She quickly moved away from him, putting distance between herself and the couch. She went into the bedroom and shut the door, putting her back against it. She felt afraid. His eyes had been completely dead—cold and dead.
The way he’d looked at her when he’d first woken up—it was chilling.
Slowly, she started to feel less afraid. She heard his footsteps going to the bathroom and then, a moment later, the water running. Not long after that, he came out and she heard his footsteps crossing to the bedroom. He knocked on the door, causing her to jump.
“Leave me alone, Gunner,” she said. It occurred to her that a man as strong as Gunner could open the door just as easily with her trying to hold it shut. She would hold him off about as well as a fly trying to hold back a raging bull.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said through the door.
“Then you shouldn’t have grabbed my wrist and yelled at me.”
“Krista…let me explain.”
“I don’t need any explanations,” she said. “Let’s just go back to sleep and pretend it never happened.”
“We both know it happened, and you deserve an explanation.”
She sighed. This was ridiculous. But she had to admit that she wanted to see him. She wanted to be closer to him, to look at his body again. Her nipples suddenly tightened against the fabric of Gunner’s t-shirt that she was wearing.
As she opened the door and saw him standing in just his boxer shorts, only inches away from her, Krista felt the very air shift between them.
His expression was filled with intense need.
“What did you want to tell me?” she said, trying to control her voice.
“I wanted to explain to you why I reacted that way when you woke me up just now.” His voice was husky, throaty. She saw that his hair was tousled, but he still looked as gorgeous as ever.
They locked eyes, and this time, there was no mistaking the connection. “I’m listening,” she told him.
“You remember when we were talking about our families, and how it was growing up,” he said.
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened. “Well, my family was different than I made it out to be. It wasn’t just me fighting my older siblings—typical kids stuff. It was my dad.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “He was really unpredictable, and he liked to drink. For some reason, when he got to drinking, I was the one he really seemed to get pissed off at. I couldn’t ever do anything right.”
Krista swallowed hard, a sense of doom washing over her as she listened to him.
She wanted to tell him to stop, to hug him to her, anything to not have to hear what came next.
Gunner’s eyes grew distant as he continued. “When my dad was on a bender, he would grab whoever was closest and just beat the hell out of them. And he was a big guy, too. When we were little, he’d slap us around, throw us, that sort of thing. The older we got, the harder he went on us. By the time I was twelve or thirteen and hitting my growth spurt, he seemed to take an interest in getting me the most. And he started to use his fists.”
“Gunner, that’s horrible,” she whispered.
“Finally, I put a stop to it when I was fifteen. I was the same size as him by then, and I’d gotten tired of it. More tired than you could imagine.” Gunner looked down at his hands as if studying them. “He came at me one night, and I just grabbed him by the throat and started to squeeze and squeeze. My brothers had to pull me off of him because he was starting to turn blue. I lost it completely. My father was lying on the floor, catching his breath, and I told him if he ever touched me again I’d kill him.”
Krista literally felt sick to her stomach. “You shouldn’t carry any guilt for that, Gunner. He’s the one who’s responsible.”
“I’m not saying I carry guilt,” he told her, his eyes refocusing on her now. “But I still have the dreams. In my dreams, I’m little again and he’s bigger than ever. I can’t stop him. And it just goes on and on and on. So when you woke me up, I wasn’t in my right state of mind. You understand?”
She nodded, and found that it was true—she did understand. She reached out and put a hand on his arm, because something told her it was what he needed. “I’m glad you told me.”
His eyes were trained on her, and she found that now she wasn’t afraid to look right back at him.
He reached his hand out and softly touched her cheek, and it was like a thunderbolt hit her. She felt a little woozy from the intensity of it, and the strong surge of emotion she felt in reaction to that slight touch from his hand.
“Krista,” he said, and her name sounded so sexy on his lips. “Why did you have to be so beautiful?”
She sighed, breathing out, as Gunner slowly leaned in and brought his lips to hers.
His kiss was gentle at first, probing, like a question. She could tell, without him saying anything—he wanted to be sure that the feeling was mutual.
Krista showed him by kissing him back, opening her mouth and allowing his tongue inside, parting her lips.
She moaned as he kissed her more deeply still. She could feel him wanting her more strongly, could feel the need radiating off of him like heat. It was heat.
His skin touched hers and it was burning with fire, his flesh was such a turn on when it pressed against hers that she immediately wanted to cry out, her legs and hips twitching in anticipation.
There was so much unspoken between them. Something about the darkness of the cabin, the
