Page 9 of Reaper
The temperature spikes.
She catches me tracking her gaze. A sharp flush of pink colors her cheeks, but she doesn't look away. She holds her ground.
Jesus.
"Inside." I issue the command harsher than I intend. I grab my hardshell drag bag from the backseat and shoulder past her, leading the way to the porch.
I unlock the deadbolt and push the door open.
The cabin is small. Two hundred square feet of utilitarian necessity. The air inside is dead, smelling of cold ash and pine dust. The main room is a combined living and kitchen space. A cast-iron wood stove sits in the corner. A scarred wooden table. A kitchenette with a propane burner and a hand pump for the sink.
I drop my rifle bag onto the table. It takes up half the available surface area.
"There's no electricity." I keep my back to her as I survey the room. The walls feel like they're closing in. "Propane for cooking. The wood stove is your heat source. The bathroom is through that door. Gravity-fed shower, cold water only."
She steps further into the room, her boots quiet on the scuffed floorboards.
She tracks the layout. Her eyes sweep the kitchen, the stove, and finally land on the far corner of the room.
The bed.
It's a single timber frame pushed flush against the back wall. A double mattress covered in a thick wool blanket.
There is only one.
She looks at the bed. She looks at me. She calculates the square footage of the mattress and the undeniable reality of two adult bodies sharing that confined space.
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. Being in a truck cab was dangerous. Being locked inside a remote cabin with one bed is a powder keg. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to close the distance between us, to push her back against that mattress and see if she tastes like the creek water I watched her bathe in.
I clench my jaw, fighting the violent urge to cross the room.
She swallows hard. The movement bobs the column of her throat.
"I'll take the floor." I cut through the tension before it strangles my better judgment.
"I didn't ask you to." Her voice is quiet. Steady.
I meet her gaze. "I'm offering."
I turn away before the heat in her eyes completely compromises my judgment. I reach into the tactical pocket of my jacket and pull out a thick, black satellite phone.
"Lock the door behind me."
She frowns. "Where are you going?"
"Outside. I have to make a call."
"To who?"
"To the men who are going to get you out of here."
I step outside and pull the heavy wooden door shut. The deadbolt slides home a second later.
The solid, metallic thud of the lock is exactly the physical separation I need. The heavy timber of the door puts a barrier between us, but it doesn't shut out the scent of her skin or the memory of how she looked at me when she realized there was only one bed.
The air inside that cabin was seconds away from spontaneous combustion. My body wants her with a violent,undeniable demand. It's a primal reaction, stripped of logic and fueled by the adrenaline of a successful extraction. I've spent my entire adult life mastering my physical impulses, learning how to flatline my heart rate and suppress my humanity to pull a trigger. But being in the same room with Addy Hart destroys all of that discipline in seconds.
Right now, she is vulnerable, hunted, and entirely dependent on me for survival. The absolute last thing she needs is a broken, morally compromised killer who can't keep it in his pants.
