15. River

FIFTEEN

RIVER

I couldn't look away as Raven and Nolan dragged Charleigh to the dance floor across the field.

Night had descended and covered the earth in a blanket of stars, and the lights strung up over the dance floor twinkled, as bright as the diamonds that played along the surface of the lake that were compliments of the silvered rays of the half-hung moon.

"You comin' or what?" Kane hollered from his tent, and I forced myself to move since I was standing there like an idiot, staring at a girl that I knew better than to touch. Too bad right then I was having a really fuckin' hard time remembering why.

I ambled back to the tent and plopped into the chair I'd inhabited earlier. Theo and Otto were already there, kicked back and sipping from the bottle of whiskey Kane had broken out.

His tent was still the rage, people lined up for a mile in their goal to imbibe, the laughter and volume of voices growing in time with the level of the music that played from the stage.

He poured me a finger into a plastic cup.

Super classy, but none of us gave a shit about any of that.

"Here you go, brother."

"Thanks. "

I took a sip of the amber liquid, and I relished in the spice on my tongue and the fire that rolled down my throat. Immediately, my gaze was drawn back to where Raven and Nolan had hauled Charleigh out to the edge of the dance floor.

The three of them were laughing as they took turns spinning Nolan around by the hand, the kid fucking mesmerized by the woman, not that I could blame him.

"Damn, Raven's new friend is wicked hot, isn't she? Shy as fuck, but I'm pretty sure I could coax her out of that." Kane said it sly, nothing but an insinuation. Took all I had not to reach out and wrap my hand around his throat, and instead, a warning growl was coming out of mine.

"How about you don't chase the poor girl out of town since she barely got here?" I gritted, trying to play it cool when it felt like I was splintering apart. Had no fuckin' clue what it was about her that was making me crazy.

Felt like I was teetering on something that was going to leave me unglued.

"Poor girl?" Kane's brows rose for the sky. "Says the guy who's been staring at her like he's going to rip her to shreds with his teeth for the last three hours."

He tossed it out with a cock of his head, really fuckin' proud of himself with that smirk.

And I was finally catching on to the fact that he was setting me up, the fucker.

Theo laughed, nudging the toe of his boot against my leg. "Yeah. Anyone ever seen River here so spun up about pussy? I mean, she is fucking gorgeous, but it's not like he's not accustomed to the finer things in life. And there he sits, dude about to crawl out of his skin, foaming at the mouth."

"Rabid," Otto agreed.

"Bullshit," I rumbled.

Otto cracked up. "Really, brother? Thought you were going to go right over the table every time she shifted in her seat. Two more seconds, and you were going to blow. "

"None of you know what the hell you're talking about."

Kane took a sip of his whiskey, grin playing all over his cocky face. "Well, since you aren't interested, then I guess I might as well be the one to add a little icing to her cake."

"Not one of you are touching her." The words were nothing but gravel. Scraping in possession.

Kane laughed like it was hysterical, and he wagged a finger at me. "Ahh, that's what I thought."

I shrugged like it didn't matter and I wasn't itching to fly out of my seat. "She's Raven's friend, so I'd appreciate it if you assholes didn't ruin that for my sister, yeah?"

My sister was finally spreading her wings. Meeting people. Having fun. And while I might have been protective as all hell when it came to her, it filled me with relief that she was stepping out.

I told myself the command that had grated from my tongue didn't have a thing to do with the woman herself or the way my guts had been in knots of need since the second I'd seen her standing next to Raven earlier this afternoon.

"You know, with the life he leads, I'd think he'd be a better liar." Otto hooked a thumb in my direction.

"Fuck you, man," I grumbled, and he laughed one of his jovial, easy laughs before he reached out and jostled my shoulder with his giant mitt. "Thought we just discussed you finding a way to let loose? A place to put all that aggression that's got you bound? It's a beautiful night. Get up and have yourself a little fun, brother. What do you think this whole thing is about?"

He waved a hand over his head to take in the festival.

What this whole thing was about was not getting suckered into taking home a puppy, that was what.

Which the thought of it sent my attention slanting back to the three of them dancing, not that I had been able to keep my focus away from that spot the entire time they'd been on the floor.

Nolan was on his feet and twirling in a circle with his hands thrown high, Raven doing the same. Charleigh went to mimic the move, though she stumbled when she was facing out toward the lake .

Just fucking freezing.

Swore I could feel the cold streak through the air. Mood dumping to dim while she stood there facing out toward the darkened beach of the lake where there were still a few people, though they'd become shadows and silhouettes.

She stumbled a fraction, and her ankle twisted to the side since she was wearing those high wedged heels, blown back like she'd just seen a ghost.

She wasn't so far away that I couldn't make out the terror locked on her face, though she was doing her best to pretend it wasn't there when she turned back to Raven and quickly rambled something I couldn't hear, though clearly it was some kind of excuse.

