Page 99 of Vicious

“You deserved to be mad at him.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Do I even want to know how he ended up involved with Jake the Lender?”

Her shoulders slump. “He kept borrowing money,” she says quietly. “He said he used what you gave him to pay off other loans, but I don’t think he did. I think he tried to get that… that windfall he felt he deserved after losing so much. He told them where we were to get them to stop trashing our house, like our house mattered more than our lives. I kept telling him we needed to leave, but he wouldn’t listen!” By the time she’s done speaking, her voice is higher, louder, and I can feel the pain radiating from her—physical and emotional alike.

“Shh, shh.” I kiss her forehead. “All right. Let’s both get out of these clothes and get them to dry as much as they can before the sun starts setting.” I look around the shore. “And maybe we can figure out how to light a fire. It can’t be that hard, right?”

May laughs and clutches me tighter. “It’s probably exactly that hard.”

“Just rub two sticks together,” I say, even though I doubt that’ll work. I pull away from her just a bit so I can start undressing myself. “We’ll lay our stuff down on that large rock over there. It’s probably warm from the sun. And…”

I slowly unwind my phone from my shirt. It got a little damp, but between the waterproof features and how tightly I’d wrapped it, it looks fine. I tap the screen, and it displays the time—as well as informing me that I have several missed calls.

I unlock the phone and call Drake back.

“Hey,” I say as soon as he picks up.

May is undressing too, and she stretches out on the rock neck to all of her clothes. The bandage around her waist got a little loose. The bloodstains are stark against her pale skin.

“Where the fuck are you?” Drake demands. “It’s a fucking madhouse over here, and we can’t find you. Simon is dead.”

I grimace. “Yeah. We figured. May and I are…” I glance around. “I don’t actually know. We got chased by Jake the Lender and his goon. We ended up jumping into the river to escape. Just track my phone.”

“Jumping into the… You jumped into the fucking river?” he repeats in disbelief. “Yeah, okay, we’ll track your phone. Then your girl has some explaining to do. This is a shitshow.”

“Bring Hunter,” I tell him. “May’s got a large cut. And I’m banged up too.”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s been moaning about having nothing to do.” Drake hangs up before I can reply.

And that’s it. I groan and strip my trousers off, going to sit with May.

“What did he say?” she asks me warily.

Her hair is clinging to the back of her neck, and she’s clutching her knees as if trying to give herself some semblance of modesty.

“They’ll track my phone to find us. I don’t know how long that’ll take.” I glance at her. “Here, let me take a look at your wound. Maybe we can use my shirt to bandage it up again.”

We pull the bandage back to see the wound, which isn’t as bad as I’d expected to be from all the bleeding. “It’ll be fine,” she says breathlessly, smiling through the pain before adding dryly, “You’ve done worse.”

“I’m not sure I have,” I counter, but I pull her closer to me.

She straddles my lap, and without any prompting from me, leans down to kiss me.

I groan and kiss back.

I don’t know any other woman who would start kissing in the face of a wound like that.

I love her, I think as I draw her into an even deeper embrace.

CHAPTER 28

May

I don’t know why I’m kissing him.

I don’t know why I’m so needy.

I should be panicking about a wound that’s probably already infected, about the amount of blood I’ve lost, but instead I’m crushing myself against my captor like a woman from an old bodice-ripper.

I have to have lost my mind, but here I am doing it anyway.

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