Page 64 of Savior

Her feet wrapped around the backs of my thighs, guiding my pace. My vision blurred as I fought to keep from breaking, needing to give her even just a fraction of what she’d given me by showing up tonight.

It was painfully apparent that all of my free time spent sobering up and building a nursery for my babies had left me severely out of practice.

I gripped her hips tighter as her mouth fell open, knowing she was getting close. My face had gone numb, and any control I still held was quickly sucked away when she clamped down around me with a silent scream.

She sucked in a ragged breath as her entire body convulsed in a shudder, and I was a goner. I held myself inside her as I broke, feeling as if after years of fighting the current, I’d finally reached the shore.

Chapter Fourteen

Kate

“No!” I sat up in bed with a gasp, still seeing the familiar face looming over my body, the feel of hands crawling over my skin. “It was just a dream,” I whispered to the empty bedroom.

My mother had decorated it to look just like the one Dakota and I had grown up in, something that left me feeling disoriented every time I woke up. I likened it to waking from a coma to find that your body had changed and grown while everything else remained as it had been before.

“Just a bad dream,” I repeated again.

The oversized t-shirt I’d fallen asleep in clung to my damp skin as my heart thrummed against my ribs, proof that my body wasn’t buying my explanation.

I forced my head back onto the pillow, working to steady my breathing and calm my mind. The red lights on the alarm clock continued ticking up, but the foreboding feeling didn’t go away.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered as I kicked off the covers and padded into the living room. I grabbed an afghan off the back of one of the recliners and curled up on the couch, prepared to wait for dawn.

The creaks and pops of the old farmhouse settling had become familiar, even welcome, over the last week. Somehow, it made me feel less alone.

Eventually, the trembling in my limbs subsided, along with the icy cold sense of dread that I was in danger. I found my cell phone where I’d left it on the small table beside the couch.

Nate had called again.

My thumb hovered over his name, waiting for my brain to give the go-ahead. All I had to do was tap the screen, and I’d be able to hear his voice.

If anyone could pull me out of this, it was him. He’d tell me that things weren’t as bad as they seemed before convincing me to come home. I placed the phone back on the side table when I realized that he’d also want to know where I’d been and why I’d left in the first place.

Those were questions I couldn’t answer.

Not yet.

“Kate?” Mama whispered from down the hall. “Is that you?”

“In here. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Good,” she said with a weary smile as she rounded the corner. “Neither can I. Come on, I’ll fix us a little midnight snack.”

Keeping the afghan around my shoulders, I followed her into the kitchen. She moved gracefully around the room, pulling cheese and fruit from the refrigerator and artfully arranging them on a platter next to some crackers.

“You were such a light sleeper when you were younger,” she said while coring an apple. “Your father would come in from work to find you in your PJs, rummaging through the fridge for a snack. I used to think that sleep just didn’t come easily for you, but now I’m convinced that you just wanted that time alone with him. Maybe you knew then that he wasn’t going to be around.”

I climbed up onto one of the bar stools, struggling to remember late-night snacks with the biker. “How long have you lived here?”

She added the apple slices to the platter, avoiding my gaze. “The city house felt empty without you and Dakota in it; too quiet, you know? This place belonged to Angel once upon a time, and he sold it to your dad to fix up.”

Her response was elusive… vague. It was just one more thing she was keeping from me.

“That doesn’t answer my question, though,” I pushed. “How long have you been here?”

Without another word, she calmly knelt beside a cabinet and retrieved a large bottle of tequila from the back. “Angel,” she said by way of explanation, holding the bottle up for inspection. “He found this at Mikey and Lauren’s after the relapse. With your father gone, he thought he’d leave it here.”

At my puzzled expression, she elaborated, “Angel knew that a bottle like this would only tempt Mikey into drinking again, but he also knew he couldn’t keep it at his place—he and your father are recovering alcoholics and addicts. I asked him why he hadn’t just thrown it away, and his eyes bugged out of his head. I guess this is pretty expensive stuff.”

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