“For your information,” he replied as we pulled up next to a tree. “I’m extremely humble.”
“Mmm, for sure,” I agreed, nodding. I shut the engine off and let out a shaky breath. “Most humble man I’ve ever met, actually.”
“You have no idea,” he said, his lips against my cheek. “Also, for your information, my penis is the perfect male specimen. Straight, smooth, and has its own beard.”
I nearly choked on my tongue trying not to laugh and he knew it, which pissed me off. He was so cocksure it was hard not to fall under his spell, but I couldn’t. I had to steer clear of his sweet lips and his straight, smooth, bearded penis.
I stood up on the machine and awkwardly climbed off without touching him. It wasn’t easy, and I kind of wanted to bring my leg over the back and smack him in the head with it, but I refrained. I stood in the open air of the forest, away from him, and a chill ran through me. I already missed his heat and he didn’t appear to feel any better about the situation.
He swung his own leg off the machine and joined me. “What’s the game plan?”
“Find game, shoot game, gut game, haul game to sled, take game home, hang game up, butcher game, eat game.”
He nestled his nose in my neck. “Good God, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
I shoved him away and stomped to the sled to untie the rope. Once free, I flipped the bow and arrows onto my back. I reached for the bag but it disappeared before my eyes. He swung it around like it weighed five pounds instead of fifty, and grabbed the hatchet.
“Lead the way,” he said, motioning for me to go ahead of him. “I’m new to this whole hunting thing.”
I pointed straight ahead through the open expanse of the forest. “See that knoll up there? That’s where we’re headed. You lead the way.” I bounced on my toes and grinned while I waited for him to take off toward the hill.
Instead, he put his hand on his hip. “Why would I lead the way? I don’t know where I’m going.”
“I think even you can find your way up to the top of that hill,” I promised, rolling my eyes.
“I could, sure,” he agreed, sidling up to me again, and standing only inches away. He stared down at me the way an eagle sizes up a rabbit, “but then you’d get the pleasure of staring at my ass the whole way.”
I tried to roll my eyes around to pretend what he said hadn’t hit the nail smack dab on the fucking head. “Wow, again with the thinking highly of yourself.”
His hand came out and he snatched the hat off my head, then he turned around and took off. “Hey!” I yelled, taking off after him and running for all I was worth. He was surprisingly quick on his feet for his size, and with longer legs, he easily got out in front of me. Unfortunately, he also made enough noise, his low sexy laughter traveling through the hills of the woods like an echo, to scare away any wildlife. It wasn’t unexpected, but I would still make sure he paid for it.
I slowed my feet to a walk and then finally stopped moving altogether, so I could watch his mighty fine ass cheeks swaying with every step he took. Imagine what those looked like out of his Calvin Klein’s. “Mercy, stop already,” I groaned aloud. “He’s incorrigible enough as it is.”
He must have sensed I wasn’t chasing him anymore and he swung his head over his shoulder, my hat in his teeth while he used both hands to steady himself. He turned around and sat down on his delicious ass, throwing his arms out to the sides as if to say, what the heck?
I set off toward the hill again, my hood up over my ears to protect them until I snatched my hat back from his cold, dead lips. He waited on the side of the hill until I got to the bottom and then he scampered the rest of the way up, probably afraid I’d push him off the side if he didn’t. When I got to the top of the snowy knoll, I snapped the hat out of his hand and tugged it back on my head.
“It’s not easy to put a hat on with one hand you know!” I hissed. “Don’t be an ass.”
“You didn’t appear to struggle,” he said, motioning at my head.
“You didn’t appear to struggle,” I mimicked.
He held his hands up. “I’m sorry. It actually never crossed my mind when I did it.”
“Shocker.” I lowered myself to the ground and put my binoculars to my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Scanning the woods for movement. Not that there will be any movement because you scared away every deer within a ten-mile radius.”
“My bad?” he whisper-asked and I rolled my eyes for the tenth time in an hour. I was going to get a headache from rolling my eyes.
