Page 69 of Bird on a Blade

I consider it. “Maybe,” I say. “He’d rather send someone else, I think, but—but maybe if I pretend to apologize and tell him he’s right and I’m going to lose weight?—”

Sawyer scoffs.

“That’s what started this all,” I say. “But if I tell him I’m going to go back to being his perfect little wife—maybe. He might come himself.”

Sawyer nods. “You’ve still got access to that cabin, right?”

“Yeah. It’s booked through the middle of November. But—” I turn toward him, peeling out of his arms. “But why? Won’t that just link me to the—” My throat’s still dry when I say the word, although not nearly as much as it used to be. “The killing?”

A smile flickers across Sawyer’s face. But there’s something uncertain about it. Something… nervous.

“Yes.” Sawyer takes a deep breath of his own, and his hand creeps up to touch the back of my neck in that dark, possessive gesture that unravels me so much. He tugs me in front of him, hisother hand wrapping tightly around my waist so he can pull me up to him, my back pressing against his firm chest. He presses his face against my temple. “Baby, all I want is to protect you. To make sure you’re happy. Do you understand that?”

I look out at the river. At the stars. “Yes,” I breathe, and I know it’s true, even if Sawyer’s methods are a little… unusual.

“And one thing I can do is make all this go away.” His voice is rough against my hair, and his hand keeps massaging the back of my neck, fingers grazing along my quickening pulse. “But you won’t—you won’t be able to go back to your old life in California. You’d have to stay with me.”

“Have to,” I whisper, the blood pounding in my ears. “Or get to?”

Sawyer’s hand stills against my neck. Against my throat. “Is that what you’d want?” he asks. “To stay with me?”

I’m breathless. He was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Now, he’s the best.

“What are you getting at, Sawyer?”

He doesn’t answer right away. He just holds me, his breath slow and steady. The wind picks up, blowing cold air across the river’s surface. I breathe it in and shiver.

“Sawyer?” I say nervously.

“The mountains are dangerous.” He speaks so softly his words feel like kisses. “People disappear all the time. Especially pretty women from the city who like to go for long hikes in the woods.”

Every muscle in my body freezes in place.

“Especially when there’s a copycat killer hanging around,” he continues. “Killing people with a hunting knife like that boy who attacked that camp fifteen years ago?—”

“Killing people?” I whisper, barely daring to breathe. “Like her husband?”

Sawyer brushes my hair away from my neck so he can tease my sensitive skin with his words. “Like her husband,” he growls. “The Altarida sheriff won’t think much of it, will he, if he finds herhusband in pieces on the cabin lawn? If her car’s still there, too, and all her clothes folded up in the chest of drawers?”

I stare at the river, shivering in Sawyer’s arms.

“They’ll do a missing person’s search, no doubt. They’ll find that pretty city girl’s cell phone cracked in the woods. Maybe some strands of her hair.” His hand drops down to trail along the cuts he made on my breasts this afternoon. “Some blood.”

I exhale, and my breath is white in the cold.

“But they won’t find her body,” he says. “They’ll never find her fucking body.”

I whip around to face him, the wind blowing my hair into my eyes. He brushes it away and fixes me with his black, killer’s gaze.

“This is the best gift I can give you,” he says roughly. “But if you don’t want it?—”

“I want it.” Each word is a puff of steam. Each word is a magic spell. “I want you.”

For a moment, Sawyer looks faintly stunned.

Then he takes my face in both hands and kisses me like I’m the only thing in this world that matters.

And I don’t ever want him to stop.

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