by E Cleveland
I snap my eyes open and my heartbeat quickens. This isn’t the resort. I blink, waiting for the grungy room to disappear and the pristine chalet we’ve been staying in to materialize. Shit. Where am I? And who am I lying on the floor with?
“Oh my God!” I jump to my feet and wobble on my shaky legs as I look down at the unfamiliar man who was holding me tenderly against him. “Who the fuck are you?” my voice warbles as I yell. My breaths are so shallow that I can’t fill my lungs properly. I feel like I’m drowning.
“Whoa, just hold up a minute.” The man, and I do mean man, stands up with his hands in the air. I try not to stare at his body. Especially not how his red boxer briefs cling to the thick ridge of his cock, where it outlines the belled curve of the head, leaving nothing to the imagination.
My nipples begin to peak with the arousal I’m ashamed to admit is engulfing my good senses. I force myself to drag my eyes back up his sturdy frame. Up over his cut abs, up over his broad chest and sculpted shoulders. I quickly scan his thick beard and olive complexion before I meet his deep, brown eyes. I know it’s only taken a second for me to soak him in, maybe less, but it feels like a second that time forgot.
“Who the fuck are you?” I want to sound like a lion, but my voice squeaks out more like a mouse. I wrap my arms around me and realize for the first time that I’m completely nude. “Oh no.” I look down in horror. “What did you do to me?” Tears spring to my eyes as I desperately try to remember anything that would make this okay.
I can’t.
“What did I do to you?” he snarls, crimson washing over his cheeks. “What are you accusing me of? I saved your fucking life, that’s what I did.” His shoulders seem to grow impossibly wide as he throws them back, glaring down his nose at me. He towers over me and could easily do anything he wanted to do to me. I bite my lip and try not to look into his eyes, which are flashing with anger. I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him.
“What kind of man do you think I am?” he yells at me and tears fall straight from my eyes to the floor. I keep my head hung as I try to hide the fact that I’m crying.
“I don’t know!” My voice cracks and I can’t help but sob. “I don’t know who you are at all. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I’m naked.” I throw my hands up over my face and my body shakes as I break down.
His sigh is heavy as he walks over to me. “Listen, you’re right.” He pulls me into his arms. “I get that you’re scared. I shouldn’t have yelled at you, okay? Don’t cry, please.” It’s strangely comforting to be held by him. A man I’ve never met before. He runs his thick hand over my hair and holds me tight.
“I know this looks fucked up, okay? I know you don’t know me. You have no reason to trust me, I get that. But you can. I’m Sawyer.” His voice rumbles in his chest with my ear pressed against him. “You have my word; I never laid a finger on you. I found you passed out in the woods and brought you here so you wouldn’t die of exposure. All you were wearing was a wet bikini under your coat, so I had to strip you down and lie next to you to get your body heat back up,” he explains calmly. Even though I have no memory of any of this, I believe him.
He wraps his hands around my shoulders and takes a step back, looking down at me. I can’t see anger in his smoldering eyes anymore. Now, I see something worse: pity.
“I know you’re confused and scared. I mean, you were in danger, right?” He doesn’t wait for me to piece my night together for him. He takes a deep breath and locks me to the floor with his earnest gaze. “I don’t know what kind of men you’re used to dealing with, but I’m not like that. I’ve never hurt a woman and I never will. You got my word on that.”
I consume his scent in my lungs, breathing him in hungrily. He smells like wood smoke and cedar. There’s no doubt in my mind that this man works with his hands for a living. They’re so rough and strong. I involuntarily clench my thighs together tight. My body is begging for this guy to be less of a gentleman and have his way with me.
Heat flushes through me from my cheeks to my curling toes as I imagine him effortlessly fucking me against the wall, or bent over a table, or pinned under his defined muscles on top of my fur coat.
“I need to get out of here. I’ve got to get back to the resort,” I murmur unconvincingly, not taking a single step.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He laughs.
