Page 12 of Indecent Proposal

I peeked out the window to watch him drive away, and tried not to feel more vulnerable now that he was gone. Vaughn was a sinfully handsome jerk, but at least he was also strong and capable. Without him here to protect me, I felt less safe.

Get it together. I was in a safe house with a hidden panic room, a fake panic room entrance to fool any assholes who somehow got through the security system, and I was in the middle of nowhere. The only thing I was in danger from here was boredom.

Still. As annoying as he’d been, I wished that Vaughn had stayed.

Evening was fine. I made dinner, watched a couple movies, and then fell asleep in the middle of the second one and woke up with the morning sunlight falling on my face from the sliver of curtain that was open. I slept most of the rest of the day as well, like it was finally catching up to me just what I’d been putting my body through with all of my paranoia and adrenaline.

By the morning of the second day, I was feeling more refreshed but restless. I wanted out of the house.

There was the remote control that came with the security system. Surely if I brought that with me, I could keep the cabin armed while I went on a short walk, right?

I wasn’t going to go far. Just a quick circle around to get some fresh air and stretch my legs. I’d been hunted for weeks, paranoid, scared—I wanted to take a walk without looking over my shoulder, to remind myself what freedom looked and felt like. I’d thought that it was bad before, being a woman. I always had to be on my guard, it was just a part of being a female—I never knew when someone might try to attack me or assault me.

But this wasn’t just the knowledge that I was part of a vulnerable group of people. This wasn’t just the awareness of my surroundings in the back of my mind. This was actively feeling like prey. This was actively feeling hunted.

It was a completely different ballgame.

I wanted to breathe in the open air and feel free again. That wasn’t so bad, was it? He wouldn’t have to know. I’d take a short walk and be back safely inside by the time Vaughn got back.

With that in mind, I got dressed and left the cabin.

It really was the middle of nowhere out here. There were no hiking paths. The trees grew close together, roots overlapping, and all spaces seemed natural rather than planned for another house or a path. I’d never been out in the true wilderness like this before. The very air felt different—a little thin but crisper, cleaner.

I actually really liked it.

Wouldn’t it be nice to come here when it was just for fun? When it wasn’t to save my life and hide from people trying to kill me?

The peace and the quiet… the lack of responsibilities… I could understand why Vaughn had chosen a safehouse like this, in this place. Honestly, it made me like him a little more, to know that he’d picked this cabin up a mountain instead of, say, a high rise or a bunker.

I wrapped up my quick walk and went back into the cabin, using the remote control to keep the cabin armed the entire time without setting any alarms off. Problem solved.

Dinner was fine, if quiet and a bit lonely. I watched some more movies. That night, though, I was still feeling antsy. Watching movies was fine. Reading books was also fine (Vaughn actually had a wide range of genres on his shelves, from murder mysteries to historical dramas—I was reluctantly impressed). But the walk had been physical. It had been something to reallydo. And I couldn’t shake the restlessness that had come upon me with my life being in danger.

I could finally relax my guard, but I couldn’t actually get rid of the energy I’d been riding all this time. Now that I was actually rested…

I lay there in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. I wished Vaughn was here. The man annoyed the hell out of me but at least I’d feel a bit safer, and I wouldn’t be alone.

He was supposed to come back any day now, right? He’d said a couple of days…

I remembered the look on his face when he’d seen me in his clothes. Had he wanted me, in that moment? What would happen if he did? What would happen if he showed up here at night, while I sprawled out in bed wearing nothing but an oversized sleep shirt?

Or, even better…

It felt silly, but I got up and grabbed the button-up shirt I’d worn before, the one that was Vaughn’s. I took off my sleep shirt and put Vaughn’s on instead, then laid back down. It didn’t smell like him, and I found myself desperately wondering what he did smell like. I hadn’t been close enough to him to tell except when he tackled me, and I’d been too busy panicking over nearly dying to pay attention to anything then, except for my own racing heart.

There was still plenty I could imagine, though. Like how he would look when he slipped into the cabin, thinking I was asleep. The way he might freeze when he saw me in his clothes, again. Like I was disobeying him, almost.

Like I wasdaringhim.

I didn’t actually know Vaughn all that well. But I could easily imagine him as a man who wasn’t at all vanilla. A man who’d pin a woman down and ravish her if she wanted him to.

Maybe I should feel more guilt about fantasizing over another man when my fiancé had only been dead for two weeks. But to be fair, while I mourned Richard and missed him, I had never been in love with him. Or at least, I hadn’t for a long time. I’d tried so hard to love him, but it had never quite clicked in my heart.

I felt more like I was mourning a friend than a lover.

My hand slid down my body, imagining Vaughn walking closer to me, checking to see if I was really wearing his shirt and nothing else—and then he’d get close enough to see that I was awake, watching him.

Is that my shirt? he’d whisper. In reality, he’d probably sound annoyed, but in my imagination, I heard that deep, rough voice turn playful and flirtatious.

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