The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game 3)

They’d cross that line they’d always stood on either side of. That line had a good reason to be there. It had protected his heart when she chose Cal. It had cemented it when she broke with Cal and chose to run away, hide out for six months with not a word. And when she came home and elected to fall back into the relationship they’d always had. That was the third time his hopes died. He didn’t know if he could do this and hold the line and he needed the line to know who he was without her.

And he was destined to be without her, because none of this was real.

He got out of the shower and put his filthy jeans on. She understood before he even spoke. Because she knew him to the cartilage of his joints and back.

She put her arms around him and pressed her face to his steaming chest. She could feel how much he wanted her. “You think this will change us,” she said.

He took a handful of her hair. “How can it not?”

“Everything changes.”

“We’ve been sidekicks all our lives.” She would know how much he’d always wanted her. “You never asked for anything more. Even when you were free to.”

“I am now.”

It wasn’t enough for him. Not near enough to be her vacation fling. “That’s this place.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Where we went tonight, it was somehow predictable and yet I never expected it to happen. I want it to happen, Zeke, you and me. I think we could be amazing, even if it’s temporary.”

He knew that amazing already, it sang in his hands as they held her, in the nerve endings of his spine as he bent to create a shelter for her from his body. But temporary was a life sentence of loss.

“You’re not ready,” she said, looking up at him. There was no trace of disappointment, no anger or fire in her. He’d dripped all over her. He’d put the fire out.

“Okay,” she pulled on his neck till he rested his forehead on hers. “We can park this. For tonight. For forever if you need. Maybe it’s the smart thing to do.” She groaned, her hands carving down his back to spread over his ass. “Tell me it’s smart to give this up.”

“We’re working,” he said, because that was what he had. Just being so near her again was messing with his internal logic, shutting down all the reasons why being with her was a bad idea.

She kissed his chest and then pushed away. Turning her back to deal with her hair. “For the record, I wanted everything we did and more. I don’t know how much of that to attribute to this place and how much it’s always been there.” There, that was the problem; that was the ache in his body. “Are you going to be weird with me?”

He spied the hair tie on the floor and retrieved it, holding it out to her. He needed to match her honesty. “Yeah, I’ll probably be weird with you. Waited my whole adult life to kiss you again, Aurora Rae. For the record, I wanted everything with you, but I think it is this place that’s changed things between us and we need to focus on why we’re here. If we get carried away, we could lose what we have.”

She reached for the tie. It took all his strength not to fold her hand into his. He would be weird with her because he’d crossed the line and it would take a while to cross back and be in the place where he could touch her casually again and not want to come out of his skin.

“I’ll go first,” she said, putting her hair back in a tail. “I’ll talk to Cadence. We need to plan what we do at the bonding ceremony.”

He let her go. It took a good half hour to pull himself together, thinking about the things he might’ve done and said differently. Replay the sounds she made, how she’d moved in his arms, the way she’d looked at him as if he was all she ever needed. Aroused, frustrated, he finally stirred himself to leave, after prying a floorboard lose and stashing the phone.

His cabin was lousy with snoring. He was queasy with hunger and tired beyond reasoning, but he slept fitfully. The fantasy of Rory’s intimate touch had a reality in his dreams now and it was enough to keep waking him. By the time the sun’s rays lit the cabin, he was unable to pretend he could rest without seeing her and not prepared to think through the why of it.

It was as necessary, as involuntary, as blinking.

Rory’s step faltered when she saw the tree he’d stashed on the porch as she slipped out the door of her cabin in her skins for a run. He tensed. A wave of nausea hit his gut that had less to do with hunger than the sight of her frowning at him. This was a dumb move. He was putting himself in harm’s way and doing it without regard for the consequences.

And she was the one thing in his life he’d never taken risks with. Because sure as seconds ticked by she’d break him.

“Not at all weird,” she said, standing on the porch steps looking down at him where he sat, while she tossed an apple in her hand.

Brazen it out. It’s all you’ve got, asshole. “What? It’s just a run. We’ve done this before.”

“You look awful. Did you sleep at all?”

“I slept.” The fantasy Rory in his dreams had nothing on the real life one who was irritated with him now.

She shook her head and tossed him the apple. “If you can’t keep up, I’m leaving you behind.”

Story of his life with her. “I can keep up.” Living on the edge. He took a bite of the apple, its acid flooding his mouth and throat and momentarily making him feel like puking.

She came down the steps and the dark slashes under her eyes were evidence. “You didn’t sleep,” he said.