by Mandy Rosko
Oh God. What if he was one of those crazy woodsmen she read about in true crime novels? The kind that kidnapped female hikers and forced them to be their wives.
“Get that thought out of your head.”
Shelley’s head jerked up at the deep growl. His eyes flashed gold as he glared at her from across the table.
She blinked. “What? How did you—”
“Wasn’t hard to figure out what you were thinking,” he said, turning his eyes back to his breakfast. “I don’t like being thought of as a rapist. I’m a monster. Not a rapist.”
Shelley snorted and went back to her breakfast. “Prove it. What’s your name?”
His head snapped up. “What?”
She glared at him. “If you really have no plans to hurt me, then it won’t matter if I know your name.”
That and she wanted to know the name of the man who’d kissed her so desperately outside.
He sighed. “I guess you’ll have to know it eventually.”
Eventually? How long did he intend to keep her chained up?
“My name is Michael.”
She folded her arms. “Michael what?”
He gritted his teeth, eyes flashing again. “Hunter.”
She grinned. Knowing his name washed away a lot of the tension inside her. Shelley held out her hand. “There, see? That wasn’t so bad.”
Michael hesitated, looked at her hand for a second before he reached for it. His large hand took her offered one, all but dwarfed it, before shaking and releasing. A small smile of his own touched his lips.
It made him look so cute and relaxed. “It’s nice to meet you, Mike.”
His jaw tightened. “Michael.”
He was sensitive about his name. Huh, maybe Mike sounded too juvenile for him or something. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-three,” he replied.
She nodded. Not bad, that was a good age. “Is this where you,” she tried to not look around the cabin, “normally live?”
He chuckled darkly. “Lot of questions out of you.”
She stiffened. “Knowing things about you would make me a little less scared, that’s all. Especially with your friends warning you away.”
Michael’s eyes shifted to the bed, where his letters were kept. He frowned, and for a split second Shelley thought she might have gone too far.
“They have their reasons.”
“Pearl?” she asked, that same unpleasant heating of her blood starting up again.
He rolled his eyes. “She’s no one you should be worrying about. And she’s not my ex either.”
She was shocked. The idea that he had been seeing that woman had crossed her mind. How was he doing that?
“Have I answered enough questions?”
Shelley shifted. “I just…figured if I knew more about you, this all wouldn’t seem so scary.”
Michael stared at her intently, gray eyes seemingly searching her insides, as though checking for sincerity. Finally he shifted and reached behind to his back pocket. His hand came back with a black leather wallet.
Shelley watched with interest as he took out his driver’s license and handed it to her. She swallowed and took the card. There was no way he could be serious. Was he really giving this to her? If she ever got out of here and decided to turn him in, just looking at this little card could be enough to lead the police straight to him.
She hesitated, then looked. There it was in writing and a photo that did not nearly do the justice of the real thing: Michael Robert Hunter. His DOB indeed put him at thirty-three, and the address was some town she’d never heard of in California.
So he was telling the truth about his name and age. And he was letting her look at a pretty important piece of ID. She didn’t know how to tell if one of these was fake or not, but it certainly looked real, and he was totally trusting her with it.
All her fear of him vanished. She wasn’t scared anymore. She just didn’t get that vibe out of him.
She handed him back the license. He took it as casually as if she were passing him the salt.
Shelley grinned. “So,” she started conversationally, unable to suppress her giddiness. “Mike…”
“Michael,” he corrected.
She shrugged, but agreed. “Michael, if you’re not going to hurt, rape, ransom, or eat me, why am I here?”
“I have my reasons for keeping you around.”
“Uh-huh, my amazing conversation, right?”
He smiled a lazy smile. “Something like that. I will eventually take the chain off. Just not now.”
Hmm. He’d handed her his license and said he wasn’t going to keep her. Maybe he still didn’t trust her enough to not turn him in to the police. Or maybe he thought she was going to tip off whoever this Pearl woman was. A lot of his friends seemed to think she was a concern.
A sudden thought had her eyes going wide. “Is she, like, a werewolf hunter?”
Michael choked on the juice he’d been in the middle of swallowing. “What?”
“Pearl? Is she out to get you? Because that’s not right. Wolves are beautiful animals, and if hunting them isn’t already illegal, then it should be.”
Michael laughed at her, slinging a muscled arm over the back of his chair. “Yes, but I’m not exactly an animal.”
Shelley blushed. “Oh, but I didn’t mean it like that.”
Michael dipped his sausage in his syrup packet. “I know you didn’t.”
It got quiet then as they ate. Shelley feasted on toast dipped in egg yolks, took generous bites of buttery and syrup covered pancakes, and then decided to take a chance. She took a bite of one of her sour apple slices with the sweet caramel sauce. Her eyes widened as both flavors hit her tongue. Delicious. Utterly fantastic.
Shelley double-dipped, making sure there was an extra amount of caramel oozing off the apple.
Michael grinned. “Thought you didn’t like Granny Smith.”
