Page 208 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
The loud roar of my bike filled our ears, and the frigid air whirred around us.
Her breaths invaded my senses and that sweet spirit wound into every recess of my being.
Every stone inside me had been cracked wide open when she’d climbed onto the back of my bike.
There was no feeling like it.
Nothing to measure this emotion against.
I kept a careful pace as I made the right onto Vista View then took the left onto the long drive that wound toward the motel.
I didn’t head to her cabin.
I took the short path that snaked back to where my cabin was hidden in the trees.
Slowing, I dug my phone from my jacket pocket and pushed the button that lifted the garage door, then I eased my bike beside my truck.
I immediately lowered the garage door behind us.
Dimness filtered through the confined space.
I took her trembling hand and guided her off my bike.
My eyes were pinned on her standing next to me.
White hair whipped into disorder and raining around her like a chaotic halo.
Arctic eyes blue torches that flamed.
But it was the trust—the knowing—that zipped through the linking of our hands that nearly sent me into mayhem.
Guilt threatened to rise, but I pushed it back down, no place for it when Piper Whittman had overtaken everything.
Chest stretching tight, I swung off my bike and came to tower over her.
This woman who had barged her way into the places I thought I couldn’t allow her to go.
And now, it felt like she was purposed to be there. Like those vacant holes inside me had been carved in the shape of her.
“Are you afraid of me?” The question raked from my throat.
Raw and rough.
It was the one I’d toiled with all night.
Gutted by the idea that she might run because of what she’d seen.
Because of who I was.
Turmoil twined through her gorgeous features.
“Yes.”
My stomach nearly dropped to the ground, only she reached out with a shaky hand and scratched her nails through my beard.
“I’m terrified of you, Theo. Terrified of the way you make me feel. Terrified of the way you make me want you. Terrified of the way you make me want to stay.”
Her delicate throat tremored, and she seemed to hesitate before she admitted, “I am terrified of what you do. Of what I saw last night. I’m terrified of what it might cost. But…”
