Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
He’d come for me. I pressed my lips together and glanced down at my hands, which I was holding against my chest, and felt more tears spring up in my eyes. That same familiar fear that I’d suppressed the entire drive home flared up inside of me again.
Another shiver raced through me, strong and potent, coaxing a few more tears into my eyes.
I could feel Rhodes’s gaze on my face as he kept on climbing the stairs, but he didn’t say a word. His arms held me even closer somehow, his mouth dipping closer too, and if I hadn’t closed my eyes, I was pretty sure I would have seen him brush his mouth against my temple. Instead, all I did was feel it, light and more than likely an accident.
I sucked in my breath and held back a choke as he lowered me to the bed and said, quietly, “Take a shower.”
Opening my eyes, I found him standing almost directly in front of me. A frown took over his mouth as I nodded.
“I reek, I’m sorry,” I apologized, barely able to get the words out.
His frown got even more severe.
I pressed my lips together.
Rhodes’s head cocked to the side at the same time his gaze moved over my face and he said very carefully, “You had a scare, angel.”
I nodded, holding my breath and trying to swallow the emotion clogging my throat. “I was just thinking . . .” I sniffled, my words a croak.
Rhodes kept on looking at me.
I curled my fingers in my lap, felt my knee shaking, and whispered, “You know that time I told you I wasn’t scared of dying?” I scrunched up my face and felt a tear slip out of my eye and stream down my cheek. “I was lying. I am scared.” A few more tears escaped, hitting my jawline. “I know I wouldn’t have died, but I still thought I was going to once or twice—”
A big, big hand swept over half of my face before doing the same to the other side, and in the time it took me to realize what he was doing, I was up again, his arms around me once more. Then I was on top of him, seated across his thighs with my shoulder to his chest, and it was me that pressed my face to his throat as another shiver ran through me.
“I was so scared, Rhodes,” I whispered into his skin as his arm curled low around my back.
“You’re okay now,” he said hoarsely.
“All I could think about, when I could, was that I had so much still left to live for. There’s so much I want to do, and I know it’s dumb. I know I’m fine. I know the worst that could have happened was that I’d have to hide under a tree with my tarp and an emergency blanket to rest for a while, but then I pictured myself falling down and getting hurt and no one knowing where I was, or not being able to help me, and I was alone. And why did I go alone? What the hell do I have to prove to anybody? My mom wouldn’t have wanted me to feel like that, right?”
He shook his head against me, and I buried my face even deeper into the softest skin of his throat.
“I’m sorry. I know I stink and I’m sticky and gross, but I was so happy to see you. And I’m so glad you went. Otherwise . . .” I sniffled, and a couple more tears spilled between us. I could feel them stream between my cheeks and his skin.
Rhodes hugged me even closer to him, and his voice was steady when he said, “You’re fine. You’re totally fine, angel face. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m here, and Am is next door, and you’re not alone. Not anymore. It’s all right. Take a breather.”
I took the deep breath he’d mentioned and then took another one. I wasn’t alone. I was out of there. And I was never going hiking again . . . though I might change my mind eventually, but that was beside the point. My shoulders slowly loosened, and I felt my stomach begin to unclench; I hadn’t even realized I was sucking it in.
The hand on my back stroked my side down to my hip, and Rhodes kept on holding me.
Digging deep into my gut, I said, “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”
“I’m probably overreacting—”
He petted me again. “You’re not.”
“It feels that way though. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that scared, and it really just got under my skin.”
“Most people are scared of dying. There’s nothing wrong about it.”
“Are you?” I pressed my forehead closer to the warm, smooth skin of his throat.
“I think I’m more scared of the people I care about dying than I am of myself.”