The Beast Within

In Flames Part 6

Selena didn't know how long she stood there, savoring his words, but she was startled from her daze by the same deep voice asking, "May I come in?"

Embarrassed by the realization that she had been blocking the doorway, Selena snapped her eyes down to the scuffed, wide planks of the cabin's floor. Shuffling back several steps, she cleared a space for the stranger to enter.

Without hesitation, Callinan crossed the room to the cabin's large, stone fireplace, moving aside the wooden chairs with a care that seemed like reverence.

It's like he's been here before, she thought.

Sliding a weathered rucksack off his shoulder, Callinan placed it on the floor beside him and, with one fluid motion, stripped away his black coat, draping it along the back of one of the chairs.

Kneeling to unfasten the bag, he withdrew a foil covered package, placing it carefully on the same chair.

The smell of roasted chicken immediately permeated the air, filling Selena with an instant and almost predatory hunger. She traced the fingers of her left hand over her rumbling stomach, hoping he could not hear.

He retrieved a candle from the windowsill and, though the taper burned low, used the dwindling light to inspect the chimney and open the damper, preparing for the fire.

The muscles in his forearms undulated as he untied the bundle of firewood – long, skilled fingers working apart the knot and gently laying aside the coarse rope with which it had been tied.

As she watched the effortless agility of his movements, Selena realized that she was gripping the edge of the still-open door for support.

She knew her eyes were wide as she took in the sight of him. Callinan Keane was the most striking man she had ever seen and, somehow, he was in her family's cabin, starting a fire.

Form-fitting jeans hugged the lines of his long legs and powerful thighs. Before that moment, she had never understood the appeal of admiring a man's ass. Round and perfectly contoured in dark denim, she admired his, as well as every other inch of his body that she could see.

A blue and white flannel shirt highlighted the tight taper of his waist, which broadened into a powerful chest. Open at the collar, the flannel revealed a white undershirt and the shadow of dark chest hair below his collarbone.

Glancing outside into the darkness, Selena felt a moment's hesitation. Cold night air streamed in through the open door, stimulating her mind and senses. She could smell the rain and hear the roll of encroaching thunder in the distance.

Much of what had occurred between them had been initiated by the stranger. Callinan had come to her twice in one night, and she had been too bewildered and shy to utter more than a few syllables.

She still did not know exactly how he had found her, how he knew her name or why he seemed so hauntingly familiar.

Selena realized that she could still run away, through the open door, into the night. She could flee to her car and drive back to the safety of her apartment, the familiarity of her job and the comfortable predictability of her life, never to return to the wild cabin in the woods.

Shutting the door to the cold night air would be her first clear act of acceptance. Callinan would now be in her home, at night, entirely by her choice. It would be up to her what came next. 

Selena closed her eyes briefly, straightening her shoulders and blowing out a soft breath between her lips. 

It only took the slightest push and the solid wooden door moaned gently to a close.