What, are you going to outrun the man who clearly has a hundred pounds of muscle on you?
“Before you fall over,” he grates out.
I sit.
He prowls towards me. The looming experience intensifies. “You were inside my cabin.”
“I—” There’s no way he knows that. I disturbed nothing. I turned off the electricity and water. “I apologize for resting on your deck.”
“Where you left your water bottle,” he adds helpfully. Then he leans down, his hands wrapping around the arms of my chair. Caging me in. “Do you think I’m this annoyed by you sitting on mydeck?”
“Maybe?” I lick my lips. No amount of eavesdropping on my father’s conversations could have prepared me for this, my first interrogation. “I’m very sorry.”
“I don’t think you are. If you were actually sorry…” He inhales a slow, careful breath. Holds it for a beat. Then leans in further, forcing me to press back against the back of the chair. His mouth brushes my ear. “You’d be honest about that pretty sunshine scent of yours being all over my pillow.”
CHAPTER3
JUSTIN
As soon as I leaned in, my suspicion was confirmed. This little slip of a girl, who smells like sunscreen and big dreams and the most delicious hard-earned sweat, snuck into my home and rested her gorgeous head on my pillow.
And I want to know how she got in.
“What’s your name?”
She stares at me.
“How about Goldilocks?” I rock back, still keeping her trapped, but needing a bit of distance between me and her scent. Not that a few inches makes a difference. And now I can see all of her, from her stony glare to her bug-bitten forearms.
And on the floor, she’s rocking her feet from side to side, like resting them flat hurts.
“Take your boots off.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re hurt. Right? I’m a—” I dig out my wallet and show her my military ID. “My name’s Justin, and I’m in the Navy. I know first aid. Let me take a look at your feet.”
“No.” She crosses her arms over her chest, her expression a little more uncertain now. “I just need my water bottle and then I’ll be on my way.”
“To where?”
She doesn’t answer that, because she doesn’t have a destination.
“What’s your deal, Goldilocks? You’ve got a pile of high-end hiking gear here, including brand new boots. Did any of the people who sold you this shit warn you that you’d need to break in those boots if you didn’t want to shred your feet?”
Her face flushes.
“I’ll take that as a no. But you’re clever enough to pick a lock and not break it. So tell me your secrets, and I’ll patch up your feet.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” she whispers.
“Liar.” But I say it as gently as I can, because something tells me this girl is no threat to anyone—except maybe herself. “Don’t break into any more cabins on this little adventure you’re having, you hear?”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll take you over my knee.” My cock thickens, stretching against the confines of my jeans at the accidentally erotic image of her tight little ass in those tight little hiking pants, straining against my lap as I bring my hand down in a stern punishment.
Her eyes go wide.