Page 64 of Twisted Obsession

I shook my head. “You have no reason to be.”

He sighed into my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

I raised my head and rained tiny kisses across his beautiful, ashen face. “I don’t care. Wake me. I’m right here.”

He groaned my name and clasped me tighter. “I just need a minute.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He sighed into my temple and stared up at the ceiling. “Christ.”

I bumped my nose to his lightly. “Want to talk about it?”

He gave a shake of his head. “It’s stupid.”

My hands sunk into the pillow beneath his head as I rose up to peer down at him. “No, it’s not. Tell me.”

The rough skin of his palm scratched the curve of my spine from shoulder to ass then back. His eyes watched me on the soft mist of predawn. “I forget sometimes that I’m not in there anymore,” he murmured. “It’s worse when I sleep at night. I … I think I’m still there when I open my eyes, like all of this is a dream.” His throat muscles worked as he reached up and touched a lock of hair dangling against the side of my face. “That you’re a dream.”

Heart in pieces, I flattened his palm against my cheek. “You’re here … with me. This isn’t a dream.”

He exhaled softly. “I think I would lose my mind if it were.”

“How can I help convince you?”

The hand under mine drifted up and back into my hair. “Just … hold me, kitten. I just need to feel you.”

I did.

I held him until his gentle breaths were in my ear. The crushing hold of his arms loosened but remained securely enclosing me. I stayed draped over him, keeping him warm and safe.

“I love you,” I told him, brushing the words over his lips. “I love you so much.”

He didn’t stir and I burrowed back into my place against his shoulder and closed my eyes.

The dawn chill woke me.

It crawled across naked flesh, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its path. A shudder coursed through me, prompting my knee up to my stomach. I dragged the sheets up to my ears and reached for the man who should have been there only to find an ocean of ice that spanned far beneath the patch of sunlight making its way across the room.

“Darius?”

The aggressive peep of birds outside the window answered with the whisper of the wind, but no Darius. The clock on the nightstand taunted me with the still too early hour, early enough to afford us a few more precious minutes in bed together. But he had the right idea. It was return to civilization day, the final day of our trip. In a few short hours, we would be crammed into Lavena’s car, driving back nine hours. He was most likely enjoying the last few minutes of peace.

Or he’d had another nightmare and hadn’t wanted to wake me.

Fog of sleep gone, I kicked off the sheets and grabbed the blanket Darius had wrapped me up in the night before. I tiptoed to the door and cracked it open just enough to check to make sure the coast was clear. When I spotted no one and heard nothing, I sprinted to my room and shut myself inside.

I dressed quickly in loose, cotton shorts and a bulky, off the shoulder sweater that hung comfortably around my hips. I bunched the sleeves up to my elbow as I hurried to find Darius.

I found him on the back porch, a cigarette in hand, looking out over the lake. His dark hair hung in reckless tangles around an unshaven jaw and hard, focused eyes. He had his forearms perched on the railings, his broad back bent with the position. I didn’t miss my crisscrossing marks marring his beautiful skin, or the new, fresh ones. The sight of them, of him brought a smile to my lips and a tingle in my belly.

The man had no business controlling my senses the way he did. He had no right to make me fall for him so fucking hard. I wanted to be angry at the injustice of a whole other person having so much power over me and yet, there wasn’t a soul on earth I wanted to submit to completely. I had no idea what that meant or what I was supposed to do with that information, but he could ask me to do anything, and I would without question.

I briefly wondered what that said about me. Kaila would have called it a red flag. She would caution me against letting any man wield that kind of control and maybe she was right, but Darius wasn’t any man. I’d known him my entire life. I knew him better than almost anyone. You can’t hide the type of person you are for that long, especially when I practically lived with the Medlock family most of the time. I’d seen him with his past girlfriends. I’d seen him with his friends and family. I knew who he was and what he was capable of. I still loved him to the very root of my core.

Maybe I was biased because in the couple of years before his arrest, Darius Medlock had become an unlikely friend. He could never be what the girls were to me. He could never take that place, but our friendship was different. It filled a spot Sasha, Kas and Lavena hadn’t been able to fill — books. They weren’t rabid readers like I was. Sure, they listened when I went off about one, but they didn’t understand the way Darius did. They didn’t get into debates with me on topics or characters. They didn’t get passionate or excited.

Darius was my heart. He saw books for what they were — windows. Portable pieces of joy, longing, and thoughts all on paper. Our conversations were endless. From the moment he quoted a passage fromCount of Monte Cristo,I was done. My heart never stood a chance. He won me over so quickly and effortlessly.

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