Darren
Victoria Parker was a feisty woman, but Darren Saylor knew how to handle those. And judging by the way that Victoria averted her eyes at the sight of his skin, and how she turned away from him like some kind of timid animal, she wasn’t as feisty as she made herself out to be. There had to be something else about this girl. Something he wasn’t getting. Besides sex, anyway, and that would probably change soon enough, so long as he teased her out of her mind.
He could tell that she was still unhappy about the food arrangements. So the fiery girl didn’t like to eat healthily. Fine. He was standing in the kitchen, looking through the cupboards, trying to find something remotely chocolate-y that she might like. He wasn’t trying to be some kind of a good host, but they might both be better off if she wasn’t constantly grumpy. Plus, he’d noticed that she wasn’t eating enough. He guessed that his diet of chicken breasts and broccoli wasn’t enough for her.
He closed one cupboard and opened up another. Most of the food in this place was in the freezer, not because of the nutrients of the food that could be stored there, but because of how long frozen food could last. That was a long time. That didn’t mean either of them would be able to last very long off of it.
Victoria’s cravings, as subtle as she tried to be about them, weren’t hard to miss. He’d noticed her repeatedly going back into the kitchen and then scowling after looking through everything and walking away. It was affecting him, too. He wasn’t a fan of eating well, as much as he did it. That was mainly for his body, and for strength. And both things were having the effects on Victoria that he wanted them to, so it wasn’t like it could be that bad.
But God, if the food in this place wasn’t up to snuff. He found a box of Rice Krispies and grabbed it, pulling it down from where it sat on the top shelf. His hands went to the flaps, opening it as quickly as he could. Disappointment flooded him at once. Not only was the box mostly empty, what remained was definitely stale. Whoever had brought them here – because he sure as hell hadn’t – hadn’t closed the box up properly, and now every little crispy flake in it was ruined. He chucked the offending box into the garbage.
And then he went to the freezer in his quest. He didn’t want to leave Victoria here just so he could run to the store, but they both needed food. Even if they decided to ignore their cravings and just live off of the stuff that was in here, there wasn’t enough food to last them the entire month. That typically wasn’t a problem at the safe house, though. Usually, when people came here, they either stayed a very short time or a very long one, for one of two reasons.
Reason #1: they were being kept here because of their own bad behavior. Acting out in the Bloody Saints got a small timeout, with the offending biker spending out a few days here while they cooled down. If they didn’t cool down, well, they got to stay here longer.
Reason #2: they were being kept here because they either owed the Bloody Saints money.
He scratched his chin, trying to come up with a time where the safe house had been used for any other reason than the two he’d already listed in his head. He couldn’t think of any. He couldn’t remember it ever being used to actually keep anyone safe from someone looking to kill them.
That reminded him, his club would be looking for him. He’d shot off a call and a few texts, but only to say he would be out of town. He couldn’t let people know where he was, or even why he was there. It wasn’t his friends he was worried about. It was Victoria. If he involved her in his world any more deeply than he already had, she would probably do something to fuck everything up and cause a bunch of mayhem, and she would probably wind up dead for it.
Yeah, no. That was not going to happen. It was better to leave his friends in the dark in order to keep her out of trouble. Which meant he couldn’t call someone and ask them to bring provisions. He’d have to go out himself. Victoria would almost definitely have to come with him, unless he could convince her to let him chain her up to something while he disappeared for the better half of a few hours.
That wouldn’t work either. Knowing that girl, she’d probably find some way to cause as much destruction to the house – and to herself – in his absence, even if she only had a few feet of moving space.
She was so frustrating. In such a good way, though. What was wrong with her? There had to be something wrong with her. No woman had ever talked to him like she had, and her lack of respect was a sign that there was a screw or two loose inside her head. There was no way of putting those loose screws right, either. At least, not a way that he could see. She was fine just the way she was. Or maybe she would be to some other man.
