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Cranky doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would have sex with a woman who wasn’t genuinely into it. My only chance of getting him on board with my plan is to make it clear I won’t consider getting naked with him a hardship.
“Can we start over?” I ask in the silence between axe falls.
“You can do whatever you like,” he says, his attention fixed on positioning his next log. “I wash my hands of you. Do whatever you want.”
I huff. “Well, that’s certainly a serious change of heart. I though you wanted to keep me safe. For Jacob. And to keep me from messing up your plans.”
“In a perfect world, sure,” he says, cracking the log in two with one graceful swing of his tool. “But we don’t live in a perfect world.” He tosses the two pieces of split wood onto a growing pile nearby. “And you can’t reason with crazy people. I learned that the hard way.”
I fight the urge to tell him to go fuck himself and that he’s clearly crazier than I could ever be. Instead, I clench my jaw and remind myself that I need in on this man’s plan—I know I’ll be more effective working with a team than charging back into camp alone, a fact that proves I’m not crazy.
“We’ll be stronger together,” I say calmly. “I realize that, and after some thought I’ve also realized you must have a phone somewhere on this property. Or some way to communicate with the outside world, one I would really love to make use of, pretty please. After all, you wouldn’t be out here all alone without a way to call for help if you need it.”
He looks up from the piece of wood he’s positioned, his eyes narrowed. “You don’t even know my name, but you assume you know what I would or wouldn’t do?”
I force a tight smile. “I just meant that you seem like a smart, careful person. And it’s hardly my fault I don’t know your name. You didn’t offer it and we kind of had more important things to talk about, don’t you think?”
He props the business end of his axe on the thick wood-splitting stump and rests his hand atop the handle. “Axe.”
I nod slowly, not sure how to respond to that. “Yes, that’s a very nice axe. You’re good with it. Though if I were you, I’d probably be saving my energy for tonight instead of giving it all to the firewood.”
He grunts. “No, my name is Axe. And I don’t need to conserve energy. I’m not a half-starved little girl who’s been lost in the woods.”
“I just ate half your almond butter and bread, buddy,” I say, continuing to smile, refusing to let him get a rise out of me that easily. “I’m not starving anymore, and I’m not stupid. I know what you’re doing.”
He arches a brow. “Oh yeah? Enlighten me, princess.”
I ignore the flash of pain the words send stabbing through my chest—Jacob calls me princess, too, but never in a mean way. On his lips, the word is sweet, loving.
I just hope he’ll still love me when he realizes how far I had to go to ensure I wasn’t left out of the mission to save his life.
“You’re being hard and dismissive to push me away,” I say, moving closer, holding his gaze as I come to stand on the other side of the stump. “You figure if you’re mean enough, you won’t have to deal with what I put on the table in there. But I’m not that easily deterred, not when there’s no good reason for you to turn me down without even discussing things. And not when the life of the person I love is on the line.”
His jaw works back and forth for a beat before he adds in a softer voice. “I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m not that kind of man.”
“What kind of man?” I challenge, pushing on before he can answer. “As far as I can see, you aren’t a man at all. You’re a shifter. And most shifters I know don’t take sex so seriously. We’re not human, after all. We know that sex doesn’t always have to be serious and is never wrong or dirty, as long as both people are into it.”
“But you take it seriously,” he challenges. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t still be a virgin. And that matters to me. I’m the kind of man who respects those boundaries.” His disinterested gaze flicks down my body and back up again, before he adds in a cool voice, “And I’m into fully-grown women, not children.”
I smile, a real smile this time because as hard as he’s trying to prove he finds me repulsive, his biology is betraying him. I can smell the salty sweet scent rising from his skin and I haven’t dated a cat shifter for as long as I have without knowing what that means.
“Good try,” I say in a husky voice, holding his gaze as I bunch the bottom of my dress in my hands, drawing it slowly up my legs. “But we both know I’m eighteen and nowhere near a child. And we both know you like what you see. How about I let you see a little more and see what you think then?”
“Don’t,” he warns softly, but he doesn’t reach out to stop me as I draw the dress up and over my head.
He doesn’t move at all, in fact.
Doesn’t breathe.
He stands there as my dress floats to the ground, frozen like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz after he was caught out in the rain. Complete with axe.
But I can feel the storm rising inside him, churning and building, like clouds about to burst and pelt the earth with rain. And I want that, I realize. I want him to lose control. I want him to touch me, take me. I want to give in to the simple, carnal hunger I feel right now, so much less complicated than what I feel when I’m with Jacob.
With Jacob, I’ve always known that sex wouldn’t just be sex. It would be so much more, demand so much more. Being with him would be the first step on a road that would tear my family apart. Being with him would set me up for a big, ugly fight with my family and my pack and most likely lead to me being alienated from everything I’ve ever loved. Maybe forever.
But with Axe…
“It’s just sex,” I say, meaning it as I step closer, my nipples tightening, tingling as his eyes drop to my chest before returning to my face.