“First rule of hunting. Be quiet.”
“What’s the second rule?”
“Don’t piss off the woman with the weapon.”
“Duly noted.”
CHAPTER NINE
HAYES
The fire crackled and I sighed with satisfaction when the heat warmed my feet and the steam from the coffee warmed my nose.
“Hunting is boring,” I lamented, my long legs stretched out toward the fire. “It’s easier to just go to the store, buy some meat, and use the rest of your day to do something productive.”
“This is productive,” she said, biting into a granola bar, her thermos between her own long, slender legs. “It’s called relaxing, being one with nature, and experiencing life. You should try it sometime.”
I lowered my cup to my knees and scrunched my nose. “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt,” I said. “Not a fan.”
She sighed, heavily, which she seemed to do a lot when I was around. “Well, considering we haven’t seen anything move other than those rabbits,” she pointed to her game bag, “I think today will be a waste.”
I shook my head slowly. “I still can’t believe you put an arrow through a rabbit. You’re like a cavewoman with that bow.”
She rolled her eyes to the brim of her hat, something she did a lot, too. “Cavewomen didn’t have bows with scopes on them. They had rocks.”
“The bow was easier,” I agreed, laughing when she threw snow at me. “What does rabbit taste like?”
“Rabbit,” she answered, working hard not to smile or snicker.
I tossed snow back at her and shook my head in frustration. “Does it taste like chicken?”
She grunted and tossed another stick on the fire. “As long as you harvest the rabbit when it's white, you can make it taste like chicken if you cook it right.”
“What other colors do they come in?” I asked, confused.
She snorted and started to choke on her coffee. She was choking and gasping so long I worried she was going to die on me. I stood up and swatted her on the back a couple of times. She finally held her hand up and coughed twice more until her lungs were clear of the hot liquid. “Thanks,” she squawked, her voice hoarse but filled with laughter. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
I hoped the look on my face told her I wasn’t.
She gave a resigned sigh this time and added a head shake. She was ridiculously cute when she was annoyed with me. “Snowshoe hares are only white in the winter. They turn brown in the summer. They need to blend in with their environment no matter the season. It’s their only camouflage. If you tried to eat one when it was brown, it would taste gamey. Since it’s winter, those two will be beautiful in stew, or fried in my Dutch oven with some garlic butter and salt.”
I rubbed my hands together excitedly, my mouth watering. “We’re having rabbit for dinner.”
She raised one brow, which always made her beautiful brown eye look twice its normal size. “I thought you wanted venison.”
I motioned around us with my hands in the air. “I don’t see any deer walking into our camp here, do you?”
“I have frozen venison.”
“When we have fresh rabbits? Doesn’t make sense,” I insisted. “Those four rabbits should be enough, shouldn’t they?”
She scrunched one eye in the cutest look of consternation I’d ever seen. “Dude, one rabbit is enough for two people. Seriously.” She
shook her head in disgust of my ignorance.
“I have a big appetite,” I volleyed.
“I think I can handle you, big boy.”
“Not likely.” I eyed her and waited for a response. I was pretty sure my eyes said I was thinking about sex with her. I was almost one hundred percent certain she wasn’t always thinking about sex with me. Then again, I could be almost one hundred percent wrong.
She disappointed me when she said nothing, just emptied her thermos, then motioned for me to give her the lid. She had been kind enough to share her coffee with me, which was appreciated considering the temperature. “I guess if we’re going to clean rabbit and cook it for dinner, we’d better head back,” she said, eyeing the midday sun.
“We’re not going to clean those rabbits.” I dumped snow on the fire until it sizzled and died. “You’re going to clean rabbit. I haven’t a clue how.”
“First time for everything. We’ll call it your something new for the day.” She laughed and slung the game bag over one shoulder and her bow over the other. We weren’t far from where we’d left the sled and it wouldn’t take long to get back to it. We’d be in camp by three, which meant we had plenty of time before dinner at seven.