Raven frowned like she knew it, too.

Charleigh's fingers brushed through Nolan's hair before she started to push into the roiling crowd. Raven reached out to take her by the wrist like she was hoping to convince her not to leave, but Charleigh was backing away, shaking her head, smile so fake that I felt it crack.

Heading in the opposite direction of the lake and disappearing into the night.

I was on my feet in a split second, and I punted Otto a glance with a jut of my chin. "Get Raven and Nolan home safe, yeah? I've got something that came up."

"Ah, we know what's up, brother," Kane taunted, white teeth flashing. Dude might as well have been thirteen years old.

I only grunted at him.

"Don't sink your teeth in too deep," Theo called behind me, and I tossed him a finger from over my shoulder as I wound out of the tent and started across the field in the direction she'd gone.

Boots pounding the ground, this pull she had me under something I couldn't resist.

Worry clutched me by the throat.

There'd been something about her that had held me since the moment I'd met her. Something about her that made me want to look closer .

Something that compelled.

Something that I recognized.

She was in trouble.

Scared.

I'd seen it enough in my life that I could spot it clearly, though the first couple times I'd seen her, it'd wafted around her in silken, disorienting tendrils, this sorrow and tenacity blotting out the part that I'd had trouble putting my finger on.

But I felt it now.

Stark and distinct.

No chance I could sit idle and watch her traipse alone through the night. Not when I could scent her panic in the air.

That warm spice sparking like intoxicating fuel.

A wave of something I shouldn't feel rose up inside me.

A vat of protectiveness swilling high and completely overpowering.

I gritted my teeth as I pushed through a couple groups of people huddled around, vendors breaking down their canopies and packing their goods, and I hurried through the dirt parking lot that took up that side.

I scanned the area, ensuring there wasn't anyone creeping in the fringes, making sure no one was fool enough to go after this girl.

They were certain not to like the consequence if they did.

Since Raven had been going on about the new girl living above her shop for the last two months, I knew which way she was going, not that I wouldn't have been able to track her, anyway.

Strikes of chestnut hair glinted around her as she hurried under the cover of night.

Stars blinked from above, and the ground was bathed in the soft glow of the moon.

I could feel when whatever she was running from turned into me. When awareness shocked through the atmosphere, and her body rocked forward in a bow of confusion when she realized I was following her.

Got the sense she didn't know whether to slow or run faster .

"Charleigh," I called. When she only increased her pace, I called her name again. "Hey, Charleigh."

Ignoring me, she made it to the intersection, and her head swung both ways to make sure it was clear before she darted across the road.

I was near enough that I could hear the soft thwack of her shoes against the concrete echo against the brick buildings that rose up on each side.

My boots thudded above them, and I grew closer and closer with each purposed stride that I took, unable to stop myself from erasing the space between us.

No logic for what spell this woman had me under.

Fascinated.

Enthralled.

Most of all, I couldn't ignore the compulsion to ensure she was safe.

She hurried past Raven's shop, and she'd already rounded the building and was halfway up the stairs by the time I turned the corner. She gasped like she didn't already know I was there, like she was shocked at seeing me at the bottom of the stairs as she threw her attention over her shoulder.

The flecks of cinnamon in her eyes sparked beneath the light, and she kept climbing, though she'd turned to face me, taking the stairs backward as I climbed toward her.

My hand was on the railing, trying to keep myself steady rather than doing something insane like rushing her and dragging her into my arms.

"What do you think you're doing?" she rasped, words shards. As choppy as her breaths.

"Good fuckin' question," I rumbled, taking another step up. She kept backing away and I kept climbing, and she stumbled away when she hit the landing.

When I got to the top, she was frantically digging into the little purse strapped across her body to pull out her keys.

"I'm not going to fuckin' hurt you." I growled it as I took another step toward her, blood pumping with unfound rage, no clue who the hell I was supposed to be directing it at.

Needing a name.

A face.

A body to maim.

I enclosed another foot.

Tension ticked and flexed through my muscles.

She choked out a disbelieving sound, and her back made a soft thunking noise as she knocked into the door behind her. "Oh, I'm pretty sure you would."

I wanted to. I wanted to peel her apart and put her back together. Problem was, I'd always leaned more on the destroying side.

"What happened back there?" I demanded.

Surprise flashed through her expression before she shuttered it in feigned confusion. "What are you talking about?"

I eased forward, getting so close that I could hear the rushing of her pulse, the careening in her veins, the clanging of her heart.

She panted short, shallow breaths, and I inhaled every single one.

Cinnamon and spice.

Like the whiskey that still coated my tongue.

I angled in, words tremoring with fury. "I won't pretend I didn't see whatever the hell went down out there."

