"Donuts. I didn't forget. I am probably going to need half a dozen just for myself."
"I don't think whoever shopped for this cabin was prepared for your appetite," she teased.
"Shane is going to run my ass ragged at the gym when I get back home ten pounds heavier," I agreed, one of my arms sliding off of her to pat my stomach.
"Shane Mallick?" Katie asked.
"Yep. My sister's husband's brother. They adopted all of us Rivers when they took Scotti into their fold."
"Big family," Katie observed.
"You have no idea," I agreed, nodding. "What about you?"
"It's really only been me and my mom since my grandmother passed. It was always a small family. My grandmother was an only child and so was my mom. And then me."
"Small is nice."
"It is," she agreed. "But I have always secretly been envious of those big, crazy Christmas mornings in movies and TV. Or having a literal crowd at backyard barbecues or stuff like that. A dozen happy birthday texts. All that kind of stuff. I imagine it might feel overwhelming, but in a good way."
"That's a good way to put it," I agreed, my finger toying with the ends of her hair, the silky strands slipping over my skin. "I can't even explain to you how loud it gets," I told her, shaking my head. "With all the kids and the teens and the adults. It is insanity. But in a fun way. And I was somewhat used to it, having so many siblings."
"Your poor sister," Katie mused. "Four brothers to pick on her."
"I'd like to say we didn't, but we absolutely did. But she had a lot of people on her team when she needed us too. No one fucked with Scotti."
"I'll bet. I haven't seen all your brothers, but if they're all as intimidating as you are, I imagine no one wanted to mess with her."
There was a sad twinge to her words, like maybe she was thinking about her own shitty school experience, wondering if having four big, burly brothers might have prevented her from being bullies.
I didn't know if it would help with the girls being assholes, but having brothers absolutely would have kept the guys in line. Even if we had to punch our way through the whole school.
"Okay, I have to go get breakfast started," she said, sucking in a deep breath, then slowly pulling away from me.
Her gaze stayed downcast as she gathered her blankets, and made her way to the door.
"What the fuck was that?" I mumbled to my empty room, scrubbing my hands down my face as my cock continued to throb with its need for release.
On a sigh, I got out of bed, going into the bathroom for a shower, then got into junk around clothes, grabbing some coffee Katie had made before she started making the donuts.
"I'm gonna go take a look around. Call me when the food is done, babe."
With that, I went outside, knowing I needed to keep my distance from her, and the simmering sensation of interest I was feeling toward her.
It just couldn't happen.
The bed-sharing thing, that was an isolated incident. And nearness with the opposite sex could just stir sensations that, under normal circumstances, you wouldn't feel toward someone else. Especially a coworker.
I didn't have a lot of rules regarding sex. But not fucking around at work was one of them.
The air was crisp and damp as I went outside, finding the ground littered with small broken branches, blown around leaves. Nothing crazy. But I set to work on it like someone was paying me to, hoping to burn off the excess energy that could so easily turn to sexual frustration.
I gathered sticks, raked leaves, took a walk around to clear any big limbs that had fallen in the path on the way to the lake.
Only then did I head back, smelling the donuts and something else, a mixture of breakfast scents, as I made my way into the kitchen, finding Katie coming back from the fireplace in the common room with a frying pan in her hand.
"Oh, good timing. Eggs are done. You can't just eat donuts," she told me, passing me a plate with the eggs, a sliced apple, and two donuts. "How were things looking?"
"Not bad. I think we are going to luck out with the road being clear, so we can go make some calls. We got to get the power on. The water is on a well pump. We're going to go dry fast."
"Damnit," I growled a couple hours later when we huddled into my rental only to be stopped by a massive tree that had downed right across the entire street. "If that useless shed has a chainsaw, I might be able to work on this," I told her with a sigh as I turned the car around, heading back to the cabin.
I wasn't worried about being trapped, per se.
I was worried about being trapped with no electricity.
It would have continued to be a pleasant break from the busier world back in Navesink Bank if not for the worry about water. And with the worry about water came the worry about plumbing. I could rough it. I'd been camping. I could bathe in the pond. I could keep us warm by fire. I could move some of the refrigerated stuff out into the shed, the days were cool enough, to keep anything except dairy and meat from spoiling.
But I didn't want to have to explain to Katie that the great outdoors was now our bathroom, or that we had to wash dishes—and ourselves—with lake water.
The shed didn't have a chainsaw. There was an ax if I got particularly desperate.
"Fuck," I hissed, gearing myself up for the uncomfortable conversation, going around the back of the shed to pull the tarp off what I imagined was a pile of firewood. "Oh, thank fuck," I said, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw the generator. It was small. I didn't think we could hook up more than the well pump and the fridge to it, but that was something. Those were my biggest concerns.
We could use the oil lantern for light when we needed. We could charge our useless phones in the car.
And I could keep her warm with a nice, cozy fire. And my body heat. In my bed.
So much for keeping my distance.
I should have been frustrated.
