Page 61 of The Night Shift

I take another step, and she meets my eyes. My arms fall slack at my sides. My heart stops beating. I can’t bear to lookaway. Her gaze warms my cheeks, wrapping me in an embrace I nevereverwant to be released from.

I smile and her sharp brown eyes cut into my core. I don’t know if they want me or want to end me.

I think I want to find out.

Chapter 12

Theo

Now

I know the second my eyes part open that I’ve been stabbed.

A sharp, stinging sensation goes up my abdomen and my first conscious thought is a single name.Holly. I look down and see the glint of her scalpel still lodged inside my stomach.

My temples pulse as my vision adjusts to make out the inside of a car. My car. I try sitting up and realize that my wrists are tied together with…rope?

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” Holly says, sitting in the passenger seat next to me. Her voice lures me in like a pinprick of steady light in the static darkness. “I was beginning to think I killed you by mistake.”

I try sitting up straight, coughing and falling back as the pain kicks in.Fuck, fuck, FUCK.

Holly simply huffs a laugh and rolls her eyes as if to say, “This man. Love of my life. Such a little drama queen.” She shifts forward in her seat and runs her fingers through my hair. They move towards the back of my neck, her gloved fingers scratching against my skin, making me sigh in pleasure.

“Tell me something, Carter.” Her sweet voice soothes the stabbing pain in my stomach.

Anything,mylove.

“It’s been a long night for both of us, hasn’t it?” she says.

I close my eyes and nod.

“Why were you following me?”

My lips curve. “You…smell nice.”

“Whywere you following me?” she repeats, her voice suddenly chilling.

“What is…that? Vanilla?”

A disgruntled sound leaves her throat, and she grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls me upright. A sharp breath fills my lungs and my jaw clenches. My eyes flutter open and for a moment I can’t move. The most stunning, most beautiful, most brutal creature I’ve ever known is sitting next to me and running her fingers through my hair. Faint smears of red still mark her cheeks and forehead. Faded smudges of blood.

I have never wanted her more.

I want to grab her by the back of her neck and bring her mouth to mine. I want to lick her plump lips, and I want her to bite mine. Hard enough to draw blood.

I want to make her scream, and I want to make her come. I want her on top of me, under me, around me — I want her fucking everywhere.Everywhere.

She leans closer and pushes the scalpel further into my abdomen. “Don’t make me repeat myself a fourth time, Theo. Why were you following me? Why did you ask me to come here?”

My heart riots, blood humming through my ears. Her nose almost brushes against mine. Hardly. It’s the lightest of touches, but I’m pretty certain that I melt from the inside. She’s so close. I could so easily lean down and kiss her. I could tell her that she’s amazing and brilliant and so fucking beautiful — wait a damn second. I frown. “Ask you to come…here? I-I didn’t.”

Of course, the one time I’m actually honest with her, she refuses to believe me. “You’re really not in a position to lie to me. But in case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you.” She grabs the protruding handle and pulls the scalpel right out.

“Fuck!” I grip onto the wound with my tied-up wrists, trying to keep the blood from seeping out. “What thefuckwas that for?!”

Holly stares at me like she wants to kick me in the kidneys, and I apologize for swearing.

She dangles the gory scalpel in front of my face. “Now listen here, you buttfuck —” My brain tunes out as her pretty little gloved finger runs along the edge of the blade. Over the blood.Myblood.Up and down. Up and down. It’s an eleven blade. No more than four inches long. Not much damage can be done with an eleven blade. Not like this anyway. If she really wanted me to suffer, she’d have to cut open an artery — axillary or perhaps the carotid depending on her mood. But all she did was slightly insert it into my abdomen. Which can only mean one thing.