by London Casey
I laughed.
Probably the first time I’d ever laughed on the job.
I pulled Jay up, helping him to his feet. He grabbed my arm as he kicked with his feet to get traction. His shirt stood no match, and once it was stretched to the max, it started to tear.
He got to his feet and grabbed for my shoulder.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “You fucking saved me, man. If I’d kept going, that log rolling after me…”
“Can you walk?” I cut him off.
“Yeah.”
I let Jay go.
I then reached down and grabbed the log. I wasn’t going to let this fucking thing get away. Not with the crazy pain in my leg. I was going to get that fucking thing up to the top of the ridge and enjoy watching it get stripped.
I slid down the ridge enough to get behind the log. I then put my arms around it and pulled, lifting it up with a big bear-hug.
“What are you doing?” Jay asked.
“Shut up,” I growled. “Don’t fall.”
“Let me help you, man,” Jay said.
“Get the chainsaws!” I yelled.
I braced myself, commanding every muscle in my body to do its job.
I carried the log as far up as I could so that Jerry could grab it with the machine.
“You’re insane, Syi!” Jerry yelled to me.
I dropped the log and stood there, breathing heavy.
I wiped my forehead and gritted my teeth.
Pain was a good thing. A comforting distraction. I lifted the leg of my jeans and saw a huge mark on my shin. I was lucky my bone hadn’t shattered.
Jay stepped up next to me. “Shit, Syi. I knew you were fucking strong…but what you just did…”
“Don’t,” I said. “Let’s just get this done.”
“Right,” Jay said.
“I’ll bring the logs up one at a time. You load them.”
“Right,” he said again.
I moved back down the ridge, and my feet finally gave out. I fell to my ass and sat there. I let out a groan.
I couldn’t get Lara off my fucking mind.
And she was waiting for me back at my cabin.
I’d told her once before to forget about me and stay away.
Now… I wanted her close to me.
20
Dinner and Heartache
(LARA)
I couldn’t just stand around and do nothing. I had no idea what time he’d be back. Out on the porch, I thought about walking to the stone bench, but I knew better. I’d be lucky to find it, and then I’d end up getting lost. What Osiris called a road, I called the woods.
In other words, I was not going to leave the cabin.
When I realized what day it was, I hurried to grab my phone and call Kim.
To my surprise, she answered on the second ring.
She just answered. She didn’t say a word.
It was such a Kim move.
“Kim,” I said. “I owe you an apology.”
“Yes, you do.”
“So, I’m apologizing. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Really?”
“…no,” she said with a sigh after a pause. “Look, I pushed you too hard. I’m sorry too. I just need you to know…”
“I know,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay? I’m really trying to sort everything out. He’s got a family, Kim. A secret family. Well, it’s not secret now. But there were times he was with me, in bed, and he had pictures in his phone of his unborn baby. I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Get some drinks and sleep with other men,” Kim offered without hesitation.
“Well…check and check.”
“No way.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m back up at that cabin.”
“What?”
“The guy that broke up our fight. Osiris.”
“No way,” Kim growled. “That huge guy? Ohmygod…he was super hot. Like, insanely hot. Please tell me you had angry drunk sex with him. Tell me he tossed you around the bed like a-”
“Kim, stop,” I said. “I need a huge favor.”
“What?”
“I’m at his cabin. He had to go to work.”
“Whoa. You’re playing house?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said. “Listen. I think I’m supposed to cover closing later.”
“Oh,” Kim said with a laugh. “You want to ditch work for a hot guy.”
“Yes. A hot guy that lives in the woods.”
“You know I can’t say no to that,” Kim said.
“Good.”
“Hey, do me a favor though.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell him about Thad.”
“What? Why?”
“Just enjoy yourself, okay? This is finally a rebound. You don’t need to fall in love with this guy. Just let him treat you like his personal sex toy for a while, then never talk to him again.”
“Goodbye, Kim,” I said. “Sorry for almost fighting you.”
“For the record, I would have kicked your ass.”
“For the record, you’re wrong. But I still love you.”
“Yeah, love you too.”
I ended the call and bit my lip.
You don’t need to fall in love with this guy.
I looked around the cabin.
I sighed.
Whoops…
I found a box of pasta in a cabinet and a jar of sauce in another cabinet. I wasn’t an expert chef, but I could boil water, cook noodles, and heat up sauce. It had probably been a long time since Osiris came home to a meal cooked for him.
I cooked in the small cabin kitchen, humming to myself. Nothing else in the world mattered. For the first time in a really long time, I enjoyed myself. The closest that usually came to this feeling was working in the flower shop when I was alone.
It felt good.
I almost wished I had better prepared for this, though.
But who the hell could have predicted my day, right?
I woke up to find Osiris in my kitchen in my apartment, making me breakfast. Then I followed him to apologize for something dumb, and he ended up taking me to his bed where he, as Kim lovingly put it, used me as his personal sex toy…and then he took me to the stone bench and willow tree where he started to open his heart.
