I wasn’t sure what it was that woke me up.
The heater kicking on. The scratching of a tree branch against the windowpane. Or just a dream.
Whatever it was, my eyes opened.
They immediately went to the window across the room like I already knew something was there. The curtains were slightly parted, open enough to reveal the figure standing there in the darkness.
I blinked a few times.
I breathed a few times.
And then I saw it.
That fucking smile.
The scream that left my mouth was instinctual, and I toppled out of bed as I reached for the knife that I left at my bedside every night. I rolled in the blanket and hit the rug around my bed. The lamp fell over and made a loud crash.
Hidden in the covers and the dark, I searched for the knife, the only defense I had. “Where the fuck is it?” I threw the covers aside and finally grabbed it, in just my underwear and a black camisole that had rolled up to my rib cage as I’d scrambled for the weapon.
I seized the knife by the hilt and held it at the ready, as if Forneus would break through the glass to get me.
The door flung open, and I let out another cry.
It was Benton, in nothing but his black boxers, a soldier who only needed his muscles as armor. His blue eyes were lethal, his body tight, ready to kill someone.
“The window…” I pointed with the knife. “He was looking at me through the window.”
He immediately yanked the curtains apart and looked outside.
I pushed myself to my feet and set the dagger on the nightstand because I didn’t need it anymore.
I had him.
He moved from one window to the next, checking the darkness.
The threat was over, but I still breathed like it had just begun.
Benton returned to me once the search was over. “It was a dream.”
“What…?”
“I get them too.”
“No, I saw him.”
“He wouldn’t risk everything to come to my home and stare at you through a window.”
Speechless, I just breathed, hyperventilated. “Don’t do that…don’t do that.”
His eyes flicked back and forth as he looked into mine.
“The police did that… They didn’t believe me…” Tears welled in my eyes. “He was there. I promise you, he was there—”
“Alright.” He raised his hand to silence me before he left my bedroom.
I grabbed the knife and followed him, unsure what was happening.
We moved to the front door.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to check.”
“But you aren’t wearing any clothes—”
“I don’t need clothes.” He opened the door and moved down the stairs, a muscled shadow. “Lock the door behind me.”
I didn’t hesitate before I did as he asked.
With the knife in my hand, I stood there. I listened to my own breathing. I listened for any outside sound I could detect. I checked behind me like Forneus was already in the house. The drumming of my heart was going to kill me.
Minutes passed.
Nothing but silence.
Then Benton’s voice came through the door. “It’s me.”
I flicked the locks and yanked the heavy door open, the cold air hitting me in the face like a sledgehammer. My eyes scanned around him, expecting a dead body on the porch, then I looked at him, expecting blood on his knuckles and chest. There was nothing.
He came inside and locked the door behind him.
“What happened?”
He faced me again, his shoulders rounded and strong, his biceps hard like sculptures. His chest was wide and powerful, like it could take throwing knives like a dart board. His lungs were just as strong as his torso, powerful thighs, toned legs, big feet. “Nothing. No sign of anyone. No footprints.”
My eyes started to water again because that wasn’t enough for me.
“It was a dream.”
I shook my head, the tears splashing down my face. “He does this. I don’t know how he does it, but he fucking does it…”
He watched me, his eyes shifting back and forth.
“It wasn’t a dream, okay?”
“He wasn’t there, Constance. You need to trust me.”
I wiped the tears away even though they continued to come.
“If there was a freak outside my house where my daughter sleeps, trust me, he’d be dead. There was no one there.”
“I’m sorry…” My hand cupped my mouth, and I silenced my emotion, doing my best to bring myself back to calm. “This isn’t me. I don’t do this…I don’t cry. I don’t panic. I’m not weak—”
“I don’t think you’re weak.”
My eyes lifted to his, and those words brought me calmer than anything I could have said to myself. My hand left my mouth, and I gave a sniff.
“Your mind protects you in the battle, in the moment, by keeping you calm, keeping you focused. But once the moment has passed, your mind can’t protect you anymore. I understand.”
I gave a nod and loosened the hold on my knife, finally believing that I didn’t need it.
His eyes glanced down for just a brief instant, looking at my nearly naked body.
It didn’t bother me. “I…I’m gonna sleep with Claire.”
His eyes met mine again.
“Can you…stay?” It was pathetic and needy, but there was no way I’d be able to close my eyes and drift off without him there.
