But Ghost wasn’t the ‘talking type’. I held onto him in silence as he kicked the bike back to life and started navigating his way through the woods. He said he was taking me back to his place, but this didn’t seem like a homely neighborhood.
Where was he taking me?
Into the deep dark woods?
To do what?
I could feel a panic rising in me which I tried to force down. I needed to trust him. They needed me. They needed to keep me safe and alive, for Crash’s sake.
But what if he changed his mind because I pushed him away? What if he was the kind of guy who didn’t handle rejection well? The fact was I didn’t know anything about him and couldn’t predict what his next actions would be.
* * *
When we stopped outside the log cabin, I couldn’t help but feel like an idiot. This was his house. Ghost lived in a charming little log cabin in the middle of the woods! Not another human soul in sight, although I could hear the birds chirping as they settled in their nests for the night overhead. The cabin was in a small clearing but surrounded by trees.
He parked the bike haphazardly and jumped off, leaving me to trail after him, bursting with a million questions.
Did he actually own this cabin?
How often did he stay here?
Had he built it himself?
Didn’t he ever get lonely out here all alone in the middle of the silence of the woods?
What had made him pick this spot?
But I could sense there was a distance between us now. Since that wild tempting kiss, something had changed between us. I was hesitant to make jokes and didn’t know what his reaction would be toward me. Had he changed his mind? Did he even want me to live with him?
He had a key and he unlocked the door. I followed him inside and was awestruck immediately by how charming his house was, and how well maintained. Ghost did not strike me as the kind of guy who would take the trouble of keeping a clean house, but then again, I had been wrong about pretty much everything up until now. So maybe I was completely wrong about him too.
He turned on a few floor lamps and I stood silently by the door. The cabin didn’t have a whole lot of space and the lamps were enough to keep the place illuminated. It was a neat and uncluttered abode. Ghost went immediately to the kitchen area and started opening the cupboards.
“Are you hungry?” he asked with his back turned to me.
I wanted to burst into a laugh. Was he offering to make me dinner or did he expect me to cook?
When I didn’t reply, he looked over his shoulder at me.
“I have some homemade pesto in the fridge. I could use that to make pasta, if you’re up for it.”
Those knots in my belly tightened again.
What was it they said about a sexy man knowing his way around the kitchen?
“Y…yeah, that sounds good to me. Thank you,” I managed to mumble. But I felt like I was making a complete fool of myself.
* * *
Ghost sure knew his way around the kitchen. I remained in the background, watching him in silence as he worked on the pasta. The silence around us was deafening. No city noises, no voices…only the sounds of the leaves rustling in the breeze and crickets chirping in the night.
There was something sweet about watching him working in the kitchen, knowing where the pots went and fetching plates and glasses for water. It was obvious to me that he had spent many nights such as this alone in this cabin, cooking dinner for himself.
Back at the clubhouse, he had a completely different persona, high up in the MC, keeping his guys in line and Crash under control. And back here in the cabin, he was a man who was delicate with the basil leaves while he spread them over the top of the pasta bowls.
There were waves of conflicting emotions streaming through me. I couldn’t get that kiss out of my mind. The way he pulled me to him, his tongue in my mouth, his hands all over my body…and the stony silence he gave me when I pushed him away.
Would it be too foolish to trust him? I wanted to trust him. I wanted to be able to rely on one person. I was just beginning to realize how lonely I had been, how responsible I’d felt all this while because I was the only person looking after my grandmother. No support. And maybe if I had somebody to…
“You not hungry?” His voice interrupted my thoughts. I snapped out of it, staring at him while he sat at the small kitchen table under a low-hanging yellow light. There were two bowls of greenish pasta on the table and it looked like he had already started eating.
I cleared my throat.
“Yes, I am, thank you,” I muttered as I walked over and sat across from him.
My hair was a mess because of the bike, and I knew it was all tangled and knotted. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t smooth it down. I was still wearing the very skimpy red dress which I couldn’t wait to take off now.
Did I look uncomfortable? Ghost stared at me for a few moments and then I took my first bite.
It was absolutely delicious and I covered my mouth with a hand while I tried not to laugh.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“Sorry, I just can’t…this is unbelievable. As in, unbelievably good! I had no idea you could cook like this.”
Ghost continued eating but it seemed like he relaxed a little now. “Sounds like you have a lot of misconceptions about me.”
“Can you blame me?”
He looked
