Flirting With Danger (Rebels 0f Forbidden Lake Book 1)

by Elana Johnson

  “Down,” Jon said, and the dog obeyed instantly. For some reason, Cassie liked that, and she glanced at Jon.

  “I wanted to rent a cabin,” she said.

  “Great,” he said. “You can call our front office for that. They open at nine in the winter.” He leaned against the counter, and with his movie star hair all rumpled from bed, Cassie could only think of him there.

  She glanced toward the hallway to her left, wondering if he had a king-size bed or not. Someone like him probably did.

  She looked back at him and caught him yawning. “Sorry to keep you from going back to bed. I’ll go.”

  He darted forward and latched onto her wrist. “Don’t go.” He dipped his head again, pressing his mouth against her temple, then her cheek, his nose tracing a path lower and lower until he finally kissed her neck.

  A growl ground through his throat, and he whispered, “You better start talking if that’s what you really want to do.”

  Instead of saying anything in words, Cassie arched into his touch, fire burning through her whole body as he ran his hands up her back and down to her waist again. He definitely had good hands. Such good hands.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said, her voice made more of air than anything.

  “Mm,” he said, sliding his mouth to her ear.

  She managed to press her palms against his chest and apply pressure. He backed up, and when he opened his eyes and looked at her, there was a definite heated haze in his expression.

  She felt buzzed herself, like she’d been drinking, something she never did, especially now that she had the twins. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down, to not be aware of everything and everyone around her.

  And yet, Jon made her forget all of her precautions.

  “I’m not really in hiding,” she started. “But you freaked me out, showing up at my house last night.”

  Jon retreated back to the counter, where he started making coffee. “Why’s that?”

  “Because the twins’ father just got out of prison on parole, and we’re all worried he’s going to come for them.”

  Jon glanced up at her, those hands stilling in the coffee prep. “He’s dangerous?”

  “Abusive,” she said. “My mom was only with him for a few years before she divorced him. But before she died, she told me all she’d done to keep them safe from Larry. I promised her I’d continue what she’d done.”

  He went back to making coffee, his eyebrows drawn down now. She found him just as sexy with the thoughtful frown on his face, and she walked over to the counter and took a seat on the barstool.

  “So I’m a little nervous when people knock on my door at night.” She glanced around the high-end kitchen, with its black stainless appliances, complete with a fridge that had a screen on it that listed the contents.

  “What kind of fridge is that?” she asked.

  “Oh, this is a one-of-a-kind,” he said, turning to it. “Charles, tell me if I have cream for my coffee.”

  “You have two quarts of cream,” a robotic voice said. “One is hazelnut flavored. The other plain vanilla.”

  Cassie blinked at the fridge. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, and it never got off the ground anyway.” He opened the fridge and pulled out the two quarts of coffee creamer. Nodding behind her, he said, “That one will tell you a joke.”

  Cassie turned and saw the two-foot-tall robot on the counter. She looked back at Jon. “I thought you were into woodworking. Good with your hands and all that.”

  “Oh, I am,” he said with a flirty smile. “But I also have a little obsession with StartUp.com. Anything techy or cool, and I throw a few bucks at it.”

  “So that’s how you got the fridge that keeps track of what’s inside it.”

  “That’s right.”

  She walked over to the robot, and his eyes opened before she said anything. “Oh, hello. Do you want to know the weather today?”

  A giggle escaped from her mouth before she could suck it back in. “No,” she said. “Tell me a joke instead.”

  “How do you make a handkerchief dance? You put a little boogie in it.”

  Cassie burst into laughter, leaning into Jon as he joined her and slipped his arm around her. His laughter joined with hers, and Cassie’s secret crush on this gorgeous man doubled.

  And he was her gorgeous student, and that made her laughter dry up into silence.

  “So,” she said. “I’d like to rent a cabin, just so we have it if we need…somewhere else to go sometimes.”

  “Oh, you’re talking a permanent rental?” he asked.

  “Do you do things like that?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But I can find out. I know we have a couple of other properties that aren’t being used right now, too. I can ask my brother about those.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yeah, Liam runs the rentals, and he manages all our land.”

  “Oh, he sounds like a barrel of fun.”

  “He is, actually. Has a little girl named Kimmie. She’s the cutest thing on the planet.” He reached up to open a cabinet and pulled down two mugs. “I know you like coffee. Cream and sugar?”

  “Yes,” she said, following him back into the kitchen. He poured her coffee and mixed in what she liked, and there was nothing sexier than him making coffee for her. Oh, wait. Maybe there was—the tender way he spoke about his niece.

  “Is your brother married, then?” she asked.

  “He was,” Jon said. “His wife died a few years ago. My oldest sister, Karly, she’s married. And my youngest, Mia, has a boyfriend. The rest of us are kind of in between relationships right now.” He lifted his coffee cup to his lips and sipped, and Cassie couldn’t help tracking the movement.

  A sense of safety enveloped her, and Cassie didn’t know what to make of that. But it felt normal to be standing in his kitchen with him, drinking coffee, and talking about his family.

