Page 45 of Craving Chaos

I was so fucking wrong.

My heart ground to a lurching halt in my chest. I couldn’t look away. I still can’t. I want to memorize every detail of her spread wide for me. Inviting me to watch.

Her eyes are closed, lips parted. She doesn’t know I’m here, but I know she’s thinking of me. She’d been so turned on after our sparring that she hadn’t waited five minutes to touch herself. I’d felt the same, which is why I was so damn pissed that she refuses to acknowledge what is so obviously happening between us.

There’s no denying this.

I consider taking my dick out when her eyes open, and our stares collide.

In a fraction of a second, I wonder what she’ll do. Will she cover herself or panic? Will seeing me trigger embarrassment or anger? I haven’t been able to figure out what’s going on in her head, so I can’t predict how she’ll react, which makes it all the more rewarding when seeing me is what pushes her over the edge.

She isn’t shocked or repulsed. My eyes on her are exactly what she needed. What she wanted, whether she acknowledges it or not.

At that moment, I know two things with absolute certainty. One, if I walk into that cabin, Shae’s vulnerability will cause her to be more defensive than ever. She has to willingly submit. And two, I cannot accept failure. Shae is mine. If she needs to lose our bet to justify giving in, then so be it.

I will catch a goddamn fish if it kills me.

I tear myself away from the window and grab my bait baggie out of the storage locker. Then my raging hard-on and I charge back to the creek.

We call it a creek, but it could be a river. Hell if I know what the size cutoff is between the two. Our creek is about fifteen feet across and varies in depth from a few inches to several feet where the larger boulders cluster together. The water is crystal clear and flows steadily. You can see to the bottom where ice chunks don’t cover the surface, and I’ve seen fish. Not many, and they’re small, but I’ve seen them. I know they’re in there.

I use small bits of tendon and other less appetizing tissue from our kills to bait my hooks. The flow of ice bumping my line makes it hard to tell if something is nibbling at my bait. Then again, maybe I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. After sitting for an hour with nothing to show for my time, I’m definitely questioning my abilities.

I know I could do it if I had the right equipment. It’s so goddamn frustrating.

I set down my pole and toss a rock into the water. The splash is satisfying, so I do it a few more times. I'm wondering if I might have more luck catching something like this than with the line. I could whittle a spear and try to fish that way. The fish are awfully small, though, and hard to spot in the moving water.

The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get.

The damn things are right there in front of me. All I have to do is catch one. How the fuck can I make that happen? If I knew I could grab one with my hands, I’d jump in without a thought to the cold. But I know I’d probably just freeze to death for nothing.

I pick up another rock to toss at the water when a large hawk swoops down out of nowhere, pulls up short of the water’s surface, and plucks out a fish in its curved talons. Majestic and effortless.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say Mother Nature was laughing in my face.

The rock in my hand is flying through the air before I even realize what I’ve done. It hits the bird square in the chest, and though it isn’t large enough to do any real damage, it’s enough to shock the hawk into dropping its catch with an angry screech.

I race up the stream to where the fish’s scales shimmer in the sun as it flops back toward the water. “Sorry, little fella, but this is not your lucky day.”

I snatch him up, then whack its head against the rocks to end its fight. It’s only about six inches, and I technically didn’t catch the thing on a line, but neither of those stipulations were a part of our deal. I caught a motherfucking fish, and now it’s time for my reward.

CHAPTER 24

SHAE

I’m not embarrassed. I’m a confident, self-assured woman comfortable in her own skin. Everyone masturbates. I have nothing to fear.

The statements have played on an endless loop in my head for the past hour. I believe them. I swear, I do. So why won’t this crippling anxiety go away? If anything, it’s only gotten worse because the later it gets, the less time I have until Renzo returns.

He’s coming, and he knows what I did and why. The part that has my stomach in knots is wondering what he’s going to do about it. I saw that look in his eyes. Something in him snapped, and the waiting is killing me. Solitaire isn’t even an effective distraction anymore, which means I’m sitting at the table, staring vacantly at the fire when the door bursts open.

My eyes snap to his.

Renzo’s broad frame fills the doorway for three elongated heartbeats before he steps inside and slams his hand down on the table in front of me. And when it retreats, a small silver fish remains.

I can hardly believe my eyes. I stare dumbfounded at the silver-scaled creature the entire time Renzo washes his hands in the water bucket.

He did it. The bastard caught a damn fish.