That nickname rolls through me, and I feel a shiver trail down my spine. It probably has to do with the cold, and not the way I’m reacting to a killer feeding me back my own proposition. It definitely has nothing to do with the way he’s looking at me like he’sdelightedat the prospect.
“Yeah, I am.” I havenoexcuse for the response, or the way I start to drift into the room, lured toward the wicked grin on his face like it’s a siren call. At least I stop when I’m halfway to him, my eyes dropping down to the red stains on the floor. “I…”
Fuck, what am I doing? Everything about last night comes back to me in waves—the way I’d nearly beenput in my placeby Trevor and his friends, the way Streeter had killed them without so much as blinking…
The way I’d helped him haul the bodies outside and then let him…
My stomach twists. I can’t even say it’s because in the light of day, and when all the adrenaline and shock has faded, I’ve realized how fucked up this all is.
I remember the way he touched me and my body lights up like fireworks.
Still…
I slide my hands across my stomach in a vague attempt at self-preservation, or maybe to stop myself from doing something stupid, like reaching out to him… and then I tilt my head and glance around.
“Do you, uh… do this often?” The question is so fucking stupid, because he’d been too good at what he’d done for it to be a one-off, and I?—
“I don’t make a habit of sleeping with people I’m supposed to kill, no.”
My jaw drops, because that wasn’t what I was asking him at all, and by the absolutely devilish curve at the corner of his mouth, I know that he knows it wasn’t what I meant.
I latch onto the wordssupposed to,and my fingers clench at my side tight enough that I can feel my nails biting through the fabric of my shirt hard enough they’ll probably leave marks. The anxiety from last night threatens to curl up and steal my breath away again. Like he can tell, Streeter steps across the room and threads his fingers through my hair, yanking my head up to look at him.
“Does this place have a generator?” His practical question catches me off guard, and his touch grounds me.
What the fuck? How can he see straight through me when I was with Trevor for years and he didn’t give a shit or care when I was starting to feel off? My fingers slowly unclench from my sides, and I lift my hands, drifting my digits along the warmth of his wrists.
Up close like this, I’m completely drowning in the way his eyes look almost molten, and I feel myself take a deep breath that goes all the way through me, carried by the warmth of his touch, when at any other time I would have been dissolving into panic by now.
Ishouldhave been dissolving into panic, because the hands holding me steady are hands that had killed an entire room of people.
But…
But he’s looking at me, and his fingers are tugging gently in my hair to keep me focused, and I shiver. “I think I saw a building out back last night when we were…”
Getting rid of evidence.
Implicating me as an accessory to murder.
“Cleaning up,” he supplies, and I nod.
“Right. Cleaning up. They might have something out there.” Even if it was just a small generator that could run a few essentials, that would be better than nothing. The fireplace would keep us warm…
And…
Well… there were other ways to make sure we didn’t get cold. I’d offered him that, right? I hadn’t actually expected a blizzard to make sure I was ready to keep that promise.
Streeter gives one more tug on my curls before dropping his hand to his side. “Okay, let’s check it out. There should at least be more wood for the fire out there… and maybe something to actually fix the window. That picture frame isn’t really doing shit.” His eyes drift to the broken glass on the ground, and what he’d done last night flashes through my mind all over again, tearing another tremble through my body that I can’t ignore.
He’s a killer.
He’s dangerous.
I’mexpendable.
And for some reason, I feel helpless to do anything but follow him as he heads outside into the snow.
9
