It’s out of this that I reach up to him. Both hands, reaching to him.
I need him back with me. Touching me.
He regards me in the strangest way. He doesn’t take my hands; instead he bends down and lifts me in his arms.
I feel weightless, treasured.
He puts his nose to my hair, breathing me in. I’m a thing in his arms in the middle of some rural mall in Minnesota at the edge of a great primeval wilderness under the vast spray of stars and planets and solar systems. And everything is different.
He puts me down and smoothes my hair. Points at my clothes. “We have to go.”
My gaze falls to his pants, the massive bulge in his pants. “Don’t you want…” I reach out to his cock. He catches my hand before I make contact, sliding his thumb along the inside of my wrist, along where the blood runs, like he’s checking my pulse.
Like I’m his pet or something. Like I’m his.
“I want to go,” he says.
I look up into that ineffable gaze, so full of harshness and affection. It’s here I dare to think it—that maybe he is different. Wilder, somehow.
I can still feel his massive hands on me, the way he held me down and smelled me, as though he was animated by some primeval force.
This is a man who can fight like he has eyes in the back of his head. I’ve seen men fight. I’ve looked out of slits in tanks and seen the most deadly men in the world in full battle mode. I’ve seen even more than that on videos that will never be released to the public in a zillion years.
But never have I seen anyone fight like Kiro does. It’s possible he literallydidwant to rip apart the store. Guys hate shopping, but they usually don’t have the urge to destroy the store. And the way he just took me over…
I’m different, Nurse Ann.He’s said it to me enough times. I feel the truth of it in the way that I suppose he feels seasons, predators. The implications seem huge, ancient.
He gazes down at me. My heart pounds. Whatdoeshe think when he sees me? What does he think any of this is?
I try to pull on my wrecked jeans, feeling wrecked myself. And unaccountably sad.
He scowls. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t know what to say. Everything feels so tragic suddenly. The way he sees the world, the way the world wants to use him. “We can’t hang round in this town this long, but we can’t go without getting you supplies.”
I fold over the top of my wrecked jeans. It’s the best I can do now that the metal buttons are off. This is how Kiro takes off a girl’s clothes.
“You have to pick out the stuff you’ll need to live up there,” I say.
“You’ll help me.”
“I’ll help.” Though I don’t see why he needs help. Who’d know better what he needs than him?
I buy an extra pair of jeans on the way out and quickly change into them at the camping and hunting supply store. When I come out of the dressing room, I find him at the knife counter.
I come up behind him, knowing he knows I’m there. He inspects a series of hunting knives, evaluating and discarding one after another, superpredator that he is. What is he imagining as he turns them over in his fingers? I should get pictures of this, too. People will want to know what he chooses.
Fuck, the endorsement money off just a shot like this could buy him a thousand acres of wild land to have as his own. Because who wouldn’t want the knife Savage Adonis chooses?
I pull out my phone as if to check my mail and discreetly take a few photos. I’m starting to question this whole process, but the thing about photos is that once the moment’s gone, you’ve lost the shot.
He settles on one large knife and one with a small grip. The small one seems too small for his hand. What’s the small one for?
While they’re boxing up the blades, he inspects the contents of a box on the counter. Keychains in the form of different animals.
Suddenly he yanks one out and holds it in his massive palm, staring at it with a mixture of shock and reverence, like he’s discovered a rare and precious jewel.
I draw near and see that it’s just some howling wolf figurine attached to a keychain. Just some cheap molded plastic thing from China. Practically worthless.