33. Charleigh

THIRTY-THREE

CHARLEIGH

I blinked my eyes open to the filmy dimness of the room, nudged awake by the quieted movement in front of me.

During the movie, Nolan had slipped off his father's lap and had climbed over to me and had snuggled into my side. I'd wrapped my arm around him, covered him with the blanket, and had held him while we'd watched the movie play out.

At some point, we'd both drifted to sleep, and I woke to him sleeping in my arms, his little breaths panted into my neck.

My heart beat steadily, slow and full, and I hugged him to me for a moment before I realized it was River who'd stirred me from sleep.

Carefully, he pulled a slumbering Nolan out of my arms and into his, and the child made a happy, unintelligible sound as he was picked up. River's voice was a mere breath in the quiet as he spoke to me. "Stay right there, I'll be right back."

He rose high, covering me in a wedge of his darkness, appearing so massive where he was backlit by the screen that had been running credits.

A fortress.

A tower.

Stony, majestic beauty.

Looking at him right then was like standing at the edge of a cliff in the middle of the night and peering into the depths of a raging, toiling sea below. Fear drumming through my senses because I knew I was in danger, all while there was a heedless part of me that urged I take a step forward and fall into the abyss.

Holding Nolan, he crossed the room, and in the hazy grogginess, I drifted off again in a comfort I shouldn't possess, but instead felt wholly cocooned in the sanctuary of it.

I didn't know how much time had passed before my eyes were blinking open again and River was there, on his knees in front of me.

So big that even on his knees he loomed.

Shorn hair distinct in the night, the outline of his rugged, gorgeous face hidden in the shadows that eclipsed the room.

He pulled the blanket off me, tossing it aside before he slipped his hands beneath me so he could pull me into his arms.

He stood, and a breathy sigh whispered out of me as I curled my arms around his neck.

Trusting him the way I'd told him that I did.

Still, my insides quivered. Both in trepidation and anticipation. My stomach in knots and my heart battering wildly at my chest.

"Got you," he rumbled, and he carried me out of the room. The thud of his boots was muted as he slowly climbed the stairs. At the landing, he went right down the hall, though he passed by the guest room where my things had been left and carried me all the way to a set of double doors at the end.

He shifted enough that he could undo the latch, and he led us into the lapping shadows of an enormous bedroom. There was a giant bed covered in black linens in the middle of the far wall, but rather than take me to it, he crossed to the left side where a loveseat sat against the wall near a rock fireplace.

My body trembled as he placed me on the soft, velvety leather. The man so tall. Obliterating reason and sight.

My nerves scattered when he slowly eased down onto his knees, and he planted his hands on either side of me as he leaned forward.

His devastatingly beautiful face was an inch away, and I stretched out a trembling hand and set it on his cheek. Heat blistered at the contact, a fire that flashed through my system. The words were craggy when I spoke. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me, Charleigh." His voice was gruff as ever. Low in the room, as if we weren't alone and we were trying to keep from waking someone.

Energy glinted, tying the oxygen in knots that I had to squeeze in and out of my lungs.

"Why not?"

His head barely shook. "Because this is what I do."

"What? Rescue damsels in distress?" I tried to play it a tease, but the air was too heavy for any lightness to stick.

His scoff was soft. "You're no damsel in distress, fighting me every step of the way."

"It's all I've ever known how to do."

River covered my hand that still rested on his cheek with his and pressed it closer. "Going to show you that you don't have to do that anymore. You don't have to run. You don't have to be afraid. You can stand in the beauty of who you are. And you, Charleigh Lowe, are the epitome of beauty. Inside and out. Everything about you makes me want to lose my mind. Gonna drive me out of my head, Little Runner."

My spirit shuddered in strained affection. In the feeling that this man summoned in me. He'd stoked the ashes and brought long-dead pieces to life.

I wanted to revel in them forever.

"I think you're the one who's made me lose mine. I still can't believe I'm here. That I spent tonight with you and your family."

The threat of a smirk hinted at the edge of his mouth. "If you talk to Nolan, he'd insist you were a part of that, too."

Family.

I was shocked he would even mention it.

"But we know that can't be, don't we?" My fingertips were still brushing his face, gliding over the scruff that lined his sharp jaw.

"How about we don't talk about me having to let you go and instead focus on this. "

"And what is this?" It was a breath.

