by C. M. Owens
His shoulders are broad and sculpted. His waist is tapered perfectly, which is showcased by the tight-fitted shirt. All that arm porn is twice as sexy today, because you can see more of it.
Suddenly, I feel self-conscious, because my hair is a mess, my flannel bottoms are five years old, and my T-shirt has a picture of a pink mammoth on it.
He’s cooking. A body like that is already distracting. And he’s cooking.
“Hungry?” he asks, and I debate the meaning of that word.
I am not gawking at Benson like I want a bite. No way.
Where’s his oversized T-shirt?!
My eyes snap up to meet his, but he’s just staring at me blankly, like he didn’t notice I was practically wetting my non-existent panties for him.
“Very,” I say tightly.
Apparently my sex drought is fucking with my head.
“So what’s this plan of revenge you need my protection for? You passed out before giving me answers,” he says, cracking some eggs in a skillet.
I move in beside him to take over frying the bacon, acting like this is our normal routine.
When my arm brushes his, I shudder. What is wrong with me?
I’m reacting more to him than I did the pretty boy. Surely I’m not being conditioned to overlook the unruly beard. Is this brainwash or something?
“Can’t tell you. You might stop me.”
I feel his smile.
“Doubtful. Spill.”
“If you’ll tell me how you ended up in Tomahawk, I’ll share my awesome plan with you.”
I arch an eyebrow at him, and he shakes his head, careful to keep his long beard away from the skillet.
“You know how I ended up here.”
“I know you got your family’s cabin, but not why you came to live here. You’re a mystery, Benson Nolans. Like, what do you do for a living? How did your family afford to just give this to you? And why come to stay in the middle of nowhere?”
He shrugs. “Needed the change, and I can’t tell you what I do, because this is Tomahawk.”
I give him a bland look. “You can’t tell me what you do because this is Tomahawk,” I repeat.
He nods, but I feel him smirking, even though that beard disguises it.
I roll my eyes.
“Not sure what that means.”
“Tomahawk expects certain things from its men. Best if I keep my secrets a secret.”
“What about your family? Why can’t any of us ever meet them?”
“Because this is Tomahawk,” he says again.
“Then you don’t get to learn my plan of revenge,” I say with a smile.
“Why?” he drawls, leaning closer to me to push my hair over my shoulder.
I do not shiver. Nope. Not at all.
Okay, maybe a tiny shiver. He’s a damn good-smelling man. I’m a sex-deprived woman. Shit happens.
“Because this is Tomahawk,” I tell him with a smirk of my own.
He rolls his eyes and resumes making breakfast.
As soon as we’re done, we make our own plates and head to his table, sitting across from each other. We eat in relative silence, and I stare at anything but the body he’s showing off. Why is he wearing a tank? He never wears a tight shirt. And it’s driving me out of my mind.
“Do you ever date?” I ask curiously.
“Occasionally,” he says, looking down at his phone.
“Define occasionally.”
Wouldn’t I have heard about someone dating Benson? Wouldn’t he have told me? He spends most of his free time with me, so obviously I should know if he’s dating. I know all the single women.
Why are my nails pressing into my palms just thinking of another woman touching him?
Again, I have issues.
“I dated someone for a while, came to live here, then dated a little here and there when I went home to visit.” He shrugs.
“But no one from here?”
His eyes come up to meet mine as his eyebrows raise. “Why the inquisition into my dating life?”
“Just realizing I’ve never seen you with a woman.”
He grins. “Never had one out here besides you. At least not one that wasn’t related to me.”
He looks back down at his phone. He never studies his phone like that, so what’s going on? Why do I feel obsessed right now? Why is he being so suspicious? Or am I the suspicious one?
“So you leave Tomahawk to go back to…wherever…and date when you’re not here?”
He shrugs noncommittally, still staring at his phone.
“Girls here not good enough for you?” I ask, unsure why I’m stabbing my eggs a little harder than necessary.
“Heard they don’t like the beard,” he says, even though he sounds a little annoyed by that.
“Then cut the beard.”
“I’m not swimming across that godforsaken lake.” He shudders, not lifting his eyes to meet mine.
His phone goes off, and he stands. “Gotta get this. I’ll see you later if you really do need my protection,” he tells me without a backward glance.
Apparently I’ve been dismissed. Usually happens when I ask too many personal questions. Benson is a private guy, after all. He never gives more answers than he wants to. He’s lived here for years, and that’s all the information we have on him.
I’m his closest friend and still have no clue about who he was before he came to Tomahawk.
I finish eating and then take the time to wash up the plates. Benson never returns, so I let myself out and drive my boat back toward my place…but I notice my new neighbor down the lake on his dock.
It’s not surprising to see he’s well-built. It is surprising to see him shirtless as he hammers away on his dock. Deciding I can’t execute my plan until nightfall, I drive toward his dock.
I wonder if Delaney has seen him yet.
Making a mental note to drive out and get Delaney sometime soon, I pull up to his dock. He looks up, smiling when he sees it’s me, and wipes sweat off his brow.
He really is pretty.
Yet my girly parts are still dormant.