I struggle to breathe. Not because I’m afraid, but because I’ve never been more turned on in my life. The idea of some strange man keeping me in his cabin shouldn’t make my pussy so wet. It shouldn’t, but it does.
“Why’s that?” I frown at him.
“Take a look outside, sweetheart.” He points to the sliver of light coming in through the ice-covered window.
Suddenly my nakedness is making me feel exposed. Not vulnerable or afraid, but like my body’s reaction to this guy is too obvious. Betraying me. I grab my coat from the floor and give it a shake before covering myself up with it. Barefoot, I pad across the creaky floorboards and peer out into the whitewashed world outside.
It looks like we’re living inside a snow globe and an overzealous toddler is shaking the shit out of it. Streaks of ice pellets and snow cut across the sky like a meteor shower of awful weather.
“It’s supposed to be like this for days. The way I see it, with no way of calling for help, we’re going to have to stay put. Unless you feel like putting your bathing suit back on and walking out to your death again.” He smirks at me. I twist my head away from him, focusing back out the window.
“We can’t be that far from the resort.” I try to convince myself.
“Are you talking about Alyeska? ’Cause that’s the only resort I’ve heard of around here.”
“Yeah.” I get excited and turn back to face him. “That’s the one! Is it far from here?” Maybe I could wait for a break in the storm and head back there.
“It’s a little over two hours’ walk from here.”
My hopes come crashing back down and my chin trembles as I realize my fate is all but sealed.
“Wait! I have my phone.” I plunge my hand into my pocket and pull out my cell. “I can call for help.” I smile at the black screen that I’ve come to love. I’ll love it even more once it gets me out of this dirty shack and back to my luxurious chalet. I press on the button and check for a signal, but I have no bars. None. Not even that little stumpy one that gives you false hope about being able to log on.
Fuck.
I walk around with my cell overhead, twisting my arms around the room, my eyes focused completely on those empty bars.
“Watch it!” Sawyer lunges toward me, pulling me back. I look past my screen and see that I’ve almost trampled into the open fireplace.
“What are you doing? Is that how you ended up in the woods in a bikini? Were you chasing a phone signal?” His eyebrows gather together as he frowns down at me.
“No,” I answer quietly. “I’ll have you know that I walked in on my fiancé and my stepsister, I mean, my foster sister”—I correct myself and shake my head—“screwing each other’s brains out.”
His lips are pressed into a flat line. “So, let me get this straight. You were up at Alyeska, you caught your man cheating with your sister, and you ran into the woods in a wet bathing suit?”
“My foster sister.” I grit my teeth.
“Who gives a fuck! Are you crazy? You could’ve died!” He throws his hands up in the air in disbelief.
“Well, I was drunk and not thinking clearly. But it doesn’t matter. Everything is ruined now anyway.” I fight the burning in my throat that’s warning me of more tears to come.
“He’s just a man. Either forgive him or move on. It’s not a big deal. You’re not the first girl this has happened to.” Sawyer shakes his head at me and goes over to a huge pile of clothes on the floor and starts dressing.
“You don’t understand.”
“No? Well, it sounds pretty cut and dry to me.” He tugs a waffle shir
t over his head.
“Well, it’s not.”
“How’s that?” He tilts his head at me and throws a red plaid button-up shirt on top of the other one.
“Our wedding was going to be a huge deal. You don’t have any idea how badly my fans are going to take this. I mean, I’ve never been more popular on Instagram since he proposed. The photo I took of this ring”—I lift my hand and my diamond glitters brightly—“got more likes than I’ve ever gotten on any other picture. Ever,” I stress.
“Oh, well, golly.” He holds a hand to the side of his face like a teen fangirl and tilts his head, mocking me. “Why didn’t you tell me I was in the presence of someone oh-so famous. You are so right! Now you running off into the freezing night in next to nothing totally makes sense.” He rolls his eyes. “Oh no! Think of the likes you might lose. The likes,” he speaks in a high-pitched voice that I think is supposed to sound like mine.
It doesn’t.
