Page 20

“You tell me. Have you got any more tricks up your sleeve?”

“Thanks to you, I can barely use my arm.” Keaton’s expression said he didn’t give a rat’s ass about that. “No,” I finally said when the silence had stretched on for too long. “No more tricks. I wanted the ring. You didn’t want me to have the ring. It’s all good.”

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Keaton said, his voice low. “We’re going to get some sleep. Actual sleep rather than pretend sleep. In the morning, you’re going to take me to where you’ve hidden the suppressants, and you’re going to hand them over for free with a smile on your face. We’ll call it an apology gesture for trying to rob me.”

It took work to keep my expression neutral. I’d assumed Keaton seeing through the rest of my lies meant he’d see through that one as well. But, apparently not. It showed how desperate he was to believe it. Which left me with something of a quandary. Come clean, or continue the ruse? Admitting it while I had a crossbow pointed at my head wasn’t an option. That would be suicidal. “Right,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

Keaton backed off a step toward the door. He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t move. If I come back and find you’re not in the same place I’ve left you, I will shoot you.” I opened my mouth to point out that if he shot me, he’d never know the location of the suppressants, but Keaton beat me to it. “In the leg,” he said. “A limping man can still travel. It just fucking hurts.”

With his threat still ringing in my ears, I stayed on the bed when he disappeared through the door. He had the knife, the axe, and the crossbow, so leveling the odds wasn’t happening. He’d also taken the candle with him, plunging the room into darkness while I waited, with only the sound of my breathing to keep me company.

He was gone for only a few minutes. When he returned, it was with a length of rope in his hands that we’d found in the fire engine earlier. I eyed him curiously as he came my way. “Turn over,” he said. “Face down.”

“Oh, hell no.”

“Turn. The fuck. Over. I need to make sure you don’t go anywhere. And it’s this, or a crossbow bolt in the thigh. Make your choice.” I turned over. “Hands behind your back.” That was the last thing I wanted to do with my shoulder still smarting, but I did it, the don’t fuck with me vibes coming off Keaton too strong to disregard. It also left me vulnerable to biters if any shit went down.

He made quick work of tying my wrists together, the army presumably having taught him a thing or two about knots. It was tight, but not so tight it cut into my skin. Apparently not satisfied it would restrict my movements enough, he also tied my ankles. “Why not just hogtie me and be done with it?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

I turned my head—the only movement left available to me—to see Keaton settle himself on the bed I’d previously made mine, the two of us having done an inadvertent swap. I envied Keaton the ability to lie on his back as he stretched out, crossbow resting on his chest. “Sleep well, August.”

My real name on his lips had me struggling for an appropriate response for far too long. “Fuck you.”

Keaton said nothing, his eyes closing. I wriggled, testing the limits of the bindings. Only after I’d come to terms with not getting free until Keaton released me, did I close my eyes. Sleeping trussed up like a turkey would not be easy.

Chapter Six

Keaton

I slept surprisingly well given the drama of the night before. The dark shadows under August’s eyes when I found him already awake and glaring at me said he hadn’t fared as well. I refused to feel guilty when he’d brought it upon himself. His glare intensified when I offered him a smile. “Morning!”

“Untie me.”

I carried out an exaggerated and lengthy stretch. “Nothing like a good stretch in the morning to get the blood pumping through your veins again, is there?”

“Untie me, and I’ll let you know.” I’d encountered icicles with more warmth than August’s tone.

“All in good time.”

“I swear to God if you don’t…”

I didn’t hang around to listen to the rest, whistling a deliberately jaunty—and loud—tune as I swung my feet off the bed and left the room. Back in the room with the fire engine, I rifled through August’s bag. My primary purpose was in searching for something to eat for breakfast, but I hadn’t discounted the possibility of him having suppressants in there. Unfortunately, there were none. No sign of all the items he’d taken as payment in Birmingham either. He must have left them on the bike.

Would I have stolen anything if they had been here? He would have deserved it after the stunt he’d pulled the previous night, but I doubted it. Call me stupid, but it wasn’t my style. Although I appreciated the hypocrisy of that after breaking into his room. It seemed I was just picky about what I stole. Money and valuables, no. Suppressants, yes.

I resumed the whistling as I re-entered the bedroom, pausing by the bed August lay face down on to drop a piece of dried meat next to his head. “Breakfast.”

“You’re not funny.” Ice had become whatever was colder than ice. Something chemical that I wasn’t intelligent enough to know about. “I’m not trying to be. I’m trying to be safe.”

“You have all the weapons. What do you think I’m going to do?”

I didn’t know; that was the problem. But I’d have to untie him, eventually. He couldn’t ride a motorbike with his hands tied behind his back, and I couldn’t ride one at all. For a moment we stared at each other, August raising an eyebrow in question when I said nothing.

Sighing, I climbed onto the bed and straddled him. There’d been too much going on last night to register what he felt like beneath me, but today, there were no such distractions, my body deciding to take notice of the lean, muscled length sandwiched between my thighs. “Remember what I said about shooting you in the leg,” I cautioned him as I untied his ankles before starting on his wrists. “Don’t think I won’t do it. I will if you give me any trouble.”

August stayed sullenly silent. I doubted he was used to being threatened. Well, tough. As soon as I’d loosened the bindings, I leaped off the bed. Two reasons. One, if he was going to try something, it would be now, and two, my cock needed away from him before it got any crazy notions about what you could do to a man while he was tied up.