Page 35 of Tattooed Vow

“Is that what I am now? A responsibility?” Her voice carries a challenge, but beneath it, I hear the question she is really asking:What am I to you?

I don’t answer. I can’t. Putting words to what thrums between us will make it real, and real things can be lost. Destroyed. I've seen too many people I care about end up in shallow graves. Sandy isn’t going to be one of them.

“That's not what I said,” I mutter, returning to my drink.

“You didn't have to.” She moves away from the window, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor. “I've seen how you look at me when you think I don't notice. Like I'm a problem you can't solve.”

My laugh is bitter. “Trust me, I understand the problem perfectly.”

“And what problem is that?” She takes defiant a step closer.

Lightning flashes, illuminating the stubborn set of her chin. God, she’s beautiful when she is angry. Beautiful and dangerous to herself, to me, to everything I'd built.

“The problem,” I say, my voice rougher than it should be, “is that you don't belong here. In this life. With me.”

She looks away first, moving back to the couch and plopping down with exaggerated casualness. “Well. Since we’re trapped here and can’t kill anyone yet, maybe we should play something. You know, to pass the time.”

I recognize the deflection. She’s changing the subject, pulling back from the edge we've been dancing along. Part of me is relieved. The other part wants to push her, to see how far we can fall together.

I give her a skeptical glance. “Like what?”

She leans over and pulls a battered checkerboard from the lower shelf of the coffee table. “You any good at losing gracefully?”

I snort quietly, settling opposite her as she sets up the game. “You assume I’ll lose.”

Sandy smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You look like the type who takes his wins seriously.”

“I look like a lot of things,” I mutter.

She doesn’t ask what I mean. Maybe she already knows.

The wooden checkers clack softly against the board as she arranges them neatly. Her fingers move with delicate efficiency. I can’t stop thinking about how they clung to my shoulders last night, desperate, trembling, pulling me closer. Hands like that have no business touching someone like me, soaked in violence and regret.

We play silently at first. I keep my eyes on the board, trying like hell to pretend I don’t want to taste her soft lips, don’t want to pull her into my lap and bury my hands in her hair.

She catches me watching her again when she reaches for her wine.

“You stare a lot,” she says without looking at me.

“Do I?”

“Yes,” she replies matter-of-factly.

I shrug. “Maybe you’re just always in my line of sight.”

Her expression lifts with amusement, a smirk tugging at her lips. “You could sit somewhere else.”

I lean forward, my elbows resting on my knees. “But then I’d miss the view.”

Sandy blinks, and for a second, I see it. That flicker of heat. The desire she tries so hard to hide. But it disappears as quickly as it comes.

She moves her piece and takes mine. “King me.”

“Blyat,” I mutter. “You’re more dangerous than half the men I’ve interrogated.”

She sips her wine, and the glass presses delicately to her lips. “That’s because I don’t need to use fists to get what I want.”

I watch her throat work as she swallows. My blood roars in my ears. She’s too close. The cabin is too quiet. The storm outside rages, but inside, the tension is worse.

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