But there was no denying that my dominant feeling was that of excitement.
Shit.
FIVE
Katie
I didn't want him to find a chainsaw.
I didn't want him to move the tree.
I didn't want him to get us in contact with the outside world, get us reconnected to power.
Because a needy, pathetic part of me wanted just one more day of him all to myself, one more night of sharing his warmth.
The night before, I had truly just been too cold to even think straight, had fully intended to sleep on his floor, or have him light me a fire downstairs. I just wanted to get warm.
But once I got into that bed with him? Yeah, I wanted a lot of other things. Things I knew I couldn't have, but I had enjoyed punishing myself with the possibility of them as I lay there, his solid, warm body beside me, his woodsy scent covering the sheets and pillows, his deep, sexy voice talking to me like sharing a bed was something normal for us, almost as though we were old lovers.
Then, when I woke up in his arms, after the initial panic about being seen as clingy evaporated, God, it had been so nice.
I wasn't sure I'd ever woken up in the arms of a man before. My ex was not a touchy-feely person, and definitely not a snuggler, once telling me he thought I was being smothering when I had tried to rest on his chest after sex.
I, unexpectedly, felt really at peace, safe, protected.
I let myself lay there for a while, get lost in the fantasy of it all, especially when he didn't immediately roll out from under me when he woke up to find me all over him.
But then, I reminded myself, that he was probably just being nice, trying not to embarrass me about my unconscious decision to climb him like a cat.
That, and the humiliation that swarmed my body about it, had me pulling away, getting as much distance as possible.
I made breakfast while reminding myself that we were playing house. It wasn't real life. As soon as the others showed up and we all went home, Rush Rivers would practically forget he had ever met me. And surely that he had ever shared a bed with me
.
Still, a small, needy part of me wanted one more night of that fantasy, to feel his chest rising and falling under me, to breathe in his scent, to feel his heavy arms around me, to share his warmth. As if I had any right to any of that.
"Bad news or good news?" Rush asked, coming back in from the shed.
"Bad news should always go first," I informed him.
"There was no chainsaw, so we are not getting through that roadblock until someone comes up to help."
My heart leapt at that, but I tamped down the excitement. "And the good news?"
"I found a small generator and some gas. It won't do much. Keep the food cold, the water running. I didn't want to come back in here and tell you that the great outdoors was our new bathroom."
"Oh, God," I said, face twisting.
"Yeah, that was the look I was worried you'd give me about it," he said, smiling. "My sister Scotti was always fine with roughing it, but we always had to provide an indoor toilet of some sort. I think she had a fear of being bit on the ass by a snake," he said, smiling at her expense. "We used to have to build composting toilets if we were really in the sticks for any length of time. But, yeah, the generator can be hooked up to the well pump, so the water will keep coming in the way we need it to for showering and dish washing and all the like. It's not powerful enough to give us light or heat, but we can make do."
"Totally," I agreed, a little too overenthusiastic. "I mean, we got along just fine yesterday," I added, making my voice calmer.
"Exactly. I can't imagine it will be too much longer before people start missing us, worrying about why they can't get in touch. Then something is going to start happening."
"And until then, we will be fine," I agreed, not wanting to entertain the idea of being found out, having to possibly go back to our old lives just yet.
I just wanted another day of the fantasy.
Then I could deal with the sad reality.
"Yeah. I think we probably have two days worth of gas. Especially if we turn it off at night. We will make it work. You'll be dying to get back to civilization by the end of this," he joked.
"I like it here," I told him. "It's, ah, you know... it's peaceful. Not having all the demands of normal life is kind of, well, refreshing."
I went ahead and left out the fact that, if it were not for him, I would have been going stir crazy by now.
I liked to read a lot, sure, but I also liked to binge shows on Netflix or mess around on social media apps. And, of course, keep in touch with my mother.
He was right, though.
My mother had to be worrying by now.
In another day, she would be crawling the walls, calling my work, finding out if my plane landed, if I had picked up my rental car, if there was anyone who could confirm that I had made it to my destination.
If any of those things couldn't be confirmed, she would be on the phone with the local authorities, and hopping on a plane herself.
This could very well be our last day and night fully alone.
I should have been happy about that.
But, God, I just wanted more of this fantasy life where I was more than the shy office girl, where a man like Rush Rivers could notice me, want to be around me, could maybe even be in bed with me at night.
"What's the matter?" Rush asked, reading me a little too well for my comfort, especially seeing as I was having a lot of mixed feelings around him, ones I didn't want to have to explain to him. "Thinking about the cannibals again?" he teased, seeming to sense I didn't want to talk about it.
"Yeah. You know... they might be drawn by my cooking. Maybe I shouldn't do that anymore," I teased, smiling when he clutched his chest.
"You can't say things like that," he told me, giving me that boyish smile of his. "Besides, they don't want to eat your cooking. They want to eat you," he said.
It was immature at best, the way my body responded to that turn of phrase, to the ways it could be interpreted.
