Page 32 of Lights Out

I shrugged. Deranged. Protective. Same thing.

“I thought this was fake,” she said, pressing the pad of her pointer finger to the knife tip. “Jesus, that’s sharp.”

I jerked my gaze down, worried she’d cut herself, but I didn’t see any blood, so she must not have pressed too hard. I kept that thing sharp enough to slice into bone.

The light turned, bathing us in green, and reluctantly, I turned away from her and started driving again. She closed the trail mix and set it back into the lunch bag, zipping it up like she was done eating. Then she turned to put it in the back, and I caught a whiff of her floral-scented shampoo. Unable to help myself, I dragged in a deep breath. I couldn’t wait to bury my face into all that hair while I fucked her, the sound of her ragged cries filling my ears, her legs thrown over my shoulders as I bent her in half and dicked her to within an inch of her life.

I shifted in my seat, trying to ease the pressure in my jeans. Had Aly caught sight of my erection when I got out of the car? Christ, I would have been standing in the open door with it right at eye level while I scared those guys off. Whoops. Probably should have paused to consider my “situation” before my angergot the better of me, but the rage had taken hold too fast for rational thought to stand a chance.

I glanced over at Aly. The street I’d turned onto had fewer overhead lights, but it was still bright enough to see that she was staring straight at my crotch. She’d seen, all right, and from the way her brows crept up her forehead, she was either impressed or concerned. Hopefully, a bit of both.

An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but something in her expression stopped me. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to my mask and bit her lower lip. She needed to quit doing that if she knew what was good for her.

“I want to see it,” she said.

No, she didn’t, fuckwit,I told myself.

Surely, I’d hallucinated that declaration. I wanted Aly so badly that I’d slipped out of reality and was now living in a make-believe world where the woman I lusted after asked me to whip my dick out while driving.

“Please,” she added.

I jerked my head sideways to look at her, disbelieving, and the car slid a little on a patch of ice. I whipped forward again and straightened us out. I’d grown up in the frigid north, and driving in shitty conditions was second nature, but I hated that my distraction had almost cost us.

“I can do it for you,” she said, and something cold pressed into my side.

I glanced down. Aly still had the knife, and she was using the tip of it to drag the hem of my shirt up.

Oh, shit. Why was that so hot?

“All this time, you’ve been trying to reassure me that I’m safe with you,” she said, sliding the blunted side of the blade higher. “But did you ever stop to consider whether or notyouwere safe withme?”

I nearly groaned. Aly in her villain era? I would bankrupt myself for front-row tickets to that show.

And yes, I had considered what she asked, which was why I’d taken the bullets out of the gun. I couldn’t bring myself to replace the knife with a fake, though, and maybe that would be my downfall. If so, I’d probably die with a dopey smile on my face while she carved me up.

But I didn’t think it would come to that. There was nothing in her therapist’s notes to indicate that Aly suffered from homicidal tendencies. I didn’t doubt that she was angry but angry enough to hurt me? Nah. Scare me a little, maybe, and I was now, because if she turned that blade around, my skin would part like a tide for Moses.

I carefully reached around the knife and hauled my shirt up so she could get a better look at my rig. Sitting down wasn’t the ideal way to show my body off, but I’d take any attention from her that I could get, so I leaned back in my seat a little and let her take her fill of me.

She giggled.

Not the response I was hoping for.

“Sorry,” she said. “But I was just thinking, what if one of these storefronts has CCTV?”

I glanced out the windshield at the narrow street around us and all the mom-and-pop stores crowded next to each other along it.

“Imagine checking your camera in the morning and seeing a masked man driving with his shirt hiked to his nipples and a woman holding a knife to his stomach?”

I wheezed out a voiceless laugh, caught off guard.

She chuckled again, but a second later, her humor faded, and she released a heavy exhale. “I know I’ve already told you this a thousand times in so many embarrassingly inappropriate ways, but you have a beautiful body.”

This was more like it.

Wary of the knife at my side, I reached over and took her free hand, placing it on my stomach. Skin-to-skin contact at last. Sweet god, yes.

Her fingers were warm as they rested on me, and I was starting to wonder if she’d lost her nerve because of how long she kept them there when suddenly they shifted, bumping down over my abs.

---