by Zoey Parker
Victoria Parker was a feisty woman, but Darren Saylor knew how to handle those. And judging by the way that Victoria averted her eyes at the sight of his skin, and how she turned away from him like some kind of timid animal, she wasn’t as feisty as she made herself out to be. There had to be something else about this girl. Something he wasn’t getting. Besides sex, anyway, and that would probably change soon enough, so long as he teased her out of her mind.
He could tell that she was still unhappy about the food arrangements. So the fiery girl didn’t like to eat healthily. Fine. He was standing in the kitchen, looking through the cupboards, trying to find something remotely chocolate-y that she might like. He wasn’t trying to be some kind of a good host, but they might both be better off if she wasn’t constantly grumpy. Plus, he’d noticed that she wasn’t eating enough. He guessed that his diet of chicken breasts and broccoli wasn’t enough for her.
He closed one cupboard and opened up another. Most of the food in this place was in the freezer, not because of the nutrients of the food that could be stored there, but because of how long frozen food could last. That was a long time. That didn’t mean either of them would be able to last very long off of it.
Victoria’s cravings, as subtle as she tried to be about them, weren’t hard to miss. He’d noticed her repeatedly going back into the kitchen and then scowling after looking through everything and walking away. It was affecting him, too. He wasn’t a fan of eating well, as much as he did it. That was mainly for his body, and for strength. And both things were having the effects on Victoria that he wanted them to, so it wasn’t like it could be that bad.
But God, if the food in this place wasn’t up to snuff. He found a box of Rice Krispies and grabbed it, pulling it down from where it sat on the top shelf. His hands went to the flaps, opening it as quickly as he could. Disappointment flooded him at once. Not only was the box mostly empty, what remained was definitely stale. Whoever had brought them here – because he sure as hell hadn’t – hadn’t closed the box up properly, and now every little crispy flake in it was ruined. He chucked the offending box into the garbage.
And then he went to the freezer in his quest. He didn’t want to leave Victoria here just so he could run to the store, but they both needed food. Even if they decided to ignore their cravings and just live off of the stuff that was in here, there wasn’t enough food to last them the entire month. That typically wasn’t a problem at the safe house, though. Usually, when people came here, they either stayed a very short time or a very long one, for one of two reasons.
Reason #1: they were being kept here because of their own bad behavior. Acting out in the Bloody Saints got a small timeout, with the offending biker spending out a few days here while they cooled down. If they didn’t cool down, well, they got to stay here longer.
Reason #2: they were being kept here because they either owed the Bloody Saints money.
He scratched his chin, trying to come up with a time where the safe house had been used for any other reason than the two he’d already listed in his head. He couldn’t think of any. He couldn’t remember it ever being used to actually keep anyone safe from someone looking to kill them.
That reminded him, his club would be looking for him. He’d shot off a call and a few texts, but only to say he would be out of town. He couldn’t let people know where he was, or even why he was there. It wasn’t his friends he was worried about. It was Victoria. If he involved her in his world any more deeply than he already had, she would probably do something to fuck everything up and cause a bunch of mayhem, and she would probably wind up dead for it.
Yeah, no. That was not going to happen. It was better to leave his friends in the dark in order to keep her out of trouble. Which meant he couldn’t call someone and ask them to bring provisions. He’d have to go out himself. Victoria would almost definitely have to come with him, unless he could convince her to let him chain her up to something while he disappeared for the better half of a few hours.
That wouldn’t work either. Knowing that girl, she’d probably find some way to cause as much destruction to the house – and to herself – in his absence, even if she only had a few feet of moving space.
She was so frustrating. In such a good way, though. What was wrong with her? There had to be something wrong with her. No woman had ever talked to him like she had, and her lack of respect was a sign that there was a screw or two loose inside her head. There was no way of putting those loose screws right, either. At least, not a way that he could see. She was fine just the way she was. Or maybe she would be to some other man.
He tried again to tell himself he wasn’t looking forward to being stuck with her for so long. A not-so-small part of him was, but that didn’t have anything to do with Victoria in particular, he reasoned. That was the reaction that just about anyone could expect from a man, especially one like him, around an attractive woman. And she was attractive. It was normal, and that was it. It was the only thing that was normal about this situation, in any case.
He scavenged through the kitchen some more. There were a few spare baking supplies here and there, but, like the Rice Krispies, they had been left with only a little bit inside of them. That was alright. Darren wasn’t much of a baker. Never had been. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have nights of mindless snacking, though, and he knew how to make a thing or two in the microwave.
He found a few tablespoons of flour and sugar. There was some oil in the cupboard, so he grabbed that as well, throwing a few spoonfuls of each into two mugs. Then he threw in some cocoa and divided an egg unevenly between them. There was no way to make this pretty, so he just threw both mugs in the microwave at the same time. Then he set the mug cakes so they’d be in there for about a minute, and went back to looking through the kitchen.