  “Are you really in between relationships?” she asked.

  He flinched, which caused his creamed up coffee to spill onto the back of his hand. He swore under his breath and turned toward the sink, which he flipped onto to cold and put his hand underneath the flow of water.

  When he turned back to her, he gazed evenly at her. “I suppose not,” he said. “What about you?”

  Cassie shrugged and sipped her coffee. “We’d have to be really good at keeping this secret.” She couldn’t believe she’d said it. Couldn’t believe she was even considering perpetuating this relationship. Couldn’t get the feel of his lips on her face and neck out of her mind.

  “Then you should probably go,” he said. “Before the rest of my family wakes up and sees you driving out of here like we spent the night together.” He picked up his coffee mug and drank from it again, his dark, dangerous eyes gleaming at her.

  Cassie tried not to scamper out of his house, obeying exactly what he said, but she did precisely that. And as the secret of her and Jon burrowed deep into her heart, she felt warm from head to toe.

  Chapter Eight

  “You better be careful, Jon,” Karly said as she lifted the lid on one of the pizza boxes.

  “I’m always careful,” Jon said. Karly had indeed seen Cassie “slinking away” from Jon’s house at five-thirty in the morning, and she’d shown up only minutes later.

  A week had passed since then, and Jon had only seen Cassie in class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. They’d texted a lot, and he’d found out that there were two family cabins that Cassie could use any time she wanted.

  “Free,” Liam had said. “If you need it, Jon, you can have it.” He’d been distracted by Kimmie’s upset stomach, and Jon felt like he’d gotten away with something by not having to explain to his brother exactly what he needed the cabin for.

  But Karly had asked at least a thousand questions, and Jon had answered them all. So she knew Cassie was a professor at the college, and that Jon had fallen hard for her.

  “I di
dn’t mean with her,” Karly said, hooking him with her big-sister eyes.

  “I’m fine,” Jon said.

  “You abandoned Marcy in less than an hour,” Karly said, her head moving a little too much like a bobble-head doll.

  “First off,” Jon said, getting up to snag a piece of pizza before everyone else arrived. “There was nothing between Marcy and me. Nothing to abandon.”

  “But you liked her for so long.”

  “And now I like Cassie,” Jon said. He couldn’t explain the shift that had happened in the kitchen, only that it had. And he’d felt it, almost like God himself moving the earth so that Jon would be forced to see the woman standing in front of him. “Don’t worry, Curls. We haven’t even kissed yet.”

  Karly scowled at his childhood nickname for her and shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe what you want. She didn’t stay the night last weekend.” No matter how much Jon wished that were true. “And don’t say anything to Phoenix either. I heard from Sami that the Department is causing him grief again.”

  “It’s not the DNR,” Karly said. “But a certain blonde who works for them.”

  Jon chuckled at the very thought of Phoenix with a woman. Not because his brother didn’t deserve to share his remote cabin with someone that loved him. But because Phoenix himself was so cut off to the outside world—and the opportunity to find someone again—that it would never happen.

  Of course, Jon had never been engaged before—never even been in love—so he couldn’t fault Phoenix for his anti-female stance after his fiancée had left him standing at the altar.

  “And don’t say anything else,” Jon said as the front door to their parents’ house opened. “Okay, Karly? You sometimes slip up when there’s so many people to entertain.”

  “I do not,” she said. “I’m as good at secrets as you are.” She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and turned to greet Mia and her boyfriend. Jon watched his sisters talk and interact, feeling a bit removed from them tonight.

  The family always got together on Sunday evenings for dinner at the big house on the edge of the orchard where they’d all grown up. Jon normally loved the vibrancy that came from five siblings, grandparents, his niece, and anyone else who came.

  But tonight, he just wanted to spend a quiet evening with Cassie and her brothers. He’d texted her, but she hadn’t responded yet—which meant she wasn’t going to. He wasn’t invited.

  They’d both made bold moves over the past couple of weeks, but Jon didn’t want to explain his absence to his family, and he didn’t want to leave Karly here alone without him here to make sure she didn’t spill his secret relationship to the rest of the family.

  One by one, they all arrived, and Jon put on his party face. After all, he didn’t need his sisters zeroing in on him and asking him about Marcy. Or anything else.

  He avoided his father too, but his dad still managed to sidle up next to him and ask, “How are the classes going, Jon?”

  “Just great,” he said. “I made the salad tonight, in fact.”

  “You’re taking cooking?”

  “I needed one more elective,” he said. “It was that or bowling or something equally as stupid.” He picked up his can of soda and drained the last of it. “I have business management homework, so I think I’m going to take off early.”

  “And how many classes do you have until you graduate?”

  Jon bristled at the question, mostly because his dad knew the answer already. They’d had this conversation so many times. But he simply gazed into his father’s dark eyes, so much like his own, and said, “Just two, Dad. The business math class and the finance class for small businesses.” His dad couldn’t sue him for putting the math classes off until last. The subject had never been Jon’s strong suit. Sure, he could measure and get pieces of wood to line up to the sixteenth-inch. But he didn’t need to balance accounts or complete calculus problems to make a dresser.

