{HELENA}
I pause in the cabin doorway, angling my head back to make sure Blackwood is still sleeping beside the fire.
When he doesn't move, I turn away, grip the door handle, and push it open, emerging into a morning so early that the sky is still black.
We made love and fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms, but I know it wasn't what Blackwood wanted.
He was regretting it last night, and I can't imagine he won't be regretting it, even more, this morning, so it made it easy to slip out of his hold, quietly dress in my jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, and sneakers when the absolute last place I wanted to be was anywhere but in his arms.
Blackwood might claim there's nothing between us anymore, that all our feelings are dead and gone, but they aren't.
What we have—what we had— was so much more than attraction. We were mates, but we loved each other as well. I doubt those feelings will ever go away, regardless of how much Blackwood might wish they would.
