Page 33 of Never Die for a Sinner
Someone knocks on the window beside me, and I let out a screech that could break the sound barrier. A dark figure looms outside the window, and when it bends at the waist, peering in at me, I realize rock bottom is a figure of speech.
It can always get worse.
Levi waits patiently for me to roll down the window, casting that same bored look my way when his gaze slides over my face.
“There a reason you’re crying on the side of the road?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, turning away so he can’t see me wipe the tears off my cheeks.
“I’m not crying.”Lie. “My car broke down.”
He steps back and looks at Judith, and the distinct sinking feeling of dread fills my stomach.
“Pop the hood.”
I stare at him for a moment when he steps around to the front.
In this light, with his headlights shining brightly behind us, he looks devastating. Like a creature of the night that climbed out of the woods to take pity on—or murder—the poor, unsuspecting girl on the side of the road with her shitty car.
“Unless you’d like to spend the night out here.”
Oh, whoops.
Hurriedly, I reach down, hitting the latch, and he opens the hood. I climb out, keeping my distance, though I have no idea what he’s looking at when he messes with wires and metal pieces under the hood.
A shiver moves through me, and I wrap my arms tightly around myself, ignoring the scent of his cologne as it washes over me on the breeze.
“It’s fucked.”
I pause, unsure what to do when he shuts the hood and stalks toward his car without another word.
I stare after him, my feet rooted in place when he opens the driver’s door.
“Are you going to stay there, or are we going home?”
Home. With Levi?
Absolutely not.
“I can wait,” I say, though my voice sounds akin to what I would expect a mouse to sound like if it could speak. “I need to have it towed home.”
He cocks a brow at me, and I half expect him to accept my answer and drive off in the night without me.
“Get in the car, Ava.”
Fuck.
It takes a moment for my feet to register what my brain is telling them, but I manage to break free under his heavy gaze and grab my bag from my car, hugging it to me tightly and sliding into his passenger seat when he holds the door open for me.
Inside, the leather smells like him, and it’s warm. He shuts the door behind me and stalks around the front before dropping into the driver’s side without a word.
If I thought sleeping across the hall from him was intense, sitting in the front seat of his Aston Martin is even worse. I can practicallyfeelmy blood teeming with electricity from being so close to him.
I stay silent, and so does he as he pulls the car away from Judith and starts down the road.
It’s as tense as you would expect, and the air practically hums around us. I get the feeling he’s pissed off, but I don’t know why. Levi and I have never been anything more than tolerant (barely) acquaintances.
“Why were you out tonight?”
