Page 67 of Elite Metal: Warriors

Oh, she couldn’t even begin with that. “We can’t eat like this, George.”

He frowned at her. “My name isn’t George.”

“The peanut butter is the only thing that’s even slightly palatable, and that’s so full of fat, they’ll have to roll me out of here.”

“They’re good at rolling people.”

She glared at him and he huffed a sigh.

“All right. Tomorrow we’ll go back to the store. But you probably won’t find anything there you like. For the time being, how about a PB&J?”

“You didn’t buy bread.”

“I got hot dog buns.”

She gaped at him. “You want me to eat a PB&J on a hot dog bun?” Good God, what was this world coming to?

She had no idea why he laughed. Laughed. That it was a rusty laugh didn’t help. “You really are anal, aren’t you, Miss Analyst?”

“I most certainly am not.” She tried to be huffy, but her lips turned up. She had no idea why.

Oh, all right. She did. He was adorable when he joked. When he let down that cold hard wall and became human for a moment. A brilliant, shining moment of time.

She really liked him when he did that.

Pity he didn’t do it often.

They fell silent as each prepared their own meal. He nibbled on a long thin stick of mystery meat as he speared three hotdogs on the skewer that had been hanging on a hook by the fireplace. She made a PB&J. On a hot dog bun. As she expected, the bread to peanut butter ratio was way out of whack, but she tried to keep it from freaking her out. She wasn’t anal. Not the way he said.

She just liked things a certain way.

That was all.

Really. It was.

“How is it?” he asked as he polished off his second nitrate-laced death bomb.

“Mmfh.” Her mouth was crammed with too much bun to answer. But it was filling and she had been hungry, so she decided not to complain. Much.

And that was the extent of their conversation…until he reached for the Peeps. She watched as he impaled Santa on the skewer.

“What are you doing?”

He shot her an evil grin. “Roasting him.”

“Roasting Santa?”

“Yup. You wanna do Rudolf?”

Why, oh why, did such exhilaration flood her at his offer?

It was an invitation to roast marshmallows, not an invitation to share his bed. But oh, it felt like one. It felt like a welcome into his cold and lonely world. An invitation to play with him.

She couldn’t resist. She plopped on the floor next to him before the fire, crossing her legs. The satisfaction she felt, goring the reindeer, surprised her. She held her skewer over the fire next to his. “I warn you, I’m not good at this,” she said.

He shot her a stunned look. “Wait. Something you’re not good at?”

“I always catch them on fire.”