Page 32 of Rule the Night
Three months was a long time. Anything could happen.
20
MAEVE
Poe was stillin the car when I emerged with my suitcase and tote bag. He’d opened the passenger side door to stretch one of his legs and had tipped the seat back, and my heartbeat kicked up a notch when I spotted him, stretched out and leaning back with his eyes closed.
His face looked different in the sunlight, almost normal, his dark hair shining. His legs were long and muscular, packed tightly into his jeans, and I found myself staring at his crotch as I approached the car, heat rushing to my center at the sight of his obviously big dick.
He cocked one eye open and grinned. “See something you like?”
“No!” I sounded like an indignant old lady, but I didn’t care. Better that than to let Poe think I suddenly wanted to dry hump him in the passenger seat of June’s Honda.
I heard June’s bawdy laughter in my ear.Don’t let me stop you, M.
“If you say so.” He climbed out of the car and moved to take the suitcase from my hand. “Let me help you.”
I pulled it away before he could grab it. “I’ve got it.”
I didn’t want his help. I didn’t want him grinning at me like the Cheshire cat or looking at me with his bedroom eyes or… or doing whatever it was he was doing with his face that made me want to lick him from head to toe.
I used the keys to open the trunk and shoved my suitcase and tote bag inside before slamming it shut.
“Thought you might be trying to make a getaway,” Poe said.
“I told you, I’m a person of my word.” I walked around to the driver’s side of the car. “It just took a while to pack up my life for three months and explain to my roommate why I’d be gone for so long.”
“Fair.”
The car dipped a full inch when he climbed back into the passenger seat.
Now that my stuff was packed, the reality of what I was doing hit me full force, and I sat behind the wheel without starting the car.
“You okay?” Poe asked.
“How does this work?” I took a deep breath before asking the question that had been burning a hole in my mind since I’d run into Bram in the tunnels. “What’s… what’s going to happen to me?”
I could feel Poe’s gaze on the side of my face. “You’re going to live with us for three months.”
“I know that part,” I said. “But what about the rest?”
“What do you think will happen to you?” There was a dark promise under the question.
I turned to look at him and almost fell into his blue eyes, as dark as the ocean off some forgotten island. “I don’t know.”
He held my gaze. “You’ll be safe.”
Safe.Such a vague word.
Maybe it was meant to be reassuring, but sitting in the car with Poe only inches away, heat rushing to places in my body I hadn’t even known existed, I knew I was anything but safe.
21
MAEVE
I backtrackedto the center of town, past the Mill and back into Southside. The Orpheum looked different in the light of day, just a seedy abandoned theater instead of the epicenter of Blackwell’s biggest secrets.
“Turn right up here,” Poe said when we’d crossed into the industrial side of town.
