The server approaches with two plates of ribs and one of fries, earning a ravenous glance from Sloane. When the plate is set down in front of her she smiles, a little dimple popping out next to her lip.
We thank the server who lingers for a moment in the periphery before Sloane pipes up with confirmation that we have everything we need. When the woman departs, Sloane snickers, that dimple deepening. “Don’t tell me you get that so often that it doesn’t even register in your brain. That’s just depressing.”
“Get what…?”
Sloane’s gaze darts to the server and I follow her line of sight to the woman who tosses a smile to our table over her shoulder. “Oh my God, it really doesn’t register. Like, at all.” Sloane shakes her head and tears a rib free of the steaming rack on her plate. “Well, be prepared, pretty boy. My stomach has been eating nearby organs for the last three days and I’m going to devour these fucking ribs in the most unladylike fashion possible.”
I say nothing, riveted to the sight of her perfect teeth as she tears into the steaming flesh that slides off the gray bone. A drop of barbecue sauce gathers at the corner of her lips and her tongue darts out to claim it, and I want to fucking die.
“So…” I clear my throat in the hopes my voice won’t crack. Sloane’s brow furrows as she sinks another bite into the meat. “How come not Blackbird?”
“Huh?” She slips the end of the rib into her mouth and sucks the meat right off the bone to pull it past her lips with sauce-stained fingers. My cock strains against my zipper just watching her cheeks hollow.
Imagine what she could do with that fucking mouth.
I take a sip of beer and look down at my plate. “Your name,” I reply before starting on a rib, purely to distract certain body parts that are becoming pretty insistent about what they want. “How come you didn’t pick a name with Blackbird? Raven hair, flighty nature, the song…I’m going to hazard a guess it’s from your childhood, right? I heard you singing it back in the cage.”
Sloane’s chewing stops for a moment as she regards me with a thoughtful pass of her thumb over her bottom lip. It’s the first time her gaze has really settled on me, and it burrows right into my skull. “That’s for me,” she says. “Orb Weaver is for them.”
Sloane’s eyes have darkened, and with just a blink she’s gone from a sexy, runny-nosed and ravenous beauty to a wicked, remorseless, iron-willed killer.
I nod. “I get it.”
I might be the only person who does.
Sloane keeps her unwavering stare pinned on me. “What’s your deal, pretty boy?”
“My deal?”
“You heard me. You show up to fuckwit’s house, let me out of his cage, burn his house down and take me for ribs and beer. Yet, I know basically nothing about you. So, what’s your deal? Why were you at Briscoe’s?”
I shrug. “I came to hack off his limbs and enjoy his agonizingly slow death.”
“Why him though? We’re a little far from Boston. I’m sure there are plenty of lowlife drug dealers for entertainment up there that you don’t need to come this far for one guy.”
A weighted silence thickens the air, both of us paused with ribs heading toward our mouths. A sly smile spreads across my lips as Sloane’s face falls.
“You totally know who I am.”
“Oh my God.”
“You do. You know what I like to hunt on my home turf. How long have you been a fan?”
“Dear Christ, stop.”
I chuckle as Sloane drops her forehead onto the backs of her bent wrists, a rib still clutched between her sticky fingers. “Which one was your favorite?” I ask. “The guy I flayed and strung up on the bow of that ship at Griffin’s Warf? Or what about the guy I suspended from the crane? That one seemed popular.”
“I can already tell you are the worst.” Sloane keeps her hands up in a futile effort to cover the flaming blush igniting her cheeks. Her hazel eyes dance despite the glare she tries to shoot my way. “Send me back to Briscoe’s cell.”
“Your wish is my command.”
I look toward the serving station and raise my hand at the waitress who takes all of one second to spot me before she starts heading our way with a growing smile.
“Rowan…?”
“What? You said you wanted to go back to Briscoe’s, so back we shall go.”
“I was joking, you psycho—”
“Don’t worry, Blackbird. I’ll deliver you right back to your smelly little cage. I’m sure it’s still standing despite the fire. Do you think any maggots survived? You can peck them from the ashes if so.”
“Rowan—” Sloane’s hand darts out and encircles my wrist, leaving sticky fingerprints on my skin. A jolt of electricity crackles through my flesh at her touch. I can barely contain my amusement at the rising panic in her eyes.
“Something wrong, Blackbird?”
The waitress stops beside our table with a bright grin. “Can I get you something?”
I keep my eyes on Sloane, raising my brows as her wild gaze flicks between me and the exits. “Two more beers, please,” I say. Sloane’s glare turns flat as it alights on me, her eyes narrowed to thin slits.
“Coming right up.”
“Like I said,” Sloane grumbles as she unfurls her fingers from my pulse. “The worst.”
I give her a lopsided grin. Sloane’s gaze catches on my smile, and her glare softens even though I can tell she doesn’t want it to. “You’ll love me one day,” I purr, keeping hold of her eyes when they reach mine. My tongue passes in a slow lick over the sauce she left on my skin. Sloane’s eyes glitter in the warm afternoon light filtering through the diner’s windows, that dimple next to her lip a shadow of the amusement she can’t quite contain.
“Don’t think so, Butcher.”
We’ll see, my grin says.
Sloane’s dark brows flick as though she’s issuing a challenge, then she shifts her attention to her food. “You still haven’t really answered my question about Briscoe.”
“Yes I did. Hacking limbs. Enjoying agony.”
“But why him?”
I shrug. “Same reason you picked him, I assume. He was a piece of shit.”
“How do you know that’s why I picked him?” Sloane asks.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I reply as I lean my forearms against the aluminum trim on the Formica table. Sloane raises her chin, her expression indignant.
“Maybe he had nice eyeballs.”
A laugh bubbles from my chest as I pick up another rib. I let the silence linger, taking a bite before I reply. “That’s not why you pry their eyeballs out of their skulls.”
Sloane’s head cocks to the side, her eyes shining as she assesses me. “No?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Then why would I do that?”
I shrug, not ready to meet her gaze despite the way it beckons me. “The eyes are the windows to the soul, I suppose?”