Page 23 of Unmask (Crew of Elmwood Public #2)

“I might have regrets in the morning,” I admitted, my voice barely audible over the wind outside, “but tonight…I just want sleep. Uninterrupted. Without the nightmares. And you…” I swallowed the rest, but the meaning lingered in the air.

He stepped inside without a word, closing the distance in a few careful strides. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The way he moved, slow and deliberate, told me enough. He slid onto the mattress beside me, careful not to touch, but he was there, a steady presence.

Somehow, the cure for our disturbed sleep was each other.

“When I say sleep. I mean sleep ,” I clarified. “No funny business. You stay on your side. There’s an invisible line, and if you cross it, I swear I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Wouldn’t dream of it, but if we’re being honest, it might be worth dying to touch you again.”

“Keed, you can’t say shit like that to me.”

“And you know what happens every time you say my name.”

“Just get in before I change my mind.”

“Gladly, little raven.” He took off his hoodie and jeans, letting them fall to the floor as I gathered the papers and laptop, placing them on the nightstand.

Then he moved slowly, almost cautiously, around to the other side of the bed as if he were afraid to spook me or I might change my mind.

He’d brought the knife with him and set it down on the bedside table.

“I’ve been waiting all week to get into your bed. ”

Rolling my eyes, I turned onto my side and faced the wall, thinking it would be safer than seeing him. The mattress dipped slightly as he mirrored me, his breath soft at my back. Close, perhaps too damn close, yet comforting all at the same time.

“When did they start coming back? The nightmares?” he asked, his fingers toying with my hair.

I knew what he was doing, attempting to divert my mind from the possibility that someone might still be out there, watching, waiting.

I was grateful. My brain needed a distraction, and Kreed was the epitome of diversions for me.

Rolling over, I faced him. Just looking at him scrambled my thought process. “I thought I said no touching.”

He held his hand up with a smirk, making my stomach cartwheel before resting it on the pillow.

Sighing, I answered his question. “Most nights since the warehouse.”

The soft rustle of the wind outside and the occasional creak of the house settled around us. “You shouldn’t have to go through that alone.” He shifted, his body angling toward me even though we weren’t touching.

I didn’t have the words because in what felt like forever…I didn’t feel alone. Even with an invisible line dividing the space between us, the warmth of his presence was known, as was the depth of his gaze and the quiet understanding we hadn’t had before. Somehow, for tonight, that was enough.

“I still hate you,” I murmured into the dark, voice muffled by the pillow, barely carrying past the quiet.

From the threshold of my vision, I caught the corner of his mouth twitching.

Not quite a smile but close. The moonlight spilling through the curtains cut soft shadows across his face, drawing lines over his perfect cheekbones and stubbled jaw.

“Let me cross this invisible line,” he said in a husky drawl, “and I promise in thirty seconds you’ll be feeling the opposite of hate. ”

A breath of laughter slipped out before I could catch it, and damn him and the way his eyes warmed, just a little, the smallest crack splitting through all the frost I’d been holding on to. “Kreed.”

“Now that’s just unfair, little raven.” The way he said it, as if he could taste every syllable, sent a small shiver down my spine. Not from fear. From something else entirely.

I should have looked away and reminded myself why I hated him, why I needed to keep the walls up.

I didn’t.

I stared at him even as the shadows blurred and my eyelids grew heavy. He just stayed. A steady shape in the dark, anchoring me without chains, and when my body finally sagged into the mattress, breath slowing, heart easing into something that didn’t feel like a constant war…I felt it.

His fingers brushed mine.

With a careful patience I hadn’t expected, he laced our fingers together one by one until his hand was wrapped in mine.

The logical part of my brain warned me to pull away, telling me this was too intimate.

I should have shoved him out of the bed, out of the room, out of my life.

Instead…I curled my fingers around his, and in the dark, I let myself believe for just a moment that he wasn’t the enemy, that he could be someone I loved, and that maybe I didn’t have to carry it all alone.

Maybe I didn’t want to let go. Not yet.

I woke slowly, the slow that only comes when, for once, your nightmares don’t find you. Warmth blanketed me, steady, solid, and familiar.

Kreed.

My hand was resting on his chest, rising and falling with each breath he took.

His arm was curled beneath me, holding me as if I belonged there.

At some point in the middle of the night, our bodies had betrayed us, nature taking over.

We hadn’t crossed any lines intentionally, but I’d ended up here anyway, tangled with him.

God help me, it feels good.

His scent surrounded me, a mix of woods, hints of the sea, uniquely his that I was drawn to. I lifted my gaze, careful not to stir him, and found myself staring at his face, so peaceful in sleep, like the demons haunting him had given him a rare reprieve.

He was so fucking gorgeous.

That infuriating jawline, the way his lashes brushed the tops of his cheeks, the slight part to his lips as if he was on the verge of whispering something. My heart squeezed painfully in my chest.

My heart…yearned for him.

My body craved him.

And my soul…it reached for his in a way I didn’t know how to stop. Or if I even wanted to.

A slash of sunlight cut across his face, painting a line down the hollow of his cheekbone and catching on the two faint scars beneath his right eye.

I’d never asked how he got them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Some part of me feared the answer, but I remembered the first time I saw them, wondering who put them there, what kind of pain he’d endured.

