With Everything I Am(19)

When she said, “I’ll do the dishes.” He replied, “Later.”

Sin number one.

Everyone knew you cleaned the kitchen right away. If you didn’t, the gunk would solidify on the plates and skillets and it would take ages to soak it away. Further, Callum wasn’t exactly a tidy cook, he’d made a right mess.

However, considering her varied uncertain circumstances, chief of which was the fact that she’d been kidnapped, she decided at that point not to argue about dishes.

He stopped her by one of the large club chairs, dropped her hand but went to the fire and stoked it, throwing another log on.

Then he walked across the room to the other hearth situated on the wall on the other side of the bed and stoked that fire, putting a log from the huge pile at its side on the burning embers.

Then he committed sin number two.

He walked back, sat in the club chair, leaned forward, took her hand and gave it a firm but gentle tug so she came off her feet with a small, surprised thus uncontrollable cry. He twisted her body as she fell and she landed in his lap.

She pulled up and away but his arms locked around her.

“Um…” she muttered cautiously, “what are you doing?”

“As I said, after breakfast, I’d explain,” he told her, his arms growing tighter, drawing her closer. “I’m explaining,” he finished.

“Um…” she muttered again, even more cautiously, trying not to get alarmed. “Can you explain sitting here while I sit on the couch?”

She thought, considering she just met him an hour or so ago, this was a reasonable request.

“No.”

There it was. Callum being very firm.

Apparently he thought it wasn’t reasonable.

Sonia begged to differ.

“I’d be more comfortable on the couch,” she informed him.

“You’d be more comfortable in my lap if you’d relax,” he replied.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t insane.

Maybe he was.

Instead of relaxing, she tensed.

“I barely know you,” she noted.

“We’ve got a week to rectify that,” he returned.

She stared.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

He completely ignored her question and asked his own, “Why’d you call me ‘wolf’?”

She blinked.

Then she asked, “What?”

“This morning, when you woke up, you called me ‘wolf’.”

Oh good goodness.

She couldn’t tell him about her dream.

Ever.

In a million years.

No one knew about her dream and she wasn’t about to share it with some guy she just met who, it was important to note, was her kidnapper!

And anyway, even she didn’t know why she called him that in her dream.

“I didn’t,” she lied. “Did I?” she added for good measure.

“You did. You know you did. You remember every second of this morning.”

Holy cow.

She had a great memory, not photographic but close. It was another one of her gifts.

Did he know that? And if he did, how did he know that?

She didn’t want the answer to that either.

“I thought I was dreaming,” she reminded him.

“Yes, I got that. You still called me ‘wolf’ and I want to know why.”

“I thought this cabin had burned down,” Sonia switched subjects and explained. “My parents used to own this cabin a long time ago.” Not that he, for whatever ungodly reason, didn’t know that. “I’d been told it burned down when I was seven years old. Since it’s still standing, and not burned down, and I’m in it, which I thought was kind of impossible, though obviously not, considering it isn’t burnt down, I thought I was in a dream. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

His hand which was resting at her hip curled around her waist. His arm, already around her waist, tightened.

Thus, he brought her closer.

Her hand at his chest pressed back.

He was stronger than her but he allowed her some space, not nearly enough, but some.

“Little one, you’re holding out on me,” he said quietly, his eyes serious and not happy. “I’ll tell you only once. Don’t do that.”

She was unsure how to respond.

The fact that he knew she was holding out on him was bizarre and alarming. The fact that his eyes had grown serious and not happy was just plain alarming.

She decided to respond to the serious, not happy look in his eyes and tread very, very carefully.

But how on earth was she going to get out of this?

Oh hell, she was going to have to give him something. She hated it but she was going to have to do it.

She swallowed.

Then she blurted, “You’re very good-looking.”

His head tilted to the side with a surprised jerk.