LOST

by Lane Parker

  He sat next to me. Not so close he was touching me, but close enough that his masculine scent still tormented me.

  We sat and didn’t speak. The cabin was quiet. The only thing I could hear was an owl, hooting faintly, far away.

  The quiet settled my mind. Strangely, I realized that it was the kind of quiet I’d been looking for. Not glass-encased silence, like the cabin I had booked, but something more natural.

  Those thoughts surprised me. I wasn’t sure what it meant that I was enjoying the silence. I fiddled with the drawstring of my pants—his pants—and filed it away to think about later. Just like I’d put aside the way he’d looked when he walked out of that bathroom in nothing except a towel.

  “Why are you out here alone, Keeley?” he questioned huskily.

  His voice startled me out of my thoughts. I felt his sharp eyes staring at me. I supposed he was going to ask eventually. Whether I wanted him to ask was another matter.

  The thing was, I knew why I’d come to Colorado. The answer just felt stupid when I put it into words. I was out here alone to prove that I could be. I wanted to find out if I could be alone and not succumb to all the anxiety, to my nervous, rattling brain. I wanted to do something for myself, to make choices for me.

  I wanted to find out who I was, and why I felt so alone.

  Talk about first-world problems. I needed to go on a vacation to take care of myself—for once. Not exactly a worldwide, serious issue.

  Wait. Did he really mean, why are you out here alone? No friends? No boyfriend?

  Yeah, I had friends. I had friends like Yasmin, who gave me advice I didn’t want to take, though she meant well. I didn’t have close friends, deep conversation friends, emotional support friends. I was always going. I didn’t have time to think or feel.

  Some part of me didn’t even want to do those things.

  Which was probably a big part of why I didn’t have a boyfriend anymore.

  Well, I wasn’t going to tell James any of that.

  I sighed. “I guess I’m still figuring that out. What about you?”

  Fair’s fair, after all.

  He shrugged and brushed his hair behind his ears. “Long story.” His voice was clipped and closed-up. It was the kind of tone that said—don’t ask any more.

  But the whiskey in me said—go for it.

  “We’ve got nothing but time,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Let’s just say I’m a sorry bastard who probably needs to be alone.”

  He didn’t say it with self-pity. He said it with resignation. A sorry bastard was what he was because he had decided that was who he wanted to be.

  The problem was, the more I talked to him, the more I got the feeling that wasn’t who he was at all.

  James was passionate and interesting and, yeah, maybe a little strange. Definitely prickly. Stubborn. And kind when he wanted to be. Admittedly, he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but he was far from being what I’d consider a total asshole.

  Maybe I just knew too many real bastards, people who wouldn’t lift a finger if you were in trouble, to lump him in with them.

  “Damn, it can’t be that bad,” I coaxed. “You didn’t kill anyone, did you?” I laughed, but he…didn’t. His brow wrinkled and he looked down at the whiskey glass in his hand.

  Oh God, he killed someone? I didn’t want to be right about that.

  “No.” He looked into my eyes. His own were deep, and dark, and troubled. “But it’s not worth getting into.”

  Okay, time to put that shit out of your mind, Keeley. He’s fine. Remember? If he wanted to kill you, you’d probably be toast by now.

  Stop thinking about that.

  “Well,” I said, “you make beautiful art out here. So it seems like it’s working out. If you’re going to be a misanthropic loner, might as well make the most of it, right?”

  He smiled. “That’s what I’ve always thought.”

  His smile was so… good. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. It felt like a rare sight, something you shouldn’t have seen, like a wild predator chasing a butterfly. Or something.

  Okay, the whiskey has definitely hit me.

  The way his strong jaw moved, the way his eyes lingered on me, and seemed to search my face, and settle on my lips… That hit me, too. Not in my brain, but in my belly, between my thighs, low and hot.

  “What I meant earlier…” His gaze fell to my neck as he spoke, and my skin grew hot as he looked at me. “It’s hard to believe there isn’t someone… someone who didn’t want you to come out here alone.”