Shelley shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.” She took another bite, eyes gliding shut as she savored the simultaneous sweet and sour taste. “Besides, it’s nice being able to eat all this without my dad hounding me about calories and carbs.”
He raised a brow, then snarled, gold eyes flashing in that way she was coming familiar with whenever something stirred his anger. “You’re perfect as you are.”
Shelley stopped eating, apple slice hanging halfway to her mouth, startled. His snarl showed off white teeth, which were getting longer and sharper.
The same went for his hands. Before her eyes, his fingers became darker, stretched thinner, and his nails grew out to razor-sharp points.
All this anger for her?
She recalled his last transformation, and how painful it sounded. She reached across the table and laid her palm on his changing hand. “It’s okay.”
He blinked at her, face relaxing back to normal. His eyes changed back to silver and his hands stopped their transformation as well. She felt the shift in his skin as they returned to their usual shape and color, the wiry hairs diminishing to nothing beneath her fingertips.
He took a calming breath, eyes closing. “I’m sorry. It’s just that hearing that people have been doing that to you… Your own father…” he trailed off.
Though her father had been an ambitious man, and her childhood hadn’t been a normal one as a result, he’d loved her, and she felt the need to defend him a little. “I needed to stay slim while growing up, especially when I started developing a figure. It was the only way to get parts.”
After she said it, she realized that her words were almost an exact match of what her father had to constantly tell her every time she’d asked questions, as far back as ten years old. It was the reason why she could never have ice cream or cake, even on her birthdays. Why she ate salad while the rest of the family enjoyed pizza night.
She didn’t like those memories. Hadn’t thought of them in a long time.
His eyes became sad, the gold finally dulling back to gray. “You’ll eat whatever you
want under my roof.”
Shelley blushed. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was reading her mind. How could he be doing that? Could he be doing that?
Not that it mattered. Her eyes started to tear up, and the inside of her chest expanded and contracted with gratitude.
Not the emotion she’d wanted to feel toward him a few minutes ago, but that didn’t matter either.
There was one thing she wanted that she hadn’t had in years, could barely remember the taste of, and somehow she knew he’d give it to her if she asked. “I want chocolate.”
He smiled and gripped her hand. She’d forgotten he’d even been holding it. “You’ll have it.”
Abruptly her throat swelled up, and when she swallowed, it created the worst pain she’d felt since losing her voice.
She’d never felt happier.
Shelley got up from her chair and walked around the table. The chain rattled behind her, but she hardly noticed as she took Michael’s stubble face in her hands and leaned down for a kiss.
She’d meant to pull away immediately. It was only supposed to be a thank-you peck.
He put his fingers in her hair, and it became so much more. Shelley didn’t protest.
Her tongue touched Michael’s mouth. He moaned, snaked his arms around her waist, and lifted her onto his lap. His long arousal pressed against her through her jeans. It didn’t scare her, despite how she’d been picking a fight with him ten minutes ago. It sent a shivering thrill through her.
She wanted more.
Michael’s lips opened, and his tongue shot out, touching hers, then dived into her mouth.
Shelley moaned. She pressed herself closer to him, breasts hardening and rubbing against his chest.
Michael’s mouth gently left hers. He licked his lips, closed his eyes, and sighed as though in pain. He stood up and put her on her feet.
“Wait here,” he commanded, eyes so bright and big Shelley could hardly make out any pupils. He burst through the door and ran outside like a man possessed. Did he even remember he’d chained her to the inside of his cabin? She couldn’t go anywhere even if she’d wanted to.
The chain.
Shelley stared down at it, still latched to her ankle.
What was she thinking? What the hell was she doing? From being hostile to voluntarily kissing him was a complete turnaround, and she couldn’t explain it even to herself. Stockholm syndrome? So soon? Was that possible?
The truck door slammed outside, and through the window Shelley saw Michael jog back toward the cabin. When inside, she recognized the bag of M&Ms in his hand.
“This is all I’ve got until I go back into town. I’ll bring you more for dinner.”
She eyed the brown bag with a fixed gaze. For her. He was going to give it to her, and she was going to eat it without a word or silent glare from her father.
“Easy,” he said, handing her the bag with a grin.
She took it, half afraid it would be snatched away. It was already open and only about half full, but that was fine with her. Shelley poured the entire contents into her hand and tossed the empty bag on the table. She wouldn’t need it. She was going to eat all of it.
With shaking fingers, she took three of the little chocolates and popped them in her mouth. She wiggled her tongue around, willing the candy coating to dissolve faster so she could savor the—
Shelley moaned. Oh! There it was, melting and making love to her taste buds. She rolled her tongue around, delighting in the taste.
Shelley swallowed when the chocolate was completely liquid. She opened her eyes, not remembering having closed them. Michael stared at her, cheeks pink, mouth open slightly, and shoulders relaxed.
The trembling in Shelley’s fingers didn’t go away. It spread like an expanding ripple in a pond. Her body buzzed under her skin, warmth pooled in her belly and moved downward.
Not just the chocolate. This reaction wasn’t coming from the chocolate.
