Just before my tongue laps up the personality-disorienting tablets, a long growl rumbles through the cabin. Dexter is awake, and his hand is creeping toward the stitches in his back. Although his low growl makes my heart flutter, it also kickstarts my legs.

“Uh. Uh!” I grunt, warning him to stay away.

My tablets skid across the ground with a clatter when I sprint across the dark space. My steps are so fast, I reach Dexter in two heart-thrashing seconds. I swat his hands three times before he grips my wrists in a painful hold. He tosses me over his body, his lack of effort making it seem as if I am weightless.

I hit the wall opposite the bed with a thud before landing on the smelly mattress face first. I want to say that is the end of the horror. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Dexter is on my back two seconds later, his blood-scented breaths quivering against my neck. The raging beat of my heart drops several inches lower, aligning it with a stiff region of Dexter’s body digging into my backside.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” he hisses, his snarl brimming with violence.

My excitement shifts to fear. I try to grunt. I try to move. I don’t do either of those things. His body pinning mine to the mattress is too heavy. I can barely breathe, let alone respond.

The fear depriving my lungs of oxygen diminishes when Dexter murmurs, “Claudia?”

He burrows his nose into my hair before inhaling an enormous whiff. I shouldn’t like that he can identify me by my scent, but I do.

“Claudia.” This grumble is a confirmation, not a question.

When he rolls off me, my nostrils flare. I pretend I’m refilling my lungs with air. In reality, I’m trying to calm the heat roaring through my body. The snarky voices inside my head were right. Together, Dexter and I have enough heat to keep half the continent comfortable this winter—blankets unnecessary.

After his eyes float around the cabin, Dexter returns them to me. “You found it.”

Warmth spreads from my toes to my scalp. I love the praise in his tone, but I wish it was missing the slur he delivered it with. He has the same garbled voice my daddy used in the minutes leading to him crashing onto the floorboards of our living room. I didn’t think it was possible to get drunk from pouring whiskey on open wounds. Now. . . I’m not so sure.

Dexter’s teeth grit when he twists his torso to face me. Although I can see a torrent of pain in his eyes, his face remains deadpan. “We’ll rest here for a few hours before moving on to the next stage.”

I smile, pleased he is including me in his plans. The way he sent me into the forest hours ago had me worried I was going it alone. I was truly terrified. I’ve been seeking freedom for years, but every step I took toward the exit door of Meadow Fields was extremely frightening. Just the idea of conquering this giant, scary world alone daunts the living shit out of me. I don’t know what state we’re in, much less which direction I need to travel to find Nick.

My eyes snap to Dexter when he gripes, “It’s fucking freezing. Did you put the fire on?”

When his eyes shift to the side, I follow the direction of his gaze. There is an open fireplace on the back wall. The ash in the bottom shows it has been used recently, but it isn’t disbursing any heat. With the only light from the occasional flash of lightning, I could use poor visibility as an excuse for my ignorance, but then how would I explain Dexter’s perfectly crafted stitches?

After a quick swallow, I return my eyes to Dexter. He growls when I shake my head, but the faint tug of his lips gives away his true response. He thinks I’m funny. I don’t know why. Nothing happening is humorous.

“There is wood outside. It’s under a tarp.” When he attempts to stand, a painful groan emits from his lips. “Argh! What the fuck?”

He bends awkwardly in his quest to identify the source of his pain. With no way of showing him his wound without breaking his neck, I gesture for him to sit before scampering to the door he was heading for.

“Bring in enough to get us through the night.” The roughness of his voice prickles my skin with excitement.

My body shakes more with every step I take. It isn’t from fear; it is from losing the heat of Dexter’s gaze as he gawks at my drenched body. Is that why he smiled? Is he laughing at me?

No one has ever seen me this disheveled. I learned vanity from my mother: nice clothes, pretty hair, and just a touch of makeup so I don’t look like a whore. That’s the motto I practice daily.

