by Kelly Favor
“Look, it’s been a long day,” he said, standing up now. “Why don’t you go to bed?”
“I’ll stay on the couch.”
“No, Krista. Come on, you can stay in my bed and I’ll crash out here.”
She felt awful. He was being amazing to her, and here she was continuing to lie and lie and lie. It just wasn’t right. But how could she possibly come clean to him now, after so many lies?
Her head really had begun to pound.
Gunner showed her to his room, which was small and sparse and relatively neat.
There was a bed that was large enough for Gunner to sleep in it, a dresser, and a large chest in the corner of the room.
“Come on, lie down,” he urged her.
“I don’t even have a change of clothes,” she whined. She felt like a little kid—
cranky, wounded, upset. She wanted vaguely to throw a tantrum. She wanted to cry and stomp her feet.
“I’ll give you a t-shirt, and my clothes are big enough that it should do nicely as a nightgown.”
“Okay,” she said, falling into bed and crawling up towards the pillow. She was so tired and mentally worn down that she didn’t even care anymore if Gunner thought she was being silly.
The bed smelled like Gunner, and she really liked that. She smiled a little, snuggling into his pillow, grateful that he was letting her sleep there after all.
Gunner rummaged through his dresser drawers and found a t-shirt, tossing it next to her on the bed. “You can wear that for tonight,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she sighed. “Thanks for everything, Gunner. You amaze me.”
He laughed. “Okay. Get some rest, now.”
“I’m going to.”
He chuckled again, leaving the room and closing the door.
It was mostly dark now, but Krista could hear him moving around in the cabin, and it made her feel safe and comforted. Although she was completely spent, she pulled off her clothes and slid on his t-shirt.
The t-shirt made her feel even closer to him. She was completely bare underneath it, and she wrapped herself in his blankets and pressed her face into his pillow, wishing that he could be here with her, holding her close as she fell asleep.
***
Someone was yelling outside.
Krista startled awake, her heart pounding, the darkness of the bedroom confusing her momentarily.
An overwhelming sense of fear took hold of her body and she almost screamed.
But then she remembered where she was, and her heartbeat slowed a fraction.
Still, the moaning and yelling continued just outside the bedroom door. It wasn’t very loud after all. Was it his computer or something? Was he watching television?
She realized that she didn’t actually know this man very well. What if something was actually wrong with him…mentally?
Krista got out of bed and padded slowly to the door, opening it ever so quietly, and peering out into the rest of the cabin.
It was very dim, but some light was coming in from the moon and stars through the cabin windows—just enough for her to make out the shapes of the furniture.
Nobody was up and about.
And then came the yelling again. It was Gunner, she realized. He was on the couch, thrashing around in his sleep. She could tell he was having some kind of horrible nightmare.
His screams weren’t full throated, but almost seemed to be coming from a distance. They were clearly the screams of someone experiencing awful, horrible dreams.
She walked slowly over to the couch. As Krista’s eyes adjusted further to the room, she saw that Gunner was only wearing his boxers. His body was even more incredible than she’d thought from seeing him without his shirt on. Every muscle was toned and tight and perfect.
But even as her eyes took in his magnificence, she was still worried by his tossing and turning and moaning.
She wasn’t sure whether to simply let him continue sleeping, or if she should try and wake him.
After a few more seconds, he seemed to calm down and grow still and peaceful.
But then, out of nowhere, he started shouting worse than ever, and his arms were pushing at the couch.
She couldn’t let him go on like that.
Krista walked around the couch and knelt down beside him. “Gunner,” she whispered. “Gunner, wake up.”
He was still crying out in his sleep. Krista was unsure of the right way to handle it—she’d heard it was bad to wake sleepwalkers—but then again, he wasn’t sleepwalking, just having a nightmare.
She put her hands on his back and tried to soothe him. His back was warm and she felt a little sense of vertigo touching his naked skin this way.
“It’s okay,” she said softly.
Suddenly, he spun around and his eyes snapped open, his hand reaching up and grabbing her wrist with catlike reflexes. “What the hell are you doing?” he hissed.
She cried out in surprise and tried to jump away from him, but he was still holding her wrist, not letting go. “Stop it, Gunner.”
He sat up on the couch. “Why were you touching me?” His voice was flat and accusing.
“You were having a nightmare and I was worried. Let go of me!” She yanked her hand away, but he let go first, otherwise she never could have gotten free.
She quickly moved away from him, putting distance between herself and the couch. She went into the bedroom and shut the door, putting her back against it. She felt afraid. His eyes had been completely dead—cold and dead.
The way he’d looked at her when he’d first woken up—it was chilling.
Slowly, she started to feel less afraid. She heard his footsteps going to the bathroom and then, a moment later, the water running. Not long after that, he came out and she heard his footsteps crossing to the bedroom. He knocked on the door, causing her to jump.
“Leave me alone, Gunner,” she said. It occurred to her that a man as strong as Gunner could open the door just as easily with her trying to hold it shut. She would hold him off about as well as a fly trying to hold back a raging bull.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said through the door.