He tried again to tell himself he wasn’t looking forward to being stuck with her for so long. A not-so-small part of him was, but that didn’t have anything to do with Victoria in particular, he reasoned. That was the reaction that just about anyone could expect from a man, especially one like him, around an attractive woman. And she was attractive. It was normal, and that was it. It was the only thing that was normal about this situation, in any case.
He scavenged through the kitchen some more. There were a few spare baking supplies here and there, but, like the Rice Krispies, they had been left with only a little bit inside of them. That was alright. Darren wasn’t much of a baker. Never had been. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have nights of mindless snacking, though, and he knew how to make a thing or two in the microwave.
He found a few tablespoons of flour and sugar. There was some oil in the cupboard, so he grabbed that as well, throwing a few spoonfuls of each into two mugs. Then he threw in some cocoa and divided an egg unevenly between them. There was no way to make this pretty, so he just threw both mugs in the microwave at the same time. Then he set the mug cakes so they’d be in there for about a minute, and went back to looking through the kitchen.
Maybe there was some chocolate syrup, like for ice cream, that he could throw on top of them. He knew that was unlikely, so he wasn’t all that sad when he couldn’t find anything to drizzle the cakes with. This search had only taken about 30 seconds, and the cakes still weren’t done. He pulled open another drawer, hunting for something.
Fuck.
He hadn’t been thinking about this, but what would Victoria think of him if she saw him doing this? All he was doing was making some food. That was it. Sure, he was making some for her too and it had been inspired by seeing her all miserable, but that didn’t mean she had to know about that. For all she knew, he was hungry, made himself something, and made her a snack as well because he wasn’t that horrible of a person. It would be rude for her to suffer while he enjoyed himself.
There was no way that she would view it like that. It wasn’t like she could be angry with him either, though, and he didn’t have to interact with her just because he was giving her this cake. Maybe it could be a peace offering.
The microwave beeped, letting him know that the mug cakes were done. Or that they might be done, anyway. Putting two in at the same time almost ensured that neither were fully cooked, and he rose from his search to grab a fork to test that theory with. Yeah. They were both still too gooey in the middle.
He set the microwave for another 30 seconds, and then went back to his hunt for some other type of goody. This time, he found a single peanut butter cup. Only one. Of course. He hit “cancel” on the microwave before it was done beeping, and threw the entire peanut butter cup into one mug cake before setting the microwave to finish doing its thing.
He didn’t need that candy anyway. Maybe she wouldn’t notice that he didn’t have one in his if he didn’t say anything. There was no way she would. Yeah, he could just set the mug down in front of her and then walk away.
Where was she, anyway? He pulled her mug cake out, leaving his in the microwave while he decided to hunt for her. He grabbed a glass and poured some milk in it from the fridge; there was no way he’d be able to carry enough stuff for the both of them without dropping something, so he didn’t even pretend to try.
He found Victoria sitting on the couch. He’d been using it, but he still didn’t frequent it as much as Victoria did. He knew she wasn’t sleeping in her room, if it could even be called that. The only thing that made the place hers was that she would go in there sometimes, pretending like she was sleeping to appease him. He could hear her footsteps making their way through the hall when she thought he was sleeping.
So she waited not to disturb him. Cute. But infuriating. He felt a rush of blood make its way through his body down to his cock, and he felt the damn thing bulge in his pants. This wasn’t even the first time it had happened. He was getting pretty annoyed with Victoria. It was a natural reaction to have, sure, but why did she make it happen so much?
Victoria didn’t notice him when he entered. She would need to work on that; she wasn’t the best with noticing people enter rooms, and that wouldn’t do her any good when it came to her safety. He watched her for a few seconds before letting her know he was there.
Her back was to him, and she was staring blankly at some spot in front of her. Darren wondered if she was thinking in her head about what she might be watching if there was a TV there, but that didn’t seem like a very Victoria thing to do. He didn’t know much about her and what she liked and what she chose to think about (beyond the fact that she got mad easily and let people know about it), though.
