by Nina West
“Maybe you wouldn’t have been yourself then.”
“That was not me. That was me drunk for the first time in my life.” I wince, recalling how utterly wretched I felt yesterday. “And the last.”
“Probably a good thing, considering you nearly went swimming. Aside from that, you were entertaining.”
“Entertaining?” I turn to face the window so he doesn’t see my red cheeks, recalling some of the things I said and did. “It didn’t sound like you were amused, given the whole employee-code-of-conduct speech yesterday morning.” I read through it last night. Section five states no romantic relationships between management and their subordinates. It doesn’t specify anything about a drunken subordinate hitting on the hotel owner, but I’ll bet they’re adding that in as we speak.
“I didn’t have a choice. I can’t have my employees stumbling around drunk.”
Or trying to kiss you. “You could have told me who you were, at least.”
He sighs. “Sometimes I need a break from all the Mr. Wolf and the nervousness and people walking on eggshells around me.”
“I crushed every eggshell there was.”
His chuckle fills the truck and my heart swells. I like making him laugh.
It would be easy for me to get lost in the nature around us, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, the forest thick and lush even in early spring, the snowy ridge in the distance. If not for the man accompanying me, I would. But I still can’t seem to keep my eyes off him for long.
“You’re managing without your glasses?” he finally asks.
“Yes. Contacts.” As if reminded that they’re there, I blink repeatedly. I’m not used to wearing them all the time.
“Good. I was afraid you’d be blind.” He glances over at me. “You look different with them off. Your eyes are...”
“Too big for my face?” Kids used to tease me about them growing up, especially the boys. They called me “Bug Eyes” and “Owl.”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he asks, “How is everything so far? The food, the accommodations? Do they suit your needs?”
“Everything’s great.”
“Everything can’t be great. Everything’s never great.” His lips purse. “Tell me the truth.”
“Is this Mr. Wolf asking? Or Henry?”
He turns to spear me with a glare.
“The food is great. The cabins are good, if not a little bit crammed.”
“And your roommates?”
“Um. They’re...fine.” Thankfully Katie and Rachel were still asleep this morning when I ducked out.
He frowns. “That doesn’t sound convincing. We’ve never utilized a staff village like this before. I was worried about such close quarters, but my team promised me it would work out, with the way scheduling will be managed. Why? Are you having a problem with someone already?”
“No. Not at all. It’s just...” I hesitate. I shouldn’t be telling him this, should I?
“It’s just...” he pushes. I glance at him, and see the genuine worry etched in his face.
“I think two of them have sort of a thing going on.”
“Oh.” Henry’s brow pops over his sunglasses as realization dawns on him. “And it’s making you uncomfortable?”
“No. Well, not really. Last night, I kind of saw them in bed together.” I can’t believe I’m telling him this. I had no intention of telling anyone. But apparently I don’t have to be drunk to say inappropriate things around this man, after all. “I didn’t mean to, but their bunk is right next to me, and they didn’t pull the curtain around.” I blush with the memory. “One of them crawled into the other one’s bunk.”
He pauses for a moment, his eyes trained on the road. “So you saw two of your roommates fucking?”
Just the way he says that, so casually, sends heat through my core. I can’t believe I’m reacting this way to his words alone. I clear my throat. “Yes.”
“And you have a problem with that? Two women?”
“No! Not at all.”
Henry’s mouth opens then closes several times. When he finally speaks, his voice has turned low. “So you watched them?”
Is that an appropriate question for the owner of the hotel to ask me? I look out the window, my cheeks heating. “I didn’t mean to.” Please don’t ask me if I enjoyed it. Now that the moment’s over, I’m embarrassed about what I witnessed last night, and what I did afterward. But I also can’t ignore how alive it made me feel, how in tune with their pleasure my body was. How much I wanted to feel that.
How I came thinking of the man sitting right beside me.
“That must have been a shock for someone like you.”
I frown. “Someone like me?” It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying.
