Victoria
She was still talking by the time they made their way down yet another hallway and into the kitchen. The kitchen was massive, but there was a large table right in the middle of the room so it was almost cramped in there too. But it wasn’t messy, so she wasn’t sure if she could judge the place for it. Actually, the safe house was clean, tidy, and well-decorated, and she hated every bit of it. It would be easier for Victoria to hold onto her anger if this place was completely filthy. She thought it would be, anyway.
She wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk to Darren, especially since he was refusing to tell her anything. But it wasn’t as though he was really saying much. If anything, he was talking even less than he had before they got into the cabin.
Stress and agitation could only keep distract her for so long, though, and she starting to realize that she was hungry. But she doubted she was going to find much to eat in this place; this was a “safe house” in the middle of the woods for a goddamned club, for crying out loud. This place was probably just where they went to torture people. Sure, they might actually hold some people here to keep them safe for some time, but she bet that there was a soundproofed basement downstairs with an eerily colored floor. There had to be. It was the most likely thing.
She was about to make a smart-ass comment when her stomach growled. She blushed immediately, looking up to where Darren stood on the other side of the room in front of a countertop. She’d hoped he hadn’t heard it, but he looked up, a smile flicking across his face.
“Someone hungry?”
“I can find food myself, thank you.”
She walked over to the cupboards defiantly, prepared to scout for food and find nothing there. There was no way she was going to ask him to go on a food run for her if that was what it came down to, but she might have to. She didn’t want to go hungry. She guessed that it was somewhere around four or five now, and she hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday.
Swinging open the first cabinet door that she saw, she was confronted by a variety of spices. Rice. There was even some cereal in there, but she eyed it suspiciously; it might have expired. Nope. The rest of the cupboards were similarly stocked.
She went to the fridge, opening it, and all she saw inside was a carton of milk. The freezer, on the other hand, was full of frozen vegetables and bread, and this surprised her. Still, she couldn’t let it show. Better Darren think that she was angry at everything he did than impressed by anything at all.
“You don’t have enough carbs,” she said, grabbing a package of bread out of the freezer and going to the cupboards to hunt down that peanut butter she knew she’d seen. “Or sweets.”
Darren laughed without even trying to stifle it. “I’m not helping you destroy your health, Your Highness.”
This time, it was Victoria’s turn to raise an eyebrow at him, turning with a piece of still-frozen bread in her hand as she hunted for a toaster. “You expect me to starve to death?”
“You’re not going to starve.”
“You’d feel like it if I deprived you of beer. I bet there’s some of that somewhere.”
There was actually a second freezer in the garage. That one was just full of booze, though, just like Victoria had guessed. But she didn’t need to know it was there. She was a bartender, but Darren was under the impression that she didn’t drink that much. Besides, even if she did, there was no reason to have her either get shit-faced drunk or judge him for the fact that he might. And he definitely wanted to get as drunk as possible right about now, but there was no way he was going to do that when he was supposed to be protecting her.
“Are you cold?”
Victoria gave him another weird look. This guy had some issues. He liked withholding information from her, kidnapping women (he was so at ease with this – there was no way she was the first), and then asking…about their body temperature? She looked at him closely, watching to see if his eyes dipped down her body in any kind of inappropriate way.
Surprisingly, he kept eye contact the entire time. But she noticed his jaw was being held so tight that it was twitching, and that made her smile, so she nodded.
“Yeah.”
She believed him now when he said that he wasn’t the one trying to kill her. He was being nice to her, or as nice to her as a guy like him could be; they weren’t at each other’s throats right now anyway, and she was going to try to keep it like that – until he pissed her off and she couldn’t help it. Besides, maybe being nice would convince him that she didn’t need to stay in a safe house anyway. And if that meant he was going to offer her a sweater, so be it.
Except for the fact that he wasn’t going to do that. The thought didn’t even cross his mind.
He pointed to the cupboards behind her. “There’s cocoa mix and coffee stuff in there, if you want it.”
“Pointing is rude, you know.”
“Are you saying you want me to get it for you?”
“Maybe.”
He lifted his chin up at her. She didn’t think that he was actually going to go and do it, but he strode purposely across towards her. His shoulder brushed up against hers when he got close enough, and she breathed in quickly. She couldn’t be getting bothered by any form of touch from him when they would be stuck together for…for an indeterminate amount of time. But there she was, turning her head toward the ground so he wouldn’t see the faint blush splotched across her face.
