Page 85 of The Way Back Home

My hearts soars hearing those words from his lips, and when he takes a step back and tugs me along behind him down the length of the porch to his room, I follow, because what else can I do?

As much as I’m under his skin, he’s under mine, has been since the day I arrived, and I don’t think there’s anything either one of us can do about it now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Olivia

Two days later

I’M WOKEN BY AUGUST’Smoans, deafening and horrifying in the still of the night. I come up on my elbow to see what the matter is. Moonlight spills across the pillow. His body is ramrod straight, every muscle clenched tight, his face and hair soaked with sweat that glistens in the beam of light from the French doors.

“August.” I’m afraid to reach out and touch him but with a shout, he rolls, grips my arm, and pins me beneath his frame as he straddles my hips, his good leg out flush with mine and his other pressed against the mattress. Half a leg missing or not, he still has me pinned as well as any other man might. He holds me down with a heavy hand against my chest, but that’s not what forces my breath to catch. The cool bite of a blade presses against my throat. Moonlight pools in through his window and glints off the hunting knife in his hand. I gasp.

He’s panting hard, and this isn’t like the last two times he’s held me by the throat when he had no idea what he was doing. This time he knows exactly who I am, though I’m sure I frightened the hell outa him.

The knife falls from his hand and clatters to the floor. His grip on my chest loosens. A whimper escapes me. August hisses and clambers to the other side of the bed. I gasp and dry retch, close my eyes. Tears stain my cheeks and the soft sheet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. He drives his hands through his hair. “Fuck! Liv, I’m so sorry.”

I don’t say a word. I just curl into the mattress and try to ignore the burn in my throat and the aching in my chest, not from the brutality of his hands on me, but because I can’t breathe. Because I can’t stay. I want this so much, want him so much, but I can’t stay. Staying means endless nights of being choked, waking up with a hunting knife thrust against my throat or maybe never waking up at all. “Liv, say something, please?”

“You keep hurting me,” I sob. My voice scratches, a sandpaper-against-glass sound. Grating. “I know it isn’t intentional; I know that’s not who you are. But I also know this situation doesn’t end well for someone like me.”

“Liv, please?” He grabs hold of my arm and won’t let me go.

“I can’t do this, August. I’ve fallen in love with you, but I can’t go to sleep every night not knowing if I’m gonna wake up in the morning.”

“Please?”

“I’ll pack my things tomorrow. You’ve got a little girl to focus on, and she needs you now more than ever. Josiah will be here to help—”

“Olivia.”

“Let me go,” I say, staring down at the brutal grip he has on my wrist. “Please? Just let me go.”

I leave the room, walking down the hall to the bedroom that’s been my home since the day I arrived in this backward little town. I know where I need to go. August sure as hell isn’t gonna like it, but we’ve made our bed, and now we have to lie in it.

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