I coughed, covering my mouth and my nose with my shirt, squinting as I made my way through the smoke. I went into each room on the first floor, pulling people out as I needed to. At first, I couldn’t tell where the smoke was coming from—it seemed to be surrounding me, coming from all directions, poisoning the very air I was breathing. It wasn’t until I saw Martha pointing adamantly at the lounge area on the first floor that I understood. I rushed in without hesitating, knowing it was often packed with people, and wasn’t surprised when I saw there were a few who hadn’t vacated the room in time before one of the massive shelves had fallen in front of the door. I had to step over it delicately, trying not to touch the burning wood.

I only vaguely heard the sound of the fire trucks as I started to help people out of the room, my eyes watering, carrying them over the growing pile that was starting to barricade the door. If I hadn’t been so tall, there was no way that I would have been able to get through so many times, but my legs were long enough to step over it as many times as I had to in order to get everybody out. I was coughing, dragging myself through the opposite wing of the hallway, though the smoke wasn’t as heavy as it had been. Still, my body felt overwhelmed, and I had almost lost the ability to move any further when somebody wrapped their arm around my waist and turned me around. I looked to see that it was a fireman and allowed him to lead me out of the building. I emerged into the fresh air, coughing and sputtering, letting the fresh air fill my lungs.

“Is everybody out?” I asked Martha when I found her.

She was standing near the edge of the parking lot, staring up at the building. It didn’t look like much had been damaged from the outside, and smoke was only coming through the cracks in the windows on the first floor.

“All of the customers are accounted for,” Martha said. “I counted them just a few minutes ago.”

“Please, count them again,” I said to her. I couldn’t risk having lost somebody in the retreat center, couldn’t even imagine that happening. I looked around the crowd, scanning each of the faces. Some people looked afraid, others annoyed, and others simply curious. They milled about, holding themselves tightly in the cold. Most people hadn’t gotten the chance to change or put on coats before they’d left the building, and now they were soaking wet and freezing. I cursed under my breath, shaking my head as I made my way back toward the building to check on the progress of the fire. I went over to find the fire marshal surrounded by his guys.

“You who we’re supposed to be talking to?” he asked.

“What happened?” I asked them. The fire marshal held something up for me to look at. “A cigarette?” I asked.

“Fire started at the curtains. Somebody must have accidentally set it while they were smoking.”

“We don’t allow smoking in the building,” I said.

The man shrugged.

“Was anybody hurt?” I asked them.

“No,” the marshal said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t need another death or injury on my hands, not after what had happened with Michael. “But you were lucky. A few more minutes and this whole place would have been up in flames.”

“How bad is the damage?”

“You’ll have to get an inspector out here before anybody can stay in that wing. You’re going to have to close it off immediately. I can’t tell you how bad it is,” the man said. “We’re going to give it a couple of hours before we’ll let people go inside.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, but the sprinklers went off—look at these people. They’re going to catch hypothermia. I have to get them in faster than that.”

“I’m sorry—”

“I’m going to have to put them in the other wing. All of them. But I can’t leave them out here,” I said. “Please.”

The fire marshal looked at me for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ll send these guys in to clear the other wing just to be sure. It might take them a few minutes,” the man said.

“As quickly as possible,” I said to him, looking around at the miserable people surrounding me. I hurried off to greet them, making my way through the crowd, checking on my staff and keeping an eye out for Lily. I didn’t see her anywhere, but I knew Martha had led some people into the pool house at the back of the retreat center.

I shivered, my jaw trembling from the cold. The marshal came out and told me that the east wing was clear for people to go inside. Luckily, the sprinklers were made to only be set off in the wing where the alarm had been sounded, so the beds and floors weren’t wet. I led people inside, relieved when I felt the warmth around me. The electricity had surprisingly remained intact, despite the lounge area and the hallway extending into the west wing being burnt and black. The scent of smoke was thick but welcoming compared to the cold air outside.

I directed my staff to lead everybody into new rooms. Most of them were full, and people grumbled when they realized they would have to double-up for the night. I hated what the reviews were going to be after this weekend—another dismal experience at the haunted, cursed retreat. I took a deep breath, and after everything was settled, my body felt weary and exhausted. I was still freezing, and when I looked down at my hands I saw that even my fingers were a pale blue. I buried them in my pockets to warm them, making my way up the elevator and to the suite. I prayed Lily was in there—I hadn’t seen her since the fire started and would have been worried sick if Martha hadn’t assured me that every customer had been accounted for more than once.

I unlocked the door, my hand trembling as I struggled to fit the key in. When I opened it, I barely had time to step inside before somebody rushed at me. I found myself thrown back against the wall by the force of Lily throwing her body against mine, despite her being considerably smaller than I was in every way.

“Logan,” she said, her hands on my cheeks, looking up into my eyes.

