Page 114 of Lured By Shadows

“Oh, honey, that was such an off-chance thing,” she said, waving it away like a funny anecdote instead of a near-death experience. “Who could’ve known that cub would wander onto the trail? That mama bear was just being protective.”

“Right… comforting,” I muttered, pulling in a slow breath as my stomach rolled. “We nearly died, Ma.”

My thoughts drifted back to last night, the balcony railing nudging at the edges of my mind and pulling me out of the moment.

“Crap, Ma. I totally forgot to mention it, but something happened to the balcony last night.”

She arched a brow, so I grabbed her arm and dragged her upstairs to see it. To my surprise, when I pulled the curtains open, I was met with a perfectly polished railing.

Not a crack out of place.

“So what happened?” she asked, jutting her hip out, and I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.

Like mother, like daughter.

But that wasn’t the point. Not when I stood there staring at a railing that looked untouched and flawless, like it had never known a single flaw, even though I could’ve sworn I’d seen it busted wide open, splintered clean through in a way that made no sense now in the daylight.

I narrowed my eyes into slits before letting out a breath. “I guess it’s nothing, Ma. Maybe I imagined it.”

Before she could brush it off, a sharp knock echoed through the house, crisp and unexpected. We both jumped, the sound still unfamiliar enough to catch us unprepared. We weren’t used to knocking. We were used to people barging in like they owned the place, like Amy used to, dragging an entire entourage behind her without warning.

“I’m still not used to people knocking,” my ma muttered, pressing a hand to her chest as she headed back downstairs.

When she opened the door, her expression shifted instantly, bright and practiced.

“Good morning, Culver. You’re a warm welcome.”

Culver stood framed by the morning light, composed, as if interrupting domestic normalcy were just another role he wore effortlessly. He nodded politely, his eyes flicking to me for half a second before returning to my ma.

“Thank you, Taylor,” he said smoothly. “You are ever beautiful today as well.”

I hovered awkwardly to the side, heat rising up my neck as my fingers lifted to my lips without permission, the memory of the kiss on his cheek replaying from the night before. Everything about it still lingered.

The warmth of being close to him. The way it followed me into the quiet of my room and into the restless press of my body against the mattress.

His name slipped from my lips as I chased the feeling. My body tightened around the empty ache he'd left behind.

And now, just watching him here, a fresh swallow caught in my throat as every small movement of his mouth carved itself deeper into my thoughts like it had every right to be there.

What was wrong with me?

It wasn’t like we hadn’t touched in ways that should’ve mattered more.

I’d felt his body pressed against mine. Felt him hard and insistent against me. My own hips had ground back without a single thought to stop myself, showing him exactly what I wanted in that moment.

Not to mention he’d made me cum with nothing but his hands on my breasts.

And yet here I was, the simple kiss on his cheek keeping me trapped in my thoughts, leaving me breathless like some dumb first crush that had snuck up on me.

I was floating on some pink, embarrassing cloud, internally squealing like he’d passed me a folded note in homeroom.

I was being foolish.

But God, it felt good to be foolish over Culver.

My ma waved her hand dismissively, cheeks flushing, and my eyes widened at her reaction to him. Not because she hadn’t reacted like that before, but because it had been so long since any man stepped into her space and pulled that kind of response out of her. Ever since things ended with Pa, she'd quietly closed herself off from that part of her life.

She threw herself into work and did things on her own terms. Over time, she built walls that kept everyone at arm's length.