Page 21
I freeze, my weight settling back on my heels. The tension bleeds out a second later when Wren steps into the amber glow of the string lights. She’s wearing a faded oversized flannel, her hands tucked into the front pockets of her jeans.
She stops a few feet away, leaving a wide, respectful distance between us. Her warm brown eyes flick over my leather costume, taking in my rigid posture without a shred of judgment.
“Rowe and Logan are doing the late feed for the animals.” She rocks back on her heels, a soft, disarming smile curving her mouth. “Caesar gets cranky if he eats past nine, so they’ll be tied up down there for a while.”
I drop my hand from my chest and smooth the front of my vest. I wait for the point.
“I figured you might want to unwind after the first show.” She pulls one hand from her pocket, gesturing loosely over her shoulder. “I have cold beer in the trailer. If you want some company.”
My immediate instinct is the deadbolt. Retreat, lock the door, face the entrance, and ignore the rest of the world. I don’t make friends. Attachments are liabilities. They give the universe something else to steal from you.
I look at Wren. She radiates a steady, anchoring calm. She doesn’t push. She doesn’t offer the suffocating pity I’ve seen in the eyes of every clinic nurse and social worker I’ve ever encountered. She simply offers a beer.
The silence stretches. The throbbing between my legs demands attention, but the sudden, sharp craving for an hour of normalcy fights it. I want to sit in a room with another woman and pretend my brain isn’t currently tearing itself apart over a knife thrower’s erection.
I drop my shoulders.
“Lead the way.”
Wren’s smile widens a fraction. She turns, keeping her pace even, and I follow her past the generators and into the darker edge of the carnival grounds.
The interior of the trailer is significantly wider than my silver Airstream. Wood-paneled walls give it a cabin-like warmth, but my eyes immediately snag on the back half of the space.
A bed occupies the entire rear section. It spans wall to wall, an enormous expanse of thick quilts and soft pillows.
Heat rushes straight up my neck. I force my gaze away from the mattress, my posture rigid as I take a seat at the small dinette table. I fold my hands in my lap and pick at a loose edge of my thumb cuticle, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the faux-granite tabletop.
The fridge seal pops open. Glass clinks. Wren sets a sweating brown bottle in front of me, taking the bench seat across the narrow table.
I reach for the beer, my gaze drifting past her shoulder. Leaning against the far wall is a thick, scarred slab of wood. The surface is splintered, marked with the unmistakable gouges of flying steel. A throwing board. But my eyes catch on a modification right in the center. A circular hole, about waist-high, cut straight through the thick wood. The edges are sanded smooth. Perfect. Deliberate.
Wren tracks my line of sight. Her cheeks flush a deep, warm crimson. She traces the lip of her beer bottle.
“Rowe grew up with a lot of abuse.” Her voice is quiet, steady over the hum of the trailer’s generator. “A man. He did things that left Rowe unable to handle physical contact. For a long time, no one could touch him at all. Just Logan, briefly, when necessary.”
I stare at the board, the sanded circle, the implications locking together in my brain.
“Him letting me touch him is a recent development. The transition has been… complicated.” She smiles, a small, private curve of her mouth. “Cole helped him build that out of an old target board.”
Cole.
Cole took a piece of his own act, cut a hole in it, and sanded down the edges so his brother could experience sexual pleasure without the panic of skin-to-skin contact. The raw, unfiltered intimacy of that act of brotherhood hits me like a physical blow.
A fresh wave of heat floods my face, much hotter this time. My stomach tightens, an involuntary clench of arousal mixed with utter bewilderment. I am sitting in a stranger’s trailer, blushing like a teenager over a man I haven’t even kissed.
The thought stalls my breathing. Do I want him to kiss me?
Yes.
The answer is instantaneous and terrifying. I want his hands on me. I want the chaos he carries to swallow the silence I live in.
“Sloane.”
I snap my attention back to Wren. She leans forward, her forearms resting on the table.
“If you ever need to unload anything, I’m a good listener.”
My muscles lock. The instinct to deflect rises, thick and acidic in the back of my throat. I swallow hard. The cartilage in my throat clicks in the quiet space. I grip the neck of my beer bottle, lift it, and take a long, punishing swallow. The cold liquid hits my empty stomach, pooling there.
