Chapter 16 – Ferrin
FERRIN
Air conditioning hits me along with the chime, and I keep my head down.
This was likely stupid. These places all have cameras, and I have no prosthetics on since I removed them after we got the car.
I normally wear them all the time I’m out in the world, but for some reason, I didn’t want Genevieve to see me like that.
Why I cared is beyond me, and now that vanity is costing me.
I wander the aisles as I pull up the text.
Lars: We can’t find her. The woman’s a ghost.
Lars: How the fuck are we supposed to find this bitch with old intel?
Me: It hasn’t even been a day of you searching for her, and you’re already giving up? Bullshit.
Lars: It’s a bullshit errand, and you know it. Give us real intel on how to find her. Not where she was living three years ago either.
I can’t reply to him now. It took me months to find her the first time, and I hardly have that sort of time now.
That said, I might have a way. It’s something I was planning to do after the necklace job because I didn’t have time prior to that.
I knew if I had, I’d follow that and get consumed instead of focusing on the necklace.
But now, I have time. Well, sort of.
Me: I’ll get back to you.
Lars: Not good enough. We need to meet up.
Me: I can’t.
Lars: You can, or we’ll be hunting you and the girl.
You and the girl. Motherfucker, I knew it. My jaw clenches, and I grip the back of my neck. The woman. Her mother or whatever. What’s her plan? Have them kill me and bring her back? Or kill her along with me?
Me: How do you know about her?
He doesn’t reply, and I have to imagine the idiot didn’t mean to reveal his hand that way.
There’s a reason they’re not the brains, just the brawn and technical stuff.
They live like frat boys in the middle of a suburb, intimidating the neighbors and paying off whomever they have to.
They think they’re invincible. But if this woman didn’t steal the tiara from my safe in their home, she’d have no way of linking us together.
Her sister wouldn’t know who I am. She never saw me. Never met me. And she’d have no clue how to reach them.
This woman did, and she knew I had the tiara.
The stakes keep getting higher, and I don’t like any of it.
I spin around and squint out the glass of the front of the store until I find her in the car with her focus out the window as it has been. Why didn’t I walk away from her this morning? Why can’t I walk away from her now?
I make myself a coffee, pay for it, and sip it as I watch her from inside.
There’s no way I’ll get my necklace back without killing her mother because there’s no way I’d get close to the cottage without her knowing, and in all likelihood, she’s waiting there so she doesn’t miss the girl or her chance at me.
It’s what I’d do. Especially now that she’s locked in with Sven and Lars, who will do her hunting for her. So what now? I have a target on my back, and who knows about Genevieve.
Frustrated, I chuck my coffee cup into the waste bin, grab a bag of frozen peas and two ice cream bars, pay, then leave.
The car door slams behind me, and I release a silent breath.
She’s staring at me. I can feel her eyes, but I can’t meet them yet.
I’ve never warred with such strong fight-or-flight emotions before.
It’s always been one or the other. Never both at the same time.
I hand the peas and one of the ice creams to Genevieve as I back out of the spot and head toward the exit of the station.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Eat the ice cream and put the peas on your face over your cut.”
She eyes the ice cream like I handed her poison, and I smile to myself. The girl doesn’t even know what an ice cream bar is. I like that she doesn’t blindly trust me, even if she is here with me despite knowing what I’ve done and what I’m capable of.
“Go on,” I urge. “You’ll like it.”
“This isn’t some god-awful, gross thing you’re about to feed me as an evil prank, is it?”
“You honestly don’t know what ice cream is?”
“I know what ice cream is, but in the book, I read it was green, and the villain hid bugs in it.”
I make a gagging sound as I pull us back onto the road. It’s a four-lane route, two going south, two going north, with nothing but flat, open land for the next twenty or so kilometers.
“This isn’t that, princess. I promise. But if you’re too chickenshit to try it, we can throw it out.”
“Chickenshit? I have chickens at the cottage, and let me tell you, chickens aren’t afraid of much. They’ll peck your eyes out if you look at them funny.”
“Noted, but I’m still throwing down a gauntlet. Is this one challenge you can’t meet?”
She glares. “Are you trying to make me take out your spleen with your knife?”
I laugh. “You don’t know what ice cream is, but you know what a spleen is?”
She shrugs. “I don’t see you eating yours.”
“Fine. I’ll go first since you’re so untrusting.
” I unwrap mine and take a bite, the crunch of the chocolate shell and the cold of the vanilla ice cream is a shock, but a sweet, delicious one.
I don’t remember the last time I had an ice cream either.
Not often, and never as a kid. We were poor, and ice cream was a luxury, but I still knew what it was and had tasted it. “See. Delicious.”
I take another bite while I drive one-handed. The ice cream is already starting to melt, and this will get messy soon, but fuck it.
She unwraps the bar and takes a bite, the chocolate shell cracking, and a piece falls onto her lap as she gets to the vanilla center. Her eyes grow big, and she smiles around the bar.
“See. I didn’t trick you.” And shit, that smile. Motherfucker, that smile. I want to lick her lips to taste it and the ice cream.
“You didn’t trick me,” she concedes as she does a little happy wiggle and digs in for more, picking up the fallen pieces and licking at all the droopy cream before it can drip.
I’m not watching the road. Not carefully. Good thing it’s straight with not a lot of cars around, because I can’t take my eyes off her.
“Does that mean you trust me?”
The shell is gone, and now it’s only the vanilla on her stick and she’s licking and sucking and yeah… Not only can I not stop watching her, but I’m also hard as fucking stone. Again. This girl has me on a hair trigger.
“Not even a little. Even if this might be the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
“Oh, princess, it’s early yet.”
How brows scrunch. Once again, she’s adorably confused by my innuendo that’s falling flat. “Huh?”
“Nothing. Keep eating before it melts all over the car.”
I go back to my ice cream and force my fucking eyes back to the road.
“Thank you for this. It was such a nice treat after the morning I had.” Her mouth is coated in vanilla and chocolate, and she’s all smiles and wonderment, and she’s looking at me like I’m her hero. Like I’m not the villain she knows me to be.
Warmth spreads through me, and I lean over and lick the corner of her lips.
She jumps back, and so do I, my eyes now as wide and round as hers. Shit. “I…” Don’t know why I did that. I’ve never impulsively done anything, let alone licked a woman. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Because I didn’t.
I was thinking about what she said and wondering what the ice cream would taste like on her lips and…
“Pull over,” she demands, her tone insistent.
My head swivels between the road and her. “Why?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“Gen—”
“Do it, Rhys.”
Fuck. She’s either going to get out and bolt or punch me in the face.
I pull over to the breakdown lane and throw the car in park, but before I can turn to her, she rolls down the window, tosses both of our ice creams out, then grabs my face and kisses me.