  He snapped his eyes up to mine then, and they burned into me. He didn’t say a word, but he’d spoken loud and clear.

  Let me know you want me. Tell me. Say it. Tell me that there is no one else.

  So I did.

  “Well, I’m not alone now.” My hand drifted toward his leg. My fingers stretched across his upper leg, and I felt the hard muscle of his thigh beneath. “Neither are you.”

  The whiskey I’d swilled down made me bold, and brazen, stripping away any inhibitions I might have had over approaching James like some guy I was trying to pick up in a bar.

  His nostrils flared, but his eyes didn’t leave mine. He pulled my hand from his leg forcefully and raised it to his mouth.

  His beard brushed against my palm and I shivered. His lips touched my skin, and his tongue licked up my hand, across the skin between my fingers. I squeezed my thighs together. The pounding throb thundered into my brain. He sucked one of my fingertips into his mouth.

  Is this really what I want? I’d started it. I couldn’t deny that.

  He leaned closer, my hand still in his. He pinned my arm above my head, against the arm of the couch. His weight pressed me into the cushions, his body hard and hot. His free hand stroked up my leg, my thigh. I wanted to spread my legs around him, desperately. But they were stuck beneath him—I was stuck beneath him. Even that felt so damn good.

  He brushed his lips against my neck, and I felt his tongue on my skin. His kisses were open and wet. Then his teeth grazed my throat. A choked moan escaped me, and I couldn’t hold it back even if I wanted to.

  Yes. This is what I wanted. I wanted him.

  James left me needy, raw and wide open to him, a feeling that was as scary as it was seductive.

  I’d never experienced this kind of wild desire, but dammit, I wanted to indulge in the sensations.

  I’d wanted James since I’d seen him outside, sweaty and irritated and fucking gorgeous. And when he was on the floor, my leg in his hand while he bandaged me up, I hadn’t been able to think about anything else. Even if this was a mistake… it was going to be a delicious one that I could never completely regret.

  “You okay, Keeley?” he asked tightly. “Your injuries—”

  “I’m fine,” I panted. “Please don’t stop.”

  He kissed up my throat, over my jaw, but when he reached my mouth, he stopped. His hand stroked up my side, and his fingers found my lips, tracing them. I could only watch, my skin burning, as his eyes searched my face, like he wanted to remember every part of it.

  I fell into the heat of his gaze, mesmerized, my heart stuttering as he looked at me like he was trying to commit everything about me to his memory. The action was unbearably sexy, and it left me breathless.

  Before I knew it, his lips were on mine, hard and wanting. His teeth bit at my bottom lip and tugged. I opened my mouth the way I wished my legs could open around him and jerk his hard body against mine.

  Our tongues touched, and a low growl rumbled through him.

  He clawed at my shirt and grasped my hip. Rough fingers dipped under the loose waistband of my pants, and I moaned into his mouth when they moved inward. He pressed into my thigh and brushed between my legs.

  “Fuck.” He groaned and pulled his hand away. I could feel his breath hot against my chest. He pushed my legs open. I gasped at the feel of his rough fingers cupping me, spreading me.

  James was real, and he was earthy. His
hands weren’t manicured or smooth. He was rough, but it was one of the things that made him almost irresistible. When he was fucking a woman, none of it would be practiced, nor would it follow some kind of technique.

  It would be raw and feral, and his unbridled need would turn my desire into something just like his.

  I squirmed as he bit softly at my nipple through my shirt. I writhed beneath him, whining.

  “You are so wet,” he whispered. “And right now, you’re mine, Keeley.” He pressed one of his thick fingers inside me, and I clenched, shaking. Jesus! I was his, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to argue about that. I responded to his every touch, his every word, his every breath. The fact that he’d stated that he owned my body, and had uttered it so damn possessively was like an aphrodisiac to me.

  I looked into his eyes, and they were darker than ever, nearly black, and sparkling dangerously. His finger thrust over and over, and his eyes never left mine.

