She was gorgeous, slender and tan. An exotic beauty who was too perfect for words. I had to restrain myself from running my hands up and down her bare thighs. I wanted to explore between her legs, but I knew that wouldn’t pan out very well for me right now.
“Why are you lying to me?” I was practically sitting on the edge of the chair, inches away from her. I could feel the heat radiating off of her body and it mesmerized me. She was intoxicatingly beautiful.
“I’m not lying.”
Her answers were getting me nowhere, but the sound of her voice calmed my nerves.
She appeared to be absolutely terrified, which was one of the reasons I was so suspicious of her. My paranoia ran deep because of my dark past, and I couldn't afford to get sloppy now that I'd made an enjoyable home for myself nestled away deep in the woods. I didn't want anyone or anything to come between me and my freedom, my peace and quiet.
It wasn’t just a coincidence that she found me and my cellar. The trails didn’t go that close to my property that she would have just stumbled upon it for no reason…unless she was sent here to find me on purpose. Unless she'd been watching me all along.
I narrowed my eyes in on her. The truth would come out. I would just have to scare her a little. But not too much, I didn’t want her to hate me. Something inside me told me that even if she were hiding something, she was intimidated. I didn’t want to make it worse for her because I knew she wouldn’t cooperate.
I was no stranger to interrogation, but similar to this situation, I was the one who was firing out the rounds of questions. There was no doubt that Alexis felt like she was in the hot seat with the way I was towering over her. It was best that she remained afraid, at least for now. That way, she wouldn’t try anything reckless.
Hurting her was the furthest thing from my mind, but I needed to understand who she was and why she was in my cellar. I had been a contract killer for eighteen years. I’d witnessed everything. It had been my job to determine when people were lying to me, and I prided myself on being able to sniff out the deceivers.
It had been my job to get in, do the job and get out. Collecting my check had been the only thing I’d cared about back then. I didn’t think about families I probably had torn apart. The money lured me in and took over all of my senses and the ability to decipher right from wrong.
I knew that the darkness of my past would come back to haunt me, but I was still on guard and weary of people trying to find me. Not only for revenge purposes, but I knew there were people out there who still thought I was the best in the business and would want to try and persuade me into one last kill.
Even though I’d only been retired a little over a year, that life seemed like a million years ago, and I wasn’t interested in ever looking back.
“Why won’t you tell me the truth?” I demanded.
“Tell you the truth about what?” Alexis squeaked and wiggled. Part of the blanket fell off of her shoulder and exposed her right breast before she hastily draped the garment back over herself.
Her eyes were frantically searching the room as if she were looking for a way to make a run for it and any avenue of escape she could possibly find.
My lips curled into a sly grin. “You aren’t getting out of here that easily, baby girl, so don’t try anything that you might regret later.”
She flashed me a disgusted look. “Why won’t you just give me my clothes?” Her voice dripped with anguish.
“Why would I do that?” I shrugged with nonchalance. “If I give you your clothes, you’ll run.”
A telling expression crossed her face. She’d been thinking about escaping this whole time. Even if she did run out of my cabin naked, she wouldn’t get very far in the rainstorm. The way things were looking and after viewing the forecast, the rain wasn’t going to let up for the next couple of days.
Who would plan a sight-seeing trip to the mountains in this type of weather? Baby girl thought she had gotten a deal, but this was the worst time to visit. Good thing she hadn’t paid for it.
“Besides, I like you this way. You’re beautiful,” I added.
Her eyes burned a hole of fury through me.
“I’m not the flashy type,” she hissed.
“What type are you then?” I growled impatiently.
“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” she retorted.
I let out a chastising chuckle. “I don’t think so. Not until you tell me what I want to hear.” There was a moment when our eyes met and locked. It was almost as if she were trying to call my bluff, but I was not in the business of joking, especially when it came to strange women sniffing around outside of my property.
“Why were you in the middle of the rainstorm trying to dig around?” I asked.
“I wasn’t digging around in anything.”
"You followed me, didn't you? And when I went to take a piss, you went into my cellar. What did you take?"
She looked at me like I was crazy. "Nothing. I didn't take anything. I didn't even know that was your cellar. I was looking for someplace to hide from the storm."
Her expression turned sullen. She wasn’t cracking as easily and quickly as I had anticipated and hoped. She only appeared to be weak, but she was strong.
“Where are you from?” I asked her again.
It was a tactic I had used before, back in my prime. It was my experience that if you asked a person the same question more than once, and if they were lying, they would give you a different answer. Under stress and pressure, it was likely that they would forget the first answer they gave you, but I never forgot anything.
“I already told you,” she said with an edgy tone. “New York.”
I studied her face. Her eyes didn't flinch. She was a good liar. I'd give her that. I wondered how seasoned she was. I couldn't trust anybody, let alone her. She may have been petite and gorgeous wrapped up under that blanket, but she could be a snake in the grass, just waiting to strike at me and sink her venom into my veins. Just like how she slithered her way into my cellar when my back was turned.
