Page 56 of Dark Fey Captive

I knew men would say anything for a lay, but immunity? Come on. Why had he gone with something so far-fetched? With how easily he gathered supplies, he could’ve had his pick of women willing to trade candy bars for blowjobs.

And yet he didn’t want that.

I want you to want me for more than what I can give you.

Can I lick it while you eat dinner?

Who asked that?

Nav did, apparently. Maybe he had a sex addiction. Maybe that was why he was hard all the time.

I decided I could live with that if he did.

“That was a nice way to wake up,” I said. “Thank you. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. Are you hungry? I brought back more food.”

“You left?” It worried me that he’d left me alone in the house with a busted front door, but not that he’d left at night. If he had to leave, that was the safest time for him not to run into the others.

“I did, but I made sure the front door was bolted and locked the back door behind me. Would you like to see the supplies I found?”

Relieved he wasn’t asking for reciprocation, I nodded and carefully got off of him. If my gaze lingered a little too long on what I’d been riding, it was because I was trying to gauge its size compared to his fingers. Was it really like three? That was going to be a lot.

Wait, why was I thinking of it like it was an inevitability? What happened to trying to avoid it?

He stood fluidly and took my hand, leading me toward a door off the kitchen.

“It’s safe down here. I already checked it for infected so you can go down whenever you want for supplies,” he said, handing me a flashlight he’d hung next to the door. “Once I find solar panels, it will feel safer.”

I clicked the flashlight on with my free hand and aimed the light on the steps as we descended. It was scary. In the last six months, I’d learned to be afraid of the dark. No, not just afraid. Terrified. Infected hid too well in the dark.

My hand started to shake in Nav’s, and as soon as we reached the bottom, he picked me up and hugged me close. And I liked it. A lot. It had been so long since someone comforted me like that.

“Do you want me to hold you while you look?” he asked.

The adult in me knew she should say no. But that wasn’t what came out.

“Can you?” I asked instead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ARENA

Nav growled lightly and hugged me a little more firmly, showing he not only didn’t mind but really wanted to hold me. So I wrapped my legs around his waist and inched up on him to shine the light over his shoulder. What I saw shocked me.

Boxes and totes lined the walls of the basement. Most of the boxes had brand labels, and if those reflected what was inside, I would be eating like a queen for months.

“You moved all of this in one night?” I asked, amazed.

“Yes. There’s a lot more yet. The grocery store hasn’t been touched. I even found your favorite food.”

He turned me so the light shone on a box in the center of the room. It had a vacuum-packed pizza crust, a can of diced tomatoes, and a vacuum-sealed block of cheddar cheese. He’d actually found the ingredients to make pizza because I’d told him it was my favorite?

Trying to ignore the ache in my chest, I moved the light over the boxes again, noting vegetables and other foods I’d never seen him eat. In fact, since we’d been together, I hadn’t seen him eat anything but canned meat. Not chocolate. Not chips. Nothing. He never even glanced at them when I ate them. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He had paid attention to the chocolate bar, but only to feed it to me.

Of all the boxes he’d brought back, only a few contained meat. I realized these supplies weren’t for him. They were for me.

What man had ever gone through so much effort for me before? None. Ever.