Wanderlust

He reached down and covered my nose, pinching gently.

“We’re going to do this,” he whispered, though I wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

Tears streamed from my eyes and fell down the sides of my face. He was blocking all my air, with his cock, with his fingers, but the weirdest part of all was that my fingers never stopped.

Everything grew hazy and dreamlike, like the whole world going out of focus except for the sharp and blinding pleasure of my sex. I might have screamed around his cock as I came, shuddering and begging and feeling more than I had ever thought possible.

I was reborn in that moment, burst into flames like a phoenix and floating in pieces to the ground. There was scorching pain and hope for a future unknown. I felt his cock pulse in my mouth, felt the seed flow down my throat, filling me up and keeping me warm—giving me sustenance to rise up from the ashes.

He released me, pulling his erect cock from my mouth and curving his body around mine as if to protect me, but from what? From him, came the answer deep inside me. Tears slipped down my cheeks—no longer mine. His.

“Your story,” he said hoarsely. “The book got it wrong.”

“What?” My tongue was heavy in my mouth, half-drugged on euphoria.

“It’s an old Native American legend but the explorers who came through changed it to make the natives seem more barbaric.”

I tensed. He had known the story all along? It made me wonder what else he’d kept quiet about. His breath puffed against my neck where his face was buried.

Dread filled me. “So what really happened?”

He murmured the words so rapidly. They washed over me like rushing water.

“She wasn’t running away from being a sacrifice, she was going off to kill herself. That’s the girl you identified with, that you saw as yourself. She was going away to die.”

Pain clenched my heart. It didn’t matter, some story that had been told and retold hundreds of years ago. It had nothing to do with me and yet everything. She’d had the courage to run away, and that had bolstered me to do the same on my birthday weeks ago.

The truth was she’d given up. Whatever had happened in her life had been too heavy, and she’d sought the end over a waterfall. It made me wonder if I should have done the same.

It made me wonder if I already had.

How did he even know this story? He’d claimed not to. Or had he? I asked if he knew it, and he’d asked why he would.

Not a denial.

He presented himself as a crude, cold trucker, and it wasn’t that hard to believe. But sometimes, a certain light would shine in his eyes, something intelligent and burning bright, and I was convinced he was faking it. There was nothing to say a trucker couldn’t also be cunning, but in those moments, I became convinced that he was dumbing himself down to play the part.

The bigger question was why. Why did he feel the need to live this life, to be this man? What invisible shackles were on his wrists and ankles?

I swallowed. “The rest of the story was the same?”

“Almost. There are some variations on the love story, but in every Native American version, the girl returns to her people. She conveys the message of the god, and so her people are saved.”

Hot tears sprang to my eyes. “And the god is alone.”

His arms tightened around me.

“Yes.”

I couldn’t breathe within his embrace, but I wanted it anyway. Too hot, too sweaty, but I wanted his heat. I was a caterpillar, my many limbs held tight to my body, wrapped up in a cocoon. He paved the way, eased me from a small and ugly life to a beautiful one. The transition had been painful at times, but never more than it would be to leave him. But that was the path of a butterfly—to fly away from the one who had made her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Only three people are known to have lived going over the falls without a safety device.

After a time, Hunter moved off me. I woke staring up at the knotted oak ceiling of the basement. Anger welled up in me, making my breath come shorter. Hunter sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head hanging low.

“You bastard,” I said, breathing hard.