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The word turned my bones to liquid, turned everything inside me solid into something fluid. I sat there stunned at the feeling for a long minute before something inside me violently fought it. My body went solid again, reinforced with steel.
"Mean it," he said, misinterpreting my reaction for disbelief.
I felt myself nod tightly at him as I slowly inched away. "I believe that," I said, swallowing against the dry feeling in my mouth.
"You're pulling away," he observed as I, quite literally, did so. "Didn't push," he informed me, bringing up our earlier conversation.
"I know."
"Still pulling away."
"What do you want from me, Wolf?" I yelped, feeling torn in two with the desire to crawl back into his lap and the growing part of me that was screaming at me to run far, run fast.
"Nothing you don't wanna give."
Augh. Of course he would say the right thing. I guess the silent-type didn't often blurt out a bunch of stupid, meaningless shit like the rest of us.
"I don't know what I have to give," I admitted, falling onto my ass by his feet.
"Your pace, Janie," he said, reaching out to place his hand on my knee and squeezing.
I looked down at the ground between us. There were a dozen things that could have been said, honest things, true things, things that exposed a little bit of what I was truly feeling in that moment. But that wasn't the kind of woman I was. I looked up with a smirk. "I thought you were supposed to be some badass biker guy. All booze and brotherhood and bitches."
He didn't bristle and prime for a fight like I would have preferred. That wasn't his style. He just shook his head at me and got to his feet. I watched him curiously for a minute until I realized what he was doing; he was walking away from me. I sprang to my feet and moved to chase after where he had disappeared into the trees. But he was nowhere to be found.
"Not funny, Wolf!" I called into the empty space, spinning around. "Is this supposed to be some more like training shit? Or are you just being a dick?" I walked a few more steps forward, sure he was close enough to hear me. "What could possibly be your end game here?"
"Proof," his voice said right behind my ear, causing two things at once- a knee-jerk surge of fear and adrenaline that had me spinning around and striking out like I had been trained to do, but also a complete, almost overwhelming sense of relief.
"Proof of what?" I asked, my fingers on my left hand aching from where I hit his jaw. He hadn't so much as flinched meanwhile my hand felt like it collided with a brick wall.
He shrugged. "You stayed."
"I stayed?"
"Coulda run. Stayed."
So it was a test. He wanted to see if I was, what, just biding my time? Letting him kiss me and touch me? Sharing things with him that I never shared with anyone? So that I could eventually disarm him and get away? He gave me the chance to run. I found that both insulting and liberating.
"And if I ran? What then?"
"Let you go."
"You'd have let me go?" I asked, going back a step. "You keep me in your house under guard by your dogs for days but today you would just... let me go?"
"Things changed," he said, brushing past me and walking back in the direction of the cabin.
"What changed?" I asked, having to just about jog to keep up with his long-legged pace.
"Things," he said again.
"Fine but what things?"
"Doesn't matter."
God, he was impossible. "Maybe it matters to me," I tried, keeping my tone even.
He shook his head and pushed his pace faster as if silently informing me the discussion was over.
"Seriously? This is juvenile," I hissed, picking up into a full jog and still falling behind him as he did the manly version of a power-walk. You wouldn't think there was such a thing, but apparently there was and Wolf was doing it. "You're really not going to talk to me about this?" To that, I got his head turned over his shoulder at me, a brow lifted in a way that said 'what do you think?'. "Well fine. Two can play that game," I said, slowing to a walk and letting him charge ahead.
He didn't want to talk to me? Fine. I didn't have to talk to him either. At least not until he was willing to give me some answers.
Oh yeah, we were going full-on school ground at this point.TENJanieI got back to the house all of five minutes after Wolf did, intending to follow through with my adolescent 'let's see who can win at the silent game' thing when I heard Wolf's voice from through the open front door.
"She okay?"
I had a sinking feeling inside.
Lo.
Jesus Christ.
Lo.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I just... took off into the woods to play with guns and have an unexpected orgasm and shit while Lo was still out there.
I shouldn't have cared. I told myself that that part of my life was over. I was planning on leaving. I should have already been gone. If things went to plan, I wouldn't have even known she was in that kind of situation. Fact of the matter was, there was a good chance she would have been dead, or wishing she was dead, if I hadn't still been around. I was supposed to compartmentalize that shit from my future- locked up tight, pretending not to care, becoming stone cold.
But as I stood there listening to Wolf's minimalist side of a conversation, I knew that would never be possible.
"Wolf," I heard myself whisper and he turned toward me, giving me a nod that I took to mean they had her and she was okay. Or, if not okay, would be that way.
"Yeah. Right. Okay."
He hung up and tossed his phone on the counter, holding his arms out and I didn't even pause, I flew at him.
