Page 28 of Bird on a Blade

“Coffee,” I say. “I’ll fix you some. How do you like it?”

It is utterly bizarre to ask him that question, like he’s just an ordinary guest.

“Black,” he says.

What a surprise.

It’s a relief to turn away from him, to go tend to the coffee. My hands shake as I pour out two cups. One black, for him. The other with a splash of half-and-half, for me. I can hear him moving behind me, and when I turn around, he has the cupcake out of the box?—

And he’s clutching a knife in one hand.

CHAPTER TWELVE

EDIE

“What are you doing?”

It barely comes out a whisper. Sawyer smiles, that cold smile he has.

“Eating some of the cake,” he answers. “I’m not letting you toss it in the trash.”

My cheeks heat. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I’m sorry, it was a thoughtful gift—” Weirdly thoughtful, that he even noticed me looking at the cupcakes. That he remembered. “I just—it’s hard for me to eat things like that. Even now.”

“Why?”

He slides the knife through the cupcake’s mound of frosting, slicing it in half, and I realize it’s the knife he stole from me the other night. “Have you—” I can’t get the rest of the question out, and Sawyer peers up at me with an arched eyebrow. I set the two cups of coffee down on the counter and make a kind of stabbing motion with my hand.

“Have I killed someone?” He looks down at the knife buried in the cupcake. “Oh. Not with this knife, no.” When his gaze meets mine again, he’s grinning devilishly. “I’m sure I’ll christen it soon enough, though.”

Terror spikes in me, and I grip the side of the counter, head swooning. He looks at me, carving out a sliver of cupcake and balancing it on the flat side of the blade.

“You’re going to eat my fucking cupcake, and then you’re going to kill me.” I’m oddly numb to the idea. Just like how I was numb after Scott hit me. First in the jaw and then again in the eye. Harder, that time. Then he hit me everywhere. I stared up at him, my mouth filling with blood, and I felt this numbness.

But Sawyer laughs. “I fucking told you I ain't got no interest in killing you.” He lifts the cupcake. “And you said you didn’t want this.”

“I do want it.”

I don’t know why I say that so quickly. Maybe it’s the relief of hearing that I’m not going to die. At least not right now.

“It’s just hard for me,” I say. “It messes with my head. I feel guilty and shitty afterward.”

Sawyer’s eyes never leave mine as his long tongue slides out to lick the frosting away. I shiver, remembering how that tongue felt between my legs.

“You don’t need to feel guilty about something like this.” He eats the whole cupcake sliver in one bite and then licks away the frosting still clinging to the knife’s steel, long and slow and sensuous.

I grip the counter’s edge again, but this time, it’s not from fear.

“It’s good,” he tells me, and he slices off another piece of cake. Something about the way he handles the knife makes my body hot and buzzy. Like it’s an extension of him. And I wonder if he looked the same way when he was killing my tormenters fifteen years ago or that piece of shit who sent me spiraling a week ago.

And I hate myself for wondering and not being disgusted by the thought.

“You didn’t finish telling me about your ex,” he says. “Why hegot mad at you for—” He waves the knife around, and the blade reflects the kitchen light into my eyes. “For getting better, yeah?”

I sigh and pick up my coffee, more for the warmth against my hands than anything else. The wind rolling in through the open windows has taken a chilly turn. I’d forgotten what a real autumn feels like.

“My husband?—”

“Ex-husband.”

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