Not so dead on the inside after all. 

“Does Fionn know too?” she asks, her gaze angled away from me toward the open expanse of land and sky.

“About our…hobbies? Our game?” She nods, and I give her hand a light squeeze. “Yeah, he knows.”

“But he’s a doctor. Our idea of fun is kind of the antithesis of his life’s work.”

I shrug before I give a nod toward the sign for the upcoming exit. The tension in her hand eases. “Let’s just say my brothers and I didn’t have the most conventional upbringing even after we left that shithole of my father’s house. Between Lachlan’s ruthlessness and my recklessness, Fionn has no blinders on when it comes to the darker shades of life. He’s chosen his own path like we always hoped he would. But he accepts what Lachlan and I have become, just like we accept him.”

“Your path,” Sloane says. “How did you find it?”

“You mean the restaurant?” I ask, but when I glance at Sloane she shakes her head, her gaze honed on my face like she’s absorbing every nuance. “After my father attacked us for the last time, when Lachlan and I killed him, I realized I didn’t feel what I probably should about doing something like that. Most people would feel guilt. But I felt rush of excitement when it was happening. Accomplishment when it was over. There was peace in knowing he would never come back. And when I met someone else that reminded me of him a short while later, I realized there was nothing stopping me from doing it again. There was always a next person. Someone worse. Eventually, it became a kind of sport, to find the worst person I could and wipe them off the planet forever.”

Sloane hums a thoughtful note and turns her gaze toward the gas station ahead. I want to know the same kinds of things about her. How did she get to this? What happened before and after her first kill? Does she really have no one other than Lark? But with Sloane, I already know she shares when she’s ready, not when she’s asked. I can only hope she’ll be a little more ready now.

We pull into the gas station and I park far from the building where she’s less likely to be spotted, cutting the engine before I turn to her. “I’ll leave the keys with you, just in case.”

Sloane’s gaze flicks to the dash and back to me. Something softens in the pain still rampant in her bloodshot eyes. “Okay.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She nods, and I nod in return.

I try to take as little time as possible in the gas station, scooping up water and soft drinks and an assortment of snacks, along with a few things that will hopefully make Sloane more comfortable. I’m pleasantly surprised when the vehicle is where I left it, Sloane watching every step I take from behind the windscreen. Her deep breath and flicker of a smile don’t go unnoticed when I open her passenger door.

“I thought this was fitting,” I say. I snap the tag from a distressed gray trucker cap before handing it to her. ‘Sounds like bullshit to me’, the cursive script says across the front.

“Accurate,” she replies, centering it on her head before she takes the cheap aviators I pass to her next, clutching them in her good hand.

“This next part is probably going to hurt like a bastard.” I pull a button-up shirt from my bag and she lets go of a heavy sigh, frowning at the creased fabric. “We’ll cut it off when we get to Fionn’s.”

Sloane makes no argument, just glances down at her injured arm that lies limp and useless over the blanket before she gives a single nod.

I remove the melted ice pack from beneath her bra strap first, watching as her eyes press closed and her lower lip slides between her teeth. When I take her injured hand and guide the sleeve past her wrist, she lets out a pained whimper, a flush climbing up her neck and into her cheeks. I keep going, even though I know I’m the one causing her to suffer just by helping her put on a fucking shirt. I try to push away the thought that the whole thing is because of me, this whole stupid game, her busted shoulder, her battered face. But I tamp those thoughts down because she needs me, and the only thing that matters now is to get her help.

Once I slide the shirt over her bad shoulder, the task becomes easier. She’s able to twist her body enough to get her other arm in without too much trouble, and then I drop to a crouch to do the buttons up for her.

“Thank you,” she whispers through ragged breaths as I start the first button. I glance up at her face, a pretty flush brightening her cheeks beneath a thin film of sweat. “That sucked.”

“You did good,” I say. My fingers graze her stomach near her pierced navel as I thread the next button through the hole. I didn’t mean to touch her but I have zero regrets, especially when she responds with a little shiver. Her exposed skin pebbles, and when I look up, Sloane’s hazel eyes are fused to mine, her pulse humming in her neck as my gaze falls to her throat. I’m faintly aware that my fingers are slowing around the third button, the need to touch and taste her skin dulling every other thought behind a hazy film of desire. My cock strains against my zipper and I let my gaze travel down the slope of her collarbone, resting on the smooth skin of her chest as it rises and falls with rapid breaths. I follow the line of her bra to where the edge of the shirt is folded open, exposing the stained white satin.

And then I stop dead, all the world narrowing to the point of her nipple.

Her pierced nipple.

I can distinctly make out the shape of a heart around the firm peak and a tiny ball on either side.

That was not there the first time we met. I know that. I know it because my internal monologue was punctuated by the words ‘no bra’ every two minutes from the second she walked out of that bathroom at Albert Briscoe’s.

I think my hands have stopped moving. Can’t really be sure. I’m just staring at that little heart as my mouth goes dry and my cock goes hard as fucking stone.

A sudden flicker of motion breaks the spell as Sloane unfolds the sunglasses with a snap of her wrist.

“Something caught your eye, pretty boy?” she asks.

Those lips. That dimple. That fucking smirk. She slides the sunglasses on with a wink before her hazel eyes disappear behind the mirrored lenses, and then she’s slipping past me, all curves and sass as she tugs the shirt down enough to cover her bra before she saunters away to the gas station.

Goddamn.

I am going to have so much fucking fun punishing her.

It’s ten minutes later when she returns to the hatchback and I’m still sitting here with a raging hard-on, immersed in fantasies of how I’m going to torture her into telling me everything about those nipple piercings. My dick has no hope of calming down with that faint grin still plastered on her face.

“You good?” she asks when she pulls off her sunglasses and slides into the passenger seat. Her eyes flick to mine as she tugs the seatbelt across her body.

“Great. Yep. Just great.”

“You sure? You want me to drive for a bit? You look a little…distracted. Wouldn’t want something shiny to grab your attention and you run us off the road.”

I shoot her a glare as I key the engine and shift into drive. “Christ alive. Let me just survive the next two hours and then we’re going to have some words.”

And I feel like that’s what I barely manage to do. Survive.

As soon as we arrive at Fionn’s house, I’m ready for a stiff drink. It’s barely noon. I text my brother as soon as we’re parked, but he doesn’t answer, so I assume he’s immersed in some of his workout shit and head around the side of the vehicle to collect Sloane. Her bruises have darkened and she looks exhausted, which I guess isn’t surprising, but she bites down on any complaints as I help her out of the car and up the front steps of Fionn’s white-and-red Cape Cod home.