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Of course, the reason he was here was that doing that hadn’t worked the first time.
“I’m going to need you to respond with words.”
“I understand,” she managed to force out.
“Good.” He was unyielding. So unapologetically ruthless, even just standing there. And she knew this was why she’d sought him out and would be the only reason she lived through this,ifshe lived through this, but it didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t make that great, endless embarrassment inside her ease any. “Now, I’m going to order some food. When it comes, I expect you to eat it. If you need to stamp off to your room and have a tantrum between now and then, that’s your call. I won’t judge you.”
Everly reminded herself, because she clearly needed some reminding, that this wasn’t any kind of normal situation. If he had been her boss at the agency, or one of her coworkers, and he’d spoken to her like that—well. She would have ripped off a piece of him and fed it to him without thinking twice. She would have told him where he could take that attitude of his, and precisely where he could shove it.
But this was what he’d been trying to tell her, she understood in the next moment. He wasn’t a normal guy. And this wasn’t any kind of typical, normal, palatable social interaction. He wasn’t some strutting, arrogant wannabe alpha male, trying to assert his dominance because he wished he was a big man.
Hewasa big man, in every sense of the term.
More than that, he was in charge because he knew what to do and how to handle this kind of thing.This kind of thingwas what he did. Even if she hadn’t known the bits and pieces of his résumé that her brother had shared with her, she would have been able to see his skill all over him. It was evident in everything he did. It was who he was.
She might not like it right this minute, but she was going to listen to him.
Or there was no point at all to her insane drive to Alaska. She might as well have stayed right here and let those men do what they wanted with her.
She felt a deep revulsion move through her at the very idea. Because she wanted to live.
She wanted to live.
And if Blue kept her alive, did it really matter what he said or did or how he treated her? It was ridiculous toimagine that she should feel comfortable in a situation like this. She could hardly remember whatcomfortablewas. What mattered was that he made her feel safe, even now when she was mad at she didn’t even know what. Even now, when she felt vulnerable and exposed, all broken matchsticks and too much embarrassed heat.
As if, given the opportunity and some space, she would cry for a week.
Maybe that was why she felt so safe. Because she knew Blue could handle whatever happened. He could and he would, and that gave her room to feel all the things that had gotten shoved aside. She hadn’t shed a tear no matter how frightening it had all gotten—until she’d been with him.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and she wondered how much he could read on her face. Did he know every thought that had scrolled through her head? Or only some of them?
She had a sudden flash of that moment near her car, down by the docks in Grizzly Harbor. The aching, impossible beauty of the water and the quiet forests standing all around. The proud mountains, capped with snow from the winter that was never truly over, austere and remote.
And Blue, so bold and bright in the middle of that cool, gray morning. The brush of his fingers against her ear, and the dizzy shivers that had spread through her at even so innocuous a touch.
Something clicked then. This was deliberate, this methodical putting her in her place. He wanted her furious. He wanted her focused.
He wanted her to stay alive. Maybe as much as she did.
She had no words to describe the giddy sensation that wound around inside her, faster and faster, like some kind of internal tornado, because if this was a deliberate ploy, that meant it was entirely possible that he wasn’t as remote and forbidding as he wanted her to think he was.
And that meant... but she couldn’t let herself go there. Not quite.
Not yet.
“I’ll get you some take-out menus,” she said quietly instead, as if he’d cowed her.
And when his eyes narrowed at her, she smiled.
She ignored how wobbly her legs felt as she walked into her bedroom. She could smell her own familiar scents in here, as if they were new. The lotion she used on her face at night. Her favorite laundry detergent, clinging to her clothes and the comforter kicked down to the foot of her unmade bed. She took a moment to think about how strange it was to have been so far away that her private, personal space should feel strange and small, too.
She moved over to the desk she kept against the far wall, and reached for the top drawer where she kept her favorite menus, but then stopped dead.
Everly didn’t think she called Blue’s name. She didn’t think she did anything but stare, but then he was there, standing beside her with a particularly alert look on his face.
“What’s the matter?”
She didn’t—couldn’t—speak. She just pointed toward her desk.