Page 78 of Finders Reapers

Rome chuffed a laugh. “Myshkais a little mouse. Little mouse isyou.”

“I only heard the last bit,” I told him. “About not visiting Sasha today.”

I watched as Rome rewound his conversation, playing it back in his mind and trying to gauge if I had heard anything incriminating. I had several questions to ask, but I also didn’t want to admit that Ihadbeen spying on him.

“How’s Maddox doing? Has he woken up yet?”

“He will recover, but the bleeding did not help,” Rome told me, cocking his head to the side as he studied me.

I stared back. His eyes burned into mine.

He took one step closer, breaching my personal space. I had to tilt my head up to keep eye contact. It felt like balancing on a tight rope.

Sasha’s warning sounded in my ears like a claxon.

My heartbeat skipped a mile a minute as Rome lifted his hand and brought it to my face ever so slowly. His dark brows creased together, and his lip curled. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to kiss me or strangle me.

Rome brushed the corner of my lip with his thumb before resting his closed fist on the seam of my jaw. “You are so new.” He whispered. “You are exactly as I thought you would be but soyoung.”

I blinked slowly. “I’m twenty-one years old,” I replied.

“I know.”

I sniffed. “Should I be worried, Rome? About the purger? About Mr. Bub? About everything?”

Rome’s eyes fixed on my lips. “I don’t know.” He said as if it pained him to admit it.

My lips tingled, fingers and chest tingled. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. Like butterflies from my stomach had taken a detour around my body and set up shop under my skin. My core pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Rome was so close. His lips were less than ten inches from mine.

It would be so easy to reach up and tangle my fist in his hair. To bring his face to mine and feel those plush rosy lips on mine.

To breathe him in.

To feel his warmth, his weight, and his body pressing down on mine.

I blinked, coming back to myself.

Rome’s lip twitched as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Good night, Valentina.” He said pointedly as he stepped back, leaving me cold.

He sauntered away, so arrogant.

I didn’t know whether I wanted to fuck him or throttle him, and I had the impression that the feeling was mutual.

The bond between our Grim was messing with my head.

Chapter 10

I woke up the following day to the smell of bacon and the sound of cartoons on the television.

For a moment, I had been dumped into a memory of my childhood. Of my mom at the stove, puttering away with her cast iron. My father standing in the downstairs half bathroom, his face covered in shaving foam as he chatted to my mom through the open door.

I never understood why the half bath was so close to the kitchen when I was younger. No one wanted to go to the bathroom next to the room that prepared food—but my mom and dad had designed their house from the ground up.

They had their set routines. He shaved on a Saturday morning, and she cooked his bacon.

They’d talk about work, and I’d watch cartoons.

Even though I was an only child, their child, I often felt that my father and mother put each other before anything else, including me.