Page 25 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
"What's going on in that pretty head of yours?" He reaches out and strokes a lock of my chestnut hair behind my ear. Internally, I'm rolling my eyes. Phrases like that come across so condescending to any woman with half a brain.
Colt, I'm sure, doesn't mean it like that. I find it hard to believe he’s anything less than sincere.
"Just thinking about how we were so rudely interrupted this morning," I respond, flipping my mental flirt switch firmly into the on position. Like I said, if I only have days left to live, I want to fully enjoy them. Then maybe, before my father can exact a punishment worse than death, I can leave this world on my own terms.
A grin spreads over Colt's handsome face. "It's all I’ve been able to think about today, too. I hope Weston actually does punch Hawke. He fucking deserves it." His long fingers extract a hand-rolled cigarette from the squashed cardboard pouch he pulls from his pocket. "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?"
"Go for it," I tell him, watching with thinly veiled interest as he flicks his zippo lighter open and touches the end of his cigarette to the flame. The second it's ignited, my suspicion is confirmed and I smile with amusement. "Colt, that's not tobacco."
"No?" He smirks back at me with a wink. "Better remind me to confess this next Sunday."
He takes a long drag on the joint and then offers it to me, which I gratefully accept. It's been more than twenty-four hours since my last glass of champagne and baggy of top quality coke at my father’s party. Over twenty-four hours since I saw my lover shot while his hard cock was still buried between my thighs.
"Fuck," I breathe when the heady smoke fills my lungs. "That's some good shit."
Colt grins and winks as I pass it back. "Only the best, Tzarina." He holds my heavy-lidded gaze for a long moment before we hear voices coming down the hall toward the kitchen. It sounds like Hawke and Mace, but Colt shoots out of his seat like it’s on fire.
"Quick," he hisses, holding a hand out to drag me from my own seat. Without pausing to explain further, he quickly flings the freezer open and grabs a bottle of liquor before dragging me through a different door and into a dark corridor.
"Colt?" I ask hesitantly, and he shushes me.
"Quiet," he whispers, placing the joint back between my lips in the darkness and tugging me by my hand. "Hawke and Mace get real pissy about me smoking on a job. Which is hypocritical as fuck seeing as they both have their own vices, but whatever. Not worth the argument, you know?"
"Say no more." I cough as I follow him out into the dark church. There’re some candles lit, which I imagine were lit all night. But what the hell do I know? I thought this place had a nunnery for fuck’s sake, which it very clearly does not.
"Here," Colt murmurs, pulling me into a pew in the middle of the huge structure, shadowed by an ornately carved pillar bearing a heavy wooden cross. We sit on the hard bench, close enough that our thighs press together, and Colt drapes an arm over my shoulders.
The entire church is still, and silent.
"This feels …" I whisper into the darkness, passing the joint back to him.
"Naughty?" he offers, quirking a brow at me and giving me the truest sense of his character thus far. Colt is the naughty one. "Let's make it naughtier." He hands me the bottle he grabbed on our dash out of the kitchen. "Russian, like you."
I snicker, inspecting the label to find it is indeed, Russian vodka. Delicious. Eagerly, I twist the cap off and take a long gulp, feeling the smooth liquid burn a path down my throat and warm my belly.
Fuck yeah. This is exactly how I want to spend my last days.
"How long until Hawke or Mace come looking for us?" I ask Colt quietly, already feeling the haze of pot making my body heavy and slow. It’s like being wrapped in cotton wool, which is only heightened by the vodka.
"Long enough," Colt replies, taking the bottle from me and tipping it back for a swallow while holding my gaze. "We can always hide out in the confessional if you're worried they'll find us before we're ready?"
My brows shoot up and excitement zaps through my body. "You actually have a confessional here?"
Colt scoffs. "Tzarina, all self-respecting churches have confessionals. Wanna see?"
I grin at his new nickname for me. Tzarina means Empress in Russian, and I kind of love it. "Hell yeah," I accept, taking his hand as he stands.
We walk slowly up the aisle to the front of the church, where Colt puts out the end of his joint in the pool of holy water. Something about that act turns me on exponentially and suddenly I'm dying to be enclosed in a small, tight space with Colt.
