by Katie Allen
Ari held open the cabin door for her with his free hand. His other arm was still draped in the clothes she’d tried to reject. She looked around the lower level of the cabin. On the way out with Darwin, she’d been too excited about getting to leave to pay much attention as she’d passed through the main room. Now, she examined it closely, noticing a lived-in feel, with books scattered across the rustic wood coffee table and several pairs of boots standing on a throw rug by the front door.
“Who lives here?” she asked, taking in other signs of occupancy, such as the sweatshirts and coats hung on pegs above the boots and the red glow of a fire shining through the small square of glass in the woodstove door. She pulled off her borrowed coat and hat and hung them on a spare hook.
Ari’s answer was mumbled as he climbed the spiral stairs with his load of clothes.
“What?” she asked, but he disappeared into the loft without repeating his answer. “I know you heard me. You have bionic ears!”
She was almost yelling by the end, but no response came from upstairs.
“I guess the man gene of not listening trumps the supersonic hearing,” she muttered under her breath.
“I heard that,” Ari called from the loft.
Daphne growled as she stomped up the stairs after him. “Now he listens.”
As she reached the loft, she saw that he’d hung her clothes in one of the closets lining the wall.
“The, ah...panties and bras I grabbed for you are in there.” He tipped his head toward a couple of drawers built into the lower left side of the closet.
Daphne blushed and nodded stiffly. She had missed him grabbing underwear for her. “Who did you say lives here?” she asked, more to get the subject as far away from panties as possible than from real curiosity.
“Me,” he grunted reluctantly after a long, silent pause, “and B.”
“Oh.” Her eyes rounded as realization sunk in. “Oh! You and Benjy are...together, then?”
Ari shook his head. “Not that way. We’re not... He just sleeps better with me.”
“Oh. Okay.” This conversation was even more awkward than the one about panties. “Where is he?”
He raised an eyebrow in question.
“Benjy,” she elaborated. “I saw everyone else on the tour except him. If I’m in his cabin, where’d he disappear to?”
“He’s probably on a walk in the woods.” He closed the closet door. “He does that a lot, especially if he has something to think about.”
Daphne nodded and yawned.
“Take a nap,” he ordered. “I’ll wake you up in time for dinner.”
She hesitated, not wanting to be sent to bed like a cranky child, especially by Ari of all people. Another yawn hit, this one so wide her jaw cracked.
“Bed.” Ari caught either side of her waist and tossed her on top of the quilt. As she sat on the mattress, her brain still trying to digest the fact that he’d just thrown her on the bed, his fingers circled her left ankle, and he used his other hand to pull off her shoe. He repeated the process on the other side.
She opened her mouth to object to his bossiness, but what came out wasn’t what she’d planned on saying. “I don’t have anything to sleep in.”
“Here.” He pulled a T-shirt from a drawer in one of the other closets and tossed it to her. She, of course, fumbled the catch, knocking it onto the floor. Before she could reach for the shirt, Ari scooped it off the floor and handed it to her, smirking. “Seriously? You can’t even catch a T-shirt?”
“It’s my overly developed survival skills,” she muttered.
His smirk grew. “How’s that?”
Instead of trying to explain her theory of why she sucked at all forms of catching and/or throwing, she shook her head and waved a hand at him, trying to shoo him out of the loft. “You can go now,” she finally said when he just stood there.
“Last time I left you alone up here, you tried to climb off the balcony. I’m staying.”
She glared at him, clutching his T-shirt to her chest as if she were already naked. “I didn’t just try to climb off the balcony. I successfully managed to climb off the balcony. If the bunch of you interfering dwarves hadn’t shown up, I would have made it safely to the ground.”
“Dwarves?” The corners of his mouth tipped up, the closest she’d ever seen him get to an actual smile.
“Never mind.” She waved the shirt at him. “At least turn your back so I can change.”
He watched her for several seconds, just long enough for Daphne to start to worry he was going to refuse, but then he turned and faced away from the bed. Despite his turned back, she felt exposed and vulnerable with him in the room.
Not knowing how long he would stay facing the loft railing, she scooted off the bed and pulled off her sweater quickly. It hadn’t even hit the floor before she was tugging the borrowed T-shirt over her head, getting it twisted around her shoulders in her haste. She gave an annoyed grunt as she straightened the fabric so it fell to her thighs. Before putting her arms in the sleeves, she unhooked her bra and slid it off her arms.
She unfastened her slacks and let them fall around her ankles. Bending at the waist, she pushed her socks down and off her feet as she stepped out of her crumpled pants. She tugged at the hem of the shirt, making sure it wasn’t hung up and exposing any parts she didn’t want exposed.
“Okay, I’m changed,” she told his back. “You can turn around.”
Still feeling oddly naked, even though the shirt almost reached her knees, she busied herself with picking up her scattered clothes and carefully folding them. That way, she didn’t have to meet his gaze.
It also meant she didn’t realize he was right next to her until his huge hands came into view as he took the stack of discarded clothes from her.
She jumped, knocking the top of her head into his chin, and heard him give a pained grunt.
“Sorry,” she said, looking up guiltily.