But regardless of that, heat bloomed in my core, spreading outward until it overtook me completely, a fever that made me feel warm instead of freezing for a change.
It must have shown on my face, too, because Rush's eyes went a little warm, the teasing smile fell, replaced with a seriousness that I didn't know how to interpret coming from him.
"Bet you'd be a lot sweeter," he said, voice a low rumble that turned my belly to liquid. As he said it, I would swear there was actual hunger in his eyes.
But no.
That didn't seem right.
He was just playing around, teasing.
Or he was saying it because we were in forced close proximity.
Because I was female.
He was male.
And there were parts that could fit together.
I didn't have much pride, but I had enough to know that I didn't want to be the woman a man reached for just because she was there.
I turned away from that look, from the desperation I felt for it to be true, for it to be directed at me in some sort of solid way, but knowing it wasn't how things were.
"They'd go for you first," I declared, reaching for a rag to wipe down the counter.
"How do you figure?" Rush asked after a short pause.
"It's the first rule of cannibalism—go for the person with more to consume," I said, shrugging.
"You're aquatinted with the rules of cannibalism, huh?" he asked, voice once again light, teasing.
"It's your usual common sense."
"And you think cannibals have basic common sense?" he pressed, smirking at me.
"Well, actually no. They'd probably be riddled with Kuru."
"Kuru?" he repeated, brows furrowing.
"It's a Prion disease," I supplied.
"Gonna need more than that, I'm afraid."
"It's a neurodegenerative disease that comes from eating the brains of humans."
"How the fuck do you know something like that?" he asked, scoffing.
"I watch all the documentaries that hit my streaming services."
"And there was a documentary about Kuru?"
"Well, no. I mean, yes. There was a documentary about cannibalism. In particular about the funeral rites of the tribes of Papua New Guinea until like the nineties, I think. The women would remove the brains of dead loved ones and cook and eat them."
"Why only the women?"
"Because they thought the female body was the only one capable of holding onto the spirit of the dead body. But they would sometimes slip bits to their children, and then there were a lot of deaths, bringing in researchers who figured out what the problem was."
"Documentaries have never been my thing, but you're making them sound interesting."
"We can watch... oh, I guess not," I said, the excitement deflating.
"Maybe when we get back to Navesink Bank," he suggested.
There was an undeniable crushing sensation in my chest at those words. Because I knew how untrue they were.
When we got back to Navesink Bank, things would go back to normal. Which meant he would all but forget I existed. Sure, maybe he would go out of his way to say hello to me more, ask about my days, slip in a comment like "Hey, remember when we were trapped in a cabin together, and the power went out, and we had to huddle for warmth while protecting ourselves from cannibalistic mountain men?" but that was all it would be. There would be no shared meals, no watching documentaries together.
My heart—and my pride—ached at that realization, but I couldn't spare myself it. It would only make the fallout that much harder to process.
The rest of the day was pretty eventless. We made an easy dinner. We played a couple board games with the light of the oil lamp, since we'd found several bottles of oil upon another inspection of the house. Then we took turns getting ready for the night.
When I made it back into Rush's room, I found the fire already dancing happily, starting to spread its warmth through the chilly space.
Rush was sitting off the edge of the bed, flicking
through his phone, hoping for some small bit of reception so he could get a text out somewhere.
The rational side of my brain reminded me that he was worried about tangible things. Like having enough gas to keep the generator going. Like food running low. Like something happening to one of us that would require medical intervention that we couldn't get to. That was why he was so desperate to get into contact with someone.
But the silly, irrational, insecure part of me couldn't help but wonder if he was sick of being cooped up with me already, if he was dying to get away from me.
"Hey, everything alright?" he asked, tossing his phone onto the nightstand, looking over at me.
"Yeah."
"You've been quiet."
"I'm always quiet." I didn't miss the sharpness in my voice. And, it seemed, neither did Rush.
His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist, stopping my attempt to get to the other side of the bed, pulling me instead in front of him, between his spread legs, his head angled up, brows raised.
"Wanna try that again?" he asked, lips twitching. "That wasn't even halfway believable."
"I'm tired," I told him, and the answer was two-fold. Yes, I was tired. In the physical sense. Even though my days, by in large, had been much less busy than back in my usual life. But also, in a soul-deep kind of way. I was just... tired. Tired of feeling like crap about myself, tired of second-guessing all my interactions, tired of feeling like crap.
Just freaking tired.
"That seems halfway believable," he relented, his thumb starting to trace across the sensitive inside of my wrist.
"I don't want to talk about it," I told him, gaze falling from his face.
This was the point where my ex would have started an argument with me, not believing I had a right to take some time to sort through my thoughts before I talked about them. He wanted to know what I was "pissy" about immediately. And if I didn't want to talk about it before I got a chance to think it through, the yelling would start.
"Alright," Rush said, nodding. "But if you do want to talk about it, I'm right here."
Him being right there was part of the problem, wasn't it?
Pull You In (Rivers Brothers Book 3) Page 6