A virgin. Someone who’s never even had a guy’s hand in my pants. That’s right. I told him that, too.
Henry pulls the truck to a stop near a logging road on my right. “Hold on. It’s going to get a little bit bumpy.” Throwing it into four-wheel drive, he then eases the truck through the deep divots in the muddy ground.
“Whose land is this?” I ask, grabbing on to the door with one hand and wrapping my other arm across my chest, the rough bouncing hurting my breasts.
By Henry’s sideways glance, he notices and slows down a touch. “Mine.”
“Your family’s?”
“No, mine. My grandfather left it all to me.”
So I guess that particular rumor was accurate. As we ease deeper into the woods, I can see the devastation where chainsaws cut into hundreds of years of growth, mowing down mass clearings. “This is so sad.”
“The hemlock and cedar used for the lodge was sourced from in here. Why buy from someone else what I have right in my backyard.”
“Yeah, I guess. You’re going to replant it all, though. Right?”
“Eventually. When I have the staff to do it.”
The wheels in my brain are turning. “I could do it.”
He stops the truck next to a fallen tree and turns the ignition. The deep rumbling stops, leaving us in eerie silence. Peeling his sunglasses off his face, he turns to level me with his beautiful eyes. “You’re going to plant all these trees yourself?”
“I could. It would take me all summer.”
His head tips back with his laughter, and I marvel at the sight of his Adam’s apple, the way it juts out. “You really don’t want to be in Housekeeping, do you?”
My giggle escapes me unbidden. “Like I said, I’m better suited to the outdoors.”
His gaze does a lightning-speed assessment of my body before muttering, “Come on.”
The second I crack the door, a cloud of mosquitos swarms me. It’s like they were waiting for fresh blood. I swat as I walk around to meet him in front of the truck. The bugs are way worse out here. “You’ll need these.” He tosses me a pair of work gloves. “And this. The stuff they gave you isn’t strong enough.” A can of bug spray sails through the air.
I quickly douse myself from head to toe while Henry disappears behind the truck. He emerges with an ax.
“We’re cutting wood?”
“Have you ever swung an ax before?” He strolls over to a massive stump nearby and rests the blade against it.
“No.”
“Then I’m cutting wood. You’re going to stack it in the back of the truck.”
“Really?” The guy’s a billionaire and he’s out here, chopping wood?
“Do you think you can handle that?”
I snort. “I bail hay at harvest. I can handle this.”
Again, another quick scan of my body, only this time his gaze slows over my thighs. I was in such a rush to get out of the cabin this morning, I grabbed a pair of jeans that are a tad too tight for outdoor work.
He gives his head a little shake. “There’s a cooler of water in the cab, if you need one.” He slides a bottle from his pocket and, unscrewing it, brings it to his mouth, his plump lips wrapping around the end.
My tho
ughts from my drunken night come sailing back into the forefront of my mind.
What would it have felt like to have him kiss me back?
Or to have his tongue working me like I saw Katie do to Rachel. Or more?
Is this well-groomed billionaire in front of me into the kind of kinky stuff that my roommates are clearly into? Is that what everyone’s into, and I’m just that clueless?
I don’t realize I’m staring until he turns to face me. “Is something wrong?”
I feel my cheeks burn bright. “No. I was just...” Imagining the owner—my boss—sticking his tongue in me. There is no good answer here, so I let the words hang and head for the truck to grab a bottle of water. The air is still chilly, but I’m sure once I start moving, I’ll break a sweat.
There’s a small pile of split wood off to the side, so I move for that, cradling a piece. “What’s this for, anyway?”
“What is firewood usually for, Abigail?”
I don’t miss the hint of mocking in his tone. “It’s Abbi. And I figured you’d have firewood delivered.”
“Because I’m wealthy?”
“No, because it’s a big hotel.” And because you’re wealthy.
