But I’m sure it’s nothing. He’s just being nice.
And really, he is right. Sort of. Because I’m not entirely alone, am I? I’m with a group of people. The people who’ve signed up for the activity.
It might be a solitary activity, but there are plenty of people around if I need them.
“I guess I’m just adventurous,” I say, clearing my throat.
The chill in the air suddenly grasps me and I shove my hands into my pockets, though I should leave them out to steady myself, keep my balance.
“You seem adventurous,” he says, stopping in his tracks and turning back to me. “I never met a girl out here who was all alone. A few bachelorette parties who thought it would be fun to do this, maybe, but never a girl all alone in the wilderness.”
His eyes narrow on mine and he takes another step toward me, snapping a branch in two under his heavy boot.
“I’ve met girls like you before,” he says. “Girls that come to events like this, where it’s all guys. I know why you’re here. You’re acting all coy and shit, but you’re really here to meet a guy, right?”
“Actually, no,” I reply. I can feel my face getting hot. And red. And suddenly, I feel like a complete moron. “I can do something on my own without having it be about getting a guy, can’t I?”
“You can, but I know that’s not why you’re here,” he says. He takes another step toward me and peers down at me. He isn’t much taller than me, but he is much bigger than me.
“Hey,” I say, putting my hands out. “I’m really sorry. You are really mistaken. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea here.”
“Oh, you didn’t give me the wrong idea,” he replies. He puts his hands out to me and places them tentatively - but firmly - on my shoulders.
I swallow thickly. I feel my eyes dart around us, searching for another one of those yellow vests somewhere, anywhere in the distance around us.
“We have to get back to the camp,” I try, my voice faltering. “It’s getting dark.”
I can feel my blood coursing through my veins, the adrenaline hitting my brain, the blood pumping through my head like the pounding of the tide against the shore.
I can feel my fight or flight response kicking in.
But I don’t know if I can run. I don’t know where I would run to.
“Come on,” he says, lifting his chin up and looking down at me with piercing eyes. But they’re hollow. They’re expressionless. I can’t read him, but I know what he’s thinking. “You know why you’re really out here. No girl wants to be alone on Valentine’s Day.”
And I know I have to get the hell out of here. Any way that I can.
“No,” I say, shrugging his hands off my shoulder suddenly. “I do want to be alone. So get your hands off of me.”
He laughs and his expression turns menacing, cold, colder than it was before. His eyes are now dull and hollow and looking down at me with a brewing sickness.
I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t even know where the hell I am.
I try to push past him, back toward where I think the camp might be. But I am disoriented. I am lost.
Shouldering past him, I check my compass. I look off into the distance. Maybe he got the idea. Maybe he will leave me the hell alone. The sky behind me is inky black, bleeding into the periphery of the sky around me and in front of me, off into the distance where the orange and red sky is starting to be covered by the black of nightfall. I check the compass again and turn to the right. This is north. This is the way.
And I think I’ve left him behind. I think he’s given up. I’m not worth the fight. He’ll move onto someone who’s actually interested in him. He isn’t a bad looking guy, not at all.
He didn’t have to try that with me. He can try it with someone else, someone who wants it.
I don’t look back. I take a few steps forward.
That’s when I feel a hand on the back of my neck.
Through my coat, the heavy, thick down fabric and my hood. I feel the unmistakable pressure of a hand wrapping around the back of my throat, and then an arm wrapping around me and a hand coming down on my belly, and the tight grasping loss of control as I feel my body fall back against him.
And as I feel the sky above me fall away, I close my eyes.
2
Cole
They do this every fucking year.
Half of them are drunk. The other half really are trying, but no one is really very good or knows what the hell they’re doing.
Except her.
She knows what she is doing with her rifle. She is hunched low to the ground, she is steady, she is confident, she is sure. She has practiced, she is cautious, she is tactical and she is methodical.
She is also the most beautiful and pure creature I have ever seen.
The first time I saw her was a year ago today. She came out to play this stupid game they have. Last year was the first time I saw her. She was sloppy last year. She was under-dressed, and she didn’t blend into the terrain. She never shot at a target. She never even located a target.
She was beautiful a year ago. She was fucking perfect. She looked like she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. She swung her rifle through the air, playing, pretending to know what she was doing.
But she never squeezed the trigger.
It was warmer last year, unseasonably warm for mid-February. The ground was warm and damp and she skipped through my fucking backyard, twirling her hair and eating these fucking chocolate candies out of a baggie, and she didn’t take the game seriously. I could give two shits about the game, and clearly she didn’t care about it, either.
She also didn’t know she was trespassing on my property, either.
I let these kids have their fun, though. Someone should have some enjoyment around here.
They leave my property littered with beer cans, but I have a full staff and I give them a big, hefty bonus to clean everything up. It’s not in their job description to clean up after a bunch of privileged assholes who have nothing better to do than get drunk in the woods and shoot paintball guns at random targets.