Maybe there was some chocolate syrup, like for ice cream, that he could throw on top of them. He knew that was unlikely, so he wasn’t all that sad when he couldn’t find anything to drizzle the cakes with. This search had only taken about 30 seconds, and the cakes still weren’t done. He pulled open another drawer, hunting for something.
Fuck.
He hadn’t been thinking about this, but what would Victoria think of him if she saw him doing this? All he was doing was making some food. That was it. Sure, he was making some for her too and it had been inspired by seeing her all miserable, but that didn’t mean she had to know about that. For all she knew, he was hungry, made himself something, and made her a snack as well because he wasn’t that horrible of a person. It would be rude for her to suffer while he enjoyed himself.
There was no way that she would view it like that. It wasn’t like she could be angry with him either, though, and he didn’t have to interact with her just because he was giving her this cake. Maybe it could be a peace offering.
The microwave beeped, letting him know that the mug cakes were done. Or that they might be done, anyway. Putting two in at the same time almost ensured that neither were fully cooked, and he rose from his search to grab a fork to test that theory with. Yeah. They were both still too gooey in the middle.
He set the microwave for another 30 seconds, and then went back to his hunt for some other type of goody. This time, he found a single peanut butter cup. Only one. Of course. He hit “cancel” on the microwave before it was done beeping, and threw the entire peanut butter cup into one mug cake before setting the microwave to finish doing its thing.
He didn’t need that candy anyway. Maybe she wouldn’t notice that he didn’t have one in his if he didn’t say anything. There was no way she would. Yeah, he could just set the mug down in front of her and then walk away.
Where was she, anyway? He pulled her mug cake out, leaving his in the microwave while he decided to hunt for her. He grabbed a glass and poured some milk in it from the fridge; there was no way he’d be able to carry enough stuff for the both of them without dropping something, so he didn’t even pretend to try.
He found Victoria sitting on the couch.
He’d been using it, but he still didn’t frequent it as much as Victoria did. He knew she wasn’t sleeping in her room, if it could even be called that. The only thing that made the place hers was that she would go in there sometimes, pretending like she was sleeping to appease him. He could hear her footsteps making their way through the hall when she thought he was sleeping.
So she waited not to disturb him. Cute. But infuriating. He felt a rush of blood make its way through his body down to his cock, and he felt the damn thing bulge in his pants. This wasn’t even the first time it had happened. He was getting pretty annoyed with Victoria. It was a natural reaction to have, sure, but why did she make it happen so much?
Victoria didn’t notice him when he entered. She would need to work on that; she wasn’t the best with noticing people enter rooms, and that wouldn’t do her any good when it came to her safety. He watched her for a few seconds before letting her know he was there.
Her back was to him, and she was staring blankly at some spot in front of her. Darren wondered if she was thinking in her head about what she might be watching if there was a TV there, but that didn’t seem like a very Victoria thing to do. He didn’t know much about her and what she liked and what she chose to think about (beyond the fact that she got mad easily and let people know about it), though.
Maybe something was wrong. Her head was bent down so that it faced her knees, and her elbows were on her knees. He couldn’t see them, but her hands were probably holding onto her face in some effort to balance that position or make it more comfortable.
He looked around from one side of the room to the other. It wasn’t a protection thing, like it usually was; it was more of an “is there anyone else who could help with this?” thing. There was no one else, of course. They were the only two people there, and there was nothing he could do to comfort her. He wasn’t the comforting type of person.
But he still had the mug cake and the milk in his hands, so he set them down on the coffee table in front of her. Then he walked away from her and back to the kitchen, where he ate his own snack in silence.
# # #
Victoria
Whatever quiet, cohabitation-ish thing they’d had going on that day didn’t last. Victoria didn’t know why he had given her a mug cake. Maybe it was poisoned. There was no reason for him to poison her, and it smelled so good. So she ate it. And maybe that meant that he would think she owed him something, but it probably didn’t. Every relationship – especially platonic ones, because that’s what this unfortunately was – didn’t have to have strings attached to it, did it? No.
She wasn’t sure why he’d walked off into the kitchen after seeing her. Maybe he didn’t even want to be around her. What he’d made her was so nice, but he hadn’t needed to do that, and then he’d disappeared.
God.
There was seriously nothing to do here.
The only thing there was, was Darren.
But she couldn’t do him.
Could she?
No. She shouldn’t even be considering it. There was nothing that she could get from Darren that she couldn’t get from anyone else.
That wasn’t true.
