Page 139 of At the Edge of Surrender

Thatconnectionyanking and pulling and coercing.

Charleigh giggled conspiratorially. “Looks like someone else is imagining something spectacular.”

I jolted back, stammering and fumbling all over my words, “Oh…I wasn’t?—”

My throat tightened, my mouth completely dry, because suddenly, I was. I was wondering what it would be like to see Kane completely bare.

My stomach in knots as the vision slammed me. Me on my knees as he moved to tower over me. That glorious body on full display.

I should be terrified.

Horrified.

Repulsed.

But my eyes were crawling back to the man, hungry for something I’d never been.

“Oh, I think you are,” Raven teased.

My eyes rammed closed in an attempt to stop whatever this out-of-control train was that the man had set me on. The one who’d cut the brakes. The one who had loosened the chains that had held me back.

It had to be the grief. The way I’d felt as if I’d been flayed wide open when I’d lost my sister.

Set out to sea.

Drifting and lost.

Floating away.

He’d been the one buoy I’d been able to reach.

But I had to know that was fleeting.

When I came to my senses, I’d be right back in that place where the demons and monsters reigned.

Where my fears consumed.

I needed to get back to what I knew.

Tucked safely in the place where I was okay to forever be alone.

Where no one could touch me or harm me or ruin me.

My hands started to shake.

Anxiety roiling through me and turning into panic.

My throat thick and my sight bleary.

Oh, God, I was going to have an attack right in front of them.

“Hey,” Raven whispered. “Are you okay? I’m sorry if we pushed you too far.”

She let go of a self-deprecating laugh as she glanced at Charleigh. “We have a way of tossing out whatever hits our tongues without thought, even when our new bestie isn’t quite ready for all our crazy yet.”

She nudged me with her elbow, fully tender, her voice thick.

“Yeah.” Charleigh set a soft hand on my forearm. “I didn’t know what hit me when I first met her. This one chased me down and demanded I was going to be her friend all while coercing me into coming to a festival that I most definitely didn’t want to attend, going so far as to threaten kidnapping. And apparently, I have now become just as bad as her.”

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