“Not her type.” I whisper to Cyn as my way of a peace offering. She flicks her eyes to meet mine. I know she wants to ask how I can be so sure but she can’t bring herself to do it. I get it too. We both put up these hard fronts. At this moment I feel connected to her. “You’d be more her type if you know what I mean.” I give Cyn a wink before I declare loudly. “Smells good. Anything I can do to help?”
“I think I’ve got it.” She gives me a smile. I nod heading over to the table that is already set. King is already sitting at it watching my every move. I try to walk past him but he snags me around the waist pulling me down into his lap. This time I let him because that’s exactly where I want to be.
For now anyway. Since this is totally just a fling I tell myself. King holds onto me tighter. I’m pretty sure we both know that I’m a liar.
fifteen
KING
“Your bedroom is nice.I didn’t really get a look at it before.” Hayden smooths a hand across the comforter. She can barely bring herself to look me in the eye. She’s nervous.
I lean back against the dresser and give her some time to settle down. “Built this cabin by myself. It was originally only the living room and the kitchen. I bunked down on the sofa out there for a long time.”
“You didn’t have plans to make it a retreat right away?”
“No. After I got out of the Army, I wanted space. I didn’t particularly care where. A buddy of mine told me that there were about five thousand acres for sale up here so I bought it and moved here with my truck and Blue. A few months later, Cyn showed up with a friend of hers. The ex was a cop who was able to track her everywhere and so the friend needed to get off the grid.”
“You all stayed in the cabin?” She’s stopped picking the comforter apart and is leaning toward me, interested in my story and not so afraid of being in my bedroom.
I keep talking. “Nope. Cyn’s friend was scared, so I slept out in the truck and they took the cabin. After a couple days, I went and bought a trailer. That friend told another friend about our place and it kind of snowballed from there. When I started building the cabins outside, I had them add onto the main space with this upstairs.”
Hayden nods as if this all makes sense to her. I push away from the dresser and take a step toward her. My dick’s hard and my teeth ache from want. I need her. I’m about to reach for her when my phone buzzes. It’s one of my special alerts, too. Instantly, I go on guard.
Hayden doesn’t miss a thing. “What is it?”
I fish my phone from my pocket. “I don’t know. Yeah, King here.”
“There’s someone at the gate,” Pippa, the night security guard, says.
“Male someone or female someone?” I cast a regretful look toward Hayden. Her virginity is going to remain intact for a while longer.
“Looks like a mother and her teenage son. They’re arguing. I think he wants her to go inside but she won’t get out of the car.”
A teenage son? “Hold on.” I hold a phone to my chest. I’ve seen a picture of the asshole that hassled the doc and he’s pushing fifty. But, Hayden brought up some dude a couple of times.
“Could Ethan pass as a teenager?”
Hayden frowns. “No. Not in any way. If anything he looks ten years older because he drinks and smokes constantly. Why?”
“There’s someone at the gate who doesn’t have an invite.”
“Oh? I don’t think it’s him. No one is going to mistake him for a teenager but beyond that he wouldn’t ever chase after me.”
I doubt that. If I had an inkling I’d lose Hayden, I’d follow her anywhere.
“The mom is pretty distraught. I asked her who gave her our address but she refused to say. Instead, the boy gave me the number.”
We have a code—a sort of secret SOS. In order to keep the place safe, people who come up here have to give us a passcode. It’s my mother’s date of birth.
“I’ll be out.” I tuck the phone into my pocket and head for the closet for my gun and a coat.
“Can I come with?” Asks Hayden.
I pull on the shoulder harness. It shouldn’t be dangerous, but I don’t know the people at the gate. “Best if you don’t.” The gun’s chamber is empty when I check and the magazine is full. I shove the gun into the holster and shrug on my jacket.
“If I stayed with you, is that how it would be? I’d stay in the cabin with an apron on while you did all the important things?”
I briefly lose consciousness at the image of Hayden wearing an apron and nothing else. “I probably wouldn’t get anything done if all you wore was an apron,” I reply when I regather my wits. “I’d bend you over and fuck you against every flat surface. Hell, it wouldn’t even need to be flat.”