Page 17 of Hunted Temptation
She flinches, taking a step backward. She doesn’t know me, not yet, but she will. I don’t make another move. Instead, I stop and take her in. I have to remember that I killed two men in front of her. No doubt she’s nervous as fuck.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
She shakes her head, but I know she hasn’t eaten. I’ve been watching her long enough that I know she hardly eats at all. Although it wouldn’t take more than one look at her extremely small frame to know that as well.
“You need to eat,” I state.
“Are you going to kill me?”
Her words shouldn’t upset me, yet they do, just a little. My lips twitch into a smirk. “Babe, if I were going to kill you, you’d be dead already. But you need food.”
She doesn’t say anything, I hear her swallow, and I know she must be nervous. Jerking my head toward the kitchen, I ask her to come in there with me. I don’t want to take my eyes off her, at least not yet, not until we’re out of town and heading home.
“I’m going to make you some sweet potatoes, chicken, and green beans.”
Choosing that menu isn’t just for her. It’s for me, too. I need some protein and sustenance. This is the meal I had planned, and I was going to make double for meal prep, but Elodie can have it instead.
She can have anything.
“That sounds like a lot,” she murmurs.
My lips twitch into a smirk. “Sit at the bar and talk to me,” I order.
She does, but hesitantly. I know she’s got a million different questions, but right now, I’m not going to answer them. I figure the road trip to get back to Nights will be a good time to go over all that shit.
“Who are you?” she asks.
I guess I owe her at least that much. As I start to peel the purple sweet potato, I tell her my name. “Vaughn McCrae,” I say. “I’m from Nights, North Carolina.”
There is silence, and she doesn’t ask anything else immediately., I finish peeling the potato, but before I cut it up into cubes, I look up at her, arching a brow in silent question.
“I’m so confused. You know who my father is… was… don’t you?”
My lips twitch into a smirk. “I do,” I murmur. “In more ways than one, Elodie.”
ELODIE
In more ways than one.
He knows.
This sexy stranger knows.
And my cheeks tint pink with embarrassment about how much he actually knows. I watch as he moves around thekitchen. It doesn’t take him long to make the bowls, and as the smells waft toward me, my stomach growls with anticipation.
I’m starving.
I can’t even think of which question I want to ask him. I’m too hungry and frankly exhausted to even think of any. Sure, they’re there, rolling around inside my brain, spinning in circles, but the words don’t come out.
When he slides the bowl toward me, I am ravenous. Thanking him as he slips the fork into my palm, I tuck into the bowl, closing my eyes as I begin to eat. It’s amazing, warm, and filling. Only when I’m about halfway through the meal do I look up at this man, this stranger who may have saved me from the depths of one hell, but that doesn’t mean he won’t throw me into the fires of another.
“What are you going to do with me?” I ask.
“That depends,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t continue.
He takes a few more bites of his own food, chews, then swallows before he clears his throat. “On you,” he continues. “On what you want.”
I’m confused. I’m a woman in a man’s world. It has never mattered what I want… ever. I don’t say that, but he has to know. He must. He knew what he walked in on, so much so that I could see the rage in his eyes. I know it was rage. Because his eyes have lightened, the blue is now almost crystal.
