I stand by the bedroom door and listen with my head tilted. I don’t hear anything. Not a peep from the other side. Pulling it open gently, the door protests with a long creak that sounds like a car alarm against the silence.

I cringe and look across the darkened room, still wrapped under hues of blue as the sun struggles to rise in the early morning sky. Sawyer is asleep in front of the fireplace. Just like he was yesterday morning, except this time I’m not with him.

Disappointment swirls inside me. It catches me off-guard to realize I miss feeling the heat of his body against mine. Not to mention his thick, hard cock.

I slap my hand over my mouth like I just spilled a deep secret, even though I haven’t spoken a single word. Even allowing myself the thought feels like a betrayal though. Not to mention dirty. I don’t know Sawyer, besides, what about Ben?

What about him? He fucked Kate, remember? My voice of reason reminds me with the subtlety of a punch in the face. You know what they say, the best way to get over a guy is to get under another one. I slowly slink my gaze over Sawyer’s sexy body. He looks so peaceful when he isn’t yelling at me. Not that I’ve been easy to deal with either.

Ben and I are history. All I need is to delete his smug face from my account to make it official. He might be rich and famous, but I’m not here to wipe his boots on. I hope Kate can find satisfaction with his little dick.

Sawyer is lying on my fur coat as a mattress and has his parka covering him from the waist down. The disappointment I was feeling earlier just doubled down.

Stop being such a perv, I chide myself silently. However, I don’t look away from him. I realize my breathing has quickened and my heart is beating faster. My eyes slide over his wide chest, his muscles are clearly cut, but covered under his dark hair. He looks so manly. Not like Ben’s waxed chest that would look ok for a day until his hair tried to break back through the surface and made his skin rashy.

With Sawyer’s brown beard covering his neck, he looks like a wild man. A man who could do whatever he wanted to me… and I’d love it.

I shake my head. Woah, where is this all coming from? You’d think I’ve never seen a guy before from all these repressed desires bubbling up inside me. The truth is, I’ve never met anyone like Sawyer before. Not only because of how strong and big he is, but also when I look into his eyes I can see a depth that I never see in my social circle. I can see he has a past. He has his demons. Why else would someone go live in the woods by themselves? I can’t help but wonder if we don’t have more in common than he thinks.

I creep over to the kitchenette and open the cupboard. The instant Folgers isn’t my first choice in coffees, but it will give us a caffeine fix. Grabbing the big teapot on the stove I feel the water inside slush around. It’s more than enough for a couple cups of joe. I light the propane stove and turn it up high.

My stomach rumbles, reminding me of the supper I skipped last night. I’m regretting my stubborn decision to go to bed hungry. I rummage through the cupboards and take stock of our limited supplies. Cans of beans, saltines, condensed milk, a box of rice, spices. Not exactly the makings of a farm fresh breakfast here.

Beggars can’t be choosers, my stomach growls at me as I reach for the crackers. I rip open the plastic and grab a handful. They’re stale and not unlike eating salted carboard, but they’ll stop me from starving.

I can hear the water bubbling inside the kettle and I remove it from the heat before it whistles. I don’t want to wake Sawyer. I have no idea how late he was up last night, but judging from the fresh bed of coals in the fireplace, it couldn’t have been too long ago that he was doing his best to keep us from freezing to death.

I stir the hot water in with the powdered coffee and look over at him. He still hasn’t budged since I opened the bedroom door. Carrying my mug, I tiptoe over to him. There’s a book on the floor lying next to him that I hadn’t noticed before. A paperback.

I inch forward, trying not to make a sound. I know I shouldn’t be sneaking up on him, but my curiosity has gotten the better of me. I’m dying to know what kind of book keeps Sawyer up reading throughout the night?

I lean over to get a closer look, but the cover is half torn off.

“What are you doing?”

I jump, almost spilling my coffee. Instead it just splashes against the sides of my mug a little too high and lands on my fingers.

“Ouch. Fuck!” I walk over to the counter and lay the cup down, examining my hand.

“Are you ok?” He jumps up immediately and leaps over to me.

“It’s nothing,” I blow on my fingers.

“Are you sure?” Sawyer grabs my hand and looks at it closely. I can’t help but smile at the concern etched into his face.

“I’m sure. You just scared me, that’s all.” I answer.

“I scared you? You were the one standing over me while I was sleeping,” he drops my hand and stares into my eyes.

“I wasn’t watching you sleep or anything!” I blurt out unconvincingly and heat burns in my lying face. I twist my head away from him, looking back at the book he abandoned on the floor. “I just wanted to know what you were reading,” I refuse to look back up at him. I can feel his intense gaze on me. Looking at me closely. Like he’s trying to read the pages of my book. The story of my life.

“It’s The Catcher in the Rye,” he finally answers and drops his eyes. He turns on his heel, crossing the floor to the stove and makes himself a coffee. “Heard of it?” He doesn’t bother to look at me when he asks. He probably thinks I somehow haven’t. Like he’s the only one between us that’s ever read a book.

“Of course I’ve heard of it! It’s my favorite book. Oh, I haven’t read it in a while though. It’s so good.” I ramble on enthusiastically. It’s strange how, no matter how little you know about someone else, no matter how little you can relate to them or their lives, when you find out you share the love of the same book, you instantly feel closer to them.

“Congratulations, you do know how to read,” Sawyer puts a pin in my elation as he turns around and frowns at me.

I look down at my dwindling coffee and try not to show him that he’s hurt me. It’s obvious that’s what he wants. I won’t give it to him.

Maybe if I was a bit kinder to him yesterday he wouldn’t be so bitter today. I realize that he went through an enormous amount of work to try to keep me safe and fed yesterday, and I turned my nose up at him like a spoiled brat.

“Hey,” I force my voice to stay steady. I force glare up into his angry face. “I’m sorry, ok?”

I watch as his eyebrows slide back over his eyes. His lips fill back out from the straight line he always presses them in. He looks less intimidating. He looks… hot.

“I never said thank you for everything you’ve done for me. For saving my life,” I whisper, “so, uh, thank you. Sincerely. I mean it. I know you don’t like me, but we don’t have to like each other to be civil, right? I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair soon and you’ll never have to put up with me again. So, can we just try to get along?” I breathe in deep and wait for anything except the sound of silence. I swear I can hear the soft snow falling outside.

“You’re right,” Sawyer finally answers me, standing up tall. “The last I heard, it sounds like we’re still going to be here for a couple more days, so there’s no point in being at each other’s throats the whole time.

He holds his coffee cup and it looks dwarfed in his grasp. All I can think about is how I want to feel those big hands on my body.

He smiles a genuine smile that makes my heart fluttery and my cheeks heat up. Sawyer clears his throat and gulps the last mouthful of his instant joe. “I should get out there and chop some wood,” he jerks his head to the winter wonderland waiting outside window.

“Wood?” I glance out the window but don’t see what he’s talking about.

“Yeah, I found a tarped-up pile of dry logs under the snow yesterday. And a dull ax to cut it with,” he shrugs, “but it’s better than nothing, right?”

“I guess so,” I agree.

“Ok, well hang tight and I’ll get that sorted out,” he pulls on his boots and parka, looking over his shoulder at me quickly before opening the door to disappear into a sea of white.

I can feel the usual tension between us shift. It changes like tectonic plates that normally shatter the earth with deep quakes, then merging together to form an entirely new land. One forged just for us.