Page 23 of Caretaker

Chapter Eight

We left the house and there was a little something extra between us. Heat, expectation, anticipation.

“Tell me,” he said, as we walked toward my car. “Why did you have to see Angus before you could give in to your need?”

I shrugged. “I deprive myself out of guilt and empathy. After my family was slaughtered, I didn’t feel like I deserved to feel good. And when Angus was locked up, I couldn’t let myself have a good time knowing he was suffering.”

“That’s a bad habit you have,” he said, after a moment.

“I know. I’m messed up.”

“Yeah.”

I laughed. “No more than you are, Copas.”

He threw me a quick glance. “Maybe.”

He strode on to his truck while I hurried to get the pillowcase out of my glovebox. I backed out of the passenger side, bag in hand, then turned around to find Clayton behind me.

“Clayton.” My voice was little more than a whisper, and the bag fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers.

He leaned over to retrieve the small bag, then handed it to me. He closed his eyes when I brushed his fingers with mine, and I lingered, unable to resist.

“Where’s Miriam?” I murmured.

He opened his eyes and pinned me with the dark intensity of his stare. “Getting dressed for a job tonight.”

I didn’t want to make things worse for him. I didn’t. Miriam had forbidden him to touch me, and he was literally unable to disobey her command.

But she couldn’t command me. I wasn’t her golem. She hadn’t brought me back to life, and she couldn’t command me.

So I wrapped my arms around his body and pressed myself against him.

He blew out a shaky breath and stood stiff and unmoving in my embrace, but the pulse in his throat beat crazily beneath my lips, and I could hear a soft, agonized groan trying to escape his closed mouth.

And I couldn’t bear to let him go.

“Trinity,” he whispered.

His body trembled, and I knew I was hurting him, but the longer I held him, the longer I had to hold him. I couldn’t move away. It was as though I, too, was caught in Miriam’s spell, and I hadn’t the power to separate myself from him.

My fingers touched raised ridges on his back, and I flinched as I traced the fresh marks that Miriam had likely given him that very day.

“Please come back,” I begged. “Please come back.”

He shuddered.

I wasn’t talking to him, really. I was talking to the demon who’d been inside him. I’d seen the demon the day Angus had been shipped off to Byrd Island. The demon was still inside him, but it was…hiding, maybe.

I hadn’t caught sight of it again, not once.

It was there, though. It was there, the bastard.

It had freed Clayton from Miriam once. I had to believe it could again, if only it would.

I felt a hand on my arm and lifted my wet face from Clayton’s warm throat to see Shane peering at me, his face expressionless, but sympathy lurking in the blue depths. “Come on, baby hunter. Let him go now.”

I resisted until I glanced at Clayton, then my breath whooshed from my lungs and I couldn’t breathe beneath the pain.