He rubbed his chin and shrugged off her apology, tossing the small stack of clothes onto a chair in the corner.
The adrenaline from her quick change and Ari’s presence was rushing through her bloodstream, making her stomach jump and any desire for sleep disappear.
“I’m really not tired.”
“Bed.” He actually pulled the covers back, looking from her to the bed and back again like the stern father of a cranky, tired toddler.
“No.” Well, that fit the cranky, tired toddler role.
“Now.”
“Do you have any books I could read? Maybe about wilderness survival?”
He didn’t say anything in response. Ari just picked her up and tossed her into bed. Her head hit the pillow, and he had the covers tucked around her before she could blink.
“You’re really bossy, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Sleep.”
“You kind of just proved my point.”
He just towered over her, acting as if he could glare her to sleep.
“I’m not going to be able to relax with you staring at me like that.”
“Fine.” He sat on the edge of the huge bed and yanked off his boots. She watched with wide eyes, wondering how many items of clothing were about to be removed. He stopped after his boots, however, and stretched out on top of the quilt.
“Um... This isn’t really helping me sleep.” Her heart was pounding and every muscle was pulled tight as she lay rigidly next to him. She could feel the radiating heat of his body, even through the covers.
“You’re kind of hard to satisfy, aren’t you?”
“Hey!” She tried to sit up, but his weight on the covers kept her pinned to the mattress. She huffed and flopped down, annoyed by how much harder it was to show she was indignant when she was flat on her back. “I think I’m being really reasonable, as kidnap vi
ctims go.”
He made an annoyed sound. “Are you going to keep bringing up that whole kidnapping thing in every conversation?”
Her mouth fell open. “Are you...? How can you...? Argh!” She was so aggravated by him that she couldn’t even talk. Instead she turned over onto her side, presenting him with her back.
“‘Night.” He sounded amused.
Taking a leaf out of his book, she just grunted, hoping it conveyed the heaping piles of irritation she felt for him at the moment. Even if it did, though, she knew he probably didn’t care.
Chapter Four
One minute she was lying in bed, stewing about what an ass-face Ari was, and the next she was waking up, feeling warm and rested. The loft was lit with the warm orange of twilight, so she must’ve slept for hours. She tried to raise her arms overhead to stretch but her right arm was trapped under her body and something heavy rested over her side, weighing down her left.
Daphne blinked, bringing Ari’s face into focus. He was on his left side, facing her, his eyes open and watchful. She dropped his gaze, unnerved by being so close to him. The heavy weight resting on her was a male arm, but it wasn’t attached to Ari. Her sleepy brain took a few seconds to process this information before she rolled over and whipped her head around in order to see who was behind her.
It was Benjy, who was also awake. He watched her face carefully as he adjusted his encircling arm—not removing it, but letting it rest across her stomach. Daphne stared at him, thinking that she should probably push his arm away. The problem was that she didn’t want him to move it. The weight of it felt comforting, safe.
It was that very feeling that scared her enough to sit up abruptly.
“Uh...bathroom,” she improvised, as both men looked startled at her sudden movement. She scrambled to get out of bed, fighting the bedding that seemed to tangle tighter around her the more she struggled.
Ari made an amused sound and pulled the covers back with an annoying amount of ease. She glanced down at her newly freed legs and turned bright red—the T-shirt had crept up while she slept and was now twisted around her hips, exposing her polka-dotted panties. With an embarrassed groan, she rose to her knees and tugged the hem, allowing it to fall around her thighs.
The noise Ari made at that was definitely a chuckle, and she glared at him. When she looked at Benjy, he was grinning, showing off deep dimples.
She squeaked as Ari caught her beneath the arms and swung her off the bed to stand on the floor. He didn’t move his hands until she had her balance.
She glared at him and opened her mouth, ready to tell him that all this lifting and carrying and tossing of her person was not really necessary, but he cut her off before she could say a word.
“Bathroom, Grace.”
“Grace?”
His lips twitched. “Because you’re very graceful.”
She could feel her face heat and knew she must be bright red. “Ass,” she spat, before stomping toward the bathroom door. From the laugh she heard behind her, her insult hadn’t had its desired dampening effect on Ari’s mood.
Daphne shut the bathroom door behind her with a hard click. It wasn’t quite a slam, since she figured she should at least try to act more mature than a five-year-old. Glancing in the mirror, she held back a groan. Her blonde hair, so fine and straight it refused any deviation from her usual style, had decided during her nap to actually have body. Unfortunately, “having body” consisted of odd lumps and ripples showing exactly where her head had been pressed against the pillow.
She rummaged around the drawers and her search was rewarded with a new toothbrush, still in its packaging, toothpaste and a hairbrush, which she had to assume was Benjy’s, being that Ari had almost as much stubble on his face as he had on his head. It worked for him, though, since he had a nicely shaped head.
Daphne jolted, realizing she’d been running the soft brush bristles against her palm, smiling as she’d thought about the shape of Ari’s head. Her groan was audible this time. Stockholm syndrome was definitely hitting her hard.
“Okay in there?” Ari’s voice asked through the door.
“Fine.” Stupid supersonic hearing.