Right now, I’m a mess. My hair hangs in tangled chaos halfway down my back. The torrential rain washed away my makeup, and my clothes are stuck to my body so profoundly, I might as well not be wearing any.

I stop, frozen for a beat. That’s the second time tonight the voices in my head were right. They said I was practically naked, so why not use my body heat to warm Dexter?

Pretending it’s perfectly sane to talk about myself in third person, I return to my mission of gathering firewood.

I find the pile of wood Dexter mentioned approximately three minutes later. The tarp that used to cover the wood pile no longer exists.

“Goddamn it!” Dexter roars when I enter the cabin with two chunks of drenched wood in my hands. He is sitting up, but the dangerous slump of his shoulders reveals he’s feeling the pain he refuses to acknowledge. “They won’t light without a gallon of gasoline.”

With a shrug of agreement, I dump the wood into the fireplace before cleaning the gunk off my hands with my dress. It won’t help anyone now, but if I keep the wood out of the rain for a few hours, we can use it later.

I stop dragging my hands down my stomach when a strange sensation zooms through the middle of my legs. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but it’s similar to when I’m busting to use the bathroom, but my bladder is empty. It’s a nice tingle, but very much foreign.

When my eyes survey the area the sensation is coming from, I discover the cause for the pleasing zap. Dexter is staring at me. His eyes are hooded, and he looks extremely hungry.

Did he not eat supper before calling it a night?

After licking his dry lips, he says, “There is a way we can keep warm until the wood dries. . .”

His words trail off when I take a step back. He smiles as if pleased by the challenge. “You are soaking wet, Claudia. If you sleep like that, you’ll get sick.” His tone doesn’t relay worry. Neither does his wolfish grin.

I shrug like it’s no big deal. It isn’t. I’ve grown accustomed to the cold. I wear summer dresses rain, hail or shine. They were the only items hanging in my mother’s wardrobe when she died. Since I outgrew my childhood clothes within three years of her death, I either walked around naked or wore her dresses. I chose the latter.

The blue tinge my toes get in winter reminds me of her. Her eyes weren’t blue. But her lips were for a very long time.

“Claudia. . .” Dexter’s growl has my heart rate picking up.

Not once the past six weeks has he spoken to me in such a way. His words were gentle purrs and nurturing rumbles. He never raised his voice. I’m not saying I don’t like his rough tone. I just need to get used to it.

I point to the window seat, advising Dexter I plan to sleep there.

“Whatever. Freeze. See if I care.” His grumbled comment proves he understands me even without any verbalization.

This is only the second time in my life I’ve communicated without words. First it was Nick. Now it is Dexter.

I like that.

Air whizzes through Dexter’s teeth when he rolls over. I don’t know whether his huff was because of my denial or the pain no doubt rocketing through his body from his stitches tugging. I’m no one special, so I suspect it is my last assumption.

I realize I’m way off the mark when he tugs his wet pants down his naked backside two seconds later. He isn’t grunting because he’s in pain. He’s struggling to remove the stiff material from his body.

My eyes drop to a loose stitch in my dress when he tosses the rigid material onto the ground. It lands with a thud on the grimy floor halfway between us before he snickers, “Night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

Although his tone is brimming with sarcasm, I scan the room, petrified about what bugs he is referring to. . . And perhaps to catch the occasional glimpse of his naked backside.

Roughly twenty minutes later, the chatter of my teeth becomes too annoying for Dexter to ignore. I’m shivering uncontrollably, equally cold and terrified. It isn’t the bugs scaring me—it is how many times I’ve ogled Dexter’s ass the past twenty minutes. I’m eyeing the ridges of his muscular back and ass without constraint, not the least bit worried about what Nick’s reaction will be at discovering I’ve eyed another man.

If I hadn’t spent the last five years in a psychiatric hospital, I’d admit myself for my ludicrousness. I’m stunned at the thoughts streaming through my head tonight. I only ever killed for one man. Tonight, I killed for another. What’s wrong with me?

