And I mean… we could die here. Honestly. Any moment, any day, with the wraith still out there. We could’ve died already at the Candy Maker’s. The threat of imminent death should feel sharp—
—but it’s gone stale. Dull from repetition.
Still.
“Okay,” I say, and sit up a little more. “So what’s worse?”
His brow twitches.
“The fact that we gotta do it,” I continue, “or the fact that we gotta do it fast?”
In other words: what’s going to piss you off more?
The danger…
…or the speed.
I watch his throat work when he swallows.
“Speed,” he murmurs. “I hate being rushed.”
“Thought so.”
He gives me a look—half suspicion, half what game are you playing now?—and it makes my mouth want to twitch. I’d love to pretend I’m just making conversation. I’d love to pretend this is casual, harmless.
It’s not.
There’s too much inside me. Fear that’s been sitting in my stomach for days like a stone. Adrenaline that never fully drained. The kind of tension that makes your skin feel too tight, like you’re wearing your own body wrong.
“What do you usually do?” I ask. “When you three go after… them. You know, not like with Candy Maker. That one you already had figured out beforehand.”
“Do you really want to know?” he counters.
“Yeah, of course.”
His tongue touches his lower lip for half a second. I like it when he does that.
“First we… let off some steam,” he says. “Cannot go on a hunt all tense and sloppy.”
“Why?”
“Sloppiness makes mistakes.”
He modulates his voice into that calm, clinical type. A little low, a little seductive, and very intimate. And suddenly, I don’t care what he’s saying anymore, or why we’re here. We could have a conversation about the moon for all I care.
Heat blooms low in my body.
“Nathaniel…”
“What is it that you want, Skye?” he asks.
My pussy begins to throb.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Come on, Skye,” he breathes.
I act like I don’t know, but I do know. My eyes slide over his chest, then lower.
