Chapter 12
WOOD AND OTHER WOOD
Margot
My body is so fucking tired.
It’s a good thing Cyril’s following me as I leave work on Thursday, because I’m so exhausted that I shouldn’t be driving this van.
I don’t get it.
I’m up late all the time in Manhattan. I work out five days a week and use a treadmill desk in my office. I regularly have a glass or two of wine, and I only had a single margarita last night—a light one at that—with the Chex Mix and other appetizers at the speakeasy.
But today—oh my god.
I make it to the cabin, then to my bedroom, and that’s where I faceplant.
The next thing I know, it’s almost seven, and there’s a regular thumping outside my window.
I roll to my side and stifle a grunt as I peek out the window, noting two things at once.
First, something smells amazing.
And second, Rhys is splitting firewood.
He’s in a short-sleeved black T-shirt that’s stretched over his broad chest and thick arms, dark jeans that hug his hips and thighs, with a black ball cap on his head and scuffed brown work boots.
I watch him methodically grab a piece of thick, round firewood, place it upright on a wooden chopping block, and then swing his axe to split it into smaller chunks.
The sun’s dipped low and the sky peeking through the trees is a deep orange tinged in pink. I have the best show in the universe.
What is it about watching a big, bulky, grumpy man split a chunk of wood into smaller pieces that has my clit humming and my breasts tingling?
Competence porn, my brain answers for me.
Rhys might have taken every opportunity to subtly barb me about knowing my real identity last night, but he was also watching the door every time someone came in, and all day at work today, he showed up right when I needed a hand, either because a guest was getting too comfortable—like robe-and-towel guy in chalet three—or when I needed to move a piece of furniture to clean a spill on the carpet, or when I needed a task to escape being part of the photos my boss wanted to use on socials of the staff for staff appreciation day.
In some ways, him knowing my real identity is incredibly helpful.
He also helped me locate Mrs. Pinsley’s water bottle, which she’d left in the dining room at breakfast, and he pretended he didn’t hear one of my fellow housekeepers calling him a stud as he helped move tables for a workshop for a small group of children’s book authors.
He's good at his job too.
And that’s also attractive.
But not as attractive as this brute show of force as he splits firewood like it’s warm butter.
I absently rub one of my breasts as I lean closer to the window.
Rhys grabs another piece of unsplit wood, balances it on one end on a chopping block made of a thick tree stump, and then makes one smooth, easy arc of the axe, bringing it down precisely in the middle of the log and making it fall off in two relatively even pieces before grabbing the next unsplit log from the pile behind him.
I lean closer to the window, prop my elbow on the ledge, and it promptly slides off, propelling me forward and making my face smush into the glass.
He pauses and looks my way as I straighten.
Our eyes meet, and I realize I’m still rubbing my breast, and that has me bolting up off the bed and out of sight.
I hover against the wall beside the window, silently chastising myself.
Don’t get turned on by your roommate chopping wood. Your roommate who could blow your cover at any minute. Your roommate who clearly wants more from you than just a job.
This is too complicated, and you know better, Margot.
Cyril has reservations about taking Rhys as backup, but it’s a concern born out of the awkward situation more than a concern based on Rhys’s employment history and demonstrated competence.
There’s a knock on the window.
I rub my eyes, stretch my limbs, and then step back into view. “What?” I say through the glass.
Rhys holds up the axe. “You want a swing?”
Whatever I expected, it wasn’t that. “Are you serious?”
“Saw you staring at my…axe. Looked like you wanted to use it.”
I wasn’t staring at his axe, and we both know it, but using it—
Oh my god.
Yes.
Daph wouldn’t hesitate. She’d already be in the yard by now.
I don’t know why I’m hesitating, because while Daph would do it for the fun, I’d do it to feel like a powerful beast.
I start to smile. “Can you teach me?”
He grunts, then nods.
I fly through changing into jeans and a flannel shirt, and then into my hiking boots, and I take off outside, leaving my fake glasses in the bedroom.
Rhys has flipped on one of the outdoor flood lights so that we can see what we’re doing as the sun dips lower and lower in the sky, and he’s also stacked most of the wood he’s split on the pile near the back of the garage.
The temperatures have dropped, and there’s a chilly wind blowing through that doesn’t seem to faze him at all in his T-shirt.