Fuck, what a wild day.
I kept everything warm until I heard the sound of his truck crunching over rocks as it approached the cabin.
I hurried to put food on two plates. I was smiling. My heart was racing. I had a little adrenaline going too. I was excited. It was fun to do this. A sense of normalcy crept over me, which hadn’t happened since the morning Thad took off to be with his pregnant affair.
When Osiris entered his cabin, I stood there waiting for him.
His shirt was filthy. His hair was pushed down and messy. His face looked worn out. His jeans matched his shirt. He grabbed the end table where he had tossed his keys to balance himself as he kicked off his boots. Chunks of dried mud flew all around.
When he took a step, he groaned and favored his right leg.
“You okay?” I asked.
Without responding, Osiris lifted his right jean leg.
There was a massive black and blue mark.
It was sickening.
“Holy shit,” I said.
“You should have seen what I did to the log that did this to me,” he said.
“Should we go to the ER?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Syi…”
“Nothing a little whiskey can’t help,” he said, then sniffed the air. “Did you cook?”
“Yeah,” I said, blushing. “I found some spaghetti and sauce. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, I’m starving,” he said.
He dropped his jean leg and walked into the kitchen, skipping right by me. He went to a cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey. He twiste
d the cap off and took a big gulp. Then he opened the fridge and grabbed two beers.
He twisted the caps off and turned, holding his arm out. “Cheers, sugar.”
“Cheers,” I said as I took the beer from him. “Do you want to sit down and eat?”
“Sure,” he said.
We sat at the little two-seat table and ate.
I never saw a man eat like Osiris did. Not that I should have been surprised, knowing how big he was.
“What happened out there?” I asked as he shoveled more spaghetti onto his plate.
I was glad I made the entire box.
“Just another work day,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Dangerous work though, right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
He sat down.
“Different than what you were doing before?” I asked.
Osiris looked right at me. “Very.”
He ate some more. A lot more, actually. And he drank beer like it was water. And he sipped whiskey like…it was also water.
Within thirty minutes of being home, Osiris cleaned out the food I had made, downed two beers, and did probably at least three shots of whiskey. I was in awe, watching him do all of this. But he earned it. For whatever crazy work he did. To go from owning his own business to putting his life in danger to earn money.
We ended up out on the porch right at sunset.
The sun went down and the colors spread behind the trees. Bright colors that faded. The black silhouettes of the trees.
We sat there with some beer and whiskey.
Osiris had his feet up on the railing. I put my feet up too, needing to pull my chair much closer. I looked at the size of my feet compared to his. It was crazy. Absolutely crazy. And everything they said about big feet, big something else was definitely true.
“I gave it all up,” Osiris said out of nowhere.
“What?”
“Everything I had,” he said. “To be up here.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I needed to find her.”
“Syi, what actually happened?”
He looked at me. His eyes said he was a little drunk. “I don’t know, sugar. That’s the thing. I don’t fucking know. When I got up here, the passenger door was open. Adley was crying. Poor kid was terrified. She had been looking at her screen until the battery died. By then, Mila was gone. My life just stopped and turned. Before I knew it, there were search parties. Police everywhere. Local people showing up to help. Helicopter was flying around trying to find her. But she was gone. They found the camera, Lara. Down the ridge.”
Osiris looked down.
“No,” I whispered.
“When they stopped searching, it was Jimmy who talked to me. The cop who took you to your friends.”
“I remember him.”
“He sat me down on my porch and explained they were stopping the search. It was assumed she…you know.”
She was dead.
“I just lost myself,” Osiris said. “Completely lost myself. Adley had grown to know me, maybe even love me like a father. I wanted to be her father. But I had nothing to stand on. If I had smartened my ass up quicker, I could have gone to court and tried something. But she wasn’t my kid. See, Mila had a big heart. Like you, Lara. That’s why I think I lo…like being near you.”
I bit my lip.
My heart was racing and aching at the same time.
“She had a whoops night and got pregnant. The guy never wanted a thing to do with her. When I met her, she had an almost one-year-old kid. I was crazy for taking that on. But I did. I loved Adley. I still love her.”
“Where is she?”
“Adley?”
I nodded.
“With Michelle,” Osiris said. “That’s Mila’s sister. She was the next of kin or whatever bullshit they called it. Michelle was listed as the guardian to Adley if something were to happen to Mila. She never changed anything legally to include me. Not that I would hold it against Mila. I was not in the mindset to have a kid after Mila went missing. I sold my house. My car. My motorcycles. Everything I could. I stashed the cash and just started staying here. I got drunk. I got into fights. I got into trouble. I’d leave for days at a time looking for her. I forgot about everything else in my life, including Adley. That’s something I’ll never forgive myself for, Lara.”
I put my feet down, then put the beer bottle down. I stood up and realized that after just a couple beers and a few sips of whiskey, I was feeling a little loopy. The dizziness quickly passed as I stepped toward Osiris. I reached for his hand, and he let me take it.
