I am stunned a second time by words. “Is that what you think? That I hope to be the hero who lures the monster from his tower?”
There is a flash of something in his eyes as his gaze holds mine. Regret. Pain. It is gone as fast as it appears. His eyes dart away, a cruel grin twisting his lips. I push at his shoulders because suddenly, I don’t want him touching me. Reaching past him, I grab a towel to cover myself.
“Little late for that, yeah? I know what your cum tastes like. A bit too late to play the pure princess, don’t you think?”
To my complete shock, my hand flies out, cracking across his face It’s like hitting a stone wall; my palm stings worse than he ever will. I bolt from the room, blinking through a haze of tears. What was I expecting? Why did I give myself to a man this hollow? Hell, I was just begging him to take my virginity, yet he thinks I am using my body to bend men to her will.
“Fuck....wait, I didn’t mean that,” Reece calls after me.
It is too late. I am so embarrassed. I came here with lofty dreams of rescue, but it was all just ego. Coming up here was an effort in futility. I didn't pull him out; I just humiliated myself and gave that stubborn roughneck a reason to burrow deeper into the dark
Reece was right all along—second chances ain’t for everyone.
Chapter Seven
Reece
I have done a lot of stupid things in my life—just one I regret.
Of all the things I’ve gotten wrong, watching Rain storm out of my cabin might is one of the worst. It sits at the top of a long, ugly list: leaving my world behind for an oil rig, becoming a roughneck to risk my life for a paycheck, and cutting ties with everyone just to stop the cycle of letting them down. Most of it I can live with, but there are two mistakes in that list that haunt me—two things I’d give anything to undo.
They called it a one in a million accident—almost unheard of.
We were twelve days into a grueling hitch. Sleep was a luxury none of us had seen in days, and my eyes burned under the harsh fluorescent lights of the monitoring station. My focus was gone just long enough to miss the transducer gauge for Wellhead B had started to drift. It wasn't a sudden spike—just a slow, agonizing crawl into the amber zone.
It’s an error in the telemetry,I told myself. We’d had software glitches all week. If I called for a full emergency shutdown over a ghost, it would cost the company millions, and my shot at supervisor. They were talking me up for a promotion which meant they trusted my judgment.
I convinced myself I was being practical. I decided to wait until the 03:30 manual shift change to have someone check the physical bleed valves. I silenced the digital chirp, took a sip of cold coffee, and looked away from the screen. All hell broke loose before we got to 03:30.
The first sound wasn't an explosion. It was a deep, guttural groan from the belly of the earth, a vibration so violent it shook the fillings in my teeth. Then came the screech of tearing structural steel.
Through the reinforced glass of the control deck, I watched the drill floor literally tear open. A roaring geyser of drilling mud and highly pressurized gas erupted into the night sky. It took less than three seconds for a stray spark to find it. The world turned into a furnace.
“Reece! Why didn't the automated line trip?!”
I remember Miller screaming over the comms. He was out on the primary catwalk, right above the flashpoint. I froze. My hand hovered over the manual ocean-floor kill switch, but it was too late, I know it. Flames had severed the hydraulic lines. I watched through the glass as the firewall collapsed toward Miller's position. I couldn't move. I couldn't save him.
Once again, I just stood and watched as the world as I knew it had imploded. Rain was right to leave. To run off on me, leave me up on this mountain to rot. It’s what I deserved. I made a mistake that took the life of a good man—a man I considered a friend. My own body had been battered, but I survived something I should not have.
“Helluva lot more than you deserved,” I grumble as I empty a second glass of bourbon.
It’s a beautiful night up on the mountain, a blanket of stars hanging over Hollow Peak. I am sober enough to appreciate it and drunk enough to hate that I am alone. I was fine being up here by myself. Staying away from the rest of the world was the best thing for me. It should have meant no one got hurt by me again.
“Still managed to hurt that pretty princess,” I whisper, emotion choking my words.
I told her I was going to hurt her, didn’t I? I warned her from the first knock at my door. Who gave her the right to even come here? To try to fit herself inside my space. I knew she could never. No one could ever fit in the dark, vapid space I created for myself.
Pouring myself another glass of bourbon, I sit back in the rocking chair I finished just last week. Rain was right about that. I gave finished pieces to the lodge, to a retirement home, hell to anyone who would take one of my pieces of furniture. Making something with my two hands, taking raw materials and creating a beautiful piece is the one thing that provides me some peace.
“Until that woman knocked on your door,” I hiss.
Having full blown conversations with myself while wallowing in my trauma and drinking too much will do me no damn good. I still empty the glass of bourbon. I cork the bottle of whisky and push up from the chair with a grunt. My body hurts all the time, my skin still pulls painfully tight from the burns I got on that rig.
I got used to living with pain a long time ago.
This pain, the ache in my muscles, in my hands, is not from that damned accident. It’s from the night I spent with Rain. Parts of my body I had forgotten about got a lot of use. I smirk to myself. The things I did with that woman, the things she did to me…I never thought that kind of pleasure could exist.
I torture myself with the truth that I will never know that sort of pleasure again. No one else would look past my damages. Past the wounds that go deeper than the tattered scars on my skin. I never thought I would know the gentle touch that Rain had shown me.
