his fingers through his hair, trying to wrestle his feelings back under control, sure she was picking up on his agitation and anger towards Knox and reading it as anger towards her.
“I didn’t send Knox here for that… Knox wouldn’t have… He isn’t like that. None of us are. I only asked him to keep an eye on you. I should have known it would scare you, and I should have known Knox would react badly if you tried to escape.” He flexed his fingers, drew down a breath and calmed himself. That feeling came easily as he looked at her, right into her eyes, picking out every fleck of precious emerald against the silver of her irises. He sighed. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I don’t think I could hurt you.”
Admitting that made him feel weak, strangely vulnerable as he stood before her, as part of him waited for her to say something while the rest hoped she hadn’t heard that soft confession.
She glanced at the log burner and then the couch, and then the broken table, looking anywhere but at him. He smiled tightly, could understand her reaction. She didn’t need to believe him. He was cool with that. He really was.
Part of him didn’t believe it himself.
Not because he thought he could hurt her, but because it shook him and peeled back another layer, making the source of the instincts she triggered in him clearer.
Although he still wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge where they came from.
Saint edged a little closer to her, mustered the courage he always seemed to need when he was around this petite, beautiful female, and eased down onto the arm of the couch, as close to her as he could get without scaring her.
“What’s your name, best friend of Ember?” he husked, aching to know it, sure she would be able to see how deep that need ran if she would just look at him.
“If I tell you, you have to let me go.” She glanced at him and lingered as their gazes collided. “You have no use for me. I’m not the one you wanted.”
Gods, she was the one he wanted. She didn’t know how fiercely he wanted her. It was taking all of his will not to tell her how beautiful she was as she gazed up at him, a softness in her eyes that he didn’t deserve. It was taking all of his will not to slide down the arm of the couch and settle beside her, maybe even slip his arm around her waist and tug her a little closer if she didn’t spook.
He wasn’t good at this sort of thing, was deeply aware that if he tried either of those things, he would only make things worse, and he liked the calm that had fallen between them.
Liked that she no longer looked afraid of him.
Was relaxed around him.
He frowned as she rubbed her nose and he noticed it was red, and not because she had cried, because this female didn’t seem to cry about anything, not even when a bear had scared her witless.
He looked at the log burner, his frown deepening as he saw how dim the light from it was now and noticed the chill in the air.
Saint stood, bent and picked up the broken pieces of his coffee table, keeping his motions smooth and slow, so he didn’t startle the female. He rounded the couch, walking past her and keeping his senses trained on her. She showed no inclination to move as he headed for the far end of the cabin, as he set the pieces of the table against the wall there. He would have to make a new one come spring.
He grabbed a few of the logs from a stack on the right side of the burner and rounded the couch again, resisting the urge to cross in front of the female. She hadn’t made a break for it. He wasn’t sure whether that was a sign that she was starting to trust him or was because she wasn’t foolish enough to run out into a storm.
Snow battered the window above the kitchen, covered the panes in the door too, and the wind howled around the cabin. Knox and Lowe were going to have one hell of a cold walk to the lodge, but they would make it. The route to it was through the forest, where they would have some cover from the weather.
He eased to his knees on the fur in front