He hadn’t hurt me. He hadn’t even really touched me. And he had done nothing but protect me.
Apart from the whole princess-locked-in-a-tower complex I picked up while I was with him, he had treated me with careful respect and never once tried to push boundaries or force me into something dangerous or harmful.
So why was I so afraid of him?
Why was I so afraid of what he wanted from me?”
“Finished with your dinner?” Hendrix asked in my ear. His words were casual but his tone was deep and sensual. I shivered a little as his hot breath floated over my ear and down the column of my throat.
“I am,” I answered. He reached out and I handed him my trash so he could pass it around to the communal trash can.
“It was good, wasn’t it?”
I turned half way around so I could face him. I crossed my legs in front of me and picked up one of his hands so I could play with. He stared down at me with something so warm, something so scorching and consuming my body felt on fire from his attention.
I laughed, “No, it was awful.”
“Sounds awful,” he sympathized with the hint of a smile. His eyes were dark in the low light of the lantern.
I leaned into him- because I couldn’t help myself…. because I couldn’t stop myself.
“It’s been a pretty awful day,” I admitted. No bath. Zombies. Rats. Tuna. All things smelly and gross.
“I can make it better,” he whispered with his face just an inch away from mine.
“You can?”
“I can,” he confirmed seriously. He reached over and grabbed my shirt in fistfuls and pulled me toward him.
I rocked onto my knees with the momentum he gave me and then continued on into the warm nook of his arm. He leaned back against the cold metal wall and wrapped his arm around me. I pressed my cheek against the firm muscle on his chest and bravely wrapped my arm around his waist.
The thing about this was that there was no going back. Cuddling wasn’t exactly saying our vows or even close to something as simple as a good old fashioned make-out, but it did make a statement.
I should have held back more.
But I couldn’t deny this felt right.
I listened to the beat of Hendrix’s heart as the he stroked a soothing path up and down my spine. His body was warm against my skin, solid and coiled with muscle in every place. My arm stretched out across his rippling stomach and my hand rested against the smooth line of his side. He smelled like dirt, sweat and antibacterial soap, but underneath that was something so unique and Hendrix that everything together was heady and intoxicating and completely alluring. His stomach would occasionally gurgle from either lingering hunger or as it worked to digest his dinner, his breathing whooshed in and out of his body, and his heart beat rhythmically in his chest. And all I could do was smile to myself and just enjoy all of his vibrant, living…. life.
Everyone else seemed to have settled down around us. I could hear Haley and Nelson talking quietly to each other and trying not to laugh too loud. Tyler was speaking quietly to Miller, reassuring him they would be alright. King and Harrison were discussing something sports related and that would never get resolved in the world we now lived in. And Vaughan was holding Page and telling her a bedtime story- making it up as he went along.
I breathed a contented sigh and ignored the misting of my eyes. I had almost lost this…. this family I’d somehow become a part of. I’d almost been ripped away from all these beings that had become so important to me, made me love them so fiercely. The thought alone was almost unfathomable to me.
And while there was this haunting fear of Kane that I couldn’t seem to shake, I knew he could never come through with his threat. As determined as he was to find me- if he still even cared, although some secret instinct whispered he was- I was just as committed to staying with this family, to protecting this family as he was to finding me. He could come after me all he wanted, I would not leave them and I would not let anything happen to them.
They were life to me now. And not just my waking moments and daily duties. No, they were literally life- they represented the only good things left in this dead world, they were bright and full of vitality and color. They were shining with everything good and pure and beautiful and I would never give them up.
“We’re not going to fight anymore, are we?” Hendrix’s chest rumbled against my cheek and I found myself kissing his breast bone through his shirt before I could stop myself.
I had drugged myself with happy thoughts and the butterflies Hendrix was sending into my stomach. I couldn’t help myself. He needed to be kissed.
“You and me?” I laughed, even while his breath hitched a little at my gesture.