Page 30 of These Rough Waters

“They like to pretend they don’t,” He moves his focus back to the window, “Living a lie is better than facing the truth.”

“And what is the truth, Torin?” The question leaves me as I pluck up the half glass of wine from the table and take a seat on the couch. “Or is this where you tell me to stay away from you again and run away?”

His chuckle is unexpected and the sound… God, the sound was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Masculine and rough, sounding from deep within his chest and the smile that came with it – he had dimples, and a full smile, one that lifted his eyes and gave him an almost youthful, playful appearance.

It changed him completely.

Drying his hands on the towel, he grabs his own glass and follows me into the living room, sitting next to me. And not at the other end of the couch either, I mean right next to me. I stiffen my muscles when his weight dips the cushion, so I don’t accidentally lean into him.

“As it happens,” he says, deep voice rumbling through my ear and chasing goose bumps over my skin, “youshouldstay away from me but I’m finding I don’t much want that.”

“Then what do you want?”

Minutes pass in silence and when I know I’m not getting an answer from him I lean back on the couch, the warmth of the room enveloping me and the wine fogging up my head. I was getting tired and should probably tell Torin to leave but his presence felt good at my side, even if we didn’t speak.

I had a feeling the two of us were alike in a sense. Lonely perhaps and taking comfort from the most unlikely of places.

And while it felt like we were at war more than we were at peace, there was this strange sense of comfort here.

He wasn’t a man that seemed inherently safe and yet at the same time I felt safe here.

Was that strange?

My brows tug down with my thoughts.

“Little doe?” Torin’s voice wraps around me, but this deep sense of exhaustion is sweeping in, dragging down my lids.

I don’t know if he says anything further because sleep claims me and for the first time in what has felt like months, the rest is undisturbed by nightmares and my past can’t get in.

Fifteen

Asigh whispers from her parted lips, dark lashes fluttering against the apples of her cheeks, and I can’t help but watch.

Infuriatingly stunning, I think, as I lift a finger and brush a single tendril of hair away from her cheek, her head turning toward the touch of my skin against hers.

I was wrong about the little doe, she wasn’t meek but just hiding her thorns. They were there, and they were sharp and if it made me an absolute dumb fuck, I would get her to show those thorns some more.

Her soft skin feels like silk on the pad of my finger, so soft it almost felt criminal for a man as hard as I to be able to touch something so perfect. And when her head lands against my shoulder in sleep, and her body curls towards mine like I’m a man who could be trusted, I may as well go ahead and face the devil himself because I don’t stop it. I do not move.

I continue to watch, enraptured by her and all her deep dark secrets.

Where Grace was calm and gentle, I had a feeling this woman was as rough as the waters right outside the window. I had been drawn to Grace when we first met because of that gentleness, because of that calm, my opposite in every way and I’m a selfish man, I took what was not for me and it ended badly.

Tragically.

Maya was no different. Grace’s opposite, but still much too good.

This curiosity towards her would pass. It had to, for her sake,it had to.

Carefully removing her from my shoulder, I guide her sleeping form down onto the couch and cover her over with the throw that was on the back.

It was better to let her continue to dislike me, easier on, well, just about everything.

I don’t head home, instead I jump in my truck and head across town, pulling up and cutting the engine outside the cemetery. The sky was blanketed in a thick heavy cloud, the wind picking up as the storm rolls in but even so, my feet crunch across the gravel until I reach grass and follow the route to those two familiar headstones.

My back rests against Grace’s and my face turns towards the sky, the first drop of rain landing against my cheek.

But my silence is disturbed as the first drop of rain breaks free from the clouds. Thunder rolls as my phone buzzes in my pocket and I already know who it is without looking at the screen.

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