I watch him bend and heave a large piece of tree trunk onto the stump, wishing he didn’t have that bulky jacket on so I could watch his muscles strain. If the feel of his body wasn’t a drunken illusion on my part, then he’s got plenty of them, and they’re nicely honed.
He grips the ax handle. “We do have logs delivered for wood-burning fireplaces. Today is for me. It’s great exercise, and I like to come out here to clear my head. The quiet is like nothing, anywhere else. Especially when I’m stressed.” With a mighty swing, the blade of his ax cracks the hunk of wood, splitting it in two pieces. The sound ricochets through the valley, sending several birds squawking away.
“You’re stressed right now?”
“I have a hotel that cost me twenty million of my own money opening tomorrow, with plenty of investors’ money tied up and my family’s name behind it. What do you think?”
I try to move past the astronomical dollar figure. “You hide your stress well, then.”
He doesn’t answer. He simply adjusts the pieces of wood. With another powerful swing, he brings the blade down on the wood, splitting it evenly with one swing. He makes it looks so effortless, like it’s nothing to hit the wood the right way. I know for a fact, from watching my father, listening to a string of cuss words from his mouth every time he messed up a split that it’s not.
A thought hits me. “You really are a lumberjack.”
He doesn’t say anything, but I catch the deep dimple settle into his cheek with his smile. I take that as my sign that he wants to work, so I purse my lips together and focus on loading up the truck while Henry chops wood.
Wondering why he brought me here for his “me” day, as he called it.
I’ve helped my dad stack a lot of wood; our old century farmhouse is heated in the winter by a woodstove in the kitchen and a stone fireplace in the living room. It’s a lot of work, and after an hour of mostly silent labor, under a sun that finally offers some real warmth, my body’s coated in a light sweat. I sling my vest and zip-up sweater over the side of the truck, leaving me in a North Gate College long-sleeved shirt.
“You go to a Christian college,” Henry says, setting his ax down. It’s a statement, not a question, like he’s familiar with North Gate.
“Yeah.”
He tosses his gloves onto the stump and then wipes his forehead with his forearm. The hair at his nape is damp and beginning to curl. “What’s that like?”
“I don’t have anything to gauge it against. I guess college, but with the integration of faith. It’s meant to ensure you don’t lose yourself or your core beliefs.”
“And how’s that going for you, now that your ex left you to fuck someone else. Have your beliefs changed?”
Again with that word. A word I’ve always found offensive but now don’t seem to mind coming from his lips. “I’ve definitely begun to question some things.”
“I noticed.” He says it so casually, like this is a normal conversation to have between the two of us.
None of this is normal.
I reach into the cooler and hold out a bottle for him. “Water?”
He eyes it, then me for a long moment, and I can’t even begin to read what’s going on in his mind. Finally he walks toward me to accept it, his steps graceful and confident, his entire aura one of ease and power. His fingertips stall over mine for a few brief seconds. “Thank you.”
I force myself not to stare at his mouth this time by zeroing on the sharp protrusion in his thick throat, and how it bobs with each gulp, and how all the muscles in his throat tense, until he’s emptied the contents.
Good grief. Had I known whose neck I was burrowing my face into, and tasting, I doubt I would have had the guts to do it, drunk or not.
Henry steps into my personal space and I automatically take a step back, until my back is hitting the truck.
A brief smile touches his lips before he tosses the empty bottle into the truck bed, his gaze on the tidy stack I’ve already built. “Looks good.” His gaze drifts down. “How are your arms? Your back?”
“Fine. I could do this all day with you.” The second the sentence replays in my mind, I grimace, my cheeks bursting with heat. “I mean...”
He starts to laugh. “You are different when you’re sober, aren’t you?”
I dip my face to avoid his heavy gaze. “Isn’t everyone?”
His hand nudges my chin, forcing my eyes back up to his. “You don’t need to be so hesitant around me.” His eyes flicker to my mouth before drifting back up.
