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“You’re still a beast,” the heat is gone from her tone.
“Never claimed different.” And because she’s so close, and because I can, I close the inches between us and press my lips to hers. “Now go back to work.”
She stares up at me for a long moment. “Work?”
I tip my head toward the back hall. “You do make your living off your paintings, right?” She nods. “So… work.”
She just stares at me.
“What?”
Savannah gives her head a slight shake. “Nothing. You’re right. I need to work.”
CHAPTER52
Savannah
Go back to work.
I quicken my stride as I hurry down the hall to my studio.
He called it work.
I’m mortified when my vision becomes blurry, and I have to blink away the tears threatening to spill.
It’s such a little thing. Such a stupid little thing. But no one in my family has ever referred to my painting as work before. It’s always been viewed as a hobby. An immature whim. Aphase.
It’s never mattered to anyone that I was able to support myself with it.
I know my parents think I was only able to survive without them because of the money my grandma left me. But that money just meant that I got to purchase a tiny, somewhat crappy house, rather than rent a tinier, crappier apartment. It gave me breathing room, but I’ve been paying my bills from selling paintings. And budgeting. Neither of which are skills I got from my parents.
Just as I’m shoving the door to my studio open, I hear a vacuum turn on, reminding me of the mess I left on the kitchen floor.
King is vacuuming the floor.King.
Feeling off kilter, and feeling the coffee grounds stuck between my toes, I make my way over to the chairs Val and I sat in last night.
Plopping down into the same seat I’d gotten drunk in, I stare out at the sun filled yard and contemplate what is going on with my life.
Groaning, I drop my hands onto the armrests, then jerk my right hand back when I feel something touch my wrist. Then I shake my head at myself, because it’s a gummy bear. A single sticky gummy bear standing like a sentry on the edge of the armrest.
“Well, which is it?” I say to the candy. “Are you on guard, or are you just squishy sweetness?”
He doesn’t answer.
I pluck him from his perch and stand back up, carrying him to the window and holding him up to the light.
A combination of simple and complex. Intimidating and cuddly.
Standing in front of the window, movement across the way catches my attention.
And I’m suddenly reminded of last night. Of the man I saw, who I think saw us.
I stare at the spot where I remember him being. But it was so dark, I couldn’t see…
Flashlights.
The other guards had flashlights, and he didn’t.