“I need to go do something, Lucy,” he protests.
I hold on tight, and he gives in, folding in around me.
I fall asleep again listening to his heartbeat.
When I wake up again, it’s very dark.
Gabriel’s arm is thrown over me, but I slide out from the heavy weight without disturbing him.
I go to the bathroom and clean up. He has a small laundry room right next to it, and I dig through the clothes in the dryer until I find something that I can make work for me—a pair of long johns that must stretch like crazy on him, because they stay up on me, just loose in the waist.
It’s a small cabin. One bedroom, a bathroom with that laundry space, a kitchen and a big living room curving around it. I’m smiling as I round the corner and discover a pretty high-tech looking computer set up in a nook.
But the smile fades when I see a wall of photos and notes.
It’s me.
Over and over again.
My stomach flips over and plummets to the floor as I move closer.
It’s mesleeping.
Gabriel has been in my dorm room.
He’s taken pictures of me eating, studying…
My entire life has been documented. My class schedule, my bus routes.
Heart pounding, I turn around and look for anything that could possibly go on my feet. There’s a pair of socks hanging on a drying rack by a wood stove. I yank those on, then shove my feet into a pair of much-too-big rubber boots at the back door.
I know he saved me from something awful tonight, and damaged his own relationship with Ethan in the process. But this… This isn’t right. All this time, hewasmy stalker. It’s so creepy.
Shoving the back door open, I take off at a run. I have no idea where I am or where I’m going, but anywhere is better than being barefoot and freshly fucked in a cabin with the man who is obsessed with me.
CHAPTER 16
GABRIEL
I wake up, disoriented, to the sound of a thump—and an empty bed where Lucy should be.
Stumbling into the living room, I see that my back door is ajar.
“Lucy!” I bellow.
Adrenaline drives me out the door, past the wall of Lucy I should have taken down before she pulled me into bed next to her, and out into the night.
In the distance, I hear her crashing through the forest.
She is a clever young woman.
But she is no match for a trained SEAL.
I’ll fix this. I have to. And once I have her back in my bed, I will do whatever it takes to replace the wariness in her eyes with trust.
But first I need to find my bunny girl again.
CHAPTER 17