Chapter 4 - Wrecker #2
JC swings his phone light on and sweeps the beam along the ground. It catches the scuff of a boot in the sandy strip that serves as a path. Another print a few feet on, toes turned slightly in. She’s moving, not fast, not straight.
“Here,” I say, pointing. “She cut left.”
We cross the shallow dip where rainwater runs after storms. Tonight it’s a ribbon of mud and reflected moon.
The creek curves and widens, then the trees fall back all at once.
We step out onto a crescent of sand and crushed shell that edges a small lake.
The water lies dark and calm, the surface broken by rings where fish kiss the top.
Moonlight spills across it like poured milk.
Cattails lean at the far bank. An old dock sags near our side, two planks missing and a tire tied off as a makeshift bumper.
The trees break and the lake spreads out in front of us, black glass under a white coin of moon. JC’s light skims the shoreline. Jeans, a shirt, one boot on its side, the other half buried in wet sand.
“Carrie,” I call. “Answer me.”
“Here,” she calls back, voice thin across the water. “By the dock.”
We reach the sagging boards and I see her, shoulders and face pale in the glow, fingers curled around a chain that hangs from the last post. Cold breath fogs the air above her mouth. Her hair slicks to her cheeks. The water kisses her collarbone and keeps rising when she slips.
I don’t think. I’m moving before my mind catches up. Nico yanks off his boots and is in the lake beside me. JC curses about shoes, then wades in anyway.
“Why do I always end up in the parts of the night that ruin my laundry,” he mutters. “Next time I’m bringing floaties.”
The cold hits like teeth and steals my breath for a beat. Then I dive and come up at her side. “I have you,” I say, and her gaze snaps to mine. Trust lands in my chest like an anchor.
Her fingers are numb on the chain, so I peel them loose, one by one.
She surges toward me with a little gasp, arms locking around my neck.
Her body slides into mine, soft curves and cold skin, and the shock of contact shoots heat through the freezing water.
My hand finds her back, then her waist. The lake has her, slick and weightless, and when she shivers, her chest presses to me.
I try to shift my grip and my palm skims the side of her breast. She inhales and I feel that breath with my mouth close to her temple.
“Easy,” I murmur, voice rougher than I want. “You’re all right.”
Nico arrives on her other side and cups her jaw. “Look at me, honey. Breathe slow. Levi has you.”
JC treads a yard away, keeping the light off her face. “Borders and boundaries, gentlemen. Get her warm first, fall in love later.”
“Later,” I say, meaning more than one thing.
Carrie’s fingers tighten at my nape. “You came,” she whispers, lips close to my ear.
“Always,” I answer before I can stop myself.
We turn her so she floats on her back. I slide one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees.
Water slicks across her stomach and hips, and she tilts into me, trusting the hold completely.
Her thigh brushes my ribs and my breath stutters.
Nico’s hand stays at her jaw, his thumb a calm stroke at her cheekbone, and for a second her eyes flutter shut like the touch soothes and ignites at once.
“Talk to me,” JC says, crouched on the dock beside us. No jokes now, just that calm focus he wears when things could tip.
Carrie drags a breath. “Cold,” she whispers. “My teeth won’t stop.”
“Any pain?” he asks. “Head, chest, cramps?”
She shakes her head and winces. “Just…tired.”
Nico squeezes water from his hair and looks past the trees toward the back of the property. “The outbuilding,” he says. “It has a cot and a space heater. Closer than the clubhouse. We take her there.”
I nod. JC is already shrugging out of his jacket to add another layer over her. Nico rises and holds out his arms. I feel the tug in my chest before I can stop it, but I pass her to him anyway. His hands are careful on her back and under her knees.
“I have you,” he tells her. She rests her cheek against his shoulder, eyes slipping closed.
We move off the dock. Sand sucks at our boots. The lake hushes behind us, the trees opening just enough to give us a path. JC swings the light ahead while I keep pace on Nico’s other side, watching the way Carrie curls in, small and shivering, held tight against him.
The outbuilding sits where the gravel lot gives way to scrub, a squat shed the Reapers use when someone needs to crash or clean up out of sight.
Tin roof. Peeling paint. A coil of extension cords by the door.
Nico kicks the threshold and I yank the door open.
The space smells like cedar shavings and old soap, with a thread of motor oil that never quite leaves anything we own.
Inside there’s a narrow cot, a beat-up dresser, and a kerosene heater with a dented guard.
JC drops to a knee and twists the valve.