They weren’t the type of marks that faded.

They stayed etched into skin, into memory.

My fingers itched to trace them, to feel the raised skin with the pads of my fingers.

To press a kiss to the old wounds like I could somehow erase them, but I just lay there, watching him breathe, because moments like this, unguarded and fragile, were rare, and deep down, a part of me was terrified it might be the last.

His breathing changed. Subtle. The pause between inhales stretched a fraction longer. His fingers twitched beneath mine, just slightly, barely enough to register unless you were watching like I was. He was waking up.

I should have looked away or shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. My gaze stayed fixed on his face, on the slow blink of his lashes as he fought against sleep’s retreat, and when those familiar silver irises opened and locked on mine, I forgot all about propriety.

He looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes and an expression carved in stone, but his eyes… God, his eyes burned.

My heart kicked hard.

Rolling away would be smart. Distance, that was what I needed, but instead, my traitorous fingers drifted down the center of his chest, stopping at the flat press of his abs. The worn cotton of his shirt annoyed me. Why the hell was he still wearing it?

These were the intrusive thoughts I shouldn’t be having. It was too hard to remember I hated him when he was this close.

He continued to watch me, waiting to see what I would do next. I didn’t even know. A blaze of heat began to burn hotly inside me. The air between us thickened, heat rolling off him in quiet, pulsing waves.

His lips brushed mine, softly at first, tentatively in a way that lit my blood on fire, giving me the chance to stop this before we went too far.

I didn’t.

I leaned in, tilting my chin and catching his mouth with mine, and it was over.

The change was immediate. His hand slid behind my neck, fingers threading through my hair and tugging my head back.

His lips were soft but possessive, and he dragged my bottom lip out with his teeth.

Sweet baby Jesus. I’m in so much trouble.

My palm pressed to his chest but lacked any substance. “Wait. I can’t think.”

“Good. Open up for me, little raven,” he murmured, desire thick in his eyes.

As if I had a choice. I was starting to think my need for Kreed would never end. It wouldn’t matter what he did or how horrible he was. I was powerless to the way he made me feel.

My lips parted, and the tip of his tongue touched mine as I let him in, but it was hardly enough.

I ached everywhere. I glided my tongue against his, feeling him tremble, and a heady sensation danced within me.

Power. I had power over this tough, dangerous, broody guy, and it was nearly as addicting as he was.

His mouth moved over mine with desperation, his teeth scraping my bottom lip, and I gasped into the kiss.

He growled low in his throat and rolled, pinning me beneath him, the weight of him both terrifying and grounding.

Every inch of him was hard, and our bodies aligned too perfectly, remembering each other.

My legs wrapped instinctively around his hips, his thigh pressing between mine.

This could be bad, leading to all kinds of complications I didn’t need, but my feelings had taken over, and I was lost. Kreed had that effect on me, making me forget who he was, who I was, and our thorny pasts.

His mouth left mine to find my neck, trailing hot kisses up to my ear. “God, I want you,” he whispered, the tickle of his breath hot on my skin. “You have no idea how much.”

My fingers fisted in his shirt, my heart thundering. We were fire and gasoline, and a spark ignited with every second that passed. “I think I have a pretty good idea,” I whispered, my hips grinding against that very evidently hard part of him.

“I swear I’ve been hard every day since I first saw you.”

My hand slipped under his shirt, gliding up over rippled muscle that shifted under my touch. God, he was so beautiful. It wasn’t fair. How could I possibly stay away? “That must be”—I traced the edge of his boxer’s waistband—“uncomfortable.”

“Jesus,” he hissed between his teeth. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t sure when or how, but he’d inched up my shirt, and I gasped as the pad of his thumb brushed over my nipple.

“I’d die happily between your legs knowing you want me.”

Wanting him would be my downfall. I couldn’t seem to stop kissing him at every chance I got. “Against better judgment.” I ached for him. Wrapping my legs around his, I lifted my hips, rubbing against him.

His lips curled against mine before he kissed me again, sliding his tongue between my parted lips. My fingers wove into his hair. I freaking loved this, loved kissing him and feeling his weight on top of me. “Tell me yes. Tell me you want me. You want this.”

My fingers wrapped around him through his boxers. “I want you inside me.” It was the best he was going to get. Wanting him and wanting sex with him were two things I was trying to separate. It wasn’t working, but Kreed didn’t need to know that. Let him think this was just sex and nothing more.

He hooked a finger into the corner of my underwear, and I held my breath as he grazed my lower belly, moving lower and lower and?—

Knock. Knock.

We both froze.

A breath locked between us.

Knock. Knock. This time louder and more urgent.

What the ?—

The door creaked open wider, and Kreed cursed under his breath. Standing there, arms crossed and glowering, was my cousin. Brock’s gaze took in the entire scene in one sweep: the bed and me flushed and wild-eyed, and when they landed on Kreed, his posture went still.

I scrambled off him like I’d been electrocuted, suddenly very aware of his state of undress in my bed, hair a mess, and eyes dark as they glared across the room, the heat in them shifting to shadowy darkness.

His gaze followed the sound, silver eyes darkening, no trace of softness remaining.

Whatever glint of vulnerability had existed a moment ago was gone, replaced with something hard.

“Shit,” I whispered.

No one moved.