I was still trying to be cautious with Alexis. Sometimes even the most beautiful women were just black widows, looking to lure you in for the hunt and then waiting for the perfect moment to strike with the kill.

After bathing her, I finally relented and gave her the clothes back that she had worn when I had initially found her under the trench.

“Here.” I handed her the freshly washed clothes. “You can put these back on.”

“Thanks,” she said and blushed as she shot her eyes downcast. “Do you think the weather will be better tomorrow so I can head back?”

“It’s mid-Spring here in Arrow Lake. The weather is unpredictable especially since we’re so high up in the mountains,” I exclaimed.

“Oh.” A hint of sadness mingled in her voice.

“Are you ready to go to sleep?” I asked her curiously after she yawned.

“Kind of…” she answered sheepishly and trailed off.

“You can sleep on the couch,” I instructed her.

I still wanted to keep an eye on her. I would make myself a little makeshift bed on the floor beside her. That way, if she tried anything funny in the middle of the night, I'd be able to pounce on her. I was the lightest sleeper in the world, and if she made any sudden movements, I'd be ready.

I went to the one guest bedroom I had in the house and retrieved a fresh blanket for her as well as a pillow.

"Here." I placed the items down on the couch.

“Okay,” she said tiredly as she collapsed onto the couch with a sigh of relief.

I watched her as she drifted off into the oblivion of dreamland. I waited until the rhythm of her breathing was consistent and peaceful. Once I was fairly certain that she was asleep, I went back into my kitchen to see if the results had come in yet on her background check.

I was anxious and nervous, feeling the pounding effects of my heart drumming in my chest. I inhaled a substantially sizable deep breath and stared at the screen. The results were in. The truth was there on the screen. I printed out the documents, so I could study them properly, feeling nauseated as I waited to find out Alexis’s true identity.

Once every page had finally popped out of the printer drawer, I pulled out the pages that were still warm. I inspected them as if my life depended on it. Alexis Mancini had been somewhat of a drifter. She had moved from place to place, bouncing from city to city for what appeared to be the last six years or so.

Her parents, Renatta Gray and Alonzo Mancini, had presumably been gunned down by Italian mobsters leaving Alexis a seventeen-year-old orphan. Their murder cases had been marked as solved and closed a long time ago. I found the connection to her and the mob oddly unsettling and didn’t realize how we both seemed to be on the run. Was it fate that had brought us together in some strange and ominous way? It was still too early to tell, but I had a prickly sensation come over me the deeper I scrutinized her past.

My concerns also began to rise like a tide that was coming in and surrounding me. My suspicion was already growing considerably but this new information just made my misgivings even more accurate.

I must have been completely lost in thought because when I looked up again, Alexis's shadow was bearing over me.

I jumped a few inches in the air. “Fuck!” I dropped the papers everywhere, and they fluttered like snow to the ground.

"I'm sorry…I didn't mean to startle you." Alexis looked embarrassed but came into the room anyway.

I flustered and fumbled to pick up the papers as quickly as possible before Alexis could read their contents.

“It’s no big deal,” I mumbled, still trying to recover from what I was sure might just have been a mini heart attack. “I’m not always this jumpy.”

“What is going on with you? Anything you want to talk about?” She had a ‘mother hen’ expression on her face as if she were genuinely concerned for my wellbeing.

I stared at her for a few moments. She was remarkably beautiful. Her wavy brown hair glowed a different shade with amber tints to it under the soft lights.

“I’m fine,” I said and shook my head with denial. “Really.”

“What were you looking at?” She asked with more curiosity than suspicion. Her eyes dropped to the papers.

“Just…work,” I blurted out and stuffed the documents into a folder and back into a drawer.

“Oh…” she said and shifted her weight as she looked at her toes. “Where do you work?”

“I’m retired.”

“What did you do for a living?” She was relentless.

"Sanitation," I stated flatly. Usually, people left me alone when I told them that.

Her brows furrowed. “Sanitation? As in trash man?”

