By the time Thorn comes out of the shower, it’s already starting to get a little cold in the cabin. He emerges wearing jeans and no shirt, his hair damp and glistening.

I try not to look at his chest when he comes into the room, but since he barely gives me a glance as he goes over to his bag, I can’t help but sneak a peek. He’s absolutely gorgeous, easily the best-looking man I’ve ever seen up close before. His muscled chest and arms are lined with tattoos that move when he does, making it hard not to stare in fascination. He looks positively chiseled, almost as though he’s sculpted of stone, but stone that begs to be touched, explored… clutched at…

The jeans hang low on his hips, revealing the top of a spectacular V and the hint of a treasure trail. Thorn is so muscular and massive, what I can see of him, that my mind immediately invents an image of what must be underneath his jeans. Between my legs, wetness starts to grow as I imagine the hot, hard length of him, how majestic he would look standing before me, with nothing concealing his naked body at all.

“… fire while you start dinner.”

I blink at him in confusion. My face flames. “I’m sorry, what?” I babble.

Thorn narrows his eyes at me for a moment, cocking his head. “I said, if you’re hungry, I’ll work on building a fire while you start dinner.”

Thorn has a dark gray shirt in his hand, which he yanks over his head as I try to recover my senses. “Uh, sure, that sounds good, thanks,” I stammer. He gives me a brief nod and strides over to untie me. I’m so embarrassed from being caught thinking about him in that way that I can’t even manage a sarcastic comeback. Instead, I just wait for him to turn me loose and then pad out to the kitchen without another word.

I sneak a few more glances at Thorn as he starts to stack logs in the fireplace. But I’m afraid to be caught staring at him again, so I force myself to turn away and busy myself with preparing a meal. I pull out some ground beef and buns and decide to just make hamburgers. I even find some frozen fries in the freezer that I can bake in the oven.

As I work, something about being able to move around and do something starts to improve my mood. I actually catch myself humming softly as I turn on the oven to pre-heat and rummage around for a pan to put the fries on. Seriously, Izzy? I chide myself. Have you forgotten that you’re being held against your will by a man who clearly hates you?

That sobers me up a bit. But it’s still a relief to not feel so miserable and afraid, if only for a little while. And I’ll take anything I can get at this point. I busy myself forming patties and forget about everything but the process of making the meal for just a few more minutes.

When the oven is preheated, I spread out the fries on the pan and put them in, then start cooking the burgers. “Do you want fried onions?” I call over my shoulder to Thorn. “I can make some to go on top if you want.”

All I get is a grunt in response, which I decide to take as a yes. I grab an onion from the counter and slice off a few rings to fry in some butter. It occurs to me to be slightly surprised that Thorn is allowing me to handle a kitchen knife. But as pissed as I am that I’m being held prisoner here, I know I’d never be capable of actually stabbing someone unless they were literally trying to kill me. And besides that, Thorn is so much stronger than I am, I doubt I’d even manage to get a blade close to him if I tried. And I’m guessing he probably knows that, too.

I set two places at the small round table and put out ketchup and a glass of water for me. I start to ask Thorn what he wants to drink, but then decide that I’m not his servant and he can figure that out for himself.

By the time the food is done, Thorn’s got a nice fire going in the fireplace. I glance over at it in approval, but don’t want to give him the satisfaction of a compliment. “Food’s ready,” I call to him, and sit down at the table without waiting for him. He stands up and goes over to the fridge. Opening it, he glances over.

“Beer?”

“Sure, why not?”

It makes me feel just a tiny bit of satisfaction that he’s the one asking me if I want a drink. Small victories.

He comes to the table and sits down opposite me. He places a bottle in front of my plate.

“Smells good,” he grunts.

“Thank you.”

Thorn takes a large bite from the burger. “Tastes good.”

“I can do the cooking while we’re here, if you’d like,” I hear myself offering. “It’ll give me something to do.”

He gives me a nod. “Okay. We’ll eat better that way. I’m not much of a cook.”

I try not to feel too pleased by the small compliment.

“Well, I’m probably not that much better,” I admit. “But my mom did teach me a few things. Most of them involve ingredients we don’t have, though.”

“Venezuelan food?”

I nod. “Arepas. Empanadas…” At his frown, I explain. “Arepas are kind of like tacos, but with fried corn meal. Empanadas are little fried dumplings with stuff inside. Spicy.” Even though the burger is good, I feel a pang of hunger for these foods that I’ve barely even eaten since my mom left. “Lots of corn, rice, beans. Plantains and yams.” I shrug. “You’d have to try it to know what the flavors are like.”

We continue eating in silence. I take a few sips of my beer, and enjoy a brief feeling of near-normalcy.

“You’re not quite what I expected,” Thorn says then, out of the blue.

“Oh?” I arch a curious brow. “What exactly were you expecting?”

“With a father like Oz? A pain in the ass.”

I let out a bark of laughter in spite of myself. “And instead?” I ask.

