At Arm's Length Page 3

  I couldn’t help but just sit there and stare. Even with his hardened features, he was strikingly beautiful. His sharp cheekbones, sculpted jaw, and crooked nose rendered a mysterious aura about him. But it was his eyes that called out to me. Not necessarily the color, although they were just the perfect shade of blue, almost cerulean. But the emotions he had hidden in their depths, that he didn’t want the world to see but wasn’t doing all that great of a job hiding.

  My breath caught for the second time at just how handsome he was, and once the audible gasp flew from my lips, his eyes narrowed into slits. He looked menacing and almost downright predatory. I slowly lowered my legs to the floor and stood from my seat, moving to the desk as well as inching my hand in the direction of the phone that sat on the corner, just in case I needed it.

  His eyes darted to where my hand was resting and then back to my face, his expression never wavering.

  I cleared my throat and tried talking, only for the words to become lodged in my throat. “I…uh, can I he- uh, help you?” The tremble in my voice was unmistakable.

  “So, she does speak?” he asked with an air of annoyance which only pissed me off.

  Was I being rude? I didn’t think so. He was the one who came here at almost 9 o’clock at night. I was all for women’s lib, but being that I was here alone, I should be able to defend myself if need be, even if it’s only with a telephone.

  Quickly then, I made a mental note to get some kind of weapon to stash up here just in case. Not that the fleeting thought would help me now.

  I was a nice person, but his comment just rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t think before I replied, “I do, rather well in fact. You just startled me.”

  He ignored me which only further grated my nerves. Why was this man eliciting this type of reaction from me? “I’m going to need a room.” No pleasantries and definitely no politeness in his tone.

  I angled myself toward the computer and clicked around with the mouse, another thing my father refused to use. So set in his old-fashioned ways he took care of everything with good old pen and paper. “Just the one night?” I asked with a raised brow. I was silently daring him to converse with me.

  I wouldn’t bite. On the contrary, though, by the looks of him, he might.

  He shook his head.

  Okay…

  “Two nights?”

  He nodded in affirmative.

  And here he had to make it a point to say that I spoke. At least I could say that he wasn’t grunting like a caveman.

  “Alright then, that’ll be $250 for two nights,” I added with a smile on my face that didn’t quite reach my eyes.

  Oh, I spoke too soon. He grunted as he yanked his billfold from the back pocket of his jeans. He opened it and dug around for a moment before extracting three crisp one hundred dollar bills and throwing them on the desk in front of me.

  “Um…sir,” I didn’t know his name so this was the best I could do. “We do need a credit card on file in case of damages to the room.”

  “No,” was all he said.

  What a conversationalist.

  “But that’s our policy, sir.” I tried exuding a bit of authority, making sure my tone didn’t quaver.

  Heat reflected in his gaze whenever I called him sir which had my breaths coming out in short pants. How could he completely undo me with a few choice glances and even fewer words? I was beginning to act like a dog in heat.

  Get it together, Marlee.

  “I won’t cause any damages to the room, even so, there is enough left over there to cover it.” So he did know how to talk.

  “What’s your name?” This question genuinely surprised him as I saw the confusion in his eyes.

  “Why do you need my name?”

  I waved a hand in front of the computer before I said, “We need it for our records.”

  “My name is…” He seemed to think about this for a moment, and I was sure that he was going to give me a fake name, especially when all he said was, “Holden.”

  “Holden…” I answered, trying to fish his last name out of him. Getting his first name was enough, I may have to sign my firstborn over to him to get the rest. Why was he so secretive?

  “Just Holden.”

  “Wow, just one name? Kinda like Cher?”

  He grunted in response.

  “Yup, like Cher. Seems to be a diva like her, too,” I said to myself, only realizing a moment too soon what I had said. My hand flew to my mouth. I couldn’t believe I talked to a customer like that. He ruffled my feathers something fierce because I’ve never behaved that badly before. Deserving or not, there was no excuse for my actions.

  Not even waiting for a reaction from him, I quickly grabbed a key from the hook and thrust it in his direction. My eyes widened when I looked at his face. He had discarded his knit hat exposing a fresh gash that ran along his hairline, and I could just tell the remnants of blood drying in his light brown tussled hair.

  “Can I have my room key please?” His impatience was running out.

  I nodded, placing the key in his hand. Once my fingers brushed his skin, a jolt ran through my veins at his touch, and I quickly jerked my hand back and clutched it with my other as if he’d hurt me. “Your room is upstairs to the right.”

  He turned his back toward me before bending down and retrieving his suitcase. As he moved in the direction of the stairs, he walked with such precision and grace. Like each movement was a well-calculated step that he needed to play out.

  It didn’t even occur to me what room I had given him until he was completely out of my sight. Twenty different rooms and I had to go and give him the one next to mine.

  I quickly snatched up the phone and dialed Trudy at the cafe. By this point with the snow, cell service in this area was virtually nonexistent, so in that aspect, Gunnison wasn’t up to speed with all of modern technology. Not that my father much cared that they weren’t up and coming with this decade, he liked having a landline telephone.

