AllFreeNovel
Share Us
From the second her hands wrapped around my neck and I discovered what flavor her pain was, I’d been hooked.
I watched the rise and fall of her chest for a minute, taking in how peaceful she appeared right now. I hated to wake her, but we needed to go. The sooner the better, considering there was a fresh body behind this building because of me.
“Nyx.” I placed a hand on her forearm and gently shook. Her eyes popped open and she peered up at me through dark lashes.
“Time to get up.”
“I fell asleep?”
“Yeah, about six hours ago. We got a lead to follow.”
She swung her legs over the side of the mattress, still staring up at me.
“Boots are at the end of the bed. Your bag is next to mine. Coffee and a Nutribar are on the nightstand,” I told her, studying the outline of her pretty mouth.
“Thank you,” she said, gracing me with a small smile.
My dick throbbed—painfully. I’d had to keep it from pressing into her ass all night. There were a million things I wanted to do to her streaming through my mind.
“You don’t have to thank me, babygirl. What are friends for?”
Her smile slipped and she dropped her gaze, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.
I may have said that last part with too much sarcasm. I knew I was an asshole. I didn’t have an excuse for it, and I didn’t feel bad.
This friendship was ironic all on its own. There was a time she and I would avoid looking at each other. Now, here we were. I knew there were lines and boundaries. Things friends didn’t do.
I wanted to say fuck em all, but I had to do it right. I couldn’t risk fucking up and losing the only person who quieted my demons with her presence alone.
I felt ten times lighter just knowing this thing between us wasn’
t one-sided. The way she’d been looking at me lately told me all I needed to know. The way she’d touched me last night placed a nail in the coffin of this ‘friendship.’ She just didn’t know it yet.
I left her to eat, shower, and get dressed, and by the time her boots were re-laced, her karambit scythe secured inside one, and her Glock safely holstered on her hip, I had our bags in the SUV and everyone was ready to go.
We left the room together, her in front of me and giving me a grand view of an ass wrapped in olive cargo shorts. They were the kind that rose high around her waist, so every step she took made it seem as if an ass-cheek might pop out.
“Stop it,” she snapped, trying to side-step so I wouldn’t be right up on her anymore once she realized what I was doing.
“Aht-aht.” I slipped an arm around her waist before she could fall too far behind me, forcing her to walk by my side.
“You’re such a pig,” she grumbled.
“Not a pig, just a man who appreciates a great ass.”
“This is disgustingly cute,” Addy commented when we reached the SUV, waving a finger between the two of us.
Realizing everyone had been watching us, Nyx wiggled away from me.
I had to restrain myself from dragging her ass back to me by the hair. I hated when she did this shit. Our friends weren’t stupid. They knew how close we were. Greer already thought we were fucking on a regular basis and refused to believe otherwise.
Seeing Addy climb in back with her cousin, I took shotgun. Zane slid behind the steering wheel, Trix and Greer got situated all the way in the third row, and then we were back on the road, heading to wherever Dartmoor was. According to the coordinates Luce sent, it was a good two and a half hours away.
Forty minutes into the drive, the SUV had fallen into a familiar heavy silence, all our remnants of happiness replaced by a grim reality.
We each had our own broken thoughts to sort through, shit only we could deal with.
Zane reached out and tapped a few icons on the SUV’s screen until DJ Dystopian’s station came in. Johnny Cash’s worn voice poured through the speakers, filling the quiet with his bleak words. I tried not to read too much into what he was saying.
