Yours Completely (Reign 2)

It was a heady idea, and a sense of power washed over me.

When he was spent, he cupped my face and raised me to stand.

“Lana,” he whispered, his eyes searching mine.

“There’s nothing to say right now,” I whispered back and grabbed his wrists. His brows furrowed.

“Maybe not. But we’re not done.”

He pulled off my shirt, then my pants, kicked his shoes and jeans all the way off and lifted me up and walked me to the bed. Throwing the covers back while balancing me in one arm, he laid me down.

“What are you doing?” I asked, as he climbed in with me and pulled the blankets up to our shoulders.

“I told you, we’re not done.”

He pulled me close, those big arms wrapping around me. His warm chest pressed into my back and he hugged me tight. Though I was still in panties and a bra, he was naked, but made no move. He was still. Simply hugging me.

I squirmed a little because part of me wanted to get away. My mind was firing off random thoughts and emotions, and my body was slowly starting to tremble. Like I was chilled. But had no reason to be.

“Cal…” I squirmed, his grip didn’t waver.

“You’re going to crash from all the adrenaline,” he whispered into my ear. “It’s like coming down from a high, and it’s going to hurt. The anger and rage and fuel you had will start to burn out and you’ll feel…”

“Alone,” I said. Because the chills were getting worse. The magnitude of all the events tonight were weighing heavy. The blessed control and power I’d just felt was dwindling fast, leaving behind a sense of emptiness. My eyes hurt like they had been strained from holding back tears for days, maybe years.

“But you’re not alone. I’m right here,” Cal whispered.

I nodded and gave myself over to the crash that was taking over my body. With my cheek against his forearm, I gently shook, and a single tear slipped out.

Cal just held me, and I prayed it was enough to fight the bone-chilling emptiness that was seeping into my veins.

Chapter 12

Chirp

My eyes struggled to open. A weird beeping sound broke through my sleep, coaxing me to wake up. But it wasn’t my phone or my alarm.

Chirp.

I slowly opened my eyes. It almost sounded like a smoke detector. I sat up in bed and looked around. It was morning and I was alone. There was a large indent and ruffled sheets on the other side where Cal had been. For how long, I didn’t know. Did he leave right after I dozed off? Maybe he was still here, just in a different room?

A flare of hope rose.

Grabbing my robe, I got up and walked through the house. Cal was gone. The chirp, however, looked to be coming from the alarm system. I reset it, assuming it probably got messed up when Cal left this morning.

I sat on the couch and replayed last night. A string of emotions flooded and none of it was logical. First, it sucked being ditched. It also didn’t feel great to wo

nder if this was how Cal felt when I’d snuck out on him.

What was the hardest to process wasn’t last night, but how Cal had handled it. He had known, sensed, what I was going through. He also knew what I had needed and let me have it. Then knew how to take care of me after. The way he talked about crashing from that kind of emotional high made me think he must know what it felt like. The man chased after fires for a living, so yeah, pretty sure he knew what an adrenaline crash was.

It was still nice to have him stick around for however long he had. I’d felt such a wide array of random feelings, I don’t know what I would have done without him. It was becoming increasingly clear that how I handled things once, was not how I was handling them now. Timid, shy and afraid were not things I wanted to be. It made me cringe, thinking of how I was only a couple months ago when Brock had first moved back to town.

I refused to let him win or let him hurt anyone else.

A knock came at the door. I frowned and pulled the robe tighter as I looked through the peephole. It was Cal, holding up a bag of doughnuts in one hand and coffee in the other.

I smiled and opened the door.