Maybe something was wrong. Her head was bent down so that it faced her knees, and her elbows were on her knees. He couldn’t see them, but her hands were probably holding onto her face in some effort to balance that position or make it more comfortable.
He looked around from one side of the room to the other. It wasn’t a protection thing, like it usually was; it was more of an “is there anyone else who could help with this?” thing. There was no one else, of course. They were the only two people there, and there was nothing he could do to comfort her. He wasn’t the comforting type of person.
But he still had the mug cake and the milk in his hands, so he set them down on the coffee table in front of her. Then he walked away from her and back to the kitchen, where he ate his own snack in silence.
# # #
Victoria
Whatever quiet, cohabitation-ish thing they’d had going on that day didn’t last. Victoria didn’t know why he had given her a mug cake. Maybe it was poisoned. There was no reason for him to poison her, and it smelled so good. So she ate it. And maybe that meant that he would think she owed him something, but it probably didn’t. Every relationship – especially platonic ones, because that’s what this unfortunately was – didn’t have to have strings attached to it, did it? No.
She wasn’t sure why he’d walked off into the kitchen after seeing her. Maybe he didn’t even want to be around her. What he’d made her was so nice, but he hadn’t needed to do that, and then he’d disappeared.
God.
There was seriously nothing to do here.
The only thing there was, was Darren.
But she couldn’t do him.
Could she?
No. She shouldn’t even be considering it. There was nothing that she could get from Darren that she couldn’t get from anyone else.
That wasn’t true.
And he clearly had a soft side to him. Why else would he bother with giving her something like the stupid cake? She wondered if he’d made it. He had to have been the one to do it. She’d been looking through the cupboards earlier and there was almost nothing in there beyond what was in the freezer, with the exceptions of a few baked good-inspired ingredients. A little bit of cocoa here, a little pinch of sugar there.
Once she was sure Darren was out of sight and not watching her she made her way back to the kitchen as fast as she could. There had to be a garbage can in here somewhere, and she finally found it after opening just about every openable surface in the place.
There wasn’t much hiding in the plastic bag there, save for the small bags of flour and sugar and cocoa that she’d been expecting. She didn’t bother checking back through the cupboards for the other ingredients; Darren had clearly used everything they had to make that mug cake for her. Had he even made one for himself? She hadn’t seen him do it. But anyway, it wouldn’t be happening again.
That is, unless they went to the store. And since she was supposed to be living with him here for a while, there was no point in avoiding him, as much as she wanted to. She groaned, closing up everything and leaving the kitchen close enough to the way she’d left it. Glaring down books she didn’t like and hanging out in the kitchen sadly was no way to spend her life, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste any more time doing it. She had to suck it up and talk to Darren.
But that was easier said than done.
When she didn’t want Darren anywhere near her, he found a way to put her in his arms and press his mouth down to hers. He hadn’t touched her in a while, and that was driving her insane, but maybe she was better off for it. Maybe that meant she would think more clearly, now that she didn’t have the heat of his skin on hers clouding her judgment.
Whatever. What mattered was that when she did need Darren, he was absolutely nowhere to be found.
It was easy enough to make her way out of the kitchen and to the living room, but he wasn’t there either. She went down the hallway and opened every door she saw. He might’ve been hiding behind one of them, but, still, he was nowhere to be found; she even threw his bedroom door open and peeked in. He wasn’t there, either. Was the man dead? Could she just leave?
Part of her wanted to strut out and make her way back in town, regardless of someone wanting her killed. The rest of her, well, it did what it normally did: it burned with lust and begged for her to stay. God damn it.
She gritted her teeth and continued her search. On her way down the hallway again, she noticed that the back door leading out into the yard behind the safe house was slightly ajar. This struck her as a little weird, especially considering how crazy Darren had been over keeping her safe lately. This didn’t mean he might not just crack it to let her know where he was, though, so he might be out there.