And he clearly had a soft side to him. Why else would he bother with giving her something like the stupid cake? She wondered if he’d made it. He had to have been the one to do it. She’d been looking through the cupboards earlier and there was almost nothing in there beyond what was in the freezer, with the exceptions of a few baked good-inspired ingredients. A little bit of cocoa here, a little pinch of sugar there.
Once she was sure Darren was out of sight and not watching her she made her way back to the kitchen as fast as she could. There had to be a garbage can in here somewhere, and she finally found it after opening just about every openable surface in the place.
There wasn’t much hiding in the plastic bag there, save for the small bags of flour and sugar and cocoa that she’d been expecting. She didn’t bother checking back through the cupboards for the other ingredients; Darren had clearly used everything they had to make that mug cake for her. Had he even made one for himself? She hadn’t seen him do it. But anyway, it wouldn’t be happening again.
That is, unless they went to the store. And since she was supposed to be living with him here for a while, there was no point in avoiding him, as much as she wanted to. She groaned, closing up everything and leaving the kitchen close enough to the way she’d left it. Glaring down books she didn’t like and hanging out in the kitchen sadly was no way to spend her life, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste any more time doing it. She had to suck it up and talk to Darren.
But that was easier said than done.
When she didn’t want Darren anywhere near her, he found a way to put her in his arms and press his mouth down to hers. He hadn’t touched her in a while, and that was driving her insane, but maybe she was better off for it. Maybe that meant she would think more clearly, now that she didn’t have the heat of his skin on hers clouding her judgment.
Whatever. What mattered was that when she did need Darren, he was absolutely nowhere to be found.
It was easy enough to make her way out of the kitchen and to the living room, but he wasn’t there either. She went down the hallway and opened every door she saw. He might’ve been hiding behind one of them, but, still, he was nowhere to be found; she even threw his bedroom door open and peeked in. He wasn’t there, either. Was the man dead? Could she just leave?
Part of her wanted to strut out and make her way back in town, regardless of someone wanting her killed. The rest of her, well, it did what it normally did: it burned with lust and begged for her to stay. God damn it.
She gritted her teeth and continued her search. On her way down the hallway again, she noticed that the back door leading out into the yard behind the safe house was slightly ajar. This struck her as a little weird, especially considering how crazy Darren had been over keeping her safe lately. This didn’t mean he might not just crack it to let her know where he was, though, so he might be out there.
She didn’t have anything on her feet, not really. When Darren had basically stolen her away from coming into work, all she’d brought with her was the clothes she’d had on her back. Her socks were long since filthy, and she was sick of wearing them.
She glanced out towards the yard. She could see a small bit of mist lining the tips of the grass. She still had her gross socks on, and it would be even worse to walk through that grass and get them all wet than it would be to just get rid of them all together. So she tore off her socks as quickly as she could, and threw them in a corner where Darren probably wouldn’t notice them. She’d go back for them later before he could, anyway.
The porch out back was colder than she was expecting. Victoria let out a hiss, expecting for the wooden planks beneath her feet to be jagged and uneven, leaving her with splinters up and down the flesh of her bare feet. It wasn’t. It wasn’t cozy either – it was still wood – but it wasn’t bad. She breathed in deeply, her entire body shuddering as she brought her arms up to either side of her chest. She should have brought a sweater out with her before deciding to come outside. Not that she had one. The trees around her suddenly seemed ominous. This was a terrible idea.
A shiver ran up and down her body. It couldn’t have to do with the cold. It wasn’t even so far into the year that she’d need to put a coat on anyway, but she was still freezing. Something inside of her felt uneasy, and she looked around her quickly.
No.
This was either a test, or something was wrong. There was no way Darren would just leave the door open like that when he had explicitly stated that she was being kept here for her safety. He didn’t even really like leaving her alone, for God’s sake! There was no way he’d leave a door open leading to the back yard, which led through to the…
Trees.
She had no idea what was back there. She didn’t want to freeze up, even though she could feel the muscles in her body tensing. She looked back through the
yard, just past the tree line. She couldn’t see anything in the dim light of the early evening. And it was so early; it shouldn’t have been getting dark out yet. It was the trees. She couldn’t see past them, and the shade they were throwing onto the house was doing her line of sight no good.
It would probably be better to go back in the house. A gust of wind blew past her, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. No. There was no reason to be back here. She looked to the woods again one more time, and, turning on her heel, backed her way back through the door.
She didn’t think she turned around once while she did it, staring straight ahead of her as she fled back into the house. It was efficient, though, and it worked for her, and she was safely back inside in no time at all.
Darren would probably freak out if he knew where she’d just been. While he had gotten more casual about her than the way he’d acted at the beginning, Victoria could tell that he was still unhappy about anything that might jeopardize her safety. And there was something about the mystery of the area around this place that made her feel in danger.
No.