Mine - HelenKay Dimon Page 0,18
every dark thought and the last of his frustration over her refusal to just follow his directions without question. “Do you know your accent comes out when you do that?”
“What?”
“Smile.” There, in the background. The southern melody. The way she hit certain words. The light that brightened inside her, if only for a second, while she sparred with him and let the rest fall away.
She held his gaze for an extra beat before glancing away. All of a sudden, something in the sway of the towering trees held her attention. “Back to my point.”
“You want me to keep you busy.” A list of possibilities filled his head, each one dirtier than the one before. “Right.”
“Then entertain me.”
The handle dug into his palm as he tightened his grip. “You’re playing a dangerous game here, Natalie.”
A whooshing sound had them both turning to the side. Snow dropped off high branches in large clumps and crashed into a pile at the edge of the small open area around the cabin.
Nature provided the diversion. Gabe jumped on it. Whatever coursed through his veins likely hit her as well. He didn’t buy into the idea of men being more sexual than women. The one looking at him right now, picking each word for maximum impact on his senses and taking his nerves to the snapping point, was no shrinking violet. But he had his limits, so he went with safe.
“I was talking about a game of Twenty Questions.” Not that they hadn’t studied each other’s files . . . or at least the information that other people, even people with clearances and access, could unbury. The stuff she kept hidden, the information locked inside her and in unmarked files somewhere, did interest him.
“You won’t know if I’m telling the truth.”
The woman had a good point. Not that he’d conceded that just yet. “I will.”
“You’re some kind of human lie detector?”
He fought to keep his mind on the mundane conversation and off the hours that lay ahead. The night he had to get through. “Possibly.”
She rubbed her boot over the salt he’d thrown on the step after clearing it off. “Indulge me.”
The scraping sound screeched across his brain. “I thought I was doing that when I agreed not to tie you to the bed.”
Her foot slid to a stop. “Is that your thing?”
“Actually, yes.” She just stood there. Not quite what he expected. Hell, he deserved for her to tell him to fuck off, but she didn’t. “No comeback to that?”
“You don’t scare me.” She tightened her grip on the edges of the blanket. “Having sex with you doesn’t scare me.”
It scared the piss out of him for some reason. “So that we’re clear, what I’d do to you in bed would be about pleasure, not pain.”
Silence roared between them. The creaks of the cabin and regular thuds of the snow dropping off trees blended into nothingness as they stood there, a few feet apart, with the words hovering between them.
She broke the spell with the muffled clap of her gloved hands. “Back to the game.”
Damn but he liked her style. She didn’t back down from a challenge. “You have to earn it.”
She snorted. “I almost hate to ask what that means.”
He held up a finger and waited until her eyebrow lifted in response. He’d piqued her curiosity. Good. A quick jog to the shed and he was back with a hatchet in one hand and a roll of red tape in the other. Using the chopping block, he balanced an extra piece of wood against another.
“I give up. What are we doing?” She came the rest of the way down the steps to stand beside him.
Before answering, he used the tape to create a makeshift circle on the log balanced and facing them. More of a hexagon, but close enough. He tapped the center. “If you hit the target, you get to ask a question.”
Her gaze bounced from the red tape to the weapon in his hand. “Hatchet throwing?”
“You told me you have a lot of skills.” He’d bet this woman could adjust to most situations, including this one. And if not, fine. He wasn’t really in the mood to unload about his life anyway.
She shot him a sexy smile. “I meant the indoor kind.”
The ground crumbled beneath him. He was amazed his knees didn’t buckle from the force of the need driving through him. But he somehow forced his arm to lift and held the hatchet out to her, handle first. “Unless you want