But if no one came to clean it up… how was I going to get out of there? And where the hell was my truck?
As we stood, looking at the carnage, rain started falling. At first, it was just a rustle in the leaves above, the sound beautiful, but the water didn’t reach us. As it penetrated the leaves, though, the water splashed on my face, wetting my hair and dripping on my clothes. I shivered, suddenly cold. The rips in my clothing did nothing to keep me warm.
“Come,” Viktor said. “We need to get back to shelter.”
“Is there no way I can get home?”
Viktor shook his head. “The main route back to Grizzly Falls was washed away.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s my business to know,” he stated. He turned and walked up the slope.
I scrambled after him. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the truth,” he told me. “The mountain road is impassable for now.”
“But I need to get home!” Thunder rumbled above me, scaring me a little. I actually ducked, then looked up at the menacing sky. “Whoa!”
“Come, Malen kiy. You don’t want to be caught out here in a storm.”
As he said it, the rain fell harder, falling around us like there were no leaves blocking the water from above. The forest disappeared in the torrential downpour. The water came down in sheets, changing the scenery so that nothing looked like it had before.
I followed Viktor, trusting that he knew where to go. Because I had no idea.
When we returned to the cabin, we were both soaked to the bone. Viktor opened the door and let me get out of the rain first before he ducked in through the doorway behind me. I turned around and he was very close to me. I had stopped too soon, and he’d rushed to get in out of the rain. Our bodies were so close together, I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. His chest rose and fell as he looked down at me, and his eyes were filled with things I didn’t know how to put to words.
Viktor lifted his hand and brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek. His caress was always so gentle. I shivered when he touched me.
“You should get out of your wet clothes,” he murmured. His voice was a deep baritone, caressing my skin. It made me want to press my ear against his chest to listen to the sound rumbling through me. I wanted his hands to skim over my skin instead.
I wanted him to help me peel the soaked clothing from my body.
But his words broke the spell, and I took a small step away from him, both for the sake of being polite, and for my own sanity.
“How will I get home?” I asked again. My voice was breathy. I swallowed, trying to pull myself together.
“You’ll have to ride out the storm here with me,” Viktor said. “It won’t last forever.”
I nodded. I didn’t have a choice. There was nowhere else to go. And the idea of being stranded here with him wasn’t altogether a bad one. Even if the storm did last forever…
“I’ll go change,” I said, jerking myself into action lest I stand there staring at him like a fool again.
On the way to the bathroom I grabbed my phone. The battery was still charged, which surprised me. I didn’t use it - without signal there wasn’t much I could do on it. I didn’t want to be rude and make Viktor feel like I didn’t feel welcome. I was grateful for his hospitality, but I was starting to worry about checking in with the people who expected me home by now. My mom would be going crazy with worry.
While I was locked in the bathroom, towelling off my hair, I tried to dial out. I needed to speak to my mom, or someone who could let her know I was okay. And someone needed to know where I was.
The call didn’t go through. The no-signal tone was loud in my ear. I sighed and lowered the phone. I typed a text and sent it, hoping if there was some kind of signal at any point, the message would go through.
Viktor
She wanted to go into town, but I couldn’t let her leave. No way in fucking hell. Not only was it dangerous out there as the earth continuing to rearrange itself every couple of days, but I didn’t know who she might tell about me.
When a woman met a mysterious man in the mountains, she would tell her girlfriends about it, if no one else. There were too many pieces to pick up. The missing truck. Insurance claims. Hospital visits if it turned out she wasn’t okay for whatever reasons.
And the moment anyone got wind of the tattooed Russian who lived in the mountain, it was my ass on the line. Maksim kept a finger on the pulse. He would be looking for me, and he wasn’t an idiot. He knew I wasn’t in Russia anymore. He might have looked for me there, threatened the right people, bribed a few more. He would have found out where I’d crossed the border.
If Maksim was anything, he was resourceful.
I couldn’t let Angela out of my sight, and as long as I could use the mountainside disaster as a reason, she wouldn’t give me too much trouble about it. She was feisty as fuck, and unless I told her the truth about why I needed her to keep quiet about it, she would do as she damn well pleased.
She just didn’t understand why that would be the worst thing she could ever do to me. And I wasn’t going to tell her.
The last thing I wanted was for her to find out what a monster I was. When she looked at me, there wasn’t hatred in her eyes. In fact, it was more akin to affection. Although that was just my fucked-up mind twisting shit to make it work for me. Because if someone like Angela could like me, I couldn’t be that bad, could I?
I was that bad, though.
“What are we going to do about food when it’s raining like this?” Angela asked, coming from the bathroom where she’d changed. She wore my t-shirt again. It was so big on her it looked like a dress. A fucking sexy dress that I wanted to tear off with my teeth.
“I have a few things,” I said and walked to the pantry. In it, I had dried fruit, jerky, and more canned beans and sweet corn that I’d bought at the store. I didn’t go into town all that often, but sometimes I went to Snowmass Village, a small town close to Grizzly Falls, for provisions. “And there’s plenty of bird left over.”
“You have chips?” Angela asked, incredulous.
“And chocolate, if you like.”
She laughed. The sound shot right to my core, and I had to talk down another erection or look like an asshole with a bulge in my pants because she was laughing about food.
“And yesterday, you killed a turk—”
“Pheasant.”
“Pheasant. I thought there were no luxuries around here.”
I shrugged. “Who says pheasant isn’t a luxury?”
Her eyes twinkled at my little joke, and I loved her response. Everything about her made me smile. It was a strange sensation; one I was unused to.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Chips, to be honest,” Angela said. “But I shouldn’t.”
“I have dried fruit.”
She pulled a face. “I guess that would be better for my waistline.”
I frowned and looked at her body. Her fucking perfect body. Her edible body. Her fuckable body. “What’s wrong with your waistline?”
She blushed lightly. Her rosy cheeks were beautiful. “I could lose a few pounds, if I’m honest.”