Chapter 5
We stayed on the slopes the entire day, and besides pausing for lunch, Isla didn’t stop, even climbed by herself and sledded headfirst, which I disapproved of, but she didn’t listen.
I get the impression this girl makes the best of her day.
Maybe every fucking day. Her energy is addictive, and I’m gonna be the leech who’ll suck it all up.
We walk into the cabin like zombies, and Isla throws herself into my chair, legs and arms splayed out. “I’m beat.”
Hot as fuck from the daily activities and walking back up to the cabin, I kick off my boots and jacket, grab the sweater, shirt, and undershirt all in one bunch, and just get that shit off my body. I walk to the kitchen and am gulping water when I see a hand extend from behind the sofa. “Please.”
I grab her a bottle of water and throw it into her lap as I slump onto the couch with a grunt, eyes on the stairs where the shower is. I dread climbing the stairs. Why, oh, why did I need a loft cabin?
“You wanna hit the shower first?” I ask her.
When she doesn’t reply, I glance her way.
She’s not taken a sip of her water. Her eyes are wide and taking in my body, namely the canvas of tattoos on it. Fuck. I sit, elbows resting on my knees. “What?”
“Some of those are prison tattoos,” she says, and puts the water on the table.
Instantly, I go on the defensive. “How would you know?”
“I know.”
“So?”
“Why were you in prison?”
This is the last thing I wanna talk about before the night. I have plans for this girl. She looks like she’s ready to bolt.
“My dad is a cop,” she adds, as if I don’t remember that bit.
I narrow my eyes. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” Jesus, I don’t do civilians for free. What the fuck? “And I owe you no explanation. Prison or no prison. Don’t ask about it.”
Isla clears her throat and wrings her hands.
Fuck me and the shirt on the floor.
“I want to go home.”
“Go,” I say.
Isla stands, hands on her hips. “That’s it?”
She expects something of me. I have no idea what it is. Clearly, she wants nothing to do with an ex-felon, and she’s scared of me now, so yeah, sending her home is the right thing to do. “No?” I prompt.
“Well, no, Mr. Mafia Kingpin. That’s not how it works. You don’t just barge into my vacation cabin, wreak havoc with my head when you make me breakfast, wine me, dine me, take me out for a day, make out with me, and then send me off back to my parents.”
I lift a finger. “I’m not a Mafia kingpin. That’s Nikola.”
Isla smiles. “What are you, then?”
“The hitman.”
She laughs.
She thinks I’m joking. Ex-felon is one thing, hitman another, and nobody believes in the Mafia anymore anyway, but organized crime very much exists.
We’ve just upgraded, erased the moral code that drove the old-school guys, and became savages because of it.
Lines of conduct are few, and we cross them more often than not.
You’re dead if you cross someone, dead if you don’t, so I cross many to ensure I have a nice big hit list and a healthy job for the duration of my career.
She shakes her head and gets up, then grabs the suitcase she dragged down earlier in the day.
I meet her at the door and slap a hand on it. “You can’t walk home in the middle of the night.”
“But I will.”
“And roll a suitcase?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, you certainly can do that, or you could stay and not ask me questions I don’t want to answer.”
“My dad would flip out if he knew. He’d hunt you down and… It’s just a bad idea all around, Stefan.”
“Are you looking out for me?”
“For both of us. It’s best to nip it in the bud.”
Huh? Never in a million years did it cross my thick man brain that she’d look out for me. What the fuck kind of girl is this? An angel? I put a hand over hers. “Let go of the suitcase.”
She does.
I kick it to the side, take her hand, and lead her back to the couch. I pull out her phone and hand it to her. “Call your dad.”
“You had my phone the entire time,” she concludes.
“I walked into my house and found a person inside it. What would you do?”
She snorts. “I’d call my dad and have you arrested.”
I place the phone on her lap. “Call him, then. Tell him who you’re with.
This way if anything happens to you, he can come after me.
” I tap her knee. “I’m gonna hit the shower.
