Covet (Sinful Secrets 3)

Without ado, I sit on it, glancing at the rubble pile, which sounds as if it’s dripping.

Not stuck, I remind myself. Not if rain is getting in. We can get out. If we’re not out soon, most of the village will descend upon us. We’ll be dug out in no time at all.

The Carnegie sits beside me on the green bag, and I can feel his gaze move over my face. I drop my gaze to my hands, now folded around the water bottle, then dart a glance back up to him.

I hate him. I hate it that I can’t stop looking at him. I hate that when I do, I feel off-balance. It’s the same unsteady feeling I get in nightmares, when I’m forever trapped inside the bottom of a boat.

Thunder booms above us. As his gaze flies to the rubble pile, I find mine hung up on the contours of his face. Truly, I’ve never seen a man that looks like him. His cheekbones seem a bit feline…

“You okay?”

I jump. Cover my face with my hand. “Fine.” I hear the blood whoosh in between my ears and hate him, hate him, hate him.

“I…uh…thought I saw some clothes in your bag,” he says quietly. “Want me to turn around and you can change?”

I shake my head, running my nails along the plastic bottle’s grooves. I won’t be here long enough to need dry clothes, and even if I did…

I stand slowly and look up at the ceiling, curved a mere two feet or so above my head. I walk to the rubble pile, where raindrops and faint splotches of moonlight play over the cave’s floor.

“Careful,” he calls. “You don’t want to touch that.”

I swallow, refusing to look back as I hear him move toward me. I run my fingers over the rocks, my touch feather-light. They’re mostly large stones, plus or minus the dimensions of a football—though near the bottom of the pile, one’s more boulder, perhaps half a meter long. My gaze rests on a jagged piece of dark rock near the top. I run a fingertip over it. It looks like part of the archway we just climbed atop. I believe it is.

“Finley.” His fingers wrap around my wrist.

I snatch it back.

“You move something wrong, the whole thing falls.”

“Oh, is that how that works? What a pity. We could climb out.”

He’s quiet for a long time. I refuse to look at him as tension thickens between us.

“We could crawl out,” he says quietly, “or we could get crushed.” I turn my head in time to see him catch his lower lip between his teeth. “No way to tell.”

Tears fill my eyes, and my cheeks and neck burn as I feel my pulse race. “You’re saying we’re trapped here.”

I swing my hand out toward the rubble pile—the impulse born of panic and terror.

Nothing can prepare me for his hands snatching me by the waist, for the ease with which he drags me toward the sleeping bags.

I buck against him, kicking my legs into the air. “Put me down!”

He sets me on my sleeping bag, and my heart beats so hard and fast my head spins. “Don’t touch me!” My voice is plaintive. “Don’t touch me again—so help me!”

He peers down at me, his face barren until I realize his cheek is sucked in on one side; he’s bit down on it. “You can’t take risks like that, Finley. Now is not the time to be impulsive. Trust me.”

“Do you know when I would trust you?”

He blinks at me.

“Never. I would never trust you, never in a billion years would I trust you, Declan Carnegie. You are not the hero; you’re the villain! I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to be trapped here with you! I want you to disappear, but if we’re here come morning, you will dig us out and if you don’t, then I will do whatever I please—do you understand?”

His jaw tightens, and I can see I’ve raised his hackles.

I lie down on my side, putting my back to him. “By the way—I’ve got a tracker in my pack, so someone will come find us soon. If you can’t dig us out, my village will.”

So don’t you think of touching me again.