I pulled my pistol, and Phoenix’s eyes widened as I aimed it at him. He didn’t try to stop me when I leveled it at his head, and he didn’t flinch when I jerked it tothe right and put a bullet through the skull of the other rabid that had been chasing us.
“We should probably go. You know sound attracts—” It was my turn to have my words cut off. Phoenix moved forward in three quick strides and crowded me against the barrier he’d thrown me into seconds earlier. The concrete scraped against my palms when he threaded his fingers through my hair and jerked my head back.
“You nearly shot me.”
Fuck, he was too close. His lips were right there, almost pressed against mine, and I couldn’t deny the warmth tingling through my body at the proximity.
Phoenix was strong, and capable—fuck, he was the first person I’d met in a long time who actually seemed hard to kill.
And I…
I turned my head and felt the glide of his mouth tickle along my jaw. “I don’t miss when I shoot, Phoenix. If I ever try, it won’t be a nearly.”
The press of his lips against the side of my neck made me squirm. Ofcoursehe was horny. We’d just been attacked. He’d just killed an infected, and…
“Aubrey.” The purr of my name on his lips was too much. I bared my neck to him, knowing the glint of the sun would catch on the collar, and knowing that there was every chance my gunshot would draw more danger to us.
It didn’t matter.
The real danger was in the way he said my name, the way his hands roamed across my skin, trailing beneath my shirt and tickling along my sides. His blunt nails scraped acrossthe scar on my ribs, and I let out a moan as his teeth set into my shoulder.
I could take getting attacked—I could kill a dozen infected.
But I wasn’t sure I could survive the weight of the ocean in his eyes when Phoenix looked at me like he wanted to know who I really was.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
PHOENIX
“When areyou going to get tired of your new toy?” Cutter’s question came out bitter, and it jerked my attention away from Aubrey. He was standing by Blythe, a look of curiosity on his face that I was pretty sure he didn’t realize he was showing while he watched her carefully carve a piece of wood he’d brought back from our explorations. There were trees here with nearly white bark, and she was making quick work of turning it into what looked like a bear.
Funny.
My eyes narrowed as Cutter crossed his arms—he was actually a few years older than me, and you’d think twenty-three would be enough time on this fucked up planet to know when he was picking a fight he couldn’t win. I didn’t have patience for stupid questions, and I didn’t run the pack with gentle parenting.
I did it with strength, with power. With the viciousness to keep everyone safe and get us through the storms.
And right now, I was seriously tempted to throw Cutter into the rain. Maybe that’s what it was, though. It had been weeks since we’d had a proper storm. We’d been at the resort for at least eight days, and there’d been nothing.
Not a cloud in the sky.
The only thing that got wet was Aubrey’s ass when I came inside him every night after we’d been out fighting and clearing the immediate area around us. It was slow, hard work, partially because the ex-Order soldier working alongside me insisted we bethorough, and that we actually clean up the areas we were in before we left them. It was like he was chasing the phantom image of what Paradise used to be and trying to catch it with desperate fingers.
“Does it fucking matter?” I finally growled out an answer, and Cutter frowned. I didn’t miss the way his hand reached up, tugging at the collar on his throat. I was tempted to rip the damn thing off him.
“You don’t get attached. You told me that.”
I had. I’d made it pretty clear that he and I had only been fucking, and it wasn’t something I planned on making permanent. He was there, and his mouth was hot, and every other person in the group that I’d had sex with hadn’t made it a thing. Desire and need, the primal urges that ran through our veins like the rain in the sky… it wasn’t supposed to mean anything.
So I wasn’t sure why he was still so caught up on it.
“Phoenix…”
“Listen.” My tone was probably a little harsher than itshould have been, and I raised my hand, hooking one finger through the metal at his throat so I could pull him closer. It made him gasp, made his eyes widen. “I fuck who I want, when I want. We don’t get hangups, and we don’t let that shit fuck with what we are. Fucking is just fucking, Cutter. I’ll sleep with Aubrey until I’m tired of it.”
I pushed him away, and I didn’t miss the hurt that ran through his expression before he hardened his gaze.
