Page 54 of Braving the Storm
Ugh. I let out a frustrated noise and decide that no good can come of sitting here with nothing but the fire, my misbehaving hormones, and my overactive imagination for company.
As I take myself off to the bedroom, my stomach flips when a familiar sound comes from outside the cabin. The rumbling hum of an engine pulls up and cuts out, followed by the heavy thud of the door closing. This is the part that I don’t know how we handle from here on out. He didn’t sleep in this bed last night, and from the way he took one look at me, scowled, and then hurled himself out the door earlier, I doubt he’s likely to tonight, either.
Even if things are awkward, I’m sick of him pretending that couch doesn’t fuck up his body. If we can’t be adults and share a bed, then I’ll be the one who sleeps in the lounge from now on.
I loiter aimlessly in the bedroom, listening to him come inside and bang around in the kitchen, before his footsteps draw closer down the hall. He won’t be coming in here. I can guarantee it’swith the intention of using the bathroom, so I pick my moment in order to corner him.
Just as he’s about to walk past, I step through the open door frame, putting myself right in his path.
“You know, most of the time, regular conversations are a two-way thing, kind of like when I ask you about your day, and you actually answer.”
Piercing blue eyes stare down at me. God, he’s so fucking nice to look at, it’s entirely unfair. Every time we’re close like this, I have to tilt my head to take him all in, and it gives me a front-row seat to the ink up his neck.
Sinfully hot tattoos I’m now fully aware extend down his chest, along his arms, with more scattered over his back too. A tapestry of stories from his life I’m so curious about, yet feel foolish if I were to dare ask.
“You really do seem to find your bite after dark, don’t you, little thorn?” His gritty voice is far too appealing.
“Are you simply planning to avoid me now?”
He folds his arms and drags a thumb across his bottom lip, studying me with that cool gaze. “I had work to do, and besides, I figured you might need some space.”
“Why? I thought I was supposed to be helping you out with the ranch job.” At least he’s talking to me, but there’s a thick blanket of tension flowing between us in the gloom of the hallway.
“Guessed you would be too busy going on yourdateto work with me today.” His lip curls in a sneer as he snarls over the word like it’s personally offended him. Oh, this man can talk. Waltzing around in his slutty gray sweatpants and a white tee that hugs all his muscles. My neck prickles, thinking about where he’s just been.
“Is that why you’ve ignored me all day? What about you? Was it Luce again tonight? Was she hunting for another lost lip gloss on the floor of your truck?”
That makes him chuckle, and not in a friendly way. It's a heartless, callous noise. He’s being a total dick, and my hand tightensaround the phone I’m still holding. I’ve got half a mind to smack him upside the head with it.
“What do you care? How was your little date anyway? Did he hold your hand, call you ma’am, and be the perfect, polite, small-town cowboy wet dream?”
I’m fuming at his belittling words. How dare he act like last night was nothing, or didn’t happen, and then to simply avoid me today and ignore me, because he’s obviously got a problem with the fact I went out for coffee.
Even though he’s the one who made arrangements for me to be able to get there and back safely. He’s the one who contacted Layla in the first place. Without her help, I would have been stranded on this mountain, and my mouth opens and shuts as I try to find the right words in order to argue back.
That’s when the man, taunting me and glaring me down, seems to spy something that snags his attention. His head cocks to one side, blue eyes narrowing in on the phone in my hand. Before I understand what is unfolding, a large tattooed hand reaches out, ripping it away from my grasp.
My stomach plummets through the floor.
Oh god.
Oh no.
Please don’t look at what is paused on that screen.
I try to claw at his arm to get it back, but this man is like a dog with a bone, and he pushes past me, making his way into the bedroom.
Steely eyes flick up to mine, glittering and more unsettling than I’ve ever experienced before now.
As he sinks down on the edge of the bed, with my phone in his big palm, he presses play, and the sound blares through the room like a demonic roar as the announcer on the recording reveals my dirty little secret to the crowd… and also the man giving me an entirely unreadable expression.
Ladies and gents, give it up for Stôrmand ‘Storm’ Lane.
Chapter 18
I’m squirming in place.
Would this mountainside and cabin kindly open up a giant sinkhole and swallow me alive because my uncle is holding my phone in his impossibly large hands, seeing on screen the pathetic evidence of my crush, my obsession, my whatever the fuck you want to call this kind of unhealthy behavior.