Funny, they seemed to be riled up this morning. I assumed they were ready to come out of hibernation.
But, despite the gorgeous male specimen in front of me, I’m still not having the appropriate reaction.
Figures.
“Hidey, neighbor,” he says with a mock southern drawl.
I quirk an eyebrow at him, and he flashes me that perfect smile. “Sorry,” he says, chuckling. “Always wanted to say that.”
He comes to help me tie off my boat, and I haul myself onto his dock, wondering if our backwoods accents sound southern to him or something.
“I take it you didn’t have neighbors at your last place?” I ask, prying.
“Had tons of them. I lived in LA. But you don’t really talk to your neighbors in LA, at least not the part where I lived. Then I moved to a more upscale home on the outskirts, and had no close neighbors there.”
He shrugs one shoulder as he moves back to his spot to kneel down and start prying an old board loose. My eyebrows go up in surprise.
“Why wouldn’t you tell us where you came from yesterday, yet have no problem with it today?”
“The company yesterday was intimidating. I mean, they’ve been growing beards for years because they’re too ‘manly’ to back down from a challenge. Didn’t figure they’d take too kindly to the new city guy, and didn’t want to paint a target on my back. Can you keep a secret?” he asks, that grin still blinding.
“No problem. So why the move?”
“Got tired of city life,” he says with another shrug, then goes back to hammering a new board. “Decided to come somewhere more remote. My realtor sent me this place as a possibility, and I fell in love with the cabin. I’ve always loved working with wood, so this gives me a chance to actually do it in nature.”
Yes, I could totally make half a dozen dirty jokes about him ‘loving working with wood’ and ‘actually doin
g it in nature,’ but I suppress my inner teenage boy and focus on the important part.
In five minutes, I know more about him than Benson. Well, about his past. I still find Liam suspicious. Just as I do all newbies.
“Just wake up?” he muses, looking me over.
I grimace, remembering I still haven’t seen a mirror or touched a brush. “Rough night,” I vaguely answer.
He grins again, then resumes hammering away.
I open my mouth to say something else, when the loud motor of a boat roars closer, and I turn, seeing Benson driving this way on his boat.
“Your boyfriend still pissed that your aunt tried setting us up with him right there?” Liam asks as I cut my eyes away from the approaching Benson.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
He continues smiling down at that nail he must find amusing.
“Sure didn’t act that way yesterday,” he says.
Before I can correct him, Benson is coasting to the end of the dock.
“You forgot this,” Benson says, holding up my bra as a grin cracks through that beard.
Liam chuckles, and I narrow my eyes at the bearded man at the end. That bra has probably been at his house for two weeks, because I wasn’t wearing a bra last night.
“Just toss it in my boat.”
He does, and it lands directly in my seat. My boat is just a little flat-bottom thing with a motor Benson installed for me three years ago. Nothing flashy like they have.
“You coming back over tonight?” Benson asks, making this sound far more scandalous than it is.
He’s in his standard jeans and loose T-shirt now, so I’m thinking a little clearer.
“Probably,” I say, not bothering to make this seem like it’s not what Benson is implying, and giving him the satisfaction of seeing me defensive.
I genuinely don’t care if Liam gets the wrong idea, so no need in scrambling around like a fool to clarify things. Besides, for some reason, it wouldn’t feel right to deny it in front of Benson, almost as if I was wronging him on some level.
Which is stupid. We’re friends.
I’m not sure why he’s playing this game, but I still feel like I should be on his side of it.
I tend to overthink things and come up with a thousand different reasons for why things are going on, in case you haven’t noticed.
I end up convincing myself that Benson wants me to defend myself, and that’s the real reason I’m not. Because it’s obviously better than the alternative that I’m starting to notice him as more than a beard.
That’s terrifying.
I’m the head of the anti-beard committee, after all. We’ve been protesting this damn challenge since it started.
Hey, it’s Tomahawk. We don’t have much else to do.
Benson winks at me before pushing away from the dock and restarting his motor, driving toward town.
We have roads, but it’s usually quicker to boat to town from his side of the lake.
My eyes turn back to see a sly grin on Liam’s face. “Not your boyfriend, huh?”
Again, it still feels wrong to correct him. Why? Beats me. I blame it on the distinct lack of caffeine this morning.
I talk to Liam about the town, telling him how it works and explaining some random things, keeping all the conversation topics safe. Just as I’m filling him in on how spread out all the neighbors are, another motor revs, coming closer.
I smirk when I see Delaney driving this way, waving at me as she nears. I guess I don’t have to fetch her after all.
I also notice a few other familiar faces too, and then see a few cars pulling into Liam’s house.
I flash him a grin when confusion mars his face.
“Welcome to Tomahawk,” I tell him as women start walking down the bank, covered dishes in their hands. “The land of a hundred unruly beards, and everyone’s own individual brand of crazy. You’re officially the most eligible, baby-face bachelor.”
Delaney barely even says hi to me as she shoves her way to the front of the line, and I hop on my boat, ready to get away while I still can. Besides, it’ll free up space for another boat to tie off.
“I…uh…I,” Liam says, gesturing for help as five women talk over him, trying to introduce themselves.