Sawyer pulls on his pants and zips them up, hiding the huge cock I’ve been trying to ignore since we got up. It’s better that he keeps that thing out of sight. Though it’s far from being out of mind.
“Oh, please.” I jut my chin out. “Let me guess, you’re so much better than me, right? You’re some kind of hipster who wants to be a lumberjack. You’re out here pretending that you love to chop down trees at your piece of shit cabin when you know you take just as many pictures as I do and put them up. The only difference is you probably pretend to act all innocent like you don’t care when people tell you how cool you are for being so anti-technology.” I snarl.
“This isn’t my cabin. I broke in here to save the life of an ungrateful brat who thinks she’s hot shit because her Internet friends told her so. I don’t have a computer. I don’t have a phone. And I might be a stereotype, but I’m no fucking hipster. I live in the backwoods. Alone. And now I’m starting to remember why I loved it so much.”
He stomps across the floor and tosses another plaid shirt and flannel pants at me. “Here, put these on.”
“What?” I look down at the drab, oversized clothes. “Why?”
Sawyer glares at me. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you have no clothes. You know what? Wear them, wear that”—he points at my coat—“or maybe go back to when I liked you a lot better, when your mouth was shut and your body was naked. I don’t care.” He tugs on his boots and grabs his winter coat.
“No, I’ll wear them. Wait, where are you going?”
“To try to get something to eat. Stay here. I don’t need you scaring off the food. If you do decide to take off in this, know that I won’t go out there trying to track you down. No matter how many stupid Internet likes it would get.” He shoves his arms in his coat and zips it up to his neck. He doesn’t look back at me before yanking open the cabin door. A blast of bone-chilling wind swirls around me and I shiver under my coat. Sawyer lowers his head and crunches out into the snow, slamming the door behind him.
Well, I look around the dirty cabin in wonder. Now what?
10
Elsie
I watch the roaring fire that I’ve managed to build with a growing sense of satisfaction. The orange, curling flames lick the insides of the chimney and cascade a beautiful golden glow onto my arms.
Ugh. I crinkle my nose in disgust as I notice the soot streaked over the sides of my hands and up my arms. I sweep my eyes over the simple cabin, searching for something to wash up with. I hate being dirty.
I walk across the room to the kitchenette and take a look around. I’ve already explored the tiny bedroom and closet behind doors number one and two earlier. This place doesn’t show any signs of being used in years. I was shocked to find out that there is no bathroom in this place. There’s no plumbing at all that I can see. Instead, I’ve been subjected to the indignity of using an outhouse. I could begin to wrap my brain around the Pinterest-type rustic vibe of this place before I learned that. There’s nothing rustic about a pit toilet. It’s practically inhumane.
I crouch down and peer into the lower cupboard, smiling as I pluck the package of wet wipes from the cupboard. Perfect. Opening the plastic cover, I’m relieved to see that this has never been used. I plunge my sharp nail through the thin barrier and pull a couple of sheets out, washing my arms like I’m trying to rub my skin off.
“Ashy Elsie! Look at how dirty she is.” MacKenzie Kirkland pointed at me while her posse of popular girls laughed.
“I’m not dirty!” I ran my hands over my ratty Goodwill shirt. Not that they knew it was second-hand. I did my best to keep my clothes clean. To keep myself clean.
“You’re so gross. Isn’t she gross, Tessa?” she spurred on her second-in-command.
“Totally gross,” Tessa agreed with a glint in her green eyes.
“Like, have you even heard of soap?” MacKenzie continued while I tried to shrink up inside myself.
The half hour before junior high classes started was always the worst. I pretty much had the entire school to myself until then. Only the janitor shared the empty halls with me, and he never did speak a word to me. He always held the door for me when we both showed up there at six in the morning. He gave me a kind look of understanding. However, he kept his distance.
“Or, like deodorant? Oh my God, I ran behind you in the last gym class and almost gagged,” Tessa added helpfully.
