I glanced up and into the brooding, smoldering eyes of the mysterious stranger with the handsome face and sexy accent. I had no idea who he was, or why he was so suspicious of me. The way he stared at me was both erotically thrilling and bone-tingling scary at the same time. My mind was in overdrive. I wasn’t sure how to react to him, or what he wanted from me. I just wanted my clothes, and I wanted to be free.

I tried to switch my tactics. It was now clear to me that he wasn’t going to be the one to budge. What kind of guy rescues a woman, strips her naked, and then refuses to give her back her clothes?

“Can I at least have a shirt or something?” I chuckled as if the situation were slightly amusing, but inside I was screaming.

On the one hand, I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to run my fingertips across his chiseled, perfectly sculpted body. This guy must have lived at the fucking gym. How did somebody obtain that many muscles in one lifetime? He looked like a Greek god.

On the other hand, I was wildly petrified of him. I had no idea what he might do to me. His eyes were cold at some times, and sometimes he had a gentle softness that wavered and fluttered through his expression. He was confusing me, and I didn't know what to do.

“No shirt,” he said in his gorgeous Russian accent. His jaw squared as if it weren’t up for debate.

"Okay." I glanced to the left of me at the crackling fire and scooted closer to it.

He was skeptical and weary of me, but he wasn’t the only one with doubts. I had a past too, but I wasn’t about to expel my life history to this guy I had only known for under an hour. He wasn’t going to get all my secrets. It was none of his business. Just because he saved my life didn’t mean I had to bare all to him.

This was the very thing I was afraid of. My worst nightmare of a situation was happening. Did he have connections to the people that killed my parents? Did he know people that did? If so, what did he want with me? One look into his eyes let me know that even if I asked the millions of questions running a marathon through my head, he wouldn’t divulge a single scoop of an answer.

I glanced up at the ceiling and groaned with frustration. “Fine,” I said sullenly and met his gaze again. “You win. Alright? What do you want to know?”

I felt defeated, but at the same time, I could weave my way through this interrogation. I had confidence in myself. I could give him the surface details without unearthing the nitty gritty of my deepest secrets.

“What’s your real name?”

“I already told you. Can you spell? Do you want me to spell it for you?" I knew I was skating on thin ice by being sarcastic with this macho dream hunk, sadistic madman, but I couldn’t help myself.

He didn’t look amused. “Why did you go in my cellar?”

“Look…it’s apparent to me now that you really want privacy and believe me, nobody wants to respect that more than I do.” I placed my hand to my chest. “I got lost.”

“How did you get lost?” He shook his head as if my tale was anything but a possibility that could actually be true.

I inhaled sharply. I was growing just as frustrated as he looked. Still, I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to feel the heat from his body. I had to open up if I wanted to gain any headway with him.

“I was at a bed-n-breakfast,” I recounted. “I mean…I’m staying at a bed-n-breakfast. I had gone out on a tour.” I glanced up at him. Surely, he was fully aware of the fact that he lived in a tourist area that was covered with miles of trails.

“Just a tour?”

“Yes. I was on a tour, with a group,” I recounted.

“Where is your group now?” He glanced around sarcastically as his lips curled into a smile. “Where was your group when you nearly drowned in a ditch?”

He gestured around the cozy cottage as if he half expected the group to come out from behind the couch and reveal themselves. I wanted to strangle his thick neck for mocking me.

“They had no idea that I walked away from the group.”

“Why would you leave your group? Arrow Lake is a large place, and you're in uncharted territories. Didn’t you think you’d get lost out here by yourself?”

“I thought I could find my way back. I had a map. The tour guide told me not to leave, but I didn’t listen,” I said and winced.

“I left my bag behind,” I stated cautiously. “I must have dropped it somewhere.”

He paused for a brief moment, clearly pondering and digesting my rehashing of events. “So you left the group to go find your bag?”

“It had important things in it,” I told him but then quickly regretted that decision to be forthcoming.

“What kind of important things?” He asked in a dark voice.

“Just like my wallet and room key and things like that,” I told him briskly.

“You knew your bag wasn’t in my cellar, so why did you go down into it?”

“I got caught in the rainstorm and I saw the cellar. I went down there for shelter and when I saw what I saw…” I sighed. “I wanted to get out of there.”

His face hardened. He still seemed angry about me going down into his cellar and discovering what I did. I started to ask him about all those guns he had, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to anger him any further and I wanted my clothes back and I wanted to go home. Enough with this free tour. This wasn’t what I had in mind.

“Are you done bombarding me with questions?” I shot the words at him in an accusatory tone and pulled the blanket back over my body as snugly as it would go.

He still didn’t seem convinced, so I took it even further. “People will be looking for me, you know.” It was a hidden threat.

“Who?” He seemed surprised at the thought.

“My boyfriend.” I stated this on-the-spot sprouted lie as confidently and defiantly as I could. “He was on the same tour with me. If I don’t get back to the room soon, he’s going to know that something is wrong.”

“Why didn’t he try to stop you from going off from the group then?” The sexy Russian saw right through the holes in my story.

“He didn’t know I left the group,” I quickly thought up another lie. “I snuck off, remember?”

He leaned back and said nothing for a few moments. It was as if he were trying to size me up and determine how much of what I was telling him was a lie and how much was the truth. I held my breath and tried not to succumb to the rising panic inside of myself.