Her attention was pulled to Sig when he appeared in the doorway in only his boxers with a pair of jeans and a shirt in his hands.
“Gonna shower,” he grumbled, studying her.
She nodded and turned to face him. “I’ll give you your privacy.”
“Not used to privacy, Red.”
“Neither am I, anymore.” She pushed past him. “The bathroom’s too small for both of us anyway, not with how lopsided I am right now.”
With her eating more and actually getting some real sleep, the seed was growing more quickly than ever, like it was trying to catch up. Plus, her body was filling out, her bones not as noticeable, her cheeks not so hollow. But she still was nothing like she used to be.
She wasn’t sure if she would ever go back to who she had been. Not just what she looked like, but how she saw others. She’d been badly betrayed, and would find it difficult to trust anyone so completely ever again.
However, for some reason, she trusted this biker who was full of tattoos, who drank, who smoked, who cursed and was rough on the outside and who, she suspected, was badly broken on the inside.
But then, he’d done nothing to make her distrust him. Except for locking her inside his apartment.
He said he’d stop. That he’d only done it because he believed it was for her own good.
She had no reason not to believe him.
Once he handed her a key.
In truth, she didn’t understand why he was doing anything for her at all. They didn’t know each other. They weren’t related. They had no ties whatsoever. But he stepped up to help her when he didn’t have to, when she had nothing and no one else.
Because if he hadn’t found her when he did, running down that mountain, she had a feeling her escape would have failed.
And instead of being on that mountain in her prison, as Vernon waited for his seed to finish growing, she was now sleeping in a comfortable bed, temporarily living in a place with modern conveniences and about to make pancakes with warm maple syrup.
Her mouth watered and her stomach growled, making the seed shift restlessly inside her.
“Hey,” he whispered, his voice low and thick, and she pulled herself from her thoughts to find she had stopped in front of him, and had planted a hand on his bare chest.
She blinked and shook away her wandering thoughts.
His skin was warm and smooth, and his heartbeat strong under her palm.
She let her hand drop and took a deep breath. “I’ll go start the coffee and check to see what we need for pancakes.”
“Yeah, you do that,” he said softly, running a knuckle along her jaw. “I’ll just be a few.”
She nodded and he took a step back to let her pass.
She didn’t hear the door close behind him, so the shower was easily heard when he started it.
She dug in his cabinets for the coffee, a filter and a couple of Harley mugs, got the coffeemaker set up and started, then looked around to see what else they’d need to make pancakes.
He had nothing but some sugar, a small container of hand churned butter and a half dozen brown eggs.
No flour, no vanilla. No baking ingredients at all.
But that shouldn’t be surprising since he was a bachelor biker. She couldn’t imagine him normally making meals from scratch.
He seemed to be an eggs, toast and bacon type of man. Or cereal and milk. Plus, coffee, of course.
Simple. Uncomplicated.
She mentally made a list of what they’d need, then headed around the counter dividing the kitchenette off from the rest of the open living space. She’d turn on the news, her way of catching up with everything she’d missed in the world for the past few months. The more she watched, the more she confirmed she’d been up there for about a year.
The doctor had said the seed had been growing inside her for about eight months. It only had eight weeks to go before it was done. And it had taken a few months for them to plant that seed. She had counted three periods before her monthly cycles stopped. And Vernon had bred her for a few more weeks after the last one, just to make sure it had taken.
Her periods stopping had been both a blessing and a curse. The blessing being, those breedings had stopped. The curse being, they succeeded in what they intended.
She grabbed the remote and turned to point it at the TV on the wall across the room and when she did, her gaze landed on the couch. Where Sig normally slept.
Her eyebrows pinned together and she wondered what he’d spilled on the worn fake leather. Whatever it was had dried to a brown, marking the tan cushions.
She turned again with the intent to get a wet paper towel and try to clean off whatever it was. But she froze as she spotted something else on the floor.