Page 42 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

The flickering light from the fire illuminates her features as she steps farther into the room, and even with the red scrapes and cuts, the bruise on her cheek, and the bandage covering the stitches over her eye, the woman still takes my breath away.

Every bit as beautiful as the last time I saw her before she disappeared.

Her gray eyes meet mine, and the hesitation I see there makes my stomach twist violently.

My Honeybee has never hesitated when it came to me before. Always so confident. So sure of what she wanted. Never afraid of my moods or reputation.

But not tonight.

Tonight she’s shaken.

I hold her gaze, waiting for what feels like an eternity for her to say something. “Can’t sleep?”

She shakes her head and approaches slowly. Another flash of lightning brightly illuminates one side of her face, and her flinch at the sharp crack of thunder contorts it violently.

Of course…

“The storm keeping you awake?”

Willow shakes her head again and makes it to within a few feet of me. “I mean…yes. But it’s more than that.” Her lips twist as she considers her words, as if she has to choose them carefully around me. “It’s just…weird.”

“What is?”

She glances behind her toward the bedroom. “Sleeping in that bed without you…”

Fuck.

I squeeze my eyes closed, letting her words wash over me and sear my skin like acid.

The pain real.

Powerful.

Intensity I couldn’t have predicted I would have felt.

They’re precisely what I would have killed to hear any time over the last twelve months, if she had come back to me.

Because I know that feeling all too well—how wrong it is to be in there without her.

That’s why, half the time since she’s been gone, I’ve ended up falling asleep in exactly this position out here rather than torture myself with the bed I shared with this woman.

Where I still smell her, despite replacing the sheets.

Where I still feel her beside me, despite her side of the bed being long cold.

Where I still hear the echoes of her gasps and moans as I slid into her.

And for her, we shared it only days ago.

In her mind, I should still be there, holding her through this kind of storm that has always unnerved her so much, despite spending her entire life on this mountain.

The sheer agony of the reality in which we find ourselves threatens to tear me apart, but I force my eyes open to find her watching me carefully, as if she’s not sure if she should turn around and retreat to safety or if I’m the harbor she’s seeking from the storm her life has become.

God, I wish it were the latter…

“You need to get some sleep, Honeybee.”

My voice wavers slightly with the issued warning, but it doesn’t deter her.