I crossed my arms self-consciously. Smelly sweat was yet another way my body was beginning to betray me. My parents barely kept me fed most days, so asking them to pick up a stick of Degree was like asking them to lasso the moon and bring it closer to my window at night. A nice idea, but not happening. Of course, body odor was the least of my worries after getting my first period and having no pads or tampons to deal with it. Wads of toilet paper layered on handfuls of paper towel was a messy solution.
“Ewww, look at her fingernails,” MacKenzie continued to pick me apart, like an owl pulling the flesh off a rabbit. “Ashy Elsie, you’re so disgusting.” She tossed her shiny, long hair over her shoulder and snorted. Finally, the bell rang, telling us all to shuffle off to class.
I looked down at my jagged nails with dirt under the edges and jammed them into the pockets of my worn corduroys.
It was hard to keep clean when your parents used your only bathroom at home to cook meth. Hell, half the time if I had to piss, I had to go in a can in the hall. I shudder at the thought, remembering where my loathing of non-flushing toilets came from.
I would never tell anyone that, though. I never breathed a word. It was my deepest fear to be taken away from my parents. Even though the day I was finally carted off by child services, I didn’t see the same horror and distress etched to their hardened faces. Instead, I saw relief.
I snap my eyes back into focus and stop scrubbing my hands. My skin is fiery and the cloth I’ve been scrubbing with is worn through. I hate being dirty. Hate it. I push the memories away, but the terrible feeling in my gut stays with me.
I take a deep breath as my eyes land on my phone I left on the coffee table by the fireplace. I practically leap over to it, clutching it against me like a precious newborn against my chest.
My thumb runs across the smooth screen and calm begins to wash over me. Who cares where I came from? All that matters is where I am now.
Trapped in a snowstorm in a cabin with a strange man? The thought intrudes on my moment of optimism.
“No.” I shake my head and answer the negative ghost haunting my mind. “What matters is my career. My followers love me. I just need to make some lemonade from lemons.” I channel my inner Beyoncé and throw back my shoulders with determination. I’m not a kid anymore. If I could survive then, when I didn’t know shit about the world and had assholes like MacKenzie Kirkland tormenting me every day, then I can do this.
I look out the window at the blizzard swirling around and can almost feel the cold prickling my flesh. I hope Sawyer is okay out there.
I push the thought from my mind. Of course, he is. From the looks of him,
he lives for this shit. Right now, I need to focus. I absentmindedly check my signal while I try to envision the perfect picture in my new surroundings. No signal bars. Still.
I tilt my head and try to figure out how I can mix up a big old jug of tasty lemonade from this craziness.
Picking up my dry bikini bottoms from where I hung them on the mantle earlier, I strip down and put them back on. I tie Sawyer’s plaid shirt up under my breasts. Next to the fireplace, I grab the little hatchet used to cut down kindling and get myself set up beside the orange glow of the flames.
As I take photo after photo of myself contorted into the most flattering angles I can manage for my ass, I remember how hard this was before I had professional lighting and a nice camera. Back when I started on Instagram, it was all shaky cell phone selfies and ingenuity. Now, it’s like a Vogue photo shoot in my apartment every time I take new pics for my profile.
I have to say; I enjoy the challenge. People can laugh all they want, but it’s not easy to get flattering and creative pictures of one subject over and over again. In this case, the subject is my curvy ass. It might sound shallow, but it pays my bills.
And made you famous, the hungry voice cries inside me. I get a tingle as I imagine how my followers are going to eat this up when I get back. All fifty-seven million of them.
What’s MacKenzie fucking Kirkland doing with her life?
Exactly. No one gives a shit.
I twist toward the fire and snap some pictures. I sit with my butt resting on my legs, pushing it out with my heels, and try to look over my shoulder like I just happened to be sitting like this when someone caught me.
Time disappears as do my swirling anxieties and the thoughts of my childhood.
When the door squeaks open angrily and Sawyer stomps his snowy boots on the floor I jump.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He wipes the ice clinging to his beard and flings it down to the ground.
