Page 130 of A Sweet Destruction

I chuckled against her lips, not quite pressing our mouths together. “Not great. I think I need to take you to a doctor.”

It was Esme’s turn to laugh, a light burst of breath passing between us. “You’d be okay with someone else inspecting my body right now? You don’t want to do that yourself?”

The next thing I knew, Esme was on her back on the floor and I was braced over her. It was her bright laugh that brought me back down to earth. “Oh,” I said, blinking a few times.

I popped up, dragging her to stand with me. “Yep, alright,” I muttered to myself. I would not try to undress her in Peter’s office. “Okay, right.”

A few more seconds passed where all I could manage was nonsensical babble, wrestling with my instincts and the Bond. Peter told us to rest. We had time. I just needed to focus long enough to get us to privacy.

“The file,” Esme prompted lightly, very wisely instructing me rather than trying to do it herself. If she tried to move right now, I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t tackle her to the ground.

“Right.” I bent down so fast, I almost lost balance, sweeping up the file and those cursed photos.

Burn them. Rip them up. I want them gone. The Bond was whining now.

With a potent promise that it would get it what it wanted very soon, I made quick work of setting everything to rights in Peter’s office and locking up the safe.

The very second the file cabinet clicked close, the Bond decided it had enough of my commitment to responsibility and yanked me out of the driver’s seat.

Esme was over my shoulder a second later, my arm banding around the back of her legs. Her laugh hit the center of my back, sending heat skating up my skin. It did a damn good job of chasing away the bitter cold rage and fear that was still tightening my muscles to the point of pain.

Her laugh only deepened when I stepped outside with no intention of letting her down. There was a tiny part of me—okay, a large part of me—that needed to walk out in the open with her like this, making it very, very clear that we were together.

I was hoping a few people tried to catch my eye so I had an excuse to glare at them. That would really drive the point home.

Esme deserved, after everything, to have everyone think I was slobbering after her. It was the truth, but I didn’t quite trust myself to get the message across with my usual methods.

So carrying her like a sack of flour in front of our entire camp, it was.

After one particularly bold comrade of ours barked at me across the field, “Oi, looks like you got a prize, Ford!” and I’d responded, “Shut it, Sanders, or I’m cutting out your tongue,”

Esme started to get the idea.

Her laughter died and I could feel her skin heating under my touch. I never claimed to be a particularly merciful man, and so I might have hitched my hand on her leg up higher, the curve of my finger pressing right between her thighs.

I really knew I was getting to her when she murmured, “Can you hurry up?” against my back. In reality, it was probably an incoherent mumble. I understood her perfectly.

I got a momentary bark of laughter back when I took a skipping stride to up my pace. I wasn’t even sure where I was taking her. All we had was a tent for privacy and people were nosy as fuck. One rustle of that slippery fabric and we’d have people gathering around us like we were zoo animals.

Voyeurism was not among my known interests and I did think, down to my very core, if anyone saw Esme in that vulnerable of a state, there would be teeth on the ground and bones sticking out of a few choice locations.

Maybe the storage cabins were open. There were plenty of nooks and crannies and places to perch Esme while I—yep, that was good.

My legs burned as I all but ran up the hill to the outer line of cabins, but not nearly as much as my stomach was burning. There was a nonzero chance everything below my lungs had turned to molten lava.

Esme started to struggle as we got close, unable to stay still.

“I know, baby, I know,” I said, a near-painful feeling of urgency in my chest. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a heart attack and the pressing need to get Esme alone, not for a while. Maybe not ever.

The Bond rustled in the back of my mind, its hackles starting to rise. In a different way than the abject terror at seeing that file or from the excited thrill of getting Esme alone.

In no more than a few strides, we’d be at the cabin. We’d be alone and the Bond could say its peace.

As if to taunt me, at that very moment, the door to the cabin I was aiming for opened, revealing a huddle of people playing cards. Someone threw an empty bottle out on to the floor, joining a pile I hadn’t noticed until now, then shut themselves back in.

Though my own annoyance skyrocketed, the Bond quieted.

“Fucking gambling,” I muttered, redirecting to move around to the back of the cabin. We weren’t going to get any fucking privacy, were we.