I knew the difference between people telling the truth and those who were lying. Unfortunately for this Alexis girl, I could tell that she was hiding something. I didn’t exactly know what that was that she was concealing, but I was bound and determined to find out.

It was already wired into my DNA to be suspicious of people, basically everyone I ever came in contact with. I was just going to have to keep her here with me as my hostage until I squeezed the truth out of her. Not to mention, the longer I kept her here, naked…the more eye candy she became to me.

She was gorgeous, slender and tan. An exotic beauty who was too perfect for words. I had to restrain myself from running my hands up and down her bare thighs. I wanted to explore between her legs, but I knew that wouldn’t pan out very well for me right now.

“Why are you lying to me?” I was practically sitting on the edge of the chair, inches away from her. I could feel the heat radiating off of her body and it mesmerized me. She was intoxicatingly beautiful.

“I’m not lying.”

Her answers were getting me nowhere, but the sound of her voice calmed my nerves.

She appeared to be absolutely terrified, which was one of the reasons I was so suspicious of her. My paranoia ran deep because of my dark past, and I couldn't afford to get sloppy now that I'd made an enjoyable home for myself nestled away deep in the woods. I didn't want anyone or anything to come between me and my freedom, my peace and quiet.

It wasn’t just a coincidence that she found me and my cellar. The trails didn’t go that close to my property that she would have just stumbled upon it for no reason…unless she was sent here to find me on purpose. Unless she'd been watching me all along.

I narrowed my eyes in on her. The truth would come out. I would just have to scare her a little. But not too much, I didn’t want her to hate me. Something inside me told me that even if she were hiding something, she was intimidated. I didn’t want to make it worse for her because I knew she wouldn’t cooperate.

I was no stranger to interrogation, but similar to this situation, I was the one who was firing out the rounds of questions. There was no doubt that Alexis felt like she was in the hot seat with the way I was towering over her. It was best that she remained afraid, at least for now. That way, she wouldn’t try anything reckless.

Hurting her was the furthest thing from my mind, but I needed to understand who she was and why she was in my cellar. I had been a contract killer for eighteen years. I’d witnessed everything. It had been my job to determine when people were lying to me, and I prided myself on being able to sniff out the deceivers.

It had been my job to get in, do the job and get out. Collecting my check had been the only thing I’d cared about back then. I didn’t think about families I probably had torn apart. The money lured me in and took over all of my senses and the ability to decipher right from wrong.

I knew that the darkness of my past would come back to haunt me, but I was still on guard and weary of people trying to find me. Not only for revenge purposes, but I knew there were people out there who still thought I was the best in the business and would want to try and persuade me into one last kill.

Even though I’d only been retired a little over a year, that life seemed like a million years ago, and I wasn’t interested in ever looking back.

“Why won’t you tell me the truth?” I demanded.

“Tell you the truth about what?” Alexis squeaked and wiggled. Part of the blanket fell off of her shoulder and exposed her right breast before she hastily draped the garment back over herself.

Her eyes were frantically searching the room as if she were looking for a way to make a run for it and any avenue of escape she could possibly find.

My lips curled into a sly grin. “You aren’t getting out of here that easily, baby girl, so don’t try anything that you might regret later.”

She flashed me a disgusted look. “Why won’t you just give me my clothes?” Her voice dripped with anguish.

“Why would I do that?” I shrugged with nonchalance. “If I give you your clothes, you’ll run.”

A telling expression crossed her face. She’d been thinking about escaping this whole time. Even if she did run out of my cabin naked, she wouldn’t get very far in the rainstorm. The way things were looking and after viewing the forecast, the rain wasn’t going to let up for the next couple of days.

Who would plan a sight-seeing trip to the mountains in this type of weather? Baby girl thought she had gotten a deal, but this was the worst time to visit. Good thing she hadn’t paid for it.

“Besides, I like you this way. You’re beautiful,” I added.

Her eyes burned a hole of fury through me.

“I’m not the flashy type,” she hissed.

“What type are you then?” I growled impatiently.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” she retorted.

I let out a chastising chuckle. “I don’t think so. Not until you tell me what I want to hear.” There was a moment when our eyes met and locked. It was almost as if she were trying to call my bluff, but I was not in the business of joking, especially when it came to strange women sniffing around outside of my property.

“Why were you in the middle of the rainstorm trying to dig around?” I asked.

“I wasn’t digging around in anything.”

"You followed me, didn't you? And when I went to take a piss, you went into my cellar. What did you take?"

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Nothing. I didn't take anything. I didn't even know that was your cellar. I was looking for someplace to hide from the storm."

Her expression turned sullen. She wasn’t cracking as easily and quickly as I had anticipated and hoped. She only appeared to be weak, but she was strong.

“Where are you from?” I asked her again.

It was a tactic I had used before, back in my prime. It was my experience that if you asked a person the same question more than once, and if they were lying, they would give you a different answer. Under stress and pressure, it was likely that they would forget the first answer they gave you, but I never forgot anything.

“I already told you,” she said with an edgy tone. “New York.”

I studied her face. Her eyes didn't flinch. She was a good liar. I'd give her that. I wondered how seasoned she was. I couldn't trust anybody, let alone her. She may have been petite and gorgeous wrapped up under that blanket, but she could be a snake in the grass, just waiting to strike at me and sink her venom into my veins. Just like how she slithered her way into my cellar when my back was turned.

I hadn’t had sex in a long time, and my primal and urgent needs were surging into overdrive. I wanted to toss the blanket off of her, grab her by the hips and fuck her from behind. Maybe that would teach her a lesson, but I wasn’t that kind of guy either. I might have been a contract killer in my past life, but I’d been raised to respect women.

“We are just going to sit here then,” I stated defiantly.

“Sit here until when? Forever?” Her eyes were glazed over with both frustration and fear.

“As long as it takes,” I told her. “Until the truth comes out.”

She was lying about something. I knew eventually, the truth would reveal itself. It always did, no matter how long you had to chase it.