Outnumbered

  Thankfully, she seems to have dropped the repetitive F-bombs.

  “I heard enough.” I lick my lips and take in a deep breath. “Like it or not, we’re going to be stuck with each other for a while.”

  Chapter 7

  “The snow is really piling up out there.” Seri turns away from the window as I toss my third cigarette into the fire.

  The previous night’s sleep had been awkward though we still shared the bed for warmth. Throughout the night, I was pissed and tense, and Seri acted like nothing had happened at all, which was even more annoying. I didn’t feel calm again until daybreak.

  Seri must have realized that silence is the way to go and hasn’t said much of anything all day. Even Solo has been unwilling to leave his towel-lined box for anything other than milk. At the moment, he’s sleeping soundly and not bothering the food I have laid out by the fire, ready to cook for dinner. Maybe the storm is affecting his mood, too.

  “The wind is blowing, too,” I say. “It’s likely to drift up over the roof.”

  “Really?” Seri’s eyes widen at this news. “What do we do if that happens? Couldn’t we suffocate?”

  “In theory, yes. Having extra bodies in here doesn’t help with that, but there are ventilation holes on the roof.” I point out two places on the ceiling of the cabin where you can see the holes. “If snow covers the roof, I can stick a broom handle through the holes and let oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. That’s only happened once though. Once the snowfall stops, I can climb up on the roof and clear it off.”

  “What if you fall?”

  “I won’t.”

  “But what if you do?”

  “If I get hurt badly, I’ll die.” I stare at her for a long moment. I can see that she’s starting to panic, and I don’t need that. “I’m very careful, and I’ve been doing this for a long time. If the snow is piled up to the roof, I’m not going to fall far. Don’t worry about shit that hasn’t happened.”

  She takes a deep breath and then nods.

  “In the meantime,” she says, “maybe we should try to get along a bit better?”

  I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from telling her to just fuck off and leave me alone. I don’t want to get along; I want her out of here. But that’s not possible right now. For a moment, I wish I hadn’t picked her up at all. I wish I had just left her there—it was her own problem, not mine. I also know if I had, I would have ended up racing out there as the storm hit, riddled with guilt and probably getting both of us killed.

  Maybe getting along isn’t so bad.

  “How would we do that?” I ask her warily.

  “Maybe just talk a little?” she says, and I cringe. “We have to have something in common. You’re obviously from the States, not from around here. Where did you grow up?”

  In a detention center.

  “Kentucky,” I finally answer. “Outside of Louisville.”

  “Really? I’m from Indianapolis, so that’s pretty close! See? We already have something in common.”

  I’m not so sure that counts, but I’m willing to admit understanding such things isn’t my forte.

  “When did you graduate from high school?” she asks.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh.” She looks away as she twists her fingers around each other, finally ending her list of questions that likely included colleges and majors.

  I knew talking wasn’t a good idea. This is just going to lead to all kinds of questions I don’t care to answer, which is going to piss me off, which is going to make me want to do something I would end up regretting.

  If I kill her, I’ll have to dig through the frozen earth to bury her, and it is too damn cold to even consider that. That thought alone should help me behave myself. I place caribou steaks into the hot pan on the fire and focus on the sizzling sound.

  “Bishop is a really unusual name,” she says.

  “So is Seri,” I reply.

  “Heh, yeah, that’s true. It’s short for Serenity. I got picked on a lot because of it when I was growing up. It sounds like such a snobby name. I think my parents believed it was going to represent a peaceful life. No such luck.”

  She chuckles nervously. I can’t think of a way to respond to the information she’s provided me, and I don’t want to ask her a bunch of questions about the ways her life hasn’t been serene, so I say nothing.

  “So, where did the name Bishop come from?” she asks when I don’t speak up.

  “My mother.” Her question is innocent enough, but I tense anyway.

  “Well, yes,” Seri say with another chuckle, “but where did she get it?”

  I take in a long breath and let it out slowly. I flip the steaks over and check the sear for a moment, but when I glance back at Seri, she’s staring at me, still waiting for a better answer.

  “I was a preemie,” I tell her. “Born about six weeks early. I had to be in an incubator and on oxygen and such. I was in pretty bad shape for a while, and the doctors weren’t sure if I was going to make it. My mother is a devout Catholic, and she prayed over me all the time. One day, someone from the Catholic Church stopped by and prayed with her, and I started improving the next day. When I was finally doing well, she named me ‘Bishop’ because she couldn’t remember the actual bishop’s first name.”

  “That’s a nice story,” she says. “I’m kind of surprised you weren’t named before that though. Don’t babies get named right after they’re born?”

  “I was,” I tell her. I poke at the steaks in the pan—they’re almost done. “Originally, I was named after my father. Thankfully, they changed it before I left the hospital.”

  “What did your father think of that?”

  “I don’t give a fuck what he thought.” I pull the pan from the fire and walk over to the kitchen, placing the hot pan on a folded towel on the counter. Without another word, I stalk to the bathroom and slam the door behind me.