The wick catches with a soft bloom of orange.
Nico lowers Carrie onto the cot and I pile blankets over her, first my cut, then JC’s jacket, then the wool throw from the dresser.
Her lips are pale, but color starts to creep back into her cheeks.
“Small sips,” JC says, passing me a bottle of water from the shelf. I hold it to her mouth. She takes a little, then a little more.
“Can you feel your toes?” I ask.
“Pins,” she murmurs. “Like they fell asleep.”
“That’s good,” JC says. “They’re waking up.”
Her gaze flicks to mine. “I’m sorry,” she says, as if any of this is her fault.
“No,” I tell her. “You do not apologize for needing help.”
Nico drags the space heater a foot closer and stands there, dripping, watching the heat move over her face. He reaches down and brushes a strand of wet hair away from her eye. It’s a small touch, gentle, more intimate than anything I should notice. I notice anyway.
JC glances at me like he hears the same thing moving in the room. He turns back to Carrie. “Stay with us. How are you feeling now?”
“Floaty,” she says. “Better.”
“Good. Keep talking.” He checks her fingers, rubs warmth into them, then into her forearms through the blanket.
I sit on the edge of the cot. My hand finds her calf under the blanket and I work heat into the cold muscle there. She exhales and her shoulders loosen. “Thank you,” she whispers. It lands low in my chest.
Nico peels off his wet shirt and wrings it into the sink, then tosses me a towel. I scrub water from my hair and hand it to JC. He dries her hands and tucks the blanket higher under her chin.
“Don’t sleep yet,” I say softly. “Give it a minute and then you can.”
Her eyes search my face. “You came,” she says again, barely a breath.
“Always,” I answer again before I can think better of it.
The heater hums and color creeps back into her cheeks. She shifts under the blankets and that’s when I realize she’s down to nothing but underwear. Heat slides through me before I can kill it. I look away and lace my fingers together to keep them still.
Her eyes find mine. “You’re staring.”
“Making sure you’re warm,” I say. It comes out rougher than I want.
She lifts a corner of the blanket, a small, wicked glint in her eyes. “I’m warmer now.”
“Carrie,” I warn, but she reaches for my wrist and guides my hand to her cheek. Her skin is cool and soft. The contact sends a current through me that has nothing to do with the heater.
“I want you,” she whispers.
“You don’t want this,” I tell her. “You’ve had a night. You’re not thinking straight.”
“Not anymore,” she says, gaze clear and fixed on me. She leans in and presses her mouth to mine. It’s a quick kiss, soft at first, then insistent. My body answers even as my mind throws up every reason to stop.
From the doorway there’s a twin scrape of throats. JC and Nico both look anywhere but at us.
Carrie gives them a mischievous smile and her fingers slide to the edge of her underwear. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she says when JC starts, “Carrie, what are you—”
She unhooks her bra and lets it fall, nipples tight under the cool air, then slides her thumbs under the waistband of her soaked panties and pushes them down her thighs. The cotton snags at one knee, then drops. She sits back on the narrow cot, plants her heels on the edge, and opens for us.
My protest dies on my mouth. Pink and glistening, trimmed hair framing slick folds, her clit peeking as if asking to be touched. Heat rolls through me so fast I have to lock my jaw.
“You’re walking a dangerous line,” Nico says, voice low.
“Am I?” she asks without looking away from me.
“You belong to our boss, Jinn,” he adds, testing her.
“Not anymore,” Carrie says, and the sound of those words is a match to dry tinder inside my chest.
She parts herself with two fingers, slow, and shows me. Inner lips swell around the press of her touch, wet catching the light. She strokes up, circles her clit in lazy, tight loops, then dips down. The sound is soft and slick and it goes straight to my spine.
“Levi,” JC warns. I hear him. I don’t move back.
“Keep looking at me,” she tells me, voice a little breathless. “I want you to see.”
I see everything. The small tremor in her thighs as she teases herself. The way her stomach pulls in when she pushes a finger inside, then two. The flutter around her knuckles when she curls them. The way her lips part on a broken inhale that makes my hands tighten uselessly at my sides.
“Tell me how it feels,” I manage.
“Hot,” she whispers. “Tight when I push in. So good when I rub here.” Her thumb finds her clit again, tiny circles, patient pressure, exactly what I would have done with my tongue. She shows me the rhythm she likes, the angle, the drag. My vision blurs at the edges.
Nico swears under his breath. JC stops breathing for a second.