Page 13 of Bird on a Blade (Hunter’s Heart #1)

CHAPTER TWELVE

EDIE

“ W hat are you doing?”

It barely comes out a whisper. Sawyer smiles, that cold smile he has.

“Eating some of the cake,” he answers. “I’m not letting you toss it in the trash.”

My cheeks heat. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I’m sorry, it was a thoughtful gift—” Weirdly thoughtful, that he even noticed me looking at the cupcakes. That he remembered. “I just—it’s hard for me to eat things like that. Even now.”

“Why?”

He slides the knife through the cupcake’s mound of frosting, slicing it in half, and I realize it’s the knife he stole from me the other night. “Have you—” I can’t get the rest of the question out, and Sawyer peers up at me with an arched eyebrow. I set the two cups of coffee down on the counter and make a kind of stabbing motion with my hand.

“Have I killed someone?” He looks down at the knife buried in the cupcake. “Oh. Not with this knife, no.” When his gaze meets mine again, he’s grinning devilishly. “I’m sure I’ll christen it soon enough, though. ”

Terror spikes in me, and I grip the side of the counter, head swooning. He looks at me, carving out a sliver of cupcake and balancing it on the flat side of the blade.

“You’re going to eat my fucking cupcake, and then you’re going to kill me.” I’m oddly numb to the idea. Just like how I was numb after Scott hit me. First in the jaw and then again in the eye. Harder, that time. Then he hit me everywhere. I stared up at him, my mouth filling with blood, and I felt this numbness.

But Sawyer laughs. “I fucking told you I ain't got no interest in killing you.” He lifts the cupcake. “And you said you didn’t want this.”

“I do want it.”

I don’t know why I say that so quickly. Maybe it’s the relief of hearing that I’m not going to die. At least not right now.

“It’s just hard for me,” I say. “It messes with my head. I feel guilty and shitty afterward.”

Sawyer’s eyes never leave mine as his long tongue slides out to lick the frosting away. I shiver, remembering how that tongue felt between my legs.

“You don’t need to feel guilty about something like this.” He eats the whole cupcake sliver in one bite and then licks away the frosting still clinging to the knife’s steel, long and slow and sensuous.

I grip the counter’s edge again, but this time, it’s not from fear.

“It’s good,” he tells me, and he slices off another piece of cake. Something about the way he handles the knife makes my body hot and buzzy. Like it’s an extension of him. And I wonder if he looked the same way when he was killing my tormenters fifteen years ago or that piece of shit who sent me spiraling a week ago.

And I hate myself for wondering and not being disgusted by the thought.

“You didn’t finish telling me about your ex,” he says. “Why he got mad at you for—” He waves the knife around, and the blade reflects the kitchen light into my eyes. “For getting better, yeah?”

I sigh and pick up my coffee, more for the warmth against my hands than anything else. The wind rolling in through the open windows has taken a chilly turn. I’d forgotten what a real autumn feels like.

“My husband?—”

“Ex-husband.”

I look at Sawyer, and he’s dead serious.

“Yeah, ex-husband. My ex-husband is Scott Henser.”

Sawyer shakes his head, goes to carve out another slice of cake. “If I’m supposed to recognize that name, I don’t.”

“He’s a venture capitalist.”

“I don’t know what the fuck that is, either.”

I smother a smile. “He’s just—a rich asshole who gives money to tech companies. Anyway, he’s famous, sort of. In certain circles. And he’s very image-conscious.”

Sawyer licks the cake away from his knife again, the moment showy, his eyes boring into me. We’re both thinking the same thing. And it’s not about Scott.

Still, I swallow. “I was never really his type,” I say. “Even with the anorexia. I was a little too big for his liking. But my family—they’re old money, and he wanted that prestige. Me going into recovery was just a step too far.”

Sawyer slices another piece of cake and holds the knife lightly between his fingers, watching me. “That’s why he hurt you?”

