Hopefully she caught all that the simple question encompassed.
All that he wanted from her.
Stupid,
Looking back one last time—and seeing no one—Oren Paige squeezed through a broken fence post to enter a closed-off garbage area for a local convenient mart.
A rusty, protruding nail gouged the tender flesh of his arm. Flinching, he examined the wound. “Oh God, no.” Tears sprang to his eyes. “Blood!”
Oren stared at the gaping wound. It
A girl would cry.
He would not.
Bottom lip trembling, a soft white hand over the injury, he turned to lean his back against one rotted plank of wood. Bone-deep fear urged him to run; his straining lungs demanded that he catch his breath, get a handle on his astronomical fright.
Slowly, his free hand tightened into a fist and his temper began to boil, chasing away the pain. He had to suppress his fury or he’d be shouting in a temper tantrum that would draw the pathetic hordes looming in the night in this godforsaken area.
This was all
Why had the girl chased him? What did she want? No way had she seen through the disguise.
No one ever did.
He hadn’t done anything to her to warrant that absurd pursuit. He’d only wanted to lure a whore, and nobody cared about whores.
They were nasty. Foul. Useless to a better society.
Just as his mother had been.
Nobody missed whores. Nobody wanted them around.
He sure as hell didn’t.
He performed a service by ridding the community of their sort, giving them only what they deserved—and allowing his aunt and uncle to partake of the pleasure.
Oren smiled. The bitch he had now . . . well, she wouldn’t last much longer. Aunt Dory had yet to learn how to meter her rage, and Uncle Myer couldn’t pace himself. All night long, Oren had listened to the stupid bitch scream.
And scream and scream.
Until he’d shut them all down.
Because Oren held the purse strings, his aunt and uncle could be controlled. When threats of disinheritance didn’t work, drugs did.
And that boorish slut . . . well, he told her that he’d cut out her tongue if she made another sound. With the other already-mute bitch bleeding to death beside her, she hadn’t needed further convincing.
Remembering, Oren’s smile turned to a grin.
His uncle’s slack mouth.
His aunt’s eyes, rolled back in her head.
The whore’s white-faced fear.
Shoving off from the rickety wall, refusing to look at the ghastly slash on his soft, pale arm, Oren started back to where his ride waited—in a nicer section of town. To facilitate the rest of his journey, he removed his backpack and dug out what he needed.
Later in the week, he’d return to this hellhole. He’d be sure to avoid the skinny dark-haired girl, and then he’d be more successful. No one would get in his way.
He wouldn’t allow it.
What worked on Aunt Dory and Uncle Myer would work on others.
If he didn’t keep his aunt and uncle occupied, they’d venture out on their own, and they were so brainless, ruled only by their base desires, that they ran the risk of blowing their whole setup.
But Oren liked things as they were. He liked the house, the freedom, the control he had over others . . .
In his mind, he pictured the dirty tramp, tied to the sparse frame . . . almost broken, almost there.
He laughed out loud.
Yeah, he liked it a lot.
Knowing Luther watched her every tiny move, Gaby turned her head to the side and smirked. Little by little, the grip of the righteous calling subsided, pulling its sharp talons out of her soul, releasing her to deal with more earthbound issues.
Like Luther.
It hurt to keep looking at him, to see how he looked at her.
After the hell of her life, she’d thought herself tough, strong enough to stay alone, to relish her isolation from the pathetic society surrounding her.
But God’s truth, walking away from Luther weeks ago had almost destroyed her. She’d needed a purpose, any purpose other than the agony God saw fit to strike her with at His whim.
Luther’s breath heated her neck right above the collar that she always wore. Like her association with divine forces, the choker gave her solace.
“Answer me, God damn it!”
The blasphemy bothered her far more than the bone-crushing grip on her wrists. “You know why I left.”
“Tell me.”
Temper snapping, she jerked her hands loose and shoved him back several feet. That felt good enough that she went ahead and shoved him again, her attack taking him by surprise enough that he stumbled backward and nearly fell on his ass.
As he took a stance against her, his nostrils flared. “Gaby . . .”
“Luther,” she mocked. She might be skinny, but when enraged, she had undeniable strength, with or without God’s influence.
Leaning in to him, stalking him, she snarled, “I left because I wanted you, all right?”
He planted his big feet and stopped retreating.
His savage expression didn’t impress her one iota. “You showed me things you shouldn’t have, Luther. But then Mort died and I . . .” The harsh memory of losing her only friend caused the words to strangle in her throat before emerging as a faint whisper. “I felt so guilty, I had to leave.”
Straightening on a deep sigh, Luther surveyed her, shook his head, and holstered his gun. “Gaby,” he said again, not as a warning this time, but with softened exasperation and what sounded suspiciously like condolence.
“
He had the audacity to laugh. “Bullshit.”
Whirling on him, she opened her mouth—
“It’s happening, Gaby.” To emphasize his point, Luther closed the insignificant space between them. “Believe it.
Meaning he knew she fought everything else? Her commiserable life? Her very existence?
Her purpose on earth?
Okay, so they had that unsettling sexual chemistry thing churning between them. She did accept that. But the rest?
Not possible.
So why did he have to hunt her down and start teasing her with impossible things again? As a paladin, a
