I climbed out beside him, already calculating prices in my head. Essentials only. No extras. No matter how rich these people were, I refused to become someone who took and took without earning it.
Olivia Savin had survived too much to turn into a mooch now.
***
I should’ve known something was wrong. Really, this was on me.
The realization sat bitter on my tongue as city lights streaked past the windows while Rack drove us home.
He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
One hand rested loosely on the wheel while the other held a single shopping bag in his lap like that tiny thing explained the disaster he’d caused.
Because somehow, despite leaving every store practically empty-handed, I’d still ended up with an entire new life being delivered to the house. I didn’t even realize what he was doing until it was done.
It wasn’t until halfway through the third store, when a sales associate smiled at me and said, “The rest will arrive this evening, miss,” that I caught on.
Apparently, everything I touched had been purchased. Shirts. Boots. Jackets. Pillows. Blankets. A stupid crooked lamp I’d picked up because it looked like something a haunted grandma would own.
When I demanded to know why he bought it, Rack hadn’t even looked embarrassed.
“You stared at it for four minutes,” he’d said simply. Likethatjustified anything.
I told him I didn’t know if I even liked half the stuff I tried on, but he didn't seem to mind.
He just opened another door for me and replied, “Then you can figure that out once it’s in your room.”
And when I argued that he was wasting money? Nothing. Complete indifference. I was learning this was his way of laughing in my face.
He’d gone cold and unreadable again whenever employees spoke to him, all clipped answers and sharp nods, like the version of Rack who’d I met the morning I woke up in Calix’s bed.
That's not true. He was kind once before.
My mind drifted unwillingly back to the Track, to warm hands hauling me off the pavement while chaos exploded around us.
To those dark purple eyes locked onto mine hard enough to drown in. Back then, fear had swallowed everything else whole. Now that the fear was gone… I felt a familiar desire bubbling its way up to the surface.
Tingles began to spread from my core, racing through my veins. A deep coldness settled in my bones, making me shiver in the car. I turned to ask him what was going on with me, but my eyes snagged on the pulsing vein on the side of his neck.
The rush beneath his skin filled the car. I could hear it, actually hear it. Blood surged through him in warm rushing waves.
My tongue dragged slowly across my teeth before I realized I was doing it. Every beat beneath his sun-kissed skin tugged at something feral inside me.
Mine.
The thought slammed into me so violently my stomach twisted. A low sound rumbled out of my chest before I could stop it, and Rack’s eyes flicked toward me.
The car jerked violently as he swerved onto the shoulder. The sudden movement broke my focus enough for panic to crash in.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I folded forward hard, staring at my hands. My nails were buried into my thighs, sinking deeply enough to tear fabric. The hunger hit in waves after that.
Hot. Cold. Violent. Desire. Need. It spread through every inch of me until it felt like something alive was pacing beneath my skin, clawing to get out.
I tried breathing through the cycle, tried forcing the alive being inside down, but it only got worse. The more I resisted, the more that thing inside me lunged toward him, urging me to take that the blood moving beneath his skin.
“It’s okay, Olivia.” Rack’s voice came low and steady through the chaos pounding in my head. “It’s going to be okay.”
