Page 7 of Silent Night

Fancy girl gets to go to a fancy university for a proper education. Another thing so far out of my reach, not that I’ve ever aspired to go. Barely finishing high school was enough.

“Do you have a habit of feeding strangers who’ve broken in? Or letting them go with expensive decorations you don’t own?”

She tips her head, curls slipping from the top of her head toward her shoulder and I tighten my fist before accidentally reaching toreplace them. “Just one apparently.” She smirks at her own joke. “You know, it took six months for Dad to even realize it was gone. What’d you do with it anyway?”

“Pawned it. Made a decent chunk of cash from it.”

“Good. I’m sure you made better use of it than he could have.”

I should be insulted by that statement, if she wasn’t so correct.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?” I ask after another bite.

Her lips twitch, fighting a smile. “If you wanted to harm me, you’d have done it already.”

She’s not wrong about that. “Still, you should be scared. I’m a stranger in your home and all.”

“I was. Then I wasn’t. Besides, maybe I enjoy the danger.” The brown in her eyes glints in the hanging lights, suggesting more than she means. Before I can ask and let myself go down that potentially wrong path, I say something else.

“I heard your parents shouting about leaving on vacation this morning, so I figured I’d do the job sooner than later. Get in, get out.” I skip over the fact I was also going to camp here for a couple days.

She snorts, straightening to position her palms flat on the counter. Her tank is tight around her nipples, the little buds all but begging for my attention. My fucking Christ, how’s a man supposed to eat around her when eatingheris all I can now think about? She’s entirely too innocent. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t dare be flashing someone who could easily take what’s being offered on a silver damn platter.

If only I was that kind of man.

“Yeah, well, the assholes forgot to inform me until I landed.”

So her school’s far enough away she flew here. Information to file away, though there’s too many schools in the country to pinpoint which one she goes to.

“Rude,” I comment since I don’t know what else to say. She’s complaining about being in this huge house alone? Warm, comfortable, with plenty of food? See—greedy.

Suddenly, I want to be greedy too. I want to take more than a few valuables.

I wanther.

Her on this counter, spread out, a Christmas feast for the taking.

A crack from down the hall has her tensing, her attention going to the hallway behind us. When it happens again, she curses and wide eyes pin me. Before I realize she’s moved, she’s yanking on my thin jacket, tugging me off the barstool and toward a skinny door that’s encased with a smoked glass beside the fridge.

She yanks it open, hissing, “Get in, shut up, don’t move,” and then closes it.

I stop it with a finger before it can click shut, pushing it open half an inch for a limited view. She moves away from the door as another person enters the kitchen.

FOUR

HAYLEY

Bentley treads into the kitchen,his hair askew from sleep, his chest bare, wearing only a pair of pyjama pants. “What are you doing up? It’s one a.m.”

“Got thirsty,” I admit the truth. It is why I originally came down…before finding the stranger in our house. The stranger presently hiding three feet behind me in the pantry.

Bentley glances at the open pizza box.

“And hungry,” I supply. “Period cravings and all.” That part’s a lie, but it’s meant to deter him from whatever reason he’s slowly pacing across the kitchen toward me.

Bentley stops close to me, his feet almost touching mine. With a tilt of my neck, I stare him down, exactly as he’s doing to me, trying to show him he can’t scare me. “Why don’t I believe you?”

I shrug, inching away from him. “Because you have trust issues.”

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