CHAPTER FOUR – ARRIVAL AT THE CABIN #3
Everywhere I look, the place is a contradiction: old and new, savage and soft, the kind of home designed for a man who doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, but who wants to be comfortable at the end of the day and has the means to pay for it.
There are windows everywhere, floor to ceiling, with thick, oil-rubbed handles.
Most of them look out at the woods, but one faces the driveway, as if keeping a lookout for invaders.
My phone still refuses to function. I try the WiFi next, using the password scrawled at the bottom of the note (“MementoMori2020”). It connects, but the browser redirects to a single, dead webpage—just the words “No Service” and an image of a closed fist.
It’s then I hear a door click. I spin, heart battering my ribs, and find Talon standing in the threshold of the stairs, sweatpants riding low, hair damp and wild.
There’s a dusting of stubble on his jaw, and his chest is bare except for the band of tattooed birds in flight, black and bruised and glorious.
He takes me in, all at once. His gaze lingers on my coffee mug, my bare legs, the way my hair is already escaping its bun.
“Sleep okay?” he asks.
I nod, and bite my lip.
“I’m so sorry for conking out like that,” I say in a rush. “I guess I was more tired than I realized, and I must have started unpacking and lay down on the bed, and well, I guess I slept for twelve hours. I’m sorry.”
He half-smiles, something sly and lazy. “No, it’s fine. I figured you were snoozing away from the snores I heard.”
I blush fire red.
“Oh my god, I was snoring?”
He winks.
“Like a chainsaw.”
If it’s possible, I blush even brighter than before, but Talon merely smirks again.
“Hope the bed’s all right. It must be, seeing that you were so comfy.”
“It’s amazing,” I say, which is true, but I can’t help hearing how it sounds. “I mean—the bed is. The room. Everything.” Oh my god, I sound so stupid! And all of this after snoring up a storm too!
But Talon doesn’t seem to care. He comes closer, and I try not to notice how every part of him moves with dangerous confidence. He picks up a bag of beans, sniffs it, and grins. “You grind yet?”
I shake my head.
“No, I was just drinking what was in the percolator.”
His blue eyes gleam.
“Then let me show you.”
He takes the mug from my hand, his fingers brushing mine. He’s warm, and I’m instantly hotter than I have any right to be.
“Let me show you the trick,” he says. His body heat invades my space as he leans in, guiding my hands to the grinder, showing me how to set the dial “just shy of French press, but not too fine.” The closeness is nuclear.
I breathe in the scent of him, sweat and soap and something else—maybe cedar, maybe the woods outside, maybe just pure, unfiltered testosterone.
We grind beans in silence, and then he makes me another cup, adding a swirl of cream that he stirs himself.
The whole thing is a little too intimate for a man I met yesterday, but I don’t step back.
In fact, I can’t think at all because Talon McKnight is pure sex, and I have no control over what’s happening.
But my new employer seems completely at ease. He sips his coffee, then gestures for me to follow him. “You should see the rest of the place. In case of fire. Or, you know, zombies.”
I follow, trying not to stare at his back, at the ripple of his muscles under skin, at the way his ass looks in threadbare sweats.
He gives me the grand tour: the library, which is mostly crime novels and psychology texts and a few old Playboys for “artistic reference”; and the laundry room, which smells like bleach and pine.
He opens a heavy door at the end of a hall—his office. It’s dark, paper-cluttered, the air charged with the violence of unfinished stories. “This is my cave,” he says. “Stay out unless I say otherwise.”
I nod, again, tongue-tied by the intensity of the place, the man, the everything.
He leads me upstairs again, to my room, points out the big closet and the attached bathroom.
“If you need extra towels, feel free because they’re in there.
If you want to order anything special, write it down and I’ll see if we can get it in town on the next haul.
” He glances at my suitcase. “You travel light.”
“Didn’t know how long I’d be here,” I admit.
He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, and watches me. “That’s up to you.”
For a second, I want to ask what that means. Does he want me gone? Is he waiting for me to bail?
But then Talon smiles, that handsome smirk again, and the feeling in the room changes.
“Anything else you need?” he asks.
I shake my head, clutching the coffee like a weapon.
He nods, pushes off the frame, and disappears back down the hall.
“I’m going to get ready,” he calls. “Feel free to get ready too.”
The silence after he leaves is like a pressure drop.
I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to process it all—the house, the job, the man, the way my body won’t settle down.
I reach for my phone, try the number for Sweet Lies again, just in case.
Nothing. I even step onto the balcony, holding my phone aloft like a nerd, but all I get is the clean, cold air and the echo of my own heart pounding.
He’s right. I’m alone here, cut off. If he’s dangerous, I’m already dead. If he’s not, I’m going to have to survive being this turned on, all day, every day, while pretending I’m just a normal, competent human who isn’t already composing a pornographic fan fiction in her head about her boss.
Later, I see Talon out the window, chopping wood again. The axe rises and falls, and I’m hypnotized by the sweat, the power, the impossible grace of it. He looks up, catches me watching, and gives me a nod—a tiny, knowing thing.
I duck back into the room, cheeks on fire.
I want to scream. I want to run outside and throw myself at him. I want to strip his clothes off before running my tongue over those dark, swirling tattoos. I want … I want … I want …
But this isn’t about what you want, the voice in my head whispers. This job is about him.
It’s right. Of course.
But for now, I’m here. I’m ready.
And I can’t wait to see what my time with Talon McKnight will bring.