Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
I hate fires.
“Oh god. Not this!”
When we had career day in high school, I went with the fire department and quickly confirmed that I like water. Not flames. And definitely not smoke. After our demonstration of controlled burns, I had a whole new appreciation for people who do that job. Other people.
So, what the heck am I doing?
“Come on!” I smack my wet rain coat on a burning computer. “You are not burning this building down!”
A rush of air races across my skin, making me scream.
My body is suddenly airborne and there’s a steel band wrapped around my waist.
My scream morphs into a yell. “Let me?—”
“It’s me. ”
An announcement I don’t need because in the midst of screaming and yelling for him to let me go, I got a hit of his scent. My new favorite addiction.
Warm, earthy and apparently the best things my ovaries have ever smelled.
“Wait, no!” I shout when I realize he’s carrying me outside.
“Aria, hold still!”
“No! I’m putting out the fire. We have to?—”
Scout plants me on the sidewalk, growls something I can’t understand and stalks off.
I race after him.
He spins around and shoves a finger in my face. “You will wait outside.”
“I want to help you!”
He growls, his icy eyes slice me as he grabs my wrist. “Goddamn, I don’t understand you, woman.”
He practically drags me through the building, grabs a fire extinguisher on the way, and goes to the office where the burning computer smells like an environmental disaster in the making.
Like some kind of expert, he puts the fire out in five seconds flat using the industrial-sized extinguisher. All while making it look like the gigantic canister weighs nothing.
Why didn’t I think to do that?
Then he turns to look at me.
I shrink back. He looks unhinged.
“You didn’t tell me you are Griff’s baby sister.”
My blinking is probably a clue I have no idea what he’s talking about. His comment is so out of left field my poor overworked brain can’t computer. I mean compute.
Much like the smoking desktop’s carcass, my wiring is shot.
Waiting for me to do something, he just pins me with his arctic ferocity.
I offer a nervous shrug. “I didn’t know I needed to tell you that.”
He walks past me without a word.
Jesus. This guy!
I need an app that interprets glares, grunts, and weird loaded silences.
Fueled by anger, I follow him back toward the front of the building. When he stops suddenly, I have to jump to the side to avoid slamming into his gigantic back.
His voice is a low growly tone. “Did you…”
When I see what he’s looking at, I cringe. The rock and a lot of broken glass.
“I had to break the window.”
With a slow shake of his head, he tugs off his hat. “And did you set the computer on fire for heat?”
“What?” I gasp. “Oh my god, no! There was a lightning strike.”
He swivels his gaze toward me. It’s silver as the moon and full of disbelief.
I hold up my hand, scout’s honor style. “I’m serious, the building got struck.”
He puts his hat back on and tugs it down so his eyes are in shadow again.
How can he make me feel so confused and so guilty with one slicing look?
Even though I don’t owe him a thing, the man can probably get a confession out of a tin can.
I throw up both hands. “I got left behind. I was sick of being in the rain and I couldn’t sleep in the plane. That’s just too… I don’t know how to explain exactly, but the idea of getting in that plane is too much. And I couldn’t get in that other truck.”
After repressing a gag, I say, “Double ick. So… I convinced myself there must be a vending machine in here. I was starving. Then a bolt of lightning hit the building. And the computer caught on fire.”
He walks off.
Again.
I stare at his very fine, very masculine butt as he disappears down a hallway.
What the hell? Extra what the hell?
He just walked off and I was officially undressing the man with my eyes.
The sound of breaking glass makes me jump.
When he emerges from wherever he was, he throws something at me.
Plastic crinkles when it bounces off my chest and lands on the floor.
The only light in the building is from a small emergency exit sign which must have a battery because I’m pretty sure the electrical system in the place would be fried.
But I can see that package as clear as day.
“Oreos!” A laugh bursts out of me. “I want to kiss you right now. These are going to taste like heaven.”
My stomach lets out a grumble as I grab the pack off the floor and climb up to sit on the desk like I own the place. Not the crazy woman I feel like.
I’m so excited to eat, I can hardly get the wrapper open.
"I haven’t had these in ages. Who would have guessed they’d have them in Vandemora?”
He makes a gruff sound. When I glance at him, he’s tearing open a package of Twinkies with his teeth. Staring at me.
Right at me.
Oh… Ah.
Yeah, that’s not sexy. Not at all.
Lie, girl, lie.
My face suddenly feels like it’s windburned.
Scout burned.
I’m losing it over here. Maybe it’s my blood sugar.
Thank god, I finally win the battle and get the wrapper open. Otherwise I might melt into a puddle and flow off the desk onto the floor.
Keeping my head down, I carefully take a bite of a cookie, restraining myself so I don’t scarf it like a piggy, even though I want to inhale those little cream filled devils.
That would be mortifying.
I duck my head and chew, making sure to keep my mouth closed, my groans of pleasure at bay, and my hand tight on the other cookies so I don’t have to eat them off the floor if they fall.
Because I would.
I so would.
Scout would probably tell my brother. I’d never live that down.
When I pop the second cookie in my mouth, I close my eyes and savor it. So freaking good.
The lunch I ate when we stopped to refuel the plane was burned up hours ago. All the stress didn’t help. I probably plowed through five-thousand calories alone when I was fighting that horrible man.
The man Scout took out.
Ooof.
Okay, no thinking about that whole nightmare .
Think about chocolate.
Or chocolate food product and white waxy filling that somehow works its way into your heart and not in the heart disease way. The way where you can’t explain why seeing the package just makes you happy…
Humans are weird.
I’m squarely included in that camp and I’m thinking Scout is too since he’s making a sound of pleasure in his throat as he eats Twinkies. A lot of them.
When he’s finished, he mutters, “Fuck, I needed that.”
I crumple up the empty Oreo wrapper and look over at him…
Just in time to watch him face plant on the floor.