It’s not like I’m going to go out there and tell those punks to get off my lawn.
I’m not that much of an old curmudgeon.
But her...she doesn’t belong here. She didn’t belong here last year, and she certainly doesn’t belong here this year. Last year she fit in a little bit better because of how decidedly un-seriously she took the whole thing.
This year, she’s taking it very fucking seriously. She crouches down behind a fallen tree trunk and expertly takes a shot at a target, and the pink paint she’s packed her rifle with splatters on the target she’s found.
She’s so happy. It makes my fucking heart clench up in my chest when I see her celebrating her little victory.
And all I want to do is go out there and celebrate with her. I always hated this game, and now I love it. She makes me want to celebrate with her. The innocence she exudes, mixed with the confidence she has, it makes my heart melt and my cock roar when I see her perfect skin and her silky blonde hair peeking out from the massive hood on her white coat.
And that pink bullseye. It is her - alone in the wilderness, this beacon of something special and pure in the vast expanse of the untamed, messy wild.
I want to go down there and take her. Throw her over my shoulder and bring her back up here to my home and keep her here.
She turns, and she smiles, and I swear those perfect heart-shaped red lips are smiling just for me.
She takes another piece of candy out of her pocket and pops it between her delectable lips. I imagine what she tastes like. Sweet and pure and melting into me.
But suddenly my attention is torn away from my security monitors by my phone ringing in my pocket.
It’s the satellite office down in San Francisco, and they never call unless there’s a problem. I don’t like problems. Not when it comes to my business, and not when it comes to my personal life. So I answer, e
ven though it means taking my eyes off my girl.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” I say into the phone, getting up to pace my small auxiliary office where I man my security system.
“Hey, Cole,” the voice on the other end of the line says. He doesn’t have to identify himself; I know it’s Conrad, my head systems analyst. He’s the best man in my employ, which means when he’s calling me, there must really be a fucking problem.
“What is it?” I say impatiently. As much as I like to run my business smoothly and get involved when needed, everything’s on autopilot right now as far as I’m concerned. I’m not a control freak. I let that shit run itself. I can’t afford to be a control freak. I was once. That’s why I’m up here in the mountains, letting the best tech people money can hire run the show. At least that’s part of the reason I’m up here. I only intervene when needed. And that’s when I can turn into a controlling prick.
“We got a problem, boss,” he says. “One of the servers in New York is down, and it’s fucking us.”
“A server is down?” I clench my fist and feel my nails dig into the flesh on my palm. A down server can mean our program won’t function. And if the program won’t function, it can mean the difference between life and death.
“Yeah, boss. We are working on it right now. Apparently there’s a blackout in Albany because of the storm.”
“That’s why we have a backup generator,” I growl into the phone.
“Backup generator’s down too, but we’re working on getting everything back up. That’s why I’m calling,” he says.
But I already know why he’s calling. I know there’s a backup power source that can be activated, but I’ll need to make some calls to get this shit done. And no one on my team has the governor’s number except me. They have the number of his office, but I have his personal number.
It sound fucking crazy, but I went to college with the governor of New York. And he’s a fucking prick. Close friend of mine, too, and a blackout in his state isn’t exactly a national emergency. Shit fucking happens when your state’s being assaulted by three feet of snow.
But for me, he’ll kick on the extra energy. Even though it’ll cost the state a fortune. I’ll ask him to bill me. He knows I’m good for it, no matter what the cost.
It’s worth it, because I don’t want my application to be offline for a second more than it has to be.
“I’m on it,” I sigh. Conrad thanks me and hangs up. It’s not like I want to spend a million dollars in one day because of some inclement weather, but I’ll do what I have to.
I dial the governor and sink back into my chair. My eyes drift from monitor to monitor. It looks like my girl might be outside the territory covered by my security system. I might have to wait another fucking year before I can get another glimpse of her.
The phone rings once and the governor picks up. He already knows what I want.
“You owe me,” he says.
“Understood,” I say. “Just send me the bill.”
“It’s already sent,” he says. “We restored power ninety seconds ago. Your office will be notified shortly.”
“You’re fucking presumptuous,” I say, barely hiding the smirk in my voice.
“And you need me, man,” he replies. “Now let me get back to my date.”
I hang up, relieved that the issue has been resolved. It was an expensive resolution, but it was worth it. I’ve only had to go to drastic measures once or twice before, and it was worth it.
In my late 20s, I developed software that tracks and matches organ donors and people in need of emergency organ donations, as well as blood transfusions and specialized medical care. It’s made me a fuck load of money, because of its universal applications. University and community hospitals all over the world have purchased the software, and we throw in technical support gratis. Our contracts have written in them a stipulation that “acts of god” can cause interruptions in service that we cannot be held responsible for, but I haven’t allowed big interruptions in service to occur yet. I take responsibility for them and fix them before they become a bigger problem, even if they’re the doing of god, or a god, or some greater power.
