Page 27 of Disappearance at Angel's Landing
There was too many layers between them. Her fingernails found purchase at the small of his back, dragging his T-shirt up between his shoulder blades, and he kissed her deeper. Like he’d been starving for this as much as she had. A growl resonated through his chest as his tongue swept over hers, and from there, she was lost in him. No pain in her ribs, no nightmares waiting to ambush her, no hint of a misdirected killer holding a gun to her head.
There was only Branch. He was everything.
Pulling his lips from hers, he peppered openmouthed kisses along her jaw, slowly making his way down her neck, over her scar. She’d gone out of her way to hide it beneath chokers, kerchiefs and scarves throughout the years, but for the first time, she didn’t feel the need to shrink back. Or to distract him from the damage she’d done. Lila worked to catch her breath, aware he’d somehow managed to push the top of her sleeping bag out of the way, but it was quickly lost again as calloused hands memorized her hips and thighs in a furiously slow journey.
An unholy gasp rushed up her throat as his thumb trailed along the waistband of her sleep shorts. Her mind raced with guttural pleas for him to touch her where she needed him the most, but then his hands were gone. A protest built on her lips as he stared down at her, and the fire that’d lit her up from the inside died at the expression on his face.
He’d stopped kissing her.
He’d stopped touching her.
“Branch?” She drew herself onto her elbows, trying to get a better read on what had changed.
Drawing back on his haunches, Branch left her aching and cold. They sat frozen for a few seconds before he squeezed his eyes shut. Severing the connection they’d explored in the past few minutes. And when he looked at her again, not a single traceof his desire for her remained. “Go to sleep, Lila. You’ll need your energy to get back to headquarters in the morning.”
Acid burned her throat as he took up position on his sleeping bag, rolling away from her. Her heart thudded hard against her ribs. Desperate to know what had changed. What she’d done wrong. Rejection fueled the spiraling thoughts into a tornado she couldn’t keep up with. She’d been here before. Every time he’d declined her invitation to check out Springdale, every shift he’d negotiated with other rangers to avoid working with her, every unreturned smile or acknowledgment of her presence.
No matter how hard she’d tried to be his friend, she was always the one left a little more depleted and empty. Lila sank back onto her sleeping bag. Tears burned in her eyes, but she hadn’t had enough water today, and she’d already cried so much. She didn’t have the energy to let them fall. She rolled onto her side, her back to his, and stared at the tent canvas.
But it wasn’t enough.
The shame, the vulnerability, the rejection—it all combined to tighten a sickening knot in her stomach, pushing her from her sleeping bag. She couldn’t breathe without getting hints of his cedar scent. Couldn’t look anywhere in this tent and not see him. She couldn’t stay in this enclosed space when he took up so much space.
Sweat cooled on her neck as she tore through the tent flap and out into the open. The first breath should’ve cleared her head as she broke the perimeter of the campsite, but it only stoked the uncomfortable feelings further. As if her very being had come to rely on his proximity and couldn’t survive without him.
She’d handled rejection before, but there was only so much she could take. Forcing one foot in front of the other, she put as much distance between them as she could while keeping the tent in sight. Predators patrolled this valley, both of the animalistic and humankind, but she couldn’t stay at the campsite, either.
She automatically scratched at her neck, desperate for the feel of her kerchief between her fingers as a distraction from the fiery prickling sensation, but she’d lost that in her attempt to escape the killer. Her fingertips only met scar tissue. Grotesque and jagged and uneven. Ugly.
The killer had been right before. When he’d accused her of putting so much effort into her outward appearance to distract from the nastiness on the inside.
“Lila.” Branch’s voice broke on her name. He’d sneaked up on her. Or maybe she’d been too stuck in her head to think he’d leave the tent to come after her. Didn’t matter. He’d said enough. Not in so many words—because Branch Thompson preferred to speak in growls and disdainful looks—but he’d been easy enough to read. He didn’t want her. Nobody wanted her. And maybe that was what hurt the most.
“Go back to the tent, Branch.” Her throat clogged with tightness as she pressed her fingers into the largest section of scar tissue, her back to him. She couldn’t face him without her armor in place, and it wasn’t coming as easily as it should. What she wouldn’t give for a seventy-two-hour psych hold right now. What a wasted vacation opportunity. “Otherwise, I’m going to assume you want me to hand out your phone number to every kid in the park and tell them it’s their direct line to Santa.”
Footsteps scuffled over dirt. Getting louder, closer. And then he was standing next to her, looking out over the very park that’d tried to kill them. Well, to be fair, it’d had a hand. Damn it, why did he have to look so put together when her entire world felt like it was closing in on her? “I’m here. You can talk to me or not, but I’m here.”
“Santa’s hotline it is.” Tearing her hand away from her scar, she folded her arms across her chest. Stars and ripples of the Milky Way swept across the velvet blackness above them. Outhere, light pollution couldn’t reach them, almost making her feel as if she were part of the universe.
He slid his hands into his sweatpants pockets. “I’m sorry. About before. In the tent. I shouldn’t have—”
“If you tell me kissing me was a mistake, I will give you a firsthand look at my emotional support knife collection.” They were pocketknives from all over the country and spanned decades, starting with her dad’s knife from when he’d been a kid, but Branch didn’t need to know that. “What’s so wrong with kissing me anyway? I brushed my teeth. I got all the dirt and blood out.”
His laugh only served to piss her off more. “There was nothing wrong with kissing you, Lila. Hell, I… I enjoyed it.”
“Then what is it?” Now she was on a roll. That internal ball of fire she’d managed to mask with glitter and lip gloss and faux happiness had reached its capacity. “I’ve been nice to you since day one. I’ve tried to be your friend. I asked you to movies and lunch and coffee. I tried to make you laugh. I shared my Cherry Garcia with you, but none of it’s good enough, is it? Nothing I do will ever be good enough, and I’m just…tired, Branch. I’m done. I give up. You win. Congratulations, you’ve successfully pushed everyone who gives a damn about you away.”
She moved to retreat to the tent. She couldn’t take this anymore. Wishing he would notice her, accept her. Want her. At some point she had to read the writing on the wall.
She only made it a few steps before strong hands spun her into his chest. His expression softened in the light of a full moon as his gaze ping-ponged between her eyes. His voice was nothing more than a whisper but was still so loud out here in the middle of nowhere. “Is that what you think? That you’re not good enough for me?”
What was she supposed to say? That she really was that pathetic? That would really send him running in the otherdirection. No death threats or cute quips came to mind under his intensity, so she said nothing. She let him assume whatever he wanted.
His thumb brushed along her neck, over the numb scar tissue she never meant for him to see, and her stupid vagina started screaming for attention all over again. “Tell me how you got this scar.”
“Telling you won’t change anything.” It was much harder to breathe when he was touching her like this, like he cared. She darted her tongue across her dry lips, and his gaze honed in on the small movement, signaling the rest of her body to note how close he’d gotten. Silence became a physical force between them, and she’d lost energy to keep fighting him the minute she’d escaped that too-small tent. “It’ll just make things worse.”
His thumb skimmed along her jaw, back and forth, back and forth. Hypnotic and soothing. “How so?”
