“Unequivocal?”
His laugh consumed his beautiful face. “The only thing unequivocal is the barrage of .40 caliber holes in our jeep.”
“Fine. Send me the bill. I like the carbine.” I also liked the view, muscle after perfectly designed muscle. If there were a God, He knew how to architect a body.
He slid under the covers and wrapped all that muscle around me. “Still mad at me for shooting the bugs into the water with us?”
“Definitely.”
“Good.” Lids lifting, his gaze heated. “You’re fucking sexy when you’re mad. And you have ten seconds to get out of those clothes.”
My breath caught. He was domineering and handsome and oh, how that made me want him. “I should make you beg.” I shed my clothes in five.
He groaned, and the sound jolted the place already throbbing below my waist. He raised the sheet, eyes dark with lust. “Come here. I want to test a theory.”
I rolled against him, drawing in his comforting scent of Cavendish tobacco. “If this theory involves you and me naked in bed, you have my full attention.”
His hard body tucked against my soft one. “I’ve noticed a pattern.” He coiled his arms around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “When we sleep like this, skin to skin, you don’t wake with night terrors.”
Huh. Was that right? When his tongue slipped between my lips, I forgot what we were testing.
Over the next few days, Joel rigged a system to convert lake water to drinking water. As the sky blushed with dawn’s sun, we stood around a tiered drum layered with gravel, sand and charcoal, each layer separated by thin cloth.
Joel didn’t even try to hide his proud grin. “I’m gonna go help Steve bring down that last barrel.” He looked at me, opened his mouth, shut it. Then he grabbed my chin and planted a kiss on my lips. “High ready while I’m gone.” He nodded to my carbine. “Finger next to the trigger, okay?”
“Roger that.”
He kissed me again and took off.
Eugene bent over the siphon, watching the water pump into a barrel strapped to a refrigerator dolly. While we waited, he cheered me with far-fetched narrations about the monstrous fish he and my father caught in the very cove we pumped from.
“Hey Evie,” Steve yelled from the house. “Can you come in a minute?”
Eugene nodded. “Go ahead.” He tapped a finger on the sidearm holstered at his hip. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, be right back.”
I flew up the ramp and stumbled into the dark basement. As I waited for my vision to adjust, a muffled moan tingled across my skin. I turned. “Joel?”
Steve stepped out of the shadows, his smile distorted from its usual easy lift. Then his arms rose. The last thing I saw was the butt of his shotgun swinging toward my face.
Well, I can kill too because now I have hate!
How many can I kill, Chino? How many?!
And still have one bullet left for me?
Arthur Laurents, West Side Story
Pied light penetrated my swollen lids. I cracked them open.
Steve knelt over me. “Good morning, beautiful.”
I groaned. Needles pulsated in my head. “What are you doing?” I tugged my arms. They were tied at my back. My ankles and knees were bound as well.
He cupped my jaw. “Shhh. Soon.” His smile threatened, hinted at something cruel, and he knew it.
When he dropped his hand, I arched my back and tilted my head. Joel lay hog-tied in the corner, his eyes pitch-black and penetrating, his mouth a pinched line.
Was this another fucking nightmare? “Are you okay?” I whispered.
He blinked and sucked in his cheeks.
“Joel?”
His lashes lowered, and his chest shuddered through a ragged breath.
“Joel? Why aren’t you talking?”
“Because,” Steve said, pacing a circle around me. “He understands the rules.”
A deep inhale helped me squash the emotion from my voice. “What are the rules?”
“Each sound he makes will be paid in blood.” A frightening grin wrenched his lips. “That would be your blood.”
I’d bet our ration of ammo that every sound he didn’t make would also be paid in the same. I rolled my head, forced my gaze to the unknown across the room. Eugene was on a ladder, drilling something into the ceiling. Several pulleys were screwed into the joists with rope laced through them.
“Eugene.” My shout inflamed the pain in my head.
Steve stood over me, framed in halos of fluorescent bulbs. “He’s busy. What do you need?”
“I want to talk to my husband. Let me go over there.”
“No fucking way.”
How the hell did they take down Joel? Mother fuckers had the advantage of surprise. He trusted them, and they used it against us.
I lay on my side and waited for Steve’s hovering shadow to float away.
Joel’s eyes burned into mine and I furrowed my brows, let him read the question there. What was the plan?
His gaze jerked between me and the clatter on the other side of the room. His lips formed words, soundless and careful. “Your. Pack. In. Boat. Go.”