The cupboards creaked open as he pushed them apart. He did flung the door open a bit too hard and it slammed against the cabinets to either side, making Victoria blink in surprise. What was he so worked up about? There was obviously something seriously wrong that he wasn’t telling her.
“Coffee or cocoa?”
“Huh? Oh. Cocoa.”
He grabbed two packets of cocoa out of the cupboard before moving to the fridge, where he took out the gallon of milk. “Grab two mugs. They’re in the cupboard closest to you.”
She did, passing him the mugs. She watched in silence as he put the milk in the mugs, warmed them both up in the microwave at the same time, and as he mixed in the cocoa for the two of them. He passed her a mug, and then made his way to the table in the center of the kitchen.
She watched him as he took a seat with his back to the kitchen, facing the rest of the house – the living room, the hallway, and the doors leading off of it were all in his line of sight. That had to be intentional, so she did the only thing she knew how to do.
She tried to get on his nerves. She grabbed the chair exactly opposite him, blocking as much of his vision as she could with her frame. She wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence this time; getting into that habit would probably make it so he never just went and told her things, and she wasn’t into that prospect in the slightest. So she just brought the mug to her lips, taking a quick sip before offering her mug up to Darren’s for a quick cheers.
“I’m not going to toast with cocoa,” he argued.
Of course you aren’t, she thought in her head. Out loud, she didn’t say a word. Maybe it would frustrate him just as badly as his silence frustrated her.
He finished all of the cocoa in his mug with a loud, obnoxious slurp before either of them started talking. She held her mug tightly within both of her hands. There was still over half of the warm liquid in there, and she wanted to hold onto it – for warmth, but also because the way the mug fit so tightly in her hands was a small comfort to her.
Her ears perked up at the first hint of a sigh.
“You know what I do, right?”
She stretched out, almost not believing that this was where the conversation was going, and tried to keep from laughing out loud. The giggles would have to stay in her head. “No, I just bartended at that bar and was completely oblivious to everything.”
He ignored the remark. Was this chick just constantly sardonic? How she behaved bothered him, but he had to get through this without letting this girl get even deeper under his skin. “Alright, good. So you know about the Broken Skulls, then?”
This got him a little eyebrow crinkle in response, and he could tell just then that she didn’t know…anything. She was just pretending to. He sighed, bringing up a few fingers to the center of his brows, and rubbed the skin there before leaning back in an attempt to console himself from the fact that he had to deal with this.
“Okay, well,” he said, starting carefully. “They’re a rival club. It’s all been playful in the past, but now it isn’t so much.”
This made her lean in closer over the table, trying to bring her face closer to his so she could show that she was listening. This just made her eyes run over his lips, however, and she squeezed her eyes shut at the terrible feeling pulsing through her before looking away. “Why?”
“I’m talking! Don’t interrupt me.”
Fine. Right now she was more curious than anything, and she took her hands off of the mug so she could hold both of her arms as she watched him. He was fascinating, really. A complete douche, but maybe that was just from first glance. He did seem like he was concerned about her. And he was hot.
She pressed her legs together at the thought of why she’d even had his number in the first place. If she hadn’t thought about fucking him, she wouldn’t have accepted that damn piece of paper, and they might not be in this situation. Or she might be dead.
“Anyway,” he coughed. “One of the Broken Skulls’ boys got busted for possession last week. Cocaine. And,” he rolled his eyes like Victoria might, like even the idea of this was the most ridiculous thing ever, “they think we did it.”
“We?”
“Are you sure you’re following?” He looked at her briefly.
Victoria was pressing herself as closely against the wood of the table as she possibly could, and she looked pretty hilarious. This was no time to be laughing, though, and Darren’s jaw twitched again. There was no way she was taking this seriously, and that was exactly what she needed to be doing.
“Obviously. Do you think I’m not listening?”
“I think you’re not taking it seriously.”
“There’s no reason to be taking it seriously, I –”
He raised a hand to stop her from talking right then and there. “Someone tried to kill you.”
“That was a one-off.”
He stood up from his chair, pushing it in towards the table and picking his mug up in one hand like he intended to bring it back to the sink in the kitchen. “Was it?”
“No one has any reason to kill me.” Victoria didn’t like where Darren was going with this, and it seemed like every second she stayed in this place, the longer Darren seemed to think she needed to stay with him to be safe. She didn’t want to consider that that might actually be the case. She could take care of herself. She was a big, strong independent woman who only sometimes got shot at. Only once, in fact.
