Page 42 of Hide and Keep

Does he mean in this moment? Or in general? Neither is easy to explain.

“Eighty-seven.”

I give him a blank stare.

“That’s how many mousetraps I found in the guesthouse.”

Oh. He missed a few.

“You wanted to know what else I was capable of.”

“Is that it? Is that all you fucking got?”

Trying not to look at the silhouettes swooping over our heads, I lazily shrug a shoulder.

His green gaze narrows. “Are you high?”

“Drugs are strictly prohibited in cheer. And unlike you, I actually respect my team enough not to jeopardize my spot on it.”

“Unlike me?”

I shake him off and step forward to say in his face, “Unlikeyou.”

Understanding dawns, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped it’d be.

“I see. You think you know me because you looked me up.” Those eyes ping back and forth between mine. “You don’t know shit.”

“I know I’m leaving and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, murderer.”

With one arm out to the side, he stops me when I try to pass. “What’d you say?”

I regard his arm against my waist, then his profile. The muscle in his jaw jumps as he stares straight ahead.

Is he really going to make me say it again? I already regret the word leaving my lips once.

“Murderer,” I repeat, shame eating away at my insides until I feel like I might puke.

Crue lets out a humorless laugh as he rotates his head to finally meet my eyes, and I see the pain he’s working to conceal. All I want to do is take his face in my palms and apologize, not just for calling him a murderer but for everything I’ve done and said to him today.I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Crue Brantley. If you’d just leave, it would all stop.

For him. I’ll still be in my own personal hell. But at least he won’t be here with me.

My hands find themselves behind my back, my fingers writhing against one another.Don’t do it. Don’t touch him.

“No, not the name,” he says a little too dismissively. “The part about me not being able to stop you.”

That arm at my stomach hooks, then Crue’s hefting me off my feet and carrying me—one-armed—back toward the house. The closer we get, the fainter the music from Paris’s car becomes. She’s waiting for me.

I buck in his hold, but he brings me against his front, wrapping his other arm around my chest, too, restricting mymovement. If I were taller, he wouldn’t be able to carry me like this, my feet would be dragging, but since I’m about a foot shorter, my toes don’t even skim the ground.

I eye his bicep flexed next to my face.

“If you even think about biting me, remember you’re not the only one with teeth,” he warns.

A shiver runs up my spine. Would he bite me back? Where? The only place he could reach right now is my face…or my neck.

Warmth floods my pussy, making me ache between my thighs.

“If you do that, I won’t need to go out and find someone else.”

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