Chapter 5 · The Signed Flesh

Chapter 5: The Signed Flesh

"Not yet." The words come out of me shredded, like my throat forgot how to make sound and decided sandpaper was close enough.

Luca doesn't move. Not an inch. His jaw ticks against my cheek, breath dragging hot over the line of my collarbone where his mouth was a second ago, and the whole room smells like him now — cedar and gun oil and something darker underneath, something that's got into my skin whether I wanted it there or not.

"Say it again," he says. Flat. Low. The kind of calm that scares me more than yelling ever could. "Tell me no again and see what I do."

I can't. My hands are fisted so hard in the sheet my knuckles have gone white, and every nerve in my body is screaming two directions at once.

"The number," he says against my ear, teeth grazing the shell of it. "Give me the cabinet number or give me nothing. I'm not waiting for the rider to sign itself."

"I can't — not like this." My voice splinters down the middle. "Not while you're —"

"While I'm what.