My breathing finally starts to return to normal as I scan the hunting cabin from where I sit on the single chair at the small table tucked against the wall.
The small bed. The stove glowing with the fire I stoked when I came in earlier. The old crates that act as shelves holding canned goods.
And Raven.
Not the homestead…
The last thing I remember was coming in to check on her to make sure that she had everything she needed after I spent almost the entire day outside working without a word to her, but she had already crashed by the time the sun went down. Collapsed on the bed, her perfect pink lips that spew so much toxic hatred my way were parted slightly, her breath slipping through them evenly.
She looked like a completely different person.
That version I found of her when I came in was soft.
Almost sweet.
Innocent.
She’s anything but these days…though there was a time I saw her that way. When she was that naïve girl.
I don’t know how long I looked at her like that, mesmerized by something I haven’t seen from Raven in almost too many years to count—complete defenselessness—but I must’ve sat down for a minute and somehow fallen asleep.
It all finally caught up with me—at the most inopportune time.
Shit.
Dropping my face into my hands, I release a frustrated groan.
The storm intensifies outside, the rain coming harder, lightning flashing through the window before thunder cracks close.
“Connor, are you all right?”
I let my hands fall away and meet her worried gaze again. Her blond brows are drawn low over concerned eyes. And it’s there again, that pity.
“I’m fine.”
It comes out gruff, more like a growl from some wild animal.
She shakes her head. “You don’t seem fine. What was the dream about?”
“Fuck…” I swallow through my dry throat and look away from her, toward the small window above the bed that lets in the flashes of light that warn a bigger storm is coming. “It was about what brought me up here in the first place.”
RAVEN
I hold my breath, the shock Connor’s frantic screams in the tiny cabin still enough to leave my heart racing even as I try to remain calm and appear unaffected for his sake.
What he just said is more than I’ve heard this man admit in terms of vulnerability in all the years I’ve known him. Certainly in the time since the tension between us became something so tangible.
Connor McBride is never weak.
Connor McBride is never exposed.
Especially when I’m anywhere near him.
But the man sitting in front of me is more than that right now.
He’s wounded.
He’s raw.
