Mae glanced in his direction. Somehow, in the nanosecond between when he’d yanked her fleece down and Tallah had made her presence known, he’d managed to pick up a teacup and the hand towel. With steady, lazy hands, he was pretending to dry that which was not wet.

And what do you know, he was doing all that right in front of his hips.

On that note, Mae pivoted toward the table, bringing the chair with her—just so she had an excuse to turn away and make sure her clothes were where they needed to be.

Thank God. Shirt and fleece were looking pretty good on the rearrange. Not great, but okay enough. And at least her bra, which was still up and over its charges, so to speak, wasn’t showing its disorder. Then again, she didn’t wear any padding or underwires.

“Would you like something to eat?” Mae asked as she couldn’t meet Tallah in the eye.

The truth was, she had no clue how to handle this situation.

Virgins were not known for their game—and she did her best not to dwell on how business-as-usual it all seemed for Sahvage.

Clearly, he’d had experience . . . in a lot of things.

“I am hungry, thank you,” Tallah said as she came forward. “But I feel like cooking.”

“Listen, I need to run out for second.” Sahvage put the teacup down on its saucer, and went over to the flak jacket he’d tossed over the arm of the sofa. “I’ll be right back. Just a quick errand.”

As Mae looked across at him, he shook his head like he was reading her mind and seeing the Again? that was all over it. “It’s not going to take long. I promise.”

“Oh, okay.”

He nodded, and then he was gone, dematerializing right in front of them. Which meant he was using that second-floor window again.

In his absence, Tallah smiled and patted her hair. “A male like that makes you feel young, doesn’t he?”

Where was he going? Mae thought.

She hid her flush and her worry by getting up from the table. “How can I help you with food?”

“Sit, sit, sit.” Tallah waved the offer away as she went to the stove. “I brought some meat up from the refrigerator downstairs. Let me make you and him a meal. It’s the least I can do for you.”

“Speaking of which, do you mind if we stay here today?”

Tallah’s eyes twinkled in a way Mae hadn’t seen for . . . years. “I would just love the company. How delightful!”

Okay, so here’s a moral quandary.

Nah, not really.

As Sahvage re-formed outside of a trailer with bullet holes in its cheap aluminum siding, he looked around at the crap-ass yard: Two pickup trucks off to the side, rusted parts of cars strewn around like the biopsies from junkers, a BBQ grill without a lid or a propane tank listing by a busted picnic table. The acreage was crowded with trees and vines, and as he thought of the cottage, he wished he were sticking around in Mae’s life. He liked the idea of getting a mower and clippers, tidying the place up, taking care of—

Jesus. One kiss and she’d turned him into a suburban househusband. Next up, beer cozies, football in the fall, and a dad bod.

Never gonna happen, he thought as he palmed one of his guns.

But what he could do for her? Was make sure she was safer.

There were three loose wooden steps that led up to a door that was probably the only solid thing on the property. Raising his fist to knock—

The scream of pain from inside was muffled. But it was clearly a woman’s, high-pitched and desperate.

And then, much, much louder: “You fucking whore! Where’s my fucking money—”

“I gave it to you! It’s right there—”

The slap was so loud, it rang in Sahvage’s ears. Annnnnnnnd he’d had enough of this.

Grabbing onto the knob, he ripped the door from its frame and led with the muzzle of his forty.

Over on a worn-out plaid couch, a hollow-eyed woman in faded blue jeans and a blood speckled t-shirt was trapped under the lanky body of a greasy meth-head Sahvage had known for all of two and a half weeks. Crumpled bills littered the threadbare cushions around them, and a three-foot-tall bong that was charred like a tailpipe had been kicked over to drool on the filthy, matted carpet.

As they both looked over at him in surprise, Sahvage leveled his gun at the man. “Let her go.”

To his absolute insanity, the misogynistic fucker recovered quickly. “Fuck off! What the fuck are you doing—”

“Dave,” Sahvage said in a reasonable tone, “let her go or I’m going to shoot you in the head.”

“This is not your fucking business.” Dave twisted the woman’s hand back until she whimpered. “And we did not have an appointment.”

“Like this is a dentist office?” Sahvage narrowed his eyes. “On three. You let her go, or I shoot you in the head. One.”

Dave wrenched around with a glare—while using his grip on the front of the woman’s throat to keep his balance. “You’re making a fucking mistake here—”

“Two.”

“You’re not going to shoot me.”

With a coordinated move—like he’d had to do it before—Dave lunged into the couch cushions for a gun.

“Three,” Sahvage said as he pulled his trigger first.

The discharge was a loud clap in the grungy confines, and then Dave’s rather limited IQ exploded out the back of his skull, speckling the wall behind him with blood and gray matter. The gun he’d gone for went off as the hand holding it contracted on an autonomic squeeze, but its muzzle had been on the swing around instead of in position—so the bullet just hit the cheap cabinets over the sink and rattled whatever dishes were in there.

The woman screamed again and pushed herself away from the collapsed body.

“Sorry about that,” Sahvage said grimly.

He didn’t have a chance to offer help. She swiped up the loose money, hooked a black pack on her arm, and dodged around the trash and debris to tear out of the trailer. A split second later, a muffler-less truck roared to life and threw up the loose gravel of the drive.

Sahvage exhaled and kept his gun out as he went over to the sofa and took the gun from the now-dead hand of his arms dealer. Then he went down to the bedroom. Kicking the door out of its hinges with his boot, he leveled his weapon at the six-by-nine-foot steel cabinet across the shallow space.

Two shots. Both of which ricocheted into the bed’s bald, stained mattress.

As the panels of the armory safe lolled open, he made quick work of stealing the guns that Dave had stolen from God only knew who. Which was the nah-not-really to the quandary of whether it was thievery to take things from a person who had lifted the shit themselves.

And oh, look. There was a duffle bag right over by a collection of pristine Nikes. Handy for transport.

Taking the bag and leaving the shoes, Sahvage filled his new piece of soft luggage with rifles, shotguns, and a nine millimeter for Mae. The ammo was in the bottom of the weapon wardrobe, and he took boxes of bullets.

He would have paid Dave for it eventually. He had $2,800 in cash back at the shithole he was camping out in, and one more fight with the Reverend would have covered the rest of the $5,000 or so he’d have been charged: He hadn’t come here intending to steal, more like borrow on layaway.