  “So next Christmas, you’ll be done.”

  “If I don’t go in the summer,” Jon said coolly.

  “Well, you can’t go in the summer,” his dad said. “It’s our busiest time of the year.”

  Your busiest time of the year, Jon wanted to say. But he just smiled a tight, closed-mouth smile at his father and edged over to his mom. “I’m headed out early,” he said, sweeping a kiss along her cheek. “Love you, Mom.”

  “Oh, Jon, wait. Something came to the house for Phoenix. He didn’t take it before he left. You’ll see him soon, won’t you?” She bustled away before Jon could confirm that yes, he’d see Phoenix soon. Why his brother had only stayed for twenty minutes would also be discussed, and Jon wanted first-hand information about the blonde with the Department of Natural Resources.

  So he took the large envelope from his mother and sauntered out of the house like he’d rather stay than go do homework. But he wasn’t going to do his homework right now anyway—unless copious amounts of texting with his secret girlfriend counted. If it did, then he totally was going to do homework.

  * * *

  Jon arrived a half-hour early to Tuesday’s class, hoping to find Cassie alone for just a few minutes. But two other students had already arrived, turning his romantic surprise into a complete flop. After all, he couldn’t give her a red rose and a bag of Skittles—her favorite fruity candy—when he was supposed to be nothing more than a student.

  She’d said nothing else about the cabin or having him make something for her, so he sat in the back of the class and detailed that he had presents for her in his car, and if she wanted, they could meet after class so she could get them.

  Then he told her he’d picked up the key to the cabin she could use whenever she wanted to, and that she should probably come to his house in the morning to get it. Really early, he said. Like last time.

  He saw her head move as she checked her phone each time he texted. A smile rode her mouth too, but she didn’t pick up her device to respond.

  And you should probably hire me to build something for you, he sent last. That way, we can show that we knew each other before this class started. I don’t want you to lose your job.

  And he didn’t want to lose his credits at Northwestern Michigan College. He’d been working on his degree for years, and he didn’t know if they could take his credits from him or not. But he had assumed some risk in their forbidden relationship too.

  She finally picked up her phone, her fingers flying over the screen as her dark hair fell in a veil between them. He wanted to run his fingers through it desperately, and if he didn’t kiss her soon, he felt sure he’d combust. His heart, his lungs, all of him.

  I’m deleting all of these texts, she sent. You should too. I’ll see you in the morning.

  Jon couldn’t help grinning like a fool as he deleted the text string between him and Cassie. He’d named her Goliath in his phone, and he’d been careful to delete their messages every single night. She did too.

  The thrill of having something secret swept through Jon as she got up and entered the kitchen. Surprise lit her face when she saw him there already, but he pretended to look at something else.

  After all, he’d told her he was very good at keeping secrets, and he really wanted to be. His whole relationship with her depended on it.

  * * *

  The following morning, he waited on the front porch of the cabin Liam had said Cassie could use whenever she needed to. He’d texted her the directions, and he’d left his big mastiff at home.

  The woods surrounding the cabin were quiet, muted by the newly fallen snow. The white stuff continued to fall, making everything serene and simple beyond the porch, and Jon rediscovered why he loved Michigan so much.

  Cassie’s tires made squishing noises as she pulled up to the cabin, and she used his footprints, hopping and jumping from one to the other until she reached the bottom stair. Then she approached slower, her hands tucked deep in her coat pockets.

  “The purple looks good on you,” he sa
id, rising to greet her. Could he kiss her right here, right now? Did she have anything else to tell him? “And hey, I tried the steak and eggs again this morning, and there were no flames.”

  She trilled out a laugh that sounded so loud out here in the wilderness. “Those flames were Colton’s.”

  “I know, but I thought you’d like to know that I got the dish right.”

  She put both hands behind his neck and swayed with him like they were at a high school prom. “I have no doubt. You’re very good with your hands.”

  “Oh, you’re a little flirty this morning, aren’t you?” He grinned at her and dropped his gaze to her mouth.

  “Not more than you. You think I believe you’ve been up since four, making steak and eggs?”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “If the boot fits.” She shrugged, her smile so filled with coy wattage, he was almost blinded by it.

  “Come on, then,” he said, dropping his hands from her waist and turning to enter the cottage. “So Liam says we own this one for family use, but no one’s using it right now. He said I could access it whenever I wanted.” He opened the door, glad Cassie had come with him and slipped her hand into his.

  “It’s pretty empty, but there are some basics. I was thinking I’d bring out some staples as far as food goes, so if you do have to retreat here, you’ll have the essentials.” He looked around at the single couch in the living room. The kitchen sat at the back of the house, and besides the groceries he’d brought in last night to make her breakfast, he knew the cupboards and fridge were empty.

  “Thank you, Jon,” she said in a voice he rarely heard—one filled with emotion and gratitude.

  He glanced at her, making a decision on the spot. He used those hands she claimed were so great, and took her face in both of them. “I hope you never have to use it,” he whispered just before lowering his head to kiss her.