Page 6 of Recurve Ridge

Too easy.

My frazzled brain turned that one over and came up with a disturbing conclusion I craved and hated all at once. The reason I felt safe in verbally abusing him was because I wasn’t afraid of him abusingme.

The odd things my brain noticed that I hid from myself in a bout of self-sabotage, ranting in broken rasps that I myself struggled to understand, let alone should expect him to figure out.

Attraction. Safety.

Trust.

My world tipped from one extreme to another, and I wondered if Gideon had pumped my bloodstream full of some exotic hallucinogen while I found myself… distracted.

The fear flowed again.

Hands reaching, sliding, grabbing.

Pinching and plucking and pulling.

Spread apart, wrists pulling and raw, fingers touching?—

The scream built inside my throat, but it wasn’t an incomprehensible sound that burst free.

“I don’t want to be touched, you fucking prick,” I seethed. My heart thrashed inside my chest, willing my newfound voice to die a quick and silent death.

“Foul-mouthed little thing, aren’t you?” my mountain commented, patting my jacket-covered rump in a familiar gesture. “Is this the usual you, or is it traumatized you?”

When I couldn’t answer, my words run through again, he sighed, shifting my weight to sling me across his chest instead of over his broad shoulder like so many potatoes in a half-empty sack. I stared into the underside of his mahogany beard, able to see little except the tips of thick eyelashes utterly wasted in the wilds.

I shook my head at his unanswerable question, barely able to recognize who I’d been, let alone who I was now. My frozen toes curled beneath me, under his forearm tucked beneath my thighs, to contact his torso, eliciting a soft puff of air. A masochistic smile curled my lips. If I hurt, my brain claimed that it stood to reason that he should too. How broken I’d become in the short space of scant hours. Had it been a day since my world imploded on itself? I closed my eyes, waiting for bile to rise as my stomach attempted to empty itself over his forearm.

But it didn’t.

Thank God, because everything hurt.

Fingers groping, tongues?—

My stomachdidrise this time, bringing with it the bitter edge of acid that teased the back of my throat. I clenched the urge away with effort, removing my ability to speak.

The internal argument rioting inside my mind insisted I never wantedanyoneto touch me ever again. So why did this mountainous lump of muscle with his hands around me seem safe? After the abuse I’d suffered at my boss’s—and hisfriends’—hands, I shouldn’t be comfortable with anyone, let alone this mountain god, manhandling me. Yet I allowed Mr. Everest to hoist me into his arms when my legs refused to support the weight of my shame.

Maybeallowedstretched the point a touch too far.

I sank against Everest’s hard chest, my cheek grazing rough cotton scented with man-sweat and the sharp tang of pine. I breathed in the scents of home and safety and laughed at myself inside my head. I’d clearly lost it, but I went on cataloging all the comforting features that made him real to my mind. His steady heartbeat became my rhythm. I counted each thump, matching my breath to his footsteps until they dropped into sync with every graceful movement.

Hands pressed to my sides, tearing at clothing, then skin. When they had reduced every part of me to shreds, they tainted my soul.

A raspy shriek battered against compressed lips I refused to open. Fear became my fuel, and I possessed an abundant store.

Sleep was no longer an option.

Despite no new adversary announcing themselves, I huddled within the protection of my mountain man’s jacket as he halted. I craned around him, my body rubbing against the obscene amount of muscle he possessed. I swore he could be the twin of the giant pines that guarded the forest.

A soft huff that might have been a laugh brushed my cheeks. He turned so I could see the circle of ancient trees that surrounded us. In the center of the clearing sat a rustic log hut that looked like it had risen out of a Wild West story from the 1800s.

“Did you—”build it yourself,I started to say, but the rest refused to come out, my tongue exhausted after my tirade.

He seemed to catch my meaning and nodded.

The cabin had an air of strict neatness, as though the occupant couldn’t abide any change to its exterior surface. A narrow wraparound veranda was its sole decoration, the boards bare and clean, lacking in personality or furniture. The windows were empty. No spiderwebs clung to its corners; no leaves tumbled across its clean-swept exterior.

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