46. Levi
LEVI
I head out of the hotel, needing to be in the fresh air and surrounded by nature.
I’m positively fucking glowing from what happened between me and Aspen.
I hadn’t gone to her room with the intention of fucking her.
I’d genuinely just wanted to give her the pen.
I’d ordered it after the incident with the birthday cake, seeing how much she’d struggled, and had it sent to a local drop off point in the nearest town, since we don’t get deliveries to the hotel.
It was a specialty item, and I couldn’t get it locally, so I’d had to wait for it to be delivered.
I’ve never done anything like that for another person before—wanting to do something that would make their lives easier.
I certainly hadn’t done it believing it would make her want to have sex with me, though that was a definite bonus.
I hadn’t even done it to make her feel better about the now dead, asshole boyfriend, since I’d already ordered the device before all that shit went down.
No, I’d done it because I cared. And honestly, that scares the shit out of me.
I’m already trying to plan another time when I can get her alone.
It shouldn’t be too difficult. The hotel is huge, and even though it’s getting colder now, the ground already starting to freeze once the sun goes down, she was still managing to get outside with her drawing pad, or at least she had been before she found the dickhead’s car.
She’s obsessive, and I like that about her.
I also like that she has a weakness but won’t let anyone else see it.
It isn’t even something I’ve discussed with my dad, though surely he knows about her learning disability, if he knew her when she was a child.
It must have been obvious back then that she’d been way behind her peers at school.
Had he kept it a secret because he’d thought I was going to use it against her?
Or maybe it had been the opposite and he hadn’t wanted to give me a way to connect with her.
After all, it’s not as though I was ever any good at school either.
I’d always been the one getting into trouble and flunking tests I’d never had any interest in studying for.
It wasn’t that I’d had a reason, like Aspen, but more that I’d never wanted to be cooped up in a classroom or have teachers tell me what to do.
I’d wanted to roam free. Of course my mom—or the sad excuse I had for one—hadn’t known what to do with me.
I don’t think she’d even liked me. The moment I’d turned sixteen and she’d thought she could get away with sending me off with my dad without looking like a bad mother, she’d done exactly that.
Of course, she hadn’t sent me off alone.
My thoughts wander as I stroll across the ground. Is my father going to find out that I fucked Aspen?
I’m sure Aspen won’t tell him, unless she’s feeling guilty and needs to purge herself.
I’m aware that I’ve been a fucking hypocrite, after telling my dad he was supposed to wait until after the snow starts to fall and then jumping into bed with her myself.
Not that we even fucked in a bed. Still, it was his self-imposed rules, not mine, and one he broke first. I’ve been thinking about getting inside her pussy from the first moment I saw her standing outside of the hotel, my dad’s hands on her shoulders.
There’s still a tiny part of me that wonders if I should tell her to leave, to get away from here before it’s too late. But isn’t that what I’ve been telling her all along? Since the first day she got here, I’d made it clear to her that I didn’t want her here, and she’d still stayed.
Is it possible I’m starting to feel something for her?
My heart twists.
I reach the outbuildings where I store the meat for winter.
There are several huge chest freezers, and I also have game hung, ready to be processed.
We’ll need this meat when the snow falls.
While I’ll still do my best to go out and hunt, I know the wildlife will be thin on the ground, and we need to be prepared.
I find a kind of comfort in taking stock. Rhythm in the routine.
But I sense I’m not alone. The corners of the outbuilding are dark, the lights not reaching that far, and there’s a mezzanine level as well that allows for plenty of hiding spots.
Though his presence is always felt, it’s rare he lets himself be seen, even by me. He knows he’s a freak, and years of us making sure he stays hidden means he now doesn’t really know any other way of existing.
“I know you’re there,” I call out to the darkness. “Did you see?”
I think he did. He sees most of everything around here. It’s his way of staying connected to the world. But it’s not me or my dad he watches. No, it’s her.
He’s obsessed with her, as he rightly should be, and she doesn’t even know he exists.