  This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. I know all the seemingly innocuous questions that come next, and I’m not prepared for any of them—I never have been. Are your parents still alive? Where is your mother now? Why don’t you speak to her? What happened to your father? These are all questions I can’t answer without saying far, far too much. When no answer is forthcoming, people become suspicious, and that stirs their natural curiosity. If they decide to investigate, they find out more than I want them to.

  “I know what happened, Bishop.”

  I stared at Margot with narrowed eyes.

  “Well, you wouldn’t tell me anything, so I looked you up. I found a couple of articles in the Courier-Journal.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” she promised. “I think I know you well enough to know you aren’t a violent person. You had to have a pretty compelling reason to do what you did.”

  “You don’t know shit.”

  Solo meows and scratches at the door. The sound pulls me from thoughts, but I don’t respond to him right away. I’m pissed that I’ve shut my own bathroom door for the first time ever. I’m pissed that there’s someone else in my house. I hate her questions. I hate her presence. My stomach is tied up in knots, and my hands are shaking.

  Get a fucking grip.

  Solo is howling at the door now. I didn’t realize the tiny thing could get so loud. I take several deep breaths, splash ice-cold water on my face, and open the door to face a very angry kitten. He immediately starts climbing up my leg, and when I reach down and bring him up to my chest, he stares me straight in the eye and howls again.

  “Shut it,” I mumble. Solo makes his way onto my shoulder and sits there as I go back to the kitchen and put the steaks on two plates. I hand one to Seri as I walk by and sit down slowly enough for Solo to keep his balance.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Seri says.

  “You didn’t.” My lie is transparent, and she raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Well, I’m sorry anyway. I didn’t intend to pry.”
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  I shrug and dig into the meat. Seri blesses me with a brief amount of quiet as she finishes her food and slowly stands to take her dishes to the sink.

  “You just heat water for the sink in this pot, right?” She holds up the percolator, and I nod. She fills it and takes it to the fire, examining the hook for a moment before hanging the pot. When it boils, she removes it by the insulated handle and pours the hot water into the sink.

  “That seems to work,” she says. I assume she’s talking to herself, so I don’t answer. She walks back to me and holds out her hand until I hand her my plate and silverware.

  Seri finishes the dishes while I feed Solo.

  When the kitten is done with the milk, he licks my fingers free of meat juice. When my fingers are clean, he keeps licking.

  “You’ve already got it all,” I say softly. He doesn’t seem to care.

  I hear clanking from the kitchen as Seri puts the clean dishes away. I look at her sideways and see her wiping her hands on a towel and staring out the window at the snow coming down.

  Turning my attention back to Solo, I disengage my fingers from his tongue and place him down near the fire. He yawns and stretches before curling up in a ball and then begins to clean his paws and face.

  I wonder how he even knows to do that, given the loss of his mother. He looks so small and helpless, but he has instincts. They got him to a place where there was someone to look after him and keep him warm. Everything else he seems to know how to do on his own.

  Solo must think he’s clean enough and decides it’s nap time. I’m thinking the same thing. I’d just put myself to bed and be done with the day, but it’s not all that late yet, and I have this guest I don’t know what to do with. Snowstorms always make we want to sleep until they’re over.

  Seri is still staring out the window, motionless.

  I take a deep breath and start preparing for the night. I pick up a few logs and test their weight before placing them a little closer to the fire for easy access if it gets cold overnight. I head back into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth, leaving the door open this time. The inside of the bathroom isn’t visible from the kitchen, and I don’t really give a shit if she sees me anyway. I ditch my shirt into the dirty clothes bin in the closet before I walk back out into the main room.

  Seri doesn’t look my way as she continues to focus on the snowfall, so I step up to tend to the fire.

  “I can’t believe how fucking dark it is out there!” she yells suddenly.

  The F-bombs are back. Awesome.

  I ignore her comment and toss a few dense pieces of wood on the fire. It’s getting late, and I want some good coals to keep through the night. The flame grows higher, warming me enough to slip off my jeans and hang them on the rack.

  “You do that just to tease me, don’t you?”

  “What?” I look over to Seri.

  “It’s too fucking cold to go around without a shirt,” she says, “so you’re obviously doing it just to show off those abs.”

  Once again, I am at a loss for words. I’m well-built enough—I spend most of the summer doing physical labor—but it’s not something I think about. I’m hardly body-builder material, and I certainly don’t show off my physique intentionally.

  “What are you talking about?” I shake my head at her.

  “It’s dark and it’s cold and I’m bored!” she yells. “You’re walking around practically naked, and I’m fucking freezing!”

  I have about a hundred nasty things to say in response, but I shake my head instead. Seri huffs through her nose and glares at me. I really don’t want to get into it with her again, but apparently, she does.

  Seri steps up close to me and stares me right in the eye. I straighten my shoulders, mentally preparing for whatever she wants to get off her chest.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re doing,” she says. The sneer is gone from her voice, and her tone is low. It reminds me of Solo’s purring. “That body is enough to turn every straight woman toward you, and you know it.”

  Okay…I am not mentally prepared for this. I thought she was going to yell at me some more about being stuck here, my lack of social graces, or the weather in general. I have no idea how to respond to…to…whatever the hell this is.

