Mae’s hands were surprisingly steady as she accepted the weight from him. Then again, she wasn’t trying to do anything with the gun.
“Off. On,” she said as she mimicked his flicking of the safety.
“Here, let me take the magazine out.” After he removed a slide full of bullets, he gave the weapon back to her. “Do you see the button there on the grip. Squeeze it—that’s right, that’s your laser sight.”
Mae moved the red dot around the kitchen, steadying it on the GE logo of the refrigerator—and then the bathroom’s doorknob. After that, she picked out a pan in the drying rack and trained the beam on a chair.
“Keep the safety on at all times until you’re ready to shoot,” Sahvage said. “No holster, but you can tuck it into your pocket.”
“Even when I’m just in the house.”
“Yes. I would have given it to you before, but I didn’t want to alarm Tallah.” He nodded toward the bath. “I’m going in there to shower. Here, take the magazine, and put it back properly so you know what it’s like.”
She took the slide and reinserted it. “I’ve never shot a gun before. Well . . . alone, that is.”
“Hopefully, it won’t become a habit.”
Mae nodded and then cleared her throat. “Listen, I have to go back home—you know, to pick up some work stuff?”
“I can go with you—”
“No, no. I’m more worried about Tallah than myself.”
“That’s a bad assessment of reality.”
She cleared her throat and tried to be casual. “Look, can you just stay here? The ranch is protected, you said so yourself. Plus, if Tallah wakes up, I don’t want her to think we’ve abandoned her—or, worse, that something’s happened to me.”
“You have a cell phone. She can call you—”
“She’s not good with phones. Please, I won’t be gone long.”
Sahvage shook his head. But then shrugged. “I can’t stop you. But you’re going to take that with you.”
As he pointed at the weapon, she nodded. “Yes. I will.”
“Gimme a minute to have a shower. Then leave?”
“Absolutely.” She put her hands out to reassure him—and realized there was a gun in one of them. So she dropped her arms. “I mean, take your time.”
“I won’t be long,” he said as he disappeared into the little room and closed the door.
Left by herself, Mae sagged and wondered how she was going to get through the night. Then she thought about what Sahvage was doing and where he was doing it.
When Tallah had moved into the cottage, Mae’s father had retrofitted that first-floor bath with a modern shower—because she had insisted she might have guests. The guests had never materialized, so Mae wasn’t sure when the last time that showerhead had been called into service.
It seemed so strange to think this stranger was going to be the one to turn that faucet on.
In a way, it connected him with her father.
“I’m just going to do the dishes,” she murmured for no good reason to the closed door.
Which hadn’t closed. Not completely.
Mae opened her mouth to point out the six-inch gap to him—
Oh. Okay . . . ah, yeah. He was ditching his clothes really damned quick, the shirt doing an up-and-over, that skull with the fangs on his back making a shocking reappearance. With no tattoos on his arms, it was easy to forget all the ink he had.
And then she wasn’t thinking about any of that.
She was watching the muscles move under his smooth skin . . . and wondering what it would be like to run her hands over his shoulders. His spine. His hip . . .
Sahvage twisted around and looked back at her, the light from the sink fixture casting shadows under his pecs, the ridges of his abs, the cuts of his arms.
Mae flushed and tried to make like she hadn’t been gawking at him. “Sorry, sorry—I, ah, I was going to tell you about the door—”
“Don’t apologize.”
When she glanced back at him, he lowered his chin and stared out at her from under heavy brows. “I like when you watch me.”
Parting her lips, Mae found it hard to breathe.
“What else do you want to see?” Sahvage said in a low, guttural voice.
Balz liked to be on time.
Particularly when it came to monetizing a night’s work.
As he re-formed on the edge of a human’s out-in-the-sticks acreage, he had to move fast, but he was ready for what came after he got his cash. He was all set in his fighter clothes, his leathers and weapons in place—not that he would have come out here to this shithole in a tuxedo.
Or without all kinds of metal.
Twenty minutes and he had to be in the field with Syphon.
The trailer was hidden away on enough land so that you wouldn’t come looking for the property unless you were fencing property. The guy who crashed here was a real fucking gem, but he dealt in everything there was, and his cash was real.