I close my hand around hers and squeeze it.
There are so many reasons I should leave now—for the good of everyone. But looking at her on her knees in front of me, with her soft hand on my cheek and the other clutched in my own, I can’t think of one better than giving her what she needs right now.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’ll leave in the morning. Before dawn.”
I’ll do it before she wakes because it’ll be that much easier to walk away without having to look her in the eye. Without having to see the fear there…and the other thing that I’ve seen flashes of the last few days that’s even more unsettling.
Raven Perry might actually be starting to like me.
And that can be a much bigger problem than the one on the tiny drive.
16
CONNOR
Raven stirring where she’s draped across my chest slowly rouses me from a deep sleep. A sleep blissfully free of nightmares; the type of sleep I’ve gotten used to since I’ve found it up here with this woman in my bed. It certainly eluded me when I’ve been here alone over the past few months.
Those demons that made me run from the homestead followed me up the mountain. They were less insistent here, at least during the day when I could spend my time working until I was ready to collapse. It kept my mind and body occupied. But when I laid my head down here, when I closed my eyes, they always returned.
Now, they’ve fled entirely—as long as she’s under me or over me.
Being with Raven has become the safe haven I sought up here on the mountain but couldn’t completely find.
And I have to leave her soon.
She slowly lifts her head from my chest, her golden hair falling over her pink cheeks, and heavy, thick lashes blink slowly as she gazes up at me from under them with sleep-hazed eyes. They sparkle in the moonlight streaming in from the window above the bed, not a single sign of the hatred that used to reign them so completely when she looked at me
What stares back is a completely open woman.
No walls.
No sharp comeback sitting on the tip of her tongue.
I reach up and brush a lock of her hair behind her ear, letting my fingertips linger against her soft skin. “You okay?”
Raven nods, her eyes never leaving mine.
We’ve been cooped up in the cabin, lost in each other, since she followed me in and asked me to stay, but I have no idea how long we’ve been asleep. It just feels like I don’t have much time…
I’m going to have to get up and leave her.
I’m going to have to return to the homestead.
Far too soon.
She seems to sense it, too, because there’s a sadness in her gaze. One I only momentarily appeased by agreeing to stay one more night. For some incomprehensible-to-me reason, the woman who couldn’t wait to get away from me only a few weeks ago now desperately wants me to stay.
It’s impossible, though.
The story has to get out, not just for the people on McBride Mountain, but for everyone the Lorells have hurt over the years or will in the future.
Raven lowers her head and lightly presses a kiss against my chest.
My whole body thrums to live at that gentle brush of her lips, at the promise it holds. I never thought anything this woman would do or say could bring me to life like this, could make me feel like I’m truly living with just a whispered word or light touch of soft skin.
I’m in so much fucking trouble…
It has nothing to do with the story on that drive and everything to do with the way Raven is looking at me right now.
