“I didn’t force them to do jack-shit. They chose to screw you over with their own free will.”
“They’re not all like that,” she bit out.
He grunted, frustrated but trying to hide it. Probably unsuccessfully. “You like them enough to spend the rest of your life with them? Not that you’ll live long with bastards like them at your back. Especially once you have to start going on raids into town for supplies. How do you think that’ll work out, Ros?”
The line between her brow deepened and her shoulders squared. “I don’t know, Nick. But it sure would be nice if the choice of how and where I spend the rest of my life were mine to make.”
“Those days are gone. No one’s got choices any longer. No one’s where they want to be.”
She flicked out her hand in obvious dismissal of the subject. “Food, Nick. I want food. Or are we bargaining for that too?”
He sighed long and loud, but only inside the confines of his own head, in private. To her he gave the most charming grin in his arsenal. The one that almost always got him what he wanted with women in the past.
Her eyes made like slits. “Well?”
“No, Ros. Of course not. Let me fix you some dinner.”
***
Nick was sprawled out on the king-size mattress, eyes shut and body lax. Forget sleeping on the couch. She hadn’t been happy. Not even after he’d sworn he’d keep his hands and every other part to himself. Roslyn lay as far from him as she could manage without falling off the bed. But give it time. She was awful close to the edge.
There were infected outside moaning and groaning. Her earlier carry-on had definitely been heard. Who knew how many had gathered? After six months there should have been less of them. They should have been dying off from starvation by now. But they weren’t, or at least, not in any great numbers. The virus somehow kept them going. Maybe they were eating each other or cornering the local wild life. Who knew.
Roslyn lay dead still, her breathing soft and slow. Not asleep, though. Not even a little. He could feel the tension radiating off her.
Fuck. Tiredness owned him. But all he could do was lie there and wait for her to attempt whatever it was she had her heart set on attempting.
Waiting.
Maybe leaving the cuffs off her hadn’t been the best move.
Unlikely he’d get any sleep tonight, either way. His head remained in agony. Lucky he wasn’t particularly vain, given the scar he’d have.
There was a rustling noise, the muted clinking of links of metal chain as she gradually lowered her foot to the floor. Beneath him, the mattress shifted as her weight carefully, sneakily moved. He lifted an eyelid and watched her shadowy form rise off the bed in slow motion.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
A startled squeak escaped her.
Nick leant over the edge of the bed and flicked on the battery-powered camp light he’d left on the floor. He held it high. His jaw ached from ongoing tension. It didn’t compare to the misery of his forehead, but soon, his teeth would be ground down to nothing. “Well?”
She blinked rapid fire and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the light. “What?”
He snorted. “Like you weren’t going for something to attack me with. Again. After you promised …”
“Nick.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You kidnapped me!”
“You made a promise!”
“Would you just—”
“Die?” He kept his voice low, calm. Or he tried to. “I doubt you’re the killing kind, darling. I don’t think you’ve got it in you. But forgive me if I don’t give you a shot at it just the same.”
“You’d be surprised at what I could do,” she seethed. “But, you idiot, I wasn’t going to attack you.”
“Yeah, right.” He thrust the lamp forward like it was a weapon. “Then what were you going to do? Huh?”
The moaning outside rose in volume, no doubt spurred on by their shouting. She gave the door a pained glance and her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I wasn’t going to attack you.”
“You thought you could get the chain off without waking me? Seriously?”
“I wasn’t doing that either,” she said. “I don’t know how to do things like pick locks and hot-wire cars, remember? I don’t have MacGyver skills like you do.”
“Then what were you doing?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, pumping up the perfect swell of her br**sts. He tried not to let it distract him. The school uniform looked tatty and faded in the glare of the camp light. Outside the groaning went on and on.
She took her sweet time in answering. His molars would be a distant ground-down memory by the time they were done. Never in his life had a woman yanked his chain with such ease. Which would have been funny in another time and place, given the chain on her ankle. Or not. Humor required him to be more then semi-conscious and not suffering from a head wound.
When she wavered in and out of his vision he got a little concerned. He rested his head back on the pillow. Bloody hell, falling on his face wouldn’t strengthen his position.
Her gaze settled on some point behind him. “I was going to sleep underneath the bed.”
“What?”
The woman just looked at him, mouth a bitter line. Dark smudges sat beneath her eyes. He wasn’t the only one in need of sleep.
“Roslyn. Why would you do that?”
She flung out her hands. “Why do you think?”
“You’re safe here.”
“Nowhere is safe,” she said. “Sleeping on that bed, out in the open … it feels too exposed. The storeroom I used to sleep in was very small. And locked.”
“We’re inside a locked building.”
She just looked at him.
Nick sighed and slowly sat up, pushed off his blankets and scooted across the bed. When he swung his legs over the side of the mattress she danced back a step or two, almost tripping on the chain. Not like he wasn’t dressed. He’d changed into a T-shirt and some sweatpants to sleep in. The odds were good if he’d left anything hanging out she would have tried to cut it off.
He set the light on the bedside table and gave her a small, tight smile as his head spun queasily. “Easy. We’re just talking.”
The nasty glance she gave him seemed pretty f**king unnecessary, really. Not like he wasn’t proving himself willing to discuss things. Also, not like he could do much, what with the condition he was in. Though she didn’t know that.