It doesn’t take long before Rebel’s breathing evens out. I’m chasing sleep myself, but before it can claim me a thought strikes me. An unpleasant one. It takes me a moment to pluck up the courage to speak. When I do, my voice is nothing more than a whisper in the dark.  “Rebel?”

“Mmm?

“That DEA agent? You think she’ll come here? You think…you think she’ll recognize me?”

He inhales, then rests his chin against the top of my head, the same way he did this morning when he comforted me. It all feels too familiar. Too safe. Too right. “Yeah,” he whispers back. “She’ll come here. She’ll probably recognize you.”

“And then what? What do I tell her?”

He’s quiet. Too quiet. I already know I’m not going to like his response. “You tell her one of two things, Sophia. You tell her I kidnapped you and you’ve been held against your will for the past few weeks.”

“Or?”

“Or you tell her you left Seattle of your own free will. That this is where you want to be. That this is your home now. Here with us.”

******

It feels late when I wake up. Sunlight pours in through the window above the bed, warming my skin, though I’m cold. I’ve been used to half-surfacing from sleep throughout the night and feeling Rebel’s body kicking out enough heat to warm me in the dead of winter, but now I can tell I’m alone. I don’t open my eyes. I lie very still, listening. Sure enough, the sound of someone moving around at the other end of the room reaches me, confirming that Rebel’s up and about. Slowly, carefully, I turn over and crack my eyelids, searching him out.

He’s still in his boxers, standing in the open doorway of the cabin, with what looks like a notepad and paper in his hands. There’s a small snow globe at his feet—a snow globe of Chicago’s skyline. Back at his father’s house in Alabama there were at least twenty more of them, from different cities all around the world, collected by his mother. The snow globe from Chicago is the only one he has here with him, though. Not for the first time, I wonder what makes that one in particular so special.

“Sleep okay?” Rebel asks. He hasn’t turned around but he’s figured out that I’m awake. I pull the covers up around my body a little closer, fighting the urge to hide completely.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Good.” He pivots and freezes with the sunlight casting him into silhouette as he faces me, pen in one hand, paper in the other. He’s so damn beautiful. Not jock pretty like Matt was. No, Rebel’s body bears a striking similarity to a vase my mother keeps on her side table at home. Sloane and I were playing when we were kids, soccer inside the house, and we’d knocked the vase off the table. It had shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. Mom was devastated. It took Dad a solid three weeks to figure out where each tiny sliver of porcelain belonged and to glue it back into place. I think Mom loved the vase even more once Dad had finished the job. So much painstaking effort had gone into repairing it that it didn’t matter to her if it was riddled with a spider web of fine chips and fractures. I have no idea who has spent so long over fixing all the injuries to Rebel’s body—many people, I’m sure—but his body somehow seems more beautiful for all the scars and imperfections. Matt would whine like a little bitch if he rolled an ankle during football practice. I’m yet to hear Rebel complain once about the fact that his belly was half-ripped open, or that he was shot up with thousands of volts of electricity.

I can just about make his features out as he gives me a grin that would take me out at the knees if I were standing. “You done, or should I come closer and give you a better look?” he asks softly. “You keep peering out of those covers at me and I might just come back to bed.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It is. And more. I’ll make good on the promise I made you the other day, if you like?”

It takes me a second to remember what he’s referring to. When I do, my cheeks feel like they’re on fire. He’s referring to making me come. Properly. Showing me that the female orgasm isn’t just a myth. Holy shit…

Rebel stalks into the room like a panther, like now he’s had to chance to think about making me scream and he’s decided it’s a really great idea. I have no idea if he’s just trying to scare me or if this is something more. And I have no idea if I want it to be more. It makes me feel safe to pretend I don’t want him, but it’s exhausting and I’ve never been good at lying. Even to myself.

Truth is, I’m addicted to the man.

I should hate him. I should be scared of him. I shouldn’t want him anywhere near me, and yet…

“You can do what you want,” I whisper. “You normally do.”

He gives me a smirk. “Well, well. I do believe that wasn’t a no.” He walks back into the cabin, holding his torso rigid—I can see he’s already freshly dressed his wounds again this morning—as though he’s trying not to pull his stitches. I never thought I’d be the kind of person to look at a man like this. Like I’m hungry for him. It’s embarrassing, but it’s also freeing in some weird way, too. Sex has never been a big deal for me. It’s never played a huge role in my life. Ever since Matt and I got together, I assumed I just had a low sex drive and that was okay because he was always pretty vanilla about things and would finish up quickly anyway. But now… now I know my sex drive isn’t low. It’s just been dormant, laying in wait for the right person to come and awaken it. As I lay in Rebel’s bed, rubbing my feet together, trying not to think about the building pressure between my legs or the wicked look that’s spreading across his face, I’m pretty sure I’ve found that person. Or rather he found me.

“I’m just saying. Would it matter even if I did say no? You seem to get your own way most of the time, regardless of what anyone else has planned.”

He stops dead in his tracks. “Not all the time, Soph. Not with this. You think I’d force you to fuck me?” He’s lost that playful air to him. It’s vanished in a puff of smoke. Instead, he looks…hurt?

“No. No, that’s not what I meant. I…I just—”

“Think that I would coerce you in some way?” He frowns deeply, those blue eyes of his clouding over. It takes less than the space of a heartbeat to realize that I’ve said the wrong thing. I regret opening my mouth instantly. I should have thought.

“No. I don’t think you would ever coerce me. I really don’t. I shouldn’t have said that. You just…you make me feel like I’m…out of control.”

“You are always in control, Soph. Always. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m at your disposal, day or night. My club members step out of line and they’ll know about it, but you can pretty much get away with murder. I’m not a fan of games, Sophia. I’ve kept my mouth shut since Alabama because you looked terrified at the time, but I told you back in that hallway that you were mine for as long as you wanted to be. And I was yours.  You didn’t take my hand. You were scared by the idea of it, I know. But it’s still true. That hasn’t changed. As long as you’re here, with me, you have nothing to be afraid of. And that includes me.”

I can’t think of the right thing to say. When he looks at me the way he’s looking at me right now, I can’t think straight at the best of times. But coupled with the intensity in his voice and the way my body has just responded to his words, I don’t have a hope in hell of forming a coherent sentence.

He sighs, throwing the notepad and pen down on the end of the bed. “I’m going to figure out how to shower with all of these bandages. You can get some more sleep if you like.” He turns and heads for the bathroom door.

“Rebel, wait!”

He does. Glancing over his shoulder at me, he waits for me to speak. Me being me, I’m hoping that he’ll let me off, cut me some slack, not make me say it, but of course he’s him and that’s not how this thing works. I’m learning that slowly. Frustration courses through my veins. Why can’t he be a gentleman about this and just come get into bed with me? Rebel shakes his head, a small, barely-there smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.