  “Pick up. Pick up,” I impatiently said into the phone as I heard the trill of ringing through the handset.

  “Coffeeholic, how can I help you?” a man said in greeting.

  “Cale, it’s Marlee. Is Tru around?”

  “Yeah, just a second.” I heard Cale, her right-hand man cover the mouthpiece and holler out Trudy’s name.

  Just a few seconds later, she answered, “Hey, girl. Everything okay?”

  “Yes. No…I don’t know. I had a customer come in. But he certainly isn’t from around here. He’s huge and menacing. He may or may not be a serial killer, but I’m leaning toward no since how I was so completely rude to him and he didn’t even bat an eye,” I rambled out hurriedly.

  “Pump the brakes, lady,” she said into my ear, her tone sounding borderline horrific. “Let me mentally sort through this and try to get a few things straight. You checked someone in who may or may not be a serial killer?”

  “Yeah, but the odds of that are luckily not in my favor. He’s so beautiful, like really beautiful, but doesn’t seem to be able to string together enough words to form a complete sentence. And by his grunts, he may have been born in a cave. I almost expected him to beat on his chest and strip down to a loincloth, not that I would’ve been opposed to the latter.”

  “Am I speaking to Marlee Tate? The same Marlee Tate who loathes Greg, against my advice, but won’t utter a foul word toward the guy? You aren’t mean to people, and you certainly aren’t so vulgar; normally that’s my gig.”

  “I know it, Tru. I honestly don’t mean to, but the guy ruffles my feathers in more ways than one. I mean I’m torn between wanting to jump the guy and climb him like a tree and cringing whenever he opens his mouth.”

  “Wow, what a predicament for one to find themselves in. Being more or less trapped in a huge house all alone with a ‘maybe’ Neanderthal who doesn’t like engaging in small talk. See if he’ll engage in a little something else, if you know what I mean.” Trudy took a breath and rushed out, “And please t
ell me that you know what I’m implying because with the ludicrous expression Cale is throwing my way I really don’t want to spell it out.”

  My chuckle came out of nowhere, but I quickly confirmed that I got her so Cale didn’t pass out from the mere mention of foreplay or god forbid, sex.

  “Good. What’s caveman’s name? Or is that just what we’re calling him?”

  “That’s the thing,” I lowered my voice a bit more, you know in case he came around, “he told me just to call him Holden. That’s it. No last name. Sort of like Madonna or Prince.” I shivered at the latter because that was just downright creepy. RIP Prince.

  “Hmmm…” she said, not giving me any form of insight as to what she was thinking.

  “Oh, and he’s hurt. I don’t know what happened, but he has a gash on his hairline, and I’m finding it really hard not to go up and help him. Would that be weird? I just have this inexplicable need to help him, to talk to him. Weird that I want to comfort him, right?”

  “Girl, if it was me I’d already be knocking at his door with an entire nurse’s outfit on seeing if there was anything else that hurt that I could help comfort.”

  I rolled my eyes and ended the call with my best friend. I wish I just had an ounce of her bravery and outgoing tendencies. But I mustered up enough courage, grabbed my first aid kit, and ended up climbing the stairs as fast as my petite legs would carry me. Hopefully, he’d be a bit more accommodating. I really didn’t want to get a door slammed in my face.

  What an odd exchange. Whenever the cute blonde first noticed me and gasped, I was sure that she recognized who I was. But as it turned out luck was on my side, and she had no absolutely no clue. It seemed that I had complete anonymity here and didn’t that feel like a breath of fresh air. I assumed she was alone but I didn’t know what a young woman was doing in a large Bed & Breakfast all by herself when there was a furious snowstorm happening outside.

  Her beauty threw me for a loop because it wasn’t the normal in your face gorgeous that I was accustomed to. No, this woman was beautiful in a subtle way, and the way she carried herself led me to believe that she wasn’t aware just how beautiful she was.

  And the dig she made at me; I wanted to crack a smile, not because it was witty. Because let’s face it, it really wasn’t. But by the expression on her face after the words came flying out of her mouth. She had no filter, and it was almost refreshing. So many people censored what they said around me either because they didn’t know how to take me because of my raging temper or because they didn’t want to verbally spar with the likes of me. Most people were afraid of me, and it was nice to see that the tiny blip of a woman who was anything but.

  As I wandered up the stairs and down the hall to my room, I took in the décor of the place. Normally I wouldn’t give two shits as to what the place looked like, but after the surprise that awaited me at the front desk, I didn’t want to miss a thing.

  Once I inserted the old fashioned skeleton key into the lock of room eight, I was even more surprised as to the interior of the room.

  Masculine carpentry really embellished the character of the room.

  My eyes immediately took in the king-size four poster bed, and I couldn’t control the thoughts clouding my brain. The petite blonde down on all fours in the center of the mattress. Her legs spread wide opening herself up to me before I pounded into her from behind.

  I pushed down on my straining erection that had been a nuisance ever since her eyes hit mine, hoping that the force would help alleviate some of the pain. There was no way I could act on my impulse to take her. No matter how strong it was.

