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“I caught him with your stuff about a quarter mile from here. Bastard offered to split it with me.”
My hands are shaking. Price deserves to die, and it would be so easy. So unbelievably easy, if I time traveled to earlier in the morning.
“What is it?” asks Henri, sitting up and wrapping his arm around me.
“He deserves to die,” I reply between my teeth. “He should die for taking that bag.”
Henri looks at me for a long moment, studying my face. “He’ll likely die anyway,” he says. “He’s got no food, no weapon, no money.”
I pull my knees to my chest, taking deep breaths. “He deserves to die painfully.”
“Little thief,” Henri says against my ear. “We need to go. Killing him doesn’t move us forward.”
And I know he’s right. But the desire still burns in my chest. The Coron in me is getting stronger. It feels like it’s overtaking everything I am.
* * *
After another near-silent day of travel, we find shelter, though the home is in such disrepair it’s hardly better than sleeping in the open. Henri cleans up at the pump, already much better than he was yesterday, and returns without his shirt. Despite his wound, the sight of him like that is as appealing as it ever was—miles of smooth, tan skin, all muscle. My core clenches in response, but right now, he needs a good night’s rest.
“Lie down,” I say. I give him the shot of penicillin and then start putting a clean dressing on his wound. While I work, he asks the questions he was too tired to ask the night before, and I finally tell him about the worthless forgeries Roche provided.
“He’ll pay for that,” Henri says. “As soon as I’m back home.”
Home. My hands still before they resume their work. I’m not sure we can go back to Saint Antoine after what I’ve done. Claudette will never know for certain that I cut off her finger, but she might guess at it, and my sudden disappearance on the heels of Nadeau’s death will be suspicious. At the time it all seemed so necessary, so well-deserved, and it still does, but in both Saint Antoine and Paris, people may now be looking for me. Every bad thing I do seems to have a ripple effect.
“What’s the matter?” he asks.
I swallow. “Nothing. I tear one last strip. “I’m nearly done. I think your wound is looking better.”
“Do you remember when you did this before?”
I laugh. “Last night? Yes, I remember it well.”
He presses my hand to his chest and holds it there. “No, not then. In Saint Antoine. When you bandaged my gunshot wound. Do you remember? I wanted you so badly it felt like a fever.”
“You did have a fever,” I reply with a small laugh, tying the last strip around his rib cage.
“That might be,” he says, “but I was hard the whole time.” He wraps a hand around my neck and pulls his lips to mine. A kiss that is clearly meant to lead to more. And God knows I’d like it to, except I don’t want him to tear his wound open again, and Quinn is across the room.
I pull away, wanting him so much it’s painful, and go to the pump to wash up. He’s injured, I say to myself on repeat. He needs to rest. When I return to the house, Henri appears to be asleep. I sneak in quietly and lie down beside him, relieved and disappointed at once. His arm urges me closer. “I need you,” he whispers.
“You should rest,” I argue, but he’s already tugging at my pants.
“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” he says.
He pulls me on top of him. Even wounded and starved as he’s been, his strength amazes me. His hands go to the button of his trousers and he pops it open. “Please, little thief. I’ve dreamed of you every night since I left.”
I pull the trousers down low enough for him to spring clear of them, while his hand slides between my legs. When he finds me bare there, free of my undergarments and ready for him so soon, he groans. “My God, I’ve missed this.”
He lines himself up and grabs my hips. I try to resist, to go slowly and he makes a noise of exasperation.
“Don’t be gentle, Sarah,” he says. His fingers dig into my hips, lifting me, pushing me back down, doing the work for me. “Please. I’ve dreamed of this for too long.”
I take over, trying to maintain some sense of sanity despite the desperate press of his fingers and the fullness inside me. It’s only been two months, but it feels like a lifetime.
“Faster,” he grunts, the boards beneath us squeaking loudly.
“Quinn will know,” I whisper.