She gazed up at me for a moment before her eyes narrowed and she turned around, stomping through the suite and into her room. I stared after her, completely bewildered, and ran my hand through my hair as I went inside. I shut the door behind me and started to strip out of my wet clothes in the living room, desperate to get them off. I was naked, heading into my room to take a shower when Lily appeared again in her doorway. She froze when she saw me.

“Sorry,” she said, blushing deeply. She was shivering, too, still in her wet clothes. I wondered how long she’d been there waiting for me, refusing to go into her room for even a moment to change.

“Are you cold?” I asked her. She nodded. I held my hand out to her. “Come on,” I said.

She gave me a hesitant look, regarding me warily for a moment. Then she came to me, slipping her cold hand into mine as I led her into my room and then into the bathroom. I was so happy to see her. Her skin was streaked black with ash as mine was, colored grey from the smoke. I watched her as I turned on the shower, taking her hand and holding it underneath the water.

“That good?” I asked her, staring at her face, her lips, her soaking wet body.

She nodded, barely breathing as I started to strip her shaking body of her wet clothes, peeling them off her while she stood quietly in front of me. I didn’t try to touch her skin other than where I needed to in order to undress her. I pulled her under the water then, letting the stream fall over her body, rinsing away some of the black marks on her skin. I wanted to wash her clean of them but I didn’t, instead looked into her eyes as I took hold of her hair and arched her gently back so that the water flowed through it.

“You’re an idiot,” she said as I stroked her hair.

I laughed. “Why am I an idiot?”

“Because you ran back into a burning building,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I tried to run in after you—”

“I’m glad somebody stopped you,” I said sharply.

She stared at me, then put her hands to my chest and started to wash the ash from my body with her hands, touching me softly all over. It made my cock ache but I didn’t touch her, not even when her soft, wet hands stroked the lines of the muscles then ran down between my legs, making my breath catch in my throat. She stopped short of actually touching me there, instead skipping it, leaving it hard and throbbing.

“How can you even be turned on at a time like this?” she asked with a playful look in her eye. “This is serious business. This place almost burned down.”

I kissed her instead of answering, smiling against her lips. She kissed me back but then pulled herself away, picking up the soap and beginning to wash her own body. I could tell by the way her hands lingered on her breasts that she was having trouble keeping herself under control and wished that I could watch her make herself come again as I had when she’d been in the bathtub before. I remembered how that had turned out, though, how upset she’d been, and knew better than to ask her for anything like that again. Still, it was hard to just stand there as she spent a little longer than necessary soaping between her legs, rubbing her fingers up and down her slit before finally letting go. I watched the soap run over her body as she rinsed off.

“Can I wash your hair?” I asked her.

She nodded, turning around so her back was to me. I couldn’t help but look down at her perfect little ass, how tight it was, and I remembered her back in the yoga studio. I regretted the way I’d acted with Anna in front of her the moment she’d left and hadn’t really stopped kicking myself since. It had been petty and immature, something I normally wouldn’t have done, but something about Lily made me lose my senses.

I took my time soaping up Lily’s long blonde hair, running my fingers through it, massaging her scalp with my hands. Then I rinsed it for her before combing the conditioner through, luxuriating in the feel of her soft hair against my fingers. I wanted to keep touching her, could have stroked her hair forever, but eventually she turned around and smiled at me before turning off the water. We both got out, wrapped in towels, and she gave me a shy look.

“Do you—are you going to bed?” she asked.

“I don’t think I could sleep,” I said. “Are you?”

“Me neither,” she said. “Um, we can—we can hang out in the living room.”

I smiled at her. It was hard not to kiss her in that moment. I was incredibly charmed by her sweet shyness, her innocence, her desire to distance herself from me and how impossible it was sometimes.

“Sure, baby,” I said to her.

She shot me a look and I gave her an apologetic smile, which she rolled her eyes at before disappearing from my room. I didn’t mind the eye roll—I was just glad that she was willing to talk to me, even if it had nothing to do with how we felt about each other.

I got dressed quickly, going into the living room to find Lily sitting on the couch, wearing a robe. I raised my eyebrows at her and she looked down at her body, frowning.

“I literally have no clothes,” she said, biting her lip.

“I’m sorry, Lily,” I said. “I meant to get you some. I’ll go—”

“No,” she said quickly. “You can go tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said, but didn’t approach the couch. I had no idea how close she wanted to get to me, so I was glad when she gestured me over. I sat beside her, a few inches away, and couldn’t help but note the sliver of her breast that was showing between the robe, the inner curves that I wanted to bury my face in.

“Do you know what happened with the fire?” she asked.

“Not really. The marshal said that the fire was lit by a cigarette. It started with the curtains.”