“No,” I say. “He did it because he found out I was going to leave him. He wants me sick. I want to be well. But for me to initiate—” I keep staring at the cupcake. I haven’t really talked about this with anyone, except Charlotte, and even she only knows the broad strokes. Scott launching himself at me, squeezing his hands around my throat. You don’t get to fucking leave, he kept screaming over and over. I leave you, you fat fucking bitch. Not the other way around .

Then me kneeing him in the balls, wrenching myself away, grabbing my phone and running barefoot out of the house and calling 911 all at once. That humiliated him too, I’m sure. And I’m sure he paid good money to keep it covered up, the cops rolling up to the big beachside mansion on a domestic dispute call. But I was long gone by then. In clothes I borrowed from Charlotte, the two of us plotting my escape as we drove to San Francisco.

“It embarrassed him,” I finally say, “and he tried to kill me.”

Rage flashes in Sawyer’s expression. It’s the only word for it. A black, unrelenting rage that’s like a tornado tearing across his face Then it’s gone.

“You don’t have to worry about anyone killing you,” he says. “Not anymore.”

His words shouldn’t bring me comfort, but they do. He’s not going to have to kill anyone for me , I think, trying to reassure myself. Because no one will find me here.

Sawyer’s still staring at me. “T-thank you,” I say softly, because I know I should say something.

“You should try this.” He holds up the knife still bearing the cupcake slice. “Don’t have to eat the whole thing. Just try it.”

Then he walks around the counter, coming face to face with me, the knife hovering between us. I gaze down at it, breathe in the scent of butter and sugar and cinnamon. I don’t want the stupid cupcake as much as I want to be able to eat a cupcake and not feel like an abomination.

“Go on,” he says, more softly. “It’s good.”

I look up at him, and I think of all the times I refused to eat something in front of Scott or his friends, who had become my friends by default when we married. How virtuous I felt, dressed in designer clothes, sure, but in sizes at the top of the range. Every butter-drenched appetizer or sugary macaron or slice of crusty French bread was a whispered threat that my entire life teetered on the edge of a blade. And I’d shove things aside, and people would praise me and then gossip behind closed doors that I had to be a binge-eater, didn’t I? Because no one eats that little and stays that big.

“Eat it.”

Sawyer’s voice is sharp and commanding. It reminds me of how he spoke to me when his hand was between my legs, ordering me to have another orgasm.

Ordering me to experience pleasure.

“Off the knife?” I say.

He smiles, a slow creeping killer’s smile, and nods.

Why does my breath catch at that?

He steps closer, lifts the knife to my lips. I catch a glimpse of my reflection, although not much: a flash of my brown eyes, a curl of my black hair.

“Lick it,” he purrs, and my face heats as I imagine licking something else, something as long and hard as that knife. I lean forward, cautious, and dip my tongue into the frosting.

Flavor explodes on my tongue, an overwhelming sweetness redolent with cinnamon and cardamom. Pumpkin spice. I curl my tongue to draw the frosting into my mouth, and Sawyer watches me the whole time, his eyes burning. He holds the knife steady. It doesn’t wobble at all.

Which is good, because its sharp edge is dangerously close to my throat.

“That’s it,” he says. “Taste the gift I brought you.”

His words urge me on. I don’t let myself think about why. Instead, I eat the cupcake off the knife’s cold steel, licking it the same way he did, with my eyes on him. It’s delicious, tender and buttery and flush with sweet autumny notes of apple, but what really sets my body to shuddering is the way Sawyer’s lips part, the way his pupils flood his irises.

“Lick the knife clean.”

I do, drawing my tongue along the flat silver side, lapping up every crumb, every smudge of frosting. When I’m done, I let my gaze linger on him as I pull my tongue back inside my mouth, dizzy with a confused, disorienting lust.

The next thing he does, he does as quickly as a snake.

The knife clatters against the counter, the sound reminding me a little of wind chimes, and he lunges at me, wrapping his long fingers around the back of my neck. And then he crushes his lips against mine, his kiss hard and unyielding. I melt into it, kissing him back with a fire, a hunger, I haven’t felt in a long, long time. He presses his body into mine and draws his fingers around my neck so that his thumb presses into the little hollow of my throat. There’s no real pressure, but there’s the promise of it, and I know I should hate it, I know I should shove him away and call the police, but I don’t. I just keep kissing him, moaning into his hot, eager mouth as he massages my pulse.

