Page 19 of Break for Me

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Ready?”

I nodded and inched forward another time to put my hands on his shoulders when he moved the syringe just a little closer to my foot.

fifteen

JERSEY

It took an absurd amount of focus to keep myself steady while she tried to dig down to the fucking bones in my shoulders with her nails as I injected small areas around the massive slice through her foot. It didn’t help any that my phone started to vibrate from my pants in the middle of the process. Trista didn’t even seem to notice. She’d dropped her chin down to her chest while she squeezed my shoulders and her entire body was flexed and shaking.

“Breathe,” I reminded her.

“Shut up.”

“If you pass out on the floor in here just because you’re not breathing, I will leave you in here.”

“Such a gentleman.”

Ridiculous. She even sounded like Memphis.

I nearly laughed out loud that she was still trying to squeeze me to death, with her eyes closed as tight as she could get them. She hadn’t even noticed that I was done sticking her with the needle. I forced my finger under her chin to raise her face up so she looked at me.

“I know how to be a gentleman,” I said. “But there’s no chance of me being any kind of gentle with you, Fancy Face.”

She released her white-knuckled hold on my shoulders and I felt like I could fucking breathe again without those claws puncturing my skin. She slid backward to try to put some distance between our bodies once more. I smirked and pulled my phone from my pocket while I waited for the medicine to numb her foot. I called Memphis back and turned it to speaker phone. I laid it on the floor next to me so I could start getting the needle ready.

“What’s wrong?” Memphis asked on the first ring.

“What?” I laughed. “I’m returning your call, sweet thing. Why would you assume there’s something wrong?”

“Because you missed my first call,” she said. “And no to sweet thing, too.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, Memphis. What do you need?”

“So, there is something wrong.”

Trista was staring at me like I’d lost my damn mind. I watched her eyes dart from my face to the phone and back again several times.

“Who is that?” She finally asked. “Your wife? Girlfriend? Does she know you spend your evenings kidnapping women?”

I laughed way too hard at that attempt.

“She’s not going to help you,” I said. “What’s up, Memphis? Why the call?”

“Mmm,” she mumbled and hesitated. She’d realized she was on speaker phone.

“Does it need my attention this very second?” I asked.

“No,” Memphis said. “Just call me before you leave that motel for good.”

“You got it, sugar.”

“Gross. Stop that. And don’t start it with her either.”

She hung up before I could even tell her that I already knew that she knew about Fancy Face.

“Your boss?” Trista asked.

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