I said I wasn’t going to steal anything, but firewood doesn’t really count. Hell, they have so much of it. I’ve never seen them here in winter, so it’s not like they’ll ever use it. It’s like they thought having a cabin meant needing to have a bunch of firewood stockpiled. It’s almost like they are inviting me to stay here. I’ve stayed here many times before, and they never knew. I usually picked the lock so they wouldn’t notice, but this time I didn’t have my tools with me.

I grab as much firewood as I can hold on my bad leg and bring it inside.

Angel still looks annoyed with me. Not my problem. I told her plenty of times that I’m not innocent. She didn’t want to believe that I was the kind of guy who breaks into other people’s cabins. It’s not like I didn’t warn her.

“There’s a furnace in the bedroom,” I say. “I’ll get that running once we’re ready to sleep.”

I start the fire in the main living space, and I pull the loveseat right up to the fire. I sit down and let out a big sigh of relief as the weight goes off my bad leg. Even though Angel is pissed off at me, she can’t resist the fire, and she ends up right next to me.

We both have our gloves off, and we’re leaning forward and holding our bare hands up to feel the warmth of the fire.

“I told you I was a bad guy,” I say, looking at the flames instead of her.

“I still don’t think you are,” she says. “I think you’re annoying, and stubborn. I’ll give you that. Let me see your leg.”

“It’s fine,” I say.

“Stubborn,” she says, ramming her shoulder into me, as if to emphasize her point.

“I should have turned myself in.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asks, in a smug tone of voice that tells me she already thinks she knows the answer.

“It’s not the reason you think,” I say. “You say I’m stubborn, but you think you know everything.”

She pulls at my belt. “I really should look at your leg.”

I laugh. “You just can’t wait to get my pants off, huh?”

I lean back and start to undo my belt. My leg does feel like shit. I don’t need her to fuss too much over it, but if it’s starting to turn black and rot off, I’d at least like to know.

“Why didn’t you turn yourself in then?” she asks.

I slide my pants off, but they get stuck on my boots. I kick the boots off, then throw the pants down by the fire so that the heat can dry out some of the cold wetness. I long for the feeling of my socks getting all nice and toasty.

She puts a hand onto my thigh, her hand is warm. I inhale deeply. “God, you’re warm.”

“No,” she says. “It’s just that you’re freezing cold. How bad did this hurt when you were walking?”

Each step was a battle. Pain shot up through my entire body. I didn’t think I’d make it to the cabin.

“Not bad,” I say.

She glares daggers at me and presses her smooth, warm skin hard into the muscles above my leg. She begins to massage just above the wound.

“I’ll tell you why I didn’t turn myself in,” I say.

She scoffs. “So you’re dodging my new question by going back to the old question you were dodging earlier?”

I grin. “I couldn’t let Napier win. That’s the reason I didn’t turn myself in.”

“I don’t think that’s why,” she says.

I shrug. She can think whatever she wants of me, but if she’s trying to dig deep down and find the good guy buried somewhere within me, she’s going to be disappointed.

“Lower down,” I grunt, leaning back.

I stretch my leg out, and she moves around the wound, massaging me around mid-thigh. She gets to where it hurts the most, and each time she presses in, I feel tension and pain melting away.

“Fuck, that’s good,” I hiss, closing my eyes.

“You said it didn’t hurt that bad,” she says.

“It just feels good is all.”

She gets her suitcase open and pulls out some fresh bandages. She removes the old one, and I’m relieved to see that the wound itself looks better than before. No worry of my leg going black and rotting off.

Angel swabs the cut with alcohol, cleans everything off, then applies a fresh bandage. “You shouldn’t walk on it.”

“No more than I have to,” I say. “I should be able to take it easy for the next day or two.”

Without warning, Angel walks away, and I hear the door open.

I struggle to get my pants back on, but by the time I reach the door, she’s already back inside with firewood in hand.

“Hey,” I say. “That’s my job.”

She smiles at me. “That’s why I did it without telling you. If you keep walking around on that leg, you make my job harder. I’m tired Alex, let’s get this in the bedroom furnace.”

The furnace in the bedroom is more practical. The fireplace is made to give a nice cozy feeling–sitting around the fire and drinking hot chocolate or whatever. It’s inefficient though, the real heat only reaches a few feet, and it disperses poorly through the cabin. The furnace in the bedroom isn’t flashy, but it actually keeps the small, walled-off bedroom nice and cozy.

Once I get it running, the relief is almost immediate.

“Mmm,” Angel says. “That feels so good.”

“Wait until we’re in the bed with all the blankets on,” I say.

Then we both look down at the bed. There’s one bed. It’s a double, not even a queen. Somehow in all the firewood gathering and arguing about why I did what I did, I hadn’t thought at all about our sleeping arrangements.

“I can take the couch,” I say, though I don’t really mean it.

The kiss is still fresh in my mind. Neither of us have talked about it, but I can still taste her on my tongue. I want her more than I ever did, and I know that’s dangerous. I know it’s a bad idea, but fuck if I don’t want her in that bed with me. I want to feel her warmth, even if that’s all it ends up being.

The way she meets my eyes, I know she’s thinking the same thing I am. Our gaze intensifies, and words fade away. Neither of us need to say anything, and we find ourselves moving toward each other wordlessly.

I taste her again. It’s better than last time, or maybe it’s just because I want her worse than before. I want her bad–more than I’ve ever wanted anything. More than I want my freedom. It goes beyond want, it’s pure need. I need her like I need warmth, like I need to eat, like I need air to breathe.

I press her down onto the bed, and I pull the blankets over us, trapping our heat in together. We kiss with the blankets completely over our heads. As the heat intensifies, so does my need to get all the layers of clothes off. I pull at her shirt, and when the warm softness of her belly touches my hands, I realize that nothing can stop me from taking her as mine. I’ve touched her bare, soft skin, and no force in the world could hold me from her now that I’ve touched her like that.