Not unguarded, the emotional part of her protested. Vonn was there.
And he was here now, looking down at her with an unreadable expression, wearing a blue cotton shirt softened by many washings. A shirt that intensified the color of his eyes, making them look like sparkling sapphires in the golden light spilling in from the cabin's main room.
Stacy had been dreaming about him. In the dream, she was trying to fit that giant cock inside her, begging for it, clamoring for him to take her. She had no sense of how long she'd been sleeping, another unforgivable lapse, but judging by the darkness outside, it had been at least several hours.
"What's wrong?" Stacy scrambled out of the bed and onto her feet. Even though she hoped Vonn had missed her blush, she knew he could sense her embarrassment anyway. It wasn't until she looked down that she realized that she was still buck naked.
She grabbed the blanket from the bed, a lightweight coverlet stitched from soft, pale furs, and awkwardly wrapped it around her body. Far from ideal, since it would only impede her if she had to defend herself, but she wasn't about to deal with Vonn while her tender, sensitive bits were on full display.
"Everything's fine." Vonn let his gaze travel down her body, making Stacy wonder if he could see through the blanket. "We're going hunting."
"We are? …why the hell are we doing that?"
To her surprise, Vonn laughed—and Stacy bristled, a response ingrained over years of recruits who thought having a hundred-twenty-pound female trainer was hilarious.
But Vonn's laugh wasn't mocking. His amusement seemed genuine and warm…as if they were in on the joke together.
"I don't know about you, but I like to eat."
"All right," Stacy said, though right now, even the tough pepper steak served at the mess hall on base sounded like a better bet. At least it was a sure thing—every other Tuesday, like clockwork. "But why now, in the middle of the night?"
"It's not the middle of the night. It's almost four o'clock in the morning."
"Seriously?"
Vonn shrugged. "It's the best time to hunt."
Plenty of the officers and a good number of the recruits at Fort Blanchard had hunting experience, but Stacy wasn't one of them. She'd been raised in the city after her father had left the service. Hell, before this mission, the closest she ever got to spending time in nature was an overnight school trip to the aquarium.
But for some reason, Stacy didn't want Vonn to know what a greenhorn she was. "Why do I need to come with you?"
"Because if you're going to live here in the Boundarylands, you need to learn how to survive."
There was nothing about that sentence that Stacy liked, but before she could protest, Vonn stopped her with a question. "Any of your training involve archery?"
Was he kidding?
"Sure," she answered sarcastically. "That came right after we learned how to lay siege to a castle with a catapult."
"You think bowhunting is too primitive?" Vonn grinned.
"Your words, not mine," she said. "Now, if you had a rifle..."
Vonn shook his head derisively. "Guns are a coward's weapon."
"How can you say that? They're basically the same thing. One's just more automated than the other."
A calculated grin lit up his face. "Well, if they're so similar, then you shouldn't have any trouble taking down more game than me."
A chance to one-up Vonn in competition? Now, there was something Stacy liked the sound of—even if she suspected he was playing her. But the competitive spark in her just couldn't refuse.
"Fine. Just give me a minute to get dressed."
Stacy waited, the blanket pulled tightly around her, as Vonn crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
Uh uh, no way.
Her earlier lapse in both judgment and discipline, one that definitely wasn't happening again, didn't give him the right to expect her to be okay with casual nakedness. "I meant, give me a minute alone."
Vonn looked genuinely puzzled. "Why?"
"Because I asked nicely."
He gave her an exaggerated shrug. "I guess if it's that important to you, I can turn around."
Oh, hell no. Stacy knew what that meant—'if it's that important to you' was code for 'let's humor the little lady before she gets hysterical.' Any hesitation she'd had about the outing vanished as she vowed to win, whatever it took.
Once she was dressed, they set off into the woods. Under the dense, leafy canopy, the darkness was almost complete, something that didn't usually bother Stacy.
But despite having taken part in countless nighttime drills, this was different enough to put Stacy on edge. She was no longer in the beta world, on the rolling farmland they used for field training ops.
As she fought to find her footing on the spongy soil and navigate the dense undergrowth with only the small headlamp Vonn had dug out of a drawer, she felt like a nervous new recruit.
Vonn kept her in his sights. Sometimes he went ahead, holding back branches for her to walk under or pointing out protruding roots or poison oak, answering Stacy's unspoken question about whether he could see in the dark. At other times he let her go ahead, watching for threats that Stacy could only imagine—Bears? Wolves? Giant anacondas?
After her second stumble, Vonn wordlessly took her hand. She gratefully held on tight and let him lead. After all, that wasn't what they were competing over.
When Stacy judged they'd been walking for half an hour, Vonn stopped and crouched down on the ground. Stacy couldn't see any difference between this spot and any other along the way, but apparently, they had arrived. Vonn handed her the bow.
The first light of dawn was filtering through the trees, and she could just make out the outline of the weapon. It was simpler than the models she'd seen in stores, constructed of sanded wood rather than fiberglass, but it felt good in her
