Page 12 of Temptation
Not tasting dirt. Not wondering if this is my last breath.
“You’re going to be okay,” Adam told her. “You’re safe now.”
Now. For the moment. She’d gotten out. She was safe. Preston was safe.
Adam eased her down onto the gurney. He began running a series of checks on her. Looking for injuries. Checking her blood pressure. Her heart rate.
Her head turned to the side.
She found Preston staring straight at her.
He took Preston. He buried him.
Just as Preston had been taken and buried when he was fourteen years old. But Preston had escaped that horrible night, too. In fact, back when he’d been fourteen, Preston Byron had been the only person to survive an attack from a serial predator known as the Last Breath Killer.
A twisted perp who had abducted his victims, drugged them, and then trapped the vics in coffins that the killer had carefully built. The cops had known the victims were alive when they were buried because, inside some of those coffins, they’d found scratch marks on the wood. They’d found victims with bloody fingernails and hands.
None of the others had escaped their hell. No one…but Preston.
For a second time, he’d cheated death.
But she knew that death was going to be pissed. I have to stay close to Preston. I have to protect him.
So how the hell was she going to accomplish that task? How was she going to convince Preston that he truly could not live without her?
Chapter Three
“You’re coming home with me,” Preston bluntly told her.
Lily blinked at him. They were in the hospital. The dirt made her skin itch, and she just wanted to bathe. To get clean. Crime techs had come to poke and prod at her. They’d scraped beneath her nails because she’d explained to the deputies and to the sheriff that she’d clawed her attacker. Maybe she’d gotten some of his DNA beneath her nails, but it would take time to get results back. If the material was even usable.
Or maybe dirt was the only thing that had been left beneath her nails.
Her clothing had been taken, and she’d been given a rough hospital gown to wear after her interview with Sheriff Debra Tooni. The sheriff had been sympathetic. No-nonsense. And determined that she would find the person who’d taken Sloane and Preston.
After the interview with the sheriff, Sloane had been left alone in one little exam room. A room with one window, a wonky light that kept blinking too much, and a place filled with the sterile scent of antiseptic.
Preston had just ripped open the door to her exam room and stormed inside. He wasn’t wearing a hospital gown. He was wearing green scrubs. Most of the dirt had been cleaned from his face.
Wickedly handsome. Diabolically so. Chiseled jaw. Perfect cheekbones. Long, straight blade of a nose. Dark stubble coated his jaw. His expression was intense and determined and…
He stalked toward her. He gripped a pair of scrubs in his hand. “Put these on.”
The scrubs were better than the gaping gown but normal clothing would have been stellar.
“Change and then we are getting the hell out of here.”
She shook her head. “Pretty sure the sheriff told me to stay. That she would have more questions for me.” She kept sitting on the hospital exam bed. There was scratchy, white paper on the bed.
“Sheriff Tooni can come and question you at my place. Debra knows where I live.”
Debra. Definite familiarity there. But then again, she’d known that. Her research had shown her that Debra Tooni had once been close friends with Preston’s adoptive parents. So this case would be very personal for the sheriff.
“Reporters caught the story.” Blunt. “They’re gonna be swarming, and we need to hurry out of here.”
Okay so, staying with him, sticking to the man like glue—achieving that particular goal was going to be much, much easier than Sloane had anticipated. “You want me to come home with you?” Just so they were clear.
“You’re not getting away from me.”