“Sounds charming.” It wasn’t though, and I swallowed hard.
“What’s the matter, afraid of a little blood?”
“Nope,” I threaded my long, strong arms through the backpack straps. “Can I keep a foot?”
“What on earth for?” she asked, stopping dead and I bumped into her. I had to reach out and grab her shoulders to keep her from tipping over. The tingles that ran through my hands and into my core were unexpected and immature, but most of all, scary.
“Isn’t that how you get a lucky rabbit foot?”
She laughed hysterically. “Sure, you can have a foot. Good luck figuring out how to keep it from rotting.”
“Come on, there has to be a way.”
“I’m sure there is. You can Google it while I cook dinner.” She shot me a smile that said she was tired of me or maybe she was just tired in general.
“You know, all is not lost for the day,” I informed her, sidling up to her side. “I still have this here hatchet.”
“I didn’t take you for a killing a woman in the woods and hacking her to pieces kind of guy.” The sentence was meant to be joking, but her body language said anything but. She took a step back and reached behind her toward her bow.
“Whoa, relax.” I set the hatchet down in the snow and held my hands up. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just going to say we have an empty sled, so we have plenty of room for a Christmas tree. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“A Christmas tree,” she repeated, and I could see the relief in her eyes.
I grimaced internally. I should have known not to approach her with a weapon of any kind. I’m lucky she didn’t overreact and take me down, considering what Caleb told me last night.
“Your enthusiasm is overpowering,” I teased, hoping to get a laugh. She was stiff as a board, shaking, not from the cold, and her eyes darted around the trees. I was afraid she was going to leave me in the woods and take off on the snowmobile alone.
She stared over my shoulder, but her eyes were unfocused. “I don’t put up a Christmas tree.”
“Because you’re Jewish?”
That got a small laugh out of her. “I’m a Grinch. A female version of Scrooge.”
“I don’t believe it.” I swung my head back and forth in disbelief. “It’s more likely you just don’t take the time.”
“It is just me after all.”
“We’ll cut a small one then. A just me sized one.”
The snow machine came into sight and I noticed air puff out from between her lips, probably from relief. “Dude, honestly, it’s not necessary. I don’t even have a Christmas tree stand,” she insisted, carefully lowering the rabbits to the sled.
“Do you have a bucket and some wood?” I deposited the backpack onto the sled and strapped it down, the whole time keeping one eye on her.
“Of course.”
“Then I can DIY the shit out of that while you’re cooking,” I promised, crossing my heart, a smile on my lips.
“DIY the shit out of it?”
I nodded and winked.
“You know what, you sold me with that sentence. I’m dying to see you, Hayes Rutherford the Fourth, DIY the shit out of something. Anything. It ought to be amusing.”
I moved to within a hairsbreadth of her lips. “What do I get if you’re amused?”
“The joy of knowing you’re amusing,” she answered, deadpan.
“What an unexciting prize.” I let my eyes take in the sight of her pink-tinged cheeks and glossy lips. “We should think of a new one.”
“I didn’t know we were assigning prizes. What do I get if you like my rabbit stew?” she asked coyly.
“The joy of knowing I enjoyed your rabbit stew,” I repeated, taking another step closer.
“I’m sure that will keep me warm at night,” she stuttered. I read her eyes in the moment. She was suddenly unsure about her safety standing in the woods with me. She was scared. It was written all over her face.
Before she could blink, my lips were on hers in a tentative test of the waters. Was she going to slap me across the face or kiss me back? Was she going to pull out a knife and shank me or kiss me back?
The moan that erupted from the back of her throat burned all the way to my soul and stole the air around us like we’d been sucked into a void. My lips worked hers over and my own traitorous moan echoed through the woods. It was gasoline to a flame. I held her face in my hands and bent her will to the machinations of my tongue. It pushed its way into her mouth and caressed her satiny smooth one. She moaned again and I wanted to believe it was her thinking about what this tongue and beard would feel like against her most private place. A moan ripped from my throat and I tore my lips away from hers, my hands still gripping her face gently.
