Page 3 of Secrets Within Us

I was looking, but couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It wasn’t fur that he had started

to uncover, but a jacket and jeans.

“Dear God.” I cursed and dashed over to Dev as I realized the snow-covered object was a person. The snow had accumulated so much that the body was much smaller than what I’d originally thought. I muttered out loud, “Please, don’t be dead,” as I removed my gloves and carefully flipped the body from its side to its back. At that moment, I gasped as all the air was sucked right out of my lungs.

A woman lay on the ground before me, buried beneath a foot or more of snow. Her dark hair, matted and frozen, clung to her face and hood as I tried my best to move it and see her face. Bruises and cuts covered her face.

My military training came back to the forefront of my brain, even after years of lying dormant, and I assessed the rest of her body as quickly as I could. Her skin had a blue tinge from the cold, and as I pulled her jacket apart at her throat to check for a pulse, I noticed she was wearing only thin clothing underneath. Her clothing was not suitable for a fall-time stroll in the south, let alone a brutal winter here in the mountains. I stared at her chest and lips, waiting to feel her heartbeat.

I saw nothing but faintly felt a pulse along her jugular. Dropping my ear down to her face, I checked for life escaping her lips.

Dev whined from his side impatiently as he laid down along her, putting his big blockhead across her chest, trying to warm her up. At that moment, I could hear the heavy exhale of air coming from her chest as she strained under the weight of his head resting on her.

“She’s breathing! Let’s go!” I yelled. As I tried to scoop her into my arms, I noticed her hand and all the blood that colored the surrounding snow.

My trap.

Shit!

How the fuck did she get her hand trapped in the snare? Without a doubt, it was her screams I’d heard last night. Her screams pierced the air as the metal of my trap twisted into her hand, rendering her helpless and alone in the frigid snow where she would have frozen to death had I not heard her.

Despite her being alive, the possibility of death still loomed over her.

Because of me.

I quickly and as gently as I could released the trap from her hand before taking the bandana off from around my neck to wrap around it. It wasn’t actively bleeding, but I couldn’t let her lose any more blood or strength on the journey back to my cabin. As I wrapped it tightly, a soft moan slipped from her lips, laced with pain as a slight frown creased her brow before fading completely. There was a small bag next to her I scooped up and threw over my back for the journey.

“I’m sorry, stay with me now. I’ll get you warm in just a minute.”

Lifting her into my arms, adjusting her body to support her head against my chest, tucked under my chin, I whistled for Dev, “Let’s go, boy.” He was already tromping on ahead, back towards the cabin.

From my long career as a Marine and my time in the northern woods living off the land, I had become accustomed to carrying heavy gear long distances, so I quickly covered the distance between the snare and the warmth of my home.

When I got inside, I laid the girl down on the couch and quickly began ridding myself of my outer clothes and boots.

I watched her intently as I did so, waiting for any movement or noise to escape her body to prove she was still alive. But she just laid there across my couch, motionless and silent. When I was dry, I threw more wood on the fire before carefully taking her thin jacket off her shoulders, careful not to jostle her any more than I needed to.

I wasn’t used to handling such a small woman; my large, calloused hands easily dwarfed her small limbs. She was the size of a teenager, but one look at her curves told me she was mature beyond those years, though my guess was not by much. Once I got rid of her jacket, her thin short-sleeved shirt left a lot of blue-hued skin bare to my eyes and the warm air of my home. The sight of her blue, cold skin was alarming enough, but the harsh bruises on her arms and chest added to the concern. They were angry-looking and covered nearly every inch of her skin.

“What happened to you, bambina?” I whispered softly before I realized what I’d called her. My grandfather always called my grandmother Bambina. It meant little girl in Italian.

She was younger than him and when they had first met; he thought she was an annoying little girl from the neighborhood, even though she persisted and worked her way into his heart over the years. He fondly continued to call her that throughout their marriage, in his way to remind her she was young at heart and small and feminine in his arms.

I shook off the memory and the fondness inside of me and went back to the task at hand. Regardless of what I thought of her, she needed to get out of the clothes she was wearing and into warm dry ones or she didn’t stand a chance.

As I carefully removed her clothes, I uncovered a multitude of bruises and contusions, revealing the extent of her injuries. I tried to concentrate on the logical reason that I was stripping her clothes off, but even beneath the bruises, blood, and dirt, she was beautiful.

Gorgeous even.

Her body curved and filled out in the ways an old pin-up model did in such a feminine and lush way. She was incredible to look at and as I took her soaked bra off and slid her panties down; I had to bite back the groan that threatened to rip from my chest at the sight of her bare skin.

My cock grew painfully erect in my pants as I sat there for a moment and gazed down at her.

Dev’s sudden bark echoed through the room, causing me to jump and bringing me back to the present moment. He caught me ogling her and called me out on it in his own way.

I felt like such a fucking pervert.

Fuck.