The Recluse

Maybe in any other circumstance I would’ve felt uncomfortable, that it would’ve been inappropriate. But because of what I felt for Fin, how I liked his eyes on me, like this silent claim I sensed every time he was near, I let myself indulge in these emotions.

I pushed all those thoughts out of my head and finished buying the supplies for dinner tonight. This was the first time I’d ventured out of the house and off the property. I’d taken one of his cars—the big-ass SUV he insisted I use—and explored the town.

It was quaint, but the businesses were well-known, not just with the residents but in the state as well. I’d researched them before moving here. For such a small town, it held many successful companies, places I knew would have boomed and flourished in the city.

But the company that was the most successful was definitely Hawthorne Oil. The company covered the tri-state area, and probably even farther than that. Once all the technological lingo started popping up as I researched, it all became lost on me.

I pushed my cart up to one of the empty registers and started unloading the items on the belt, mentally checking off everything I had on my grocery list to make sure I got everything. I was going to make lasagna from scratch, the one thing my mom had shown me how to cook on many occasions. It was probably the only thing that I didn’t burn half the time. Strangely enough, I hadn’t been ruining the meals here. Maybe it was because I tried to please him, that I wanted to see that pleasure on his face as he ate the food I prepared just for him.

I was a tangled mess of need and want inside.

I was going to stop by Tosco’s and pick up a lemon raspberry cake for dinner tonight. I actually felt my cheeks heat as I thought about the way Fin watched me the last time I’d eaten the cake. His eyes had been locked on my mouth as I’d taken in each forkful, and although I felt extremely on edge, as if I were a specimen under a microscope, I couldn’t lie and say I didn’t like him looking at me.

There was this very animalistic aura that surrounded him. It made me feel feminine in every single way.

I cleared my throat as my thoughts tried to go down a much dirtier path. I wished in these instances that I had girlfriends I could talk to, people I could share these intimate details with, but I’d always been what people called antisocial. I was just a shy girl, an introvert. Maybe that’s why this job had called to me so much.

Here I was out in the middle of nowhere, the wilderness surrounding me, only one person to interact with. And even going into town was small and intimate, nothing like the city where it felt congested and like I was suffocating. I could live here for the rest of my life, I thought.

Once I paid and had all the bagged groceries back in the cart, I made my way out of the grocery store and toward the SUV. I stopped before I got to the street to make sure no cars were coming, and my focus landed on a young guy leaning against the side of the store. He had one foot braced on the brick, a cigarette hanging from his lips. His other hand held a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what was in it.

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled a cloud of smoke before bringing that paper bag wrapped bottle to his mouth and taking a long drink. And the entire time, his focus was on me. He couldn’t be much more than my age, maybe a year or two older than I was, but he definitely had this aged look, like he’d seen a lot of shit in his short years.

He looked rough around the edges, as if he spent more time on the streets than at home. His clothes were disheveled and a day away from being utterly filthy. I noticed the serpent tattoo on his arm, one that looked like it had been given to him in the dark with how badly it was done.

His eyes were locked on me, the expression he wore, the way he slowly smiled when he pulled the bottle away, showing a missing tooth at the side of his mouth, had my body revolting.

I made my way across the street and quickly went toward the SUV. I didn’t like the way he made me feel. It was the way some men made me feel when I had to walk home from the pub a few nights.