The silence between us throbs.
“This the place?”I ask, though my bones already know it is.
Royal doesn’t answer me right away.He just steps closer.Slow.Intentional.A predator’s pace.My back hits the side of the truck before I even realize I’m retreating.The cold metal shocks through my thin tank.
I regret leaving the flannel in the truck.But it was getting hot in there.Royal’s body heat swallows my chill immediately as he crowds me in, bracing one tattooed arm beside my head.
“This is the address from Joey’s purse.Once we go in,” he murmurs, voice low enough to vibrate through my ribs.“Don’t wander.You don’t question.You don’t breathe without me knowing.”
His hand wraps lightly, dangerously, around my throat.Not squeezing.Just claiming the space.
“Royal” I whisper, but his breath is already sliding across my cheek, hot and furious.
“No games,” he warns.“No running.No smart mouth.Not in there.”
I swallow.His thumb drags over my pulse, catching the tremor.
“Why?”I ask, breath unsteady.
His eyes fall to my lips and darken.“Because if you walk more than two steps away from me, I’ll think you’re running.”
Is he onto me?His hips press into mine, pinning me with the entire weight of everything he is.Want.Rage.Restraint stretched thin like barbed wire.I tilt my head a fraction, just enough to let him think I’m not running.His jaw flexes like he is fighting a war.
Then he growls, “Get inside, Becki.Before I forget why we are here.”
My knees almost buckle.
We don’t speak again as we enter the church.But my body is still pressed to that truck.And so is his warning.
Underneath it, simmering through my ribs, is something worse than honest desire.
Joey.
His missing girlfriend.
The girl he used to touch.The club bunny he fucked in front of me.The woman he’s here to find.To save.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, but jealousy moves through me like a slow, sharp poison.Royal already carved his damn name into my skin.Royal already told me with his mouth and his hands and his voice that he can’t stop wanting me.That I’m his.
Yet we are here searching for her.I feel guilty for hating that.I feel guilty for hating her.I feel guilty for wanting him to forget her completely.And I feel guilty for feeling guilty at all.
Royal’s jaw works once before he nods.“I did a little digging.Crowley used to preach here before Pearly Gates.Before he found better ways to hide things.”
I hug myself tighter.“Charming.”
Inside, the door groans like something dying.The air tastes like mold, incense, and rot.Pews overturned.Graffiti curling across the walls like bruises.A hole in the ceiling pours moonlight onto cracked tile like a spotlight meant to summon something.
We move through the nave quietly, stepping over hymnals turned to mush and broken glass that catches the moonlight like teeth.
Then.
SCRAPE.
Scratch.
Something dragging itself along the roof.
Royal snaps the flashlight off.
