Chapter 22: 22

NADINE’S P.O.V

For a long moment, I just lay there trying to gather the scattered pieces of my mind and dignity as I realized what we had just done.

I opened my mouth but no words would come out. My throat felt like sandpaper and my mind was a blurry haze.

I watched as Caine- Rowan- whatever his name was pulling his fingers out of me. Even through the darkness, it was obvious how wet I was, his fingers glistened with my arousal as he lifted his hand to his mouth and licked it clean.

Just like that, my body lit up like a fucking Christmas tree and I wanted him again.

I tried to convince myself that it was just because there was no other man around and I had been celibate for so long. It had nothing to do with the fact that he just made me cum with his fingers, something that no man before him had been able to achieve.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

The question sounded so simple and easy on his lips, so innocent too, as if he hadn’t just been whispering the filthiest words in my ears.

I stared at him blankly.

“Food, princess, do you want food?” I watched him rise to his feet effortlessly, his cock hard as rock and pitching a tent in his boxers. “My eyes are up here.”

My eyes snapped up to his but not before roaming over his chest first. “Aren’t you?”

“It’s a hard on, princess, I can handle it. Besides, you look to be one wrong move away from screaming bloody murder, that doesn’t exactly make me very eager about fucking you.”

“Rude.”

He just shrugged. “You were horny, I fucked you with my fingers, don’t make it a bigger deal than it needs to be.”

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or pissed off by how easily he was taking it. He had rocked my entire world apart and to him it was nothing. Did he not enjoy it as much as I did or was there something else at play that I didn’t understand?

“Nadine-”

“I’m fine,” I cut him off, rising to my feet slowly and taking the blanket with me.

It was useless considering the fact that he had already seen me naked- I knew that- but I couldn’t help it. I needed to preserve whatever dignity I had left.

“I’ll meet you upstairs,” I said finally.”

It was clear he wasn’t pleased about that arrangement but he nodded slowly. “Try not to make any noise on your way up. The fourth step from the bottom creaks a little, try to skip that one. You never know what monster may be out there listening.”

He walked away without another word, disappearing into the darkness.

I took far longer than I should have to get dressed and calm my racing heart.

Once I was calm, I made my way upstairs, making sure to skip that step that he warned me about. He was in the living room, I wasn’t sure how I knew that, there was just something about his presence, something I had come to realize. The air was always different when he was around.

“I found some canned soup,” he pushed a can towards me and I crinkled my nose.

“That’s even worse than the beans, especially since it’s cold.”

“It’s either this or we starve. We can check the grocery store tomorrow. There may be something there.”

I sighed and picked up the food. It was better than nothing. “Will we ever be able to cook actual food?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. It would be risky because they would smell it.”

Translation: No.

We were silent for what felt like hours, only the sound of us chewing evident through the tense silence.

I wondered if there was anyone else living in one of the other houses, wondered if there was someone else out there, watching and wondering the same thing.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said softly. “I didn’t know about your foster parents.”

“Not a lot of people do.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what about your real parents? Are they dead?”

“My mother died when I was eight.”

“And your father?”

He hesitated for a moment. “He’s dead to me.”

I knew there was more to the story. There was an evident hatred and anger in his voice as he spoke about his father but I didn’t want to push, I had already pushed him far enough as it was. He was still the only person I had out here, I couldn’t risk him being pissed off at me.

“What about you?” he asked. “What’s the story with your family?”

“You already know my dad.”

“But I don’t know your mum.”

“She’s dead too. She died when I was around thirteen. She was the most amazing person in the world. My father loved her, he was a completely different person when she was alive. I think she brought out the best in him. A part of me is glad that she isn’t alive to see this. She would have hated it. My mother was a free spirit.”

“How did she die?”

“She got sick. My father put her in some stupid clinical trial but the drugs didn’t work the way he thought they would and she died. I think a part of him blames himself.”

“And you? Do you blame him?”

“Maybe, sometimes,” I cleared my throat, placing the empty can on the table.

I didn’t want to talk about my parents anymore. It was too much of a reminder of everything that I lost. I lost my mother and the truth was that I lost my father with her, maybe that’s why it didn’t hurt as much when I found out that he left me in that bunker. I was nothing more than a reminder of the woman that he loved.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “Do we just wait for the sun to rise?”

“We try to sleep because tomorrow, we have a lot to do,” he stood to his feet. “You can take the master bedroom. You seem to be doing well in terms of the cold so you don’t have to stay in the basement anymore.”

I should have taken the offer to stay alone but stupidly, I didn’t.

“Where are you staying?”

“In the room upstairs.”

“Maybe I should stay with you,” I suggested. “I’m used to falling asleep next to you and the cold may come back-”

The corner of his lips quirked. “If you want to feel me up again, all you have to do is ask.”

“You ass,” I smacked his thigh. “You know what? Fuck off. I don’t need to-”

The words were barely out of my mouth when he grabbed me by my arm and pulled me up and over his shoulder. It took everything in me not to scream.

“What the fuck?” I whisper yelled. “Put me down right now.”

“No.”

“I was not asking.”

“Good, because neither was I.”

He carried me up the stairs like I weighed nothing. “You need rest. We haven’t slept properly in days. This may be the only chance we have to catch up on sleep again.”

“What do you mean?”

He set me down gently on the bed. “We can’t stay here forever, princess. At some point, we will have to go out in search of others. We can stay here for as long as possible, but it will always be a temporary solution.”

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