Page 35 of Hunting Gianna

ThePineRidgemainlodge 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, somethingdark 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.”

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