My valley. My river. Me.
Gemma.
I spun to look behind me, my heart unwilling to beat in fear that she’d been a mirage this whole time. That I’d made up the past few weeks. That I didn’t have anyone to call my own.
But she was there.
Watching me warily, her forehead pinched and teeth chewing on her bottom lip. “What? What happened?” She balled her hands as if she didn’t want to ask but felt like it was her duty after nursing me through the worst. “Are you...are you okay?”
Was I okay?
I don’t know.
What just happened?
I was used to my mind being riddled with barricades and embargos so memories couldn’t suck me down, but I’d never been so vacant before. Never forgot the fundamental pieces of my life.
It’s over.
You’re fine.
Don’t let her know.
Grunting, I cocked one shoulder as arrogantly as I could. “Of course, I’m okay. It’s a beautiful day and I’m with a beautiful girl.”
“Beautiful prisoner, don’t you mean?” she muttered.
“Beautiful regardless of ugliness between us.”
She sucked in a breath.
I didn’t like how I felt...tight and hot and needy. And I definitely didn’t like the words that’d spilled uncontrolled out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say such things. I hadn’t meant to have a blackout while still awake. I hadn’t meant to be this screwed up, fucked up, and totally floundering for help.
“Get naked,” I snapped. With our eyes locked, I reached behind my neck for my T-shirt and yanked it over my head. “Now.”
Her eyes trailed over my chest despite her annoyance. “Is this a striptease? Do you expect me to swoon at your feet?”
I smiled thinly, unbuttoning my jeans and shoving the zipper down. “You saying my body could drive you to swoon?” I kicked away the denim and, in the same move, shoved my black boxer briefs down my legs to join them on the pile.
She choked as her eyes fell on my naked cock. My very hard, very eager cock. “So this is where you plan to force me—”
“I told you, I have more important things to worry about.” Of course, if she showed a minuscule amount of interest in having me, I’d pounce on her and have her on her knees before she’d even said my name. The name she still hadn’t earned the right to use.
Do you want me like I want you, Gem?
I paused, searching her face for any sign that, beneath her exhausted fury, she was as wet as I was hard. The moment stretched, then ended. I nodded with disappointment, slowly growing black inside.
How long would I let her deny me? How soon would I snap and take her anyway? How would I cope knowing she’d hate me even more when I finally did? Did she think living with me came for free? She was only alive because I found her irresistibly attractive, conveniently arriving at a time when my body was making my life a living hell.
She’d been the pawn in which to bypass all the dirty shit inside my head. She could touch me; I could not. She could make me climax; I would never give myself that pleasure.
That was all I wanted from her, regardless of all the messy new thoughts and strangeness inside me. The moment my heart got in the way of my orgasms, then we had a whole other disaster to deal with.
“Undress,” I barked.
She bared her teeth. “No.”
“Fine.” I was in too much pain for another argument. Heading straight to the river, I waded in and exhaled heavily. God, it’d been too long since my last swim. The water never failed to calm me, clean me, and give me a sense of clarity from the tar inside my mind.
“Hey, wait!” She scrambled along the shore, hopping toward the edge as I waded deeper, the chain pulling her with me.
“You’re the one who wanted to stay fully dressed.” I ducked under, letting the world go quiet as water lapped around me. It blocked the buzzing in my ears, and it ran through my dirty hair. It fondled my cock, mimicking Gemma’s wetness without the heat.
A splash sounded beside me, the ripples of displacement rocking me beneath the surface. I kicked off the bottom and popped back up, blinking away droplets as my gaze latched onto a drowned girl.
A hazel-eyed, golden-haired, entirely vexing and insanely beautiful girl.
“You bastard.” She splashed and shoved hair from her face, her beigey shirt billowing around her. “You could’ve said something.”
“I told you to undress.”
“I thought you wanted—”
“I want to fix the hydro generator.” I arched my chin at the large manmade structure in the middle of the rapids. A concrete box that’d been built by whoever Storymaker had enlisted to create Fables. “It ferries the current through smaller channels, pouring over a turbine that constantly turns, generating friction which causes electricity.”