He held my gaze for a long time, his thoughts a mystery behind that hard expression.
“I know it’s a weird thing to ask, but I just—”
“Let me get my things.” He departed down the dark hallway and moved through the house until he was gone.
I tucked myself into Claire’s bed, not disturbing her because she liked to sleep up against the wall. I pulled the blankets over my shoulder and turned to face the room, the opposite way of the window.
Benton arrived a moment later, dropping his pillow on the floor in the center of the room. He was in his sweatpants and t-shirt now, and he got comfortable on the floor, flat on his back, the blanket at his waist.
I stared at him, watched him stare at the ceiling. With one hand on his stomach and the other on the floor beside him, he lay still, his breathing calm and easy, like he hadn’t just searched the darkness for a man who believed he was a demon.
I watched his breath and tried to match it.
Once I did, I fell asleep.
Even days later, I was still shaken.
Benton was right. It was a dream.
Just a dream.
I’d have to tell myself that a million times before I believed it.
When I took Claire to school in the morning and Benton was sleeping, the knife was tucked away somewhere. The walk home was worse than the walk there, because I knew I was the one he wanted—not Claire.
But nothing ever happened.
I looked across the street, scanned the windows, searched for signs of him everywhere.
Never happened.
If he were going to take me, it would be then and there.
It consoled me, but only briefly, and once I was back at the apartment alone, my mind ran wild. Anytime Benton wasn’t in the apartment, I felt like bait on a hook. Forneus was the trout that could smell me a mile away.
Would this paranoia ever pass?
Would I ever feel better?
I sat on the couch in the living room, the TV off, the fireplace cold. When Claire wasn’t home, I just sat there and waited until it was time to pick her up again. I could walk to the café and get a coffee, catch a movie, do anything I wanted…but I always stayed home.
Until he was dead and that place was burned to the ground, I would never be okay.
Nadine and Laura came into my mind all the time, and the guilt consumed me.
But what could I do?
The locks turned in the door before it opened. Benton’s heavy feet announced his presence down the hallway where the garage connected to the house. I waited for that sound every day, waited for that relief, so I could recognize it anywhere at this point.
He emerged a moment later, in a black jacket and a white t-shirt, black jeans, and boots. His eyes went to me on the couch, our gazes locking.
I stared back, releasing the tension in my shoulders with my exhale.
He stared a while longer before he stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the back of one of the dining chairs. His body stretched the cotton fabric of his shirt, tight across his shoulders, loose on his lower back, cinched around his arms. There was a weight room upstairs, so he must hit it every day.
He opened the fridge and grabbed the glass container of leftovers before he plopped it onto a plate and ate it cold. His jaw had been hair-free when he left last night, but now it was covered in dark stubble. There were times when his eyes were angry and times when they were tired. Right now, they were tired.
His eyes flicked up to meet mine across the room.
I instinctively looked away because I was staring.
His boots sounded against the floor as he approached.
I inhaled a deep breath when he drew near, both intimidated and comforted.
He took the seat beside me and continued to eat.
In silence, we sat together. No eye contact. No conversation.
My eyes found the courage to look at him once again, and the feeling I got from that stare returned. My heart raced and slowed all at the same time. My stomach tightened like it was growling for food. My fingers instantly twitched because I wanted to grab on to his arm and pull him close. It was more than physical. It was more than emotional. Claire had been my crutch at the cult, but now Benton was the foundation beneath my feet.
I stared.
He chewed his last bite of food before he set the plate on the coffee table.
My stare continued. My heart raced as I waited for him to meet my look. My fingertips were numb and hot at the same time. I craved his touch, his safety, the comfort that only he could deliver.
He drank his water then sat there, his eyes on the dead fireplace.
My eyes bored into his flesh. He must have felt it. Must have felt it like the sun on a summer day. That was exactly how I felt whenever he looked at me.
Then he did.
He turned his head, locked his beautiful eyes on me, and stared.
I forgot to breathe. His stare was so powerful. His presence was so strong.
The breaths I forgot to take suddenly came quick, making up for the air that I’d lost. My eyes dropped when I spotted my hand slide toward his, over his powerful thigh to his big fingers. I watched as a bystander, a witness rather than a participant.
My fingers slid over the back of his large hand, my fingers slipping into the spaces between his joints. He was searing hot, like a dish that had just been taken out of the broiling oven.
He didn’t pull away.
I stared for several more breaths before I raised my look and met his.