I hadn’t had sex in a long time, and my primal and urgent needs were surging into overdrive. I wanted to toss the blanket off of her, grab her by the hips and fuck her from behind. Maybe that would teach her a lesson, but I wasn’t that kind of guy either. I might have been a contract killer in my past life, but I’d been raised to respect women.
“We are just going to sit here then,” I stated defiantly.
“Sit here until when? Forever?” Her eyes were glazed over with both frustration and fear.
“As long as it takes,” I told her. “Until the truth comes out.”
She was lying about something. I knew eventually, the truth would reveal itself. It always did, no matter how long you had to chase it.
Chapter Five
Alexis
I glanced up and into the brooding, smoldering eyes of the mysterious stranger with the handsome face and sexy accent. I had no idea who he was, or why he was so suspicious of me. The way he stared at me was both erotically thrilling and bone-tingling scary at the same time. My mind was in overdrive. I wasn’t sure how to react to him, or what he wanted from me. I just wanted my clothes, and I wanted to be free.
I tried to switch my tactics. It was now clear to me that he wasn’t going to be the one to budge. What kind of guy rescues a woman, strips her naked, and then refuses to give her back her clothes?
“Can I at least have a shirt or something?” I chuckled as if the situation were slightly amusing, but inside I was screaming.
On the one hand, I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to run my fingertips across his chiseled, perfectly sculpted body. This guy must have lived at the fucking gym. How did somebody obtain that many muscles in one lifetime? He looked like a Greek god.
On the other hand, I was wildly petrified of him. I had no idea what he might do to me. His eyes were cold at some times, and sometimes he had a gentle softness that wavered and fluttered through his expression. He was confusing me
, and I didn't know what to do.
“No shirt,” he said in his gorgeous Russian accent. His jaw squared as if it weren’t up for debate.
"Okay." I glanced to the left of me at the crackling fire and scooted closer to it.
He was skeptical and weary of me, but he wasn’t the only one with doubts. I had a past too, but I wasn’t about to expel my life history to this guy I had only known for under an hour. He wasn’t going to get all my secrets. It was none of his business. Just because he saved my life didn’t mean I had to bare all to him.
This was the very thing I was afraid of. My worst nightmare of a situation was happening. Did he have connections to the people that killed my parents? Did he know people that did? If so, what did he want with me? One look into his eyes let me know that even if I asked the millions of questions running a marathon through my head, he wouldn’t divulge a single scoop of an answer.
I glanced up at the ceiling and groaned with frustration. “Fine,” I said sullenly and met his gaze again. “You win. Alright? What do you want to know?”
I felt defeated, but at the same time, I could weave my way through this interrogation. I had confidence in myself. I could give him the surface details without unearthing the nitty gritty of my deepest secrets.
“What’s your real name?”
“I already told you. Can you spell? Do you want me to spell it for you?" I knew I was skating on thin ice by being sarcastic with this macho dream hunk, sadistic madman, but I couldn’t help myself.
He didn’t look amused. “Why did you go in my cellar?”
“Look…it’s apparent to me now that you really want privacy and believe me, nobody wants to respect that more than I do.” I placed my hand to my chest. “I got lost.”
“How did you get lost?” He shook his head as if my tale was anything but a possibility that could actually be true.
I inhaled sharply. I was growing just as frustrated as he looked. Still, I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to feel the heat from his body. I had to open up if I wanted to gain any headway with him.
“I was at a bed-n-breakfast,” I recounted. “I mean…I’m staying at a bed-n-breakfast. I had gone out on a tour.” I glanced up at him. Surely, he was fully aware of the fact that he lived in a tourist area that was covered with miles of trails.
“Just a tour?”
“Yes. I was on a tour, with a group,” I recounted.
“Where is your group now?” He glanced around sarcastically as his lips curled into a smile. “Where was your group when you nearly drowned in a ditch?”
He gestured around the cozy cottage as if he half expected the group to come out from behind the couch and reveal themselves. I wanted to strangle his thick neck for mocking me.
“They had no idea that I walked away from the group.”
“Why would you leave your group? Arrow Lake is a large place, and you're in uncharted territories. Didn’t you think you’d get lost out here by yourself?”
“I thought I could find my way back. I had a map. The tour guide told me not to leave, but I didn’t listen,” I said and winced.
“I left my bag behind,” I stated cautiously. “I must have dropped it somewhere.”
He paused for a brief moment, clearly pondering and digesting my rehashing of events. “So you left the group to go find your bag?”
“It had important things in it,” I told him but then quickly regretted that decision to be forthcoming.
“What kind of important things?” He asked in a dark voice.
“Just like my wallet and room key and things like that,” I told him briskly.
“You knew your bag wasn’t in my cellar, so why did you go down into it?”
“I got caught in the rainstorm and I saw the cellar. I went down there for shelter and when I saw what I saw…” I sighed. “I wanted to get out of there.”