She didn’t have anything on her feet, not really. When Darren had basically stolen her away from coming into work, all she’d brought with her was the clothes she’d had on her back. Her socks were long since filthy, and she was sick of wearing them.
She glanced out towards the yard. She could see a small bit of mist lining the tips of the grass. She still had her gross socks on, and it would be even worse to walk through that grass and get them all wet than it would be to just get rid of them all together. So she tore off her socks as quickly as she could, and threw them in a corner where Darren probably wouldn’t notice them. She’d go back for them later before he could, anyway.
The porch out back was colder than she was expecting. Victoria let out a hiss, expecting for the wooden planks beneath her feet to be jagged and uneven, leaving her with splinters up and down the flesh of her bare feet. It wasn’t. It wasn’t cozy either – it was still wood – but it wasn’t bad. She breathed in deeply, her entire body shuddering as she brought her arms up to either side of her chest. She should have brought a sweater out with her before deciding to come outside. Not that she had one. The trees around her suddenly seemed ominous. This was a terrible idea.
A shiver ran up and down her body. It couldn’t have to do with the cold. It wasn’t even so far into the year that she’d need to put a coat on anyway, but she was still freezing. Something inside of her felt uneasy, and she looked around her quickly.
No.
This was either a test, or something was wrong. There was no way Darren would just leave the door open like that when he had explicitly stated that she was being kept here for her safety. He didn’t even really like leaving her alone, for God’s sake! There was no way he’d leave a door open leading to the back yard, which led through to the…
Trees.
She had no idea what was back there. She didn’t want to freeze up, even though she could feel the muscles in her body tensing. She looked back through the yard, just past the tree line. She couldn’t see anything in the dim light of the early evening. And it was so early; it shouldn’t have been getting dark out yet. It was the trees. She couldn’t see past them, and the shade they were throwing onto the house was doing her line of sight no good.
It would probably be better to go back in the house. A gust of wind blew past her, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. No. There was no reason to be back here. She looked to the woods again one more time, and, turning on her heel, backed her way back through the door.
She didn’t think she turned around once while she did it, staring straight ahead of her as she fled back into the house. It was efficient, though, and it worked for her, and she was safely back inside in no time at all.
Darren would probably freak out if he knew where she’d just been. While he had gotten more casual about her than the way he’d acted at the beginning, Victoria could tell that he was still unhappy about anything that might jeopardize her safety. And there was something about the mystery of the area around this place that made her feel in danger.
No.
Not in danger.
She shook the feeling away. She would just lock the door and forget about this feeling. It took her a minute. The lock blended in with the color of the doorknob, and there was something off about the latch. It didn’t look new. The way she had to hold onto the knob and press it closer to the doorframe as she locked the door told her this entire thing was old. The cabin looked newer than the door did; maybe whoever put these here had a thing for antique doorknobs. Maybe this place wasn’t as secure as Darren would have her believe.
Where the hell was Darren? She’d intended on finding him and getting him to take her to the store, where she may or may not have ditched him. Now she was mildly worried. She’d already combed through the house and she hadn’t found him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a trail of steam leading from farther down the hallway to the bathroom. She blinked. The shower. Of course. She took a second to listen, recognizing the sounds she heard coming from that direction as the sound of running water.
The door to the bathroom was open. Maybe Darren had walked from there to the bedroom while she’d been out back. The idiot had forgotten to turn the water off. She should really fix that. And the steam looked so warm. There was no harm in going in it. The closer she got to the bathroom door, the more steam there seemed to be; the door wasn’t just cracked open, it was swung wide so she could see the entirety of the bathroom.
Like she’d have been able to see anything.
The room was full of so much steam she couldn’t see her fingers in front of her. She made her way farther into the bathroom, even though she couldn’t see shit. This was probably a bad idea. There was no way anyone was in here, though; why would Darren just leave the bathroom door open if he was showering, when he clearly knew she was there? Well, he might. It's not like he was the type to care if someone saw him naked. So maybe he was in here. And maybe that was the driving force that made her want to keep going further into the bathroom.