  I open my mouth to speak though I’m not sure what to say. I don’t get a chance to utter a word before, without warning, she presses the full length of her body against me.

  “How much have you thought about it?” she asks. She trails her fingers from my shoulders to my chest. “Don’t fucking lie to me either.”

  I swallow hard. My head is spinning a bit as the touch of her body against my flesh makes my skin tingle.

  “Thought about what?”

  “How much warmer you’d be with your cock in my pussy.”

  Holy shit!

  I stand, dumbfounded, and stare at her. I can’t possibly have heard her right. There is no way she just said those words, and I’ve obviously fallen asleep in the chair or something. Apparently, my dreams have gone into porn mode because real, live women don’t say those things.

  Do they?

  Margot never did; that’s for sure.

  Seri places one hand around the back of my neck, and I just stand there like a moron. She moves her other hand from my chest to my abs and then lower. It’s not until she’s wrapping her fingers around my dick that I even realize how hard I am.

  “Fuck.” The curse is out of my mouth before I realize I’m saying it. My muscles clench and my eyes close as I automatically press my dick against her hand, and I grunt.

  Maybe I should have thought about this possibility. Other men probably would have, but I didn’t have a normal upbringing. Even when in bed with her, I’d only been worried I’d embarrass myself and hadn’t thought about actually having sex with her. I had never initiated sex in my life, but with Margot, I had at least had some warning before she suggested it. We’d kissed before then. We’d lie on the couch with her leaning back against me and my arms wrapped around her. She liked holding my hand when we walked from her house to the docks.

  Seri and I had done nothing of the sort, and the idea of “cock in pussy,” as she had so delicately put it, hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  As I force my eyes open, trying to keep some sense of myself, Seri grips my hand with her free one and slides it up under the sweatshirt she borrowed from me, placing my fingers on top of her left breast. I look at her dark, sparkling eyes and try to figure out what the hell is going on here.

  “What…?” It’s the only word I can manage to say.

  Seri laughs.

  “You want it,” she states as she slowly runs her fingers over my cock, and I remain motionless, trying not to automatically come in her hand. “I’m so fucking wet right now, you’re going to slip right in.”

  Releasing my dick, Seri places both hands on my chest and shoves me until the back of my knees hit the bed. She shoves once more, harder this time, and I fall back onto the mattress.

  She giggles again before she rips off the sweatshirt and drops her pants. She isn’t even wearing her bra or panties though I have no idea when she might have taken them off or where she put them. I don’t get a chance to think about this before she yanks my shorts down my legs, straddles my thighs, and takes my dick back into her hand. She guides the head between her legs and runs it up and down as I press my palms against the blanket.

  “You want this?” Again, she sounds like she’s purring at me, and I have no idea what to say in return. “Tell me you want it.”

  “I do.” My throat is dry, and I can barely hear my own words. She raises an eyebrow at me and stops the motion.

  “Say it again.” She holds the tip of my dick against her clit, grinding against me. She slides back down, circling her opening for a moment before going back to her clit, and I gasp.

  Five minutes ago, I hadn’t thought about sex with her at all, but now the idea of not getting inside of her is completely abhorrent. The an
ticipation as she slowly starts to rub her pussy all over my cock is going to drive me insane. I’ve never felt such a raw need to be inside of a woman before, not even with Margot. At the moment, it’s the only thing in the world that I want.

  “I want it.” I nod quickly, unsure if I’ll be able to speak again.

  She smiles, and the look is both sweet and sadistic. She slides down slowly once more, centers my cock, and slams down.

  “Shit!” I reach up and automatically grab a hold of her hips though I let her set the pace. She’s fast, practically jumping up and down on me as sweat begins to form on my neck and chest.

  “Oh, yeah!” She leans back, slows down, and grinds back and forth with me fully inside of her. “I knew you had a glorious cock. We all knew it.”

  I have no idea what the fuck she’s talking about, and I don’t care. It has been years since I felt this, and my focus is immutable. She leans forward again, hands on my chest and rides me with purpose and determination, alternating from deep penetrations to slow circles of her clit on my pubic bone. My cock is throbbing, and I tilt my head back, closing my eyes and trying to think of anything but exploding right now.

  Seri leans over me, pausing slightly as her nipples touch my chest. She runs her nose along the side of my neck, and I feel her breath warming my skin as I gather just a bit of composure. I try to turn my head to press my lips to hers, but she evades me.

  “She felt it you know,” she whispers against my neck. “All cuddled up to keep warm. She felt it against her ass.”

  “Who the hell is ‘she’?”

  Seri laughs, ignoring my question.

  I want to know what the fuck she’s talking about, but I can’t focus on anything but the feeling of my cock inside her. She leans back, riding me hard again like it’s the only way to ward off the cold. I feel the grip of her fingers on my shoulders and wonder briefly if she’s going to leave bruises.

  “Come in me! Dammit, Bishop! Come in me!”

  “Oh, fuck!” I squeeze my eyes shut as reflex takes over. I dig my fingertips into her hips and hold her down on top of me. A second later, I spill into her with a grunt.