Lumberjacked (A Holiday Lumberjack Mountain Man Romance) - K.C. Crowne Page 0,8

little softer this time. “You’re really worked up for someone so removed from the stress and hustle and bustle of society.”

“You don’t know me, Malen kiy,” I replied, tempering my tone as well, although I wanted to laugh. I pissed on how other people defined stress. Fuck, a little bit late for work? The wrong size coffee? Not enough fucking likes on a post? What a terrible life.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Angela asked. “What does it mean?”

“Little One,” I grunted.

Her brows scrunched. “Really? That’s how you see me?”

I shrugged my big shoulders. Her attitude made me want to jump her bones. Usually, I got irritated with people who gave me so much shit. But when she did it, it was hot as hell. She knew how to handle herself in a discussion to make her point clear.

I wanted to see how she’d handle herself when it came to the erotic language that could only be spoken between two naked bodies. No words needed - just the sounds and sensations of her body responding to mine. Where words couldn't explain the level of pleasure she’d surely experience.

No, words wouldn’t be needed. But still, I wanted her screaming my name. No doubt, if I had my way with her, she’d be screaming my name with zero care in the world who heard.

“Do you live up here, all alone?” Angela asked after a silence filled only by the crackling fire.

“Da.”

She looked around the cabin at the woods, the views, and smiled softly. “It's kind of peaceful, actually. No care in the world. No drama.” She looked at me, her green eyes shimmering.

I could fall into those eyes, drown in those eyes. They appeared so wholesome and pure, evergreen, like the forest around us, and when I looked in them, I saw all kinds of shit that a man like me should have the chance to experience. But a man like me had done too much wrong to experience such beauty. She didn’t belong here. Which made my suspicions even stronger.

“Did he send you?”

“Who?” Angela asked. “Ryan?”

“Who the fuck is Ryan?”

She glared at me; the nice smile gone. “I work for him. I told you I work for an insurance company. But my answers are the wrong answers, apparently. I don’t know what you want from me.”

I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. She was fierce, and it caused all kinds of havoc in my brain.

After another long silence, Angela shook her head, as if she had decided something for herself. She stood and walked away.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

“Inside,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s not like there’s anywhere else I can go wearing just my underwear and a hunting jacket. And I need space.” She disappeared into the cabin with a sharp click of my front door.

It took all my self-control not to follow her. But the bird was almost finished – maybe another five minutes – and then I needed to check the satellites. I didn’t want Angela around for that. It was good she was back in the cabin.

I lifted the bird off the fire and carried it inside, then pulled the door shut again. Leaving meat out in the wild unattended would only bring all kinds of animals around for a meal I didn’t want to share.

I walked around the back of the cabin and up the rocky path that headed into the mountain. Between two large boulders, a crack in the rocks led to a cave of sorts. The opening was so narrow, I had to squeeze my colossal frame through. I didn’t like tight spots, so if I didn’t like squeezing through there, no one else would. I was banking on that.

Deep in the cave, out of sight of the opening and protected from the weather, I found my equipment: another satellite phone that couldn’t be traced, a laptop, and solar batteries I set out in the sun twice a week to charge. There was no signal for normal phones, but I wasn’t looking to make a normal call.

I brought up the satellite imagery, linking it to the body trackers the men had planted in their arms, so Maksim knew where the fuck they were. I’d dug mine out of my skin the night I’d walked away mid-job. I still had the scar on my arm. The wound hadn’t been pretty but digging a chip out of my arm with the sharp point of a knife while riding the subway