“Yes. I take out the trash.” Then, in an attempt to change the subject, I asked, “What are you doing awake?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Alexis stated apologetically. She looked uncomfortable with the way I was eyeing her.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I don’t mean to stare at you like some creep. I um…I’m just not used to company. I guess I really don’t know how to handle myself around them.” I was babbling. Too much.

“It’s okay,” she chuckled sheepishly.

“It’s just…you’re so gorgeous.” I couldn’t help it. She was growing on me, and I felt like her attractive looks were the root of my weakness.

"Thanks," she blushed with a smile. "You're cute too. Do you live here alone?"

“Yes.”

“I bet your girlfriend is probably wondering where you are tonight,” she stated.

I grinned, chuckling. I couldn’t help but to be amused by the round-about way of asking if I was single or not. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time.”

“Oh, well that’s too bad.” She bit the corner of her bottom lip. “You’re so strong. I bet you’re something else in bed.”

She was teasing the hell out of me and she knew it. It was the first time that she had opened up to me in a way like that and gave me more ambitious fuel to see how far I could take things with her without getting negative feedback. I was a man after all, and I had needs. Needs that I'm sure she could fill, and I wanted to see how much I could get away with.

With my dick hardening, I shifted in my seat. “I could show you…if you’d like.”

“I…” She was mesmerizing, and my mind took over with a rush of intoxicating fantasies.

I frowned. “But you have a boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry.” Alexis shook her head. “I don’t have a boyfriend either. That part…was a lie. I was afraid you’d hurt me and I wanted you to believe someone would come for me. But there’s no one…”

“I won’t hurt you,” I replied, sincerely.

“I know that now,” she said, shyly.

“The truth is, I’d love to give you pleasure.”

Alexis’s cheeks flushed crimson at the admittance of my erotic imagination. “I’ve never had sex before,” she blurted. "No one has ever pleasured me. I'd want a man to pleasure me, but I don't know how to ask."

For some reason, this confession from her turned me on even more. “Really?”

So, she had no boyfriend, and she was a virgin. This surged my arousal into overdrive as I rose from my chair and walked towards her. I was captivated by her beauty. She looked at me with hungry desire in her eyes. I’d seen that look before. She was curious and needy. She compelled me to wrap my arms around her waist.

Wordlessly, I led her back to the couch. Her skin was on fire with electrical heat of both desire and wonderment. Gently, I pushed her shorts down without protest. I pulled her legs apart, but she didn’t squirm away. I caught her gaze before proceeding forward, wanting to be sure this was what she wanted.

“Is something wrong?” she asked breathlessly.

“No. You’re perfect.” Her pussy lips were engorged and full, pink and perfect. She looked delicious and I noticed she was trembling. “It’s okay,” I whispered to her. “I’m not going to fuck you. I just want to make you come.”

I craved to taste her sweet nectar as my lips drew like a magnet to suck on her clit. I began to lick her as my tongue pushed past her swollen pussy lips. She tasted like honey and I was instantly addicted. My tongue made swirling motions as I made perfect circles on her clit.

She began to conform as her body relaxed. She rested her feet on my shoulders as I gave her oral pleasure. Soft moans and sighs escaped her lips and turned me on even more with the sound of her voice.

A puddle of her slippery wetness began to pool on the couch and I knew I was making her intensely satisfied. Her moans became more wild and desperate and her thighs shook with passion and desire.

She gripped the back of my head and pushed me further between her legs as she tugged on my hair with a mixture of pleasure and pain. The sexual chemistry between us was thick and dense. I knew she was close to allowing the ecstasy to consume her.

After a few more seconds, she made a guttural, primal cry of pleasure as her orgasm shook her body with near violence. I gulped down her sweet pussy juices, relishing in the way her pussy convulsed with her orgasm.

That night, I held back, trying not to indulge in what I really wanted. Instead, I rubbed her body softly, massaging her skin to relax her, and then I watched her as she drifted back into a peaceful lull of sleep. Her cheeks were flushed in the afterglow of orgasm and her expression was that of a contented woman. As I stared at her, I knew I was in trouble as the addiction for her began to take over me.