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He jerked his head in a silent invitation, his gaze never wavering from me as I crossed the threshold. August took slow backward steps as I advanced, keeping the crossbow aimed at my heart. When we reached the doorway of the living room, he stepped aside, gesturing for me to precede him.

“Over there,” he demanded, jerking the crossbow at the far side of the room. “Sit down. By the radiator.”

I bristled at being ordered around. Especially by him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. There was no arguing with the crossbow, though. Not with my hands tied behind my back.

Once I’d sat, he swapped the crossbow for his knife, pressing it to my throat in a callback to the first night we’d met. Blue eyes stared into mine without blinking. “I’m going to let go,” he said, “so I can tie you to the radiator. Try anything, and I mean anything, and you go back outside. You’re not a biter yet, so they will eat you.”

I glared mutinously at him as he lowered the knife, securing me to the radiator with a belt taking less than a minute. A quick test of my bindings showed I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Yeah,” August said, satisfaction coming off him in waves as he stood to admire the tableau I made. “That ought to do it.”

Lust and anger flickered like a wheel going round that couldn’t decide which of the two to land on. Lust won out. “Shut up and sit on my cock.”

August laughed. “I don’t think so. I’ve got things to do.” He disappeared from the room, the firewood in his arms when he came back. He let it clatter to the floor, the sound no longer as satisfying now that I was rendered harmless.

He flicked a quick look my way as he crouched in front of the fireplace. “I’ve never had a relationship where we take it in turns to tie the other up. Do you think there’s a name for that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I suppose it would be somewhere on the BDSM spectrum, which has never been my thing. You’ll understand tomorrow when you’re yourself again.”

I stayed sullenly silent. “Nothing to say,” August teased. “You had plenty to say outside.” I glared all the harder, but he just smiled. He picked a palmful of something up from the floor and showed it to me. “The tree in the kitchen came in useful for leaves, which should work as kindling.” He sorted through the wood, discarding the wet logs from the top of the pile in favor of those lower down that were still dry. “I suppose I should be glad you had enough presence of mind to bring it back. What were you going to do? Club me over the head with it if I didn’t spread my legs for you? Who says romance is dead?”

When I didn’t respond, he turned back to the fireplace. It took a few attempts before he got the fire going, the room quickly heating up. It took even longer to rig up a makeshift system to boil the water. And all the while, I dreamed of what I was going to do to him when I got free.

When he flicked some beef jerky my way, there was nothing I could do but let it bounce off my chest and land on my lap. “Oh, yeah,” he said, as he took a seat opposite. “No hands. I forgot.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He chewed on a strip while he stared at me. I stared right back, the candlelight wreathing his face in shadows. His gaze eventually dropped to my crotch. “Still?” he said. “I thought you might have calmed down by now.”

“You need to suck it.”

That made him laugh so much he almost choked. “Yeah, right? Keep dreaming.”

“Then untie my hands.”

“Not happening. I don’t have a death wish.”

“I want to fuck you, not kill you.”

He pointed the jerky at me. “You, Keaton Levine, are quite the sweet talker. Has anyone ever told you that?” He chewed some more. “Besides, I see the look in your eye. It might start off that way, but you’ll lose control.” August leaned his head back against the wall. “It must be painful to be that hard, though? I should probably offer to help you out. The problem is, we’ve already established that you have nothing of value you’re willing to give. So I guess you’ll just have to suffer.”

A growl came from my throat, the Keaton beneath the surface recognizing it wasn’t a noise I should make, but unable to do anything about it.

August tipped his chin up at the sound, his eyes narrowing. “Go on. If you’ve got some more choice words, you need to get out, let’s hear them. I could have left you outside, you know. I should have left you outside.”

Oh, I had words I wanted to say. Dark words as sharp as razor blades. Ones that told him exactly what I thought about him. It wouldn’t get me what I wanted, though. “I’ll owe you.”

August laughed, the sound so mocking that I struggled within my bindings, the desire to get my hands on him and squeeze the life out of him until no more sounds, especially laughter, could come out, so strong I shook with it. “I normally don’t take I.O.Us.” He was silent for a minute, his face expressionless as he stared into the fire. Finally, he gave a quiet chuckle. “Fine. You can owe me. And I expect you to pay.”

“I’ll pay.” I would have said anything at that moment to get relief.

“You will,” August said quietly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Chapter Nine

August

Agreeing to help Keaton with the sizeable problem my eyes kept being drawn back to was ludicrous. There was nothing of the person I’d spent the day with in the man sitting opposite me. The red rain had done its usual number in stripping away his humanity to leave nothing but base instincts. And I should know. I’d studied them in great detail to perfect my little rain performance.

He radiated a dark energy that said the only thing on his mind was to fuck and destroy.