Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance Savannah Rose (readnow TXT) 📖

trodding through dry, deep snow without snowshoes or skis. It was a bitch, really, and my body was screaming out that I was in no shape to do this kind of weird pilgrimage. I told my body to take it up with the new, talkative presence in my head. We'd have chocolate later.

I don't know how long I was arguing with myself, when I saw the little outcropping of rocks in the breakwater. Ramona's tide pool. White water crashed all around it, waves exploding upon impact – albescent, violent fireworks – erupting all around Ramona's ole fishing hole. Just no Ramona.

“See?” I told myself. Bad sign, by the way. Talking to myself. My fatigue meter must be pegged all the way into the red zone. Debilitating hunger wasn't helping.

I was ready to give in to my weariness, just lay down in the sand and fall asleep. I'd done it before, I could do it again. No big deal. I'd have a nice snooze, and wake up in the morning. Find the Insatiable. Find Ramona.

It felt as though I was being pushed. Touched, without any physical contact. At the time I chalked it up to pure exhaustion. And as I clawed my way up the jagged outcrop, the spray of the ocean hit me like the slap of a thousand, angry palms.

Her knuckles were white – locked into the eroded, hollowed out portions of the boulders. Her hair was plastered against her face, and her entire body shook so badly, it looked like she was in the throes of a grand mal seizure.

My heart froze.

“Ramona?” I reached down to touch her. She was colder than ice. “Hey, Ramona!”

Her head turned toward me, slowly. Her eyes didn't even look like eyes anymore. They were glazed over, glassy, as if the lights were out but someone was home. Sort of.

I dropped to my belly, the rocky ledge like shards of ice, scraping and cutting my skin. To say nothing of what it was doing to the rest of me. Everything below the belt was exposed and dragging against frozen sandpaper. Industrial grade. I cupped my hand beneath her armpit, intending to pull her out, when the glaze in her eyes turned clear. Clear as crystal.

She screamed louder than humanly possible. “NO!”

“Ramona, it's okay. I'm not going to–”

“Get fucking bent and get your hand off me!”

Jesus Christ. She was a wildcat in a steel trap. If I had a blanket, I'd throw it over her head just to calm her the shit down.

The ocean spray hit again, slamming into us, as if we were on a crab boat in the Bering Sea. “You want to stay here? Now who's the dumb ass?”

“My leg's broken, you piece of shit!”

“All the more reason not to stay here,” I said, and reached down again.

“It's gonna hurt...” she put her face into her elbow, her teeth chattering so violently I thought she may shatter them.

“Yep. It's gonna hurt, and it's gonna suck. You ready?”

“I hate you.”

“On three,” I said, and saw her fingers relax their grip. “One. Two,” Her eyes squeezed shut. “Three.”

She came up like a fish in a barrel. Not to be funny, but that's how easy it was. It was the shrieking that was terrible. So loud, so painful, my eardrum shut itself off with a protective little hum.

“You're good, you're good,” I said, getting her up on the ledge, and seriously not knowing what the fuck to do next. “What… what should I do?”

“Are you fucking high?” she screeched. Ramona was not a screecher, but really, I couldn't blame her right now.

“Cut me some slack, huh? You've got a broken leg and I don't want to break it more, okay?”

Two waves broke in rapid succession, as if the ocean was done with our human shit, and wanted us off her rocks.

“Just… just get us off of here...”

“Carry you?”

“Like a fucking bride across a threshold,” she bit back against the pain, and locked her arms around my neck.

Getting us down from the outcrop was like getting out of the world's most poorly designed Jacuzzi. She was so cold; I may as well have been carrying a hundred pounds worth of ice bags.

My wrists were aching hot, grit and gravel were sliding into my ass, and trying to be gentle with her wasn't an option. The waves kept spilling over us, shards of boulder scraped into the back of my thighs, and when my feet finally hit the sand, I almost dropped her.

I almost dropped both of us. My knees threatened to buckle, her grip around my neck increased to vice-like proportions, and I fought against both gravity and exhaustion as I stumbled forward.

The camp was so far away. I had a vague recollection of what direction to take, but actually getting there...?

“Put me down...” she said.

“But, your leg.”

“Let me try.” She sucked in a huge, snotty breath through her nostrils, and unlocked her arms.

She cried out when her battered leg straightened beneath her. I held on tightly, my hand around her waist, supporting her like a drunk frat buddy limping across the quad.

“Can you do this?” I asked, looking down at her leg. Her knee was swollen, a patchwork of cuts and abrasions on her skin. It looked as though it had gone through a battlefield. And lost.

“Can you?” she shot back.

The glassy look was long gone. In its place was anger.

She was hurting, badly, but she wasn't about to admit it. She could be standing next to me with an amputated appendage, bleeding out on the sand and still be staring at me with her patented 'eff you' expression.

I smiled. “You're a hell of a woman, Ramona.”

“You're a sexist shit,” she replied, placing her hand on my shoulder, and taking one tentative step with the good leg.

“You think I'm sexist?”

“Because you fucking are,” she seethed.

Another step.

“You're right,” I nodded, adjusting my grip around her torso. A great big naked crutch with wet sand rubbing between his butt cheeks. That