Page 21 of Lady and the Butcher

“Tell me something true,” he said.

“I can’t whistle. Not even a little,” I blurted.

His mouth curved. “Try again.”

“I …” I looked at his throat instead of his eyes, which did not help. “I want—” The word snagged. I cleared it. “I want to stop thinking.”

“That,” he said softly, “is easy.”

“It doesn’t feel easy.”

“That’s because you think in defense.” His hand lifted, slow enough that I could flinch if I wanted to. I didn’t. He brushed a curl off my shoulder, let his fingers rest there like a question. “What happens if you think in hunger instead?”

I forgot English for a second. When it returned, it didn’t sound like my voice. “I’m at my brother’s party.”

“You are.” His thumb traced the barest arc against my skin. “And I’m not going to do a thing you don’t ask me to.”

“I’m not going to ask,” I said, which was a lie.

“Not tonight,” he said, like he’d just read the script for a future I couldn’t see yet.

A shout from the party broke across the grass—Max yelling for me to get in the photo, Mom insisting on “one with just the girls.” My life, bright and loud and mine.

I stepped back the distance of a breath. “I should?—”

“You should,” he agreed, not moving, not pressing.

I smoothed my dress with hands that did not need to be that shaky. “Thank you for the dance,” I said, because I was a woman who survived on good manners when desire threatened to eat me.

“Anytime, Lady,” he said.

The word slid over my skin again, found every place he hadn’t touched, and lit it, anyway.

“Simone!” Darla’s voice floated over the lawn, nearer now. “Mom says to get over here.”

I groaned. “Gotta go.”

Atticus’s mouth did that curve again. “Sounds like it.”

I started to step past him. He angled a fraction closer, just enough to force me to choose. I did. I brushed the edge of him, anyway, like testing a flame. Heat licked my ribs.

“Do you—” The question fell out before I could decide to be someone who didn’t ask. “Do you live here?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Enough.”

“Vague,” I said, relieved and irritated at once.

“True,” he said.

I held his eyes another beat—sharp, ice-blue—then filed the feeling away for later, and backed off.

“Enjoy the cake,” I said.

“I don’t like cake,” he replied, as if that were a reasonable thing for a human to admit.

“What kind of monster?—”

“The kind who prefers something with bite.”