“Then what is the reason?” I manage to ask, my voice sounding so small, so wrecked.
His gaze never wavers from mine. Whatever he’s trying to say, he’s saying it with his eyes. They burn, like fire, like a primal element, a basic need I’m just discovering in myself.
“I don’t think you’re ready to hear it,” he says.
And then I snap out of it. Push through the syrup, find my clarity. The man is a joke. He may have saved my life, he may have told me things I wanted to hear, but the fact remains that he cheated on my sister and he’s too much of a chicken-shit to even own up to it. He’s just trying to get me to run around in circles instead of looking the truth in the eye. I did that with Erik. I’m not going to do that with him.
“Fuck you,” I tell him and turn on my heel, stomping off into the forest, heading up, up, up the slippery path, branches and leaves slapping at my bare legs.
“Where the hell are you going?” I hear him yell from behind me, but the moon is lighting up the path clearly and soon I’m running, tears welling in my eyes, running away from everything I’m feeling.
I know I’m overtired, I know I’ve been through a lot, I know my body is hurting from the day and that I’m more than lucky to be alive. And I know that I owe Logan. But everything is coming to a head and I don’t know how to deal with it. The way he was with Juliet, the way Juliet was with me, the humiliation with Erik.
The deep-seated need I have to believe that Logan is a good guy, to trust him, to put my faith in him. I think I want that more than anything, even though that scares me because I don’t know what good could come of it. And then to have him be nothing more than another Erik at the most basic level.
Serves me right for even having feelings for him to begin with.
“Stop!” I hear Logan yell from behind me, and with my blurred vision I’m swerving, stumbling into trees and boulders, the ground slipping beneath my feet. I head toward the foliage to stop my fall.
Suddenly a strong hand is wrapped around my elbow, literally pulling me back mid-step.
“Don’t. Move. Another. Fucking. Step.”
Logan’s hot breath is at my neck.
“Let go of me,” I seethe, my teeth nearly grinding together.
My body stiffens.
His grip tightens.
“One step and you’d go right over the edge of cliff. They’d be scraping your body off the rocks in the morning.”
The gravity in his tone is leveling. And yet, some rebellious, stubborn part of me wants to test his theory.
I move.
He yanks me back.
“That’s it,” he growls.
Before I can even protest, he’s picking me up like I weigh nothing more than a feather and carrying me back to the campsite. His arms are like fucking tree trunks wrapped across my chest.
Naturally, I fight against him. I’m angry. I don’t want to go sailing off cliffs but I don’t want to be in this makeshift campsite with him either, and I obviously don’t want to be manhandled like he’s an actual Neanderthal.
It doesn’t do me much good. He sits back down where we were before, his back against the cliff, the dead fire at our feet.
But he doesn’t let go of me. I’m held against him tight, my back against his hard chest, my ass pressed against his crotch. I can feel his breaths coming in and out, his heart pounding against my spine. He’s breathing hard against my ear; my head is back against his collarbone.
“This is ridiculous,” I tell him, my words caught in my throat.
“Agreed,” he says gruffly, his voice causing the skin on my neck to prickle. “But I’m not going to let you march out into that jungle just because you’re pissed at me.”
“I won’t go.” I try and move again but he holds on tighter.
“Easy, Freckles,” he murmurs, his lips dangerously close to my ear.
“Ronnie,” I manage to blurt out. “It’s not Freckles, it’s not Veronica, it’s Ronnie.”
“I know,” he says, his arms not loosening. “And I’ll call you what everyone else doesn’t.”
I exhale loudly, my voice shaking. My aggravation against him is fading—he’s just too close to me in every single way. It’s like I can feel the blood beneath his skin, the way his body is telling me everything I want to hear.
He relaxes slightly, his arms slipping down an inch. My skin is sweaty, hot, the friction of his skin on mine is making my nerves sizzle like an electrical fire. My breasts are nearly popping out of my tank top, the sides of them pressed against his arms. The moon’s light makes them glow, their curves highlighted by a slick sheen of sweat.
Everything around us slows down again, that sticky reduction. My breath swirls in my chest, my heart beating unsteadily at first, then slowing as my body starts to turn on me.
I’m a radio, an antenna; I’m tuning into every feeling between us. My neck is exposed to his mouth; my legs are spread. I’m pulsing with a primitive kind of heat that I hadn’t felt for a long time. The kind that makes you want to close your eyes and give into everything.
My mind is running away on me. No, it’s galloping, a wild horse, desperate to reach a brand-new land. I’m imagining what it would be like if he let his hands slip a few inches lower. Beneath the waistband of my shorts. Under my panties. Down to where I know I’m slick and aching.
The thought makes me stiffen. Not from fear, but from want. A terrible kind of want.