Under Threat by B.J. Daniels (reading the story of the .TXT) 📕

She wasn’t even sure how long the orgasm pulsed through her. She didn’t care. In this dark cave with Vaughn, it didn’t matter what time it was. All that mattered was that he was holding her, that he was a part of her.

“You’re shaking again, and I think it’s cold this time,” he murmured into her ear, so gentle and sweet.

It was hard to think she could be cold, but as he grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, she realized he was right. She was shivering with cold, among other things.

The sweatshirt he put on her was his, oversized and warm, and it smelled like him. Clean and soap and Vaughn. She wanted to snuggle into that smell and him forever.

“We should get dressed.”

If he hadn’t kissed her forehead and her cheek and then her neck before moving, she might have been fooled by that tense note in his voice. But he was so gentle, and affectionate, and she realized that his tenseness wasn’t about what had passed between them, it was just that he was coming back to the job he had before him.

He was dedicated to her safety. He was dedicated to her. She couldn’t help but be warmed by that.

She rolled off him and tried not to watch with too much interest as he got rid of the condom. He handed her a pair of pants that would be too big, but they would keep her warm. The cave was much cooler than the outside air.

“You can change back into your clothes tomorrow when we set out. The sweats will be too big to move in, but the shorts and shirt won’t be enough to keep you warm tonight.”

“Have you always been such a good caretaker?”

“I guess it depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

Those inscrutable gray-blue eyes met hers in the eerie glow of the flashlight beam. Something in his gaze shuttered, and she realized this was quite the sore spot for him. “You’ve done nothing but take care of me so far,” she said firmly, wishing she could erase those doubts in his eyes.

“That’s my job.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Do you want to rest, or do you want to try to eat something first? All I have are some granola bars and some jerky.”

“Vaughn, I want to talk.”

“We can talk about whatever you want, except about my caregiving tendencies.”

She frowned at him as he got dressed. He seemed to have an endless supply of things in that black backpack of his. She sat on the blankets that he’d stretched out, dressed in his clothes, watching something like irritation make his shoulders hunch.

“So, is this the part where you’re just certain that I’m going to look at you like your ex-wife looked at you?” she asked, perhaps too bluntly, but if she was going to have ill-advised sex with the man, she was going to ask him too-blunt questions.

If her life was in danger, she was going to push where she normally wouldn’t. She was going to demand what it would never occur to her to demand in her real, unassuming, obsessed-with-Gabby life.

He faced her, and in the light everything about him seemed hard and unreachable. Granite she’d never be able to push through. Except she had. She had.

“We had sex once, Natalie. I like you, I do. But you’re nothing like a wife.”

It was a nasty thing to say, and it hurt even though she knew it shouldn’t. She wasn’t his wife, she wasn’t even close to his wife. She’d be lucky if there was anything they could salvage after this whole ordeal.

But just because words were designed to hurt, no matter the truths or lack of truth behind them, didn’t mean that she could let it go.

“I’m not trying to be an ass,” he said on a sigh, rubbing his jaw. “But don’t make me into something I’m not.”

“I’m not making you into anything. I’m reflecting on what I’ve seen from you, and if you can’t accept that part of yourself, that’s fine. Don’t take it out on me.”

“I’m not big on sorry.” He said it with such a grave finality she opened her mouth to tell him he was a jerk, but he kept going.

“But I’m sorry. Because I was feeling guilty for letting my personal feelings interfere with this case, and I took it out on you, and that’s less than fair.”

Her heart ached for him then, because she knew that she’d initiated this. She’d pushed for it. Not that Vaughn hadn’t wanted it or hadn’t enjoyed it, but it had come at a cost to him. It required him to bend that ironclad moral code he lived by, and that meant something, not easily distilled no matter how great the orgasm might have been.

It was crazy to think she might love him. She barely knew him. And yet everything in her heart said that love was what this feeling was. Love, or the seeds of it. There was so much possibility, and yet so much against them.

“Apology accepted,” she said, hoping her voice sounded light rather than as ragged and rocked as she felt.

“Just like that?”

“This wasn’t a mistake, but I understand why it might be hard for you to accept. But I’ll never regret it. No matter what happens.”

“You say that now...”

“And I’ll say it always. No matter what.” She stood, because she needed to somehow prove to him that she was strong. That she meant it. “That was what I needed, at that exact time I needed it. And you gave it to me. Nothing you could do could take that away. Nothing that happens changes what you gave me.”

He stared at her, and she thought she saw some pain there, and she assumed it probably had to do with his marriage that had dissolved. No matter how much or how little he’d given, that relationship had clearly left scars. She wished she could sew them together, kiss them, make everything okay.

But she couldn’t. And not just