“Yes, I do. You’re the boss, even if you don’t want to be.” Having him stand so close to me, the smell of his clean sweat filling my nostrils, is making my heart rate accelerate and the tingling between my legs intensify. It’s making me not care that he’s the boss.
“I am the boss and you’re my employee, and I know you won’t try anything like you did the other night again. So relax. Please.”
Finally he backs away. Unfastening his jacket buttons, he peels off his plaid coat and tosses it into the truck. Beneath it he’s wearing a black long-sleeved shirt. One made of that clingy material that’s supposed to absorb your sweat. And it’s clinging. Oh my God, is it ever clinging.
Henry is all muscle. He has a lean, athletic build, full of contours and bulges, right down to the ridges of his abdomen. When he heaves a giant log onto the stump I can see his arm muscles straining beautifully.
Watching him is exhilarating.
“Come here.”
My legs begin to move of their own accord, until I’m standing next to him. I let out a tiny yelp as he grabs me by the hips without warning and pulls me in front of him, my back to his chest. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to teach you how to swing an ax.”
“You assume I want to learn?”
“What do you think the Outdoor team does all day? It’s not all about pulling weeds and, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s little grass to cut. That’s where your landscaping expertise lies, doesn’t it?”
My mouth drops open. I don’t dare turn around. “You checked my references?”
“We checked everyone’s references.”
I finally glance over my shoulder at him, to find his cool eyes watching me. “Then why would your team hire me?”
“They didn’t. They passed you over.”
I frown, confused. “Well then, why am I here? Was it a mistake?” I knew it! I was hired in error.
He jerks his chin toward the wood, drawing my attention back to it. Bringing his arms around to either side of my body, he lifts the ax in front of us, setting the blade against the stump. “Because I hired you.”
An odd nervousness courses through my limbs. “I don’t understand.”
“Take the handle,” he instructs, not elaborating.
&n
bsp; I do, and he adjusts my gloved hands to have one on the end and one a few inches below. “Don’t ever cut wood with nails or curvy pieces. You’re just asking to get hurt. And skip the ones with knots in them until they dry out, unless there’s a good line away from the knot where you can split the wood.”
I’m still focused on the part about him hiring me. “Did you watch the interview videos?”
“I skimmed them.”
“Did you see mine?”
The heat radiating off his body so close behind me is warming my back, and yet his breath, skating across my neck, is sending shivers through me.
“Yes.” He pauses. “It was compelling.”
I frown, trying to recall what could possibly be so compelling. I did almost cry in it.
“You want to aim for the lines in the wood. Like this one here.” He steps away to lean forward and run his hand over the vein in the hunk of wood. “That’s where it’ll split easily. And you want to aim closer to you, rather than on the far side, so you’re not hitting the wood with the handle should you miss. You’ll hurt your arms that way.”
“Okay.” I’m doing my best to listen, as I should considering I’m about to swing an ax for the first time.
He repositions himself behind me. A slight gasp escapes me as he fits his big, muddy boot in between mine and nudges my feet apart. In a lower voice, he directs, “You need to adjust your stance. A bit wider. Yeah, like that.”
The farther apart my feet shift, the deeper the throb between my legs becomes.
“Now you lift the ax straight up above your head, and keep your arms straight.” His arms come around me again, his huge body dwarfing mine, to cover my hands and grip the ax. With his chest pressed against my back and my body seemingly enveloped in his, he helps me to lift the ax straight above my head, the strain from the weight working its way through my muscles. “Let the weight of the ax be your muscle.” We bring the weapon down on the piece of wood, hitting it square on the line he pointed out earlier. It makes a nice divot. “It’ll take you a few good hits to get all the way through.”
As frazzled as I am by his proximity to me, I push that aside. “Let me do it on my own.”
He steps away and to the side several feet, his arms folding across his chest in a way that makes his biceps bulge even more. I ignore how self-conscious I feel under the weight of that gaze and mimic the steps, bringing the ax down on the exact spot, the impact jolting my arms.
