2. Chapter 2 - Kip
Chapter 2 - Kip
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L ying in bed, I tried to sleep off yet another alcohol-induced stupor when a piercing scream woke me out of a dead sleep. I froze, staying as still as possible, trying to quiet any noise as I strained my ears to hear it again from my bedroom.
I stopped breathing completely, waiting for it to prove to myself that it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. Living in silence and solitude like I did, could make a man second guess his gut after long enough. Even someone like me with the particular set of skills I possessed.
But then, on the next gust of wind, that shrill scream found me again through the walls of my cabin.
I swung my feet from my bed and into my boots in one swift motion, one that came from muscle memory after years of repetition. Even though hours ago I’d hardly been able to crawl up the stairs to my bed. Crossing the room, I pulled my flannel on as I headed towards the stairs. When my boots hit the wood floor downstairs, Endeavor, my giant Cane Corso dog, stood by the door waiting for me already.
I quickly had my sidearm holstered and my jacket on, as I grabbed my rifle and threw the door open.
Dev shot off the porch with his nose to the ground as I paused at the edge, listening again for that pained wail.
I was confident it was a human scream, not an animal, though I could have been wrong. The wind was whipping around me, covering me with snow rapidly as the storm raged on overhead.
Dev stopped sniffing and tuned his ears in as he looked around. He was trying frantically to figure out the direction it came from. Once more, the echoed pain pierced the air, but it reverberated off all the trees around me as I tried to pinpoint a direction or even a distance.
But it was impossible.
The storm was too strong to be sure of anything. I looked over at Endeavor as he stared back at me, but even his ears couldn’t pinpoint where the noise came from .
“We can’t chance it boy, we could both get killed in the storm and we don’t even know which way to go.” I sighed, slumping back into the house, leaving the front door open for him to follow when he was ready.
I shucked off my now completely covered outer clothes and walked over to the large fireplace to throw a few more logs on as the fog of the whiskey fell back over my mind and the adrenaline slowed down in my veins.
Who would be out in the storm so strong? There were no other houses or even camps within a twenty-mile radius, which was why I chose the property to isolate myself from the world and avoid interacting with anyone. Yet someone had tried to face off with Mother Nature. And by the time I got out there at first light, they’d be a popsicle.
If the bears and wolves didn’t get to them first.
Dev came back in shortly after me and curled up by the fire as I shut and locked the front door once more before leaning back in my recliner. I stayed out of bed in case something else happened before morning. I wanted to be ready in case there was a chance to help the poor soul.
After laying there for hours, listening for more screams, sleep pulled me under aided by the liquor I drank. Because the night was silent, and the screams had stopped.
There was one thing I’d learned in my disastrous life; the silence could be more deafening than a scream.
I woke again before the first light as I always did and readied myself and Endeavor for the hike to find what made those awful screams. The snow had stopped sometime around five and as we crossed the buried ground, Endeavor quickly put his nose to work, trying to differentiate any of the surrounding scents. The wind was blowing in from the east all night and given that I heard the screams when the wind blew; I figured that was the direction they came from.
So we headed east, Endeavor and I were on a mission like the old days. The days before my entire world had imploded and ended.
We walked in silence for about two miles, Dev in the lead, both of our heads on a swivel. At one point, he stopped dead in his tracks before quickly turning back to look at me and he took off to his right at a full run, with his nose to the ground still.
“Dev! Slow down!” When he showed no sign of stopping, I took off after him as carefully as I could while still trying to keep my eyes peeled on the horizon. Predators lurked throughout the woods, and given the time of year, the cold starvation would make them do anything for their next meal.
I watched as my best friend ran down a dip in the terrain and grimaced as it took him out of my line of sight. “Dev!”
I sprinted up over the knoll, skidding to a stop when I came across him again, frozen in place. Almost completely invisible to the untrained eye, a pile of snow laid out of place against the flat ground. I knew the storm did not create the pile as it was in the exact spot where I had set up a snare a couple of days ago, between two logs.
Whatever kind of animal got stuck in it was big enough that it should have been able to muscle its way out, but it hadn’t. And now, it lay dead on the ground where the storm had buried it with snow overnight .
I quietly squared my body off to the pile as I took the safety off my rifle. If it wasn’t dead yet, me coming up on it may spook it enough to make it attack, and while it was smaller than me, it was still probably dangerous. Perhaps a large bobcat, or wolf. If it was a bear, it was a yearling, but even then, it could still do serious damage to me if it got the chance.
“Dev, heel.” I quietly commanded, trying my best to keep my voice low. But for the first time since he was just a puppy, my faithful companion disobeyed me and edged closer to the pile. “Endeavor, no. Come!” I gritted out authoritatively, while also praying he would listen.
But of course, he didn’t.
He looked back at me quickly before sniffing and walking even closer to the pile. He cautiously sniffed it, gently touching the new snow with the tip of his nose before emitting a pained whimper as he raised his paw to uncover the creature.