He breaks the kiss to trail his mouth over to my ear. His other hand is on my hip, drawing up the fabric of my dress. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasps into my ear. “The most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

I whimper and kiss him in response, attacking him with the fervor he used on me, because those are words I’ve never heard in my life, and every time I’m in his presence it unlocks all the shameful desire I’ve felt for him since that night fifteen years ago.

I’m not surprised when his fingers slide into the waistband of my panties and rub against my clit. He laughs when I jolt against him, teeth scraping my lips. “Come for me again,” he says into my mouth, slipping one finger into my pussy. I spread my legs to accommodate him, winding my arms around his shoulders for balance. He responds in kind, dropping his hand away from my throat to hook my knee up and spread my pussy wider.

I shiver at the absence of his hand around my throat.

“You’re so eager,” he murmurs, sliding another finger inside me. I don’t bother to deny it; how can I? I know how wet I am. All those dark, deadly looks. All his dark, deadly praise.

It doesn’t matter anyway; he catches my mouth with his again and pulls me close for another devouring, murderous, sugar-flavored kiss. I roll my hips against his hand, impaling myself on his long fingers. He squeezes me around the waist, stilling me, and takes control, curling his fingers against my inner walls as his thumb rolls agonizing circles over my clit.

It’s not going to take long. That much is clear. All the tension and adrenaline of the past week is about to spill out over Sawyer Caldwell’s dexterous hand. I break the kiss to suck down air, gasping and moaning, my fingers clinging to his hair.

“That’s it,” he mutters, his Appalachian drawl as sweet as honey. “That’s it, my perfect prey.”

My perfect prey . The words shudder through me and draw my orgasm along behind them. I scream as the tension breaks and heat pulses out from my clit and my pussy both, rolling and thunderous. Sawyer doesn’t stop, just keeps touching me until I think I’m never going to stop coming.

It subsides eventually, of course, and to my surprise, Sawyer does pull his hand away and lowers my leg to the ground. I lean against him, squeezing him for support, and he wraps his hands around my waist and nuzzles his face against my neck, breathing in deep.

“Thank you,” he breathes. “For letting me kill you like that.”

I stiffen against him, and if he notices, he doesn’t say anything, just keeps nuzzling my neck. Then he kisses me, right on my pulse, and steps away. His face is flushed.

There’s a telltale bulge between his legs.

“I—I mean—” I flounder, not sure what to say. My eyes keep dropping down to his cock, and to my embarrassment, he notices, because he adjusts it in his dark jeans and says,

“Not right now.”

“Oh.” Disappointment curdles in my chest. An old humiliation, that all his pretty words were a lie.

“Ain’t safe.” He sounds sheepish. Embarrassed. He doesn’t quite meet my eye. “For you, I mean. I gotta—” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Don’t want to go too far. Don’t want to kill you in the wrong way.”

Ice shoots down my spine. I back up, knocking against the counter. “I thought you said you didn’t want to kill me,” I whisper.

He fixes me with his black eyes. “I don’t,” he says, voice hoarse. “ Want to.”

My mouth opens, closes. I have no words. Not for any of this.

He nods at me, a curl of hair falling over his forehead. Nods at the counter, with the mostly-eaten cupcake, the two undrunk coffees, the lovely bird skull.

“You don’t have to eat the rest of that if you don’t want to,” he says, still not looking at me. “But I hope you do.”

And then he’s gone. He darts out the front door and leaves me standing there in the sunlight and the wind blowing in from the forest. His truck engine starts up and fades away.

I turn toward the counter, my movement shuddery.

I eat the cupcake. Slow, luxurious bites that let me taste everything. I wash it down with my coffee. The freedom of that is almost as good as the release of orgasm.

Then I gather up the bird skull. It feels like nothing in the palm of my hand. But at the same time, it’s as heavy as my memories.

I carry it into the bedroom and set it down on my bedside table, where I know it will be safe.