“Well, you are pain in the ass.” He looks at me pointedly. “But not quite as bad as I expected.” He pauses for a beat. “Also, you have better tits than I imagined.”

His words are so out of the blue that I almost choke on my mouthful of burger. Coughing a bit before I swallow, I glare at him. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or pissed at that remark.”

“Why would you be pissed?” He looks at me innocently, but I think I can see a gleam of mischief in his eye.

“Um, because it’s a totally sexist and inappropriate thing to say, for one thing.”

Thorn shrugs and says nothing, taking another bite of his burger.

I open my mouth to berate him some more, but realize I’d just be prolonging having a conversation with him about my boobs. And in spite of the fact that his words were totally sexist and inappropriate, they’ve still left me feeling uncomfortably warm.

I decide it’s time to change the subject.

“How well do you know my father, anyway?”

“I don’t,” he shrugs. “Or hardly, anyway. I’ve met him a few times. I’ve seen him with his men. Seems like a good leader. They respect him.”

I smirk. “Yeah. If you can call fear respect.”

“Fear is respect. Of a certain type, anyway.”

“I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”

He eyes me. “Are you scared of him?”

“Me? No.” I shake my head. “Not really. To be honest, I don’t know him that well, either. Maybe not much better than you.”

“How can that be? He’s your father.” Thorn’s face is skeptical.

“I barely saw him, growing up.” I take a drink of my beer, weighing how much to tell him. “When I was little, and my parents were still together, he was rarely at home. He’s been the president of the Death Devils for a long time. When I was young, those were the days when he was building up the club, and that took up most of his time. My parents split up when I was about ten. I went to live with my mom. For the next few years, I only saw him every couple of months or so, if even that.”

I stop to take another drink and steal a glance at Thorn. His face is unreadable. Sighing, I swallow and go on. “When I turned fifteen, my dad transformed almost overnight from being a mostly absentee father, to a strict authoritarian. He would come over to our house just to grill my mom about what I’d been doing and who my friends were. He didn’t want me to do anything. He thought Mom shouldn’t even let me leave the house except for school. I used to call my dad The Great and Powerful Oz,” I say, laughing quietly. “Not to his face, of course. But my mom would shush me anyway, and tell me not to disrespect him like that.

“Mom went back to Venezuela three years ago, like I told you, to take care of her parents. She didn’t take me with her, off course. America is the only country I’ve ever known.” I shake my head. “Since she’s been gone, Dad’s alternated between being completely absent in my life to completely suffocating. Absent in the sense of giving me absolutely no direction in life, and suffocating in that he still thinks I’m fifteen and need to be monitored so my virtue, or whatever, won’t be taken.” I roll my eyes.

“Do you live with your dad?”

“Not anymore. Well, I mean, not before all this,” I say, waving my hand in the air. “Before Mom left, she begged me to enroll in college. At first I resisted. But finally this fall, I decided she was right, so I started taking classes at a community college about an hour away. I took classes part-time and waited tables to afford rent and food.”

“College girl, eh?” Thorn says, raising an eyebrow.

“Mostly to get away from my dad,” I admit.

“What are you studying?”

“I don’t know yet.” I sigh. “And at this point, I’ll probably never get the chance to find out. A month ago, Oz forced me to come home and put me under house arrest, so I had to change my classes to online.” I glance around the cabin bitterly. “And now… well, I’m guessing there’s no wifi here, and I don’t have my computer anyway. So my semester is kind of screwed.”

“Ah, don’t be that way. This is only a temporary situation. You’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Yeah?” I scoff. “Just how is that going to happen? I still have no idea why I’m even here in the first place. And my dad is still nuts and overprotective. This could go on for months.”

“In this situation, I don’t think he’s being overprotective,” Thorn murmurs.

“Oh yeah?” I challenge, fixing him with a level stare. “Well, why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on, then, and why I’m here? Since nobody else will?”

But he only shakes his head. “My job is to keep you safe. Oz will tell you what he wants to tell you, when he wants to tell you.”

“Figures,” I say gloomily. “You’re scared of him, too.”

“No,” he growls. “I have a duty to my club. And this is part of that duty.”

“So, what about that?” I ask. “What did you do to get stuck guarding me as penance?”

Thorn lets out a bark of laughter. “Oh, darlin’, the things I’ve done, I’d be doing perpetual penance for the rest of my days. This is no penance. It’s just a job.”

“So…?”

He blows out a breath. “I don’t know, exactly. Your father chose me.”

“What?”

“Rock, my prez, tells me Oz asked for me specifically.”

“That means either he trusts you, or he has something on you.”

“The latter.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Thorn gets up abruptly from the table, looking suddenly angry. He goes to the refrigerator for another beer. When he sits back down, the atmosphere between us has definitely chilled between us. We finish the meal in silence, and Thorn makes it clear he intends to keep it that way.

I try to pretend like I don’t care, but the truth is, I’m disappointed. More disappointed than I care to admit.