Of course things happen, and there are power outages and the wifi in hospitals can and does go out from to time, but if it’s something I can personally control, I will.
If I can control it, I will. When there’s an issue, I’ll fix it.
Other than that, I’m hands off.
My phone dings, and it’s a text from Conrad. He’s telling me the problem’s solved.
Fantastic. Now I can go back to what I was doing.
I settle into my chair and brush my index finger against my upper lip as I scan my monitors again. They’re crystal clear, and they make the landscape look peaceful and serene. I know it’s cold out there, but I haven’t been out beyond the bounds of my property in...let’s just say it’s been a while.
From here, though, everything is fucking perfect.
Because my girl has appeared again.
I harden at just seeing her. I want to go out there and rescue her from the cold. Fuck, she doesn’t even need rescuing, but I want to take her in here and put her over my knee for trespassing on my property.
Show her how to have some respect.
No, fuck that. She is too perfect and innocent. And she doesn’t know she’s on my property, anyway. No one does. It’s not like I have signs posted or anything.
No, I’d just bring her into my home and keep her warm, feed her, and tell her to get down on her knees. That’s after I show her how good I can make her feel with my hands, my mouth, my cock.
But this is just a fucking fantasy. It is fleeting. We will never meet, and even though my cock is hard as a fucking diamond when I see her curves move, hidden just beneath her big white coat, I won’t take my cock out and stroke myself, no matter how much I want to. I wouldn’t take advantage of her like that. She doesn’t know I’m watching her. She doesn’t know how much I want her.
And she will never know.
She can’t. Because I won’t leave my tower in the sky. I’ve closed myself off in here, kept myself away from companionship, from the touch of a woman. From love.
If I were to take my cock out and stroke myself thinking of her, she would know it. I’d have to let her know. I’d have to make her see what she does to me. The fire she ignites inside me, the desire and the want. Things I haven’t felt in so long.
My heart rages inside my chest, the blood inside my head pounding through my head, inside my ears.
My girl looks lost. I know the service out here is bad. She won’t get a wifi signal from my house; I have that shit locked down so even the best hackers can’t get through my network.
She pulls out her phone. She looks down at it and then peers around her, checking the landscape. The sun is setting. I could go out there and tell her exactly where to go, but I stop myself. She can do this on her own.
My girl may have a map on her phone, or a compass. She draws up her shoulders and starts walking again, bracing herself on the icy ground with a hand against a tree.
My system doesn’t have audio, just video. But I can sense she hears something. She looks behind her. I see another figure come into her field of vision as he appears on the monitor in front of me.
He crowds her. He fills up too much space on my screen. He walks toward her and I have to tamp down the beginning of anger that I feel in my chest.
Because he’s a good samaritan. I wanted to help her, but I fucking chose not to. That’s my own damn fault.
They exchange a few words, and I’m about to get up and get the hell out of my office.
But I watch her for just a moment more. She begins to follow him down some rocky terrain, finding her balance, gaining her composure. My girl is hesitating, though. She is unsure of what she is doing.
Her instincts kick in. She follows him, but her smile has melted into a cautious expression, her eyes narrowed and suspicious and the corners of her
beautiful mouth pulled tight into a thin line.
And then my fucking instincts kick in. Animalistic, and coursing through my veins, and pummeling me in the damn heart. It’s a protective instinct and it’s overpowering. And it’s triggered by him. The shithead leading my girl down a narrow, snowy path. She doesn’t know where she is. She doesn’t know what he is.
Because he isn’t leading her down that path anymore. He is walking toward her. He is looking down at her.
And I can feel the energy coming off of him. From a quarter mile away, through the closed circuit monitors. I can smell her fear. I can feel the danger.
I push away from my desk and barrel out of my office, rage seething through me.
She’s in danger.
And she’s mine.
3
Valoria
There’s just darkness. It’s darkness, but it isn’t blackness. My eyes are closed, but there’s light beyond them. It’s just the bleeding of the last of daylight, and it’s fighting to remain in my consciousness.
Or maybe that’s me, searching it out. Fighting the darkness.
I’m laying on my back. That much I can feel. But I’m not cold. There’s cold snow and ice beneath me, but I’m not cold. It’s strange, because I can feel that it is cold, but I am not cold.
I feel nothing.
This might really be happening.
I see the man’s face appear in my vision as my eyelids flutter open.
“You need a man, don’t you?” he says. His voice is lewd. He licks his lips.
I close my eyes again.
And I don’t know how much time passes. But I feel the night enveloping us, the sun floating away in the sky, finally dipping over the edge of the earth, leaving behind the sharp line of the horizon.
And I wait.
Then I hear a gasp.
And I open my eyes.
There’s nothing in front of my eyes except for the white branches of the tall forest trees laced over the black sky.
“Fuck, man!”
The man speaks. But he isn’t talking to me. There’s someone else here.
Claiming His Valentine Page 2