  “I bet you taste as sweet as honey, Keeley,” he rasped.

  Just the thought of his slick, hot tongue devouring me made my body jerk.

  My head rolled back, and his thumb moved up, circling my clit. I bucked against him. I could come like this, right now. Please don’t stop. Pleasepleaseplease—

  I cried out as I reached my climax, and everything went dark as I squeezed my eyes shut, my body rigid and thrusting against him. I gripped his flannel shirt in my fists while he held me, and my panting slowed.

  My eyes were still closed, and I waited for him to move. I waited for him to do more, to press his body against mine. To take me like I belonged to him.

  Greedily.

  Covetously.

  Hard and hot.

  Instead, I felt myself being lifted from the couch. He carried me with ease, just like he’d done at the rockslide, and he set me down on his bed. He reached for the crumpled pile of covers at the foot of the bed and pulled them over me.

  “I loved watching you come for me,” he said hoarsely.

  He didn’t lean down on the bed, and he didn’t touch me again. He only sighed, his brow tensed, and turned away.

  I reached for his shirt again. “Wait. Don’t you want—”

  “No.” That clipped tone was back, the one that said—stop. “I shouldn’t have done that, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “But I—” I didn’t know how to say it. I liked it? I wanted more? Yeah, all that, but also… why shouldn’t you have done it?

  We were grown adults. We wanted each other. Hell, I more than wanted him. My body was screaming that I needed him.

  He turned off the lights near the bookshelves. “Listen… It isn’t you. You’re—”

  He ran a nervous hand through his thick, wavy hair. “You’re beautiful, and you’re hurt. And you deserve better than a drunken fuck with someone who’s hardly a person anymore.”

  What? I rubbed my eyes. Confusion was making a mess of my brain. If I had been a little less bewildered and a little more sober, I would have felt pretty awful about myself. Insulted and injured.

  Instead, I just felt thrown off balance. He was right—it wasn’t me. It was him. He was like a feral cat swatting wildly, because he didn’t know how to accept an affectionate caress.

  For all the grown-up woman advice I’d ignored over the years, one thing really had stuck with me.

  I did not need to be in the business of fixing broken men.

  No, thanks.

  Nope.

  Can’t do it.

  So maybe he was right about it being a mistake. Even if it had felt so damn good.

  “Just sleep.” He flipped off the lamp near the bed, and the cabin went dark. I heard the couch creak, and soft grunts from him when he curled his large body up onto the cushions.

  All I could do was turn over and sigh. Everything that had happened that day—getting lost, getting hurt, him—just kept repeating in my mind.

  But I kept coming back to one thing:

  Something or someone fucked him up. Badly.

  Chapter Six

  James

  My dreams betrayed me that night.

  In my restless slumber, I did everything with Keeley I had wanted to.

  Our bodies were a tangle of heat and sex. I fucked her on the bed, and her body wrapped around mine as tight as any glove. Each time I sank into her, that beautiful mouth moaned and whimpered like she had when I’d only used my fingers to get her off.

  It felt… different than it usually did. With other women, sex was fun—an experiment, a way to pass the time and blow off steam.

  With Keeley, it was intimate. It was close. When I looked into her eyes, or felt her hands on me, my heart thundered loudly in my chest, and it was intense. Unstoppable.

  When the morning sun hit me, I was pissed off that those feelings and images had all been experienced in a damn dream. I was stiff, in more ways than one. I had curled up on my way-too-small couch and fallen asleep there.

  Well, I’d eventually fallen asleep, after a few angry hours, going over all the ways I’d fucked up my life to this point.

  That was something I found myself doing way too much lately.

  I sniffed, and then took a deeper breath. There was a smell in the air I didn’t recognize at first. Warm and sweet. Damn, it smelled good. Like home.

  I thought it might be pancakes. Where the fuck did those come from?

  Keeley. Right.

  She was awake already. After I rubbed my eyes, I unfolded myself from the couch and saw her on my bed, sitting against the headboard, cradling a book against her knees.

