The Heathen (Preacher Brothers 2)

I took a step back, telling myself this was wrong, inappropriate. I shouldn’t have a reaction to this man. But the more his stare penetrated me, the more I wondered what it would be like to run my fingers over his defined abdomen.

Would his muscles clench under my touch? Would he react? Reciprocate?

I found myself shaking my head at my inner thoughts. It didn’t matter what actually happened. I shouldn’t want anything further than helping him heal and hoping like hell that, at the end of this, he didn’t decide I was nothing but a complication.

Cullen

She’d left ten minutes ago, and still my body felt like it was on fire from her touch, from her very presence. I didn’t fucking like the way she made me feel, how she made my body react like this.

I pulled on the binds again, harder this time, the metal headboard banging against the wall in response. She wasn’t lying about those knots not going anywhere. I tipped my head back and looked at them, the intricate work telling me she knew what the hell she was doing.

I rested my head back and closed my eyes. I’d left my brothers in a pissy state, told them I was going to the cabin to clear my head. And because of that, they’d leave me alone. For days, weeks—hell, fucking months. They wouldn’t bother me, not until I contacted them.

Nobody knew I was here, and it wasn’t like I needed rescuing, but shit, had I ever thought I’d be the one at the mercy of someone else?

And my car…

Given the sound of the storm outside, there was no doubt it was already good and buried in snow. No one would fucking see my SUV for some time. I supposed that was a blessing though. It’s not like I needed any more attention than what I already had.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, remembering the feel of her fingers gripping the material of my shirt and pulling it away, the pads of those digits lightly skimming my skin. It felt like fire and ice all mixed into one. And it had taken every ounce of willpower and self-restraint not to get fucking hard in that moment.

And God, she’d smelled incredible, like clean linen, freshly laundered clothes. I didn’t know why that aroma had turned me on so much, but it had surrounded her like a cloak, making everything in me feel intoxicated, drugged. She was this aphrodisiac to me… the first one I’d ever experienced in my entire fucking life.

I stared at the closed bedroom door and curled my hands into tight fists. She might have thought she had made an unbreakable knot, but what she didn’t know was that my piece of shit father had taught me a lot of tricks. And those tricks meant pushing past the pain and using strength to overcome all the crap life threw at you.

And that’s exactly what I was going to do.

I looked at the bedside table, where she’d put the gun, where she’d forgotten about it when I’d caught her watching me, staring at my body.

And using all the strength I could muster, I wrapped my hands around a metal bar of the headboard and pulled until I felt it start to bend to my will. The pain of the rope digging into my skin made me stronger. I felt the skin break around my wrists from the force of my actions and blood start to slide down my forearms.

And all the while, I stared at that bedroom door, about to break free of these fucking bounds and finish this once and for all.

Chapter Ten

Kimber

“Shit,” I cursed as the plate I’d gotten out of the cupboard fell to the floor and shattered. My mind was muddled, my thoughts on Cullen.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to feel.

I bent down and started picking up the shards, feeling my brows knit, as everything was so damn confusing. The weather was raging outside, even worse than it had been just an hour ago.

Trapped in here with a man who wanted to kill me.

I stood and tossed the broken shards in the trash then looked at the counter, where the ham and lettuce, tomato and cheese sat. I’d been making him something to eat, trying to get my mind off… everything.

I braced my hands on the edge of the island in the center of the kitchen, thinking about Cullen, the man I currently had restrained to my headboard. God, what was wrong with me? There was a difference between healing and helping someone, and keeping them against their will. It was very clear he didn’t want to be here, didn’t want my help.

Yet I couldn’t stop being myself to let him go. Hell, I didn’t even know if he’d let me get out of this unscathed.