I nod, giving her that one. She’s right. All I know is the barest glimpse of what my spies reported and the tiniest threads I’d picked up in passing from Valentina. “So tell me then. What do I need to know about you?”
6
ROSE
The snow falls through the night and into the morning. I repeatedly woke overnight and settled myself back to sleep, somehow feeling safer than I’d ever felt before. As if the snow could blanket my sins, my past, my pain. I glance at the clock, checking the time, trying to decide if I should go down to grab food or if I’ll run into Kai or not. It’s not that I want to avoid him, just that I’d rather not see him and have everything come crashing back down around my shoulders. He’s a stark reminder of what I’ve been through. A perpetual trigger.
Peeling myself off the floor in front of the window, I huddle in the blanket I’d stolen from the bed and check the hallway. The coast seems clear, the lower level dark and silent.
I creep out into the hall, keeping watch, using the blanket to cover my bare legs, panties, and plain T-shirt I’d been sleeping in. It should be all right. I only want to grab something to eat and scurry back up to my room.
When I reach the kitchen, a slight whooshing sound filters in. Could it be the snow falling off the roof? I crane my neck, trying to catch the location, then creep out of the kitchen to another hallway. The second I find the source of the noise, I freeze. Kai is on the ground doing push-ups in barely-there shorts and no shirt. The music from his earbuds is so loud I can hear it blasting from the doorway. He’s facing the opposite wall, so I have the perfect view of the slope of his back.
Since he seems to be in his own little world, I leave him to it, heading back to the kitchen. I don’t make it more than a few steps before something snags my blanket, dragging it off my shoulders, and I’m pressed belly first into the icy wall.
I assess in stages. The hard hot body along my back, the bare skin of his muscular thighs on my ass, then the iron grip of the hands around my wrists, keeping me pinned to the wall.
Panic rises in my chest. A wave of it threatens to choke me, forcing me to gag on empty air.
“Shhhh…” a voice whispers in my ear. Just like that, I’m back in the dark, another man against me, another man holding me down, another man whispering to be quiet.
My entire body trembles in his hold so violently he has to release some of the tension on my wrists. The opportunity is the only option. I snap my hand out of his grip and slam my fist back into the side of his face.
He hisses out a breath and then recaptures my hand easily, pinning me even tighter now so that I feel every curve of his body against my back. “Be quiet. I thought I heard something.”
I’m still trembling, my nerves vibrating, every part of me poised to run the second I can get free, but I’m quiet. As if some part of my mind knows he won’t hurt me, not deliberately. Not maliciously.
“Do you hear that?” He breathes against my ear. It shoots another round of shivers through my body, and inside, I roil at both the pleasure and the terror in it.
“I can’t hear anything right now,” I grit out, hoping he doesn’t make me explain that the sound of my heart blasting in my ears is all I can manage.
“Breathe and focus,” he whispers. “Listen.”
I try to wiggle out from his hold again, but it just makes him press me tighter, lining our bodies up more as he squats a bit to align our curves. I’m seconds away from screaming, not because of him, but from all the skin-on-skin contact. He’s slightly sweaty wherever he touches me, and some deep part of me wants to lick the salt from his skin just for a second to see what he tastes like.
Another wave of nausea rolls through me, and the shaking starts again.
His hands ease ever so softly off mine, and I twist them down to tuck them against my chest. “Easy, easy,” he whispers like I’m some feral animal ready to snap at the slightest provocation.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice petulant even to myself. “What is so important that you need to accost me and scare the shit out of me?”
He tucks his chin into the crook of my neck, his breath fanning down into my cleavage on full display. “It’s my job to keep you safe. If something happens to you, Valentina and Adrian will skin me alive and then put me back on guard duty.”
Finally, his words sink in, and a different kind of panic takes hold. “You think someone is out there? For us?”
I stare at the gravelly pattern on the wall, folding my hands, making myself a smaller target. “What do we do?” I whisper.
A soft laugh brushes along my neck, raising goose bumps. “It was probably just an animal, but I’ll go change and check it out.”
Torn by the idea of both him touching me and leaving me, I flop my mouth open a few times, then clamp it shut again. “What should I do?”
Carefully, he unfolds from around my body, still standing close but staring out the limitless windows for any kind of disturbance. All I see is the endless snowy expanse. But I’m not Kai, and ever since we first met, I’ve known he sees more than most.
He squints out the windows, his voice as distant as those mountain ranges beyond. “Get dressed, get your breakfast. I’ll be back to check on you in a moment.”
When he shifts around me, I snatch the blanket and keep my eyes on him until he disappears up the stairs. I assume he’s getting dressed, which I should be doing, too.
Once he’s out of sight, and I shield my body with the blanket neck to feet, I sneak up the stairs and dart into my own room.