Page 33 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I was leaning against my car, the parking lot almost empty, when Poe rode into the parking lot on a red Ducati. I’d seen the bike parked between the Hummer and an orange sports car in the lot outside the loft, but seeing it in motion was an entirely different experience.

The bike was red and gunmetal gray, with tires that looked like they’d be just as good at navigating off-road terrain as they were at eating up asphalt.

Poe was almost one with the machine, his head covered by a helmet as he bent over the handlebars, his muscular arms holding on with ease, big thighs straddling the seat in a way that sent an increasingly familiar bolt of lust through my body.

The sun had almost set behind the mountains, and Poe parked the bike next to June’s Honda under the glow of a light that had come on just minutes before.

He turned off the bike, and the ensuing silence was almost as deafening as the roar of the bike had been when he pulled in.

He lifted one leg over the bike’s seat with ease, pulled off his helmet, and strode toward me looking like an A-list actor right out of an action movie, complete with the leather jacket and ripped jeans.

“Got here as fast as I could.”

“The tow truck said it would be an hour, and that was forty-five minutes ago.”

It was better than saying what I was thinking, which was, How hard would it be to fuck on your motorcycle?

“Let me take a look.” He approached the front of the car. “Pop the hood.”

I got in the car and pulled the hood latch.

“Try turning it over,” he said from under the hood.

The car did the same thing it did before, the engine trying to turn over to no avail.

He closed the hood. “Sounds like your starter.”

“Great,” I said, stepping out of the car.

He studied it. “How old is this thing?”

“Maybe ten years? I’m not sure. It was used when my sister bought it.”

“It belonged to your sister?” There were obvious questions behind his surprise, the most obvious being, Why are you driving your dead sister’s car?

“Yeah.”

He nodded then, like he understood, which of course he couldn’t. No one could.

“Might as well make ourselves comfortable.” I followed him to the front of the car where he sat on the hood. The car dipped under his weight. “Unless you don’t want me sitting on it?”

“No, it’s okay.” It was June’s car, but I wasn’t precious enough about it to deny Poe a seat while we waited for the tow truck.

He looked around the parking lot, empty except for two cars parked at the other end. “You always work the closing shift?”

“Wasn’t that in your background?” I stood next to him, feeling nervous.

The air had cooled with the setting sun, and a quiet had settled over the mall parking lot.

Poe looked unfairly beautiful sitting on the hood of June’s car, his dark hair ruffled by the breeze, his blue eyes looking more gray under the streetlamps.

The situation felt intimate, like one you’d share with a date.

“Maybe,” he said. “But I only know what Bram told me.”

I debated telling him that my work schedule was none of his business, but that seemed stupid when I’d already synced my shifts with their stupid calendar app.

Plus, he was just making conversation, and if it wasn’t for him I would have been sitting there all alone and paying for a car to get me back to the loft after the tow truck arrived.

“I like working the closing shift,” I said. “The store’s peaceful with no customers.”

He nodded like he understood. “Why a clothing store when you went to cooking school?”

“Are you the only one allowed to ask questions?”

“What do you want to know?”

I thought about it, searching for a good question, one that would tell me something important about the Butchers. “Why do you play in the Hunt?”

He leaned back on the hood of the car and propped himself on his elbows. I already knew he had a big dick thanks to his habit of walking around without clothes, but it was just as undeniable when it was shoved into his jeans, and I had to force myself not to stare.

“We enjoy the benefits, when we win and when we lose.”

“You like to kill people?” It felt obscene to say it out loud, like I was breaking some kind of unspoken rule, but it was better than asking why they wanted random girls living in the loft every three months.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to think of some other girl in my room, surrounded by the Butchers.

“It’s a… vice.”

“Some vice.”

He shrugged. “We all have them.”

I felt like I’d wasted my question, didn’t feel any closer to understanding him, to understanding any of them.

“My turn. Why a clothing store when you went to cooking school?” he asked again.

I considered my words carefully, tried to think of a way to explain without giving away my preoccupation with Ethan Todd that had become an obsession since June’s murder.

“Cooking is a demanding job. Baking even more so.” I didn’t want to tell him that to hold down a job at a restaurant I’d have to arrive before the sun rose to prep, that I’d be working well into the night, then cleaning up.

There wouldn’t be any room for hunting Ethan Todd, hanging around his hotel, looking for a way to make him pay.

“My sister’s case took up a lot of time. ”

He sat up and scooted toward the edge of the hood. “Wasn’t the trial over almost a year ago?”

“Clearly you’ve never lost anyone.” It came out sharper than I’d intended.

It was impossible to explain how June’s murder had turned my life upside down, how it had taken everything I thought I’d known about myself and my life until all the things I’d loved, all the things I’d taken for granted, felt like a dream.

Like they’d never been real at all.

I felt a wave of guilt as he looked away.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t.” He turned to look at me before lifting his gaze to the mountains in the distance. “I’ve had my share of loss.”

“What kind of loss?”

He shook his head. “It’s not important.”

“It’s my turn.” I pointed it out softly and realized I actually wanted to know the answer to my question.

He chuckled softly. “My little brother’s in prison. Got caught up in drugs at a young age, put my grandparents, who raised us, through hell, ended up running a meth lab. Not the same kind of loss, but…”

“Loss is loss,” I said.

He nodded. “Loss is loss.”

“I’m sorry.” Touching his knee was a reflex. At least that was what I’d tell myself later, when I replayed the moment a million times in the privacy of my room.

He looked down at my hand in surprise, then took it in his. I was surprised by how warm it felt. Somehow I’d convinced myself that there was something not entirely human about the Butchers.

He pulled me closer until I was standing between his knees.

I should have stopped it then, but I didn’t. What could I say? I was mesmerized by his calloused palms, transfixed by the press of his big thighs on either side of my hips.

He reached up to touch my face, then ran his thumb over my lower lip. The tension was thick between us, like we were walking a tightrope with no safety net.

When he spoke, his voice was rough. “This is a bad idea.”

“Very.”

There was a second’s hesitation, just time enough for me to hear June’s voice in my head.

Don’t be dumb, M.

I didn’t know whether she was telling me not to kiss him or telling me to go for it.

But it didn’t really matter, because a moment later Poe’s mouth was on mine, his tongue lighting me up in places I hadn’t known existed.