“No,” I breathe. “But it felt meant to be, didn’t it?” My lungs squeeze, the desperation to hear him sayyes, Chloe, you feel made for my lifepulling at the edges of my heart.
I’ve never met her before, but sheknowsme. And I know her, in every woman I’ve tried to save before.
“Yeah,” he says on a sigh, and that one single syllable is exactly what I needed to hear.
My lips are itching to touch his, tingling with the memory of our kiss, to feel the soft skin of his mouth on mine again. The air between us feels more alive than it’s ever felt before; tiny, electrified molecules kissing his skin before carrying to mine with little zaps of potential.
But I need to know if he saw what I saw in there.
“That nurse was a little off, don’t you think?” He studies my face as I stare up at him, his gaze bouncing from my eyes to my lips to the thrum of pulse in my neck and back. Maybe he’s seeing it all again, wondering why I was so forward. Why I came between his mother and the medication she so desperately needs to heal and stay healthy.
I’m seeing it all again myself, the brashness of my actions, now that the adrenaline has worn off. But she needed my help, sheaskedfor my help. She made a silent plea for protection and there’s not a single cell in my body that could have turned a blind eye, even with the detective who may or may not want me in prison sitting right next to me.
Colin rolls his lips between his teeth, looking torn and confused. He flattens his hand on his mouth before squeezing his chin in his fist. “Yeah,” he breathes. “A little off.” Glancing back at the complex, he flattens his hand on his truck next to my head. “I’ll call her doctor, see if I can get her a new nurse.”
I have a better idea.
“You wanna go for a walk?”
“A walk,” Colin repeats, leaning his body away from mine, caught off guard by the suggestion.
“Hunting,” I continue, nodding past his shoulder to the expanse of tall grass and woods at his back. He turns to face them, and then back to me, his gaze casting down my dress as he probably thinks neither of us are dressed for such a task, but I kick a boot out.
“Why do you think I wore these?” I smirk, shouldering past him. My skin explodes where our bodies touch, a cloud of energy forming at thepoint of contact and expanding across my chest like a storm ready to open on the ground below it, wet, moody, and raging.
I turn back to face him, walking backward as my boots bounce against the ground in a taunt. “Always come prepared!” I shout, and then I turn and bolt for the tree line in the distance, the loose edges of my dress fluttering against my legs as I bound away from him.
I don’t need to look back to know he’s behind me, I canfeelit. He picked up chase the moment I dashed away from him, his feet thundering against the asphalt beneath us.
After a handful of paces, the ground beneath my boots shifts from rough and hard to soft and crunchy. The tall grass tickles and itches at my legs as I speed through it in a blur. I’m giggling, the frantic energy of running from him consuming my thoughts, allowing only one to break through:Faster.
My heart skips and my hair flows wild and unruly behind me as I break into the tree line, immediately casting my path into shade.
Colin is a pavement princess. A suit and tie who doesn’t like getting his boots dirty. And I love him for that, but this is my element. The wilderness. Thehunt.He will learn to love it. He will learn to find me here.
There’s no actual trail, just layers upon layers of moss, pine needles, and branches under my feet as I hurriedly glance around, looking for the easiest path to traverse even as my body keeps barreling forward.
This isn’t my normal hunt. I’m not expecting to find a lonely skeleton in these woods. Rather,he’shuntingme, and I’m hunting his heart.
Colin’s breaths are fast and heavy behind me, his long legs eating up the distance between us. My stomach is tight and fluttery with anticipation, like I’m slowly careening over the edge of a roller coaster waiting for the drop to take my breath away, to send my stomach flying into the sky. And then I veer left, my legs parting in a split to clear a downed tree. There’s anincline that I shuffle halfway down before flattening my back against a wide redwood. Colin’s footsteps slow as he scans the area for me.
Silence. A howl of wind through the trees.
Shaky breaths quiver through my chest as my fingers flatten behind me against the bark. I cast my face toward the sky, my body trembling with excitement as a crunch on the forest floor behind me causes a bluejay to squawk and flutter off a limb above, soaring through the trees and gliding to a stop on another perch with a better view of us.
Tell me, Mr. Bluejay, is he close?
Will he find me?
Will he like what he sees?
He screeches.
“Chloe,” Colin sings through the trees. “I wonder what part you like best, the chase or the catch?”
I swallow, my breaths coming faster and the nerves pitter-pattering in my stomach at the smooth roll of his voice through the wind.
“Can’t say myself,” he muses, his voice traveling in all directions around me. The slow, soft crunch of his footsteps sound in the near distance. “There is something about the thrill of the hunt.” Silence.
