APOLLO RISING (The Apollo Saga, Book 1) (9 page)

“Now?” he whispered, breaking her concentration.

It took Allie a moment to realize he was referring to the hunt. With some effort, she pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind and struggled to refocus on the deer. And when she nodded to him, his fingers released the arrow. It covered the distance between hunters and prey in the span of a single heartbeat and found its mark.

Claimed, the animal uttered a single moaning cry and fell, bringing a sudden stillness to the forest around them. It may have taken only one of them to bring it down, but Allie knew it was going to take both of them to bring it home.

They made good time returning to the cabin.

Allie had done the bulk of the fallen deer’s cleaning in the woods, and it was mid-afternoon by the time she bundled up the useable parts and set them in the icebox. She had been so focused on recalling her old skills that she hadn’t even noticed Tyler was gone until the lights in the cabin’s interior flickered to life.

The back door opened, and Allie heard the familiar rumble of the generator as Tyler stepped back inside, stomping his feet against the doorframe. He smiled triumphantly at her.

“You got it working!”

Closing the door behind him, he rubbed his palms together to warm them. “Figured I’d better try to earn my keep.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she thanked him.

He approached her, looking around the kitchen at the various pieces of deer still in various states of preparation. “Okay, you’re definitely not like any other girl I know.”

“Not used to seeing your girls covered in blood, huh?” she joked, but regretted the statement as soon as she remembered his date at the campground. “Oh, Tyler - - I’m…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

He waved his hand. “No, I know what you meant, it’s cool.”

A long and awkward pause ensued.

“But yeah,” he finally spoke, “you’re pretty good with a butcher’s knife. You learned all of this from your Grandma, huh?”

Allie shrugged, blowing a stray hair from in front of her face. “It’s not like she only taught me crazy stuff like this, she made me stay in school and get an education just like all the other kids. But it’s important in our family to know how to do things, you know? I know people – like my roommate, for example – who I think really believe that food comes from the grocery store.”

They both laughed briefly at that.

“For me, I guess it’s the connection that makes a difference. You have to know where everything comes from, or else it never matters to you.”

Tyler seemed to weigh this, as if it had never really occurred to him. “I’ve never really thought about it like that, but….yeah, you’re right. And if everything is connected…”

She completed his thought. “Then everything matters.”

After a moment, the smile returned to his face. “Is that why you stayed with me last night?”

She looked down at the section of meat she was cutting, avoiding his gaze. “Something like that.”

Her eyes locked in on the annoying strand of hair. Tyler reached out and brushed it back from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

“Careful,” she warned, “I’ve got a knife.”

She let the smile on her lips betray the casual flirtation behind her words.

Feigning surrender, he raised his hands and took a step forward, “You wouldn’t hurt an unarmed man…would you?”

“Maybe,” she lied, holding the knife between them. She was positive her grin was a dead giveaway.

“
Maybe?
” he repeated. “I think you already did.” He was moving closer still, his voice velvety smooth. “But I don’t think you’d do it again.”

His words were so convincing—enough that she almost forgot that he was the more dangerous of the two of them—and he was close enough now that his magnetism was already pulling her in.

“Back up,” she teased, taking a step backward herself, “I’m warning you.”

He stepped forward twice, the blade now pressed against his shirt. “I’m not afraid of getting a little dirty,” he admitted, all too seductively.

Allie needed to catch her breath. Tyler’s flirtatious tone was making her more nervous than ever. She swallowed hard, trying to take her eyes off the last word still hanging from his lower lip.
Dirty
.

Yes he was, she reminded herself—the deliciously handsome kind—and the next words barely made it out of her mouth as she locked into his stare, “Oh really?”

“Really.”

He was too close.

“I don’t wanna be dirty,” she whispered, shaking her head.

Tyler lowered his hands and wrapped them around her waist. His fingers grazed her curves as they made their way to the small of her back. “I know,” he agreed, “but you are
really
dirty.”

A brief moment lingered where she thought he might kiss her. She lowered the knife instinctively, closed her eyes and held her breath.

“So dirty,” she surrendered, but his lips never met hers.

“Settle down, tiger,” he chuckled, tugging on her apron strings, “I was talking about the blood on your clothes.”

Flustered, Allie opened her eyes and
looked down at herself. She was a mess.

Trying to laugh off her embarrassment, “Oh yeah—
that.
”

“I think it’s your turn to get cleaned up now.” After a long pause, he broke his stare and the tension, and continued, “Besides, we should have some hot water soon.”

“Oh thank
god
,” she praised under her breath; although, she wasn’t entirely sure whether she was more relieved by the convenience of warm water, or the conclusion of her momentary lapse in judgment.

“I could draw you a bath,” he offered, leaning in close enough to whisper in her ear, “unless you think you might still need that cold shower?”

Allie laughed at that, and felt the redness return to her cheeks. Pushing her hair back from her sweating brow with her forearm, she waved him away with a smile, “Fine,” she agreed, “just go!”

“Going,” he retorted, raising his hands again in surrender as he stepped backward out of the kitchen. “I’ll get that bath ready. Hot right?”

Allie regarded him with an arched brow.

“Just kidding,” he teased, turning to the hallway. “How long do you think you’ll be?”

The thought of a long, hot bath made her skin tingle, but she forced herself to return focus to the last slow, steady cuts with the blade. “I’m almost done,” she insisted, “I want to make sure we have enough for the next couple of days, plus…” She left her sentence unended, realizing that he had already left the room completely.

