“Layla?”
At the sound of his voice—so familiar, so achingly familiar—all the pieces of my life slammed back together.
Helpless, I closed my eyes and let that voice work its way through my body.
“You okay?” Even that familiar question was somehow bittersweet.
He’d spun around, shifting back out of the pool of light so his face and half his chest were in shadow. The shadows were dense and maybe that was easier…maybe that was better. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew they were watching me. His hands were in fists at his knees.
“Is this where you bring all the women you kidnap?” I asked, coming out swinging, for once in my life.
“No,” he said. “I don’t bring anyone here.”
“Well, aren’t I a special snowflake,” I said through lungs that felt as if they were collapsing in on each other.
“Layla,” he sighed.
Suddenly, I wished very much that I had not sent him that picture.
I felt painfully bared to him, wholly exposed. I’d sent him a naked picture of myself. My pale, thin, boyish body. All my flaws, all my imperfections, my feminine failures—he’d seen them.
And he sat there in the shadows, unwilling to show me anything of himself.
The distance between us throbbed. With anger. With lust. Questions and huge fucking secrets.
Beneath my ribs, I ached. Between my legs I ached. My fucking blood ached at the sight of him. I took a deep breath and clenched my hands together in front of me, as if I needed something to hold onto. And maybe I did. I was so adrift.
“I’d like to go home.”
“You can when I know it’s safe.”
“You are not the boss of me.” Really, could I be any more idiotic?
“When you’re in danger,” he said, “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe.”
“Why?” I asked, baffled by this protectiveness. By his attention. From the first phone call to now, I didn’t understand. Why me?
I didn’t want his concern to mean anything. I didn’t want to be warmed by that in some way. But anger was a blanket that could not cover all of me and my exposed parts soaked it up. I was helpless against that kind of care, I had no…defenses against someone’s worry. For me.
He was silent, there in the shadows. Like he had no intention of explaining himself.
“I don’t need you to do that.”
“Not your choice,” he said, with a shrug. As if my desires were irrelevant in the equation.
“Well, it’s hardly yours. I am not your business, Dylan.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
A few phone calls, some drunk texts, and two ill-advised pictures—that’s all we had between us. A handful of paltry, inconsequential things. How in the world did they add up to something so damn heavy?
“You didn’t want to see me, remember?” I whispered, revealing some of my hurt. “You ended it.”
His silence was agreement. Yes, he was saying. Yes, I ended it. Yes, I didn’t want to see you.
“I didn’t ask to be brought here,” I said, sounding shrill. His silence was making me crazy. Shut up, I told myself. Shut up and forget about him.
“You can go home tomorrow.”
We were at an impasse. Forty feet between us, and every inch was lined with barbed wire and land mines. And it would be easy to turn around and leave. Wait out the hours until that driver came back to take me home.
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just walk away and not…ever have seen him.
“Come out of the shadows,” I said.