He hands me a pair of work gloves. “Only other pair,” he says when they swallow my hands. “Here. Put on safety glasses too. Then grab a log.”
I slide the safety glasses onto my face, then pick up a log off the unsplit pile.
He sighs. “Not that one.”
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“See the knots? Harder to split.”
He rustles through the pile and selects a different log, this one so gray it’s almost blue, with nary a knot in the sides of it anywhere. “Ever do this before?”
“Nope.”
“Harder than it looks.”
“Is that a challenge?”
He smirks. “Of course not.”
It’s totally a challenge.
But if he’s expecting me to try to prove something right off the bat, he’s wrong.
I know I can.
I also know I need to learn how before I can.
“Any tips or tricks I should know before I start swinging?” I ask with a nod toward the axe.
He grabs it at the end, then flips it in the air and catches it just beneath the head. “Don’t hit yourself with this part.”
“Don’t maim myself. Got it.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Have to log a few hours at the chopping block first?”
The man blinks at me in slow motion. “Did you just—”
Make a terrible joke? Yes, and again, Daph would be proud.
I smirk at him. “I’m smart, I’m pretty, I’m rich, and I’m funny.”
He pinches his lips together.
And then he does something far worse than telling me I’m not any of those four things I just smugly proclaimed to be, and he lines his body up behind mine.
He wraps his thick arms around my shoulders and slides his hands down my arms until he’s guiding the axe into my hands with me, gripping the handle at the bottom with one hand and near the top with the other.
“This is a maul,” he says, his voice low and silky in my ear. “Goal is to get the sharp, pointy side square in the middle of the log with enough force to split it.”
No, I’m fairly certain the goal is to use his body to intimidate me into not making any more bad puns about logs.
And it’s working.
My mouth has gone drier than the desert and my pulse is inching into so this kind of wood is sensual too territory.
I make a noise of acknowledgment.
“You can use various techniques. Beginners will often do this, here.” He lifts my arms straight above my head, so the maul head is high, but not in danger of falling on my head if I drop it, sliding my higher hand lower as we raise the axe—the maul, I mean.
“You want to be holding it like this when it reaches its pinnacle. Then swing it down hard. But first, let’s make sure you’re lined up properly. ”
We lower the axe—maul—and test how far I am from the log that needs to be split. The heat radiating from his body cuts through the chill of the night and makes me warm everywhere.
And I do mean everywhere.
“Good, just like that,” he murmurs.
My nipples turn themselves inside out and my vagina pulses to life.
Not that she’s regularly asleep.
It’s more that she gets bored easily.
Don’t catch a crush for a man who’s using you, dumbass, my brain whispers.
Shut up, I whisper back. They’re all using me.
Rhys’s breath tickles my ear, his voice teasing my eardrums. “Now, lift the maul—just like that, good—and when you bring it down, squat instead of bending. Like so.”
One hand strokes down my arm over my flannel, down to my hip, and he hunches lower, single-handedly guiding the maul down slowly while he aligns my body with his into proper form.
His thighs are beneath my hamstrings.
His crotch against my ass.
His chest to my back.
Still holding my hands in just one of his meaty paws, helping me through the motion two more times, a bulge against my ass telling me I’m not the only one affected, even if he’s not rubbing himself all over me. “Got it?”
“Mm-hmm,” I croak out.
“Whenever you’re ready then.”
He releases me and steps back, the heat of his body replaced with cool night air, and I falter as I swing the maul down, completely missing the log.
Well played, Rhys O’Malley.
Well. Fucking. Played.
And you know what?
I laugh out loud at how terribly bad my swing is.
Is it bad because this truly is harder than it looks though?
Or is it bad because his personal demonstration has every carnal nerve ending in my body sitting up and asking why he’s still sleeping on the couch?
Either way, this lesson is highly enjoyable.
I reach into my back pocket for my phone, but my gloves are too big, so I have to pull them off before I can get a grip on it. Then I hold it out to Rhys. “Take a video of me trying again? My sister will laugh for days.”
His brows briefly pinch together, but he pulls his own gloves off and takes my phone, our fingers brushing, and it’s only a lifetime of practice being poised that keeps me from visibly shivering—in the good way—at the contact.
“You honestly like your sister,” he says, aiming my phone at me while I line up on my own to swing at the log again after putting my gloves back on.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the absolute best.” I swing the maul down, and this time, I hit the log.
Not in the middle though.