Page 20 of Need Him Like Oxygen

“Yogurt,” she decided. “I don’t know what warehouse it was,” she told me. “It had been abandoned for a long time. Full of beer bottles, garbage, old condoms. Looks like a hangout spot for kids or addicts who are looking for a private place to shoot up.”

There weren’t a ton of empty warehouses around. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the one she’d been attacked in.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” she said, a strange edge in her voice I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard from her before.

“Cinna, my sweet girl, are you worried about me?” I asked, a smile playing with my lips as I handed her the yogurt and a spoon.

“I don’t want to be responsible for all the local escorts being without a job,” she said, tone saccharine sweet.

“Cinna, baby, what about me makes you think I would need to pay for it?” I asked as I reached out to tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

Was that a little shiver I felt move through her at the barely-there touch?

The way her gaze immediately cut away let me think it was.

That was… interesting.

“Fine. Go get yourself killed going out alone,” she said, shrugging a shoulder.

“I’ll be extra careful just for you,” I promised her as I went to grab some more of the pain pills, leaving them with a bottle of water on the coffee table. “You’re not due yet, but I dunno how long I’m going to be, so I’m leaving them with you. Is there anything else you want me to look for?” I asked.

“My boots.”

“The flat ones or the ones with the chunky heel?” I asked.

“You know what kinds of boots I have?” she asked, pausing as she slipped some yogurt between her lips.

“Maybe if you had more than two pairs of shoes, I wouldn’t,” I told her as I slipped into my shoes before reaching into the closet to grab a gun.

“This is where I would normally say something about how if you died tomorrow, the person who would miss you the most is your personal shopper, but my head hurts too much to be witty.”

Her anxious gaze slid from me as I donned my coat to the door and back again.

She didn’t want me to leave.

But I think it had more to do with not wanting to be alone when she was in such a vulnerable condition than worrying about me going to the warehouse in the middle of the day with people all around.

I went back into the closet, finding another gun, and bringing it over to place it on the coffee table in front of her.

“I will be an hour, max,” I assured her.

“Whatever. Take your time,” she said, but she visibly relaxed at having the gun nearby.

“An hour,” I told her before turning and making my way out.

It wasn’t hard to find the building.

Especially when she left a trail of breadcrumbs all through it.

A can of mace, kicked in a corner.

A knife, the blade still flicked open, then discarded in a shuffle, judging by the human-sized area on the ground that had been wiped clean of dust and grime.

Then, finally, her boots.

The one with heels.

She must have had a gun. I’d never seen her without one. But, clearly, they must have gotten it from her at some point. Because there was no way anyone could have done that level of damage to her if she’d had a weapon on her.

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