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The cabins near the lodge are hidden amongst the thick cover of trees and foliage, and when I arrive and take the gravel drive up to cabin twelve, my palms are slick with sweat and my heart is racing. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve confided in someone about where I was going. Javi could be dangerous- he could be planning to ambush me here, and I’ve willingly walked right into his trap. Even worse, it’s a trap I set myself.
So stupid.
I don’t have the opportunity to sit and stew about it for long, though, because the crunch of gravel beneath another set of tires startles me out of my tumultuous thoughts and I glance up in the rearview mirror to see a big black pickup truck pulling in to park behind me. With a deep, steadying breath, I cut the engine of my Jetta and climb out, looking back toward the truck nervously.
The driver’s side door opens and Javi hops out, the easy grin on his face making my heart skip a beat.
God, he’sgorgeous. I’m not usually one to be distracted by good looks, but everything about this man’s appearance calls to me. I want to wrap my hands around those thick biceps, trace the sharp edges of his stubbled jaw with my fingertips. Run my palms over that broad chest, trailing them down to the ridges of his abs, then lower, to his…
“Miss me?” Javi asks presumptuously, tossing his keys from hand to hand as he strides over, still grinning.
“Oh yeah, I’ve been counting the minutes,” I reply with an exaggerated eyeroll.
“I knew it.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“Sureyou were.” He winks, closing the remaining distance between us until he’s right in front of me, standing close.Too close.
The combination of his proximity and his scent hitting my nose makes my knees go a little wobbly, and when I look up into those dark eyes I’m yanked into his orbit, held captive by his magnetic stare. His wolf pushes forward, the telltale swirl of metallic gold glinting in his irises, and I feel my own inner animal rise up within me in response.
I’m all too aware of the heat of his body near mine, how I could reach out and touch him with the barest lift of a hand. I can’t breathe, can’t think- can’t do anything except tremble beneath the strength of thepullI feel toward him, our bond humming in my chest like it has taken on a life of its own.
“So are we just gonna hang out here, or are we going in?” Javi asks, arching a dark brow.
His question knocks me out of my frozen stupor, and not a moment too soon. I clear my throat as I back up a step, nodding. “We can go in.”
A little smirk lifts the corner of his mouth and I abruptly turn on a heel, hustling up the stone path to the cabin. I don’t climb the steps up to the front porch, though- instead, I veer off to the left, bending down to push over a large rock resting on the ground next to the stairs.
“What are you doing?” Javi asks from behind me as I fumble with the heavy stone. I can feel the weight of his eyes on me, and I’d bet anything he’s staring at my ass right now.
“Getting the key,” I grind out, shoving the rock over to reach underneath it. My fingers scrabble in the damp dirt before closing around cold metal, a sense of victory spearing through me as I fish it out and push the rock back into place. Then I straighten, rising to my full height and spinning around to face Javi while holding the key up triumphantly.
His gaze slides between my face and the key in my grasp, and I immediately feel like an idiot, a flush crawling up my neck as I step past him to climb the stairs to the porch of the cabin. “My friend Madd found and stole the key back when we were kids,” I explain as I hear him fall into step behind me. “We used to come here on a dare because there was a rumor this cabin was haunted. Apparently someone died here back in the day.”
“Interesting choice of location for a first date,” Javi muses.
I whip my head around to gape at him over my shoulder. “This isn’t a date.”
“Isn’t it?” he asks, that charming grin sliding back into place.
“No,” I insist, turning back toward the door and sticking the key into the lock. “Dates usually involve dinner or a movie or…” my voice trails off into a grunt of frustration as I twist the key in the lock, the rusty mechanism catching. Wrenching it harder, I shove a shoulder against the door until it gives way, stumbling a step inside when it pops open.
The musty scent within the cabin betrays its decade of closed-up disuse, a layer of dust clinging to the interior. These cabinswere nice back in their prime- tourists paid a premium to rent them out rather than staying in a room at the lodge. It’s sad that they’ve fallen into such a state of decay, but with a good cleaning, I’ll bet they could be restored to their former glory. If we’re ever able to re-open the ski resort, that is. As long as the hunters are still out there, this place is doomed to remain shuttered.
I step further inside the dark cabin and Javi follows me, pausing just inside the door to flip the light switch on the wall beside it.
“Did the ghosts forget to pay the electric bill?” he jokes, the switch clicking uselessly as he flicks it up and down.
I fish my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, turning on the flashlight. “We haven’t run power out to the cabins in years,” I say as I use my cell phone light to guide me toward the kitchen. I find what I’m looking for on the table: a big three-wick candle and a lighter, left behind from nights of teenage mischief.
“Thought you said this wasn’t a date?” Javi drawls as he moves closer, watching me struggle to get the lighter working and lower the flame to the candle wicks.
“It’s not.”
“The candlelight is pretty romantic.”
I lift my head, shooting a scowl his way over the candle as the final wick catches. “Will you just knock it off?”
