in some serious feelings just for me, but I doubt that’s possible. Laken has serious feelings for the Wes she once knew. If Laken and I ever did get together, she’d still most likely have Wes popping through her mind in screenshots. She’s in that deep.
“What’s up?” I yank my sleeping bag out of the closet and lay it over the floor.
“Why is there a Fem parading around as Hattie Tobias?”
“They want to mislead us.” I shrug. “It’s probably not too big a challenge for them to figure out what we’re up to.”
“You said she mentioned she wanted to find her family.” Laken’s eyes round out.
“I think maybe she wants to get us off track.”
“Flynn’s ready to go off on his own.” She blows out an anxious breath. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he were off in the woods right now.”
Crap. “He’s such a moron,” I whisper, rubbing my palm in my eye while trying to forget about him and his impulse decisions that have the power to yank me out of a bedroom with Laken. “I fully expect a distress text while he’s getting his brains sucked through his eyeball.”
Laken buries her face in the pillow. Her sweatshirt rises up her back, and I can make out her underwear peering over the elastic.
“Tell me that can’t happen.” She takes a hold of my hand, and pulls me next to her on the mattress.
“It can, and it will.” I bring her fingers to my mouth and bury a kiss over her thumb. “Flynn is an idiot. Expect moronic things to occur, regularly and without reason.”
She reels me in closer, and I inspect the newfound curves my lucky sweats adhere to.
“I don’t like this,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I tease, trying to get up, but she pulls me down with a laugh trapped in her throat.
“I’m afraid, Coop.” Gone is her playful demeanor, replaced with a childlike innocence that makes me want to shelter her from the world. “I don’t like being afraid.” Her silver eyes reflect fear like a mirror as she shivers next to me.
I pull back the sheets and she slinks under the covers. My arm rides low over her waist and I hold her like that a good while.
“Don’t be afraid, Laken,” I whisper, tracing her brow with my finger. “Be strong. I’ll hold you up.” I reach for her hand again. “I’ll never let you fall.” I’d be lying if there weren’t horrific things she should fear, for instance why the Counts have taken such an overt interest in her.
“They don’t like the fact I can remember,” she says, rubbing her thumb against my palm.
My thoughts are wide open. She’s able to hear them all, like a field with no barriers, but nothing of real interest to listen to.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be afraid.” I pull the covers up over her shoulders, and she slips them back down, patting a space for me next to her.
“Would you hold me again? Just for a few minutes?” It comes out more of a plea from a child than a seductress, so I crawl underneath and wrap an arm around her waist.
“Can you turn off the light?” She adjusts her head into the pillow as if sleep were a real option, so I lean over and comply.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were asking me to spend the night, right here next to you,” I say with a little too much hope in my voice.
“Maybe I am.” A seam of moonlight sprays throughout the room. It washes away every last hue and dips us into a black and white world. Laken catches my gaze and holds it. You could feel the electrical charge thicken around us, enveloping us in one hell of a power surge.
Her lips hedge toward mine, and she freezes. Laken wants a kiss, hell I want a kiss, but she doesn’t want to initiate it. She’ll only come so far. The rest is up to me.
“Laken,” I blow it out in a whisper through the silk of her hair. “It’s not right.” I don’t say his name. I try to block Wes from my thoughts, but he pulsates in and out of my mind like a demonic shadow.
“I know.” She turns the other way and scoots in a little closer. “But I really need you, Coop. I need you keeping me safe. Wes can’t comfort me. He’s one of the very things that scare me.”