  Hoisting my suitcase onto the bed with ease I continued glancing around the room. The wood burning fireplace caught my eye next.

  My sister would love this place, see this as the ultimate romantic getaway. She would eat that shit up.

  The ambiance was cool, and the fact that I didn’t see a doily in sight was a major win. But the sportsman in me wanted nothing more than to haul an axe into some wood. Hell, I almost needed an outlet for my aggression and pent-up behavior. I’m sure it could even be considered ‘therapeutic.’

  Unzipping my suitcase, I found my dopp kit and walked into the en suite bathroom for phase one of my two-part plan for this evening.

  Shower, then food.

  Stepping underneath the steady spray of warm water, my shoulders instantly relaxed, and I released a long sigh as my tension began to dissipate.

  One could argue that this day ranked high on my shittiest days ever. Make that the entire past week.

  I never thought that Coach Knox would’ve gone to such desperate measures. But evidently, I forced his hand in the matter. Had I really gotten that bad? I couldn’t even come up with a remark because I knew that I had.

  Quick to react was something that I had always been, even when I was little. Didn’t matter that I thought the people who met my wrath actually deserved what they had coming to them. I wanted to believe that I was better than my anger, but I’ve lived with it for so long I started to worry that I wasn’t.

  Who was I?

  Before coming on this little adventure, I was lucky enough to be able to have a crash course in anger management with the team therapist. Insert major sarcasm here. I felt that it was a joke and an entire waste of my time, but I wanted to save face and show Knox that I was serious about changing. I literally had everything I lived my life for hanging on the line because of my actions, and it was time that I started accepting the consequences. Didn’t mean that I was happy about it, though.

  Things were more or less progressing. Change wouldn’t happen overnight, but today was a true testament that I was moving in the right direction. My temper rose several times, my need for outburst right on the surface of being exposed, but, all in all, I took the day in stride.

  The outcome would’ve only been worse had I acted out in anger. The fact that I didn’t had to account for something, right?

  Maybe I could sort myself out after all.

  I allowed myself to think about my day in its entirety, purging all of the anger from my body. I could picture it cascading down my skin right along with the water, swirling around the drain until there was nothing left.

  It was relaxing and above all else refreshing not to have it hanging on my shoulders.

  Only when I felt my anger entirely fade did I allow my thoughts to stray to the innkeeper. And once my mind switched to the petite blonde with the mesmerizing green eyes, my cock stood at rapt attention once again. He liked thinking about her as well.

  My cock leaped in my hand the second I grasped it in my palm. I tugged on my straining erection from base to tip, eliciting a feral growl to escape from my parted lips. I imagined the woman down on her knees in this very shower, those eyes gleaming with hunger as she took my cock in between her parted lips. My hand shot out to steady myself against the cool, wet tile as I continued furiously pumping, feeling myself get closer and closer to what I wanted most. What I needed most. The need for release was even more necessary than taking my next breath. My breath was coming out in short, ragged pants as I imagined the tip of her pink tongue darting out and running along the underside of my dick. That was all it took for my balls to draw up into my body and my release to flood down into the shower.

  The hand bracing myself on the tile gave out as my exhausted body slumped against the wall. I had just shut the water off when I heard a knock at the door.

  With water droplets continuously sliding down my skin, I grabbed a towel off the rack and stepped out of the claw foot tub. I stalked to the door, not even able to calm my heavy steps as I wrapped the towel around my hips. My hand twisted the knob and jerked, opening it to the woman from the front desk.

  My deflated erection came back full force rearing to go as if I hadn’t drained myself dry just minutes ago. So much for thinking I was sated.

  The fact that I couldn’t seem to control my body around her when I couldn’t physically have her wound me up tight. And her star
tled expression just pissed me off more.

  “Yeah?” I released with a bit more acid than I intended to.

  “Co…could you please put some clothes on?”

  Huh. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. That definitely wasn’t the type of reaction that I normally got when a woman saw me practically half naked.

  Just the thought of her obvious distaste irritated me all the more. Mixed with the fact that I couldn’t curb my desire and straining cock with her around, it made me even more broody. As if that startling assumption was even at all possible.

  I smirked as I turned my back to her, moving toward the bed to rifle through my things. Her blatant cough informed me that she noticed my tattoo. Not that it would be hard to miss. The fallen angel took up almost every square inch of skin stopping just shy of my waistline.

  I finally found a pair of sweats that I must’ve packed by mistake but was glad I had nonetheless. My fingers brushed the knot holding the towel together on my hips, freeing the bundled material until it fell in a pool around my feet. This gave the innkeeper an unrestricted view of my bare ass.

  My cockiness led me to believe that I would hear a rather audible gasp because that tended to be the one reaction she gravitated toward. But the room was doused in complete silence. As I slid my legs into my sweats, it was so quiet that you could’ve heard a pin drop. The silence was eerily refreshing, being that back in South Carolina there was anything but.

  As I shifted on my feet to turn back toward her, I almost thought I heard her gulp, but that must’ve been my deceiving mind playing tricks on me. Because once I was facing her she wasn’t even looking at me. Instead, she was focusing way too hard on what was in her hands.