* * *
Once she’d wrestled her hair into some kind of submission and brushed her teeth, she returned to the bedroom feeling a little more in control of her emotions. Ari and Benjy were both sitting on the bed as A spoke quietly—too quietly for her to hear what he was saying. She watched Ben, noticing that he didn’t nod or shake his head, although his face was expressive—compared to Ari’s normally stone-faced countenance. Benjy looked...unhappy, maybe? That wasn’t it exactly. It was more like he was disagreeing with whatever the other man was saying.
Ari stopped talking to Benjy as she approached. Once she was just a few steps away from them, he jerked his head toward the closet holding her borrowed clothes.
“Put on some pants, and we’ll head to dinner.”
She met Benjy’s eyes and made a face. “He’s so bossy,” she said in a stage-whisper, but she headed toward the closet. She was starving again.
A hand met her ass cheek with a loud smack. She jumped and squealed, but then instantly clamped her lips together, embarrassed by the girly sound that had emerged from her mouth. Whirling around, she glared at Ari, who wasn’t even trying to hide his grin.
“Move it,” he said, making shooing motions. “I’m hungry.”
With a final, narrow-eyed stare, she moved toward the closet again—sideways, this time, so she could keep an eye on Ari’s hands. That had stung! She pulled out a pair of jeans, noting they were in her size.
“How’d you know my size?” she asked, bending over to pull the jeans on under the T-shirt.
“I looked at you,” Ari said, deadpan, and she glanced up and frowned at him. As she did so, she realized how casual she’d gotten with the pair of them in less than a day. The fear she’d felt when she’d woken up that morning in the circle of dwarves had disappeared somewhere between the lodge tour and their three-way-cuddle nap.
She tried to pull the remnants of her suspicion around her, but it was impossible. She couldn’t be afraid of these guys—even of Ari. Despite his poor decision-making skills and the insistence on having his own way, he just didn’t feel dangerous to her anymore. She’d seen how the others had acted around him, how he was with Benjy, and, although he could be occasionally snarly, there just didn’t seem to be any true meanness inside him.
He spun a hand in a “hurry up” gesture and Daphne realized she’d been staring at him, jeans bunched halfway up her legs as she’d thought. She tugged the jeans the rest of the way over her hips and fastened them under the cover of the T-shirt.
“Turn around,” she said.
“Why?” Of course, Ari couldn’t just do as she asked without an argument.
“So I can finish changing,” she said with exaggerated patience. Ari rolled his eyes and Benjy smirked, but they both turned away from her. She grabbed a bra from one of the built-in drawers, shot a suspicious glance at the men’s backs, and then yanked off her shirt. It would be quicker, she figured, than trying to maneuver the bra under the T-shirt, although standing there half-naked made her feel vulnerable, even though neither man was looking at her.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she muttered. The bra fit her perfectly. How had he done that?
“What?” Ari asked, even though she knew perfectly well that he’d heard every word.
“Nothing.” She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction—or her the embarrassment—of asking how he’d guessed her bra size. She pulled on a long-sleeved thermal shirt and zipped a hoodie over it.
“Okay, I’m decent.” He’d even grabbed thick wool socks for her, and she tugged on a pair as Ari and Benjy turned around. She looked at her shoes and made a face. There was no way her ballet flats
were going to go on over her wooly socks.
“You need boots,” Ari said.
With a sigh, she bent to strip off her socks, but Ari caught her around the waist and tossed her over his shoulder.
“This is not an acceptable form of transportation!” she wailed, but he ignored her and started the nausea-inducing upside-down trip down the spiral stairs. Once they reached the main level, she figured he’d put her down so she could put on her coat and hat, but that didn’t happen. Instead, she felt a tap on her back that made her arch up to see Benjy grinning at her, her coat and hat in his hands.
He dressed her as she hung upside-down, and the ridiculousness of the situation struck her. She started laughing, despite her annoyance at Ari’s hauling her around as if she were a side of beef. A slap on her butt made her jump.
“Focus,” A-is-for-Asshat commanded. “This is taking too long, and I want to eat sometime tonight.”
Her laughter sputtered with indignation. “You’re the one who...” The rest of her words were muffled against Ari’s back, since Benjy had finished dressing her and had walked outside, with A following.
When they entered the dining room, she was immediately jostled as Ari’s body jerked to the side, carrying her with him.
“Put her down, you dick!”
“What the hell, Lauren? Why’d you throw a fork at me?” He set Daphne on her feet, holding her as she swayed a little from the blood rushing out of her head.
Once the black dots cleared from her vision, Daphne saw Lauren glaring at A, her hands fisted at her hips. “Why are you hauling her around like a caveman? Can’t you be nice for five minutes?” She picked up a plate from the table and tossed it at his head.
Ari caught it easily. “Quit throwing shit!”
“Quit treating Daphne like your personal property!” she yelled back.
“I had to carry her outside! She doesn’t have any boots!”
Lauren opened her mouth as if to yell something else but then closed it. “Oh.”
Rolling his eyes, Ari stomped over to the table and returned the plate to its original position in front of a grinning Darwin. Daphne glanced around the table while she peeled off her coat and hat, and she saw that pretty much everyone looked amused.
