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"I've been here for six years," I tell her.
"Six years and you've never found a way out?" she gasps.
"Nope. God knows I tried, but that portal, it was a one-way ticket."
She starts crying, hard. Crying like I've never seen before, weeping really.
"Hey," I say. "You'll call attention to yourself if you do this out here."
"You're telling me I can't cry?"
"I'm not telling you nothing. I'm just warning you. This isn't a good area, it's not safe. Those tigers like to stalk here on their way to their watering hole half a mile south."
"What am I supposed to do?" she asks. “Where am I supposed to go? There's no other people? None?"
"Just me."
"Oh my God," she cries, her shoulders shaking. "I don't even have hiking boots."
"I'll carry you if you want."
"Carry me?" she asks.
I smile. "Yeah. I can carry you over the threshold because honey, I've been waiting a long ass time for a wife."
3
Rosalie
“Carry me over the threshold? Are you crazy?” I panic, wondering what this man intends to do with me.
He snorts. “I’ve been here a long time, wishing I had a wife. And here you are. The answer to my goddamn prayers.”
I shake my head, outraged at this hulk of a man’s lack of propriety. He thinks I’m going to be his wife?
I don’t think he’s showered in… well, years. Not to mention he has a feral look about him. I mean, the blood of a tiger is pooling at his bare feet and he doesn’t even seem to notice.
Or maybe he does, he just doesn’t care anymore.
Six years in this place, alone?
I feel dizzy all over again and suddenly I’m not enraged, I’m faint. My knees buckle and I see stars, thinking of my sister Samantha. My mom and my dad and… oh God. I don’t need to feel claustrophobic to start hyperventilating – being here in this wide-open space with this stranger is enough.
“Hey, don’t go fainting on me again,” Rock says, stepping closer.
I tense, not wanting him to touch me. He is a stranger who already propositioned me. Who does he think he is?
“Water,” I gasp as I sit back on my tush. Rock hands me a metal bottle, filled with cool water. I gulp it down, then look at the chipped black paint on the bottle. “Where did you get this if this is the Paleolithic Age?”
“Glad you’re just dehydrated. The sun here will do that to you pretty damn fast. I’ll answer your questions, but not here. Back at the cave where it’s safer. We gotta get this fresh meat home.”
“Home?” My chin quivers, my lips tremble. I really time traveled. I am really in a prehistoric place. And there is no one but this man to help me.
“It’s only a quarter mile away, but far from this clearing.” He takes the water bottle, shoving it in his pouch. “Come on, time to move.” He reaches for my hand and I let him take it as he pulls me to stand. He hardly twitches a muscle to lift me. Standing directly in front of him, I get a sense of his size. He is huge, a solid rock.
“I’m Rosalie,” I tell him as he stalks over to the tiger.
His eyes are fixed on the tiger, but he speaks to me. “Pretty name for a pretty woman.”
I scoff. What kind of line is that?
“Good thing he’s small. Only two hundred pounds.”
My eyes widen. Only? Rock braces his footing as he lifts the hulk of a beast up over his head. Grunting as he shifts the weight over his shoulder, blood smears his chest as the tiger’s saber teeth point to the sky menacingly.
“We gotta move, fast,” he tells me. “We don’t want a trail of blood leading more beasts to our doorstep.
“Doorstep? I thought you lived in a cave.”
Rock looks over at me. “Cute and funny? And a good listener. Lucky me.”
My cheeks heat up at his compliment even though I know it doesn’t mean much. I am the only woman this man has seen in years. I know the bar is pretty low. Still, I admit to liking the view. A massive man who is ripped, with a beast he killed over his shoulders, half naked, in the jungle.
“You staring at me?” he asks as we walk side by side, me doing my best to keep his pace.
“Um, err, uh—”
He chuckles. “Good. I want you to look me over. I’m yours now.”
I laugh, tight. “Yours? We just met.”
“I told you I wanted a wife, and now you’re here.”
I shake my head as we cut through the jungle, going down a small hill. It smells so fresh, so earthy. “Sounds like you want sex, not a wife. There is a difference, you know.”
He doesn’t say anything, just chuckles to himself and I roll my eyes, annoyed at his masculinity. Does he really think just because he is seriously sexy I’ll want to jump into bed with him?
