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“You don’t have to understand me,” I say. “Everything, all in good time.”
I leave her there and go inside to wash my face up in my bathroom. My shirt is damp with sweat despite the cold and I strip it off. From outside, I can hear Angel nickering and thundering in her paddock. Big Dog lays by the gate, always at her side.
I go to the window, wiping my hands and forearms on a towel. Keira stands at the center and Angel trots in a circle, the lead attached to her halter.
She’s making progress.
They both are.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KEIRA
I’ve saved this diary for years hoping for something significant enough to happen that I can write in it. Yesterday morning, I was sitting in the window watching the smoke rise from the chimneys where Gerard’s staff live. It was cold enough that bits of frost covered the edges of the window glass. There was a redbird in the tree. I could hear laughter from the barn.
Maybe what I need isn’t a cataclysmic event. I’ve had enough of those in my life. Maybe I’ve been waiting for life to slow down so I can see it well enough to put it on this page.
He’s going to read this. That makes me uncomfortable, but I promised to be honest. The truth is, I haven’t had a moment to slow down since I was a child. Every day was just another notch in the tumbling of seasons around the calendar.
I’m safe here, for however long I stay or he chooses to keep me. So far the sex has been a small price to pay for my protection. He’s gentle when he chooses to be and when he doesn’t, it’s the sweetest storm.
It scares me, but not the way Clint scared me. I’ve never met a man who lives with the same intensity as Gerard. He’s a mountain, a force of nature. And if he’s reading this right now,that’s not always a good thing—so don’t let it get to your head, sir.
I think what surprises me most about this arrangement isn’t the sex or the man, it’s that I haven’t wanted to leave Sovereign Mountain once since I came here.
I’ve never been safe before. I could get used to this.
I just wish I knew what happens next.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KEIRA
The days inch by at a snail’s pace. Maybe time is slow because I’m so used to being busy. Other than working with Angel, my only tasks are to wear the clothes he picks out for me and fuck him at night.
I’m not keeping track of the days as they inch by. My phone sits unused in my dresser drawer. There’s hardly any signal at Sovereign Mountain and I have no one to text or call. The internet works almost never. The realization that I just disappeared from the world is sobering. I had friends in school, but after my father died and I dropped out to live with the Garrisons, they’d faded into the distance.
Gerard sleeps next to me, but he hasn’t fucked me since he ate me until I came. Sometimes he’ll push his fingers into my panties and stroke my pussy absently. At night, I wake and he’s got his palm over it. Holding the heat of my sex in his hand.
During the day, he works outside the house. Occasionally he has to do something in his office that’s just off the bedroom, but he hasn’t invited me in, so I don’t ask.
I start to see the patterns of Sovereign Mountain. He runs the whole thing, the sun rises and sets with him. Westin is hisright hand and advisor. They always confer in the driveway in the early morning. Both standing in the cold in their flannels and jackets, steam rising from their lips. Billowing out beneath the brims of their hats. Then they part ways and the ranch runs smoothly for another day.
I hold up my end of the bargain. I obey him, I say yes sir and no sir. Shyly, I start offering him sex or oral at the end of the day. He praises me, but he doesn’t fuck me as often as I anticipated he would.
What are we waiting for?
Then, all at once, the structures of our dynamic come into focus. I’m in the bedroom, late one night, under the covers with a book I pulled from the shelf downstairs. It’s a war memoir. Maybe it’s too heavy for before bed, but it pulls me in even though I don’t usually read nonfiction. I’m heavy eyed when I finally set it aside and reach for my cup of water.
The door opens and Gerard enters. He locks it, as he always does.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s Sunday night,” he says.
At first, I’m not sure what that means. Then it floods back to me and my cheeks explode with heat. There’s no sound but the gas fireplace in the corner. The great bull skull towers over us both. The air between us crackles as we stare at each other across our bed.
His bed. Not mine, I’m still a guest here.
