Sweet Desire (Tales of Dystopian Decadence Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

cook, not to mention stuck in the Alaskan wasteland with a surly, mysterious Viking.
    Fantastic.
     
     

Chapter 3
    One week passed.
    Two weeks passed. I couldn’t take it anymore.
    Cooking and cleaning were simple and boring tasks. I had avoided the bookshelf long enough after Nicholas’ outburst. It was dusty, first of all. And then there was the possibility, second of all, that it might hold secrets. I wasn’t nosy, exactly, but I wanted to know what I could about this man who refused to give me the time of day, yet had probably paid a pretty penny for the privilege of my company. The privilege of a maid.
    Cleaning cloth and spray in hand, I approached the bookcase slowly, peering out toward the short hall that separated the living room from the kitchen. Nicholas tended to remain in the basement. Sometimes, I thought he even slept down there. Still, there was no sense in taking chances.
    With a deep breath, I straightened and looked at the shelves. They seemed innocuous to me.  I sprayed the cloth and then reached out to run it along the wooden shelves. After several long, steady strokes, the layer of dust was gone, leaving polished wood. It was a basic shelf, but there was no sense in it looking like no one cared about it. I swept the cloth over the books with a lighter hand until they, too, were free of the offending motes.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    I froze in place at the sound of Nicholas snarling at me from just beyond my line of sight. Trying to control the shudder that threatened wrack my body, I stood my ground and turned to look at him. “I’m dusting,” I answered. Brevity, I decided, was better than trying to butter him up. After all, he wasn’t the kind of patron I’d come to expect in my time training at the school.
    He glared at a moment longer, his gaze lingering on the books, and then shrugged. “I suppose it needed it anyway and you might as well be useful, since you aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
    My heart lurched and I took a step toward him. “Do you mean there’s a chance I could be going somewhere… later?”
    “Of course not. We both signed the contract. You’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you.” He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving me to stare after him.
    Well.
    That was just peachy.
    ~****~
    With cooking, cleaning, staring out the window at the snow, and listening to my music as the only way to pass the time in the austere cabin, I finally worked up the bravery – or perhaps the frustration – to make a request over dinner.
    “May I have some supplies for making things?” I asked, cringing at the vagueness of my request. It wasn’t that Nicholas gave me any reason to fear him. On the contrary – ever since the bookcase incident, he acted completely indifferent to my presence and I rarely saw him between meals. He said nothing unless I asked him a question, which I did not do often, and then answered me in as few words as possible.
    He raised his gaze from the plate of pesto, a dish I had taken quite a bit of pride in preparing. I wondered if he liked it. Not that his opinion should matter to me and not that I tried to please him, but still…
    “Supplies for making things?” he repeated and his brow furrowed. All I wanted to do was reach out and smooth his expression, run my fingertips along those scrunched eyebrows until they relaxed and he stopped feeling the need to frown about everything.
    My heart skipped a beat and I pushed those thoughts away as I wondered how someone so handsome could also be so cold. Maybe it had something to do with the woman in the photo. Swallowing the question, I pushed my train of thought back on track. “Yes. Things like clothes, blankets, rugs, cushions… You know – cloth and yarn and sewing things.” My voice faded. I still sounded ridiculously childish, and he just glared at me. I finally looked down at my plate and whispered, “Never mind.”
    The next morning, I found a bounty of fabric, yarn,