I looked toward the window with the torrential downpour swallowing the world outside.
“No, apparently, it’s not,” I said with a sigh.
Viktor
The storm lasted two days. Two fucking days. Normally, it didn’t bother me so much. Mother Nature liked to rage from time to time, and honestly, I got it. I had those days, too.
But with Angela here, it changed everything.
On the one hand, I was happy about the storm. It was a reason to keep Angela with me, and she couldn’t fight me on it. She was getting antsy to get back home, and I didn’t blame her. But with the blip getting closer, and since she’d gone into town with me and introduced herself, told people she was staying with me, it was a risk I didn’t want to take, allowing her to leave.
It also made me feel less guilty about the fact that I hadn’t done anything about a date with her. Time was passing, but we’d had to stay in. So it made sense not to plan a night out. And that blip worried me, too. Going into town now would be like waving a red flag, saying “here I am”.
Speaking of blips, that was the part that pissed me off about this weather. I hadn’t been able to go back to the mountainside to check my equipment for movement. The plane had landed a day and a half ago, if they were headed here. It was dangerous as fuck for me to head out into the rocky terrain with the lightning dancing around the way it did. It was a good way to get fried, which wouldn’t do anyone any good.
I was getting anxious. That was a problem. I still didn’t know how the fuck they’d found me. Not to mention the fact that Angela was in trouble now, too. I didn’t want her to go, but I didn’t want her here either.
I was torn in two. Send her away and risk her getting hurt? Keep her here and risk them finding her when they came for me?
On a different note, we were running short of food. I’d stocked up for a long time. I went to town once every six months, usually, to load up on provisions. The rest of the time I hunted, made it work with food straight from the Earth. But with Angela here, we were going through my food much faster. And with the storm, I wasn’t able to hunt. So the food went faster still as we dipped into my non-perishables.
By the end of day two, just before it started growing dark again, the rain eased up enough for me to want to risk getting out and taking care of a meal or two.
“What are you doing?” she asked as I shrugged into my hunting jacket and boots.
“I’m getting us something to eat.”
She looked horrified. “You’re going out hunting in the rain?”
“If we want to eat, yes.”
She stared at me for a second, then glanced out the window. “Can I come?”
Surprised, I lifted my eyes from my gun, which I’d been loading. “You want to come?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “I mean, I’ve never been hunting. Not sure I’ll like it, but I’m here and I’m bored. I might as well try something I’ve never done.”
I frowned, wondering if she’d could handle the actual killing of something, and I’d planned to use the free time to check my satellites again. In the short time since I’d checked, probably nothing had happened. I looked at her again, an unfamiliar grin on my face. She made me so fucking happy. Dangerously happy.
“Are you sure you can take it?” I asked her seriously. A flash of defiance in her eyes intrigued me. She was so strong.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m going to shoot an animal,” I told her, trying not to sound condescending and failing.
She snorted derisively. “I know what hunting means, Viktor. And I’d like to go.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
As she walked for the door, I grabbed her around the waist and held on tight, kissing her soundly on the lips. When she stepped back, we were both breathless.
She smiled sexily at me and murmured, “You’re very possessive.”
“Angel, if you saw yourself the way I saw you, you would be too.” I put my hand on her cheek, and when she leaned into my touch. Her positive response to me was all I needed. And I would keep her safe no matter the cost.
“Come,” I said. “Before the sun goes down.”
“Not that it’s out now,” she commented dryly, eliciting a quiet chuckle from me. She laughed aloud and teased, “Oh he can laugh!”
I grunted. “I can laugh…if something is funny.”
She sniffed haughtily, a big grin on her beautiful face. “I’ll have to try harder to be funny, then.”
We stepped outside, and I felt lighter than I had in years. My Angel brought it out, the positive, the joy. She almost made me forget the negative, the ugliness that had been my life.
I glanced at her as we walked outside. “The sky will be grey and overcast for a while still. When it rains like this, the sun doesn’t show for days on end sometimes.”
“How gloomy.”
“It’s still light enough to hunt by, and that’s all we need,” I said.
She nodded and followed me off the porch. I scanned the area, looking for something, someone, between the trees that shouldn’t be there, just in case. But the forest was quiet save for the light drizzle that pattered against the leaves above. A fine mist reached us, the leaves blocking most of the rain.
The animals that had sought shelter during the two days’ storm would all be out now, looking for food while the rain let up. I took the gun I kept inside the door with me.
“Where did you get that?” Angela asked, glancing at the gun.
“I always have one in the cabin. For hunting.”
“I haven’t seen it,” she said.
“I don’t leave it lying around.”
She nodded, looking unsure. She wasn’t comfortable around guns, that was clear. To me, guns were like an extension of my own arm, a safety precaution a man could always rely on, if he took care of them.
Precaution…the thought sent a jolt through me. I hadn’t once asked Angela if she was on birth control. And she hadn’t insisted on a condom once. Shit. I really was a son of a bitch. Selfish as fuck, not even thinking about the long run.
“You’re on birth control, right?” I asked.
Angela laughed. “A bit late to be asking, isn’t it?”
I grunted a response, feeling a little awkward.
“I get the shot, thank goodness,” she told me. “It lasts three months, so no pills to be missed this week. Don’t worry about it. Unless you’re stressed about STD’s. In which case…” She cleared her throat and looked down, a silly expression on her face.
I chuckled and grabbed her, kissing her. “That’s right. Virgin.”
“Not anymore,” she whispered with a smile.
“No, Malen kiy. Not anymore.” I couldn’t help but grin with pride. There was something about taking a woman, about being her first. And the fact that no one had been there before me made my cock punch out for another round. I wasn’t going to let anyone else close to her after me, either.
We walked into the forest. I moved through the trees, keeping my eyes and ears open for something to shoot. Behind me, Angela stepped on twigs, on leaves as if she were looking for the loudest possible path.