"It's me showing you that you are in control. Me showing you that you deserve pleasure. Me erasing that motherfucker from your being and writing myself on it instead. Gonna mark myself on you as deep as that tat on your arm. Permanently. Make you remember exactly what you want. What you need."

Need raced through my body. "I'm afraid you're going to break me."

He brushed the pad of his thumb over my lips. On instinct, my tongue stroked out to lick it.

His eyes flamed as he released a surprised growl that reverberated through the room, and he pressed his thumb into my mouth.

I sucked, and a moan got free.

A storm roared in his gaze before arrogance kicked up at the edge of his mouth. "Nah, I'm not going to break you, Charleigh, I'm just going to ruin you for anyone else."

The man rose higher on his knees as I sank deeper into the couch cushions.

Anticipation made my limbs heavy. Laden with want.

"Did you know how fuckin' bad I wanted you when you came through the door of my shop that first night?" he asked. "Did you know how badly I wanted to peel you out of your clothes and take you right on my chair? I've spent weeks fucking my hand to thoughts of you. Thinkin' about every way that I'm going to have you."

The vision of it blazed through my mind, and my thighs quivered as I was rushed with a current of desire.

He inhaled heavily as if he smelled it coming off me, and he pulled his thumb from my mouth and ran it over my lips, coating them with my saliva.

My throat went dry, but still, I managed to force out, "I haven't wanted anyone to touch me in years, for so long that I'd forgotten what it's like. And my breath was gone the second you came to stand in the doorway to your station. Though it might have had something to do with the way you terrified me, too. "

River's expression went predatory. "You should probably still be scared."

"Part of me is. Of this. Of what you make me feel."

His eyes turned to pitch, greed dancing in their depths, prancing with the shadows that played on the walls. His thumb moved to my jaw as the rest of his fingers splayed out to hold me by the side of the neck.

My pulse beat frantically against his touch.

"I don't let my mind go there when I'm tattooing, not ever, and there you were, making me break every rule I've ever set, and I've been wanting to break them ever since."

"What rules?" It was a rasp, wispy thin air that no longer seemed to exist.

"I don't get numbers, I don't stand outside women's apartments, and I sure as fuck don't invite them to my house." Leaning in close, his mouth just barely brushed the angle of my jaw. He rode it all the way up until he was murmuring at my ear, "And most of all, I don't fuckin' get attached."

My spirit flailed, and logic screamed. We already knew what this was. He was a safe place. Sanctuary. A place of healing.

But right then, my heart was veering into dangerous territory.

He edged back and pinned me with the viciousness of his stare. "Gonna warn you right now, I'm not a good man, Charleigh. Need you to know it so you don't mistake me for something I'm not."

"I already know who you are, River. I know who you are right here." I let my fingertips wander down to the ravaging in his chest. "I don't care about the rest."

"Fuck," he groaned, and he wound his hand up in my hair and pulled me toward him until our noses were almost touching. "But you should. You should. I've done terrible fuckin' things."

Turmoil played through his features. His ghosts. His shame.

"But you've also done wonderful things."

I knew pure evil. I recognized it. Had lived it. And while there was no question that something brutal lived within him, I still understood this .

I had witnessed him with his son and his sister and felt it with the way he had treated me.

The quiet laughter he emitted was malignant, fully directed at himself. "If you really knew, you'd go running so far and fast there'd be no chance of me catching up to you." Then his voice dropped to a seductive threat as he edged in an inch. "And even knowing it, I still think I'd chase after you."

"I wouldn't get very far because you already have me on my knees."

An offering.

Or maybe I wanted him to be an offering for me.

Give this part of himself because I needed it so desperately. To feel something other than the grief. Other than the loneliness. Other than the fear.

A puff of hot air shot from his nose, and the man turned all beast. Muscles rippled and flexed beneath the tight fit of his tee, and in the muted light, the colors and shapes and innuendo crawled like monsters over his flesh.

I could almost see the demons writhe.

River unwound his hand from my hair, and he edged back and placed both hands on my knees.

A shiver rolled, yet still, I felt as if I were being burned alive. His eyes were flames that licked over every inch of my body. I arched from the couch as if he had me chained by his gaze and he'd given my shackles a yank.

"You gonna let me touch this tight little body the way I've been dyin' to?" His words had gone fierce.

My center throbbed, and my knees spread.

His tongue swept out to lick across his lips. "That an invitation, Little Runner?"

And there was nothing I could do. I whispered, "Yes."