Page 78 of Sirens
Wanted to keepthis. The feeling of his arm around her like something worth protecting.
But he can’t protect you from dangers he doesn’t know about.
Unease spread like an oil slick in her stomach.
She searched his face, asking in her mind a question she couldn’t when those leonine eyes gazed intensely into hers.
If she told him everything, would he understand?
Would he even want to try?
McGarvey stirred in his sleep, making Maggie’s heart stutter.
She couldn’t afford to entertain these thoughts.
Lifting her head from the pillow, she squinted into the silent serenity of his room.
The clock on his dresser was out of her line of sight, but judging from the light, or lack thereof, she guessed the early winter evening was imminent. Not wanting to wake Trent just yet, she carefully disentangled herself from him and slipped out of bed. Her skin tingled as it met the cool air of the room, McGarvey’s ministrations having left it hypersensitive.
She tiptoed across the room toward the hallway, breath held in anticipation of the creaking floorboards betraying her presence.
If they did, McGarvey was sleeping hard enough not to notice, thank God. After borrowing his deliciously plushbathrobe from the bathroom, Maggie slipped into it and approached the laundry closet.
Their frenzied, multi-location tangle hadn’t included switching her laundry into the dryer.
Gingerly opening the washer’s porthole, she drew out the damp wad of her clothing and lobbed it into the dryer, shushing the machine when it chirped to life.
After several moments, she managed to push a combination of buttons that made her sodden items begin to cartwheel in the drum.
Next, hydration.
Between sweat and various other bodily fluids, she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d lost a good five pounds if she stepped on a scale.
But for once, she hadn’t the faintest desire.
All she needed to know about her body, Trent McGarvey had bitten, sucked, licked, kissed, and thrust into her.
The thought curled the corners of her kiss-swollen lips as she uncapped the bottled water she swiped from the fridge and set off toward the foyer in search of her purse.
When she found her phone by feel, her stomach dropped when the screen lit up with a veritable scroll of notifications.
Eleven missed calls.
Ten voicemails.
The number that the first three were from made her heart leap into her throat.
Queensboro Correctional Facility.
Charlie.
Here in McGarvey’s immaculate kitchen was the last place she wanted to hearthatvoice, but the idea of carrying their content in her purse like a bomb until her clothes were dry and she could get home to Roxie seemed infinitely worse.
Fingers trembling, she turned the volume down and pressed play on the first one.
“Hey, Shortcake…”
Ice water replaced her blood at the sound of that once-familiar voice, roughened by four years of a life lived in the roughest of places. Maggie clutched the counter for support, her palms already growing clammy.