She wrapped up the meat, and set it to one side while listening to the water running in the old tub. Pulling the red-stained apron
over her head
, she laid it on the edge of the sink and walked towards the bathroom, kicking off her shoes on the way. Tyler was standing in the hallway, looking into the hall cubby.

“Got towels in here, somewhere?” he asked, seeing her approach.

Allie shook her head, pointing towards the bedroom. “In there, in the main closet.”

Following her instructions, he returned a moment later, a pleasantly surprised expression on his face. In one hand, he held a stack of towels, and in the other, an old dusty guitar case. “I couldn’t help myself,” he confessed. “I see a guitar and I can’t
not
touch it.”

She was shocked – how could she have forgotten that was back there? “Where’d you find that?”

“It was in the back of the closet. Is it yours?”

She shook her head, “No, it was my dad’s, I guess. Moll
said
he played it all the time for my Mom, and so she held on to it after…”

“Oh, hey, look,” he interrupted, “if you’d rather I didn’t…”

She couldn’t help but smile at his expression, like a little boy who’d just broken his best friend’s toy. “It’s fine,
really,” she assured him.
“I don’t mind. I never saw him play it anyway, so, it’s really only a guitar to me.
Feel free,
I don’t even know if it works.”

He handed her the towels, and let his fingers touch hers longer than necessary. “Thank you, Allie.”

A shiver coursed along her skin, and she hurriedly excused herself, hearing her voice tremble as she did so. She closed the door behind her and stood against it for several moments until she heard him walking away and into the main room.

The water was only halfway up the tub, but the steam rising up called out to her in a way that felt almost primordial. She stripped off the blood-stained clothes and let them fall into a pile on the floor and stepped into the tub. It was even hotter than she had expected,
but she didn’t care.
Picking up a nearby bottle of bathsoap, she poured a bit of it under the faucet and let a mound of bubbles build before she sank down into the water.
Every inch of her screamed out
deliciously
as it met the sharp, wet, sting of the bathwater until she was able to lay back with her shoulders and knees rising up from the water’s surface. And she came to rest, watching
the blood on her skin dilute into the water, tingeing it pink.

Beyond the door, she heard Tyler begin to tune the guitar. She nearly laughed out loud at how comically bad it sounded. Each note, one by one, however, shifted and changed until it joined the one before it.
And eventually, they began to play in harmony.

Allie sat up and turned off the water, easing back into her former posture, sliding down until her head and hair were underwater, and then rose back up until the water rippled up beneath her chin. She wanted to be wrapped up in all this heat, letting the warmth seep into her bones, find each last inch of skin and muscle and ease them into sublime relaxation.
A slow, lingering sigh slipped past her lips, bordering on a moan as s
he lifted her hands to her face and slicked back the water from her face.

And then, from the other room, she heard Tyler begin to play. Just a few chords at first, as if he was just getting to know the guitar, and then a soft and beautiful melody ensued. The soothing sounds helped her to drift into daydream, where she imagined him—gratuitously naked, like the morning before—playing her father’s guitar by the fire. It was a good thought.

Allie suddenly realized she
couldn’t keep the genuine smile off her lips. What was he doing to her? She
closed her eyes and sunk under the water, taking a moment to clear her mind—
all the outside forces of sound and sight disappeared with her, drowned by the warm pressure of
submersion—but that quiet second only revealed more powerfully, her growing feelings for Tyler.

The cool air met her nose first, then her eyes, and finally her ears as she slowly rose again, this time to the sound of Tyler’s voice.

“Wanna hear me play?” It was coming from the doorway, where he now stood.

She flinched first, then reached for a nearby towel and quickly pulled it into the tub with her. “Uh…hi,” she stuttered, forcing an awkward smile as she made sure she’d covered any parts that mattered.

He smiled, holding the guitar up by its neck. “May I?”

“Uh--sure.” She clambered to sit up, holding the wet towel against her chest, “Come in.”

Tyler stepped through the threshold and made a seat for himself atop the toilet; almost too close to her for comfort. Allie could feel the warmth rise inside her veins to match the temperature of the water, but that anxiety gradually subsided when his eyes never wandered her way. Instead, he raised the instrument to his lap and began to play her a song.

She sunk back down into the water, resuming a comfortable position and simply watched him play. It was a beautiful instant with all the trappings of an intimate moment between two near-strangers relaxing into one another’s presence, and she felt solace with him, finally, for the first time.

Allie couldn’t help but notice him in a different light altogether then; the sun setting through the small window above her. The vigilant rays touched the top of his golden hair, which pulled her eyes to his face. It was good face, she realized, more handsome now than she remembered even from moments ago. She watched him strum the chords, seemingly content in his ability to serenade her—anyone, for that matter—and felt the warm tingle of attraction seep to the surface of her skin.

As the last note lingered under his fingertips, he raised his eyes from the strings and met her doting gaze. Allie’s breath fell silent, overcome by a sudden awakening within her heart; the only sound between them, the slow drip of the faucet at her toes and the pounding in her breast.

She didn’t remember seeing Tyler set down the guitar, or even where he had left it, for that matter. It was a blur—happening so fast that the next thing she recalled was the soft touch of his hands sliding around her neck and up underneath her hair, rendering her utterly helpless against his advance. She strained the reach of her lips and took in one last gasp of air before his hungry kiss devoured her face. Finally, they had both given in.