Page 45 of Hunting Gianna
Ikeepmyhandwrapped around Gianna’s as we leave the trail. She doesn’t fight me, not tonight. Maybe she’s tired of fighting. Maybe she wants to be led, at least for a while. I drag her down the path toward the west slope, where the trees grow close enough to block the stars, and the ground falls away into a gully that used to be a riverbed before the last drought. When the guys hunted, I’d come here. To the space where the earth met the water and the sound of solace was all there was.
She shivers in the cold, but doesn’t ask for my jacket. She won’t show weakness if she can help it, not even to me. Especially not to me. Her chin is up, eyes scanning the darkness ahead, but every time I squeeze her hand, she flinches just a little. Like adog waiting for the next hit, even after I’ve proven I’d never hurt her. I hate it. I hate whoever did that to her, and I hate myself for being the next link in a chain she never got to choose.
Yet, I’d do it all again because there’s no choice here. She is the one I will grow old with.
“Where are we going?” she asks, voice a notch too casual.
I ignore it, but tug her closer. I want her in my shadow, want her to forget that the world is big enough to swallow her whole. “You’ll see.”
We walk in silence for a while. The only light is the moon, and even that gets cut to shreds by the branches overhead. I watch the way she moves. She tries to keep her steps light, but the earth here is uneven, scattered with roots and jagged rocks. When she stumbles, I hold her tighter, allowing her to regain her footing without hurting her pride. The muscle jumps in her jaw, but she doesn’t pull away.
I could say something. I could tell her how good she looks like this, all soft in the dark, hair catching silver in the half-light. But I don’t. Instead, I push her forward, making her walk ahead of me for a stretch, just so I can watch the way her ass shifts under the jeans.
The riverbed comes up quick. We cross it, and she slips on the slick stones, almost going down. My hand wraps around her waist, hauls her upright. She makes a sound, more breath than voice, and the urge to bite her right at the pulse in her neckis almost unbearable. I settle for squeezing, letting her feel the strength in my grip.
“Careful,” I murmur. “It’s easy to get hurt out here.”
She glances back, her eyes sharp. “Not my first rodeo, cowboy.”
I grin, slow and wide but don’t have a retort. It’s like watching a flower blossom for the first time, her with these funny little quips of hers.
We keep moving, up a narrow trail cut between two walls of trees. At the top, they thin, and the world opens out into a basin maybe fifty yards across. In the middle is the waterfall. Noah and Cassidy’s place is just beyond this spot.
It’s not big, not by Pacific Northwest standards—maybe thirty feet, a single sheet of white water plunging into a deep blue pool. Moss grows in thick ropes on the rocks, and the spray hangs in the air before dispersing. The sound of the falls is a freight train, drowning out everything else.
Gianna stops dead, staring.
“Holy shit,” she whispers.
I come up behind her, slide my arms around her waist. She tenses, then relaxes when she realizes I’m not going to push her in. Not yet.
“Ever swim in a waterfall?” I ask, mouth against her ear.
She shakes her head. “Looks cold.”
“It is.”
I let her go, step around in front of her, and start stripping off my shirt. The air bites at my skin, but I like the sting. I like the way her eyes flick over the scars on my chest, the ones she pretends not to notice when we fuck. I undo my belt, never breaking eye contact. She’s already blushing, but she doesn’t look away.
“Your turn,” I say.
She glances at the falls, then at me. “You serious?”
“Dead serious. Skinny dip or nothing.”
She huffs out a breath, but her hands go to the bottom of her shirt. She lifts it, slower than she needs to, and I know it’s a power move. She wants me to watch, wants to make me wait. I let her. The shirt comes off her head, and her skin is pale in the moonlight, dusted with goosebumps. She’s not wearing a bra, just like I planned.
I watch her hands as she undoes the jeans, pushing them down over her wide hips. She steps out of them, standing in nothing but a red thong. She hesitates, then slides them off, shivering in the night air.
Her arms go up, covering her tits. “Don’t stare.”
I walk up, close enough to feel her breath, and catch her wrists in one hand. I pull them down, exposing her.
“Never hide from me,” I say, voice low. “You will never think of yourself as anything other than perfect, ever again.”
She tries to look away, but I grab her chin, force her to meet my eyes.
“Say it,” I whisper. “Say you’re perfect.”