Grinning, I drive away, leaving him to fend for himself as I head to my cabin.
I notice a few of the guys fishing on the lake, staring over at Liam’s home that is being swarmed with more and more women. Paul is among the crowd, and he tosses his hat into the lake, looking annoyed.
I shoot him an I-told-you-so look, and he flips me off as I laugh and coast up to my dock. I’ll be glad when my brothers get my lift fixed. The lift they tore up with their boat that was way too big for it.
I step over the few shady boards they jacked up during the lift-breaking debacle, and head toward my cabin to shower and change for the day.
Tonight is when the magic happens.
So I pack a bag.
I’ll be staying with Benson for at least two nights.
Chapter 3
Wild Ones Tip #111
Always bring backup and snacks. Never know when you’ll need snacks.
LILAH
Snip.
Slow breaths.
Snip. That sound is almost deafening in this otherwise silent room, sans the occasional snore.
Snip.
I cringe when a leg moves, and my breath goes completely silent, because I’m holding it.
Snip.
A hand darts up, grabbing my wrist, before a set of eyes open in confusion.
“Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep, little baby,” I sing, obviously panicking when my heart starts hammering in my chest.
The singing doesn’t work.
Killian bolts upright in bed and flips on the lamp, which rouses Hale from his sleep. Their beds are a few feet apart, since I sort of moved the bed there earlier, knowing they’d be too lazy to move it back to Hale’s room before crashing for the night.
I had a plan, and they’re wrecking it by waking up.
My brothers look at me in confusion, then at the scissors in my hand, then at the hair on the floor.
Carefully, while they’re still utterly baffled and just-woken from sleep, I put the scissors down calmly, back toward the door, grab the camera I have set up and ease it into my backpack, and…run like a maniac.
“Holy fucking shit!” I hear Hale snap, just as I leap off their front porch. Tucking and rolling back up to my feet, I race like my life depends on it to the boats.
“Lilah!” Killian roars, but I giggle like a crazed woman as I leap onto my boat that only has one rope tying it off, and quickly get going before can get to me.
I’m halfway across the water when I hear their boat roar to life.
Their boat is bigger and faster, so I drive like hell to Benson’s dock, half-ass tie off.
“Benson!” My shrill scream sounds so foreign and unlike me, as my legs pump like an Olympian again.
“Benson!” I squeal again when I hear the boat docking behind me.
“Get her!” Killian roars.
“Get back here, Lilah!” Hale shouts, furious.
Yeah, like that’s going to work. Nope. I run that much harder.
The door to Benson’s home swings open just as I hurl myself up the fifteenth step, and I leap into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck, and cling to him like a shameless spider monkey.
I’m vaguely aware of the fact his hands immediately go to my ass, squeezing it, and I’m also vaguely aware of the fact those dormant girl parts are definitely taking notice. In fact, if it wasn’t for the rebel yell coming from behind me, I’d have to study this a little more intently.
“What the—”
Benson’s words cut off, and his hands immediately leave my ass.
“Don’t even think about it. I’ll beat the hell out of both of you,” he cautions, turning and depositing me onto the floor.
I peek
around the wall that’s now shielding me, seeing my brothers as they seethe, spitting mad. Here’s the thing, Benson Nolans happens to be a black belt. We only know this because he has his belts framed, and he does this spinning kick thingy that totally makes him a badass.
He’s the one guy in Tomahawk who can kick Killian’s ass, even though Killian is a mean fighter with a nasty right hook.
“This is between us and her. Look what she fucking did!” Hale roars.
They both point to their patchy, messed up, mostly clipped beards, and I snicker to myself as Benson works hard against his own laugh.
“Guess the beard challenge is finally over,” Benson says, amused.
“No!” my brothers shout in unison.
“She did this! Not us. We can’t lose by default!” Hale adds.
“Nowhere does it state that you have to trim it yourself to be the loser. Just says it has to be trimmed,” Benson says, his beard twitching.
“Then who did she cut first?” Killian demands.
“Same time! I have a video of it!” I pull my video camera from my backpack, and Benson takes it and puts it on a table next to the door, not looking at it.
“You can’t be serious!” Hale growls.
I giggle like an idiot, staying safely tucked next to Black Belt Benson.
“You did break her bed while trying to steal her ceiling fan,” Benson points out helpfully.
“But this is the beard challenge! Too far. Too fucking far,” Killian barks.
“You also left her behind with a momma cougar.” Benson sounds less amused and a little angrier about that.
I stand a little taller, primly smirking at my brothers.
“Didn’t know there was a cougar when we left her, jackass. This would be deserved if we did.”
Killian gestures to his mangled, uneven, horrible beard—or the remnants of it anyway.
“And you rebuilt her bed way too big for her mattress. You also wrecked her dock lift—since you never built your own dock—and then messed up the entire end of the dock when the lift crashed into the lake. You still haven’t fixed that, by the way.”
They both blink, then as one, glare at me like I’ve been tattling. I totally have been tattling.
“So you think this is justified?” Killian asks incredulously, shifting his gaze and staring at Benson as though he’s an alien from outer space.