Page 23 of Death Rydes Shotgun

With a speed she can’t fathom, my hand strikes like a coiled snake. My fingers reach beneath the hem of her sweater, slipping over the leather scabbard at her hip. I groan as my thumb briefly slides across the silken skin of her abdomen.

In one fluid, blinding motion, I draw her heavy, steel hunting knife from its sheath.

Harmony gasps, her hand flying to her waist, but it’s already too late.

I press her back hard against the metal side of the tractor. In the same breath, I bring the cold, razor-sharp edge of her own blade up, pressing it flat against the warm, delicate skin of her throat.

The steel gleams dark in the dim light.

Her pulse hammers wild and erratic right against the flat of the blade.

I move closer, my breath warming her cheek as my intense gaze locks with hers.

“Tell me, Harmony…” I press the steel just a fraction tighter against her vein, careful not to cut her. “...how exactly do you know the difference between real blood and fake blood?”

Seven

I Shouldn’t Want You

HARMONY

9:00 PM

The sharp, freezing bite of steel against my windpipe should send panic screaming through my nervous system.

It should make me cower. It should make me beg. It should make my knees buckle against the damp, cold grass.

Instead, a blinding wave of pure heat ignites deep in my core, liquid fire spreading fast and violently through my veins, settling straight into my clit. My pulse hammers against the metal of the blade, wild, erratic, and utterly drunk on the thrill of it.

I draw a sharp, shallow breath, my chest heaving against the heavy, suffocating wall of Ryder’s body pinning me to the rusted frame of the tractor.

He shouldn’t feel this good.

Death will not break me. He can think he’s trapped a frightened little bird under his massive, calloused palm…

Then I notice the angle of the knife.

The edge pressed against the delicate skin of my neck isn’t the razor-sharp primary bevel of my father’s hunting bayonet. It’s the spine. The flat, dull top edge of the carbon steel blade.

A silent, sinister excitement builds inside me.

He isn’t trying to hurt me. He isn’t trying to draw blood. It’s a show he’s putting on, using the phantom threat of my own weapon to scare me into compliance.

He doesn’t really know me at all. If he did, he’d know it would take a lot more than a dull blade to frighten me.

“Is that supposed to make me drop to my knees, Ryder?” I whisper with a pure, toxic challenge.

Instead of shrinking away, I lean directly into the metal. I push my throat forward, forcing the blunt spine of the blade deeper into my skin, defying the illusion of his control.

A sudden, sharp tension ripples through Ryder’s frame. His dark eyes blaze with a fierce, volatile shock before desire takes hold, forcing him to shift his weight back just a fraction of an inch to avoid hurting me.

The grim reaper wasn’t expecting me to step straight into the fire.

Slowly, without breaking the suffocating lock of our stare, I lift my right hand.

My fingers wrap firm and eagerly around his thick wrist, right over the heavy knuckles holding the leather hilt of my knife.

“Let me show you how to use it,” I murmur, my eyes burning into his dark, haunted irises.