Page 15 of Wild and Wicked

“Secrets?” Gianna asked.

“I told everyone I was going back to Baltimore, but the truth is I was hoping to steal a few days alone here.”

“Oh. Shit,” Gianna said. “I’m sorry.”

“You apologize a lot.”

She thought about it and realized he was right. She’d never really noticed. But now wasn’t the time for self-reflection. It looked like her vacation was going to be cut very short. “If you’ll just give me a half hour or so, I can pack all my stuff up and clear out of here.”

“What?” Elio asked. “No. I’m not telling you to leave.”

He was being a gentleman, and very nice, but it was his family’s cabin. Obviously, he had the right of way. “It’s fine, Elio. Seriously. It’s your cabin. I’ll just gather my things and head back to Philly.”

“Thought you were sick of your apartment.” He leaned his hockey stick against the wall.

“Yeah, but it’s not like I wasn’t going back there eventually. I wasn’t escaping forever.”

Gianna grabbed the tote she’d carried her groceries in and started to open the refrigerator. Elio stepped behind her and closed it.

She glanced over her shoulder, trying to ignore the way her body woke up and paid attention whenever Elio got close to her. She wondered if there was some sort of pheromone he was releasing that caused this reaction in her. Tight nipples, butterflies in her stomach, and damp panties. The whole shebang. Not that she was getting banged.

“Elio,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’m not crashing your alone time.”

“You’re not leaving,” he stressed, still holding the fridge closed. “Actually, neither one of us is.” He followed that pronouncement by pointing at the window above the kitchen sink.

Dusk was falling, but it wasn’t full dark yet, so there was enough light left to show her that at some point while she’d been cleaning the oven, it had started snowing. Heavily.

“Oh,” she breathed.

“The roads are already covered and getting slick as the temperature drops. I fishtailed a couple times during the last mile up the mountain. There’s no way either one of us is driving out of here in that.”

She kept looking out the window, not because she was fascinated by the snow but because she needed a minute to compose herself.

She was spending the night in the cabin. With Elio.

“Um…” she finally said when the silence had drifted into that awkward stage. “Okay. Just for tonight. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He studied her face for a moment, then said, “We’ll revisit the sleeping situation later,” which was decidedly noncommittal. “I’m going to go grab my stuff from the car.” Elio turned and walked to the front door of the cabin.

“Need help?” she offered.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’d appreciate that. Unless you have plans to start scrubbing the kitchen floor and washing the windows. Wouldn’t want to keep you from your housekeeping duties.”

She narrowed her eyes at his joke, then piled on. “No worries. I was saving those chores for you.”

Gianna tugged on her boots and coat as he chuckled, the two of them walking to his car together. He grabbed a duffel from the backseat of his car and a few bags of groceries.

“Only other thing I need is on the passenger seat,” Elio said as she opened that door. She shook her head as she picked up the bright green box of Patron Silver.

“The last thing you need is tequila. There’s a liquor cabinet in there that’s already overflowing with bottles.” Gianna had been dying to combine some of the bottles to clean it out. The cabinet was something out of her nightmares with three open, nearly empty bottles of vodka, four open bottles of bourbon, and two bottles of tequila with just a couple shots left in each. What kind of lunatics opened a new bottle before the old one was finished?

“The liquor is required,” Elio said as they climbed the three stairs of the porch. He hadn’t lied about the snow turning to ice and becoming slippery. She had to hold on to the rail to steady herself on the slick surface.

“Required?” she asked as they walked back into the cabin and stripped off their coats. Elio dropped his duffel by the front door, then walked to the kitchen area to start unloading his groceries.

“I’m surprised Liza didn’t tell you. You can’t come to the cabin empty-handed. This place requires payment.”

“And you pay with liquor?” she asked, amused.

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