“So somebody was smoking inside, being an idiot, and accidentally lit the curtains on fire?” Lilian asked.

“I doubt somebody was just sitting there smoking, no. Somebody lit the cigarette in order to light the curtains. Somebody did this on purpose,” I said. I knew the moment I said it that it was true. With everything that had been going on lately, I knew that this was deliberate—whoever had been leaving the messages at the worksite had come to the retreat, and they weren’t playing games anymore.

Lilian stared at me. “I guess it wasn’t Michael.”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t Michael. At least, that wasn’t. I have no doubt that he broke into your room.”

“So who could it have been?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s the fucking ghost,” I said, rubbing my hand over my mouth. I was frustrated just thinking about it. “The curse on this place.”

“A curse?”

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “There’s a legend that this place was cursed because it was built on evil land. That’s how the men explain the power going out. That’s how they explain everything that happens.”

“Are there a lot of things like this that happen?” Lilian asked.

“No,” I told her. “But lately—”

I stopped myself. I didn’t really want to talk to any customer about what was going on at the worksite, though I’d already told Lilian about the cut chain.

“What?” she asked, prodding me in the chest with her fingers. I grinned and grabbed hold of them, holding them in my hand.

“Things have been happening down at the worksite. It’s got the men acting ridiculous,” I said. “And now this. They’ll never get over it.”

“What kinds of things have been happening?” she asked.

“Well, the chain got cut. And then there were some carvings made into the logs that had fallen. It was just gibberish and really didn’t make any sense.”

She stared at me, waiting for me to go on. I could see something in her eyes like alarm but she didn’t say anything.

“There were also dead animals,” I said.

“Dead animals,” she repeated.

I nodded, swallowing. “I went out and there were dead animals nailed to the trees marked to be cut,” I said. “I took them down. Didn’t want the men to see. But by the time I got back to the worksite, the truck’s tires had been slashed.”

“When was this?”

“Just before Martha came to tell me about Michael,” I said. “And about you.”

She looked away from me. I touched her cheek, turning her face to look at me.

“You can tell me what happened,” I said to her in as gentle a voice as I could.

“Are the logs with the carvings still at the worksite?” she asked.

“We set them aside,” I said, nodding.

“I want to see them.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, but I could tell there was more to it. I sighed in frustration.

“What?” she asked, a small smile spreading across her face. “What was that all about?”

“You’re frustrating,” I said to her.

She shifted and her robe fell open slightly, splitting to reveal her thigh. “I’m not trying to be,” she said.

I laughed. “Yes, you are,” I said to her, gazing over her chest, the way the robe was almost falling off her. I wanted to tear it away from her body, to completely shred it so she would have no choice but to be naked with me. I looked at her face instead, lifting my hand to trace the inner curve of her breast with my fingers. I had avoided touching her in the shower but now it seemed like she was almost begging me to with the way she was looking at me, the way she was trembling. I found the end of the tie on the robe and pulled on it so that it came undone. She allowed me to do so, watching me as I parted the robe to reveal her breasts. They were so perfect, just the right size, and I couldn’t help but cup them in my hands. I wished then that my skin was softer, more like her own—I knew my hands were calloused from working, smoothed over but rough from using them day after day. She seemed to read my mind, because she took my hands in hers and held them in front of her face, looking them over with interest.

“What do you think?” I asked her.

She met my eye briefly with a soft smile, then brought my hand to her lips and softly kissed each of my fingertips, sending a shiver of desire through my body. It intensified when she took my longest finger between her lips and sucked on it, pulling it into her mouth and sliding her tongue along the bottom. I nearly groaned when she pulled it away from her face with a wicked grin that I hadn’t even thought her capable of.

“Is that frustrating?” she asked.

I grinned at her, leaning in to kiss her, just nipping at her lip instead as I cupped her breasts again, teasing her nipples with my fingers.

“I think you’re forgetting how frustrated you got the last time I touched your pussy,” I said. “Remember that? Remember begging me to let you come?”

“Yes,” she said as I put my hands on her hips, shifting her body beneath mine. I pulled the robe apart to reveal her body to me, reaching down to stroke her soaking pussy.

“Lily,” I breathed as she started to whimper, moving her hips against my hand. “I really—you have no idea how badly I want to fuck you right now.”

“I think I have an idea,” she said with a smile, biting her lip as she took my finger and guided it inside of her. I noticed that was what she liked best, even more than when I rubbed her clit.

“You like being filled up, huh?” I asked her, sliding my finger as deeply inside of her as it could go, pumping it in and out. “You like the feeling of having something deep in that tight pussy.”

“Yes,” she said, whimpering as I joined another finger with the first, spreading her just a little bit wider.

I used my other hand to take hers, then wrapped it around my cock. She bit her lip and began to stroke it without being prompted, without me having to ask, moving her hand up and down along my length, making me tense with lust.

