Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(42)

Sweat coated her forehead and the greasy mop of hair on her head was managing to both stick to the slick skin as well as defy gravity and stand on end.

She was sorely tempted to make use of the tub behind her – If only to wash her demented hair. Despite how the white porcelain beckoned her, however, she didn't feel comfortable using it. She didn't even know where she was for God's sake – or who the tub belonged to for that matter.

Determined to rectify this, Katherine swiftly exited the bathroom and quietly closed the door behind her. She made her way towards the next closest door – the one a few feet from the mahogany dresser.

She opened the shuttered door and immediately recognized the adjoining room as a closet – a huge, spacious closet.

Or it would have been a spacious closet if it wasn't half full of clothes.

Men's clothes.

Pants, tees, and a few dressier collared shirts filled the shelves and hangers. Katherine gnawed at her bottom lip.

Was – could it be possible that – was she in Bastian’s room?

Had she been admiring his possessions?

Sleeping in his bed?

Katherine probably shouldn’t have been as affected as she was – she’d already slept in a bed with the man after all. But she couldn't stop the swarm of butterflies from materializing in her stomach – their wings flapping frantically against her insides.

The air in the room was suddenly too thick.

She had to leave.

Not leave leave, of course. She'd been there, done that. It didn't work out so well.

But she had to get out of this room – out of this house.

She shut the closet door – perhaps more noisily than she should have – and made a bee line towards the last unexplored door. She tugged on the knob, pulled it open and escaped the room.

The dark hallway she found herself in was as sparsely decorated as the room she'd come from. No picture frames or other hangings were nailed to the walls, but the beige carpet under her feet was plush.

Katherine didn't take the time to observe much else, however, as she was anxious to find an exit. She rushed by a staircase in her search as well as two open entryways leading to other rooms when she spotted a pair of sealed double doors.

The doors' locks made it obvious that it was the way outside.

An irrational thought ran through Katherine's mind. What if the locks were in place more to keep her in than others out?

But realizing that the thought probably wasn't so irrational only made her more desperate for some fresh air. She slid one lock open and jimmied another free.

“Making another escape attempt?”

Katherine froze.

Bastian.

The low timbre undoubtedly belonged to the man, but there was something in his voice – something menacing – that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Ignoring the last remaining lock, she slowly turned to face him.

He was sitting in a large dining room – apparently, it was one of the rooms with a gapping entryway that she'd thoughtlessly ignored on her way to the locked double doors. Bastian was bent over in one of the chairs surrounding the table, his stiff shoulders betraying his otherwise casual posture.

He was nursing a mug of some sort – the steam rising out of the cup and the bitter smell permeating the air leading Katherine to suspect the liquid to be coffee.

It was painfully obvious the man was standing guard.

But she wasn’t trying to escape, Katherine thought defensively. She only wanted to breathe in some of the crisp night air – to calm her nerves.

And she wasn’t about to be intimidated into doing otherwise.

But instead of opening her mouth to explain this to the brooding man, when her lips parted, what came racing out was a loud question. “Where are we?”

Bastian eyed her before taking a long swig from his mug. “My home.”

“Your home?” she echoed numbly. Did that mean that the room she woke up in did belong to him? Were they… had they already arrived in-

“Yes, in Haven Falls, Canada – just in case your memory has been impaired along with your common sense. I can think of no other reason for you taking off at the motel in Linburg.”

Katherine could think of plenty – like the fact that the man before her was a complete prick for one.

But she was more concerned that she didn’t have any memories of the trip to Haven Falls – and it was a long journey from Duluth.

“How long was I out?” Katherine questioned.

Bastian stared at her for a tense moment, his mouth set in a stoic frown. And for the first time Katherine noticed how haggard he looked. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he didn’t look like he had shaved the entire time she’d been unconscious. His hair, too, was a mess and could have easily given her own wavy locks a run for their money in terms of chaoticness.

And yet… he was still probably the most handsome man she had ever met.

It wasn’t fair.

Eventually Bastian answered her. “Three days,” he bit out, twirling a finger around the rim of his mug. “This is the first time since I picked you up in Duluth that you’ve been lucid.”

Katherine's eyes widened in surprise. Three days?

“How are you feeling?”

She fought the urge to childishly demand why he cared. It's not like he’d worried himself about her health when he'd kidnapped her. Except that he sort of had, she acknowledge to herself, remembering all the times he'd forced her to eat.