Hidden Gem (The Travelers Book 1) by Octavia Gaia

Author:Octavia, Gaia [Octavia, Gaia]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2019-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

⸙

JADE

I watched as the light between the leaves, hanging over the cliff above, marched steadily across our camp–marking the hours as they passed. I talked to Emit about my fears, about life at the camp, and about things I swore I would never tell anyone. During a particularly long pause, Emit drifted into a restless sleep.

I suspected he hadn’t slept much the night before, so I held him and whispered words of how he was safe with me, until he settled into a quiet slumber. It felt good to be the one to help Emit for once. Even if he wouldn’t ever know, it felt like I was repaying him for one tiny thing out of the countless things he did to make me feel safe and calm. I let him sleep, his arm wrapped securely around me. I knew that when he opened his eyes, I would have to finish my story. And I was in no hurry to do so.

I watched Emit as he slept. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and the feel of his skin pressed against my side made mine feel like it was on fire. His muscled stomach rippled under each heavy breath and his skin smelled fresh, like earth after the rain. Despite everything being a complicated mess inside my head, my cock still stiffened at the sight of him.

Despite my best effort to ignore it, being so close to him had my cock weeping and me wishing I could stroke myself until I was spent, forgetting everything other than the sight of him and the feel of him against me. Whatever had happened between us by that tree had changed something inside of me. But I still had no clue as to what had changed or what it had changed from. We still hadn’t talked about it, and my spontaneous confession guaranteed that we wouldn’t be talking about it at length any time soon. Especially not after I told Emit the reason why something like that could never, ever happen between us again.

I was thankful for the quiet. For the time to gather my jumbled thoughts and memories so that I could tease out the things I needed to tell him. There was no reason to go into detail about all the different ways the man had tortured me, how he’d terrorized me for seven endless years. Emit didn’t need to know all the gory details. And in truth, there were things I couldn’t relive even if I’d wanted to. I still didn’t know how I’d lived through them the first time.

I could feel the shame that had settled at the base of my spine, how it was practically bursting with gleeful anticipation for the moment I had to tell Emit that I was broken. Unalterably, unendingly damaged. My heart felt heavy with the knowledge of what I couldn’t tell him–that no matter how much I loved him, no, because I loved him, if we found his family, I would be gone.

“Jade?”

I blinked back the moisture that had begun to pool in my eyes, hoping that he hadn’t noticed.

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