Page 17 of Hunting Gianna (Stalkers in the Woods #3)

Chapter Twelve

Knox

The Pine Ridge main lodge is a different kind of beast. It’s made for the princesses who can’t stand being outdoors.

Nothing like my girl. The lights are too bright.

The forced air is too dry. The kitchen’s always awake, even at the ass-end of the morning, when the only people up are staff and the type of guest who doesn't care about the difference between AM and PM.

At least it’s a decent time right now. Midday, so they’re prepping lunch for everyone. Definitely going to grab some to take back to the cabin. If I’m tired of shit food, Gianna most assuredly is.

We get looks before we even cross the threshold.

No surprise. Gianna is wearing a club dress, hair slicked down but wild around the edges, her face bare, her skin glowing except for the bruises I painted on her last night.

God, she looks divine like this. She’s trying to hide the one on her neck, but all that does is draw attention to it. And to her.

She keeps glancing at her own legs, at the bruise on her thigh that blooms blue and purple just below the hem. The dress was meant to show off a body in a club bathroom, not a body in a wilderness lodge kitchen, but the effect is the same. Every man in the room tracks her from doorway to fridge.

I love the attention she’s getting, but I love it even more when they see me stalking behind her and they avert their gazes. One might think she’s been abused, but I know, and she knows, these bruises were born from the passion we share. She’s marked. Claimed. Protected.

She tugs at the dress, hissing, “Fuck, Knox, I look like I just left a crime scene.”

I shrug. “You did.”

She scowls, whispers out the side of her mouth, “They’re all staring.”

“Let them.”

There’s a silence when we cross the dining hall, one that isn’t really silence at all.

Forks clink against plates, someone coughs, a glass shatters in the back—then the chatter picks up again, twice as loud, like a dam trying not to break.

I’m not here to socialize, but I relish the way the staff tries not to look directly at me when I head straight into the kitchen, the way the chef nearly drops his pan when I open the fridge for a carton of eggs.

Gianna wants to disappear. She’s not used to being a spectacle.

She tucks herself behind me, tries to become my shadow, but I won’t let her.

Turning around, I plant a kiss on the top of her head and slide a hand down to her ass, palm open, daring these assholes to say something about it. She jumps, but doesn’t pull away.

I head for the coffee, ignoring the way the room arranges itself to let me pass. The staff have seen me before. They know what I am, even if they don’t know what I’ve done. Guess my name precedes me.

Gianna leans in, her hair tickling my jaw. “This is mortifying,” she whispers, voice raw with something like shame, or maybe arousal. It’s a fine line with her.

I pour her a mug. “You’ll get used to it.”

She sips, hands shaking just enough to rattle the cup against her teeth. “I look like a battered wife.”

“No, you look thoroughly fucked. There’s a difference, Gianna. I’d never hurt you.”

She flinches, but only a little. Progress.

She keeps shifting from foot to foot, like she wants to bolt for the nearest bathroom, but can’t bring herself to move.

I watch her reflection in the metal door of the fridge—chin down, shoulders hunched, lips pressed tight together.

Every instinct in her wants to hide, to cover herself, but the dress won’t let her.

“Why are you doing this?” she says. “Why bring me here if you’re just going to show me off like—” she gropes for a word, settles on, “like a trophy?”

I tilt my head, consider her. “Because you are.”

She laughs, a brittle, glassy sound. “Fuck you.”

“You’d like that,” I say, and I mean it. “I could. If you wanted. Bend you over this counter and make them watch as I fuck you until you’re dripping on the floor.”

The tension in her shoulders bleeds out a little. She stares into her coffee like it’s a divining pool, but really she’s just looking for a way to make it through this without self-destructing. “Shut up, Knox! They can hear you!”

From the back, a pair of line cooks whisper behind their hands, one of them bold enough to make eye contact. I raise my mug. He looks away, a flush blooming up his neck. I imagine what it would take to make him hold my gaze. Too weak to be a man.

Gianna taps her nails against the counter. Her fingers are red at the tips from last night, where she clawed at the ground in the outpost. She catches me staring, and for a second, something dark flickers in her face. Not fear. Not hate. Something closer to hunger.

I make a note of it, file it away for later.

She fidgets again. “I need to pee,” she whispers, urgent.

