Because thehousehe had mentioned?
It wasn’t a house.
It was a cabin with large windows that looked like it was built to fit into the forest. The siding was painted a gorgeous dark green, framed and decorated with modern but rustic-looking wood.
There was a large, cozy front porch with a gigantic swing on it, and I could see a big, roundish lake behind it through the trees.
“This is your house?” I finally asked.
“Yeah.” Nico’s voice was more gravelly than I’d heard it before.
I looked over at him. “Are you okay?”
He jerked his head. His face was stonier than I’d seen it, and something in his eyes looked sort of wolfy.
“You don’t look okay.”
He grunted.
That was lovely.
Maybe he was going to murder me after all.
I definitely shouldn’t have let him drive me to his house in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn’t blame my stupidity on sleep deprivation anymore. Only horniness. And possibly my obsession with fictional characters.
But hey, there was no going back now. I wasn’t going to escape him. Might as well see if the inside of his house was as gorgeous as the outside.
I held out my hands for my keys, just in case an opportunity to escape arose. He gave them to me.
Then I unbuckled my seatbelt, and slipped out of the car.
Nico followed silently.
His front door was unlocked when I reached it. At least if he was going to murder me, the police would be able to get in easily to find my body. My friends and I shared locations on our phones for safety’s sake, so they’d be able to tell the cops where to look.
I opened the door and found…
A normal house.
I could see a lot of it from where I stood.
The flooring looked like real wood, stained in a neutral shade somewhere between light and dark. The walls were a soft, creamy color that felt comfortable. The few frames hanging up featured gorgeous photos of wild parts of the forest. I couldn’t imagine that anyone without paws could get to those places.
There were a few signs of life—a couple of dishes in the sink. A blanket left haphazardly on the couch. A stool pulled out a few feet from the kitchen’s island.
Nothing was incredibly fancy, but it was all nice. Pretty. Comfortable.
Nico disappeared into the bedroom long enough to swap the towel he was still wearing for some clothes
While he was gone, I opened the single shut door off to my left and peered inside. The room was empty, but I didn’t think that was recent. It didn’t smell like paint or anything.
I heard his quiet footsteps on the wood as he came back.
“I was going to turn that into an office, but I’ve never needed one,” Nico explained.
I tried not to snoop too much, but my feet carried me across the room. I leaned over the windowsill, staring out into the forest.
There were no other houses in sight.
