Covet (Sinful Secrets 3)

“I stuck that joint into a spot it didn’t fit, and that made things shift.” I pop my jaw as I look down on her bowed head. “Listen, I’m still gonna dig us out. You want to sit down, get the lantern up and running again, and you can watch me?”

“I lied!”

“What?”

She lifts her head, her face a twisted mess. “I lied about the tracker. No one knows where we are!”

I let out a slow breath. “I knew that.”

“You did?”

“There’s no GPS out here, Siren.”

She covers her face again, shaking her head. Then she looks up at me, her brows drawn together. “I was scared. Of being stuck in here with you.” Her voice cracks on the word, and I feel something tighten at the base of my throat.

“Fuck.” I blow a breath out. “I’m an ass, all right? Look—I know I was. I’m an ass sometimes—I try to be a nice guy—but that night, I was an ass. Nothing to do with you, just bullshit you walked in on. That shit’s over now, though. Asshole’s not my normal MO, like I said, and even if it was, you and me—this isn’t normal stuff. We’re stuck together in a fucking cave. What’s good for you is good for me. We need each other.”

Finley frowns up at me.

I give her a panty-melting smile, and her lips quirk just slightly at the corners. “Don’t believe me, do you?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She sighs.

“You don’t think I can be a nice guy?” I smile again—c’mon, sweetheart—and she looks down at her feet.

“Nothing points to that fact, no.” Her shoulders rise and sharply fall. “At any rate, I don’t care that you’re nice, as long as you can dig.”

I laugh, despite the blood that’s stinging my eye. “That right?”

She puts a hand on her hip. “Yes, that is so.” She leans in closer. “In spite of that lovely helmet, something hit your head and now you’re bleeding. Let me patch it up before you start round two.”

I snicker as she walks past me and I lose sight of her in darkness. I hear her fuck with something and a couple seconds later, light floods our humble burrow. I can see the relief I feel mirrored on her face. I’m moving toward her when she turns toward the rubble pile and freezes.

Fuckkkk. In the lantern light, shit doesn’t look so good. The pile was maybe the size of your average port-a-potty box last time. It’s double that size now, maybe even triple, and interspersed among a bunch of smaller stones are several rocks I think would qualify as boulders.

“It fills half the cave!”

I drag my gaze around our quarters. “Nah—a fourth at most.”

She turns to face me, her mouth pressed into a thin line. I see tears in her eyes, even as she points to my sleeping bag. “Sit there.”

I humor her, sitting cross-legged while she digs through her pack, pulling out a small, red first-aid box. She looks up and then scoots slightly back, as if she finds me too close for comfort.

I wipe the blood out of my eye—the thing is twitching now—and Finley leans in, squinting. I wait for her soft voice, almost lyrical in its lilting English accent. But she just peers up at my forehead, her face so close to mine that I can tell she’s holding her breath. Finally, she leans back, her pretty face a mask.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

I shake my head—it’s true, or at least I’m hurt nowhere new—and she presses her finger to my forehead, near the gash. Her frowning mouth is close enough that I could kiss it.

“This likely needs stitches. Since we have none, I’ll just tape it very tightly.”

As she moves again, reaching for something in her first-aid kit, I get another whiff of rose. I shut my eyes. With them closed, I notice I feel kind of dizzy. And kind of heavy in the forehead region. Shit.

“This will hurt,” she says. I feel her words against my cheek and then a sting that’s so intense my mouth and eyes water.

“Sorry,” she murmurs.

And then I feel her warm breath blow across my forehead. I feel her shift her weight and murmur something I can’t really hear before her finger’s dabbing something on the wound.