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“No.” I shake my head, and then I step into her space. My fingers find her chin, forcing her to look me in the eyes. “What happened to the drugs inside?”
Fear. Terror. Guilt.
They flash in rapid succession.
She shuts her eyes, but I don’t allow her to pull away.
“Cinnamon,” I growl in warning.
She rolls her lips between her teeth and I follow the movement in a trance.
She bites down hard. A single drop of blood drips towards her chin, but I catch it with my tongue.
She groans, the sound going directly to my cock.
I could end this conversation. Drag her away. Rip off the clothes she wears. Stuff my cock into her tight cunt.
But I need the answer to what happened.
“The night you came to my father’s house, I stole some of his drugs. I knew he would kill me if he found them, so I hid them in the frog. Those drugs were the same ones that killed him. That were laced with the poison,” I explain gruffly. “What. Happened. To. Them.” I clip out.
This time she forces herself away and back into Kale’s arms.
“The John Doe,” Kale says carefully. “He showed up six months ago. Well before the rest of the deaths started popping up.” He wraps his arms around her stomach and I step forward.
Invading her space.
Ignoring Kale.
Her eyes flash open. “He was my boyfriend. Not a good one. He stabbed me and then threw the frog. The drugs fell out and he decided to take them. All of them. It wasn’t long before he died.”
A million scenarios play out of how she could have been the one to die. What else the boyfriend had done to her. “Good.”
“Your mother died that night? With Maple?” Reuben cuts through the silence finally breaking through his stupor.
“I—yes there was someone named Maple there, but I didn’t meet them.”
Kale ducks down to whisper into her ear and restrain myself.
She is still mine, even if he has his arms around her.
That is the thought that maintains my sanity.
“Maple was Reuben’s wife,” Kale murmurs.
“Oh.” Cinnamon’s lips purse in concern.
Begging me to capture them.
Bending, I ignore Kale entirely, taking her lips and inhaling her.
It is easy to forget the nuisances with her flavor on my tongue.
A reminder that she is mine. That I will not let her out of my sight again. No matter whose arms she chooses to be in, she will come back to mine.
I wonder if she would let me put a tracker in her skin.
Pulling away, I examine her. Count the freckles on her nose.
