Page 26 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Birdie

I bolt upright, disoriented, my body damp with sweat. It’s pitch black. Where am I? Tristan’s name rips from my throat, raw and desperate.

A shadow moves in front of me.

Panic constricts my chest. My eyes dart around frantically. My fingers claw at the surface beneath me. It’s not mud and pebbles. It’s warm and soft. Sheets. I feel the blankets tangled and trapping me. The shadow moves closer, and my pulse hammers against my ribs. “Tristan! Tristan!”

“Hey.” His voice cuts through the darkness.

Then a lamp flickers on. The light reveals wooden walls, a quilted blanket twisted around my legs, moonlight spilling through curtained windows.

The cabin. The safe house. And Tristan. He’s rising from a chair beside the bed. “I’m here. You’re safe, Birdie.”

Suddenly, he moves to the edge of the bed and pulls me into his arms. Tristan, the man who flinches at the slightest accidental brush of fingers, who maintains a calculated space between himself and the world—between himself and me—whose entire body coils with tension at proximity, crosses all his lines and hugs me.

The shock of his touch, of his arms encircling me completely, pulling me against his chest with desperation, eclipses my terror.

I feel the thundering of his heart, the shake in his hands as they press against my back.

His body is tense, but he doesn’t let go.

“I was so worried about you,” he murmurs, his voice unusually soft, thick with an emotion he’s never allowed me to hear before.

A sob rips from my throat, violent and unrestrained. My fingers dig into his shirt, my body wracked with tremors. “He had me,” I gasp. “Butterfly Man, he was there. He caught me, he… Tristan, he was on top of me. He did it again.”

Tristan pulls back just enough to look at me, his brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

The words tumble out in a frantic rush. I tell him everything.

The glimpse of the mask through the trees, the desperate flight through the rain-slicked woods, the feel of my legs giving out beneath me, and then.

.. him. The weight of Butterfly Man crushing me into the mud.

The whispers. His touch. My helplessness.

When I finish, I’m shaking, my fingers clutching Tristan’s shirt like it’s the only thing keeping me from drowning.

“Birdie,” his voice drops, threaded with concern, “that’s not possible.”

“No. He tried to convince me I hit my head and imagined it all, but he was there. I saw him. I ran, and he chased after me. He pinned me down in the rain. He—” The memories flood back in vivid flashes—the mask, his mouth on my lips, his words in my ear, his hands on my throat, on my body.

I bury my face against Tristan’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe he found me and did it again.

How does this keep on happening to me? I kept calling for you, but you never came. ”

“No, Birdie. I was there the whole time. You asked me to keep my distance, but I was watching you.”

“Yes, but then I saw him, lurking behind the trees, and you weren’t there anymore.”

“That’s not what happened. I’ve never left your side.

You kept going farther into the woods until you tripped and fell on the rocks by the cove.

I ran to catch you, but I wasn’t close enough.

When I reached you, you’d already passed out, and your head was bleeding.

I carried you and hurried back here. I did the best I could to clean the cut and stop the bleeding, but since then, you’ve been out for hours.

I thought…” He doesn’t finish, but his arms tighten around me.

My skull and temple throb with pain as if on cue. I touch my head and feel the bandage covering it. “That’s… But I… No, Tristan, please, not again. He’s trying to make me look crazy, just like before. Why are you falling for it again?”

“I’m not, but what you think happened couldn’t have. I think I’d have remembered if you were drenched in cum when I found you.”

“The rain must have washed it away.”

“No, because all of the things you told me aren’t real. It must have been a nightmare. I can prove it. Look at your clothes.”

I lift the blanket and glance down at myself. I’m wearing a clean black T-shirt—Tristan’s—and sweatpants. “Where are my clothes? Who took them off and put me in these?”

He swallows. “I did.” His eyes drop to where my fingers clutch the hem of his T-shirt against my thighs, then quickly back to my face. A flush creeps up his neck.

“You...” My voice trails off. The thought of Tristan’s hands on me while I was unconscious, touching parts of me no one has touched in a long time except in violence, sends an unexpected tingling through me.