His face hardened. He still seemed angry about me going down into his cellar and discovering what I did. I started to ask him about all those guns he had, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to anger him any further and I wanted my clothes back and I wanted to go home. Enough with this free tour. This wasn’t what I had in mind.
“Are you done bombarding me with questions?” I shot the words at him in an accusatory tone and pulled the blanket back over my body as snugly as it would go.
He still didn’t seem convinced, so I took it even further. “People will be looking for me, you know.” It was a hidden threat.
“Who?” He seemed surprised at the thought.
“My boyfriend.” I stated this on-the-spot sprouted lie as confidently and defiantly as I could. “He was on the same tour with me. If I don’t get back to the room soon, he’s going to know that something is wrong.”
“Why didn’t he try to stop you from going off from the group then?” The sexy Russian saw right through the holes in my story.
“He didn’t know I left the group,” I quickly thought up another lie. “I snuck off, remember?”
He leaned back and said nothing for a few moments. It was as if he were trying to size me up and determine how much of what I was telling him was a lie and how much was the truth. I held my breath and tried not to succumb to the rising panic inside of myself.
Chapter Six
Erik
I stood in my kitchen for several seconds. I needed to get away from Alexis. I was so turned on by her that I felt like if I didn't reach out and touch her, I would explode.
It had been a while since I'd felt the soft, slender skin of an attractive woman. It had seemed like an eternity since I'd been able to dip my cock into a wet, slippery pussy and every time I looked at Alexis my desire grew stronger and was amplified so drastically that it disillusioned my judgment.
On the other hand, I was extremely suspicious of her. I knew she was hiding something. It had been my job as a contract killer to be able to sniff out the truth and hunt down those who were concealing something important, and I knew Alexis was one of those types.
It had been a gift I’d been born with or something. I could read people. I saw straight through Alexis. She might have been telling me the truth about the tour and getting lost, but I didn’t believe anything else coming from her mouth. I also knew she was hiding something dark about her past. There was a story inside of her that she was afraid to expose, something that she felt would harm her if it saw the light of day.
I glanced back in the living room. She was still sitting next to the fire with the blanket draped over her tan legs and arms. She was staring reflectively into the fire as if she were searching for answers. I was confident that she wouldn’t try to escape without clothes. Not to mention, all the locks on my cabin doors had to be opened with a deadbolt key that she would never find. My windows had iron bars over them, so she’d never be able to escape that way either.
I couldn't risk anything anymore. I hated living my life on the run. I had felt like the safety of the woods, and the mountains could keep me secluded enough to keep my past from hounding me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe even I was not immune to being found. After all, this girl had no problems finding me. If her sexy ass turned out to be my enemy, I was a dead man walking.
I cursed the life I’d left behind as I walked over to the sink and poured myself a glass of water straight from the tap. I got to thinking. Maybe I should offer Alexis a drink. She was probably thirsty by now. On the other hand, I didn’t want her getting too comfortable. She might start to manipulate me if I let anything slip or let down my guard. I couldn’t afford to trust anyone, let alone a strange girl who had been riffling through my stash in the woods.
The coincidence was too strong. She had to have been sent here by somebody. The question of who clung in the air around me like a dense cloud of fog, suffocating me. I loved being in control of every situation in my life. The fact that she had walked into my private habitat out of nowhere was really rattling me to my core.
I glugged down the entire glass of water. It was refreshin
g, but the aftertaste of betrayal still left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn't yet know if someone was trying to betray me, but I didn't appreciate liars. This Alexis girl was obviously a liar. The scheme was out there for me to grab, I just couldn't see the strings. I was no puppet, and I wasn't going to go down without a fight.
I took a deep breath and glanced outside. My heart jumped nearly out of my chest when I noticed something moving just past the tree line of my property. Now who the fuck was out there? I narrowed my eyes in on the target and was milliseconds away from going to my gun closet when I noticed the subject moving was only a female doe.
I sighed with relief and glanced back at Alexis. She sniffed and coughed and glanced around as if she were trying to figure out where I’d gone.
She had ripped everything I’d worked so tirelessly to create away from me in an instant. I was filled with dread. I loved my secluded cottage in the wood. I’d felt cozy here, but I should never have been so foolish to think that I’d be safe here. I shouldn’t have brought her here. I should’ve left her out there in the woods on the ground.
My jaws clenched when I realized that I could’ve never done that to her—the innocent-looking stranger in my home. Alexis swore she had no idea she was stumbling onto my land, but I didn’t believe her…for now.
Nothing lasted forever, so why should my freedom be any different? Her very presence in my house compromised everything. Not only that, I had taken her. There was no way I could let her go without knowing if she would babble to the cops and whatnot. I was going to have to start over somewhere else. Immediately, my mind went into brainstorming mode. I would have to be on the run again. The very idea made my stomach tighten into iron-fisted knots.
Abducted by the Mountain Man Page 3