“They do if they think you’re my girlfriend.”
Victoria looked up at that, wanting to fight what Darren had said. Once her eyes found his, though, she knew he wasn’t joking; his eyes were dark and despondent, miserable in a way that she thought meant his mind was focusing on something else.
A small shiver went through Victoria’s body, and she realized then exactly how little she knew about this man. She got up, pushed her seat in like he had, and grabbed her mug. When she walked past him, she put her hand out, palm up, and took his mug, bringing it to the kitchen sink so she could think alone.
He grabbed her arm before she could get past him, and she hissed. Was there going to be a lot of physical contact between them in this place? She wasn’t sure she could take it, but, oh, how she wanted to. Everything about him sent her body into this weird mixture of feelings – something like anticipation and fear, submission and total arousal. She wasn’t going to just throw herself at him, but if he was offering himself up to her…
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Victoria?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Darren.”
She added on his name as an afterthought, but it still caught him a little off guard. “What was that for?”
“I don’t know; why do you keep saying my name?”
# # #
Darren
He took a second to look back at her again. Every time it seemed like he was going to be able to start to like this girl, she ruined it. That was alright. Her keeping him on his toes meant that he could have more fun messing with her too, and she seemed like she’d be easy enough to mess with. He leaned his face in close to hers, like he was about to kiss her, and he reveled in the splashes of pink that darted across her cheeks to the rest of her face. Did this girl really blush that much? He’d seen it a few times already.
She hadn’t when they were in the bar. She must have just been in her element then. Take her out of it and the woman wasn’t the same person she tried to present herself as. Darren would even describe her as shy, bashful. He blew out a small breath towards her, watching her eyes close up quickly as she tried to hold back a flinch. Yeah, he would even describe her as skittish. And why wouldn’t she be?
His lips were so close to her skin that, if he wanted to, he could’ve kissed her forehead right then and there. He got a little bit closer, so that his mouth just barely touched her when he spoke.
“Because I like it,” he said. And then he pulled away.
The look of a woman lured in by his charm flickered across Victoria’s face. Darren smirked, triumphant, knowing that he’d won. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d won yet. Sex? Victoria was obviously interested in it, but she hadn’t exhibited any clear signs besides taking and holding onto his phone number. The look disappeared as quickly as it had come, and Darren wasn’t sure what to make of it. He’d just have to tease her more. That was something he liked doing, and Victoria was showing signs of responding well to it so far. He wondered how far she’d let him go, and how far past that limit he could get her to want.
But then he was confused all over again as Victoria took another step away from him, despite the fact that he’d already created distance between them.
He titled his head at that, watching her. “Nervous?”
“I don’t like it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“That…” She paused. “That thing you’re doing where you act like you’re the king of what’s going on! I hate being around you, and I hate that especially.”
“You’d think that if you hated it so much…” He paused too, imitating the way she spoke. His voice was far more confident, though, and he loved the way she seemed to shake with nervous energy. “You wouldn’t have held onto my phone number. You do know why I gave that to you, right?”
He smirked again.
# # #
Victoria
Victoria didn’t want to return that smirk or acknowledge his question at all, though, so she just looked around the room instead.
And unfortunately for her, there was nothing to throw at him there. The mug might have worked out, but she was getting a little attached to it and she didn’t want to be the first to shatter anything in this household. Not that Darren seemed like he would; he seemed way too composed, actually, and she hated him for it.
But she especially hated him for the fact that he could call her out on all her bluffs. She and Darren Saylor would never, ever get along, but she couldn’t deny that there was something about being around him that made her body sing.
So the solution was simple: don’t be around Darren Saylor. Take him out of the equation and everything would be solved, all fine and dandy. The feelings that he sent through her body might’ve been what a younger, more naïve person might describe as a crush, or even just someone her age who was more hopeful about the state of the romantic world. And yeah, maybe someone might try to claim this was a sign she could fall in love with the guy. No way. She was just going to stay away from him.
Yeah. That would work. There was an entire cabin to investigate. She should focus on that instead, not on this guy that she so inconveniently had to be sharing this place with. If she could get him out of her head and forget that he was there, maybe this could even be like a well-deserved vacation.
Victoria had never been on a vacation before, but something told her that she wasn’t just going to be able to relax like she was and ignore Darren’s presence there. Even as she walked away, she could feel his eyes burning through the back of her head.