Page 41 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

Another week passed by, and the weather grew cooler. Sam continued to heal. Autumn was encouraged by the fact that he continually scratched at his stitches. “Tap them,” she reminded him. “I don’t want you to tear them open. But if they’re itching, it means they’re healing well.”

“Yes, I know,” he answered.

She studied him as he closed his eyes, laying his head back. Yes, of course he knew. He had likely healed more times than almost any other human.

Autumn passed the time by reading and by adding to the back of the journal Sam had made her—lists of avenues she wanted to go down as far as researching the program Sam had told her about, including Dr. Heathrow himself.

Sam seemed both protective of the man and troubled when she brought him up, quick to move the conversation to other places.

She could understand why, she supposed. The doctor had healed Sam, but he’d also hurt him.

And others too. There was a cloud of mystery surrounding the man, and whenever Autumn recalled him, a shiver of disquiet scurried down her spine.

Bill stopped by and brought more groceries, asking her covertly how everything was going, the look in his eyes telling her he continued to worry.

She smiled and reassured him that they were both doing well and keeping themselves occupied.

But she only had another week and a half off work.

She needed to decide what to do, not only with herself but with Sam.

She quizzed Bill about what was going on in the outside world as related to the crime they’d been involved in.

Bill told her that the news reports were dying down, which simultaneously caused her relief and made a knot form in her stomach.

No one should ever stop talking about those little kids who were targeted and suffered injuries, a few physical but all of them emotional. Not ever.

There would be people who didn’t though, even if the world moved on. Their families, their friends…the community. It was their collective job now to love and comfort those children as well as they were able.

However, to know that even the mention of a mysterious “Good Samaritan” was no longer front and center in Americans’ minds would soon begin to open up their options.

Ever since Sam’s first hot shower, tension had been swirling in the air like the steam that had enveloped their naked bodies.

They watched each other now, lingering looks and furtive glances.

Autumn’s breath would catch and her heart would stall when she looked up and caught him staring at her, a primal look on his face that Sam quickly blinked away.

His expression was often first surprised, then remorseful, melting into dejection as if he was busy disciplining himself for whatever he’d been thinking.

He’d lived a strict life of discipline, Autumn knew. Of denying himself. But oh, she wanted to know what brought on that heated look, the one that made his eyes grow lazy and fierce all at once.

She desperately wanted him to kiss her. Truthfully, she’d been waiting since she was fourteen years old.

But she was pretty darn certain that he was not going to make the first move. She’d given him the opportunity.

If you want this, you’re going to have to take charge, plain and simple. Sam is not a man who will sweep you off your feet.

Yet in his own way, he’d done exactly that.

Autumn had once struggled with her own physical identity.

As someone who had been sick for so many years, she was extremely careful with her body, and it’d taken her quite some time to feel comfortable in her skin.

She’d had one serious boyfriend in high school, but they’d run their course once graduation came along and he’d gone to college in another state.

She’d realized then that he’d been more of a friend than anything and that she hadn’t felt passion for him so much as that he made her feel safe.

Which, at the time, she supposed, was what she’d needed.

Sam didn’t make her feel safe. In some ways, just the opposite. But Autumn finally knew what the scalding wash of passion felt like whooshing through her veins and muddling her mind.

And he hadn’t even kissed her yet.

So okay then, she’d be brave. She’d help him remember that he was too. And that she was worth the risk.

They walked together, she read as he rested, and they both cooked meals and gathered firewood.

In some ways, the complication—the size and scope and overarching ramifications—of their situation melted into sweet simplicity in that small cottage by the lake.

Yet Autumn was all too aware that it could not last.

One night after dinner, Autumn asked, “What do you say to bundling up and taking a walk? Do you feel up to it?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, great.”

They finished their meal, and then Autumn put her sweater and gloves back on, also grabbing a beanie this time. She tossed Sam a zip-up sweatshirt lined in fleece from the closet, and then they stepped out into the clear, chilly evening as the sun began to dip below the water.

