Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(48)

He looked worried, scared, gorgeous. She tried to breathe. Safe place, her milk white ass. She laughed so hard it started her crying. He ended up hugging her, and she was too far gone to fight him off.

“I just can’t be in a place like this,” she gasped out. “I’ll go crazy.”

He glanced around at the terrifying, appalling nothing around them. Trees, bugs, rocks, sky. “What’s this?” he asked. “A place that’s wild, clean? Safe? What the f*ck is not to like about this place?”

“The reason I’ve survived is because I’ve stayed on the move!” she yelled. “I’m like a shark that can’t stop swimming or I’ll die! I can’t just look at the view while I wait for them to come beat me to death!”

“They won’t.” His voice was low, soothing. “I won’t let them. No one knows about it. No one saw us come. My friends will come get us. I have a plan. We can have a meal, a shower. A nap. Is a nap so terrible?”

“I don’t have time for a f*cking nap!” she howled.

“You needed that one you took just now,” he said triumphantly. “And you could use another one, where someone is sitting by the bed with a loaded gun. How long has it been since you relaxed?”

She goggled at him. “Loaded gun? Excuse me? You mean to say you have one of those? On your person?”

He looked impatient. “Of course, thanks to Aaro. More than one.”

“And you know how to use them?”

His chest vibrated, plastered against hers. “Spare me, Lily.”

“When pigs fly! Loaded guns are not items that I find relaxing!”

“You are so f*cking hard to please. I don’t know if it came across in your research, but I’m actually above average in intelligence. I can think my way out of a paper bag, and I can handle a gun. So chill.”

“But if I’m not doing something, I’ll go crazy!”

“So I’ll just keep you really busy,” he said.

She wasn’t sure quite how to take that statement, so she ignored it entirely. “I’m just so goddamn scared,” she whispered.

“Trust me,” he said, unexpectedly, and scooped her into his arms.

“Hey! Stop that!” She flopped and twisted.

“You can’t walk in those shoes, and you can’t go barefoot, either,” he said. “You’ll freeze your feet. Stop wiggling.”

He set her down on the small porch and fiddled with the padlocks on the doors. He’d done it again. Teased her through a screaming meltdown and out the other side. And he’d known her for, whaa few hours? They’d found their groove. He wasn’t afraid of her.

Wouldn’t last long, though. It never did. She never made it easy for guys. She eventually scared them or intimidated them or pissed them off or threatened their masculinity. She was a difficult proposition for a relationship in the best of times. And this was the very worst.

Look what a prize she’d been so far. Jerking him around, lying to him, spying on him, using him. Leading hit men to him. Getting him attacked, almost killed. Getting him in trouble with the law. Costing him shocking amounts of money. He was going to get sick of it.

How depressing. It made her guts feel sour. Hah. Like she had the requisite brain cells to stress about her romantic prospects right now.

At least, the sex was, well, incendiary. A point in her favor. Guys weighed sex heavily in the balance. It was a big priority for them.

That thought perked her right up.

Snick, the lock gave. Bruno pushed the door open into a black, stifling cave. She was blinded as she stepped inside to the scent of woodsmoke and dust. Bruno opened the shutters, jerked a curtain aside, revealing a double bed swathed in plastic. Bedding was bound up in plastic bags as well. Her eyes adjusted to see him dragging blankets out of one of the bags. Laying one down on top of the plastic bed cover.

“Lie down,” he said. “Cover yourself up while I get things going. The fire, the propane water heater. Some food.”

“I can help,” she offered.

“It’ll go quicker if I do it alone. I’ve got the choreography of this place down. You rest, get warm. Relax.”

Relax, her ass. Like she ever had, in her whole life, with her complicated baggage. And this was even before killers closed in. She sat on the bed. Bruno plucked off her shoes, scooping her legs up. He tossed another blanket on top of her.

He got to work on making the place habitable.

The blankets were fuzzy and thick, but she was stone cold from the inside. She huddled into a ball and watched him, teeth chattering.

Bruno kept looking over at her as he built a fire in the stove. When the flames were crackling, he came over to the bed, flung off his jacket, kicked off his shoes, and slid under the blanket with her.

Her glands went bananas. The bed creaked under his weight. Plastic crackled. He smelled like salt, sweat, the coppery tang of blood, and under that, his own special Bruno smell. He hugged her. The release of tension in her body was cataclysmic. It felt so good, so hot.

“You’re freezing,” he said, his voice disapproving.

“Yeah, well,” she said. “You’re helping.”

“Not fast enough.” He rolled over right on top of her, squashing the breath out of her. The bed sagged, creaked. “That better?”