjoys the feel of the silk, because he runs his fingers over my stomach in a zigzag pattern until he reaches the lacy end.

When his fingertips skim the sensitive skin of my thigh, I gasp, and he lifts his head from my neck. His other hand cradles the back of my head, and he gazes into my eyes before he lowers his lips to mine and captures them in a cherishing kiss.

Then his finger slides lower. I moan into his mouth as he slides his index finger up and down the length of my slit. When he reaches the bottom, he slides the tip of his finger in before he glides back up my soaking wet center. When he reaches the top, his fingertip circles my clit before it dances its way back down. I spread my legs to give him better access, and he spreads my vaginal lips to give himself even more.

With my box wide open, he explores every inch with his finger, tantalizingly gliding over every nook and cranny. He slaps my clit, and I gasp against his lips. He smiles against mine. He rubs his flat fingertips against my clit in a circle, massaging me, and my hips circle as they naturally sync up to his rhythm.

My legs tremble as he continues to work my clit, the pressure mounting for what promises to be a glorious orgasm. He pulls away and sits back, staring at me with a critical eye.

What?

“We’re going to need to get that off you, now,” he says.

He reaches down and slides my nightie over my head, and I sit before him naked and aching for more.