His hand was lifeless in mine, but his eyes thawed from the cold and turned warm. They pierced into me differently now, with a brooding and potent stare.
I held on like he might slip away if I let go.
His deep voice broke the silence, like a crackle in a burning fire. “You want me?”
I nodded.
His eyes bored into mine with increased focus.
I stopped breathing again, in anticipation of what would happen next. My eyes moved to his lips, waiting for them to press against mine and swallow all my fear, all my pain.
Then it happened.
He moved in, one hand sliding into my hair with the softness of silk, and then his lips pressed to mine in a gentle greeting.
My eyes instantly closed because I felt it.
Felt everything I wanted to feel.
His lips remained against mine in a long, poignant kiss before he pulled away and looked at me once more. Blue eyes penetrated mine, heartless on the surface, but an ocean underneath. His rough fingertips were still at the base of my neck, searing hot.
I wanted more.
My hand grabbed on to his cotton shirt, and I pulled him in.
He moved quicker this time once he realized this was exactly what I wanted, once he saw the flutter of my eyes, the warmth in my cheeks, the desperation for another kiss. His mouth took me gently once again, but his kisses were quicker, demanding. He took the lead, pulled my bottom lip into his mouth before his tongue pressed against mine.
My fingers released the tug on his shirt now that I had him, and my hands planted against the hard chest I’d stared at so many times when he sat on the couch and sipped his scotch. It was as hard as I imagined, like I was hitting stone.
My body relaxed, and I felt myself sink back, his heavy frame emerging over mine, a shield against the outside world. His hips were between my thighs, and his lips were on my neck, his hot breaths as delicious as his kisses.
My arms hooked over his shoulders, and I drew him close, smothered him against me, used him to feel higher than I’d ever been. My ankles locked together behind his back, and I turned into his kiss, catching his lips, one hand digging into the back of his hair. I moaned into his mouth as I squeezed his hips with my thighs, feeling his erection hard against me. “Take me to bed…”
The closed knuckles of his hand were pressed into the mattress beside me, his other hand directing his length inside me, the head of his dick giving my wetness a kiss through the condom. He pushed past my tightness then sank, his other hand moving back to the mattress to support himself.
I took him with a heated moan because it felt so damn good.
Oh fuck.
Big. Sexy. Gorgeous. This man was on top of me, his blue eyes dominating my mind the way his body dominated everything else. Large pecs. Eight-pack abs. Arm porn. Big dick. He was perfect.
I breathed with him. I rocked with him. My hands grabbed on to the grooves of the muscles of his body as he pushed inside me until there was nowhere else to go. Every wince came with a moan, because it felt so good to hurt.
It started off slow, our wet bodies moving together, the audible sounds of his dick sliding in and out of me like it was in surround sound. But then the breaths came. The bed started to creak. Moans and grunts covered the noise.
My hand cupped his face, and I kissed him as he thrust into me harder, his lips losing their focus when I felt too good. He would give an occasional groan—and it was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard.
It was exactly what I wanted.
I felt safe.
Warm.
Protected.
Mindless.
The paranoia was gone. The fear was forgotten.
He was the only person in the world who could make me feel like this.
It was a high that I wanted, and before this one was over, I knew I wanted another.
And another.
I clawed at his back when I felt the hot explosion that made me squeeze his dick harder. It was a crescendo before release, a catharsis of emotions. I released my burden, released my terror, released it all.
He gave his final pumps, hard and deep thrusts, and then released with a quiet moan.
My hand cupped his face and brought him in for another kiss, desperate to hold on a little longer, to feel this searing heat that made winter pale behind the windows.
He gave me his breath and a kiss before he rolled off me.
I winced when he was gone.
He cleaned off then lay beside me, and as if nothing had happened, he was still and stony. One hand was behind his head, and his eyes were on the closed windows. His big chest rose and fell, slowing to a peaceful pace. The shine from his sweat disappeared as the moisture evaporated. He eventually closed his eyes, one hand resting against his stomach.
I was naked beside him and cold without the sheets. I craved the heat the second it was withdrawn. I craved his touch, his protection, his presence. I turned over, pressed my head against his shoulder, and hugged his side.
I’d never been so comfortable in my life.
The cult never happened. Forneus never happened. Peace.
I closed my eyes, tucked into the security of the only man who could give it.
But then he moved.
His arm pulled away.
He turned over and faced the other way.
It was over.