“Did that warm you up?” I asked, my lips taking another taste of her before she could answer.
“Better than a fleece blanket warmed by the fire,” she answered. “Do it again and I’ll chop off your nutsack.”
She stalked to the sled and threw her leg over it, firing it up. “You coming?”
The look on her face told me two things. I was going to do it again, and she was going to like it.
CHAPTER TEN
MERCY
Every three minutes I had to stop and put my fingers to my lips to make sure they were still there and hadn’t been singed off by that kiss. Holy hell, he might be a pompous ass sometimes, but he could kiss. I wondered what he could do with that tongue and beard if he moved to my other lips.
I slammed the pan down on the stove. “Shit, Mercy, knock it off,” I hissed, dumping oil into the pan to heat. “You’re not some sex-starved teenager, for God’s sake.” I grimaced and sighed. No, I was a sex-starved woman as a matter of fact.
I tossed the seasoned, floured meat into the hot oil and shoved it around with a spatula while he puttered away in my living room. I was enough of a woman to admit that watching his muscles ripple while he used the hatchet to cut down the tree was a total turn on. At the same time, every time he swung it, I took a step back, remembering that I really didn’t know him. He could be an ax murderer for all I knew.
I was convinced he wasn’t though, because ax murderers don’t cut down Christmas trees for women. He had hours to kill me in the woods, or for that matter, the first night he was here, and he didn’t. Besides, a simple Google search told me exactly who he was, and who he was surprised the hell out of me. There were also indications he wasn’t being completely honest about everything in his life, but then again, you could say the same about me.
He was humming Oh Christmas Tree while I stirred the meat into the pot of bubbling stew on the back of the stove. Since I was busy running a business, I always froze the makings for stew ahead of time, complete with parboiled potatoes and carrot
s. All I had to do was add the meat, let it simmer for an hour, and dinner was ready. I put the lid on it and wiped my hand. I suddenly didn’t want to face him knowing what I knew. I didn’t want to face him considering the kiss we’d shared a few hours ago. I didn’t want to face him because I might want to do it again. I grimaced and dropped my head into my hand. No, I definitely wanted to do it again, but what I read on the internet told me that would be an unwise decision on my part.
I breathed in and then out as if a deep breath was going to keep me from wanting to rip his clothes off and fuck him senseless
Kiss the man. Hell, sleep with him. You only live once, came the voice of my mother.
I leaned on the counter with my head bowed.
Don’t kiss the man or sleep with him. That’s a guaranteed complication you don’t need.
Nothing wrong with a weekend fling, darling. Just keep your feelings out of it.
“Mercy?” he called and I lifted my head, quieting the voices. I wanted to be rid of my mother’s voice in my ear, but more than that, I wanted to know who the hell the other voice was. The voice of reason. The one who actually had life figured out.
I strolled to the living room with my feet slipping around on the hardwood floor. Normally, I go barefoot, but out of respect for my guest, I broke out my super fluffy, super fuzzy, red and green striped socks. They were also super unsexy. I’d decided with a guy like Hayes around, the less sexy I appeared, the less he might look at me like his bedtime snack.
“Did you need some—” I didn’t finish my sentence, just stopped halfway through the door and stared at the spot next to the fireplace. We’d found the perfect scotch pine for the cabin and he had it set up in the corner. It was four feet tall and perfectly symmetrical. In the woods, he’d circled it, twice, and declared it the perfect Christmas tree. He’d set to work cutting it down, which was definitely my favorite part of the afternoon. The way his muscles rippled from under his way too expensive chamois shirt, and the way he grunted when the hatchet made contact with the tree, had me fanning myself in the middle of the cold forest. It instantly set me on fire imagining the same sound in my ear as he stoked a fire between us with his own wood.
The Secrets Between Us (Billionaire CEO Romance) Page 7