I point down the hallway. “You know where it is. It has a big W on it. Gianna… don’t do anything stupid. Come right back.”

She hesitates, then bolts, head down, arms crossed tight over her chest. I watch her ass move, slow and deliberate, every step broadcasting the memory of what I did to her last night. Fuck she’s voluptuous and beautiful and perfect, the way those cheeks bounce.

I wait. I always wait. “Hey, you.” I point at a line cook. “Put some of that in a couple take-out containers when it’s done.” It smells delicious and I’m starving.”

He nods and scurries away.

When she comes back, her hair is a little damp and she’s smoothed the dress down so the hem is just a couple inches longer than it was before.

It only exposes her tits more. Fine by me, I can appreciate all her curves.

Her eyes dart around the room, then land on mine.

She expects me to say something, to reprimand her for taking too long or for trying to fix herself, but I let her stand in the uncertainty.

With a grin, I scoop fresh fruit, the eggs, a loaf of bread, coffee and a few other items into a bag.

She cracks first. “Are we done here?”

I finish my coffee in a single gulp. “For now.”

We head out of the kitchen and back into the dining room. The crowd parts for us again. The same line cook tries to meet my eyes, and this time, I let him. I don’t smile. I just watch as he shivers and looks away.

On the porch, Gianna inhales, breathes the cold mountain air like she’s just surfaced from drowning.

I light a cigarette, let the smoke drift out between us. “You did so good,” I say.

She snorts. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

I step closer, crowd her against the railing, thumb her jaw until she’s forced to look up at me. “Yeah, but you like it.”

I kiss her, rough and fast, biting her lip just hard enough to make her whimper.

She doesn’t pull away.

Such a pretty little bird.

We haven’t been on the porch two minutes before Noah shows up.

He moves like a mountain that learned how to walk—impossible to ignore, silent as stone until he’s right on top of you.

Today he’s dressed like every other day: battered jeans, boots older than most people in the resort, flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

His forearms look like they could snap a moose’s neck, which is funny, because the only thing he ever snaps is my fucking patience.

His eyes flick to me, then to Gianna, then back to me. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. Never does.

“What are you doing here, Knox?” The words aren’t a question, just a challenge.

I tilt my head, let the corners of my mouth pull up. “Getting groceries. Stocking up for the week.”

He grunts, eyes raking over Gianna with the bare minimum of interest, like she’s a new piece of furniture in a room he’s already catalogued. He addresses her only to say, “You’re bleeding on the stairs.” Then, to me: “Put it on the account?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Put it on the account.”

He rolls his eyes and walks away, not even bothering with goodbye. The kind of man who only exists in stories about war or murder, but here he is, alive and sweating and hating every second of it.

Gianna watches him leave, then huddles close to me again. “He’s intense,” she mutters.

“He’s nothing,” I say. “You want intense, you should meet his cousin, Kairo.”

She laughs, a soft little sound, then shivers. I like it. I tuck her under my arm, more to keep her in place than to comfort her. Noah was right though, she was bleeding on the porch. I didn’t care. I’d let her bleed on me if it meant I was buried between her legs.

I take another drag and savor the flavor. I don’t smoke often, but something about today calls for some nicotine.

A few minutes later, the door behind us opens again, and this time it’s Cassidy.

She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t walk so much as glide, her feet barely making a sound on the old boards.

Hair tied up in a messy bun, yoga pants, baggy sweatshirt, no makeup.

She looks like every woman who has ever tried to fix a broken man.

Good thing for Noah. She might have actually succeeded.

Her eyes land on Gianna first. They widen, then soften, and she steps toward us, ignoring me entirely. She stands in front of Gianna, like approaching a wounded animal.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “Are you okay? Hey, is that my dress?”

Gianna blinks, like she’s never heard those words before.

“No,” she says, voice small. “I’m not.”

Cassidy’s face is all sympathy. She reaches for Gianna’s hand, and for a second, I think Gianna might let go of mine and reach back. She doesn’t.

Cassidy leans in, voice low. “These men,” she says, “are savages. But they’ll treat you right if you let them.”

Gianna’s mouth opens and closes. She’s trying to process the words, but I see the moment she files them away for later. She’s already learned not to trust anything, but Cassidy is different. She wants to believe her.

I squeeze Gianna’s hand. Hard. “See?” I say. “Told you.”