Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,46

her until she took a drag from her smoke and the bright-cherry tip flared and illuminated her face.

“Is this bothering you?” she asked, holding up the smoke.

“No.” I said it with all the fondness I felt for my years smoking. Man, I missed cigarettes. I’d quit for a long time, but while living in that trailer park last year and planning this end of the world plot, I’d taken it back up, figuring there was a good chance I would die so what was a little lung cancer.

But here I was alive and needing a new plan. I didn’t have time for lung cancer. Or money to start the damn habit up again.

“You want one?” I could hear the smile in her voice.

“Yes. But I’m trying to quit.”

She laughed. “Me too. It’s just been one of those fucking years, you know.”

“It’s been one of those fucking lives.”

The waves crashed, muffling our laughter, and the wind blew my hair across my face. I left it there. I couldn’t see her very well, but she wore a yellow dress that fluttered in the wind.

She must be cold. She must want to be cold, sitting out here smoking.

“I’ve got a joint,” she said. “The last of my husband’s medical marijuana. You want that?”

“Sure,” I said. A little alteration to my state of mind sounded like a good idea. Something to take the hard edge off this desperation and regret.

She fumbled with something in the dark and then in the flick of her lighter I saw her face in the yellow flame. She was pretty, with pale skin and very dark hair, cut in a sharp bob. Older than me by a few years and grief hung from her like kudzu, covering her with sadness.

The smell of weed drifted toward me as she handed me the joint. Our fingers brushed and the contact went through me like electricity through water. That’s how starved I was. How close I was to every possible edge of myself.

I glanced up and met her eyes in the darkness. Our fingers touched again. Not by accident.

You had to work really hard to clear the kudzu. It was a tough job—nearly impossible. But that look in her eye, the expression on her face as she looked at me—she was giving it a shot.

And wanted me to help.

Show me something, he’d said.

I could show him something.

If she was into it—I could really show him something.

And maybe for just a few minutes—we could all feel good.

Chapter 14

Max

I heard her come back in, and she wasn’t alone. Someone was with her. Another woman and the two of them were talking low.

One of them laughed, a silky purr of a laugh.

The fuck?

I was chained to this goddamn bed, going out of my mind, peeing in a bottle, and she was off picking up girls? I was going to kill her. With my bare hands I would kill her and I would enjoy it.

The door to the bedroom opened and I could see the dark imprint of her body in the doorway.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“I’m showing you something. Turn on the lamp by the bed.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not exactly, but good guess. Turn on the light.”

I reached over and pulled the chain. The light was muted by the pink shade and the fringe and the feathers. Honest to God, it was the stupidest lamp I’d ever seen.

“Remember,” she whispered toward me, still just out of reach. “We’re married.”

She looked windblown and flushed in the rosy light. Pretty. Her eyes were bright like she was cooking up some great Christmas surprise.

“Married,” I repeated. Because I was a little bit speechless.

She nodded and vanished from the doorway and then came back seconds later leading another woman by the hand into the bedroom.

The other woman took one look at me and stopped. Dead in her tracks. Joan maneuvered her back a little, away from the bed—and basically out of my reach.

This was a dangerous game Joan was playing and I should not have been surprised.

But Joan’s hand against that woman’s stomach, the fabric of the dress gathered up in Joan’s fingers told me a really surprising story.

“You weren’t joking,” the other woman said, laughter and respect in her voice. “You really are into some kinky shit.”

“Sarah, this is my husband, Dave. Dave, meet Sarah.”

“What are you doing?” I asked. I ignored Sarah, my eyes, my attention, every ounce of my being was focused on Joan.

“What you asked me to, dummy.” She was pretending to tease me but at