She shook her head. Maybe it wasn't. No, she was going into the bathroom for her own safety. She’d had a weird feeling earlier, when she was out in the yard, and the door leading outside had been left slightly open. Now the bathroom door was also open and steam was pouring out of it; something had to be amiss, and she was just investigating it. That was all that was happening.
Yeah. Exactly. She didn’t even stop to question the fact that her excuse had changed from turning off the water Darren had accidentally left running to checking for potential killers hiding in the bathroom.
The farther she got in the bathroom, the easier it was to see. The storm of steam started to gradually dissipate the farther in she got. The shower was getting closer. She could see the thin outline of the shower curtain from her position, but that was about it. The toilet and the sink had to be somewhere right?
What was she thinking? Why had she gone in here in the first place? She wasn't really scared. Of Darren, of anything, of being murdered. So far there wasn't even really proof that someone wanted her dead specifically. That drive-by could have been an accident. She doubted that she was the only person in the city with her type of car. Maybe she hadn’t even been the intended target.
And yet, even though she didn’t want it to be true, everything in her believed Darren when he said that someone wanted her dead. So if that same everything inside of her wanted something more with him, she might as well go for it. It seemed like the entire time she'd been at this safe house, she'd spent it trying to convince herself that it was okay for her to want him.
And she still didn’t even fully believe it.
God damn it.
By the time she'd come back down from that now-familiar line of thought, she'd noticed that the steam was gone. The air around her was cooler, in that muggy way that the air can only be after the thick heat of too-warm water.
She could see more than just the thin line of the shower curtain now, and she hadn’t even advanced farther into the bathroom. If she turned around now, she could still go back. Whoever was in the shower wouldn’thave to know that she was ever there, and she could believe that it was someone else in the shower, and that she wasn't just trying to creep on–
Darren.
The familiar, hard lines of his body came into view. He was still hidden from behind the shower curtain, which was regrettably dark enough that she couldn’t see his skin. It was easy enough to guess who was in there, though. Meaning, not only were they the only two people in the house, and presumably the only two people who currently knew about its existence, but also that Darren was the only one with that rugged physique. It was unique to him in the way that –
Oh, shit. A quake. And then another quake, and then, the shower curtain started to move. It felt like forever watching it, even though it was just the slightest motion as his hand first started to grab and then pull at the material. It was probably just a few seconds, actually, but it felt like forever. She had nowhere to go but back from where she’d come, and she didn’t have enough time to cross back and exit the bathroom from where she was now. She’d gone too far.
Nope. There was no way of leaving. She turned her head to look behind her for just a second, but she didn’t even have time to do that before he was in front of her.
Should she look? Should she not? Her eyes were on the floor, but from the corner of her view she saw Darren emerge from the shower.
She was turning into a blabbering idiot inside her own head. Maybe he wouldn’t see her. Maybe he’d look to the left, or to the opposite of where she was. And maybe he’d just ignore his street smarts and the feeling of another person being in the room with him. Yeah. Yeah, right. Like that would happen.
He lifted his head to her before he even made as if he was going to grab a towel.
She didn’t know how, but she could just tell that he was looking at her, even though her eye were still on the floor. It sent a flush of heat to her cheeks, and down to her neck. Her ears must've been red, too, but that might have all been from the steam instead of from something else.
No. He was the reason. The only reason. Of course. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
“Looking for something.”
She lifted her eyes hesitantly, not wanting to make eye contact. She’d just been caught trying to peep on him! And she knew immediately that there was no way she could use the excuse of being afraid of something. He might go check – that was his thing; he seemed to have a thing for generic masculinity and all those other male standards that Victoria hated, but that made her weak in the knees. But he’d find nothing, and then the jig would be up.
