Page 54 of Breaking His Exile

Closer.

She raised the pistol, two-handed. Sight lined up on the center of the door. Finger outside the trigger guard. Her hands were steady. She was proud of that.

Tilly stood. The dog’s growl deepened. She moved to the door, hackles raised, tail rigid, and pressed her nose to the crack beneath the jamb.

And Rainey realized she was in a box, trapped, with only one exit. If someone blocked it, she was toast.

She sucked in a fortifying breath, threw open the door, and stepped out onto the porch with her pistol raised.

Something moved in the trees. A shape, dark against dark, staggering between pines. Too big for a deer. Too upright for anything but a man.

Her finger settled on the trigger.

The shape broke into the clearing and stopped. Stood swaying in the open ground between the cabin and the tree line, and the last of the dusk caught him just enough that she could see the blood on his face, the dark stain across his shirt.

“Evander!”

He saw her, and something broke in his face. He crossed the clearing and porch in a handful of strides, and pulled her hard into his arms.

“You’re here.” His voice came out stripped. Rough. “You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

His hands slid from her shoulders to her arms, down to her wrists, checking, and then he let her go and pushed past her into the cabin. He moved fast for a man who could barely stand. He checked every corner of the cabin.

Tilly followed him. The dog’s nose worked the air around his legs, picking up the blood, the sweat, the foreign scent of whoever had put their hands on him. She whined, low and anxious.

Evander reached for her. His palm cupped the dog’s muzzle, and Tilly pressed into the touch, her whole body leaning against his knee. He murmured something to her—words Rainey couldn’t catch, just the low rumble of his voice—and the dog settled, hackles dropping, though her eyes never left the door.

He stood. Turned. Looked at Rainey across the cabin, and whatever had been holding him upright since he’d woken in that shelter gave out all at once. His shoulders dropped. His breath came shaky. He took one step toward her and stopped, his hand braced against the table’s edge, and the look on his face made her chest ache.

“What happened to you?” She crossed to him and pressed a hand to his cheek. “Evander. Talk to me.”

His hand came up and closed around her wrist. “I thought—” He stopped. Swallowed. Started over. “When I woke up, I thought he’d found you.”

“He didn’t. I came straight back. Barred the door. Waited.” She stepped closer. His chest rose and fell against hers, each breath pulling against whatever damage lived under his shirt. “You’re bleeding.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

He looked at her then. His eyes were dark and raw and stripped of every wall he’d built between them, and what she saw in them wasn’t the careful, measured man who’d slept on the floor between her and the door for a week.

“Fuck it,” he muttered and kissed her.

This was hunger, pure and desperate, his mouth hard against hers, his hand tangling in her hair to hold her where he needed her. She tasted blood. His or the other man’s, she didn’t know, didn’t care. His other arm banded around her waist, careful even now of her ribs, pulling her against him until there was no space between them, no air, just his chest against hers and his heart hammering where her palm had landed.

She kissed him back. Opened her mouth under his and let him in, and the sound he made against her lips was half relief, half surrender. His beard scraped her chin.

Her back hit the wall beside the stove, his hands already under her shirt, pushing it up and off. The fabric caught on her elbows; she tore it free. His mouth never left hers, hungry, teeth grazing her lower lip, and she felt the vibration of his groan against her tongue. The pistol clattered somewhere—safety on, she hoped, but her brain had stopped working in any useful way.

“Evander—” she breathed, but he swallowed the rest, his palm flattening against her ribs, sliding upward, and the calluses dragged sparks across her skin. She arched into him. Her ribs protested, a distant complaint she ignored completely.

His shirt was gone. She didn’t know when, and her hands found the hot plane of his chest, the skulls inked there, slick with sweat and blood. She pushed him back enough to look. “Jesus, Evander. You’re hurt.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.” She touched a bruise. “This is bad.”