If you’re still downstairs, I’ll take you home.
If not, you will come upstairs, naked and ready to fuck for the duration of your stay. Up to you.”
Maybe she’ll stay. Maybe not. But if this was my sister, motherfucker better give her some choices. And maybe Isla will surprise me and actually wanna ride the ex-felon thrill train.
I imagine the boys she dated and their little sports cars their parents bought them, coming to pick her up for prom.
I never made it to the prom, and I lied when I said I barely survived high school.
I never made it to senior year at all. I spent most of that year in solitary for almost killing the guard who chained me up one night and tried to make me his bitch.
So no, I’m not saying shit about prison or why I went there. If she’s the angel of our little cabin story, then I’m the devil, and the devil has many secrets he keeps to himself. I’m keeping that nasty shit to myself.
Upstairs, I turn on the shower, flex a little, smile at the sexy-looking fucker in the mirror. The Jacuzzi my sister thought was necessary and I never use catches my eye.
Maybe Isla is a thinker, and she’ll have one of those long thinking sessions where she weighs her options and tries to predict the next three decades of her life. I don’t know. Nikola’s a big thinker, and some nights I find him alone, sitting in the dark and thinking, which is fucking creepy.
I shut the shower off and fire up the Jacuzzi.
Or is it called a spa? I have no clue, but water comes out of four sides, and I open the cabinet looking for oils or shit I’ve seen and never used in fancy hotels.
I find bath bubbles, probably from a few years back when I first bought this place.
I pop it open, sniff. Not offensive, so that’s good.
I empty the bottle into the spa and undress, then put my toe in the water.
“Fuck!” I jerk my foot back. It almost burned my skin off, and the bubbles are flying everywhere. I adjust the water to freezing cold, then, after I wait a minute, step in and sit. Oh, this is nice.
I wiggle my ass, prop my feet up, lean back, close my eyes, and, of course, grab my dick. I stroke it a few times, not that I need it to get harder. It’s been hard for a day, and my balls are up, taut and ready to unload, preferably into a pussy on the pill. Homer better have bought condoms.
A car engine sounds.
I snap open my eyes.
Was that my car?
I hear the garage door opening and a car pulling out right under me. “Isla!” I shout, and leap out of the tub. I snatch a towel, run down the stairs, and bolt out the door. Shit, my boots. I get back inside, slip on one boot, hop on one leg trying to slip on the other.
Jesus H, she’ll reach Disneyland by the time I get the boot on. I throw the second boot into the wall and rush down the outside steps, slipping and sliding on my towel-clad ass the rest of the way, and plop into the snow as my car peels down the driveway.
One booted, ass injured, I sprint down the driveway, making sure I make eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.
When she sees me, she steps on the gas, and I run faster, but there’s no way I can catch up with the car.
I’m so fucking pissed, I bellow her name at the top of my lungs.
The road curves, and she takes a wide turn, disappearing from sight.
Then I hear screeching tires and a thud. Oh my God.
I round the corner to see a deer I named Studly in the middle of the road, looking right at me with a hey there, stupid human expression. Usually when I come in during the winter, I feed him, and he knows that, so he came around. I haven’t fed him yet because I have a problem in my house.
The problem has tits and a fine ass and stands next to my car, which is now attached to the tree. Fumes simmer out of the front of the car and maybe even out of my ears.
Hands on hips, I rein in my crazy. “Are you hurt?” I ask.
She mimics my pose with both hands landing on her hips. “No, but I want to hurt you.”
“You said you don’t drive. What the fuck?” I secure the loosening towel over my middle, not yet shivering from the cold because adrenaline keeps me nice and warm. I’m so pissed that I know the best thing I can do is walk away and find my happy place, namely in thoughts of strangling her daddy.
Isla returns to the car and crawls over the front seat, then gets something from the glove compartment.
I sincerely hope it isn’t my spare piece and she intends to shoot me.
She crawls backward—her ass is fantastic—and walks to me, then slams my phone on my bare chest. She fixes her glasses. “Your wife called.”