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"Okay," he said at last. "I usually sleep lighter than that."
"Maybe your subconscious knew that I could be trusted."
"Yeah. Maybe." He cleared his throat. "What food did you bring?"
She smiled. "Should we wait for your dad? I brought enough for all three of us. Unless you were planning to take him to dinner."
Marius studied her a long, unreadable moment, then shook his head. He adjusted the seat so he was in a less reclined position. "This is how I visit my dad. I don't go in to see him. I just sit in the parking lot."
"Oh. Okay." So his father was a prisoner. And even if Marius had been going in to see him, food wouldn't have been allowed. But she'd seen Marius's appetite. He'd be happy to have the extra.
When he didn't seem to want to say more, she decided to leave it alone for now. He snaked his hand down to fish around in the tote and she smacked his wrist. "Out of there, rude boy. I have it arranged and you'll mess it up."
He didn't smile, but he looked like he wanted to do so. His gaze roved over her mouth and eyes, her hair and body. "You look nice," he said.
Reaching over the console, he gripped her collar and pulled her to him, meeting halfway to kiss her mouth, hard, his hands digging into fabric and her firm flesh beneath. She put her hands on his face, holding him, trying to hold onto control. An impossible task, because that kiss had her swimming in a sea of hormones and emotions tangled together as his own tempest of them came through. His grip moved to her neck, fingers threading through her hair, clutching handfuls of it.
He broke the kiss and her heart tripped over itself, because he moved his face into her locs, rubbing against their softness.
When he was calculating or manipulative, she could see him coming from a mile
off and remain unaffected. When he acted with simple raw honesty and brutal need? He could strike her heart with the targeted force of lightning.
She cupped the back of his head, stroking, letting him take as much time as he wished. His hands had dropped to grip her hips. There was a restrained sexual urgency to it, the need for simple contact uppermost. Then he seemed to recall himself and eased back.
"Did you bring cookies?"
She chuckled, caressing his jaw and hoping he didn't notice the little tremor that went through her fingers. "There's a white cake with powdered sugar. It's my grandmother's recipe. I also brought a vegetable stew that is excellent at sun-warmed car temperatures, and roast beef sandwiches."
"You're a goddess," he said. "Are you going to hand me some of that, or do I have to be rude again?"
Smiling, she offered him a sandwich, a container of stew and a spoon, with a napkin. She also pulled out a bottle of water and a can of Coke from the cooler portion of the tote and gave him the choice. He chose the Coke. "You can have the cake after you eat your meal," she said.
"Yes, ma'am," he said dutifully, a glint in his eye. As he sat back and dug in, he passed his gaze over her again. "I saw a lady at the gas station who had hair like yours, only they were in corkscrews. Like yours at The Zone. Do you do that a lot?"
He meant the night with Siren. It was interesting, that he'd remembered that detail with so much else happening. "When I have the time and patience," she said. "A couple times I've thought of just shaving myself bald and having an elaborate tattoo put on my skull."
He swallowed a mouthful of stew, started to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand and reconsidered, using the napkin. "That's what Skullface did. Before the face tattoo and head shave, he had curly red hair and freckles."
"No kidding."
"Yeah. They called him Opie before that. Skullface was more intimidating."
"I can imagine."
He touched her crown with unexpectedly gentle fingers, tracing her scalp between a parting of locs. "I could see you with a real sexy tribal tat that curved under your ears, and right above your neck. Then again..." His gaze shifted. "I wouldn't cover any of your skin with a tattoo. You wouldn't need it anyway. Your eyes and your mouth hit a guy dead center."
Turning his eyes back to the prison, he fell silent, continuing his meal. Ignoring the tingle along her flesh where he'd touched it, she unwrapped half a sandwich and started eating it. "The prison entrance took me by surprise," she commented. "The wire archway with the letters on it reminds me of when you enter a family campground. And that white building over there with the top that looks like a lighthouse? Looks as if it belongs on a Florida resort."
"Yeah. It's pretty. Guess there's no rule against having pretty things at prison. You're here, right?" He smiled at her, though it didn't reach his eyes.
"Charmer." She didn't mean it as an accusation, which his behavior usually required. Not this time. To reinforce it, she touched his hand. "So your dad's an inmate?"
"For a few more hours. He's going to be executed today."
Marius delivered the comment in such a matter-of-fact manner, the significance didn't sink in for several breaths. When she snapped herself out of the shock, he'd set the sandwich on the napkin she'd draped over his thigh and unscrewed the Coke, letting the fizz die back before he raised it to his lips. He didn't look at her as he picked up the sandwich again, but he stopped short of taking another bite. Instead he seemed to get lost in his thoughts. He was staring at the prison again. She suspected he knew where his father was in the complex, because he kept looking in the same direction when he looked at the buildings.
"Kind of sick, right?" he said abruptly. "A guy asking a girl to come to his dad's execution?"
