The scent of panic clung to him, sharper than his usual clean piney smell. She was sure she matched the scent. In fact,
When she shivered, more a release of adrenaline than a chill, even though the temperature was cool in here, he shifted without hesitation and snagged the afghan hanging over the back of the couch. With a twitch, he covered her bare legs, tucking the edges around her, cocooning her as they held onto each other.
“We should get some sleep,” he muttered at last, straightening and removing his arm from around her. “I’ll sleep out here. You can have my bed.”
“I’m not ready to be alone,” she said softly. “We could both sleep in there.” She’d never been anything but vulnerable in front of him, so she didn’t know why this was so hard, but the way he was looking at her, his eyes wide and questioning, prompted her to keep talking. “Just…sleep. But be there for each other.”
“Ah.” He swallowed, and focused on a spot on the floor, then he nodded and rose, reaching out a hand to her.
Her heart was pounding for a whole other reason when he led her to the bedroom.
The room itself was small, and the bed took up almost the whole space, only leaving a little walkway on both sides of the bed. A quilt stretched across the mattress, another folded at the foot. The hum of the mini-split kept the air cool, but the faint scent of him—clean soap and woods and something distinctly male—curled around her like an embrace.
A nightstand stood on the closer side, with a phone charger and a little dish with change and keys, so clearly that was the side he preferred.
She stood at the end of the bed, kind of lost. He looked over her, quirked an eyebrow. “Is that side okay with you?”
“I, ah.” She gestured at her feet. “I can’t go to bed with dirty feet.”
He motioned toward the door she hadn’t even noticed against the wall closest to his side. “I got you. Come on.”
He opened the door to a tiny but pristine bathroom. He indicated she should sit on the closed toilet, which she did without the hesitation she might usually show. He pulled a cloth off the shelf beside the sink, ran it under the water until it was warm, then crouched before her, stroking it gently down one leg, scrubbing just a bit to get the drier mud loose, sweeping the soft cloth over the top of her foot while he cradled her heel in his palm.
She found herself mesmerized by the top of his head as he bathed her, the swirl of dark hair right at the crown of his head. She reached up to see if his hair was as soft as it looked, and it was. He tilted his head to look up at her, and her hand slid down to the back of his neck.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, her limp hand falling to his shoulder. He rinsed the cloth, warming it again, and turned his attention to her other foot. His hand beneath her heel was steady, his movements gentle and sure. She drew in a breath when he dipped the cloth between her toes, and she thought she saw the tease of a grin. Without moving from his crouch, he grabbed the hand towel from the rack and dried her legs just as gently.
She’d honestly never thought she’d be relaxed again, but she was practically boneless when she made her way to the other side of the bed, slipped beneath the cool clean sheets.
. The mattress dipped under his weight, sending her rolling fractionally toward him before she caught herself.
The room shrank around them. She could feel the rise and fall of his breaths, the restless shift of his arm as he tried to get comfortable.
The urge to reach out—to know for certain that he was real, that he was here—was irresistible. She turned her head. In the dim spill of moonlight through the window, his face was turned toward her. Watching.
Her breath hitched. Slowly, she extended her hand, palm up across the small space.
For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, wordlessly, he wrapped his hand around hers, warm and solid, and pressed her palm against his chest. His heartbeat thudded beneath her touch—steady, strong, unyielding.
And for the first time all night, she thought maybe she could sleep.
The sky was dark, clouds boiling overhead, as she walked along the sidewalk of Phantom Bayou beside Allison. Allison didn’t seem to be concerned about the weather, but the increasing darkness had Erielle’s nerves on edge. She felt like they were mid-conversation, and she didn’t know what they’d even talked about as lights flickered on in shops along the street.
“Men are the root of everything evil.” Allison’s voice vibrated with an echo, both Allison’s voice and not. “You’ve forgotten a lesson learned the hard way. Do not trust him.”
Her voice became something else entirely, shooting terror down Erielle’s spine. Then Allison turned to Erielle, her face dissolving into the decay of the woman in white.
“Do not trust any of them.”
Erielle woke with the words echoing in her head, disoriented by the thumping. As she blinked into awareness, she registered warmth first—the heat of a solid body under her, the faint brush of knit fabric against her cheek. The steady rise and fall beneath her wasn’t a pillow.
Samson’s chest.
The realization jolted through her, but not enough to make her pull away. He was warm, steady, his heartbeat thudding strong beneath her ear. The sound should have been reassuring, but the longer she lay there, the more aware she became of the man himself—the breadth of his chest, the faint rasp of his breath, the way the muscles shifted every time he drew in air.
And he was awake. She could feel it in the tension coiled beneath her hand, in the way his breathing wasn’t quite even.
