Any second now, I have to wake up from this dream—no, nightmare—I’m living. I lose my travel companion pre-flight, then the plane has to emergency land in Middle of Nowhere, Vermont. As if being stranded alone in an unfamiliar town isn’t bad enough, I’m immediately hit on. So what if he’s the hottest guy I’ve ever seen? That doesn’t change the fact that I’m in absolutely no mood to be fucked, let alone flirted with.
Alright, it might change things a bit, but that’s mostly because I can’t stop thinking about him. Or how his hazel eyes turn chocolate brown the longer he stares at me. Or how, even in the dead of winter, his skin still has a golden-brown luster. And I especially can’t stop thinking about the way his shirt pulls tight across his muscles when he mimicked my stance.
This dude is hot, and he knows it.
Stop thinking about that guy. Now. He has bad news written all over him.
Yeah…just the way I like them. They’re less likely to catch feelings.
Had it not been for what my friends only know as the incident, our conversation would’ve gone a completely different way. I probably would’ve made myself look like an idiot. Little miss “saving herself for marriage” wouldn’t have known how to react to a guy like him flirting with me. But now I’m well versed in the art of sniffing out a fuck boy.
There are more important things to think of right now. Like your paper. Or, better yet, what you’re going to eat for a week.
Thank God the logical part of my brain still works. Otherwise, I completely would’ve been miles from town with no food in a blizzard.
I ask my Uber driver, Ed, to stop by the grocery store before taking me to the cabin so I can pick up the essentials: canned soup, pasta, rice, cereal, and plenty of snacks. Some days, I silently curse my mom for never teaching me to cook. It isn’t her fault, though. I was just too into dissecting and rebuilding computers to be bothered by cutting onions or stirring soup.
Ed is patient while I gather my supplies, even when the snow starts. If I were him, I’d speed to the cabin and get as far from the roads as possible. That’s why Ed’s driving and not me. He doesn’t even drop his speed when the snow sticks, leaving a bed of white along the road. I would’ve. You’d think that as someone who’s lived in different parts of New England her whole life, I’d be more confident driving snowy roads. But you’d be wrong.
Ed stops the car out front of the cabin. I thank him, then give him a hefty tip for putting up with my impromptu grocery store run without a single complaint. As he pulls away, I type in the four-digit code into the keypad and finally get a look at the place that I’ll call home for the next week.
The cabin is slightly larger than my apartment. It has an open floor plan with the kitchen to the right and a sitting area straight ahead. As promised, there’s a bedroom with a cozy-looking queen bed and plenty of quilts to keep me warm. Next to the bedroom, there’s a bathroom that’s slightly bigger than a walk-in closet. No movies or TV or anything like that…all the better for keeping me focused on my paper. Now that I think about it, there’s isn’t so much as a babbling creek nearby to distract me from the silence. It’s pretty eerie. Even if I’m twenty-four and—with any luck—months away from living alone, I don’t think there’s any shame in turning on every light, pulling all the curtains closed, and triple checking the door’s locked.
With everything in order, I shower for the second time tonight, because airplanes are gross, and put on the pajamas I purchased specifically for the trip. I’ve always wanted a set of matching summer pajamas—you know, the ones that have a pair of shorts and a short-sleeved button up. If Suze and Mick decided these weren’t up to their standards, I may have refused to pay my portion of next month’s rent as payback.
For a split second, I consider pulling out the blow dryer Suze and Mick packed for me and drying my hair the way my stylist taught me over the summer. Then I remember I’m technically on vacation. Who cares if my hair’s frizzy and has flyaways? It’ll probably be in a messy bun all week anyway, because it doesn’t matter. I’m completely alone. I could walk around naked all week and no one would know.
Since it’s after nine, I forgo dinner in place of a handful of Goldfish Crackers and a few Oreos. Sure, I could get started on my essay, but it’s too late. With nothing else to do, I decide to make it an early night and head to bed. My plan is to read a few chapters of The Last Marigold and finally see if Zack and Amber are going to give in to the obvious sexual tension or keep making themselves miserable, but three pages in, and my eyes feel like they’re covered in sand.
One second, I’m reading about how Zack puts his hand on the back of Amber’s neck and locks eyes with her. The next, I see the dark, mysterious eyes of Baggage Guy staring back at me as his capable hands cup my face. We remain frozen, both too afraid to breathe, before we crash into one another like the other person is the only thing keeping them alive.
No longer satisfied with my mouth, he explores and tastes every inch of skin along my jawline and neck. Then, my leather jacket gets tugged off and thrown at our feet. Seconds later, his jacket is in the pile, too. Like some back-and-forth strip game, he grabs the hem of my shirt and pulls it over my head. His hands immediately find my breasts, my chest heaving beneath his grip while the pad of his thumb caresses my nipple through the sheer mesh of my bra.
Now my turn in his strip game, I waste no time finding out just how muscular he is underneath that flannel of his. With his hands pinned to the wall on either side of my head, he watches as my deft fingers waste no time undoing button after button until there’s none left. My prize is pulling off the soft material I can tell gets worn a lot and seeing the endless ridges of his core. My fingers graze the taught surface, feeling every hill and valley of his eight-pack abs. Beneath the last muscle is the slightest V that encourages me to travel south.
Before my hands can reach their destination, I’m spun around, my wrists clasped in one of his hands. His other unsnaps my bra with ease. He slides the material up my arms, tickling the surface of my skin along the way, then adds it to the pile of clothes on the floor. His free hand palms my breast. His mouth kisses that sensitive spot behind my ear.
Mustering up all my strength, I pull my wrists free. Turning to face him, my fingers find the button and zipper of his jeans, pulling them down around his ankles. Where I’m flustered and hurried, he is the opposite. With his turn, he takes his time unbuttoning my jeans. Then even longer unzipping them. God, what I wouldn’t give to help him speed up the process. The wait tortures me. I shimmy beneath his touch, hoping he’ll get the idea. He does. My jeans join the ever-growing pile of clothes. Both naked except for underwear, I pull him against me, no longer able to bear the distance between us. The first thing I notice is his bulge grinding into my pelvis. When his hands travel down the front of my underwear, I toss my head back and moan.
Then I gasp.
Then I freeze.
On the other side of the bedroom door is the thud of the front door slamming, followed by an inaudible male voice.
You’re just imagining it, Iz. Just a bad dream. That’s all.
The creaking of the wood floor beyond the closed bedroom door says otherwise.
I don’t watch horror movies because I work myself up too easily, but I know enough about them to realize this is how at least a dozen start. I will not become the next victim of some front-page local paper saying fell victim to a fatal attack in bed. No. Fucking. Way. I’m the type of girl who’ll go down swinging if I must.
I climb out of bed as silently as possible and grab the bedside lamp I never plugged in, hoping it’ll do enough damage for me to get out of the cabin before it’s too late. I creep through the dark toward the closed bedroom door, trying my best to plan my getaway in this unfamiliar place, but as the creaking floors get louder, I know it’s now or never.
I hype myself up with a few deep breaths, then rip open the bedroom door. All planning immediately goes out the window as I freeze at the sight of the intruder.