Chapter Three
ANSON
She did it. I can’t believe she fucking did it. My grandmother used me for her mail-order bride scheme, and now this… this sweet, young woman is standing on my goddamn porch looking up at me with her light blue eyes like I hung the moon in the night sky.
And she is sweet. From her caramel blonde hair to the little cherries on her white dress.
She even smells like sugar, tempting me to find out if she’ll taste like cherries too.
It hits me low and hard, going straight to my cock.
My gaze drags over her curves, slow and greedy, before I can stop myself.
Plump breasts. Soft hips. Thick thighs that I want to trace with my palms. I never had much room in my life for women.
But if I did? Thick, soft, and smelling like sugar?
A little shy, a little sunshine? Yeah, she’s perfect.
And that’s a problem, because my brain is feeding me images I shouldn’t be having.
Like kissing her when she’s pinned beneath me, or exploring her silky skin and the wet heat between her thighs.
I shut that shit down hard and scrub a hand down my face like I can wipe my thoughts away, then remind myself that I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone.
No matter what Dottie and Avery think.
What the hell do I do with her though? There’s no car in my driveway, so I can’t return her to sender. The sun has already slipped behind the trees, and the temperature is dropping. I can’t leave her on my porch. She’ll have to stay until tomorrow when Dottie can come get her.
In my cabin. Within reach.
Fuck.
I should open the door wider. Step back and let her in.
But only one other person has been inside this cabin since I moved in a year and a half ago, and only because he’s been helping with the work to fix the cabin up.
Inviting someone else across the threshold, into the space I built to shut the world out, seems wrong. And yet…
“Come on,” I hear myself say, and step back to let her inside. Except I don’t move far enough back, and as she enters, pulling her glittery pink suitcase behind her, her arm brushes against my chest.
My breath catches in my lungs for some unknown reason, and it’s a full second before I breathe again. I don’t know what the fuck that was, but it was damned uncomfortable. I close the door behind her and lock it.
She’s looking around my cabin, and I wonder what she thinks.
The place was one strong breeze away from falling in on itself when I came.
Ezra had new windows put in to keep the family of raccoons out, but other than that, nothing had been done in the five years since the previous owner, old man Stills, had moved into the local nursing home.
Every refinished floorboard and resurfaced cabinet were done by me, with help from Ezra.
Some of the local ex-military guys living on this mountain helped with the roof and the porches until this cabin became a home. My home.
“Wow, Anson, it’s amazing. It looks like something out of a catalog.”
Warmth fills my chest at the compliment. “It’s not much.”
“You do have a certain minimalist style. Not a knickknack in sight.”She grins at me, and the dimples in her cheeks make my damn heart flip-flop.
I have the sudden urge to trace my thumb over those little indents. To pull her closer and fill all my senses with the sweet, sugary scent of her skin before I kiss her.
Jesus Christ, Blackwood. Get it together, for fuck’s sake. You’ve seen beautiful women before.
Except I can’t remember the last time I was this near to one. When was the last time I had sex? I haven’t even thought about it in months. Maybe longer. A lot longer. My cock is responding to her, filling until it shows beneath my sweats.
This is a disaster, and there’s only one person to blame. “Make yourself at home. I need to make a call.”
Ellie crosses her arms over her chest, which pushes her breasts together and plumps them up against the neckline of her dress.
I drag my gaze off those creamy white mounds up to meet her eyes. She’s biting her lower lip, looking nervous.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
No sense in lying. “Sorry. I wish I did.” I hadn’t meant to say the second part, and I’m surprised to realize that it’s true.
“What about the messages? You didn’t send them? You didn’t pay for my plane ticket? First class?”
Goddammit Dottie. Ellie looks like she’s on the verge of tears because I’m not who she thinks I am. “No.” I step closer. To do what, I have no idea. Comforting women isn’t something I know how to do. Even with my grandmother and sister. “I think this is my grandmother’s doing. Dottie is?—”
“Dottie? Does she work for Perfect Pairings?”
“She is Perfect Pairings. It’s something she and her matchmaking friends dreamed up for lonely idiots…” Her brows scrunch together. “Uh, lonely mountain men. Like me, apparently. Let me call her. We’ll work this out.”
Ellie nods, looking like a dejected doll.
I clench my fist to keep from reaching for her. To… put my arms around her? Tell her it’s okay? I’m not that kind of man. I’m the opposite. The last person a soft, pretty woman like Ellie should get close to.
I grab my phone off the counter and step out onto the porch. The night air is cool and calm, with the slight rustle of pines and the chirping of insects. Stars are beginning to appear above as the sun slowly sets. I pace across the porch, dialing Dottie. It goes straight to voicemail.
I hang up and press the call button a second time.
Voicemail again. My teeth clench when I hear her recording.
She always answers her phone. That she isn’t now is more than suspect.
“Dottie, you better have forgotten to plug in your phone and are not screening my calls.” I hang up and redial.
“You put a sweet girl full of hopes and dreams on a plane and now she’s on my porch .
If this is your idea of a joke, I’m revoking your Wi-Fi. Call me.”
I disconnect the call and shove the phone in my back pocket.
Goddammit, she’s meddling in people’s lives.
Ellie can’t be more than twenty-one years old, and she packed up her sparkly suitcase to marry a total stranger because my grandmother thought she’d be a good match?
Aside from the fact that she’s at least a decade younger than me, who matches the picture of innocence with a man who bleeds darkness?
