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He touches my face, trailing his fingers down it in the way he does when he wants to learn my expression, and then kisses me, slow and deliberate. His cock, still inside me, jumps.
“You know,” he says, “it’s moments like this where I think I’ll be happy if we never make it home.”
I press my forehead to his and close my eyes. I know exactly how he feels.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Laney
I’M DEEP IN SLEEP WHENa loud creak comes from the porch.
I bolt upright, clutching the thin blanket around my body. I have no idea what time it is, but it’s still dark. The nights are cooler now, but the fire continues to smolder in the wood stove, red and orange embers illuminating the room enough to see, but only just.
The men are all still asleep. Reed is lying on his back and is snoring lightly. Cade is on his side, one arm hanging off the edge of the sofa. Darius is on his front, his hair covering his face.
The creak comes again, and adrenaline shoots through my veins. There’s someone out there, and it’s definitely not one of the guys.
I smack Reed’s hard shoulder with my balled fist and hiss, “Wake up. Someone’s here!”
He lets out a groan and his eyelids flutter open. “What?”
I shush him to keep his voice down, and he sits up.
“What’s wrong?” he whispers.
“Someone is—”
The noise comes again, and his head spins toward the door. “Shit.” He turns to the others. “Wake up. We’ve got company.”
Cade is instantly awake and on his feet, as though he’s been expecting this moment to come. Darius takes a moment longer to come around, but in a matter of seconds, we’re all awake and focused on whatever is going on outside.
As well as the creaking floorboards, there’s another sound, a heavy shuffling, someone moving slowly and laboriously.Outside the cabin windows, there’s only darkness. There’s no light from the moon tonight, a blanket of cloud cover blocking both that and any starlight.
If we try to use any light to look outside, we’ll alert whoever is out there to our presence. Right now, they might not have any clue that any one is inside the cabin.
I try to remember what we might have left out on the porch—what evidence of our presence is out there. If someone knows this property, subtle changes such as the positioning of the chair will be enough to make them realize they’re not alone.
Who would come out here in the middle of the night?
There’s only one real explanation, and that’s to do with the presence of the guns and the body in the roof space. Whoever left them there must be back for them. I can’t imagine how far they must have had to travel in order to reach the cabin. Have they come via the river, as I’d suspected? If so, it means they have a boat, and if we can get it to, we’ll be able to get to safety.
A loud scraping comes from the log walls, and I shoot a look at Reed.
“I don’t think that’s a person,” he says, keeping his voice low.
I furrow my brow, not understanding what he means. The shuffling thump comes again.
Understanding dawns in Cade’s eyes. “It’s a bear.”
Reed nods.
My mouth drops open. “A bear? Oh, my God.” I’m not one hundred percent sure if this is good news or not. While I’m glad it’s not a group of hardened criminal gunrunners, a hungry bear could prove just as deadly. “Will it be able to get in?”
“I hope not,” Reed replies, still keeping his voice low, “but if it presses against the windows hard enough, it’ll break the glass.”
“It must have been attracted here by the rabbit jerky,” Darius says. “Meat is hanging in the woodshed to dry.”
“I hope it takes it and leaves again,” I hiss.