I drew my rifle level with the pile, anticipating it to jump up and lunge for my dog, but it didn’t move. Endeavor cleared some snow off his side of the pile before letting out a loud bark and looking up at me expectantly. He dug at the animal earnestly, using both his paws and gigantic body to push the snow off it .
I was looking, but couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It wasn’t fur that he had started
to uncover, but a jacket and jeans.
“Dear God.” I cursed and dashed over to Dev as I realized the snow-covered object was a person. The snow had accumulated so much that the body was much smaller than what I’d originally thought. I muttered out loud, “Please, don’t be dead,” as I removed my gloves and carefully flipped the body from its side to its back. At that moment, I gasped as all the air was sucked right out of my lungs.
A woman lay on the ground before me, buried beneath a foot or more of snow. Her dark hair, matted and frozen, clung to her face and hood as I tried my best to move it and see her face. Bruises and cuts covered her face.
My military training came back to the forefront of my brain, even after years of lying dormant, and I assessed the rest of her body as quickly as I could. Her skin had a blue tinge from the cold, and as I pulled her jacket apart at her throat to check for a pulse, I noticed she was wearing only thin clothing underneath. Her clothing was not suitable for a fall-time stroll in the south, let alone a brutal winter here in the mountains. I stared at her chest and lips, waiting to feel her heartbeat.
I saw nothing but faintly felt a pulse along her jugular. Dropping my ear down to her face, I checked for life escaping her lips.
Dev whined from his side impatiently as he laid down along her, putting his big blockhead across her chest, trying to warm her up. At that moment, I could hear the heavy exhale of air coming from her chest as she strained under the weight of his head resting on her.
“She’s breathing! Let’s go!” I yelled. As I tried to scoop her into my arms, I noticed her hand and all the blood that colored the surrounding snow.
My trap.
Shit!
How the fuck did she get her hand trapped in the snare? Without a doubt, it was her screams I’d heard last night. Her screams pierced the air as the metal of my trap twisted into her hand, rendering her helpless and alone in the frigid snow where she would have frozen to death had I not heard her.
Despite her being alive, the possibility of death still loomed over her.
Because of me .
I quickly and as gently as I could released the trap from her hand before taking the bandana off from around my neck to wrap around it. It wasn’t actively bleeding, but I couldn’t let her lose any more blood or strength on the journey back to my cabin. As I wrapped it tightly, a soft moan slipped from her lips, laced with pain as a slight frown creased her brow before fading completely. There was a small bag next to her I scooped up and threw over my back for the journey.
“I’m sorry, stay with me now. I’ll get you warm in just a minute.”
Lifting her into my arms, adjusting her body to support her head against my chest, tucked under my chin, I whistled for Dev, “Let’s go, boy.” He was already tromping on ahead, back towards the cabin.
From my long career as a Marine and my time in the northern woods living off the land, I had become accustomed to carrying heavy gear long distances, so I quickly covered the distance between the snare and the warmth of my home.
When I got inside, I laid the girl down on the couch and quickly began ridding myself of my outer clothes and boots .
I watched her intently as I did so, waiting for any movement or noise to escape her body to prove she was still alive. But she just laid there across my couch, motionless and silent. When I was dry, I threw more wood on the fire before carefully taking her thin jacket off her shoulders, careful not to jostle her any more than I needed to.
I wasn’t used to handling such a small woman; my large, calloused hands easily dwarfed her small limbs. She was the size of a teenager, but one look at her curves told me she was mature beyond those years, though my guess was not by much. Once I got rid of her jacket, her thin short-sleeved shirt left a lot of blue-hued skin bare to my eyes and the warm air of my home. The sight of her blue, cold skin was alarming enough, but the harsh bruises on her arms and chest added to the concern. They were angry-looking and covered nearly every inch of her skin.
“What happened to you, bambina ?” I whispered softly before I realized what I’d called her. My grandfather always called my grandmother Bambina . It meant little girl in Italian.
She was younger than him and when they had first met; he thought she was an annoying little girl from the neighborhood, even though she persisted and worked her way into his heart over the years. He fondly continued to call her that throughout their marriage, in his way to remind her she was young at heart and small and feminine in his arms.
I shook off the memory and the fondness inside of me and went back to the task at hand. Regardless of what I thought of her, she needed to get out of the clothes she was wearing and into warm dry ones or she didn’t stand a chance.
As I carefully removed her clothes, I uncovered a multitude of bruises and contusions, revealing the extent of her injuries. I tried to concentrate on the logical reason that I was stripping her clothes off, but even beneath the bruises, blood, and dirt, she was beautiful.
Gorgeous even.
Her body curved and filled out in the ways an old pin-up model did in such a feminine and lush way. She was incredible to look at and as I took her soaked bra off and slid her panties down; I had to bite back the groan that threatened to rip from my chest at the sight of her bare skin.
