Zelda
Sawyer steps out of the car and closes the driver’s side door behind him. I can’t take my eyes off him as he comes around the front of the vehicle and stands by the passenger side window. My heart beats up into my throat. His face is hard and focused, and he jabs a finger down toward the lock.
But I can’t take it.
I push the door open and he leaps back to make room. “What are you—?”
I’m with him in one step, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling his face toward mine. Our lips crash together. He tastes like sweet wine and winter, something hot and cold all at once.
It takes him one heartbeat to react, and then his hands wrap around the back of my head, holding me tightly, and his tongue demands entry into my mouth.
It’s so hot, so unrestrained, and it feels so right, that I can’t hold back the moan that rises up out of me.
The heat and wetness that’s still aching between my legs pulses, and I press my hips up against the hardness of his body.
He backs me up until my spine is pressed against the back door of the car and leans into it, the cool metal a sharp contrast from his body heat, and I want him to get back in the car with me, right now.
Instead, he breaks the kiss, tugging me upright and then sliding his hands down over my shoulders and to my waist before letting go. He holds the back of his hand to his lips, and when he looks at me again, his eyes burn like flowing lava right into my center.
“Shit,” he says, turning his head to look down the street, first one way, and then the other. “Holy shit.”
It takes him inhaling a big, long, steadying breath to collect himself, and then he puts a hand on the passenger side door handle. “Fifteen minutes.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. My entire body is trembling with need and fear. I don’t know what his job is, but most of me, in this moment, doesn’t care. All I care about is that he gets it over with quickly and gets back to me as fast as he can.
I slide into the car and sit, pulling my legs in, being careful not to smash the bag of food. He shuts the door behind me, and then shoves his hands into his pocket and waits. I reach up and press down on the lock button, and all the locks in the car click into place.
“Fifteen minutes.” I voice it through the window, and he gives me a sharp nod, then turns away.
Sawyer doesn’t rush toward the house, but his walk is purposeful.
He’s a man with somewhere to go, somewhere to be.
I keep my eyes fixated on him as he strides down the sidewalk toward a blue house that definitely could use a fresh coat of paint.
He doesn’t raise a hand to knock on the door. Instead, he opens it and steps inside.
I sag back into my seat and put my fingertips to my lips. They’re a little puffy with the intensity of his kisses, but it feels so good. I’m wet, too, and I press my thighs together, trying to contain myself.
The high from the kiss—oh, my God, a hell of a first kiss—lasts for five minutes, but as the quiet around the car sets in, the warmth starts to wear off.
It’s not actually getting colder inside the car.
I don’t think it is, anyway. That doesn’t stop me from wrapping my coat a little tighter around my shoulders.
Six minutes. Sawyer has nine more minutes to get back here.
I try to force myself to relax, but I can’t.
I lean forward, toward the dashboard, eyes glued to the house.
Is that a shadow in one of the upper windows?
Irritation spikes in my chest. Damn these people with curtains.
On the other hand, lingering too long thinking about what Sawyer’s job actually is makes my stomach turn over. He’s not a killer.
No. He’s not a killer, but I take another look around and the sensible me hits with full force. He’s not a killer, but we’re in a shady part of town at nine in the evening, and he walked into someone’s house without knocking.
It didn’t matter to me before what he did, not when I was getting off on thoughts of him as I was lying in my bed in the safety of my parents’ basement, but now that I’m sitting in his car parked by the curb in a neighborhood I’ve never been to, this detail matters a lot more.
A drug dealer? That wouldn’t exactly be security.
Was he lying when he told me he worked in security?
I knew he was hiding something, but I didn’t think he was telling me a total lie.
But this kind of house, in this kind of neighborhood, it’s obviously not a legitimate and legal business he’s working for, is it?
I resolve to make him tell me as soon as he gets back.
Seven minutes.
Eight.
I grip my phone tightly in my hand. The minutes are going by too quickly.
I don’t want to have to drive away without him.
What the hell would have happened to him if he’s not back in time and I have to drive away?
I open up my social media apps and scroll through the feeds without a single thing registering to me.
A sharp tap on the window inches from my head makes me jump so high my head almost hits the roof of the car.
My first instinct is to turn my head away, pretending to hide from whoever’s knocking, as if it’s a bad dream, but I force myself to turn and look. I didn’t see anyone coming from the front of the car. I should have been paying more attention.
The guy outside my window isn’t Sawyer. It isn’t anyone I know, and when he grins at me, my blood goes cold. His teeth are crooked, but perfectly white. The look in his eyes turns my stomach.
“Hey, sweetheart.” His voice is nothing like Sawyer’s, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I take a deep breath. The car is locked. I glance down to confirm. Yes. It’s locked.
I give him a tight-lipped smile and look forward, hoping he’ll go on to wherever he’s headed, but he taps again on the window, louder this time.
“Who are you with?”
What kind of person goes up to random cars parked on the street and starts questioning people? What kind of neighborhood is this?
I swallow hard. “A friend.”
“Where is he?”
I don’t know what this is about. Please go away.
“I said, where is he?” The smile vanishes, and he’s yelling now. It doesn’t sound any less threatening from behind the glass.
“He had to run and get something.” It takes everything I have not to start crying. “He's coming back any minute now.”
“You shouldn’t be out here.” The angry expression on this asshole’s face—this towering, too-thin asshole—is replaced by a smile that’s so disgusting, I’m almost sick to my stomach. “You should come with me.”
“Go away.”
He laughs. “It’s not a good neighborhood, sweetheart. You’re not safe out here.”
How long has it been? I don’t dare take my eyes off him, don’t dare look at my phone. I’m in a dress. What if he tries to get in while I’m climbing into the driver’s seat?
I open my mouth to tell him to go away again, but that’s when he takes his hand away from his side.
He’s holding a big chunk of concrete. It looks like it came from the curb.
What the hell?
I can feel the blood drain from my face, but I can’t force any words out as he lifts the concrete up in both hands. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, he’s going to break the window and kidnap me. Oh, my—
I take in a big breath to scream, but then a hand wraps around the guy’s wrist and the concrete drops from his hands, right onto his foot.
“Fuck!” He shouts the word, but there’s worse coming, because Sawyer changes his grip, one hand tearing to grab the front of his shirt, the other speeding toward the guy’s face with a precision that would look almost beautiful if it wasn’t so scary.
The punch connects, and the guy’s head snaps to the side, but Sawyer isn’t done. He has the guy by the shoulders like a rag doll, and he brings a knee up into his gut, once, twice, three times. I get a glimpse of Sawyer’s face. It’s stone-cold, emotionless.
He’s going to kill him.
I barely have time to think the thought before Sawyer takes one of the guy’s wrists in his hands and wrenches it backward, pinning it up high on the guy’s back.
“Stop!” It’s a painful cry, but Sawyer doesn’t stop.
He walks the guy down the block, toward the house he was at.
I can’t make out his words, but I know he’s saying something to the guy, as he’s shoving him forward.
When I think he’s walking him out of sight to finish him off, he gives the guy’s arm another hard wrench.
Another cry of pain that I can hear all the way in the car.
Then Sawyer drops him to the ground where the guy curls up into a ball.
Sawyer turns his back on him, sprinting back to the car.
I unlock the doors when he’s three feet away from me, and he yanks open the driver’s side door and jumps in, turning on the engine with one last violent motion. Then his blue eyes are on mine and his hands are on my face.
“Are you okay?”
“Sawyer,” I gasp, and it takes me a full minute to fill in the gaps in my brain. “What the hell was that?”