“Your clothes were soaked through,” he explains, his voice lower, rougher. “You were shivering. I was afraid you’d get hypothermia on top of the head injury.” His thumb absently traces small circles on my arm. “I had to.”

His scent surrounds me, embedded in the fabric of his clothes I’m wearing. Now, I’m hyperaware of how his T-shirt drapes over my body, how the neckline slips off one shoulder, how nothing but thin cotton separates his hand from my skin.

I should pull away. Put distance between us. We’re both too raw right now, too vulnerable. But I lean toward him, drawn by some gravity I can’t control. “Thank you, for taking care of me.”

His eyes spark, and for a moment, I think he might—

He clears his throat and reaches over to the nightstand. “Your clothes are here.” He hands me the folded stack, without breaking our embrace. “They’re intact. I washed them. They’re still a little damp, and there may be some mud stains that didn’t go away, but they’re not torn.”

I force myself to shift focus from the heat of his proximity and the lingering sensation of his fingertips against mine to the clothes, to the presumed evidence of my insanity.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper, my fingers trembling as they trace the unmarred fabric.

“I felt him tear my shirt open, my pants, I heard them rip.”

Tristan hesitates, then pulls out a phone, not his usual device— this one is bigger. “There’s something else you should see.” He swipes through it a few times before handing it to me. “After what happened last time, I... I needed to make sure you were safe. Even when you needed space.”

A video feed pops on the screen. The timestamp shows earlier today, around the time I left the cabin.

The camera angle is strange, bobbing with movement.

“Are these the woods outside?” The angle is from the perspective of someone walking in them.

Then it hits me. “This is me walking, isn’t it?

You put a camera on me without telling me, Tristan? ”

“A micro-GPS with a camera attachment. It was on your shirt collar. I put it there during our sparring in the kitchen.” His eyes are pleading for understanding.

“I had to be sure I could find you and protect you if he tried to come near you again. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you. I can’t…”

I want to be angry, but the desperation in his voice stops me. Instead, I watch the footage.

There I am, walking through the woods alone.

The camera catches glimpses of trees, the ocean in the distance, my shadow stretched ahead of me.

No one follows. No one watches. Then the view abruptly tilts, spins—I’m falling.

There’s a sickening crack as the camera catches the ground, rain pattering against it.

Tristan calling my name follows. Seconds later, he appears, running into view. His face is twisted with terror as he drops to his knees beside me. His mouth forms my name again and again as he checks my pulse, my breathing. Then he lifts me into his arms, my head lolling against his chest.

Tristan calls out for Brandon as he reaches the cabin. They’re both running. We’re in the bathroom, where Brandon is filling the tub with water, and then Tristan lays me in the tub. He reaches a hand toward me, I assume to take off my shirt because then the footage ends.

“Are you saying the only thing that happened out there in the woods is that I hit my head, then you brought me here and you’ve been up all night, keeping watch, afraid I wouldn’t wake up?”

“Yes. I was scared shitless.” He rests his forehead on mine, his eyes squeezing as if in pain. “Don’t do this to me again. Please, Birdie. I can’t lose you.”

I stare at the screen, trying to reconcile what I’ve just seen with the vivid horror etched into my memory. “But it felt so real. I can, literally, feel him inside me.”

“I was there the whole time. There was no one else there, Birdie,” he says softly, holding my gaze.

“But you hit your head pretty hard. I should have taken you to the hospital right away.” His thumb gently brushes near the bandage on my temple.

“Get some rest. I’ll arrange for a secure trip to the hospital first thing in the morning.

I don’t think what you had was just a nightmare. You may have a concussion.”

I lean into him, too exhausted to fight anymore—against the memories, against the evidence, against the comfort of his arms that defies everything. “No. We don’t have time for this. We must go to Florida. Now.”

“Birdie, we talked about this. I get that you want to send your stalker a message so badly you fantasized about it when you passed out, in a disturbingly dark erotic way of all things, but I can’t let you go see your stalker.

Besides, we’ve already narrowed him down to two possible suspects.

Both we can easily contact and subtly tell about your husband’s blackmail. There, message delivered.”