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“We’re back to it being your fault. I like where this conversation is going.”
“Don’t push it, Trinity.”
I give him a sharp look. Something about the way he says don’t push it makes me want to push it. I have never been the type to listen to anyone’s advice or do what I’m told. Augustine can tell, but he doesn’t let me walk all over him and I kinda like it.
“Fine. I won’t push it. But I want to lie down.”
“No,” Augustine says, blocking the bathroom door with his giant frame. My stomach does another one of those nervous flips. Again, I have no clue what he wants or why he wants it. I just know that I’m so much smaller than him and running away from him won’t work. I sold my body to this man… I have to find a way to live with him.
“I want to tell you about my past. But on one condition. Once you hear the truth… I need to know your honest opinion on me and our relationship. If we have a chance at a real marriage out of this arrangement or if we don’t.”
He’s giving me a choice and more than that, he’s giving me what I want – answers. Maybe if I had those answers, I wouldn’t have to run away. Then again, maybe once Augustine gives me those answers, I’ll learn that he’s a complete monster.
“I want the truth.”
“So do I,” he says. “Despite what you might think, I take relationships and marriage very seriously.”
“Seriously enough to have two of them,” I respond a little too quickly.
Augustine gives me a sharp look but he allows me my sass. He might punish me for it later with another spanking, but I try not to dwell on that.
Instead of engaging in another verbal sparring match with me, Augustine continues with his story.
“My wife and son died in a plane crash. I was the pilot and somehow, even if it was all my fault,pilot error,I survived. Before I moved out here, I owned a company that made a microchip with a lower environmental impact than any other chip on the market. I was high on life and material things despite growing up in a small town. But I lost everything I actually gave a fuck about because I was such a show off. I spent money on things I didn’t need and lost what really mattered.”
It’s not what I expected. I obviously guessed Augustine was rich, but the type of money you would have from making a new type of microchip…
Then he precedes that crazy revelation with a crazier one. A sad revelation that explains the dark look behind the man’s eyes. I feel horrible for calling him a killer.
“It was an accident,” he says, his voice becoming stiff. “Freak hailstorm. I tried to land in a field out in Idaho but I’d never experienced anything like it before. I panicked…I killed my son.”
I can’t help myself. I run to him and throw my arms around Augustine. It’s hurt that I can’t even imagine and as I throw my arms around him, I feel his chest shudder. He doesn’t cry, but it’s like touching him releases some deep pain he was holding in. He throws his arms around me and holds me tightly.
“My wife wanted a divorce. I guess I thought impressing her with my money could fix things with us. For years we’d been going through the motions. I mourned her too but we didn’t have a future. Trevor should have had one.”
I can’t imagine that kind of pain. My heart hurts for Augustine, and I feel like an asshole for some of the things I said to him. Right now, despite my earlier thirst for revenge and my stronger thirst for escape, all I want is to make Augustine feel better. It’s the first time I feel like a wife to him, even if our marriage is the most bizarre relationship I’ve ever been in.
I rake my fingers through his hair as I hold him close to me. He smells like pine needles and wilderness. Augustine lets me hold him and for a second, I feel the softness beneath the tough mountain man’s exterior.
“It was an accident,” I whisper. “Bad things happen sometimes and there’s nothing you can do.”
Augustine holds me tighter. The warmth spreads through me and my body feels all the ways I misjudged this man. I would be an angry, grumpy drunkard too if something like that happened to me.
“I can’t lose someone I love like that again,” he says and my heart breaks. He has walls up so high because of what he’s lost. I get that. Hell, I’ve lost a lot too.
“Then it’s a good thing you don’t love me,” I answer, trying to cheer him up with a joke, even if I can’t help sounding sad as I say it. I know I can’t expect Augustine to love me, but it did kinda hit me how rough it wouldreallybe to live a life without love. Forever. I don’t know if Augustine shares my fears. Hell, I don’t know anything about him except he’s a crazy Alaskan mountain man with a mean dick and a firm hand.
Augustine chuckles. “Not yet. But something tells me… if you gave me a chance… we could be happy.”
My heart races. I want to kiss him, but I stop myself because I want to know how far he’s willing to let this go. Will his past stop him from loving me?
“Why do you think that?” I ask him, trying to hide that I’m worried about the answer.
“Because we’re both crazy enough to use that damn website to find someone. I bet that takes a special kind of crazy,” he says, grinning a bit. Augustine has a nice smile. He’s so damn handsome.
He doesn’t pull away from me right away after saying that. I don’t either because I definitely agree. We’re both crazy, we have crazy chemistry, and a moose brought us back together. That has to mean something. It’s not every day you run up on a moose and butcher it with a fine ass man at your side. The experience was traumatizing as fuck, but I weirdly feel closer to him and way less afraid of the dogs.
I don’t know if I want to stay, but I technically don’t have a choice. I can let the contract choose for me, and feel better about wanting to stay with a crazy white man who spanked my ass until it turned purple during our first night together. My ass still stings. All my time in the cold didn’t make the soreness disappear.
