Page 27 of Hideaway Whirlwind
She moans in agreement, shifting her feet out a few more inches and arching her back.
Propping my left foot on the bench beside hers, I make Birdie sing my name as I drive deeper into her. And when I snake my hand around her hip to find and massage her clit, she sings even louder. If this is all she wants from me, then I’ll make sure it’s the best she’s ever had. No one who follows after me will ever make her forget about this week. About how it felt to be held so tenderly in my arms. How it felt to take me—mind, body, and soul—deep inside her.
Tears build in my eyes when Birdie reaches up to palm the back of my head, moaningyeswhen I sink my teeth in the crook of her neck. My upper body shakes with the sob I try so hard to contain, knowing she is the best thing to ever happen to me, and I’ll lose her soon.
“Birdie,” I choke out after she tells me I can cum once she does. “Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.” But she isn’t really mine, is she?
* * *
Three days later, the godforsaken rain and snow have finally stopped. After yet again lying awake all night without Birdie asleep by my side, I rise with the sun before the kids wake and head outside. My skin buzzes and begs for the soothing burn of the needle, but the only way to find relief and quiet the static in my head before I can meet up with my tattoo artist isto push myself to the limits with my workout.
For hours, I flip the biggest tractor tire I could find at the junkyard two years ago, where I’d purchased both of my Broncos. Some of the ice on the ground has started to melt, dirty slush splattering across my yard with each flip, back and forth and back and forth, while I try to rid the memory of Birdie ducking her head when I tried to kiss her on the lips for the first time last night. My kiss had landed on the bridge of her nose, and she’d rolled out of my arms, out of my bed, and out of my room with barely a whisper of goodnight.
Get out of my head. Get out of my head. Get out of my head.
I sweat through my thick hoodie and toss it toward the front porch, where it falls pitifully short since my arms are hardly cooperative at this point. A tiny little yelp follows from under the stairs where the balled-up, heavy material had landed. For a moment, I think the yelp came from Kendall, who must have snuck outside who knows how long ago.
With fear of finding her little body in shock, frozen solid, I make it to the porch in two strides, reaching under the stairs to scoop her up. My hand brushes against what I at first think is Kendall’s wet hair, but turns out to be fur.
“Hey, little guy,” I murmur as my rush of adrenaline fizzles out, cradling the muddy puppy to my chest. He’s nothing more than skin and bones, his whole body trembling violently. “How on earth did you survive out here?” He nips at my skin with the most adorable little growl as I jump the stairs to bring him inside.
Chapter 13
Teagan
Something is wrong. The kids can sense it, too, even if they’re not aware of what has changed. For three days, Elliott has grown quieter and more reserved than usual. Deflated like the air has been let out of his tires. He’s not a man who smiles much as it is—merely an uptick of one corner of his mouth here and there. But even those have become rarer. Barely a twitch now, and those are solely for the kids. I don’t get any.
No, what I get is at most a quick glance before he looks away, even when I’m speaking directly to him. I know well enough how quickly a man’s mood can change. I’m terrifiedandpissed off that I’ve once again made the worst decisions and put myself and my kids in a situation where we have to walk on eggshells around a man so we don’t set him off.
My temper flares—at myself, not the kids—when Sydney and Kendall squeal and scream as they dart away from Dustin, who is chasing them around the cabin, the big bad wolf who is going to swallow them up if he catches them. I should be able to enjoy their antics and boisterous laughter, especially since they’ve managed to find a physical activity and some joyafter being cooped up inside for over a week. Instead, I have to remind them that they’ll need to keep their voices down once Elliott is finished with his superhuman workout. I don’t need a man as large and intimidating as him blowing up at the kids for being too loud, like Quincy used to.
That fucker. By the time I figured out who Quincy really was beneath his mask, I was completely out of options—which was his intention, I’m sure—and I had to urge the kids to stay out of his way until I could finally get rid of him for good. Man, I still hate him as much, if not more, than I did Guxxer, and it’s disquieting how much I enjoyed his death. Guxxer’s, too.
I motion to the kids to end their game when Elliott bounds up onto the front porch. “Who wants to do a puzzle with me?” I ask with a cheery voice, picking another one from the pile we hadn’t done yet—a rainbow array of cats wearing bikinis dancing on trash cans in an alley with giant margaritas raised in their paws. I’m sensing a theme here.
Dustin and Sydney flinch when the front door flies open with a bang. All three children scurry away from Elliott to hide behind me, and once again, my anger and guilt threaten to erupt. I did this. This is my fault. Their fear is my doing, and I curl my fingers into my palms, wishing I had grabbed Priscilla’s knife before Elliott burned it with the rest of the evidence. I’d never go anywhere without it strapped to my side if I had.
“What’s wrong?” Elliott asks, his silver brows drawn below his sweaty forehead as he peers at the kids once he’s closed the door and kicked off his tennis shoes.
“Nothing,” I say between clenched teeth, and then my mouth drops open. “What is that?” I ask, staring at the mutant, wet creature in his arms.
Elliott crouches at my side, turning the bundle with skinny limbs and huge paws around with a genuine smile that softens his brutally masculine features. “Look what I found outside.”
“A big rat?” Dustin asks, scrunching his nose and leaning closer.
“Alien goat rat thingy,” Sydney says, kneeling in front of Elliott to study the creature, to which Elliott laughs so hard that it makes the tattoos on his thick middle dance in a nightmare theater.
“Doggy!” Kendall squeals around her thumb, crashing into Elliott’s side to lay her head against his arm, reaching out to thump the creature on the head.
I catch her wrist before she can hurt the poor thing, who, if you squint right, does kind of resemble a puppy. One so ugly that it’s adorable.
“We need to get him warmed up or he might not last the night,” Elliott says.
The kids trail after him to the hall bathroom like puppies themselves, their earlier fear forgotten. They crowd around his back when he kneels at the side of the bathtub, turning the hot water on, testing the temperature with his wrist. I lean against the door frame with my arms crossed, watching the four of them while Elliott patiently explains how they don’t want the water to get too hot, how they’ll need to carefully wash the puppy, and what to feed him since we don’t have any dog food.
Dustin pushes past me with the biggest, toothiest smile on his face to look for any cans of evaporated milk in the kitchen pantry. Sydney rushes to get towels from the linen closet in the hall, and Kendall helps lather a bar of soap in her tiny hands to wash the mud from the puppy’s short gray fur with Elliott’sguidance.
And I…smile, too. I smile and run into Elliott’s bedroom, figuring he left his phone on his nightstand, charged despite not being able to use it for much of anything. I hold the phone up and tell them, “Say cheese!”