Warm spice, as thick as a winter quilt, wrapped around her and floated into her nose. It was wonderful. Amazing. It was him. She could smell him. She wanted more of him.
Shelley unclenched her fist around her chocolate treats. She hadn’t realized she’d been doing that either. Carefully, she set them down on the table for later eating. So much for gobbling them up in one go.
Her palm resembled a dotted rainbow. Shelley brought a finger to her mouth to suck off the color.
Michael moaned. She looked up at him as he leaned in, as if to kiss her.
Panic.
“I have to pee.”
He stopped.
Chapter Five
As though her big chain were made of tinfoil, Michael took hold of the links and pried them open, not bothering with the lock on it at all. Did he destroy the key?
Shelley would dwell on that later. She really did have to go. So when Michael lifted the chain up and walked her outside, she turned her head about, searching for his bathroom, or outhouse, or whatever. He led her a little ways into the tree line. It was instantly darker in there without any direct sunlight.
“Here you are.”
She looked around, confused. All she saw were giant trees and little bushes. Then it dawned on her.
“No way.”
“There’s no other place around here for you to do it.”
She made a face at the shrub just in front of her. Michael had his arms crossed, waiting.
“Ew, get out of here! You’re not going to watch me.”
His face turned bright red, losing some of that menacing bad-boy aura he’d tried to intimidate her with. “I wasn’t—” he growled then and shoved the chain at her. She caught it before it could spill heavily at her feet. “Don’t try anything.”
As he walked off she yelled at his back. “I don’t want you so close you can hear me either!”
He stiffened a bit but then kept right on going.
Shelley sighed, nudged the little shrub with her foot in distaste, even though it was pretty innocent in all this, and did her business. She had to use leaves, and she hoped Michael would have a bottle of sanitizer or something for her to wash her hands with when she went back.
But then, who said she had to go back?
Standing straight, Shelley looked around herself. Aside from the odd twitter of birds she couldn’t name, for the first time since being kidnapped, she was unchained and alone.
She ran for it. Ran as fast as she could with bare feet and carrying a heavy chain that was still connected to her ankle. She leapt over a fallen tree and avoided a slime puddle in her path.
She was getting good distance. The wind was in her face and she felt as fast as a deer. Then she stepped on a twig the wrong way and pain shot up her leg. She let out a mild cry as she went down.
She didn’t hit the damp ground. Michael caught her. A deep frown creased his face even though his hands around her shoulders and waist were gentle. “I told you not to try anything.”
She glared at him. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
His frown melted away as he grinned. “Not really. And don’t pout. It doesn’t become you.”
“I’m not pouting!” she said.
“Sure.” With a smooth yank she was lifted into his arms. He leaned a booted foot against one of the thick tree trunks and sat her down on his leg. He used his other, now free, hand to take her foot and examine it. He made a small grimace.
Shelley didn’t want to look at it. She looked at everything but her own foot. “Is it bad?”
He prodded around the area. It didn’t feel too—
She screamed.
This time Michael made a sound of pain. “Please, please, stop doing that.”
There was a bloody twig in his hand. Sharp on the end where he’d pulled it from her foot.
“It hurt!” Her first instinct was to reach down and grab her injured foot to ease the pain, but Michael held her firm and arranged her so that her whole weight was back in his arms instead of sitting on his knee.
>
“I know. I’ll get you cleaned up.”
“Back at your cabin?”
“Yes.”
Disappointment flooded her. She hadn’t even been close to escape. She couldn’t blame her lack of success on her injured foot or her fall. He caught her so fast there was no doubt in Shelley’s mind that he knew the second she decided to make a break for it. Probably knew before she did.
“I told you I would let you go eventually,” he said softly.
She wished she knew how he was doing that. “Right.”
He kept his pace back to his little cabin a gentle walk this time. He wasn’t going so fast that the woods around her blurred or anything, which she was kind of grateful for. And at least she was at a better angle to enjoy the ride now, too.
Still, she sighed. Being so near him made her feel things that should not be remotely possible, or even healthy, after such a short period of time. If she continued to stay, continued to accept his olive branches and gifts and kindnesses, she was bound to do something she regretted.
When they got back to his cabin and he set her down on the porch step, this time she didn’t move when he told her to stay. She kept her foot lifted as he went inside. He came back out with his first aid kit.
He took her ankle, gently lifting her foot, and he poured a cool liquid that stung like a bitch over her cut. He soothed her when she hissed, and then he put his head down to better inspect it. “Don’t think you’ll need stitches.”
She shivered. If there was one thing that creeped her out more than needles, it was stitches.
Next Michael took out a bandage roll and a tiny bottle of green-colored sanitizer. He handed her the bottle, which she used to wash her hands, and he began to wrap the wound at her foot. It felt like the twig had got her in the arch.
He went under the foot and around her heel over and over again until it looked like she was wearing a weird-looking sandal. He used a pair of small scissors to cut the bandage and a pin to keep it together. All the while he kept her foot steady with the gentle grip of his other hand.