No one deserves to be ambushed like this.
Biting back a growl, I yank open the door and step back into the cabin, trying to figure out how to resolve this. And stop cold.
Ellie is standing in front of the fire warming her fingers. She turns at the sound of my boots and quickly swipes a tear from her face.
I move closer, clocking the moisture rimming her eyes and the rise and fall of her chest. The sniffles and the way she clenches her hands.
She’s upset, but the longer I look, the more I see.
A fine tremor runs through her body; her shoulders are stiff, and there’s a hell of a lot more than uncertainty in those blue eyes. There’s worry, and beneath that, fear.
I freeze, not wanting to scare her more. She’s in a stranger’s house. My house. Hell, even the men I call friends have hesitated at times when around me. Like they can sense I no longer have a soul. Even though I don’t want Ellie here, I sure as hell don’t want to scare her away either.
Ellie takes a hesitant step toward me, then another. The scent of vanilla surrounds us. “Did you reach her?”
My breath catches. She’s looking at me with a mixture of hope and dread, and that’s when I realize… Ellie isn’t scared of me. She’s afraid of going back to wherever she came from. Petrified of it.
All the questions I’d pushed aside because I’m pissed at Dottie come rushing back. What makes a beauty like Ellie sign up to be a mail-order bride to a total stranger on a remote mountain? She doesn’t seem the type to crave solitude.
Something made this sweet girl run, and she found me. I don’t know whether to thank Dottie or yell at her more. Right now, I can’t do either.
Ellie’s trying not to fall apart. The least I can do is offer safety. For tonight. “Guess you’re staying.”
She visibly exhales, shoulders dropping with relief. “Thank you.” She smiles, sweet and polite, like she didn’t just rock my foundation with one vulnerable look.
I glance away before I do something stupid, like see if she tastes as good as she smells. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
“Right.”
A few beats of silence pass. Normally, I relish the quiet. Right now, it feels awkward and unsettling.
“So, um, I can sleep on the couch.” She waves at the sofa. “Do you have a blanket and pillow I could borrow?”
Shit, I hadn’t even thought about sleeping arrangements. I stare at the couch for a long beat. This is the first time in recent memory that I will have another person sleeping in my proximity. As my missions grew more dangerous, I refused to share space with anyone, never knowing who I could trust.
Ellie effuses innocence. It’s not her trust I’m concerned about. What if I have a nightmare and she witnesses it?
“Anson?”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. Let me find something.” I turn down the hall, cursing myself, Dottie, and this whole intolerable situation. I’ll have to stay awake all night. It’s the only solution.
“Have you had dinner?” Ellie calls after me. “I’ve been traveling all day, and I’m hungry.”
I turn. “Dinner?”
“I mean, it’s late, and I know this isn’t exactly normal.
I can cook, although I’m a better baker.
Once, I even took a barbecue cooking class, but the instructor was arrested for selling drugs and I never finished.
I’m sure I can make something edible though.
It’s the least I can do since you are letting me stay. ”
“You don’t have to.”
“Please? I want to do something.” She looks so hopeful, I can’t turn her down. Besides, she doesn’t want my cooking. She could burn toast, and it would still taste better.
I nod.
Ellie practically dances into my kitchen and starts digging in the refrigerator. Ezra helped me put it in about a month ago, and there still isn’t much in it. I need a trip to the grocery store, but I’ve been avoiding going into White Falls. Small town or not, there are too many people.
I find a pillow in the hall closet which will do.
There’s an extra blanket at the end of my bed.
I head into my room and grab it, then pause.
Goddammit, I can’t make her sleep on the couch.
It’s not her fault my grandmother has us dancing on strings like fucking puppets.
Maybe I suck at conversation, but at least I can give her a comfortable bed for the night.
I’ll take the couch, and she can sleep here.
Setting the pillow and blanket aside, I tug open the chest of drawers until I find a spare set of clean sheets and make quick work of changing the bed.
A few minutes later, I return to the living area and dump the pillow and blanket on the couch.
The house smells like soup. Ellie is in my kitchen, humming to herself.
She’s kicked off her shoes and stands there barefoot in her little cherry dress with her honey-colored hair up in a messy bun.
Her hips sway as she dances to her tune, completely at ease as I come up behind her.
Jesus Christ. She looks like she lives here.Like she belongs in my kitchen.
Before I can process that, she shimmies her hips to the tune, and I’m distracted by the sight.
Her ass looks round and plump. Perfect for my hands.
An image of bending her over the counter and pushing her dress up to reveal those perfect globes blasts into my mind, stealing every ounce of blood and brain cells.
My cock fills until it presses against my sweats.
I’d place a palm in the middle of her back, holding her down, while shoving the fabric aside with the other until I was tracing her silky skin and the heat between her thighs. Maybe drop to my knees behind her and taste that honeyed heaven.
I step forward without thought, closing the distance until I’m inches from being pressed against her back. She’s barely taller than Dottie and her head just reaches my shoulder. Perfect. That warm vanilla sugar scent fills my lungs, robbing me of my senses.
“Ellie,” I breathe.
Her hips still, and she slowly looks up at me over her shoulder.
I take in her pretty face and the plush pink lips that are calling to me. The perfect view of her breasts, down her arms to the delicate shape of her hands.
I swallow over the sudden lump in my throat, and ask, “Why are you using my Ka-Bar to cut cheese?”