  She didn’t say a word. She didn’t even look my way. And I couldn’t fucking blame her.

  I stumbled to the kitchen as I did every morning, to make coffee and wake up. Except when I got there, the carafe was already hot and half-full. There was a stack of pancakes in the cast iron pan, and warm maple syrup in a small pot.

  Clearly, I’d slept through a lot.

  “You cooked in here?” I didn’t mean for it to sound so accusing. But I fucked that up, too.

  “Yes.” It was a short, hard answer. It wasn’t hard to tell she was in no mood to talk with me.

  For whatever stupid reason, I kept trying. “You’re up early,” I observed, pulling a mug out of the cabinet.

  It took her a minute to decide whether to respond. “I always get up early.” She still didn’t look up from her book. “Part of my job.”

  Right. I sipped the coffee. It was better than any I ever made, that was for damn sure.

  I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t even know what to say. I told her the truth the night before. She deserved better than any of this. She didn’t deserve to get hurt by that rockslide, or by me. It was just crazy chance that threw her my way.

  All I had to do was not fuck up too much more until I could get her home. Hopefully I could make that work, at least.

  She sat in the bed, reading intently, and the morning light fell on her golden skin. I should have looked away, but I drank in the sight of her on top of my old quilt.

  Whoever let her go—and someone had, I knew that much—was a complete idiot. Just like me.

  I watched her flip the pages of the book, and something fell out. She held it up to the light, and I could see what it was.

  It was a postcard, an image of Winged Victory, from the Louvre. The statue’s marble wings were spread wide, half in shadow.

  The card was from my sister.

  Something surged inside of me when I saw it. Anger or pain, whatever it was—it was fiery and caustic, and I couldn’t hold it in.

  “Don’t read that!” I set my coffee mug down on the counter, hard, and stalked toward her.

  She finally looked up. Her eyes were narrowed, her mouth a tight line. She took the postcard between her fingers and threw it at me. It fluttered in the air and landed on the floor between us.

  Part of me wanted to reach for it. Part of me wanted to reach for her. But I didn’t do anything. I just stood there, waiting, and I coul
dn’t even look at her.

  She closed the book and stood up. “I’m going to use your shower.”

  Her cut leg took her weight, but she still limped toward the bathroom door.

  I didn’t think she wanted my help. “Mind your bandage,” I said. “Try not to get it wet.”

  She slammed the door behind her without a word. I heard the pipes creak when she turned on the water.

  I bent to pick up the postcard and flipped it over. Olivia’s handwriting was scrawled along the back in faded ink.

  Jamie—

  The patisseries here are like nothing you’ve ever seen. School is everything I hoped for so far. I’m finally doing it! LIVing the dream (see what I did there?). I visited the Louvre, but it would have been so much better with you. I’m pretty sure you could have told me about the techniques of every single artist. Keep saving up and hopefully we can get you here for a visit. Your dream could happen here, too.

  I miss you.

  Liv

  My ribs felt like they were clenching around my heart. I miss you, too, Liv. I miss what we used to be.

  She’d been my best friend when we were kids. She’d actually been my only friend. I never seemed to fit in. Pale and skinny and short, I cared more about art than sports or popularity. Art was my refuge from my parents, who didn’t pay much attention to either of us. School was where the only kids who paid attention to me were bullies.

  Liv had been my protector then. She was older and not as much of a misfit as I was. Somehow, she’d figured it all out in a way I never could, and she’d watched my back. But only for my freshman year—she was three years older, and when she graduated, I was alone.

  When she left high school, everything got worse. It got physical.

  Hard shoves.

  Pushes into lockers.

  When I could get my parents to listen to me, they brushed it off. Toughen up. Ignore it. They hadn’t had a single protective instinct to protect their child. Never had.

  Once the mean kids in school saw that I’d just take it, they wanted to know how far they could go.

  One day, I walked back home, blood in my nose and eyes from a bullying session. Olivia was there, home from her job at the bakery. The look on her face when she saw me… I’d never forget that look.