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“Comeon, Bailey,” Rory calls, sounding impatient. “We need to go. Phoenix needs to be at the fair in an hour, max.”
“Yeah—” The word comes out as a soft, unsteady croak, and I clear my throat. “Yeah, okay. Sorry, guys.” I’ve been in here way too long, I know, but it’s still hard to grip the doorknob and pull it open, revealing what I look like to the two guys.
Immediately Phoenix’s brows shoot upward as he looks me over, and after a moment he comments, “I don’t know if it’s the murder look, or the fact that you’re wearing my clothes, but I really want to fuck you right now.”
“Both,” Rory replies conversationally, making a motion for me to spin around for him as he continues, “Because I want to fuck her too, and I think she makes a pretty hot murderer. We can fuck her another time.”
“Right, because murder is much more important.” I laugh uncertainly. “It’s really okay?”
“More than okay,” Phoenix promises, and reaches out both hands holding the rest of what I’ll need.
His mask rests in his left hand and I take it, marveling at the smoothness and the cleanness of the plastic mask. A ribbon is attached to the sides, and I wonder if this is really what they’ve been relying on to conceal their identity every single time. If it were me, I’d be duct taping the damn thing to my face.
The other thing he holds out to me is his knife. It’s cold in my fingers, and heavy, but when I start lifting it out of his grip, Phoenix closes his fingers around it and steps close to me.
“Let me do it,” he murmurs, reaching out to my belt and sliding the sheath onto it. When it’s done, his fingers linger, pushing up the bottom of his shirt so he can stroke along my skin.
“Stop.” Rory slaps at his hand with a roll of his eyes. “Touch her after. And remember to give her your gloves.”
Phoenix snorts and fishes in his pocket for them, then hands them over to me. “They’re hot,” he warns, when I slip them on and flex my fingers in the fleece-lined leather. “You’ll thank me for it later, but you’ll be miserable for a bit.”
“I’m never miserable when I get to be where your fingers were,” I reply lamely, eyebrows wiggling like I’ve made some kind of genius innuendo.
Rory groans. “I’m going out to the car,” he announces, sticking his tongue out in disgust, “before I puke. Maybe when you’re done making bad jokes, you’ll even join me.”
We do join him, and the ride to the edge of town, near the fairgrounds, is just as tense as I’d hoped it wouldn’t be. Finally he pulls over, but before I can climb out of the passenger seat, where Rory had sograciouslytold me to sit, Phoenix snags my arm in his fingers, concern dominating his face.
“Please be careful,” he murmurs, when Rory’s door is shut. “I just got you. I can’t lose you.”
The door whips open as he speaks, and Rory looks at him, unimpressed. “What about losing me?” he demands, hands on his hips like he’s actually offended.
“You’re good at this. You won’t get hurt, or lost, or caught,” Phoenix growls. “She’s new. She’s…Bailey.”
“Bailey is about to get offended if you say her name like an insult again.” My words are sharp, but my eyes are soft when I grin to show him I’m joking. “I’ll be careful, okay? But you have to let go of my arm so I can, you know, go do the thing with Rory.”
“Seriously,” Rory agrees. “Kiss her and go enjoy the fair.”
Phoenix makes a face at that, but leans over to brush his lips to mine. “Come back safe,” he whispers, and releases my arm before blowing a kiss at Rory as I slide to the sidewalk beside the SUV. “You too, lover,” he calls, and Rory just waves at him in response.
“Don’t get eaten by hordes of children, or whatever,” the auburn-haired killer replies. Phoenix blows him another kiss and I close the door, prompting him to pull away from the sidewalk and back onto the road.
“He’s such a worrier,” Rory comments, pulling his hood up over his head. He doesn’t add anything else, but reaches over to tug mine up as well, hand lingering on my shoulder when he does.
“Right, and you aren’t?” I ask him dryly, falling into step with him when he starts to walk into the woods, away from the street.
Somehow, he’d already known where to go, and had told me earlier that seventy percent of being a serial killer that doesn’t get caught is research. He’d then informed me that he’d been tracking Jayden’s schedule for a week, and knew for a fact he’d be at the gym until late tonight, probably playing basketball either with his friends or practicing alone.
From where we are, the gym is a mile or so walk.
“Itwasme in the park, by the way,” he says suddenly, falling back so he’s in step with me, his strides equal to mine when he makes an effort to make it happen. “I thought I could scare you out of looking at us too closely, or trying to figure out who we were.”
“I figured it was you,” I admit, hand clenched around Phoenix’s mask. “When we were in the woods and I asked, I wasn’t really asking. I can tell by your cologne. And your voice.” Not to mention his eyes, which are so different from Phoenix’s.
“And it was sexy as hell, right? With my knee between your thighs and us out there, where anyone could see?”
“Not the word I would’ve used at the time, unfortunately.”
We walk in silence for a bit, the trees as tall and silent as judgmental, immortal sentinels. It makes me shiver, even in Phoenix’s warm clothes, and I’m definitely glad that he’s better at dressing for the weather than I’ll ever be.