“I won’t say anything, good or bad,” I whispered. “I’m just here to listen to you.”
“It’s for the better,” he said, “that Adley is with Michelle and Dane. He’s an asshole to me but he has his reasons I can’t argue. Michelle does her best to keep in touch once in a while with me. I just haven’t figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” I asked.
That’s when Osiris looked me dead in the eyes. He quickly moved his hand away from mine and grabbed me, pulling me at him. I was then on his lap, his strong hands commanding me closer to him. So close that I could smell the whiskey on his lips and his breath. I wanted a taste.
“How the fuck do I look in that little girl’s eyes knowing I’m the reason her mother is gone?”
The question was like someone stepping on my chest. I had a sudden urge to stand up and get away from Osiris, which was weird. I didn’t want to be angry with him for what happened. It wasn’t my situation. It wasn’t my life.
“I’m not a good person for it all,” Osiris said.
“So, fix it,” I said. “There’s still time.”
“Lara…”
“She text you,” I said. “You can’t be an asshole for the rest of your life.”
“Why not?”
“You just…”
Osiris slid a hand up my back. Then he pulled me down to him closer. Our lips touched. The quick touch became a wild kiss. A seriously wild kiss. Osiris pulling me, grabbing my legs so that I was straddling him. His hands then cut up my shirt, those fingers and palms rough against my skin.
“Shit,” I whispered, breaking the kiss. “Syi…”
“No more talking, sugar,” he said in a whispering deep voice that made me shiver with heat.
“Okay,” I said. I kissed him. “No more talking.”
We started to kiss again.
And what he wanted next became very clear to me.
When he took my shirt off, I let out a little gasp. I saw the sly grin on his face. I looked around, remembering we were in the woods. There wasn’t a person around us. I didn’t even know where the next cabin was. Hell, Osiris probably owned the entire mountain. I reached back without hesitation and unsnapped my bra. His eager hands were waiting for me, sliding over my breasts, making me groan as I put my head back. My hips began to rock gently, feeling the thickening bulge inside his jeans.
This was fucking crazy.
But we both needed it. We craved it. Our bodies demanded it.
We understood each other, which made everything physical all that much better.
I grabbed at his dirty shirt and pulled. He leaned forward enough to let me pull the shirt over his head.
I stared down at his thick body of muscle and groaned again. The tattoos on his arms and chest adorning the wild muscle were enough to make any good woman turn bad.
My hands reached down, and I unbuttoned his jeans. I slithered my way off his legs and fell to my knees. He let his hands fall to the sides of the chair as I grabbed the top of his jeans and tugged. Osiris got up, and I ripped his dirty jeans down his body.
The sight of his beautiful thickness made me sigh. I quickly forgot all about his jeans. My hands moved up his strong legs, and I grabbed him with my right hand. I squeezed and stroked, moving up to his tip and then back down to this full root. I held there and came forward, my lips gently pressing against the bottom of his shaft. I
kissed up and moved over, opening my mouth, taking him in.
I shut my eyes, realizing I was the one in control. Finally, I had a hold over Osiris, even if it was in the form of pleasure and nothing more. It was still something.
When I eased back, my lips moving from hardness to his full tip, he let out a hissing groan. I took my mouth off him for a moment, just to catch my breath. I gazed up at the sight before me. On the porch of a cabin tucked away in the woods with this mountain-man.
Wild.
That’s all it was.
Wild.
I went back at him. This time I moved faster and I kept moving. My hands touched his legs, fingers curling, nails digging at him as I tasted his body. I tested myself with his cock—the deeper I took him, the louder he groaned. I started to groan too, my body completely on fire. My toes were curled tight, and between my legs, I was a sticky mess, wanting all of Osiris.
“Sugar,” he growled at me. His hands touched my bare shoulders as he pushed at me. “Look at me, sugar.”
I said uh-uh without taking my mouth off him.
I kept going.
He sucked in a breath.
He was too strong though as he moved me away from him.
I pulled away, pissed off, and looked up at him.
He grinned at me.
My right hand hurried forward, touching his thickness. Running the palm of my hand against the bottom of his shaft, root to tip, back down, back up again. As slowly as I could. As seductively as I could.
Osiris took it all back from me.
Moving fast and with it all figured out in his mind, he leaned forward and grabbed me. He lifted me up with ease, setting me on my feet. His hands slid down my body, stopping at my pants. Both hands forward to my stomach and down, pulling at my pants. My fingertips tingled, and my hands started to shake. I caught myself thrusting at him, wanting him more than I had ever wanted someone in my life.
He stripped me to my knees and took care of my clothes the rest of the way. I kicked my pants and panties to the side and just stood there again. His hands touched my hips, drawing lines down. When his hands touched my legs, his left hand started to slide around while his right hand cut between my legs.
I felt his hand cup my ass, hard, pinching me. His right hand turned, his fingers touching my wetness. I gasped and grabbed his wrist.