After jackknifing into a half-seated position, Dexter throws his legs over the bed and heads my way. I’m tempted to scream for him to stop, but the image of his. . . penis. . . swinging with every step he takes is too mesmerizing. I’ve only seen two penises in my life. One was my father’s, so it doesn’t count, and the other was Nick’s. But even then, it was never up close and personal like this.

My dad’s was when he’d forget to close the bathroom door when showering. Nick’s was anytime he was with her. He must have really enjoyed the heinous things they did together—because they did them a lot.

By a lot, I mean a minimum of two to three times a day.

My body got the same thrilling sensation back then as it has tonight, but tonight’s is more powerful, missing the red-blooded fury.

Air leaves my lungs in a grunt when Dexter snags my wrist in his hand, yanks me to my feet, then shreds my dress straight off my body. You’d think the drenched material would give him a little trouble. It doesn’t. The sturdy material is like tissue paper in his big, manly hands. It floats to the floor like a feather, the brutal grunts emitting from my mouth helping it soar.

It takes me a few moments to realize what is happening. When I do, I grunt, demanding the focus of Dexter’s eyes.

He doesn’t give it to me.

“If you want me to stop, Claudia, just say the word.” He keeps his eyes on the downlow, ensuring he won’t spot my unspoken denial.

Since he refuses to hear the words I can’t speak, I slap his hands, chest and face, forcing him to feel them instead.

My fight only encourages his campaign. The harder I hit him, the more violently he tugs at my dress. Before I know it, I’m standing before him in nothing but a bra and a pair of modest panties. Well, they were modest before torrential rain had its way with them.

After taking three steps back, Dexter’s eyes slowly rise to meet mine. They take their time, absorbing my pressed thighs, quivering stomach, and eratically panting chest on the way. When his eyes finally reach my face, that tingling sensation I mentioned earlier doubles. The hunger in his eyes is even more noticeable than it was twenty minutes ago, his penis more than three times its original size. It is seeping with want and throbbing with need.

“If you remove your bra, I’ll let you keep your panties.” The voice he uses this time is one I’ve never heard. It is husky and raw, and in all honesty, pulse-quickening.

When I shake my head, wordlessly denying his demand, he takes a step closer to me. The fire in his eyes warns me he’ll remove my bra as viciously as he did my dress, but that isn’t my greatest concern. It is his rapidly thickening penis. It is growing at a rate my hazy mind can’t comprehend. Is that normal? Should it grow so fast that angry, pulsating veins throb all over it?

Nick’s penis only grew like that just before he. . .

I can’t say it.

I won’t say it.

I hate her.

My eyes lift from Dexter’s penis when he warns, “This is your last chance, Claudia. Remove your bra, or I’ll do it for you.” His tone reveals his demand isn’t a suggestion.

My eyes drift to the only window in the cabin. A spark of lightning breaks through the dark clouds, adding to the eerie sensation bristling between Dexter and me. The air in the cabin is roasting, making me confused as to why Dexter’s campaign is so vehement. The energy teeming between us makes a furnace unnecessary, much less the heat of his massively dilated eyes raking over my scarcely covered body.

Not wanting to weather a storm in panties and a bra, and interested in exploring a set of emotions I’ve never felt, I return my eyes to Dexter. The tick in his jaw lessens when I start to unhook my bra.

As one arm lowers my bra to the ground, the other maintains my modesty. I don’t know why I bothered. The instant my bra hits the dusty floorboards, Dexter curls his arms around my back and drags me toward his thick, bumpy body. His steps to the bed seem long and drawn out, as if he wants to keep me in his arms forever.

Disturbed by my inaccurate assessment of the situation, my eyes stray to the pill bottle on the floor. I really should take my medication, as the thoughts streaming through my head right now don’t belong to a sane woman.

I love Nick.

My heart belongs to him.

So why am I hoping Dexter will keep me forever?