Page 160 of Crucible
Well, all of us except for one.
“This has to be the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted,” Aurelia remarks after taking a single sip.
“Yeah, it tastes like sand, but it warms you up.”
“So, any reason we’re hanging around instead of going home? It’s bad enough we spent the night where a mass murder occurred. Don’t you think we’re pressing our luck?”
“Mass murder? That’s a stretch.”
Sunshine’s incredulous gaze rises to meet mine. “You killed four people for no reason. How is that not a mass murder?”
“We had a reason,” Thorin says unbothered.
“A very good reason,” Khalil adds.
“Besides, killing rarely makes sense to anyone but the person or people doing it.”
“You’re all crazy.”
“For you?” Khalil flirts. “Definitely.”
Seeing that she’s getting nowhere with this bullshit argument, Aurelia drops it with a roll of her eyes. She can feign sympathy all she wants, but I don’t see her shedding tears for the drifters.
Aurelia doesn’t care as much as she should that we killed them, andthat’swhat bothers her most. We’ve seen her bloodthirsty need for vengeance firsthand, so Aurelia can’t evenclaim she wouldn’t have done the same had she known what they intended.
And we wouldn’t believe her if she tried.
Sunshine pouts for a solid five minutes before I grab her hand and pull her down into my lap. Aurelia straddles me without a fight, and when she smiles softly at me, I’m struck with this intense longing to keep her there.
“I want to eat your ass so fucking bad,” I say to her before I even realize it’s on my mind.
On the other side of the fire, Thorin pauses sharpening his knife, and Khalil spits out his coffee and starts coughing.
Aurelia’s eyes flare with want, and then she smirks as she rubs my chest. “Sure you’re ready for that, virgin? It’s not for everyone.”
Lifting my face, I rub the tip of my nose with hers. “Are you forgetting that you deflowered me, Sunshine? Trust me. I’m ready.”
“Hmm…”
“Don’t even think about it,” Thorin’s cockblocking ass commands when he realizes Aurelia is considering it. “As much as we’d all love to see that, we don’t have time for it. We need to clear these bodies out and clean the scene.”
“Party pooper.” Tapping Aurelia’s butt, she climbs off my lap so I can stand and stretch. “So, what’s the plan?”
Thorin thinks about it for a moment and then asks, “We still have that lye lying around?”
“Sure. I think so. What about the van?”
Khalil shrugs. “We wipe it down and do our job. We call it in. Let Sheriff Kelly see what those sick fucks were up to. It puts the heat on them and off us. He’ll assume they ditched it and disappeared on their own.”
I nod my agreement and then steal a peek at Aurelia to see where her head is with all of this.
She’s gazing at nothing, and I doubt she’s heard a word we said.
Edging a little closer, I place a hand on her hip. “You okay, Sunshine?”
“I’m hungry.”
It’s quiet for a moment, and then Khalil blinks and shakes his head. “Okay. New plan. We feed our girl, andthenwe dispose of the bodies.”
