I reached for her and lifted a strand of her dark, midnight hair away from her face.
She wrinkled her nose a little from the move but didn’t wake up.
I couldn’t find it in me to regret the decision.
Not now when she was right here with me, exactly where she should have been all along. When there were no more secrets between us, and I didn’t have to be Xavier to her anymore.
I could be with her as Roman, and that would just have to be good enough for her.
I cupped her cheek and let my thumb slide across her bottom lip for a bit before I pulled away and stood up from the bed.
I walked back out to the living room, to the groceries I had unceremoniously dropped on the middle of the floor earlier, and set about making dinner.
I had bought this cabin for half the market value since pretty much everything had been gutted.
I rebuilt this place with the help of Micah and Dominic.
It took us three months, but it was well worth it, considering all the modern amenities we’d built in the place.
We could survive here for weeks, as long as I kept the fridge well stocked with food, and I had done that.
The trip I took to the closest grocery store, about half an hour from here, had been to pick up any last-minute shit I might have forgotten. I had grabbed some of Ryleigh’s girly shit from her bathroom and bedroom, to make her comfortable here, but I probably missed some things due to my haste.
I snorted a little at the thought.
I doubt she would be comfortable for a while, but I knew my girl.
I knew what I needed to do to make her comfortable. I smiled a little and shifted on my feet from the thought. Fuck, I knew exactly what I could do to get her to relax.
I made a simple meal of spaghetti and meatballs.
It was a comfort food, and it was one of the first meals I’d learned to make when Micah and I took off from that hell hole we’d grown up in.
I was just about done with the sauce when I heard her. She was trying to be quiet, but I had trained my entire life to be astute with my surroundings. Most of the time, it was life and death, but not now.
I had heard her the moment she climbed out of bed. I didn’t acknowledge her. I gave her a moment of privacy, unsure how she would react.
There was no way out of this cabin, not unless I allowed it, and even if she somehow could get out, we were two hours away from the closest city, and I knew these woods like the back of my hand.
She wouldn't be able to escape.
My skin heated with awareness the moment she came out the bedroom door. I ignored her, letting her stand there, staring at me.
I grabbed two plates, and once I added the spaghetti, I topped it off with the tomato sauce I had made from scratch before turning to her.
“Hungry?”
She startled in surprise when our eyes met.
I knew my eyes glinted with heat as I took her in from head to toe, from the oversized black shirt she had borrowed from me to go to bed in the night before, which nearly engulfed her whole, to her bare legs, messy hair, and flushed cheeks.
I didn’t need to lift her shirt up to know that she had on pale pink panties underneath, covering her mouthwatering, neatly trimmed pussy.
She blinked and took a step back from the predatory look in my eyes, her gaze moving to the two plates I had set out.
“Fuck no,” she muttered, and it took me a moment to realize what she was talking about.
“Come on. Don’t you want to reserve your strength for when you try to run away from me?”