She could probably make up for it if she said something clever right away.
“Hey.”
Yeah. Nailed it, Victoria. That was the best she had.
She was used to being in control of herself, but it looked like a couple days of being locked up in a house with this asshole was making her lose touch with everything about herself. She hated it, but, at the same time, she loved it. What did that even say about her?
Whatever. Now that he knew she was completely creeping on him, she might as well take the chance to admire him. There was no reason to just be embarrassed and do nothing with it. She lifted her eyes from the floor slowly, dragging them across the lines of the tile – trying to be slow about this was the most aggravating part – before resting them at his feet.
Her eyes went from his feet up to his legs. There was no sense in dragging it out any more than she had. She closed her eyes again for a brief moment, and then looked all the way up. She tried to skim over the area between his legs – his cock; why was she being so shy about it all of a sudden? That wasn't like her. But her gaze was drawn there immediately. She saw the head of it first, big and thick, and...
Her eyes moved away from it, but in trying to avoid gazing at the tip her view dragged up his shaft. He was long, and white, and, and...
Most definitely getting hard.
Splotches of red danced up to her cheeks at the same time as she drew in a hissing breath. How could he be hard? Maybe he wasn't even turned on. He probably wasn't. She went to look at him again, but she couldn’t bring herself to openly gawk, and her gaze slid back up to his eyes.
Well, his face, and then his eyes.
He was smirking: a huge grin that started on either side of his face and stretched wide, holding itself up so neatly at the corners as it folded open. He raised an eyebrow at her as she looked, and that just made her blush some more.
She was resolved not to let him get the best of her, though. There was only so much she could do here, and falling around at his feet wasn't going to do her any favors. Lord knows the man probably already had some kind of ego complex, especially over his well-sized manhood.
She shook her head. The steam in the room was completely gone now, the only evidence of it ever having been there the hot mist on the mirror above the sink. She looked to it, trying to look at herself, to see how bad her blush was. Anything to avoid looking at him.
“Like what you see?”
She turned her head as he spoke, knowing that he’d say something but not knowing where this was going. His tone was light, playful; if she didn’t know any better, she'd say that he liked just about everything that was going on here.
What could she say, though? They hadn’t even had to deal with each other that long, and she was already starting to give into the idea of sleeping with him. There was no way she was going to do that, in any situation. But the idea was still somewhat tempting.
She made eye contact. This blushing bride crap wasn't like her at all, and she wasn't going to let some lust change that about her.
“You should put a towel on,” she suggested.
He raised his eyebrow at her again.
“And why exactly should I do that?” He grabbed a towel off of the rack beside him.
She didn’t say anything for a moment. There was only so much sass you could throw at one man. But if she stayed silent, he might think that she was dumbfounded, shell-shocked, or something like that, and that wasn't the impression she wanted to leave on a man like Darren Saylor. She was able to handle him, and he had to know it. If he didn’t already, that is.
“To dry yourself off.” She rolled her eyes. She knew it was a weak retort.
But it was hard to even get that much out. Her eyes roamed over his body again. How hadn’t she noticed this physique when he’d first touched her? Brought her to this house? They hadn’t had that much physical contact, unfortunately, but they had kissed. She should've been able to feel the hard lines of his body before then and make guesses about what he’d look like without his shirt. Not that she hadn’t seen him shirtless before; she had. That did nothing to prepare her for the hard line of his cock, though, the firm shape of his thighs, and the deep V that was made by the outline of his hips.
“Is that what you really want me to do?”
She had to get out of there.
This was going in exactly the direction she didn’t want it to. She was standing there gawking like a schoolgirl and that wasn't going to get him to view her as anything more than some slutty bartender. She was so much more than that, even though she hadn’t put much effort into finding something better in life.
“I think,” she finally said, trying to make it seem like she hadn’t just put a few moments of agonizing thought into these few short sentences, “that you should put some clothes on, and then we'll do something.”
And then she left.