"And what was that?" She lifted her chin in that fiery defiance, with a challenge, like she was physically raising a metal shield in front of her spirit.

Refusing access.

A barricade.

My hands burned with the need to bust right through it. Fingers desperate to sink in.

I edged forward until there was only an inch separating us.

I towered over her, eclipsing her in my shadow. Shivers rolled through her body.

"I saw you run. You were scared." Could barely force the words out around the rage.

She seemed to swallow over the barbs that tremored her throat, and she shook her head and huffed. "I wasn't scared. I was ready to leave."

Didn't believe her for a minute.

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"It seemed to me you were having a good time."

The laugh she released was riddled with disappointment, and she dipped her attention toward the ground. "And then I remembered who I am."

Felt like I got scalded when I reached out and took her by the chin to force her to look at me. "Yeah, and who's that?"

She rocked her head back on the wood, gazing up at me with that disorienting, enthralling gaze, the subject clearly shifting from whatever had sent her running to this .

To the tension that strained and the desire that flooded.

Lust so full in the air I was pretty sure both of us were suffocating on it.

This thing about her so intense there was no making sense of it.

"Someone who doesn't do this," she breathed.

I needed to shun it. End it. Step back and walk away.

Instead, I was dipping down and murmuring my lips along the soft edge of her jaw, whispering, "Maybe you should."

An earthquake rocked her, and I nearly fucking came at the force of it.

"You already warned me you aren't the type of guy I should be mixing with," she rasped.

"I'm definitely not. But I can't stop thinking about you. How's it you got under my skin?"

My mouth traveled the delicate column of her throat when I said it, there but not quite touching.

"How's it that I was the one supposed to be marking you, and you're the one who left the imprint? And now I can't stop thinking about marking myself all over you. Writing myself on every fuckin' inch of this sweet little body. "

She inhaled a sharp, needy sound, her shoulders hitched to the door as her chest bowed out like she was begging for the connection.

"And I'm terrified that you make me want anything at all," she whispered.

She should be.

She should be terrified.

She should shove me off and tell me to stay the hell away from her.

While the only thing I wanted to do was wrap her up. Slay whatever fucking demon had chased her here.

"What is it you want?" I rumbled at her jaw.

Her nails sank into my shoulders. "I don't know…to feel good. To forget for a little while."

"I'd make you feel so good, sweetheart. So good you'd forget your name."

A whimper rolled out of her, and her scent was invading.

Cinnamon and spice.

I gripped her by the waist, and my palms rode up her sides, following the ripple of desire that rolled through her body.

"You want me to make you forget?" I grunted, kissing along her jaw.

"Yes."

My hand curved around the back of her neck and glided up to tangle in her hair.

Angling forward, I took that sweet, sweet mouth in a possessive kiss.

Energy crashed between us, and she whimpered as she sank her nails deeper into my shoulders.

My dick grew fat and hard as lust kicked up a path through my veins.

I needed more. I needed all of her.

I licked at the seam of her lips. She gasped as she opened, and I stroked my tongue into the hot well of her mouth.

I inhaled, and fuck, she was the sweetest thing. Soft against all my hard. I pressed myself closer, needing to disappear into the goodness of who she was.

Wanting to forget for a little while, too.

Who I was and why I could never really have her.

Except she suddenly froze beneath me.

Brittle, shattered stone.

Then she started fucking shaking.

Shaking and shaking.

Getting slammed by some kind of panic attack. Her terror was palpable as it zipped across her flesh.

I ripped myself back, and I pressed my hands to the door on either side of her head as I searched her face. She squeezed her eyes closed in an effort to keep me from seeing.

From seeing the tears and the grief.

"Charleigh."

That violence hit me anew, but I tried to keep it tapped, to keep from scaring her more, though I couldn't keep my voice from cutting like razors as I set my cheek against hers. My words were panted into the straining air. "Need you to tell me one thing…are you afraid of me or are you afraid of being touched?"

I edged back so I could see whatever was written in her expression.

And this sweet fuckin' girl blinked up at me through bleary eyes and whispered, "I'm afraid that I want you to touch me."

Fuck. I wanted to go on a rampage. Start a fucking war. Destroy the bastard who'd put that look on her face.

Because I knew.

I fuckin' knew.

I stepped back enough that I could take her by the left hand and raise her arm above her head. The willowy fabric of her shirt gave, and the sleeve slipped down and revealed the nearly healed tattoo that she'd kept concealed there the entire afternoon.

I brushed my lips along the line of words, like I might be able to carry a little of what they meant.

Then I stepped back and murmured, "Go inside and lock the door, Charleigh. "

She stared at me for one long beat of indecision before she turned away from me, her body trembling as she finally found her keys in her purse, metal clanging as she fitted it into the lock.

She didn't look back when she slipped inside, and I didn't move until I heard the metal click back into place.