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“Wolfson.” My breathing stammers, my entire body frozen as I listen for steps. “There’s something out here.”
“Of course, there is, babe.” His voice drifts from inside. “Come on.”
Behind me, Kodiak is still chopping away. Denver and Leonid are nowhere within eyeshot.
“It’s Wolf,” he calls out.
“It’s a wolf?” I shriek, flooded with terror.
“No. My name is Wolf. Just Wolf.”
“I don’t care about your fucking name. There’s something nearby. Like something fast and big and dark and fuck, what the hell is it?” My skin chills. “Do things usually come this close to the house?”
“Where?” He pokes his head out, his lips puckered around a cigarette.
“There.” I point at the shadows between the building and an embankment.
“The wolf pack sticks to the northern hillside.” He gestures in the opposite direction.
“So it is a wolf?”
“Not likely. They won’t start circling the cabin until winter.”
That does nothing to calm my nerves. “Then what is it?”
“A bear? Lynx? Moose?” Releasing a plume of smoke, he goes back inside.
My hands fist so tightly my fingernails pierce my palms. It takes a minute to pull my shit together. Then I choose the lesser of two evils and step into the dark building.
Another entryway. From the rafters and log walls to the benches, coat hooks, and floors—everything is made of yellow cedar.
The interior door hangs open a few inches. He must be through there.
“What is this?” I mutter.
“A banya.” His voice seeps through the crack, along with thick curls of mist.
“What?”
“A steam bath, sauna, sweat lodge, sudatorium, whatever your inner steam warrior wants it to be. Personally, I’m a wake-and-bake champion. It really opens the pores on a crisp morning.”
That’s not what I meant. The real question is, what is his intention with me in there?
His bathrobe hangs on one of the hooks. Is he naked? Does it matter? Is he more dangerous or more vulnerable with his dick hanging out?
I scrub my hands down my face, annoyed with my constant overthinking.
Closing the outer door, I hang my robe next to his and enter the sauna in my one-piece swimsuit.
A wall of steam slams into me, the air so heavy and hot it smudges my vision and saturates my lungs. I savor it, breathing it in and clearing my nasal passages.
Heat radiates from the coal stove beside me. Through the vapor, his hand appears, holding a ladle. He splashes water onto the heated rocks, and more steam suffocates the small space.
Extending an arm, I feel around blindly to find a place to sit. The fog disperses with my movements, revealing benches at varying heights in a U-shape.
Wolf reclines on the highest shelf near the rear. Completely nude.
Of fucking course.
His bent leg blocks my view of his groin, but I don’t miss the curve of his muscular ass, the honed definition in his thigh.
I position myself on the farthest bench from him, facing away while keeping him in my periphery. “Where does the coal come from?”
“We mine it from the nearby hills.”
“And the logs Kodiak is chopping?”
“Denver flies in a shipment every year.”
“How often does he leave? To make other trips?”
“It varies. Usually four or five times to fish and refill supplies. After the first hard snow, the plane can’t leave until the thaw.”
How long do I have? A month? Two months? Not long.
I clear my throat. “Do you ever go with him?”
A pause. Then his voice deepens, sharpening with steel and foreboding. “You’re not leaving, Scarlet O’Hara.”
Tension sweeps between us, pulling tauter, until I hear the spark of a lighter and his deep inhale.
“Look at me.” His command is raspy, impossibly seductive.
Hard to believe that’s his voice.
“Put some clothes on.” I sit straighter, keeping my eyes forward.
“Why are you so offended by nudity?”
“Just your nudity. And you know why.”
“You should remind me, just in case,” he says dryly.
“I don’t know if you and your brothers have ever been out of Hoss. You continuously evade that question. I don’t know how many women Denver has captured and brought here. Another evaded question. I’m left to assume that the three of you never have sex, and if you do, it’s violent and forced and ends with a dead woman stuffed in the walls. Or…I don’t know.” I throw up my hands. “Fed to the wolves!”
“So fucking twisted.” Laughter threads through his rumble.
“Do you blame me?”
“Kind of. Yes. Why would you assume we don’t have sex?” He takes a drag and blows it out. “We have each other.”
My mouth dries.
Did I hear him right? No, he can’t possibly mean…
“You have each other? For sex? But you’re…”
“It’s not gay if you’re brothers.”
My stomach twists on itself, and bile surges to my throat.
“For fuck’s sake, I’m kidding!” He coughs, laughing wickedly. Then he cuts himself off. “But serious question. Is it gay if it’s with yourself?”
Resting my forehead on my knees, I measure my breaths and my response.
