Breaking Control (Riders of Silence MC 1)

15: Pillow Talk

Serenity

I woke up after one of the best nights of sleep I've had. Since the attack I haven't slept, as I nuzzled my face into a warm pillow, I couldn't help feeling satisfied from not waking up in a panic. I sighed deeply, stretching my arms around the pillow I was wrapped up in.

My eyes snapped open as the pillow, that was strangely warm and hard moved beneath me. Looking up I saw Hunter's face as he was slept, completely at ease with how my body draped over him. Heat took my face when I saw how draped over him I was. My left leg wrapped around his waist causing the shirt I was wearing to have ridden up to my stomach leaving my underwear out in view. One of Hunter's arms was dangerously close to my inner thigh. My head was on his chest and the arm I stretched earlier went around his torso. I moved my leg away from his hand and unwound myself from him, embarrassed from my reaction of last night when I clung to him like a koala.

Thinking of last night made me sit up swinging my legs over the bed and take a breath. I don't remember everything after finding the body besides Hunter being there. The girl's and my sister's bodies seared into my mind and the message that was carved in the body. I buried upcoming nausea at that thought.

"You okay?" Hunter asked shifting on the bed.

I gave dry laugh as I turned facing him. He was sitting up against the headboard, his arm behind his head. "I don't think I know what being 'okay' means anymore."

I don't think I ever really knew what it meant.

"You weren't responsible for what happened." He said softly, distracting me momentarily with his rough morning voice, causing me to shake my head.

"You can't say that. I jumped into this thinking I'll be the one to get hurt and a girl who I talked with was brutally murdered. I got her in the line of fire because I was asking questions. And she died the same way that my sister did. In both cases I'm a variable." My thumb ring cut into my skin as I twirled it harshly.

"You didn't-" Hunter sat up, his hair falling around his shoulders.

"That's the point I didn't do anything, not for Sarah, not for the girl from last night. I just popped in and left her to deal with my actions. I spent a week not reporting the man who attacked me; he's probably the one who carved her up." I felt a tear come down my cheek and Hunter's thumb wipe it off.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" His hand lingered a moment on my cheek before he dropped it making me miss his warmth.

"How will talking about it help, isn't action better?" I couldn't help the plea in my voice at wanting to prevent talking. "Does talking help you?"

"That bad huh, you don't want to talk about this that much you shift it on me?" He shook his head, his hair moving around. I wrung my fingers together to stop myself from running them through his locks. "We aren't talking about me, we're talking about you. Maybe you know something you don't even know is important. Tell me about your sister and what you remember about the girl from your apartment."

I sighed leaning against the headboard biting my lip looking at him. He stayed with me again when I needed him, he could have walked away especially since there was a body in my room but he didn't.

"Sarah and I dreamed about moving out of our house since we were young enough to understand what kind of people our parents are. Controlling doesn't even beginning to describe them, you were to behave or else. Sarah has been the only person to give me a real gift. My family gives you contracts to sign describing how you are to behave and what you shall do for them during the year. I grew up in a posh neighborhood, therefore you were expected to be someone and be used as a piece on a chessboard for someone's gain. When she turned 19 she realized there was a loophole in the contracts we were given. Once we reach 21 we can break it. When she turned 21 she broke hers and when I was 21 I broke mine. Public indiscretions tarnishing our good name making us undesirable to our family."