My cock grew painfully erect in my pants as I sat there for a moment and gazed down at her.
Dev’s sudden bark echoed through the room, causing me to jump and bringing me back to the present moment. He caught me ogling her and called me out on it in his own way.
I felt like such a fucking pervert.
Fuck.
I was such a fucking pervert.
She was lying on my couch, hardly alive, and here I was staring down at her naked body that was built after that of a goddess, with a raging hard-on, thinking about how good it would feel to sink myself deep into her plush little body.
Fuck!
It had been way too long since I’d been with a woman, and my predicament was not helping. And it sure wasn’t helping her.
I quickly snatched the throw blanket from the back of the couch and tenderly wrapped it around her body. Then, I lifted her up in my arms, trying to ignore the sensation of her warm breath tickling my neck or the way her curves fit perfectly in my arms. I shook my head again and made quick work of the stairs leading up to the loft bedroom above the living area. It was further from the fire, but the heat rose, and my bed had heavy blankets to warm her up quickly.
As I sat down on the bed, I held her up against my body as I pulled down the bedding to make room for her in the center. I took my long-sleeved shirt off the end of the bed and slid it on over her head before pulling it down and covering up her beautiful body.
She had to be in incredible pain, and the jostling I was doing was no doubt increasing her agony, but it needed to be done. Her head lolled to the side as I moved her again. She groaned as her head jarred and her face contorted in pain when I adjusted her with my hands on her sides, over the top of her ribs.
“Shh, I’m sorry. Let me get you settled, and the pain will end.”
Her icy fingers fell to my thigh, below the hem of my shorts, and the contrast between my overly warm skin and her ice-coldness caused us both to shiver.
She moaned again and mumbled something as I slid her limp body under the sheets and blankets, bringing them up to right below her chin. Her icy hair began dripping on the pillow as the heat thawed the clumps free .
Filled with worry, I swiftly gathered a clean towel and a complete set of first aid supplies from the bathroom, eager to return to her side before she woke up feeling frightened and all by herself. But when I got back up to the bed, she lay there as still and silent as when I left her.
Her hand was my first priority to tend to, given it was an open wound. It was gnarly looking, but from where the teeth entered; I didn’t think it was broken. I wouldn’t know for sure until she woke up and tried moving it, though. So I cleaned and wrapped it and then simply watched her, waiting for her to wake up.
I sat there on the edge of my bed, gazing down at her for hours before I moved again. The pink color returned to her skin as she warmed up under the blankets in my bed and I let myself relax a little with each improvement. She slept peacefully all day with me just sitting there watching over her, unable to get up and walk away.
As the sun started setting in the sky outside of the loft windows, I lifted the blankets, placing my hand on her bare leg to see if her skin was warming up as it should be, while also checking her toes for signs of frostbite .
Her head turned to the side on the pillow, like she was searching for where the hand on her was coming from, a soft crease between her brows formed in confusion.
“Mmh.” Soft as a whisper, the moan slipped through her lips when my hand moved back up her calf, gently tracing the lines of her leg until I reached her knee. The gentleman in me made me stop right above the joint when to be honest, I wanted to do anything but.
The only noise in the room was my breathing, it had turned ragged and labored the second my fingers contacted her flesh. Her body had such an effect on mine, and I couldn’t explain why, because she wasn’t even awake.
“Warm. You’re so warm.” She moaned louder, her voice cracked as she spoke for the first time, as she reached her good hand out and placed it on my hand on her thigh.
I couldn’t look away.
I was going to hell for it.
When I looked up at her face, her eyes were open.
I could have drowned in them right then and there and died a happy man. They were so different from the ones I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Those eyes so long ago had been clear blue, they looked like the depths of the ocean on a sunny day. Yet the eyes staring back at me were incredibly dark green. In the low light, her eyes nearly glowed, fanned by dark sultry lashes. The flecks of gold in her iris’ matched the gold and auburn freckles on her cheeks and nose.
Everything about the woman differed from my Molly.
Every. Single. Thing.
And I couldn’t figure out why I was so attracted to her despite them.
My hand stilled on her body as our eyes stayed locked on one another.
At first, I thought my touch alarmed her, but I quickly realized she was still disoriented, and she showed no fear when she found my hand wrapped around her thigh.
Neither of us said anything as she slowly came out of the fog and detached her fingers from between mine and laid her hand across her stomach, which was fluttering with rapid breaths. Her eyes left mine briefly to look around the room before landing on mine again.
“Where am I?” Her voice, rough and scratchy, trembled as she asked the question. Beneath the hoarseness, I could hear the honey of it though, and felt my cock pulse in my shorts. The motion caught her eye, and she looked down at the large bulge tenting the fabric.
Finally, her eyes widened with panic, and she glanced back up at me one last time.