Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)(23)
“Anything that makes you second-guess yourself deserves some serious examination. So . . . are you going? Tonight?” Kuvi asked cautiously.
Alice studied her friend’s face. Kuvi had a point.
“No,” she said suddenly with more confidence than she felt. “You’re right.”
Kuvi blinked. “I wasn’t trying to make a point. I was just asking a simple question!”
“But you’re right about giving some serious consideration to anything that’s making me second-guess myself,” Alice said determinedly, grasping onto Kuvi’s vague insinuation that she should be cautious about her relationship with Dylan. She stood and tossed the pillow she’d been clutching onto the couch.
“I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. It’s been an exhausting day,” she said, heading toward the bathroom.
“You’re really just going to leave Dylan Fall standing there in the woods, waiting for you?” Kuvi demanded, sounding amazed.
“You said I needed space to examine this thing with him,” Alice said over her shoulder.
“I never said that. But if you aren’t going to meet up with Fall tonight, maybe that’s what you needed to hear.”
Alice plunged into the bathroom, too overwhelmed to say exactly what she needed at that moment.
Too overwhelmed to know.
*
SHE checked the bedside clock as the illuminated dial changed from 12:02 to 12:03. She’d only slept in the counselors’ cabin that first week during her training, before she’d taken up with Dylan. Kuvi was silent in sleep. The complete quiet unnerved her, for some reason. It seemed to increase the volume level of the thoughts in her head to shouts. She’d lain in bed for the past two hours, the room draped in darkness, wakeful and alert.
Miserable.
What was Dylan thinking about her refusal to meet him at their assigned spot in the woods? Every minute of the past two and a half hours had been spent asking herself that question, over and over. The fact that she couldn’t fasten on any sure answer only added to her insomnia.
She flipped over to her other side, leaning up on her elbow to restlessly punch at a flattened pillow. She paused at a squeaking noise, going on high alert with her fist planted deep in the feathers.
The outer screen door gave another screech. Her heart jumped into her throat at the sound of the lock sliding back. She heard the soft sigh of the front door opening and then the quiet thud as it shut again. Alice sat up in bed, her back ramrod straight, prepared to fly off the far side of the bed.
The overhead light came on.
Dylan stood just inside the room, his hand still on the light switch. In his other hand she noticed he held a ring of keys. Of course he had a key to this cabin. He owned this property, didn’t he?
They’d been having a cool spell. He wore a pair of jeans and a soft-looking denim shirt that stood in marked contrast to his long hard body. His jaw was shadowed with whiskers, giving him that dark piratical look she loved, but which also intimidated her. His mouth was pressed into a grim line.
Her stunned brain left her temporarily mute.
“Let’s go,” he said simply.
“What?” she squeaked, her voice just above a whisper. Both she and Dylan glanced over at Kuvi’s bed. Shit. Kuvi was sitting up partially, rubbing her eyes and staring incredulously at the vision of Dylan Fall standing in their cabin.
“Sorry to wake you,” Dylan apologized. “This will just take a moment. Alice?” he addressed Alice levelly. “I waited until the camp was quiet, but I’m not going to wait anymore.”
“You can’t just break in here and expect me to get up and go with you!” Alice exclaimed, barely managing to keep her voice at a low volume.
“I do expect it. Because that’s what we agreed to, wasn’t it?” he asked quietly, taking a step toward her, the glint of anger in his shining dark eyes making her skin roughen in trepidation and mounting excitement. Yes. Excitement. The sight of him in her cabin, so solid and beautiful and demanding thrilled her, despite it all. “I agreed to let you go on as if everything was normal, as long as you agreed you’d spend the nights and weekends with me up at the castle. You’ve broken your promise tonight.”
She glanced anxiously at Kuvi, who was now watching their tense exchange with wide hazel eyes.
“You don’t have to worry about Alice,” Dylan said to Kuvi, a small smile curling his mouth. “She made an agreement with me.”
Alice gritted her teeth in the silence that followed as both of them looked at her expectantly. “I’m not going with you,” she insisted.
“Would you like me to carry you?” Her anxiety ramped up when she couldn’t gauge if he was joking or not.
“Just try it,” she hissed.
“Maybe you’d prefer I spent the night here then?” Dylan asked, taking another step toward her bed.
She cursed under her breath and threw off the covers.
“Convenient of you to go to bed dressed,” Dylan said when she stood jerkily, his gaze running over the length of her in what struck Alice as an insolent manner. He was insinuating she’d known he was going to come and claim her like some kind of caveman. She was wearing a pair of soft running shorts and a T-shirt.
“It’s what I wear to bed.”
His slight shrug seemed to say it all. Not anymore, you don’t. He knew perfectly well she didn’t wear a thing to bed when she was with him.