“Then you shouldn’t have grabbed my wrist and yelled at me.”
“Krista…let me explain.”
“I don’t need any explanations,” she said. “Let’s just go back to sleep and pretend it never happened.”
“We both know it happened, and you deserve an explanation.”
She sighed. This was ridiculous. But she had to admit that she wanted to see him. She wanted to be closer to him, to look at his body again. Her nipples suddenly tightened against the fabric of Gunner’s t-shirt that she was wearing.
As she opened the door and saw him standing in just his boxer shorts, only inches away from her, Krista felt the very air shift between them.
His expression was filled with intense need.
“What did you want to tell me?” she said, trying to control her voice.
“I wanted to explain to you why I reacted that way when you woke me up just now.” His voice was husky, throaty. She saw that his hair was tousled, but he still looked as gorgeous as ever.
They locked eyes, and this time, there was no mistaking the connection. “I’m listening,” she told him.
“You remember when we were talking about our families, and how it was growing up,” he said.
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened. “Well, my family was different than I made it out to be. It wasn’t just me fighting my older siblings—typical kids stuff. It was my dad.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “He was really unpredictable, and he liked to drink. For some reason, when he got to drinking, I was the one he really seemed to get pissed off at. I couldn’t ever do anything right.”
Krista swallowed hard, a sense of doom washing over her as she listened to him.
She wanted to tell him to stop, to hug him to her, anything to not have to hear what came next.
Gunner’s eyes grew distant
as he continued. “When my dad was on a bender, he would grab whoever was closest and just beat the hell out of them. And he was a big guy, too. When we were little, he’d slap us around, throw us, that sort of thing. The older we got, the harder he went on us. By the time I was twelve or thirteen and hitting my growth spurt, he seemed to take an interest in getting me the most. And he started to use his fists.”
“Gunner, that’s horrible,” she whispered.
“Finally, I put a stop to it when I was fifteen. I was the same size as him by then, and I’d gotten tired of it. More tired than you could imagine.” Gunner looked down at his hands as if studying them. “He came at me one night, and I just grabbed him by the throat and started to squeeze and squeeze. My brothers had to pull me off of him because he was starting to turn blue. I lost it completely. My father was lying on the floor, catching his breath, and I told him if he ever touched me again I’d kill him.”
Krista literally felt sick to her stomach. “You shouldn’t carry any guilt for that, Gunner. He’s the one who’s responsible.”
“I’m not saying I carry guilt,” he told her, his eyes refocusing on her now. “But I still have the dreams. In my dreams, I’m little again and he’s bigger than ever. I can’t stop him. And it just goes on and on and on. So when you woke me up, I wasn’t in my right state of mind. You understand?”
She nodded, and found that it was true—she did understand. She reached out and put a hand on his arm, because something told her it was what he needed. “I’m glad you told me.”
His eyes were trained on her, and she found that now she wasn’t afraid to look right back at him.
He reached his hand out and softly touched her cheek, and it was like a thunderbolt hit her. She felt a little woozy from the intensity of it, and the strong surge of emotion she felt in reaction to that slight touch from his hand.
“Krista,” he said, and her name sounded so sexy on his lips. “Why did you have to be so beautiful?”
She sighed, breathing out, as Gunner slowly leaned in and brought his lips to hers.
His kiss was gentle at first, probing, like a question. She could tell, without him saying anything—he wanted to be sure that the feeling was mutual.
Krista showed him by kissing him back, opening her mouth and allowing his tongue inside, parting her lips.
She moaned as he kissed her more deeply still. She could feel him wanting her more strongly, could feel the need radiating off of him like heat. It was heat.
His skin touched hers and it was burning with fire, his flesh was such a turn on when it pressed against hers that she immediately wanted to cry out, her legs and hips twitching in anticipation.
There was so much unspoken between them. Something about the darkness of the cabin, the stillness of the air, the time of night.
Everything that had gone on between them seemed to warrant this moment, this action.
Gunner took her in his arms, lifted her like a feather, and brought her to his bed.
He laid her down, still kissing her as they went, with him on top. The muscles in his arms stood out in stark relief as he held himself above her, his lips kissing slowly down her neck.
She moaned as the heat went through her.
She felt along his deltoids, letting her hands explore his exquisite body, touching his tattoos. He stopped kissing her for a moment and watched as she ran her fingers down his chest and abdomen. His stomach was hard, rippling with tightly coiled muscles—something she’d never imagined being possible outside of a cartoon version of a superhero.
But Gunner was like a superhero come to life. She couldn’t believe the texture of his skin, the sheer perfection of it.
Touching him made her wet.
And then when he touched her back…it was an explosion of ecstasy, better than she ever could have wanted.
“Oh God,” she moaned, as his hands caressed her bare legs, pushing the t-shirt he’d given her slowly up her thighs.
“Your skin is so soft,” he whispered. He looked into her eyes as his hands continued moving slowly up her legs. “I could touch you like this for the rest of my life and be happy.”