She led him to the path that meandered between the trees at the edge of the lake, just wide enough for two, and Autumn found that she felt strangely shy walking so close to him like this, the plumes of their breath meeting in the air in front of them.

“I made a wish out here last week,” she told him.

He glanced down at her. He was so tall, so masculine, and she could feel the heat of his body even though they weren’t touching. “What did you wish?”

“For answers,” she said.

He looked away as they walked, out to the water, golden and rippling under the lowering sun.

“But also,” she went on, “for you to heal.” In every way.

“I’m already almost healed.”

“I’m not totally convinced of that,” she said, giving him a sidelong look. “But I know a way to test it.”

He frowned. “How?”

“If you can catch me! Don’t trip this time!” she called as she took off running.

She heard an incredulous laugh behind her and ducked between two trees, not running very fast, not really trying to get away from him at all. His stitches were healed nicely, and she didn’t fear that he’d tear them, but she wasn’t going to risk it.

She could hear Sam behind her, and something about being pursued by him made excitement thrum through her veins.

How very different from how their story began.

Only then, she’d thought it was a bad dream.

Then , she hadn’t known who was in pursuit.

She laughed out loud as he caught up to her, his staggered breath and the crunch of his heavy footsteps directly at her back.

He touched her and she laughed again, tripping over a root and pitching forward.

Sam reached out and caught her around the waist, steadying her, but she went to her knees in a bed of pine needles and then rolled to her back, laughing up at the canopy of trees above.

Sam dropped down beside her, rolling to his back as well.

For a moment, they lay there as they both caught their breath, the last rays of sun filtering through the dimming woods. Beautiful. Peaceful.

“You’re healed,” she declared.

He let out an agreeable grunt. “I know.”

He’d said he would leave when he was healed, and Autumn had asked him to stay.

He’d given her a half-hearted yes, but she was afraid that he wouldn’t honor it.

And in all honesty, she didn’t exactly know what to do with him once they left this temporary home.

Would she take him to her small house? Leave him there while she went to work every day?

It was all so up in the air, and it made her feel slightly desperate and very unsure.

Because although she had no plan, her heart—her heart didn’t want to let him go.

And in many ways, she knew even trying would be an impossibility.

Autumn turned, going up on one elbow and gazing at Sam, her eyes moving to those soft, soft lips of his.

They’d been this close once before, their faces nearly touching.

And even though she knew now it’d been reality, sometimes that long-ago moment still felt like a dream.

“You almost kissed me once,” she murmured.

He turned his head, his expression surprised as their gazes met.

“In the woods, when I tripped you,” she said, as though he might not remember. And maybe he didn’t. But she had a feeling he did. “Do you ever think about what it would have been like?”

“All the time,” he answered. “Every day of my life.”

Oh. Sometimes he could be so incredibly honest that it stole her breath. She hadn’t expected that, and it made her pulse jump, her heart pick up speed, her blood moving more swiftly through her veins than when she’d been running.

Autumn reached out and laid her hand over his heart and felt the strong pulse under her palm. He was growing used to her touch now, and he no longer flinched. But that was all brand new, and she couldn’t help wonder… “Have you ever been with a woman, Sam?”

He turned his face away from her, looking back to the gap between the trees where the sky had turned dusty rose.

Part of her didn’t want that answer as she didn’t want to picture Sam with any other woman.

She was also surprised by the fleeting wish that she hadn’t been with anyone and that Sam might be her first. But either way, she knew it would be good to verbalize this between them. “Have you had relationships?”

“No, but I know pleasure,” he said in answer.

But the bleak look on his face told her differently.

Of course he knew the mechanics like nearly every other adult human and brief, blissful relief.

But judging by his expression, it was one that quickly melted into melancholy, a dissatisfaction he might not be aware of or know how to explain. That wasn’t true pleasure.