“Your pussy is awfully tight, baby,” I said to her. “I’m not sure you can take my cock.”

“I can,” she insisted, kissing me, her small hand gripping me tightly. I grinned at her, pulling my fingers away from her needy pussy.

“Prove it,” I said against her lips before kissing her, and I inhaled sharply when she guided my cock into her opening, pressing just the head of it inside. I felt her stretch to accommodate even that, saw the look in her eye that told me she loved it. She tried to take the rest of me with one stroke of her hips, lifting them desperately, but I pulled back. I wanted to fill her up slowly, wanting to watch her face as she finally got what she needed. My eyes were locked on hers as I took her thighs in my hands and spread them wider, pushing inside of her, hesitant to go too deep. I stopped before I was all the way in, beginning to fuck her slowly just like that, careful not to move too fast or too deep. I was afraid that I would hurt her—had always been afraid my size would break a woman somehow. I felt that way especially with Lilian, the need to be gentle, to give her pleasure without the slightest hint of pain.

“Logan,” she moaned, and I heard the frustration in her voice as she rocked underneath me, trying to take me deeper. “Please—”

“I don’t want to hurt you, baby,” I said, though it was hard to hold back, hard to keep from filling her hard and deep and fast. All I wanted to do was completely bury myself inside of her, to be as close to her as possible.

I groaned when she wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling my hips against hers with more strength than I thought she had. I sank deep inside of her, surprised to find I could fit completely. I started to grind against the back of her pussy right away, something that made her lose her breath. Her eyes were closed as I filled her again and again, and I relished how she could take my whole cock into her perfect body.

“Is that okay?” I asked her. She nodded, her eyes still closed, lips parted in a silent moan. I had never seen a woman look like that before, like she was completely falling apart from pleasure, not even when I’d eaten Lily’s pussy for hours and hours the night we’d gone to the mountain. “Is that good?”

“So good,” she said, riding up against me, moving her hips with mine. “God, I didn’t—I didn’t know it could feel this good.”

“It can’t, baby,” I said to her, holding her hips, moving them more quickly against mine. “Not with anybody but me. You know that.”

She whimpered in response, a sound that made me crazy with lust. My movements against her grew rougher in a way I couldn’t control, more eager to take her, to make her body mine. Soon I found I was moving against her in the rhythm she wanted most, with quick, deep strokes that took her breath away. She writhed underneath me on the couch, panting, looking into my eyes as I filled her again and again. I reached down to rub her clit with my fingers as I pulled my cock out of her pussy, making her sigh in frustration.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking my time,” I said, stroking her clit in just the way she liked it, making her squirm.

“Cut it out,” she protested as I moved my lips down to her breasts, sucking on one of her tender nipples. She reached for my cock but I moved away from her, teasing her nipple with my tongue.

“You really do like getting your little pussy stretched out, don’t you?” I said. “I’ve never met a girl who wanted my cock so bad.”

“I don’t want it that bad,” she said, glaring at me, but I laughed and sucked her bottom lip, filling her up with my length once again. That petulant look had done it for me. I gripped her hips in my hands and held them still while I started to ride against her, moving slow but deep. She was clenching, her body squirming around me as she took me over and over, trying to lift her hips against mine. I only let her after a few more minutes of tormenting her slowly, and by the time I let go, I was done holding back for the sake of teasing.

I felt like an animal, especially as she dug her nails into my back and started riding against me, taking my cock as deep and hard inside of her as she could. I was barely aware when we rolled off the couch and onto the floor, noticing only because it made us switch positions, made it so that she was riding my lap. She didn’t slow down from my movements but rocked herself hard and fast, moaning steadily until she gave a soft whimper, writhing on top of me. I held her hips and lifted mine into hers, pounding into her as she came, filled her up with my own come when I couldn’t hold back anymore. Only then did she slow down, lifting herself off me. She stared down at me for a moment before blushing.

“Why do you look shy?” I asked her, lifting myself to kiss her softly.

“I just—I never act like that,” she said. “That’s not—that’s not really who I am.”

“That’s who you are with me,” I said to her. “You didn’t do anything wrong, baby. Relax.”

She sighed, settling back down on my body, resting her cheek against my chest. I stroked her back, glancing at the clock overhead. It was almost three in the morning but I felt wide-awake, alive just from touching her in the way I’d wanted to since the moment I’d met her. She fell asleep within a few minutes and I held her there on the floor for a moment before sitting up and lifting her easily into my arms, carrying her into my bedroom. I lay down in bed, pulling her body against mine, and she snuggled up against me under the blanket.

“I don’t share beds with boys,” she said, her words slurred as she fell asleep. I grinned, stroking her soft hair until I managed to fall asleep as well, listening to her breathing on top of me.