She smiled, touching his cheek, feeling his light beard stubble against her fingertips. “I wanted you to touch me like this. I kept wanting it and thinking I was being crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” he said. “Far from it.” And then he was kissing her with renewed passion, and his hips were grinding against hers, his pelvis pressing into her.
She wasn’t wearing any panties, and he’d managed to push her shirt up to the very top of her thighs.
All that stood between them now were his boxer shorts.
Krista reached down and started to pull on them. Slowly, they came down from his hips and she closed her hands around his muscular butt, feeling him thrust towards her. She reached her hand in front to feel his hardness.
It was bigger than she would have guessed, throbbing and pulsating in her hand.
As she stroked him, he got even harder and bigger.
“I didn’t expect you to be this big,” she said. “You’re huge.”
He closed his eyes and breathed faster as she continued stroking his shaft.
Krista was soaking wet between her legs.
As she stroked him, Gunner reached his hand between her thighs and slowly rubbed her wetness. It was slick and ready, opening for him as he gently and firmly rubbed his fingers in a semi-circular fashion.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Their gazes locked once more. There was no need for an answer.
He knows just from looking at me, Krista thought, and laid her head on the bed, as Gunner pulled the t-shirt the rest of the way off her body.
Now she was totally naked and vulnerable before him.
He cupped her breasts in his hands and kissed along her neck, and then she felt him pressing his hips down against hers once more.
This time, his manhood was also pressing, pushing against her opening, sliding ever so slowly in and in and in.
She grabbed his shoulders, gripping his flesh as he split her open with his girth.
It was beautiful, ecstatic pain, but the pain was like a bright burst that lasted only a short moment as she accommodated herself to his immense size.
And then everything was wet and tight, but not painful in the least.
Gunner moved his hips ever so slowly, and each movement was another burst of pleasure through her center.
Krista cried out, raking her fingernails down his heavily muscled back.
Gunner looked at her. His eyes held her gaze as her breathing quickened. She was going to come now, and there was no stopping it.
He was fucking her slowly, expertly, and not one ounce of movement was wasted.
She came twice in a row, hard, biting down and bucking her hips into him. He was a solid wall of muscle, immovable, completely able to handle her in every way.
She’d never felt so safe while being with a man. His strength was like nothing she had even imagined before.
Gunner kissed her on the lips again, teasing her, and then drilled himself deeper between her legs.
She lost her breath.
He was drilling into her, splitting her wide open, and she threw her legs apart as far as she could, allowing him room to move himself.
Soon, he was sliding in and out, his hips furiously pounding at her. She came once more.
She was soaked with sweat and so was he. But she could also feel that he was getting closer and closer.
“Gunner,” she whispered, and he grabbed her hair with one hand and her hip with his other, as he started to slide in and out with passion and fury.
“I’m close.”
“Do it for me,” she told him.
He slid his lips down to her collarbone and pressed deeply into her one final, shuddering time.
***
Krista woke up first the next morning.
They’d slept together in his bed, naked, their bodies intertwined,
and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Until she’d woken up and early rays of sunlight had been pouring into the room through the window, and suddenly it didn’t seem so natural.
In fact, it seemed downright strange.
He was sound asleep, so Krista untangled herself from his heavy limbs and slid out of bed. She tiptoed into the bathroom, turning on the shower and waiting for it to get hot while she looked at her face in the mirror.
You slept with Gunner King, she thought, staring at herself without comprehension.
You slept with him and he has no idea who you really are. That’s not okay. In fact, it’s way beyond not okay. It’s almost evil.
Krista thought about the things he’d told her, the personal stories he’d revealed.
If he knew what her real agenda was, he would be incredibly betrayed.
And yet, her feelings for him were real. She was starting to care about him a lot, and it seemed the feelings were mutual.
There was no obvious solution to the problem, so she simply climbed into the shower and washed off. She was hit with alternating waves of excitement and dread.
At some point, she was going to have to confront Gunner with the real reason she’d come to Middle River, and then he would, in all likelihood, hate her forever.
The question wasn’t if she would tell him, but simply when and how. What was the best way to do it? Was there something she could do to show him her true feelings?
As she dried herself off, Krista thought that maybe the best way to do it would be to call Drew Ellis and quit her job. Once that was done, she would tell Gunner that she’d worked for the UFF but had now quit. She’d tell him that she’d panicked and made a mistake in being untruthful in the beginning.
It would be painful, but maybe he would slowly see what she’d given up for him.
Of course, it was also very possible—even likely—that she would lose both her job and her man.
Krista got out of the shower feeling more stressed than when she’d gotten in.
Sleeping with Gunner had been a huge mistake, she realized. It would make the whole thing seem more sordid when she told him the truth.
But when she came out of the bathroom, she found him on the phone with someone, pacing the cabin in his boxers. “Really? You sure?” he sighed, shaking his head. “Okay. But later today or tomorrow morning at the very latest, right?”