Page 67 of Prey

I didn’t ask him when he would take us home because now that I had some semblance of freedom, I didn’t mind being in this remote cabin with him so much.

He confessed on the third day that he had been texting my parents through my phone so they wouldn’t worry before he gave it back to me.

I read through the texts and found one from my mom telling me her friend’s son was coming over to the house this Sunday, and she wanted me to be present.

There had been a dark possessiveness in his eyes when he told me that wouldn’t be happening that got me all tingly inside.

We spent most of the daytime talking to each other and the nighttime exploring each other's bodies before falling into a restful sleep, only to do it all over again.

A week passed by quickly, and I knew when I woke up that following Monday from the look in his eyes that I was finally getting what I wanted all along.

We were going home.

And I was fucking depressed over that.

We were quiet when we packed up and got in his truck, then Roman set off on the long drive home.

I spent most of it staring out the window, watching as everything passed me by in a blur. The rest of the time I spent sleeping.

A dark cloud loomed over me, and it seemed to get darker and heavier with each mile we ate up.

I didn’t want to leave the cabin, I realized.

I didn’t want to leave the safe bubble we found ourselves in, and mostly, I didn’t want to leave him.

But how could we go back to the way things were, when we had been nothing more than Xavier and Ryleigh?

I shouldn’t want to be with Roman Stone, and he was giving me a chance to run away from him, I knew it.

Because no matter how he wanted to spin this, the moment he let me get back to my apartment, he would be giving me the chance to call my dad or the cops on him.

He would be giving me the chance to send him back to prison.

Nausea tried to claw its way up my throat from the thought.

I didn’t want him to go back to prison.

I wanted him to stay right by my side. No matter how bad the world might get.

Just stay by my side.

I wanted so badly to be cut by his jagged heart. I wanted his dark, possessive love that I knew would both hurt and heal me. I wanted it all with this hunter who had never let me go in his mind, all these years. He might have spent two years behind bars, but I had been a prisoner in his thoughts.

And how badly I wanted him.

How badly I wanted him to take me and keep me.

Take away my choices so I wouldn’t have to be the bad guy and admit I wanted this bad man to be mine and only mine.

I didn’t want this choice.

I wanted the illusion of being held captive back at the cabin.

I wanted him to tell me how I should feel and what I should do, to take away all the weariness that had been pressing down on me since that day at the cliff.

I wanted to be hunted by him.

Fuck me, but I wanted to be the sole object of his desire, his obsession.

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